The Department of Homeland Security added the entire states of California and Connecticut to its list of U.S. jurisdictions that hinder cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in detaining illegal immigrants.
Both states had enacted legislation called “Trust Acts,” allowing local law enforcement to ignore ICE’s requests to detain certain illegal immigrants in custody. However, the legislation maintains that an illegal immigrant would be detained if the individual had a criminal past.
Connecticut honors ICE detainers if an individual is a gang member, convicted of a felony, or is under pending charges, among other things. Since early February, local law enforcement in Connecticut “will not enforce ICE Detainer Requests solely on the basis of a final order of removal, unless accompanied by a judicial warrant, or past criminal conviction, unless the conviction is for a violent felony,” according to a Weekly Declined Detainer Outcome report by ICE.
Why is the Department of Homeland Security trying to break into the Georgia Secretary of State’s computer system?
ATLANTA –
The Georgia Secretary of State is asking the Department of Homeland
Security for some answers after an unsuccessful breach to the
department’s firewall. In a letter from Secretary of State Brian Kemp to DHS Secretary Jeh
Johnson, Kemp asks if “DHS was aware of this attempt and, if so, why DHS
was attempting to breach our firewall.”
Kemp goes on to say that the department’s security provider detected a
“large unblocked scan event” on Nov. 15 coming from an IP address
associated with DHS, attempting to scan “certain aspects of the Georgia
Secretary of State’s infrastructure.” The breach was unsuccessful,
according to Kemp’s letter.
At 4:29
ISIL has Hijacked MY RELIGION? Home Grown Extremists? Titularly, this is a blog about Psychiatry. If and when you open the case files for the uninitiate you run the not inconsiderable risk of being marginalized by being accused of being a Scientologist. For all of the negative press COS has gotten, we have not seen Scientologists killing 49 people in a gay nightclub so they can get into heaven to collect their 72 Operating Thetans. Neither have we seen them corrupting the FDA, the DOJ, and committing wholesale criminal financial fraud against medicare, medicaid and tricare. Are we in any way affiliated with COS? No. Does COS get a tax break as an organizedchurch/religion? We do not know, and do not care. "ISIL has Hijacked MY Religion" With Jeh Johnson in situ we've got Real problems to deal with.
Well, Zip, a dee do dah day. When it's not in Auntie DiFi, Uncle Sid, Cousin Kamala, and that weird guy down the street, Gavin's, back yard they Can actually find HC Fraud.
(Actually they found it, repeatedly, according to our stat counter way back when we Reported it. Then they appointed Janet, DHS Napolitano as President of the UC system. Go figure.)
Federal authorities announced a record-breaking coordinated fraud takedown Wednesday that charged 301 people involved in various healthcare fraud schemes totaling $900 million in false claims.
The historic fraud bust, led by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, was another notch in the belt for federal authorities, surpassing last year’s coordinated arrest of 243 people linked to $712 million in false billing.
Like last year’s takedown, authorities underscored the importance of the collaborative effort, which spanned 36 federal districts and involved several federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, as well as local and state authorities, including 23 Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
“As this takedown should make clear, health care fraud is not an abstract violation or benign offense,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said during a press conference announcing the takedown. “It is a serious crime. The wrongdoers that we pursue in these operations seek to use public funds for private enrichment. They target real people--many of them in need of significant medical care.”
Lynch highlighted several specific schemes, including one in which a network of clinics in Brooklyn is accused of bribing patients in order to bill Medicare and Medicaid more than $38 million for unnecessary medical treatment. She also identified several new fraud trends within Medicare Part D, including evidence of stolen doctor IDs used to create fake prescriptions, and a growing number of schemes involving compound medications, which were linked to a massive spike in fraudulent billing within Tricare last year.
HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell credited the work of nearly 1,000 federal agents who “employed advanced analytics and cutting edge investigative work” to expose various schemes. She added that the high cost of drugs, and the fact that Part D is a relatively new program,makes it a target for fraud.
