Tag: Department of Homeland Security

Rep. Green Introduces Bill to Streamline Intelligence Sharing at Department of Homeland Security

Jason M. Reynolds

U.S. Rep. Dr. Mark Green (R-TN-07) on Thursday introduced a bill that would streamline and improve intelligence sharing at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The bill requires the Department of Homeland Security’s Chief Intelligence Officer (CINT) to establish a homeland intelligence doctrine for the department, according to a press release from Green’s office. Also, the bill ensures the CINT will have dedicated staff. Green’s new bill is similar to H.R. 2468, titled the “Unifying DHS Intelligence Enterprise Act,” which was introduced during the previous Congress on May 16, 2017. The goal is to ensure all of the entities at DHS are speaking the same language, using the same tradecraft and disseminating their products to the appropriate stakeholders, which include both the intelligence community and State and local partners, according to the press release. Green said, “As a former member of an Army special operations task force, I know the value of synchronized intelligence processes when on a mission. That experience has prompted me to introduce this bill so that DHS can fulfill its very important mission to keep Americans safe.” In other national security news, Green tweeted, “In the past year, the rates of active-duty military suicides have increased dramatically.…

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Committee on Foreign Investment May Not Be Able to Handle Its Exploding Caseload

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by Riley Walters   The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. is often compared to a black box. Investors may be aware of what it does, but few know what really goes on inside. The nine members of the committee, drawn from various federal agencies, are in charge of reviewing foreign investments to determine whether or not they may pose a threat to U.S. national security. Glimpses of the committee’s activities are largely limited to what’s reported in its annual publications and the occasional breaking news story – such as the recent report that the committee wants Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. Ltd. to sell its dating application, Grindr. It can be difficult to keep up with the committee given limitations on the information that is shared publicly – especially given its obligation to protect investors’ proprietary information as well as information sensitive to U.S. national security. Still, the limited information that becomes available can help inform investors of potential hurdles and costs they may face when seeking the committee’s blessings. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more ] Over the last few years, the number of…

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Democrat Senator Sinema Bucks Party, Calls on Lawmakers to Better Secure the Border

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Krysten Sinema

by Jason Hopkins   Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Wednesday echoed the White House in calling for immigration enforcement to be aided with additional resources and staff. Arizonans bear the brunt of Washington’s failure to address our broken immigration system. We must secure the border with a comprehensive, smart, bipartisan approach – we’re calling on @DHSgov to send additional resources and staff to AZ ports. pic.twitter.com/qZGq3LgLmF — Kyrsten Sinema (@SenatorSinema) April 17, 2019 “Arizonans bear the brunt of Washington’s failure to address our broken immigration system. We must secure the border with a comprehensive, smart, bipartisan approach – we’re calling on [the Department of Homeland Security] to send additional resources and staff to AZ ports,” the first-term senator tweeted Wednesday. Sinema’s call for better border security was a far cry from what many of her colleagues in the Senate are demanding. Nineteen Senate Democrats, including every Democratic presidential candidate in the upper chamber of Congress, sent a letter to appropriation leaders demanding a reduction in funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. The group of Democrats made four specific requests of the appropriations committee: Less funding for beds in immigration detention centers,…

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Grassley Sends The White House a Warning on Immigration

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by Jason Hopkins   Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley warned the Trump administration to end its purge of top immigration officials, arguing that the changes risk destabilizing the Department of Homeland Security. “The president has to have some stability and particularly with the number one issue that he’s made for his campaign, throughout his two and a half years of presidency,” Grassley said Monday during an interview with The Washington Post. “He’s pulling the rug out from the very people that are trying to help him accomplish his goal.” Grassley’s tough comments come after President Donald Trump not only pulled Ron Vitiello’s nomination to permanently lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on April 4, but also accepted Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation on Sunday. The senior senator from Iowa said he was “very, very concerned” about reports that Lee Francis Cissna, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), was next on the chopping block. There is also speculation that John Mitnick, Homeland Security Department’s general counsel, may also be axed. “One, those are good public servants,” he said of the immigration officials. “Secondly, besides the personal connection I have with them and the qualifications they have, they…

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Kevin McAleenan, the Upcoming Leader of Homeland Security

