EPA Possible Buyout, Why Not Education?

Posted on April 20, 2017April 20, 2017 by Denise Simon

Personally, why do we have to buyout any government employee? Just begin to defund departments within agencies and non-mandatory employees are laid-off right? Remember that quasi government shutdown during the Obama administration where no one missed anything that government did or didn’t do?

Meanwhile, offering EPA employees an early buyout is an option for sure, but why not apply the same plan to the Department of Education?

The U.S. Department of Education promotes student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access to educational opportunity. To support this mission, the Budget provides $70.7 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Education in 2016, an increase of $3.6 billion, or 5.4 percent, over the 2015 level. The Budget also proposes $145 billion in new mandatory spending and reforms over the next decade to fund early learning, support teachers, and reform postsecondary education.

While investing in education in all domains, the Budget places particular emphasis in four areas: (1) increasing equity; (2) expanding access to high-quality early learning; (3) increasing support for teachers; and (4) expanding college opportunity and quality. In addition, the Budget makes a cross-cutting commitment to using and developing evidence in order to maximize results for taxpayers and students. In recent years, the Department has pioneered several evidence-based programs and introduced priorities for the use of evidence into existing initiatives. By investing in what works, learning more about what works, and sharing what we learn, we can help more students succeed. (blah blah blah, right)

Meanwhile, back to the EPA…. an agency that has declared a temporary rain puddle is the property of the Federal government….

EPA To Offer Employees Buyouts, Early Retirement This Year

The Environmental Protection Agency will begin offering employees financial incentives to leave the agency this year, according to an internal memorandum obtained by Government Executive.

As part of its efforts to meet the requirements of recently issued guidance from the Office of Management and Budget calling on all agencies to restructure themselves and reduce their workforces, EPA will continue a freeze on external hiring and begin offering early retirement and buyouts. Details of the plans were not made clear in the memo, which was sent by acting Deputy Administrator Mike Flynn. He noted only that EPA’s goal was to complete the separation incentive program by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2017.

Agencies can offer up to $25,000 to employees who have worked in the federal government at least three years through a Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment and allow employees not otherwise eligible for retirement benefits to receive them through Voluntary Early Retirement Authority. The Office of Personnel Management must approve all early out and buyout programs.

In its guidance, OMB said OPM would “provide expedited reviews for most [VERA and VSIP] requests within 30 days.” While OMB said it would not prescribe any specific strategy or set reduction targets for individual agencies, President Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget called on the EPA to cut 25 percent of its workforce, amounting to 3,200 employees. The proposal suggested slashing 31 percent of the agency’s budget.

EPA has endured significant spending cuts in recent years, with its spending level already reduced more than 20 percent since 2010 and its workforce at its smallest total since 1989. EPA last offered separation incentives to its employees in 2014, targeting mostly regional offices.

A recently released inspector general report found EPA paid $11.3 million to get 456 employees to leave the agency that year. Generally, the IG found the incentives “aided workforce restructuring goals,” though it was unclear if EPA had successfully reached its other goals of obtaining staff with new skillsets and increasing the number of staffers per supervisor. When accounting for the additional annual leave payments, EPA doled out a total of $16.2 million in 2014 to separate the employees. The IG noted the agency could not control how many or which employees would voluntarily leave, but that the various EPA offices adequately analyzed their workforce data to determine which positions to target.

Under OMB’s guidance, all agencies must come up with both short and long-term plans to reduce their staffing levels, with preliminary plans due June 30. Flynn said EPA has recently formed a workgroup to develop its agency reform plan. EPA is at least the third agency to continue its hiring freeze despite Trump ending it last week. Flynn said the agency will approve “very limited exceptions” to the moratorium and allow certain internal reassignments.

“I appreciate your patience as we work through the details of the guidance and will work with you as we move forward,” Flynn said.

Liz Bowman, an EPA spokeswoman, said the approach mirrored the one taken by the Obama administration and would ensure “payroll expenses do not overtake funds used for vital programs to protect the environment.”

“Streamlining and reorganizing is good government and important to maximizing taxpayer dollars,” she said.