Illegal immigration has exploded 57 percent in less than two years, with at least 550,000 new undocumented aliens pouring into America in a trend that is set to continue growing, according to new Census data.
In an analysis of the numbers, the Center for Immigration Studies found illegal and legal immigration have reached over 1.5 million a year, a new 15 year high, and a 39 percent increase over 2013.
“You’re looking at a big jump,” said author Steven A. Camarota in an interview with Secrets.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is receiving more taxpayer funds even as it expels fewer illegal immigrants, according to statistics published by the Department of Homeland Security showing that 43 percent fewer aliens were removed from the United States from 2012 to 2015.
ICE deported nearly 410,000 aliens in 2012 when it received roughly $2.8 billion in taxpayer funds. In 2015, the agency expelled just 235,413 aliens but received around $3.5 billion to fund its deportation programs, according to the DHS statistics.
(FOX NEWS) Hundreds of badges, credentials, cell phones and guns belonging to Department of Homeland Security employees have been lost or stolen in recent years — raising serious security concerns about the potential damage these missing items could do in the wrong hands.
Inventory reports, obtained by the news site Complete Colorado and shared with FoxNews.com, show that over 1,300 badges, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones were lost or stolen over the span of 31 months between 2012 and 2015.
The majority of the credentials belonged to employees of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), while others belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees.
The lost or stolen guns also mostly belonged to CBP employees,
There are terrorists in our midst and they arrived here using legal means right under the noses of the federal law enforcement agencies whose mission is to stop them. That is not due to malfeasance or lack of effort on the part of these officers; it is due to the restrictions placed on them by the Obama administration.
I was a firsthand witness to how these policies deliberately prevented scrutiny of Islamist groups. The two San Bernardino jihadists, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, may have benefited from the administration’s closure of an investigation I initiated on numerous groups infiltrating radicalized individuals into this country.
While working for the Department of Homeland Security for 13 years, I identified individuals affiliated with large, but less well-known groups such as Tablighi Jamaat and the larger Deobandi movement freely transiting the United States. At the National Targeting Center, one of the premier organizations formed to “connect the dots,” I played a major role in an investigation into this trans-national Islamist network. We created records of individuals, mosques, Islamic Centers and schools across the United States that were involved in this radicalization effort. The Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah Mosque in San Bernardino was affiliated with this network and we had identified a member of it in our investigation. Farook frequented that mosque and was well-known to the congregation and mosque leadership.
Another focus of my investigation was the Pakistani women’s Islamist group al-Huda, which counted Farook’s wife, Tashfeen Malik, as a student. While the al-Huda International Welfare Foundation distanced themselves from the actions of their former pupil, Malik’s classmates told the Daily Mail she changed significantly while studying at al-Huda, gradually becoming “more serious and strict.” More ominously, the group’s presence in the U.S. and Canada is not without its other ties to ISIS and terrorism. In 2014, three recent former students at al-Huda’s affiliate school in Canada, aged 15 to 18, left their homes to join the Islamic State in Syria.
We had these two groups in our sights; if the investigation had continued and additional links been identified and dots connected, we might have given advance warning of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino. The combination of Farook’s involvement with the Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah Mosque and Malik’s attendance at al-Huda would have indicated, at minimum, an urgent need for comprehensive screening. It could also have led to denial of Malik’s K-1 visa or possibly gotten Farook placed on the No Fly list.
But after more than six months of research and tracking; over 1,200 law enforcement actions and more than 300 terrorists identified; and a commendation for our efforts; DHS shut down the investigation at the request of the Department of State and DHS’ own Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Division. They claimed that since the Islamist groups in question were not Specially Designated Terrorist Organizations (SDTOs) tracking individuals related to these groups was a violation of the travelers’ civil liberties. These were almost exclusively foreign nationals: When were they granted the civil rights and liberties of American citizens?
