Security Center for Immigration Studies on US National Security - page 1

This section of security center for immigration studies focuses on United States national security as impacted by mass immigration.

• Border Security - Despite Progress, Weaknesses in Traveler Inspections Exist at Our Nation's Ports of Entry - Statement of Richard M. Stana, Director Homeland Security and Justice Issues, US Government Accountability Office, January, 2008
  Although CBP's goal is to interdict all violators, CBP estimated that several thousand inadmissible aliens and other violators entered the country though ports of entry in fiscal year 2006. Weaknesses in 2006 inspection procedures, such as not verifying the citizenship and admissibility of each traveler, contribute to failed inspections. Although CBP took actions to address these weaknesses, subsequent follow-up work conducted by GAO months after CBP's actions found that weaknesses such as those described above still existed.
• Homeland Security - Overstay Tracking Is a Key Component of a Layered Defense - US Government Accountability Office, October, 2003
  . The Department of Homeland Security estimates the resident overstay population at 2.3 million as of January 2000. Because the starting point for this estimate is the 2000 census, it does not cover short-term overstays who have not established residence here.
• Falling Behind on Security: Implementation of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 - by Steven A. Camarota and Rosemary Jenks, Center for Immigration Studies, December 2003
  While the USA Patriot Act has been the subject of intense debate, implementation of the visa tracking law has received relatively little attention.... If fully implemented, the visa tracking law could significantly enhance national security by reducing the chances that terrorists would again be able to exploit weaknesses in the nation's immigration system.
• Repealing REAL ID? Rolling Back Driver's License Security - by Janice Kephart, CIS, June, 2009
  Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has made clear her commitment to repeal the 2005 secure driver's license law, REAL ID.
• Interrupting Terrorist Travel: Strengthening the Security of International Travel Documents - by Andrew Simkin, Director, Office of Fraud Prevention Programs, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, May 2007
  The 9/11 Commission noted that travel documents are as valuable as weapons to terrorists. Altered passports and visas, or genuine documents obtained fraudulently, allow terrorists - and other criminals - to cross borders in the course of planning or carrying out operations.
• A video "This is not a fence" produced by American Border Patrol suggests that the Department of Homeland Security is misleading the public. According to American Border Patrol, DHS actually built only 200 miles of fence, not 527 miles as it claimed at the end of 2008, and even that didn't meet the standard set in the original Secure Fence Act of 2006. See American Border Patrol Operation Beef border fence survey.
  "I don't think the public is aware of just how useless DHS's so-called vehicle fences really are," said Glenn Spencer, head of ABP and pilot of the aerial survey airplane. ABP shows how smugglers use portable ramps to drive over vehicle barriers and even old ten-foot mat fencing.
• The Strategic Challenge of Border Security - Congressional testimony by Rand Corporation, March 2007
  As we improve one aspect of border security, increased security concerns may shift to another aspect. For example, if initiatives to stem illegal activity across our land borders become more successful, we could see a decided shift in security threats to the maritime domain. Those issues must form an integral part of border security programs. Moreover, all must be considered in the context of a strategic security framework, of which border security is only one part.
• Border Security: Immigration Issues in the 108th Congress - by Lisa M. Seghetti, CRS Report for Congress, May, 2004
  The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, however, prompted Congress to speed up implementation of the entry and exit data system as well as enact new provisions aimed at enhancing border security.
• Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Conflicted Issue - by Steven A. Camarota and Jessica Vaughan, CIS, November, 2009
  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that immigrants (legal and illegal) comprise 20 percent of inmates in prisons and jails. The foreign-born are 15.4 percent of the nation's adult population.... A Pew Hispanic Center study found that, of those sentenced for federal crimes in 2007, non-citizen Hispanics were 74 percent of immigration offenders, 25 percent of drug offenders, 8 percent of white collar offenders, and 6 percent of firearms offenders. Non-citizen Hispanics are 5.1 percent of the nation's adult population. However, the report does not provide information for other crimes or for non-Hispanic immigrants.
• Our Border Open To Crime And Drugs - Eagle Forum, February 2003
  According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, about 65% of all the cocaine and most of the marijuana that enters this country comes from Mexico... If a Mexican day laborer can sneak across our border, so can an al Qaeda terrorist. According to a Fox News poll, 79 percent of Americans support using the military to help secure U.S. borders.
• Safety in (Lower) Numbers: Immigration and Homeland Security - by Mark Krikorian, Center for Immigration Studies, October 2002
  The idea of any connection between immigration and terrorism has been dismissed by many policymakers and activists. INS Commissioner James Ziglar, for instance, piously observed that "We're not talking about immigration, we're talking about evil."... Groups lobbying in favor of mass immigration rushed to make the same point after the attacks. Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza gamely averred that "There's no relationship between immigration and terrorism." And Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (and former head of the Marxist Palestine Solidarity Committee), echoed this denial of reality: "I don't think the events of last week can be attributed to the failure of our immigration laws."
• Homeland Security - INS Cannot Locate Many Aliens Because It Lacks Reliable Address Information - U.S. Government Accountability Office, November, 2002
  Recent events have shown that INS's alien address information could not be fully relied on to locate many aliens who were of interest to the United States. The reliability of INS's alien address information is contingent, in part, on aliens' compliance with the requirement that they notify INS of any change of address.
• Border Security - Security Vulnerabilities at Unmanned and Unmonitored U.S. Border Locations - statement of Gregory D. Kutz, Managing Director Forensic Audits and Special Investigations, John W. Cooney, Assistant Director, US Government Accountability Office, September 2007
• The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002, H.R. 3525 - by Rosemary Jenks, CIS, June 2002
  H.R. 3525 is not a panacea, but it is a tough, common-sense law that sends the right message: The United States must regain control over our borders and our ports of entry, and we expect our border control agencies to carry out their duty to protect our nation and our citizens from those who seek to exploit our generosity. Ironically, President Bush himself tried unsuccessfully to dilute this message by forcing Congress to attach a de facto amnesty to the measure.
• National Security and Immigration Policy Development in the United States and Western Europe Since 1945 - book by Christopher Rudolph, 2006
  Global terrorism has emerged as a central security issue throughout the world, and effective immigration and border control is now a necessary condition to maintain national security. National Security and Immigration identifies the security-related implications and determinants of immigration and border policies in the United States and Western Europe since 1945.