Please visit our YouTube and Facebook pages.

1. DHS chief to visit TX border
2. Gov't to install towers in MI
3. Nat'l Guard needs more funds
4. CO Senate committee mulls bill
5. Less H-1B applications expected

1.
Homeland Secretary Napolitano set to visit Laredo on Friday
By Laura Isensee
The Dallas Morning News, April 1, 2009

Washington, DC -- Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano will visit Laredo this week as part of a three-day trip designed to reinforce the Obama administration's attention to border security and the fight against Mexico's drug cartels.

Her trip will start in San Diego, and she and Attorney General Eric Holder will also meet with Mexican officials in Cuernavaca outside Mexico City. Napolitano, a former Arizona governor, hits Laredo, the largest inland port of entry, Friday.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn will join her in Laredo. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has requested 1,000 National Guard troops to help combat spillover violence, welcomed the trip.

A new Obama administration plan redeploys as many as 500 federal agents from various departments to the Mexican border and redirects $200 million to cut down on drugs and cash flowing south.

But some senators want to beef up the response.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, proposed a measure Tuesday that would give law enforcement and investigators on the border a $550 million boost. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is co-sponsoring the measure.

"This amendment enables a real surge in America's joint war against the Mexican drug cartels," said Lieberman.
. . .
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/DN-A2Fil...

********
********

2.
Gov't gives $20 million border-camera contract to firm faulted for 'virtual fence' errors
By Eileen Sullivan
The Associated Press, March 31, 2009

Washington, DC (AP) -- The U.S. Border Patrol is erecting 16 more video surveillance towers in Michigan and New York to help secure parts of the U.S.-Canadian border, awarding the contract to a company criticized for faulty technology with its so-called "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

The government awarded the $20 million project to Boeing Co., for the towers designed to assist agents stationed along the 4,000-mile northern stretch. Eleven of the towers are being installed in Detroit and five in Buffalo, N.Y., to help monitor water traffic between Canada and the United States along Lake St. Clair and the Niagara River.

At present, Border Patrol agents are posted along the river to keep an eye on water traffic.

The cameras will be used to zoom in on a boat that left Canada, for instance, and watch where it goes and what it does, said Mark Borkowski, executive director of the Secure Border Initiative at Customs and Border Protection.

"So the idea is to have cameras watch, and then agents are freed up to respond," Borkowski said in an interview with The Associated Press. The cameras will cut down the agent's response time by minutes, he said.

Four similar video towers have already been erected in Buffalo. Security operations along the northern border include the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and coordination and intelligence sharing with local law enforcement.

Boeing is the firm responsible for a 28-mile stretch of technology erected along the U.S.-Mexico border near Tucson, Ariz., as part of the government's Secure Border Initiative. The company was widely criticized for delivering an inferior product.

Last year the government withheld some of the payment to Boeing because technology used in the test project near Tucson did not work properly. Boeing also was late in delivering the final product.

Borkowski said he is confident the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Secure Border Initiative, will not run into the same problems it had with Boeing in the past.

Boeing spokeswoman Jenna K. McMullin said the company has "learned quite a bit from our previous SBInet experience and demonstrated how to implement lessons learned."

Deployment of the surveillance cameras will allow the Border Patrol to evaluate whether the technology can be effective in monitoring movement in often a cold-weather, river environment.

"We're committed to providing (Border Patrol) agents along the northern border with improved border security capabilities to enable them to do their jobs even better," said Steve Oswald, vice president of Boeing's Intelligence and Security Systems. "At the same time, the lessons learned from this deployment will contribute to even greater enhancements in the future."
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-northern-bo...

********
********

3.
Guard needs more money to send troops to border
The Associated Press, March 31, 2009

Washington, DC (AP) -- A National Guard official said Tuesday that the Guard would need additional funds to send more troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Major General Peter Aylward said the Guard is analyzing the needs on the border, but any response will require additional funds. Aylward is the director of the Joint Staff of the National Guard Bureau. He testified before a House Homeland Security subcommittee Tuesday morning.

Outside the hearing, Aylward said $43 million would be needed through the end of the year. He says Congress has authorized a maximum 4,000 Guard troops for a counterdrug program that places troops throughout the country, but lawmakers have provided only enough funds for 2,500 troops.

Of those, 371 Guard members are doing counterdrug work on the border, said Mark Allen, National Guard spokesman.

Guard units on border states have said they can provide about 800 people who can fill those spots.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has asked the federal government to send 1,000 troops to the border to contain drug-related violence occurring across the border.

Perry followed up the request for Guard members by writing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday asking for the department's help in identifying and deporting violent foreign offenders from the U.S.
. . .
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6352038.html

********
********

4.
llegal immigrant tuition up for vote at Capitol
The Associated Press, April 1, 2009

Denver (AP) -- A proposal to allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition is up for another vote at the state Capitol.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to vote on the measure (Senate Bill 170) Wednesday. The bill previously won the backing of the Senate Education Committee, but opponents asked the full Senate to delay a vote until the appropriations committee could review it.

Under legislative rules, the appropriations committee must review all bills that either cost or save money for the state.
. . .
http://www.krdo.com/Global/story.asp?S=10108495

********
********

5.
Fewer applications for H-1B visas expected this year
By John Boudreau
The San Jose Mercury News, April 1, 2009

With unemployment skyrocketing across the nation, tech and other companies this year are expected to request fewer visas for highly skilled foreign workers, according to industry experts.

But whatever number is requested, the issue of H-1B visas is certain to be especially controversial in a year when many will ask why, with so many people unemployed, American companies should hire foreign workers.

In recent years, the annual cap of 85,000 for H-1B visas — including 20,000 for those with graduate degrees in science, math and engineering — has been exceeded in just a few days. Today, as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services starts processing visa petitions for 2010, the torrent of applications may be smaller.

"The demand is still there, but the rate at which the cap is hit won't be as quick as it has been in the past," said Bob Sakaniwa, associate director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. But he said the number of petitions could nonetheless be large due to pent-up demand.

With millions of Americans out of work, the visa program for foreign workers has sparked renewed controversy. The federal stimulus law includes provisions making it difficult for financial companies receiving money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, to hire H-1B workers.

"It's an easy political target," said Robert Hoffman, a vice president at Oracle who is also co-chair of Compete America, a coalition of tech companies including Oracle, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Google that lobbies for the right to hire foreign workers.

"The 85,000 H-1B workers represent 0.07 percent of the entire U.S. labor force,'' Hoffman said. ''You could take all of the new applications for H-1B visas and put them in the Rose Bowl and you'd still have seats to sell."

Sen. Charles Grassley has criticized tech companies for not protecting jobs of U.S. citizens over those of foreigners as they layoff thousands of employees at a clip. The Iowa Republican and Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, have said they plan to reintroduce a bill later this year that would require companies to do everything they can to hire Americans before seeking H-1B visas.
. . .
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12040134