Worse still, the administration then went back and erased the dots we were diligently connecting. Even as DHS closed my investigation, I knew that data I was looking at could prove significant to future counterterror efforts and tried to prevent the information from being lost to law enforcement. In 2013, I met with the DHS Inspector General in coordination with several members of Congress to attempt to warn the American people’s elected representatives about the threat.
townhall Michelle Malkin | Dec 15, 2015 But 1st up is Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) reading a laundry list of complaints to Obama flunky DHS Sec Jeh Johnson from April 28, 2015.
Now here's Ms Malkin:
Gaping holes in the K1 fiance visa interview process. Reckless bans on scrutinizing visa applicants' social media posts. Ignored alarms over marriage fraud. New details keep seeping out about all the "red flags" Obama's immigration officials missed in the case of the San Bernardino jihadists.
Color me unshocked.
The American public and Capitol Hill politicians should have been more vigilant about vetting Obama's vetters in the first place. What do you expect when you put crony know-nothings, political hacks and identity politics zealots in charge of our safety?
In case you'd forgotten (or never paid attention), Obama campaign finance bundler Jeh Johnson snagged the top DHS post two years ago thanks to Harry Reid's rigging of Senate filibuster rules. Johnson's a "diversity" relic from the Clinton era with zero experience in border security, port security, airport security or immigration enforcement. So what is main qualification for overseeing the $40 billion, 240,000-employee homeland security bureaucracy? Besides dumping gobs of money into Obama's coffers, he's the "first African-American" to hold the job, as the White House trumpeted.
In case you'd forgotten (or never paid attention), DHS undersecretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the No. 2 in charge of the department, was also a beneficiary of Reid's lowered nomination standards. Like Johnson, Mayorkas was an Obama bundler early and often. He slithered into the job in 2013 while still under investigation by the DHS inspector general for his role in facilitating EB-5 foreign investor visa scams over the vehement objections of homeland security staff.
As my co-author John Miano and I point out in our new book, "Sold Out," on systemic visa corruption, federal investigators interviewed more than 15 whistleblowers ranging from rank-and-file employees to several senior managers in California and at the D.C. headquarters who accused Mayorkas of bestowing both preferential access and preferential treatment to politically connected EB-5 applicants and stakeholders. They detailed how Mayorkas "created special processes and revised existing policies in the EB-5 program to accommodate specific parties" while serving as director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
"Their allegations were unequivocal," the inspector general concluded, and the corruption under Mayorkas was systemic.
In case you'd forgotten (or never paid attention), DHS Assistant Secretary, Office for State and Local Law Enforcement Heather Fong abandoned her post as San Francisco police chief amid widespread disgust with her weak leadership and obstinate refusal to cooperate with the feds on enforcing immigration laws.
That's right. A zealous advocate of sanctuary city policies, Fong now oversees outreach to nearly 18,000 state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement agencies nationwide. This enforcement obstructionist is in charge of terrorism prevention policies and coordination and distribution of intelligence between DHS and localities. Her main qualifications? Being the first woman and Asian-American to lead the SFPD, whose rank-and-file despised her.
In case you'd forgotten (or never paid attention), Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Chief Diplomatic Office Alan Bersin was implicated in a scheme to manipulate the DHS hiring process to try and secure jobs for at least three political cronies who worked with Bersin on the Obama 2008 campaign, according to the Office of Special Counsel. Two of those pals did not even meet "the minimum qualification requirements for their respective career positions," OSC's complaint noted, because they lacked at least one year of relevant experience.
Bersin moved up the DHS ladder; a lower-level scapegoat was exonerated in court; and a key figure in the patronage plot was allowed to retire.
In case you'd forgotten (or never paid attention), Secretary Johnson hired his DHS chief of staff Christian Marrone without bothering to read the longtime Pennsylvania Democratic operative's background security check. Marrone was a top aide to slimeball Philadelphia power broker Vincent Fumo, who was convicted of 137 federal corruption charges in 2009.
