We reported earlier this month that the Homeland Security Department was delaying implementation of its rule requiring contractors to use E-Verify. The delay was scheduled to last until Feb. 20. Today, DHS announced another delay: Contractors won’t have to use the system until May 21, according to this Federal Register notice. Industry groups sued the department over the rule, claiming it imposes an undue burden on contractors.
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The House voted 244-188 Wednesday evening to pass the economic stimulus package, setting up a Senate vote in the coming days. The $819 billion bill, HR 1, includes $523 billion in spending and $275 billion in tax cuts, which Democrats said will spur economic growth and create American jobs. The House approved six amendments to the bill, several of which affect federal employees: The bill now includes a provision strengthening whistleblower protections for federal employees, which had been missing from the original bill. The bill specified protections for state and local workers but did not mention federal employees. The whistleblower…
I reported last year on Citizenship and Immigration Services’ struggles with fees and backlogs. So I was interested to see a new GAO report (pdf) on the agency’s user fees. GAO found a few problems, most of which are easily correctable. An example: CIS charges $1,000 for “premium processing,” one of its largest sources of revenue. Most of that revenue is used for business process modernization, not the actual costs of premium processing; GAO is concerned that regular applicants are subsidizing premium processing. Seems there’s an easy fix: Figure out the extra costs of premium processing, and make sure those…
President Barack Obama’s Cabinet now has eight official members. The Senate voted by voice vote just before 4 p.m. today to confirm the following seven nominees: Steven Chu for Energy, Arne Duncan for Education, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Peter Orszag for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Ken Salazar for Interior, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs and Tom Vilsak for Agriculture. His Cabinet already included Robert Gates, whom Obama asked to stay on as Defense secretary. But things aren’t moving so quickly for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s secretary of state nomination. After her smooth hearing before the Senate…
In his last full day in office, President Bush has commuted the sentences of two Border Patrol agents jailed for the 2005 shooting of an admitted drug smuggler and illegal alien who was fleeing back to Mexico. Prosecutors said Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean did not report the shooting and removed evidence from the scene when they picked up their shell casings. But their prosecution angered many supporters of tough immigration policies, such as CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who turned their case into a cause celebre and said their sentences were excessive. Ramos was sentenced to 11 years in jail, and…
Update: Full story here. Starting Jan. 15, new contracts awarded by agencies were supposed to mandate that vendors verify the immigration status of their workers using the Homeland Security Department’s E-Verify system. But Federal Times has learned that the department has decided to postpone the implementation of that requirement until at least Feb. 20 due to a lawsuit filed by five industry groups. Lawrence Lorber, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, which includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, tells us that the government was responding to the plaintiffs request for a stay in the rule’s implementation. More to…
President-elect Barack Obama wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp — but how? The Center for American Progress, the think tank run by John Podesta, Obama’s transition co-chair, held a panel this afternoon to discuss closing Guantanamo. The panel recommended a “hybrid” approach: release the prisoners who aren’t dangerous, and try the rest in U.S. courts. Obama hasn’t discussed how he will close the facility. But FedLine wonders how he will handle the complex logistics involved.
The reviews are in for ABC’s new reality show “Homeland Security USA,” and they are not kind. The “COPS”-like docudrama program, which follows real Border Patrol agents, Customs and Border Protection officers and transportation security officers at their jobs, is being called little more than a recruitment video for the Homeland Security Department. The New York Times said that the show doesn’t even touch on many issues challenging the department, such as mismanagement, privacy concerns, or corruption. Instead, “Homeland Security USA” shows Customs officers searching through a belly dancer’s skimpy outfits. Critics say the show’s substance-free exchanges, along with heart-tugging voice…
We at Federal Times had an enlightening editorial board meeting at our offices earlier this month with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, which resulted in several interesting stories. But the crack staff at the Onion appears to have scooped us on the real story:
The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general, Richard Skinner, is worried that the stalled economy and ballooning budget deficit will prompt the next Congress to shift money away from the department’s management functions. So many of these programs are just starting to get traction. But they’re still woefully underfunded… we still need to invest in these management support functions. The biggest “traction,” Skinner said, is in financial management: The Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be able to offer clean audits by the end of fiscal 2009 (Skinner acknowledged that “it should have been done a year…