John O’Grady, president of the American Federation of Government Employees council that represents many EPA workers, said reaching the administration’s desired cuts through incentive payments would prove prohibitively expensive. EPA, he added, is already “underfunded and understaffed.”

“Any further cuts will absolutely cripple the agency,” O’Grady said.

OPM did not immediately respond to requests for further details on the separation incentives.

Then….the progressives are fighting back on this proposed legislation regarding the EPA:

Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017 or the HONEST Act

(Sec. 2) This bill amends the Environmental Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978 to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating a covered action unless all scientific and technical information relied on to support such action is the best available science, specifically identified, and publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results. A covered action includes a risk, exposure, or hazard assessment, criteria document, standard, limitation, regulation, regulatory impact analysis, or guidance. Personally identifiable information, trade secrets, or commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential must be redacted prior to public availability. Read more about it here.

Infrastructure Plan, Highway Grants Still Fleecing Americans

Posted on April 20, 2017April 20, 2017 by Denise Simon

Could the American taxpayer get fleeced again on the proposed Trump infrastructure proposal? History and facts says YES. Presently this is just chatter when it comes to improvements, there is no money allocated much less a plan. Draining that swamp is not underway either…

Image result for highway grants

With Billions in Recession-Era Highway Grants, Why Were Improvements Limited?

New research examines why nearly $28 billion of recession-era funding for highway projects didn’t yield greater improvements to the nation’s road network.

Bill Dupor, an assistant vice president and economist in the research division with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, digs into the issue in the reserve bank’s latest quarterly Review.

Dupor looks at $27.5 billion funneled through the Federal Highway Administration as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Most of that amount was directed toward grants for state governments, marking a substantial boost in federal highway aid.

But in years before and after the Recovery Act, according to Dupor, the number of structurally deficient bridges in the U.S. was close to unchanged, as was the number of workers on road and bridge projects. And, he says, over 40 percent of the nation’s population lived in states where the overall value of highway construction spending was lower in 2010 than in 2008.

“Despite the tremendous influx of federal funds, the highway system showed little improvement,” Dupor writes.

Why was this the case? An explanation Dupor offers is that as states received the federal grant funding for road projects, they could decrease their own spending on highway infrastructure—freeing up those state dollars for other uses.

“Since states were facing budget stress from declining tax revenues resulting from the recession, it stands to reason that states had the incentive to do so,” Dupor writes, referring to the shifting of state highway funding to other areas.

He found that 15 states cut their total highway capital spending between 2008 and 2010. For instance, across that timeframe, the amount of state money spent per resident on highway infrastructure went down by $109 in Georgia, $98 in Texas and $73 in Maryland.

President Trump is currently pushing for a $1 trillion infrastructure package that would involve both public and private capital. Some city leaders have argued that, if the federal government ups infrastructure spending, more money should go directly to cities rather than through states.

Dupor’s article is titled, “So, Why Didn’t the 2009 Recovery Act Improve the Nation’s Highways and Bridges?” A full copy can be found here.

*** Obama’s shovel ready jobs….remember that?

Forbes: Those with long memories will recall that the way out of the economic difficulties back a few years was to be that we had a fiscal stimulus. The US was going to borrow a whole bunch of money and invest it in those shovel ready infrastructure projects that simply littered the country side. This would pull us up out of recession pretty darn sharpish and all would be well.

No, really, this was what was going to happen:

As President Obama urges Congress to pass the $800 billion-plus stimulus package, one of his favorite selling points is the thousands of projects nationwide that he calls “shovel ready” — meaning planning is complete, approvals are secured and people could be put to work right away once funding is in place.

There is no formal definition for shovel ready. The Federal Highway Administration says it doesn’t use the phrase. Its preferred term is “ready to go,” according to acting administrator Jeff Paniati.

That means a state has already done the preliminary work for that project, he says.

“They’ve addressed all the environmental requirements as required,” Paniati says. “They’ve done the necessary public outreach. In many cases, the design work is already completed … and that they’re on an approved state list.”

One example of a shovel-ready project is the in the notoriously traffic-clogged suburbs of Northern Virginia outside Washington, D.C. The state wants to widen the roads and has done some of the preliminary work, but the project is on hold because Virginia doesn’t have the final $32 million needed to complete it.