As the Washington Times reported, Marrone "admitted in court to collecting a taxpayer salary while supervising the senator's private home renovations, hiring a private eye to dig up dirt on a political rival and serving as president of a company that used nonprofit urban revitalization money for a for-profit venture." At trial, Marrone acknowledged doing Fumo's rotten bidding because "that was the culture at the office ... there were no boundaries."
Marrone walked away after claiming he was a victim. And now, this go-along, get-along toady willing to violate the law to please a boss serves as Johnson's right-hand man and the No. 3 official at DHS.
These hacks won't even vet each other. They place "optics," "diversity" and political protectionism above national security. Forget the red flags over San Bernardino. It's the giant white flag of surrender waving over DHS that's the real threat to our well-being.
Thank You Townhall, Ms Malkin, and Senator Sessions. Yes, this IS what hits the fan where the idiot meets the road and so on and so forth at Mental Health Ground Zero
In case you'd forgotten (or never paid attention), DHS Assistant Secretary, Office for State and Local Law Enforcement Heather Fong abandoned her post as San Francisco police chief amid widespread disgust with her weak leadership and obstinate refusal to cooperate with the feds on enforcing immigration laws.
That's right. A zealous advocate of sanctuary city policies, Fong now oversees outreach to nearly 18,000 state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement agencies nationwide. This enforcement obstructionist is in charge of terrorism prevention policies and coordination and distribution of intelligence between DHS and localities. Her main qualifications? Being the first woman and Asian-American to lead the SFPD, whose rank-and-file despised her.
This should surprise, . . . no one, but Somehow this crowd wound up giving everyone else in America their marching orders as they "Remake America" because They know better than the little people what's actually best, . . . for the little people.
There’s been a lot of talk about Thomas Duncan. But he was just one of many…
(CNSNews.com) – Both Homeland Security Secretary Secretary Jeh Johnson and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden said on Wednesday that 150 people a day arrive in the United States from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea, the three West African countries that have been hit by the Ebola virus.
“When somebody travels from one of those three West African countries, even through a transit point (in Europe), we know where they’re coming from. So we’re able to track this. And we know that on average it’s about 150 passengers a day,” Johnson told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
As the Ebola virus outbreak spirals out of control into a world-wide crisis, with a death toll of more than 1,100 and counting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response this week released achecklist for hospitals to help clinicians manage patients carrying the virus. The checklist aims to give hospital staff, particularly clinical practitioners, and emergency and infection control managers, a rundown of what to review if and when an Ebola patient arrives at their hospitals. Despite the small number of known Ebola virus disease (EVD) cases in the United States, the checklist states, "now is the time to prepare, as it is possible that individuals with EVD in West Africa may travel to the United States, exhibit signs and symptoms of EVD and present to facilities." The checklist urges hospitals to: Train frontline workers to recognize Ebola's signs and symptoms
Review emergency department triage procedures
Keep state or local health departments in the loop during the testing stages
Make sure lab personnel understand specimen collection/transport/testing guidelines
U.S. Border Patrol agents slapped a $5,000 fine on an American citizen this week for slipping into the United States from Canada on a mountain bike, the agency announced Wednesday.
The 40-year-old American and his 44-year-old Canadian companion were nabbed Sunday near Houlton, Maine, after allegedly biking across the border south of Notre Dame, Canada, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
A Border Patrol agent spotted the two men at about 2:30 p.m. with mountain bikes on a dirt road near the border. After questioning the suspects, the agent arrested them for illegally crossing the border.
Each was fined $5,000, said CBP.
