Latest in Department of Homeland Security
Efforts undertaken by the George W. Bush administration to prepare for an avian flu outbreak provide a model for how the Trump administration should respond to coronavirus.
Rather than waiting on Congress, states can use unspent funds for cybersecurity.
On Jan. 14, the House Committee on Homeland Security will hold a hearing titled “Assessing the Adequacy of DHS Efforts to Prevent Child Deaths in Custody.” The Committee will hear testimony from Mr. Brian Hastings, Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Law Enforcement Operations, and Dr. Alex Eastman MD, MPH, FACS, FAEMS, Senior Medical Officer -- Operations of the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office.
On Nov. 15, the House Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and acting Chairwoman of the Oversight and Reform Committee sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office. The letter requests a review of whether the Federal Vacancies and Reform Act was violated in the recently updated process of succession at the Department of Homeland Security. The document is available here and below.
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its final rule on custody of two groups of noncitizen children, establishing different procedures for the treatment of children accompanied by at least one parent at the border prior to arrest and “unaccompanied alien children” (UACs) who crossed the border and were arrested without a parent.
Overview
The last time I wrote about the Trump administration’s abuse of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) of 1998, I opened with Yogi Berra’s famous quip that “it’s like déjà vu all over again
President Trump continued his push for new restrictions on asylum seekers with his April 29 memorandum to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Justice Department. In the memo, Trump directed DHS to issue regulations that would bar work permits for asylum seekers who enter the United States unlawfully and—for the first time—charge a fee for applying for asylum.
Recently, Lawfare published a compelling article by leading former national security officials on the similarities between international terrorism and domestic terrorism, and the problems caused when governments seek to draw an overly rigid distinction between the two.
To quote Yogi Berra, “it’s like déjà vu all over again.” For at least the fourth time in just over two years, a dispute has arisen over the president’s authority to name “acting” agency heads under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) of 1998. This time around, the debate involves the Department of Homeland Security—and the resignation/firing/un-resignation/ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.