The stimulus bill states that for a project to be considered shovel-ready, it must be ready to begin in 90 days. The has a list of almost 19,000 such projects, adding up to almost $150 billion.

I quote at such length as this really was what was touted as the way out of the then current problems.

FT Alphaville has a nice little chart today showing what actually happened:

Err, yes. The government gears up to massively boost infrastructure spending, borrows $800 billion to go do infrastructure spending and infrastructure spending falls through the floor at the same time.

My conclusion would be rather simple: government’s just not the way to get the job done.

I agree, there are some things that must be done. There are also things that must be done that only government can do: so, let government limit itself to only those things that must be done and can only be done by government. I think we’d be better off working out the rest of it by ourselves quite frankly.

I mean seriously? They insist that they’re going to boost the economy through infrastructure spending and even when they get the money infrastructure spending falls by by a third or more?

When is it Enough for Putin and Russia?

Posted on March 31, 2017March 31, 2017 by Denise Simon

NBC

FBI: Russian Citizen Pleads Guilty For Involvement In Global Botnet Conspiracy

The summary below for the most part echoes the same testimony delivered by 6 panel members in two separate hearings before the Senate on March 30, 2017.

Two particular panel witness members were Clint Watts and Thomas Rid. (videos included)

There are several experts and those in media commentary that say there is no evidence of Russian intrusions. But there IS in fact evidence and attribution does required a long time to investigate, collaborate and convey, which is why the FBI has taken so long to provide. There are countless private corporations in the cyber industry, not tied to government in any form. They are hired to protect systems, investigate intrusions and research hacks and variations of interference both nationally and globally.

The United States is hardly the only victim of Russian intrusion, as Europe and the Baltic States are having the exact issues. But Americans rarely pay attention to anything outside the United States.

So, when is enough…enough for Putin? No one knows and due to the constant successes listed so far, there is very little reason for ‘active measures’ of asymmetric warfare tactics to cease….it is cheap ad effective and for the most part anonymous. The mission objective by the Kremlin is division, chaos, leaked propaganda and repeat….works doesn’t it.

DailyMail

Propaganda is nothing new. But Moscow is frighteningly effective—and worse is on the way.

***

What the Russians want: How Russia uses cyber attacks and hybrid warfare to advance its interests

What, exactly, do the Russians want? Their very active cyber operations obviously serve state goals, but what are those goals, and how can they inform a Western response?

ITSEF’s second day opened with a panel on Russian hybrid warfare—a combination of cyberattack and information operations with both conventional and irregular military operations. Larry Hanauer, of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, chaired a discussion among the Hoover Institution’s Herb Lin, Lookout’s Mike Murray, and LIFARS CEO Ondrej Krehel.

Policy driven by resentment.

Hanauer’s opening question was open-ended: what are Russia’s policy goals, and how does it use hybrid warfare to advance them? The panel was in agreement that the key to understanding Russian actions in cyberspace is to recognize them as driven by resentment. Lin called that resentment “longstanding.” It stems from the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War and Russia’s treatment internationally since then. Russian leaders and a substantial set of the Russian population views that treatment as disrespectful, contemptuous.

Russia has a very long tradition of using deception and propaganda, Lin said, and he added that the country doesn’t draw clear lines between peace and war. “It’s always war, even below the level of armed conflict.” The long-term goal is restoration of Russia’s place in the world. Creation of chaos through the dissemination of fake news and other information operations is simply battlespace preparation. Cyber, he added, gives you low-cost tools you didn’t have before. “It’s an attack on brainspace, and we’re all in the attack surface.”

Murray agreed, noting one current success of Russian information operations. We’ve been distracted from their intervention in Syria by news and fake news surrounding the US elections.

One of the more prominent features of the Russian way of cyber warfare is their willingness and ability to use criminal organizations for operational purposes. During the Cold War, Krehel explained, “if you did harm to the US, you were a hero.” Among other possibilities, that harm could be reputational or it could be economic, and criminals are well-adapted to inflicting those kinds of harm. There’s a view now, among Russian leaders, that they can expose personal information of essentially all Americans, and that this will yield a comprehensive picture of American finances down to the individual level. It’s very important to the Russian government, Krehel observed, to understand what the US can afford, and what capabilities we’re investing in, and all manner of data go into building up that picture. Lin: agreed that Russian espionage aggregates data in ways that render those data more valuable than the simple loss would impose on any single victim.

