By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
A group of top congressional Republicans on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require the Homeland Security Department to come up with a way to measure how secure the borders are — at a time when the Obama administration has been resisting those efforts.
Top Homeland Security officials told Congress on Wednesday that they still don't have a way to effectively measure border security — a revelation that lawmakers said could doom the chances for passing an immigration legalization bill this year.
House Republicans will force a vote Wednesday on a plan to stave off a debt-ceiling crisis for three months, but it's the rest of their plan — to hold lawmakers' pay hostage to their ability to pass a budget — that is testing the limits of the Constitution.
The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday unveiled a new strategy for enhancing security along the U.S.-Canada border that seeks to deter and prevent terrorism, drug trafficking and illegal immigration while encouraging and safeguarding the flow of lawful trade and people.
When the Obama administration scrapped the old definition for measuring border security two years ago, it left the government without any way of measuring how much of the U.S.-Mexico border is under operational control.
The Department of Homeland Security is finalizing its plan for a biometric data system to track when immigrants leave the United States and will present it to Congress within "weeks," a top department official told a House Homeland Security subcommittee Tuesday.
The Department of Homeland Security is finalizing its plan for a biometric data system to track when immigrants leave the United States and will present it to Congress within "weeks," a top department official told a House Homeland Security subcommittee Tuesday.
"The American people understand the need to overhaul our broken immigration system and are demanding that border security be a part of any solution," Mrs. Miller said. "The Department needs to stop telling the American people that the border is more secure than ever without the verifiable data to back it up, because its failure to provide a standard that the American people trust could scuttle the efforts of reform that we need."
Rep. Candice S. Miller, Michigan Republican and chairwoman of the House's border security subcommittee, said that the need for Homeland Security to come up with an official yardstick is long overdue.
