DHS creates new blog

The Department of Homeland Security has created a blog, called "Our Border, A Southwest Border Civic Network." The blog encourages "a new kind of dialogue about issues unique to the southwest border." Already it has about 250 members from many backgrounds and political opinions. It will be interesting to see where this social networking experiment goes.

Border Czar announced by President Obama

President Obama has chosed Alan Bersin to work with DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to handle illegal immigration and drug violence issues along the Mexican-American border. Mr. Bersin held a similar position under Attorney General Janet Reno in the 1990s. His official title will be Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs.

Time magazine quotes Bersin as saying

What's going on in Mexico, across the border, in Juarez, requires that we support the government of Mexico in its very valiant, courageous effort to both stem violence and also deal with the drug trafficking organizations.

The Obama administration has promised to target border violence and work with Mexican authorities to curb drugs and arms trafficking. Hundreds of federal agents, along with high-tech surveillance gear and drug-sniffing dogs, are being deployed to the Southwest.

As reported by CNN, Bersin is a former California secretary of education, superintendent of San Diego City Schools and practicing private attorney.

DHS has issued a detailed Fact Sheet explaining its approach toguarding the southern border. The goals are to:

1. Guard against violent crime spillover into the United States;
2. Support Mexico's crackdown campaign against drug cartels in Mexico; and
3. Reduce the movement of contraband in both directions across the border.

DHS aims to do this by the following initiatives:

• Doubling Border Enforceement Security Task Force Staffing

• Tripling DHS Intel Analysts on the SWB

• Increasing ICE Attaché Personnel in Mexico by 50 percent

• Doubling Violent Criminal Alien Sections Assignments

• Quadrupling the Number of Border Liaison Officers
  

• Bolstering Secure Communities Biometric Identification Deployment

• Implementing 100% Southbound Rail Screening

• Increased Maritime Interdiction Operations

• Immediate Port of Entry resources enhancements

• Periodic Evaluation and Review of the SWB Initiative.

Photo courtesy of Paul Garland

Another US citizen with repeated problems returning to the US

Last Friday I blogged about a travel writer's experience in requesting his travel files from the USA government. I also referred to the problems that many people encounter when returning to the US, because they are incorrectly listed on the US government's "watch lists", or they have names similar to those on the lists. Coincidentally, there was another article on this issue in yesterday's Dallas Morning News, reprinted from The Washington Post. Juan Fernando Gomez is a director in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region for Chemonics, a Washington-based international development consulting firm. He describes his feelings thus:

I call it the little room. In most cases it's actually not that small, but my claustrophobia seems to kick in as soon as the immigration officer separates me from the other passengers on my flight and escorts me through a door into my own private travel hell.....

.......The real terror begins when my toes touch the yellow line, where I wait to be called forward. Approaching the immigration officer before being summoned could make me appear too eager (and often earns me a stern reprimand). On the other hand, any hesitation could be interpreted as a sign that I'm afraid of facing the law. So I walk up to the officer and nonchalantly hand over my bright blue passport. Seconds feel like hours as he starts hitting the "page down" key on his computer, scanning screen after screen, periodically glancing at me and my passport. This is when I break out in a cold sweat, which makes the officer even more dubious. When he reaches for a yellow highlighter and marks my customs slip, I know I'm headed to the little room.

Mr. Gomez describes the delays and security checks that he must endure every time he enters the US. He understand why, to a degree:

My name is common in Latin America, the Spanish equivalent of John Smith. It also seems to be particularly popular among law-breakers. I once sneaked a peek at an immigration officer's computer and saw an entire screen full of my doppelgangers. Who knows how many of them were bad guys and how many were law-abiding saps like me?

It doesn't help that my travel habits are similar to those of people who actually belong on a watch list. I grew up in Medellín, Colombia, during the height of the Pablo Escobar drug wars and have worked for the better part of the past decade in some of the most dangerous places in the world. In countries such as Afghanistan and Colombia, I help farmers find legal, profitable and sustainable alternatives to growing coca and poppies, the raw material for cocaine and heroin. So I guess it's understandable that my passport -- packed with added pages and stamps marking my entry into and exit from countries such as Cambodia, Bolivia and Haiti -- raises eyebrows.

I realize that DHS needs to screen passengers, but does it really need to detain US citizens repeatedly?

For the full text of the article, click on the headline above.

A rare peek at Homeland Security's files on travelers

I just came across an interesting article by a travel writer who did a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request for his travel documents. The article explains what he found - a lot more than you might expect. In addition, the author links to his experiences with secondary inspection on returning to the US (http://current.newsweek.com/budgettravel/2007/04/prove_youre_not_a_terrorist.html) and the comments to the original article also show plenty of experiences. I've had many clients in 12 years of immigration practice that are repeatedly stopped on returning to the US. It is next to impossible to get their names cleared, despite DHS claiming to have a procedure to resolve grievances.

Immigration groups support Napolitano as head of DHS

The American Immigration Law Foundation (a branch of the American Immigration Lawyers Association) and the Immigration Policy Center have applauded the nomination of Janet Napolitano as future head of the Department of Homeland Security. A joint statement says: “Arizona Governor, Janet Napolitano is an outstanding choice to head the Department of Homeland Security. In choosing Napolitano, the incoming administration has tapped a leader with a deft combination of political saavy and policy know-how. As a border governor, Napolitano has been in the eye of the immigration storm and has shown that she understands that it is in our nation’s interest to not only secure our borders, but also to provide for a realistic and practical immigration system that is in tune with our country’s economic needs. Napolitano has been a leading voice for comprehensive immigration reform, including improved border security measures and a system to bring undocumented immigrants ‘out of the economic shadows.’ Her lifetime of public service is a testament to her incredible integrity, aptitude, and commitment to the American people.”