As a side note on the Russian President, the panel appeared to agree, as one member put it, that we now see one man, President Putin, who is able to use the resources of a modern nation-state to redress a deeply held personal grievance.

Chaos as statecraft.

This general orientation, according to Murray, can be encapsulated by noting that all war, to Russia, is about political ends. There’s no separation of politics from the economy or business. The increase in chaos we see in Western news, information, and political culture is, from a Russian point of view, a desirable thing.

And chaos serves tactical as well as strategic ends. Krehel expanded on this by asserting that Russia wants chaos because it doesn’t have the funding, the financial resources, of, say, the US. Thus Russian security services hand intelligence over to criminal groups. “A normal government doesn’t hand over its political agenda to criminal groups,” he said, but Russia’s does.

Murray offered an evocative story: “The number two guy in Russia has two pictures on his desk: one of Putin, and the other of Tupac Shakur.” So there’s a kind of gangster ethos at the highest levels. And whie using criminal gangs as cutouts also affords an obvious form of deniability, we shouldn’t be deceived.

In response to Hanauer’s question about who might be the leading cyber actors in the Russian government, Krehel said that they were the organizations one would expect, with the FSB and GRU occupying prominent positions. Different units within the government do cooperate—resource and manpower constraints make this inevitable—and in those services “loyalty is high, and rated very highly.”

You cheated them. Expect payback.

There’s also a common motivation, and Russian information operations play into it, especially domestically. “Russia believes all of you in this room cheated them,” Krehel said, and this theme is consciously exploited to the population as a whole, but particularly to the security services. “So the GRU’s big objective is to cripple you financially. And then they want to make you look ridiculous.”

Lin agreed. “That’s an accurate picture of how it works on the ground. Russia is a thugocracy, a state of organized crime.” He has seen reports (unconfirmed reports, he stressed, but he also clearly thought them plausible) that there are formal memoranda of understanding from the FSB to criminal gangs, outlining what the gangs can expect in return for services. “Other governments have done this, but it’s a way of life in Russia. The line between intelligence services and gangs is very vague.”

There’s no such thing as a win-win, Lin said, in the Russian worldview. “To Russia, it’s always win-lose.” Hanauer noted that this seemed a point of difference between Russia and China, and Lin agreed. Where there have been agreements of a sort between the US and China moderate conduct in cyberspace, Lin thinks there’s little evidence that such deterrent or confidence building agreements will have much effect in US-Russian relations.

Protect what’s important? Everything’s important (to the Russians).

Asked about defensive measures, Lin said that, “while there’s a logic to saying, ‘protect what’s important,’ to a good intelligence agency there’s never too much data.”

There are preferences for certain kinds of targets, which Krehel enumerated: first, oil, second, pharma, and a distant third, tech. Tech was less actively prospected because of Russian confidence that “they’re so much better at tech than we are.” Lin agreed, and said there was some basis for that confidence. “In the physics community, for example, we’ve long noted the sophistication of Russian physicists. They have great theoretical insight.”

Humiliation as statecraft, and the commodity tools used to do it.

Murray said he’d recently heard someone lamenting that he missed the Chinese, who just stole without embarrassing you. “That says a lot about Russian operations.”

Turning to the embarrassment inflicted during the US elections, Hanauer asked what kinds of tools the Russians were using for their attacks? Lin answered that the most consequential hack—Democratic Party operative John Podesta’s email—was phishing, a very basic approach.

Krehel said that, during the run-up to the election, he observed the Democratic and Republican National Committee networks being equally pressured by the Russians, the former more successfully than the latter. The approach in both cases focused on human engineering.

The Russian services, Murray explained, focus on engineering end-to-end systems. “‘PowerShell’ is the magic word for Russian coding.” There’s an emphasis on the least common denominator—phishing, PowerShell, darkside commodity tools—in effect a startup mentality. “All their tools are malleable and in motion, all the time.”