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by Jason Hopkins   Kirstjen Nielsen will officially vacate her position atop the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, leaving Kevin McAleenan as the acting head. President Donald Trump, frustrated over the growing immigration crisis on the U.S. southern border, accepted Nielsen’s resignation after meeting with her at the White House on Sunday. The president went on to announce that McAleenan, the current commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), will be taking over her position in an acting capacity. Who is McAleenan and how will he likely manage the surge of illegal migrant crisis? The soon-to-be DHS secretary touts nearly two decades of experience working in immigration enforcement. A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, McAleenan worked for some time as an attorney in California. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, however, prompted him to apply for the FBI, but he ended up working in what is now CBP. He quickly moved up the ranks under both the Bush and Obama administrations. McAleenan was the port director for the Los Angeles International Airport and he served as the executive director of CBP’s antiterrorism office. He was appointed by former President Barack Obama as deputy commissioner of CBP in 2014, and he was awarded the…

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President Trump Accepts DHS Chief Kirstjen Nielsen’s Resignation, Names Kevin McAleenan as Replacement

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by Chuck Ross   President Donald Trump announced Sunday that Kirstjen Nielsen is resigning as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, bringing an end to an at-times rocky relationship between the two. Trump said on Twitter that Kevin McAleenan, the current commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, will take over as acting homeland security secretary. The announcement came shortly after Nielsen met with Trump privately at the White House to discuss her future. Trump and Nielsen have battled behind the scenes over the administration’s immigration policy and efforts to build a wall on the southern border. That tension reached its breaking point in the days after Trump abruptly pulled the nomination of Ronald Vitiello to head U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service…. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2019 ….I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary for @DHSgov. I have confidence that Kevin will do a great job! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2019   Trump said he wanted to go with someone “tougher”…

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Trump Administration Asking Congress to Make It Easier to Deport Migrant Children

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by Jason Hopkins   Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is requesting Congress pass a legislative measure that gives her department greater authority to address the growing migrant crisis at the U.S. southern border. Nielsen asked lawmakers to make it easier for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deport unaccompanied alien children (UAC), to allow migrants to file asylum requests within their home countries, and for the authority to keep families requesting asylum in detention facilities until their cases are complete, according to a letter first obtained by NBC News. The measures would help alleviate what Nielsen describes as an “emergency situation” at the U.S.-Mexico border. “We are grappling with a humanitarian and security catastrophe that is worsening by the day, and the Department has run out of capacity, despite extraordinary intra-Departmental and interagency efforts,” Nielsen’s letter to Congress read. “Accordingly, DHS requests immediate Congressional assistance to stabilize the situation.” The requests come as the country’s southern border is witnessing record levels of illegal border crossings. The DHS apprehended 50,000 to 60,000 illegal migrants a month in late 2018. More than 75,000 apprehensions and encounters were made in February — the highest volume in over 10 years. DHS forecasts March…

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Watchdog: US Agency Error Exposes 2.3 Million Disaster Survivors to Fraud

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Reuters   The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) exposed 2.3 million disaster survivors to possible identity theft and fraud by sharing sensitive personal information with an outside company, according to an internal government watchdog. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said FEMA had shared financial records and other sensitive information of people who had participated in an emergency shelter program after being displaced by hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and the California wildfires in 2017. The Inspector General’s office said FEMA had shared participants’ home addresses and bank account information with the contractor, along with necessary information like their names and birthdates. That “has placed approximately 2.3 million disaster survivors at increased risk of identity theft and fraud,” the Inspector General’s office said in a report. The name of the contactor was redacted. In a statement released on Friday, FEMA spokeswoman Lizzie Litzow said the agency had found no indication to suggest survivor data had been “compromised.” She said the agency has removed unnecessary information from the contractor’s computer systems. But FEMA’s review only found that the contractor’s computer systems had not been breached within the past 30 days because it did not keep…

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Trump Donates $100,000 of His Salary to Help Fund Immigration Enforcement

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by Jason Hopkins   President Donald Trump announced that he is donating $100,000 of his salary to the Department of Homeland Security, following a promise he made before entering office. While the press doesn’t like writing about it, nor do I need them to, I donate my yearly Presidential salary of $400,000.00 to different agencies throughout the year, this to Homeland Security. If I didn’t do it there would be hell to pay from the FAKE NEWS MEDIA! pic.twitter.com/xqIGUOwh4x — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019 “While the press doesn’t like writing about it, nor do I need them to, I donate my yearly Presidential salary of $400,000.00 to different agencies throughout the year, this to Homeland Security,” the president tweeted on Monday. “If I didn’t do it there would be hell to pay from the FAKE NEWS MEDIA!” Trump pledged not to accept a salary during the 2016 presidential campaign, but he is by law required to do so. After entering the Oval Office, he has opted to donate his annual $400,000 salary to various agencies every quarter. The president in January directed his $100,000 paycheck to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), a department…

