“The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence. This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote [...]

“A Freedom of Information Act request by privacy watchdogs revealed the Department of Homeland Security surveilled social networks during President Obama’s inauguration as well as an effort to use social networks to investigate citizenship petitions.” (Source: Social Network Surveillance by Feds in Spotlight – Security from eWeek)

“Indian professionals grabbed one-third of the H-1B visas in 2009, even as there was a slump for the most coveted US work visas in the past two years. For the second year in running, there appears to be a low key response to the US HS-1B visas with only 24,200 applications being received until July [...]

“Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill Friday that requires police in her state to determine whether a person is in the United States legally, which critics say will foster racial profiling but supporters say will crack down on illegal immigration. The bill requires immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and [...]

“Immigration agents arrested 280 people in California in their biggest push yet to round up suspected illegal immigrants with criminal records in local communities, authorities said Friday. More than 400 agents and local law enforcement officers fanned out across the state in the three-day search led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ‘These are not people [...]

“Immigration enforcement officials said Thursday that they were expanding a program for auditing companies that might have hired illegal immigrants and had notified 1,000 companies this week that they would have to undergo such a review.” (Source: ICE to Audit 1,000 More Companies in Immigration Crackdown – NYTimes.com)

“The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unveiled today a 50-member task force comprised of federal, state, local and Canadian agencies designed to combat cross-border crimes. The Border Enforcement Security Task Force, or BEST, will focus on national security and terrorist threats, human smuggling and trafficking, contraband smuggling, money laundering, bulk cash smuggling, transnational gang activities [...]

“Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today delivered remarks at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference in Denver, Colo., emphasizing her commitment to enhanced information sharing with state and local law enforcement partners to combat threats of terrorism. ‘Effective information sharing is essential to our partnerships with state and local [...]

“The San Ysidro Port of Entry on the U.S.-Mexico border in California was temporarily closed Tuesday after four people were wounded by gunfire that erupted from three vans packed with than 70 people headed from Mexico toward the border, officials said. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and a Customs and Border Protection officer also [...]

For federal contractors, it’s time to start checking whether employees are able to legally work in the United States. Beginning Tuesday, the federal government is requiring federal contractors to use the E-Verify system to check the immigration and citizenship status of the people they hire and assign to new federal contracts. “Don’t panic about this. [...]