Critical infrastructure and acts of war.

Hanauer asked about the much-feared prospect of an attack on US critical infrastructure. Are we seeing, he asked, Russian attacks on US critical infrastructure? And if and when we do, would these be acts of war? “If they’re not trying [to hit US critical infrastructure]” Lin said, “then someone over there should be fired.” In Murray’s view, “Everyone’s trying to figure out the act-of-war line.” He reviewed briefly the history of Russian attacks (a coordinated mix of criminal and intelligence service attacks) on the Ukrainian power grid. He thought Russia would be more circumspect about doing such things to the US grid because, of course, the US is potentially a more dangerous adversary than Ukraine. But he also thought that if the Russians came to believe such attacks would be useful, they wouldn’t hesitate to undertake them.

– See more at: https://thecyberwire.com/events/sinet-itsef-2017/what-the-russians-want-how-russia-uses-cyber-attacks-and-hybrid-warfare-to-advance-its-interests.html#sthash.FnUREpYT.dpuf

Sanctuary Cities Don’t Comply Face Loss of Federal Dollars/Clawback

Posted on March 27, 2017March 27, 2017 by Denise Simon

(CNSNews.com) – Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday that states and localities that refuse to comply with federal immigration laws will be deemed ineligible for federal grants.

“Today, I’m urging states and local jurisdictions to comply with these federal laws, including 8 U.S.C. Section 1373. Moreover, the Department of Justice will require that jurisdictions seeking or applying for Department of Justice grants to certify compliance with 1373 as a condition of receiving those awards,” he said, adding that the policy “is entirely consistent with the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Program’s guidance that was issued just last summer under the previous administration.

“This guidance requires state and local jurisdictions to comply and certify compliance with Section 1373 in order to be eligible for OJP grants. It also made clear that failure to remedy violations could result in withholding grants, termination of grants, and disbarment or ineligibility for future grants,” Sessions added.

“The Department of Justice will also take all lawful steps to clawback any funds awarded to a jurisdiction that willfully violates 1373. In the current fiscal year, the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Program and Community Oriented Policing services anticipates awarding more than $4.1 billion in grants,” he said.

The attorney general said that in one week alone, “there were more than 200 instances of jurisdictions refusing to honor ICE detainer requests with respect to individuals charged or convicted of a serious crime,” according to a report released recently by the Department of Homeland Security.

“The charges and convictions against these aliens included drug-trafficking, hit-and-run, rape, sex offenses against a child, and even murder. Such policies cannot continue. They make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on the streets,” Sessions said.

He pointed to the murder of 32-year-old Kate Steinle who was killed two years ago in San Francisco as an example.

“The shooter, Francisco Sanchez, was an illegal immigrant who had already been deported five times and had seven felony convictions,” Sessions pointed out.

“Just 11 weeks before the shooting, San Francisco had released Sanchez from its custody, even though Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had filed a detainer requesting that he be held in custody until immigration authorities could pick him up for removal. Even worse, Sanchez admitted the only reason he came to San Francisco was because it was a sanctuary city,” the attorney general said.

“A similar story unfolded just last week, when Ever Valles, an illegal immigrant and a Mexican national was charged with murder and robbery of a man at a light rail station. Valles was released from a Denver jail in late December, despite the fact that ICE has lodged a detainer for his removal,” he said.

“The American people are not happy with these results. They know that when cities and states refuse to help enforce immigration laws, our nation is less safe. Failure to deport aliens who are convicted of criminal offenses puts whole communities at risk, especially immigrant communities in the very sanctuary jurisdictions that seek to protect the perpetrators,” Sessions said.

Sessions said recent polling shows that 80 percent of Americans “believe that cities that arrest illegal immigrants for crime should be required to turn them over to immigration authorities.”

“DUIs, assaults, burglaries, drug crimes, gang rapes, crimes against children, and murderers — countless Americans would be alive today and countless loved ones would not be grieving today if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended. Not only do these policies endanger lives of every American — just last May, the Department of Justice inspector general found that these policies also violate federal law,” he said.

***

Nine Bipartisan Homeland Security-Related Bills Passed by House

What the House Committee on Homeland security described as an “unprecedented number of bipartisan [bills] aimed at keeping Americans safe,” were passed this last week by the House which deal with a variety of aspects of homeland Security.