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Homeland Security Secretary Insists Border Crisis Is ‘Real’

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Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen insisted Wednesday the crisis at the southern border is not manufactured, as she faced questions from Democrats for the first time since they took control of the House. “We face a crisis — a real, serious and sustained crisis at our borders,” she said at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing. “Make no mistake: This chain of human misery is getting worse.” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said he wanted to use the hearing in part to give Nielsen the opportunity to start a “serious discussion,” rather than echoing President Donald Trump’s claims of a security crisis at the border, and to say what she knew about the family separations last year. He said real oversight over the border was long overdue. “No amount of verbal gymnastics will change that she knew the Trump administration was implementing a policy to separate families at the border,” Thompson said. “To make matters worse, the administration bungled implementation of its cruel plan, losing track of children and even deporting parents to Central America without their children.” Nielsen was grilled on whether she was aware of the psychological effects of separating children from their parents, and when she knew ahead…

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Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy Is Changing How Immigrants Try to Enter the US

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by Jason Hopkins   The Trump administration’s asylum policy is prompting more migrants to try their luck at crossing illegally rather than seeking out legal ports of entry, Customs and Border Protection data suggest. The proportion of foreign nationals attempting to cross the border illegally rather than reporting to legal ports of entry has risen in the past year, according to the data. Those crossing illegally made up 73 percent of all border crossings from October 2017 to January 2018 and then rose to 83 percent for the same period of time ending on Jan. 31, 2019, NBC News reported Friday. At the same time, the percentage of foreign nationals intentionally reaching out to border enforcement establishments dropped from 27 percent to 17 percent. The new numbers come in the wake of President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. The policy enacted in December 2018 dictates that foreign nationals who seek asylum at the southern border cannot enter the U.S. and must remain in Mexico while their case makes it through the immigration courts — a process that could take months to years. The directive does not apply to children or Mexican asylum seekers. It largely targets the dramatic influx…

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DHS Created a Fake School in Michigan to Identify Illegal Immigrants

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The Department of Homeland Security set up a fake university in Michigan to snare student immigrants in the United States who were without proper authorization, according to federal indictments unsealed Wednesday. Eight people were arrested and indicted for conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harboring aliens for profit. The indictment said the defendants helped at least 600 “foreign citizens to illegally remain, re-enter and work in the United States and actively recruited them to enroll in a fraudulent school as part of a ‘pay to stay’ scheme.” The story was first reported by the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. The indictments allege that the defendants “conspired with each other and others to fraudulently facilitate hundreds of foreign nationals in illegally remaining and working in the United States by actively recruiting them to enroll into a metro Detroit private university that, unbeknownst to the conspirators, was operated by HSI (Homeland Security Investigation) special agents as part of an undercover operation” for the past two years. The University of Farmington website says it “traces its lineage back to the early 1950s …” It is “approved by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) to enroll international…

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Illegal Alien in Lebanon to Serve 50 Years for Raping Child

Chris Butler

This week an illegal immigrant in Lebanon pleaded guilty in state court to two counts of rape of a child, according to the Lebanon Police Department. That man, Edwin Alfredo Velasquez- Curuchiche, 42, will serve 50 years for that crime. He will serve that concurrently with a 50-year federal sentence he received earlier this year for producing child pornography, Lebanon Police said on their Facebook page Tuesday. The child porn charge, police went on to say, is related to the rape charge he pled guilty to in state court. Lebanon Police said this case resulted from a joint investigation with the federal Department of Homeland Security. The case goes back to October 2015 when Lebanon Police said they responded to a call of a possible attempted kidnapping in the Weatherly Estates area. “Curuchiche had befriended a local family and used fraud to obtain a key to the victim’s home. The victims did not know he had made this key at that time,” Lebanon Police said. “The investigation further revealed the offender had snuck in to the home after everyone was asleep on two occasions, and his actions led to the charge of rape of a child (six-year-old female), who lived…

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California Judge Blocks TPS Cancellation, Says Trump’s Decision was Based on Racial Prejudice

