An Ignoble Experiment

2. Gang of 8 immigration bill ties legalization to border security measures

The bomb attack at the Boston Marathon underscored the importance of the Homeland Security Department's grants to cities and states, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate panel April 17.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has supported eight exercises in Boston in the past 3 years to prepare for attacks, she told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The agency also provided training to 5,500 Boston-area first responders on how to handle various types of attacks and mass-casualty situations.

"These investments have proven their value time and again, and they greatly aided the response 2 days ago," Napolitano said.

But she also discussed how the department's grant programs, administered almost entirely by FEMA, have had shortcomings. Especially early in DHS's existence, grants depended too much on population size and overly simple formulas, rather than risk, she said.

She attributed those deficiencies to the speed with which the department and its grant programs were created, but said the department has matured to the point where expectations should be higher.

In 2012, FEMA turned to a methodology called Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment to better inform decisions about grants. But Napolitano said states have produced THIRAs "of varying quality" so far.

She also cited a recent example of how grant funding sometimes "works in strange and unfathomable ways." After the Red River, which divides North Dakota and Minnesota, flooded in 2011, the North Dakota side received grant funding, but Minnesota did not.

For more:
- visit the hearing webpage (webcast and prepared testimonies available)

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By David Perera

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3. Boston Marathon bomber will face justice, says Obama

An immigration reform bill proposal unveiled April 17 by a bipartisan group of eight senators would tie a path to citizenship for the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants to increased border security measures.

The bill (S. 744), would appropriate $4.5 billion for border-crossing sensor technology, more Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection officers and additional fencing along the southwestern border.

Undocumented immigrants in residence prior to Dec. 31, 2011--subject to some qualifications such as having no felony convictions and no more than 2 misdemeanors and paying a possible tax liability--would be able to apply for status as a "Registered Provisional Immigrant" as soon as the Homeland Security Secretary notifies Congress that the Homeland Security Department has begun implementing two border strategies, one for southern border security, the other for fencing. RPI status would be good for 6 years. Renewal would be conditional on an individual showing evidence of regular employment or having resources of at least 100 percent of the poverty level, paying taxes and other conditions.

Under the bill, the southern border security strategy would have as its goal an effectiveness rate of at least 90 percent in border sectors considered to be high risk. The effectiveness rate would be calculated by dividing the number of arrests and turn backs of illegal border crossers in a sector by the total number of illegal entries during a fiscal year; the bill defines a high risk sector as one in which more than 30,000 individuals are apprehended each year. During fiscal 2012, that threshold would have included three border sectors, all in the southwestern border, according to CBP data (.pdf).

After a period of 10 years, RPIs would be able to apply for permanent residency--provided that the homeland security secretary can also certify to Congress a number of conditions, including that the southern border security and southwestern border fencing strategies have been substantially deployed, operational or completed. The bill doesn't define what would constitute "substantially deployed" or "substantially operational."

In addition, the secretary would have to certify that E-Verify, the work eligibility verification system run by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is mandatory for use by all employers and that DHS has implemented an electronic exist system at air and sea ports.

The bill calls for the electronic exit system to be in place no later than Dec. 31, 2015 and for a 5 year phase-in of mandatory employer checks of new employees through E-Verify.

An RPI would be able to receive citizenship an additional 3 years after applying for permanent residency, making the typical waiting time for citizenship at least 13 years. Permanent residency would be contingent on the applicant showing evidence of paying taxes, learning English, regular employment or having resources of at least 125 percent of the poverty level, and other conditions.

Less stringent conditions for RPI status and citizenship would apply to those who entered the United States before the age of 16 and have completed high school or earned a GED. They would be able to apply for permanent residency after 5 years and could become citizens immediately after receiving a green card. The bill would impose no current age limit for application for RPI status for those who arrived in the United States as children. Those who have already received deferred action under the Obama administration's policy of prosecutorial discretion would be grandfathered in.

The bill would also create an agricultural guest worker program, expand the H1-B visa program for highly skilled workers, establish a new nonimmigrant visa for unskilled labor, and make changes to legal immigration requirements.

The bill has a formal sponsor in Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.); other members of the behind-the-scenes group of senators who produced the bill include John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)

For more:
- go to the THOMAS page for S. 744
- download a summary of the bill from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (.pdf)

By Zach Rausnitz

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4. Coast Guard budget reflects 'tough decisions,' Papp says

Whoever is behind the April 15 bombing of the Boston Marathon will face justice, President Obama said April 18 during an interfaith service in Boston. The attack killed three and injured more than 170 others.