The nine pieces of legislation, the committee said, are designed “to … also save taxpayer dollars by improving the acquisition process at the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] and make important reforms to the operations of the Transportation Security Administration [TSA].”

“It is critical that we continue to re-examine our strategy, technology and the infrastructure we currently have in place to strengthen the Department of Homeland Security and stop terrorists from reaching our shores,” said committee chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX). “The evolving threats we face demand action to address vulnerabilities in our defenses. I commend the work of my Committee—particularly the bipartisan nature in which these bills were advanced—to make our country safer.”

The nine bills out the Homeland Security Committee passed by the House included a key counterterrorism bill, the Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel Exercise Act of 2017 (HR 1302), which expands on the work of last Congress.

The other key pieces of legislation passed this past week include the:

DHS Multiyear Acquisition Strategy Act of 2017 (HR 1249), introduced by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require a multiyear acquisition strategy of DHS.

DHS Acquisition Authorities Act of 2017 (HR 1252), introduced by Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to provide for certain acquisition authorities for the Under Secretary of Management of DHS.

Reducing DHS Acquisition Cost Growth Act (HR 1294), introduced by Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL), amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to provide for congressional notification regarding major acquisition program breaches.

TSA Administrator Modernization Act of 2017 (HR 1309), introduced by Rep. John Katko (R-NY), streamlines the office and term of the administrator of TSA.

Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Technical Corrections Act of 2017 (HR 1297), introduced by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to make technical corrections to the requirement that the Secretary of Homeland Security submit quadrennial homeland security reviews.

Transparency in Technological Acquisitions Act of 2017 (HR 1353), introduced by Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY), amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require certain additional information to be submitted to Congress regarding the strategic 5-year technology investment plan of the TSA.

Read Homeland Security Today’s report on the bill here.

Securing our Agriculture and Food Act (HR 1238), introduced by Rep. David Young (R-IA), amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to make the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Health Affairs responsible for coordinating the efforts of DHS related to food, agriculture and veterinary defense against terrorism.

Read Homeland Security Today’s report on the legislation here.

Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel Exercise Act of 2017 (HR 1302), introduced by Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ), requires an exercise related to terrorist and foreign fighter travel, and for other purposes.

Department of Homeland Security Acquisition Innovation Act (HR 1365), introduced by Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA), amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require certain acquisition innovation.

Visa Overstays are a Bigger Issue then the Border Wall

Posted on March 21, 2017March 21, 2017 by Denise Simon

Primer: If you overstay your visa for 180 days or more (but less than one year), when you depart the U.S. you will be barred from reentering the U.S. for three years. If you overstay your visa for one year or more, when you depart the U.S. you will be barred from reentering the U.S. for ten years.

Image result for visa overstay

Related reading: Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), reports on 30 countries that refuse to take back their criminals. He appeared on CSpan and Full Measure explaining the issue. The Washington Times reports under federal law, the U.S. government can refuse to issue visas to nationals of countries that refuse to take back their citizens who have been ordered deported from the United States. But according to Cuellar, the government is not enforcing the law.
***

TruthRevolt reports in part: The Center for Migration Studies reports that “two-thirds of those who arrived in 2014 did not illegally cross a border, but were admitted (after screening) on non-immigrant (temporary) visas, and then overstayed their period of admission or otherwise violated the terms of their visas.” This is a trend, far above illegal crossings, which is anticipated to continue climbing from now on.

“That’s because, incredibly, the U.S. doesn’t have an adequate system to assure the foreigners leave when they’re supposed to,” Judical Watch reports. “This has been a serious problem for years and in fact some of the 9/11 hijackers overstayed their visa to plan the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. More than a decade and a half later little has changed. Securing the famously porous southern border is essential to national security but so is a reliable system that cracks down on visa overstays.”