If the same penalty was applied to American’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrations, the federal government could collect $55 billion.
via CNSNews; Culture Of Corruption: The Dems Dangerous DHS Pick December 13, 2013 - 6:28 AM By Michelle Malkin The "S" in President Obama's DHS doesn't stand for "security." It stands for "sleaze." In the wake of Dirty Harry Reid's sabotage of the filibuster, Democrats have rammed through the Senate nomination of a shady Chicago crony associated with dangerous Clinton corruption and at least two visas-for-sale schemes.
The White House wants Alejandro Mayorkas to helm the No. 2 position at the Department of Homeland Security. It speaks volumes about this ethics-challenged administration that the most qualified person it could find for this important post is a government DHS hack currently under investigation by other DHS hacks. More on that in a moment.
On Tuesday, Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced Mayorkas' nomination to the Senate floor by a 9-0 vote. All Republicans voted "present" in protest. Thanks to Reid's nuclear option on the filibuster, Obama's party water-carriers in the Senate only need a simple majority. The appointment (scheduled for a Wednesday vote) is all but assured.
What qualifies Mayorkas to serve as DHS deputy secretary? Well, there's his prodigious fundraising in 2008 as an Obama bundler, of course. There's his dutiful pro-open borders record in his current job as director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. And once again, the operational motto of the Beltway prevails: Screw up, foul up, move up.
During the Clinton years, then U.S. Attorney Mayorkas phoned the White House on behalf of convicted drug dealer Carlos Vignali. Mayorkas joined other high-profile California liberals in the dialing-for-pardons campaign. Vignali's father (also suspected of drug trafficking) had dumped $200,000 in the coffers of Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh, to secure his son's commutation. Mayorkas pleaded ignorance and admitted failure to do his "due diligence." Like fellow Clinton corruptocrat and current Attorney General Eric Holder, Mayorkas' pardongate "mistake" cost him nothing. He was instead rewarded with plum government positions and access.
Allegations of fraud, reckless rubber-stamping and lax enforcement — from veteran internal whistleblowers — have plagued Mayorkas' tenure at USCIS. Rather than keeping his nose clean, Mayorkas apparently got himself involved in even more rotten business. The DHS inspector general has been probing a slimy visas-for-sale scheme tied to the Obama bundler for the past 15 months. (One reason for the delay: the IG's office itself is under investigation for unethical behavior and favoritism.)
Mayorkas and other higher-ups are being investigated for their alleged roles in intervening on behalf of GreenTech, a crony company with ties to Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Hillary Clinton's other brother, Anthony. The scheme reportedly gave "special treatment" (in the words of one USCIS official) to the company, which wanted EB-5 visas for deep-pocketed Chinese investors. In addition, The Washington Times reported this week that both Harry Reid and GOP Nev. Sen. Dean Heller lobbied the Obama administration to reverse itself on EB-5 decisions for foreign investors in a Las Vegas casino hotel.
None of this EB-5 corruption should surprise longtime readers of my column. As I first reported more than a decade ago, the EB-5 immigrant investor program was created under an obscure section of the 1990 Immigration Act. The law allows 10,000 wealthy foreigners a year to purchase green cards by investing between $500,000 and $1 million in new commercial enterprises or troubled businesses.
After two years, foreign investors, their spouses and their children all receive permanent resident status — which allows them to contribute to U.S. political campaigns and provides a speedy gateway to citizenship. The benefits of the EB-5 economic development plan have gone to former federal immigration officials who formed lucrative limited partnerships to cash in on their access and to shady foreign fraudsters. The supposed economic benefits of the program are unverifiable and inflated hype.
Whistleblowers have been punished and ostracized. Independent media have been intimidated and, in the case of the Franklin Center, sued for raising questions about the Democrats and immigrant investor fraud. The most transparent and ethical administration ever is stonewalling to protect Mayorkas. And citizenship is available to the highest crony foreign bidders.
Perhaps when White House journalists finish protesting Obama control freaks limiting their access to photos, they'll take an interest in top homeland security officials recklessly selling access to our shores. There's much, much more to the stench and the story. Thank You Ms. Malkin and CNS.
