Department Of Homeland Security U S

A former top Los Angeles federal prosecutor who was involved in a Clinton-era clemency controversy has been tapped to head an influential Department of Homeland Security immigration agency. Alejandro Mayorkas is President Obama's pick to be director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which adjudicates a broad range of immigration and naturalization issues and oversees international adoptions, asylum, refugee status and foreign student authorization.

With drug-related violence growing along the Mexico border, the U.S. is willing to consider deploying troops to the Southwest -- but only as a last resort -- a Department of Homeland Security official told members of Congress on Thursday. Help might come from the National Guard or even the Army if the deadly threat from Mexico's powerful cartels gets so bad that Homeland Security officials cannot secure border towns, Roger Rufe, the department's director of operations, told a House subcommittee.

In a major departure from the Bush administration, the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday issued new work site enforcement guidelines that shift the focus to employers rather than illegal workers and could be a harbinger of more immigration reforms. The federal guidelines instruct agents to conduct "carefully planned criminal investigations" of employers and to look for evidence that they may be involved in smuggling or visa fraud.

The federal government's E-Verify program, which seeks to reduce the hiring of illegal immigrants, is becoming increasingly popular, with 1,000 new businesses signing up each week despite concerns about its reliability. More than 124,000 businesses, including nearly 10,000 in California, are signed up for the Web-based identification program that enables employers to check whether an employee is authorized to work, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The crraaaack! was so loud that James Tolbert looked out his town house window to investigate, and that's when he saw it -- a snowy white head with yellow eyes soaring into the woods across the street, a tree branch the size of a baseball bat locked in its beak. The National Park Service soon confirmed what this blighted community 1.5 miles from the Capitol could scarcely believe: A pair of American bald eagles had built a nest in the nation's capital for the first time since Harry S.

Stepping into the political minefield of immigration reform, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano soon will direct federal agents to focus more on arresting and prosecuting American employers than the illegal laborers who sneak into the country to work for them, department officials said Monday.

Violence along the border with Mexico will likely increase this year as the administration bolsters Border Patrol staffing and adds more fencing and technology to catch illegal immigrants, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday. On Saturday, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar, 32, was killed in California's Imperial Sand Dunes recreation area, run over by suspected drug smugglers as he was laying down a spike strip to stop their fleeing Hummer.

A Florida-based cruise line's efforts to protect its lucrative Hawaii business through a federal rule change is generating a wave of concern among port and business representatives, who say it would harm jobs and tourist revenue. Critics say that the change proposed in November by the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection agency would affect any foreign-flagged cruise line traveling between U.S. ports.

The Bush administration wants to spend 19% more on border security and immigration enforcement in the next federal budget year, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday. In his annual budget request on Monday, President Bush will ask Congress to allocate $12.1 billion to construct more border fencing, hire more Border Patrol agents and expand the teams that conduct raids on businesses using illegal immigrants.

Michael Chertoff was in the driver's seat of a white Chevrolet Tahoe, under the glare of high-powered lights ringing Border Patrol headquarters. It was 10 p.m., 15 hours into the Homeland Security secretary's workday. An agent sitting beside him tapped a glowing computer screen. A map expanded. Drawing on an arsenal of radar, sensors and cameras, it displayed a spray of red dots -- suspected border crossers.