According to the CMS study, there have been 600,000 more overstays than illegal border crossings since 2007. Mexico leads in both overstays and EWIs, or entries without inspection. Here are the breakdowns:

California has the largest number of overstays (890,000), followed by New York (520,000), Texas (475,000), and Florida (435,000).
Two states had 47 percent of the 6.4 million EWIs in 2014: California (1.7 million) and Texas (1.3 million).
The percentage of overstays varies widely by state: more than two-thirds of the undocumented who live in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are overstays. By contrast, the undocumented population in Kansas, Arkansas, and New Mexico consists of fewer than 25 percent overstays. More here.

*** So who is responsible for control of this? ICE holds all accountability, which reports to the Department of Homeland Security. What about Congress you ask?

Check this out…

Well, there was a bill introduced in 2013, 2015 and again in January of 2017. Yup. The current bill was only introduced and has a 1% chance of passing. It is only a 2 page bill to amend current law noted as H.R. 643. This bill would make it a crime for visa overstays with defined penalties. It is the U.S. State Department, Bureau of Consular Affairs that is responsible for issuing visas and waivers in the case of denials. If you can stand reading the steps and caveats to this process, go here.

For context on how DHS under Secretary Jeh Johnson at the time packaged the report, here is a sample:

DHS conducts the overstay identification process by examining arrival, departure and immigration status information, which is consolidated to generate a complete picture of an individual’s travel to the United States. The Department identifies two types of overstays – those individuals for whom no departure has been recorded (Suspected In-Country Overstay) and those individuals whose departure was recorded after their lawful admission period expired (Out-of-Country Overstay).

This report focuses on foreign nationals who entered the United States as nonimmigrant visitors for business (i.e., B1 and WB visas) or pleasure (i.e., B2 and WT visas) through an air or sea port of entry, which represents the vast majority of annual nonimmigrant admissions. In FY 2015, of the nearly 45 million nonimmigrant visitor admissions through air or sea ports of entry that were expected to depart in FY 2015, DHS determined that 527,127 individuals overstayed their admission, for a total overstay rate of 1.17 percent. In other words, 98.83 percent had left the United States on time and abided by the terms of their admission.

The report breaks the overstay rates down further to provide a better picture of those overstays that remain in the United States beyond their period of admission and for whom CBP has no evidence of a departure or transition to another immigration status. At the end of FY 2015, the overall Suspected In-Country Overstay number was 482,781 individuals, or 1.07 percent.

Due to further continuing departures by individuals in this population, by January 4, 2016, the number of Suspected In-Country overstays for FY 2015 had dropped to 416,500, rendering the Suspected In-Country Overstay rate as 0.9 percent. In other words, as of January 4, DHS was able to confirm the departures of over 99 percent of nonimmigrant visitors scheduled to depart in FY 2015 via air and sea POEs, and that number continues to grow.

This report separates Visa Waiver Program (VWP) country overstay numbers from non-VWP country numbers. For VWP countries, the FY 2015 Suspected In-Country overstay rate is 0.65 percent of the 20,974,390 expected departures. For non-VWP countries, the FY 2015 Suspected In-Country Overstay rate is 1.60 percent of the 13,182,807 expected departures. DHS is in the process of evaluating whether and to what extent the data presented in this report will be used to make decisions on the VWP country designations.

Overall, CBP has improved the collection of data on all admissions to the United States by foreign nationals, biometric data on most foreign travelers to the United States, and processes to check data against criminal and terrorist watchlists. CBP has also made tremendous progress in accurately reporting data on overstays to better centralize the overall mission in identifying overstays. CBP will continue to roll out additional pilot programs during FY 2016 that will further improve the ability of CBP to accurately report this data.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU) is the program dedicated to the enforcement of nonimmigrant visa violations. Each year, ICE analyzes records of hundreds of thousands of potential status violators from various investigative databases and DHS entry/exit registration systems. The goal is to identify, locate, prosecute when appropriate, and remove overstays consistent with DHS’s immigration enforcement priorities, which prioritize those who pose a risk to national security or public safety.

Read more here.

The Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit prevents terrorists and other criminals from exploiting the nation’s immigration system. Really? Yup, that is what the website reads. In a hearing from 2012, you may be interested in reading the testimony on the matter of visa overstays delivered by DHS Deputy Counterterrorism Coordinator John Cohen and ICE Homeland Security Investigations Deputy Executive Associate Director Peter Edge.

Category Archives: Legislation