"We will find you, and yes you will face justice," Obama said. "But more than that, our fidelity to our way of life, to our free and open society, will only grow stronger."

Law enforcement authorities have made no arrests, but they do have clear images from surveillance cameras of two suspects, The Boston Globe reported April 18.The FBI said that the explosive device appeared to be contained within a pressure cooker and a black nylon backpack or bag. They also recovered metal fragments, apparently BBs, nails and ball bearings.

"The bag would have been heavy because of the components believed to be in it," the bureau said April 16.

The Homeland Security Department warned law enforcement and security personnel in 2010 that improvised explosive devices that involve pressure cookers had become prevalent in Afghanistan and Pakistan in a release obtained (.pdf) by Public Intelligence. Pressure cookers are also more common in kitchens there than in the United States.

"Because they are less common in the United States, the presence of a pressure cooker in an unusual location such as a building lobby or busy street corner should be treated as suspicious," DHS said.

Al Qaeda's online magazine, Inspire, featured instructions to build a pressure cooker bomb in 2011, USA Today reported. White supremacists have also reportedly circulated the magazine's instructions online.

No groups or individuals have claimed responsibility for the Boston attack.

Though much remains unknown about the attack, officials, including President Obama, have characterized it as terrorism. "Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror," the president said April 16.

Some have criticized the use of the term as overinclusive, others as underinclusive. At a Senate hearing April 17, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano why the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December was not commonly called an act of terrorism.

"I don't know the answer to that question," Napolitano said.

McCaskill called on the secretary "to take a look at this and see if the government has a responsibility as to when and how we characterize an act, a criminal act, [as] an act of terror" before there is evidence to support that label.

For more:
- see the FBI's April 16 remarks about the investigation
- download DHS's release about pressure cooker bombs from Public Intelligence (.pdf)

By David Perera

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5. Finding of institutionalized torture issued 'without reservation'

The proposed Coast Guard budget for the coming fiscal year would fund the construction of just two Fast Response Cutters, a downgrade from the planned schedule of six annually that would require renegotiating the contract with manufacturer Bollinger Shipyards and result in a higher acquisition cost, Coast Guard Commandant Robert Papp told an April 16 congressional panel.

The fiscal 2014 budget proposal the Obama administration transmitted to Congress April 10 includes $75 million for FRC procurement; the overall acquisition request is an inflation-adjusted 37 percent lower than current levels at $951.12 million.

"We had to make some very tough decisions based upon the money that was available and make decisions based on our highest properties," Papp told the House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Coast Guard and maritime transportation. The budget would fund construction of the seventh of eight planned National Security Cutters, Papp notes.

The fate of the eighth NSC--and of other Coast Guard recapitalization efforts--is unknown, pending transmission of the service's 5 year capital investment plan to Congress. Papp said the Homeland Security Department will get it to Congress by May 1.

Other cuts proposed in the budget include a pause to HC-144A medium range aircraft, Papp said, adding that the service has acquired 18 so far. The Coast Guard is also negotiating with the Air Force and the Forest Service over taking possession of 21 C-27J aircraft the Air Force has said it no longer needs. The fiscal 2013 national defense authorization act (P.L. 112-239) gives the Forest Service the first right of refusal to the C-27Js after each agency has received seven of them. During the hearing, Papp said the Coast Guard needs at least 14 C-27Js in order for their deployment to be cost-effective, since they would also require new logistics and training support.

The commandant also said the appearance of relative stability in the operating expenses budget--the budget proposal calls for it to go down by only an inflation-adjusted 2.69 percent--belies the growing percentage of that budget consumed by maintenance of the aged legacy fleet. Maintenance "on antiquated, obsolete equipment continues to erode the buying power of this operating funds," he said.

Papp also decried cuts to personnel spending. The Coast Guard currently has approximately 42,000 active duty personnel, not far from the 1990s' low of 37,000 when it became "almost impossible to carry out missions and train," Papp said.

Cuts to personnel accounts may affect training, and that would have "long term impact for us that will be difficult to recover from," he added.

Asked whether the $2 million requested in the budget proposal for icebreaker acquisition studies represents a lessened commitment to procuring a new heavy icebreaker--last year, the Coast Guard received $8 million for icebreaker acquisition--Papp said it does not. "We are firmly committed to getting this new icebreaker built," he said.

For more:
- go to the hearing webpage (prepared testimony and webcast available)

Read more about: Forest Service, Bollinger Shipyards
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By Zach Rausnitz

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