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by Will Racke   A federal judge in California blocked the government’s plan late Wednesday to wind down a humanitarian program for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals living in the U.S., citing concerns the decision was motivated by racial animus on the part of President Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from canceling Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 300,000 migrants Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Sudan. In a 43-page ruling, Chen ordered the government to continue granting TPS protections and work permits to qualifying foreign nationals while a lawsuit challenging the TPS decision makes its way through the courts. Chen questioned whether DHS, which ordered the TPS cancellations, had been pressured to end the program by the White House. Specifically, he said certain racially charged remarks by Trump suggested the decision was made on the basis of prejudice against “non-white, non-European immigrants,” not conditions on the ground in the affected countries. “There is also evidence that this may have been done in order to implement and justify a pre-ordained result desired by the White House,” Chen, an Obama appointee, wrote in his order. “Plaintiffs have…

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Two More Countries are Hit with Visa Sanctions for Refusing to Take Back Deportees

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Donald Trump

by Will Racke   The Trump administration has hit certain government officials from Burma and Laos with visa sanctions as punishment for both countries’ refusal to take back their citizens the U.S. is trying to deport, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Tuesday. Going forward, the U.S. embassy in Rangoon, Burma, will halt the issuance of tourist and business non-immigrant visas to senior officials in the ministries of Labor, Immigration, Population and Home Affairs. In Laos, the U.S. mission will no longer grant tourist and business nonimmigrant visas to senior officials from the Laotian Ministry of Public Security. The restrictions also apply to the officials’ immediate families, DHS said. The sanctions come after a review by DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who determined that Burma and Laos have “denied or unreasonably delayed” accepting citizens ordered removed from the U.S. They will remain in place until Nielsen notifies Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that cooperation on deportees has improved, according to DHS. “The decision to sanction a recalcitrant country is not taken lightly,” the department said in a statement. “DHS makes significant efforts, in collaboration with the State Department, to encourage countries to accept the prompt, lawful return of their nationals who are subject…

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Restaurant Manager Where Secretary Nielsen Was Mobbed ‘Happy About What Happened’

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Security Nielsen Was Mobbed

by Julia Cohen   The Mexican restaurant where Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was swarmed by protesters Tuesday in Washington, D.C., took no action to quell the protesters or ensure Nielsen’s safety, a manager told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Wednesday. “We are not upset the protesters came here and we are not upset even if it was any of our staffers [who tipped off] the protesters,” the MXDC Cocina Mexicana manager, who refused to give his name, told TheDCNF. “We are happy about what happened.” Police responded to the incident, USA Today reported. The manager also said that, to his knowledge, no one who worked at the restaurant contacted authorities when the protesters arrived, and that it may have been one of her security detail or another restaurant patron. “We don’t know who exactly contacted the police … we don’t know,” he said.  The manager, who has tan skin and long, grey, hair, expressed his gratitude for President Donald Trump’s Wednesday executive order mandating that families be kept together. Trump signed the rule in response to widespread backlash against families being separated at the southern border when crossing into the U.S. illegally. “We are very happy about what happened this…

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Trump Administration to End Quasi-Amnesty for Nicaraguans After 20 Years

Tennessee Star Staff

The Department of Homeland Security indicated Monday that it would end a quasi-amnesty program for 5,300 people in the U.S. from Nicaragua, but extend it for 86,000 people from Honduras. The U.S. had originally granted Temporary Protected Status to people from both countries after they were ravaged by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Administration officials, speaking on…

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Gubernatorial Candidate Mae Beavers Applauds President Trump’s Constitutional DACA Decision

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Tennessee Star

Gubernatorial candidate Mae Beavers is standing with President Donald J. Trump and his decision to terminate the DACA program. “The Executive Order that President Barack Obama relied upon to create DACA was unconstitutional and should never have been allowed to remain in place as long as it has,” Beavers said in a statement. She continued: The rule of law should be the basis for our actions and policies regarding illegal immigration, and Congress should immediately take action to fund construction of the border wall, enact E-verify, reduce illegal immigration, and impose immigration limits based upon merit. American taxpayers have carried the burden of illegal immigration long enough. President Trump is making American taxpayers and workers his top priority rather than promoting the agenda of those who have illegally entered our country, illegally worked in our country, and illegally relied upon identity fraud to cover up their illegal actions. The unilateral action to create the so-called ‘Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals’ (DACA) was undertaken by President Obama and his Department of Homeland Security Secretary at the time, Janet Napolitano, in June of 2012. Since then, approximately 800,000 individuals have been granted ‘DACA status.’ Nationwide, the reaction to President Trump decision to end DACA as…

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