Amid Security Failures DHS Spends $20.3 Mil on Conferences

CORRUPTION CHRONICLES

While it let Islamic terrorists enter the country, wasted huge sums on faulty equipment and failed miserably to remove criminal illegal aliens, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was busy blowing $20.3 million to host 1,883 conferences last year.

It’s the inconceivable tale of the colossal agency—with practically unlimited funds—created after 9/11 to prevent another terrorist attack. The agency’s various components include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the scandal-plagued Secret Service and the famously inept Transportation Security Administration (TSA), to name a few. In 2015, DHS asked Congress for an astounding $38.2 billion to continue its “commitment to the security of our homeland and the American public,” according to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.

The agency must be agile and vigilant in continually adapting to evolving threats and hazards, Johnson writes in the budget request, adding that “we must stay one step ahead of the next attack, the next cyberattack, and the next natural disaster.” Preventing terrorism, securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws are among the agency’s “basic missions,” Johnson states, even though we all know DHS has fallen short in all these areas. The failures involving the southern border have been especially well documented. In fact, just last month Judicial Watch reported that Mexican drug cartels are smuggling Islamic terrorists into the U.S. through the rural Texas border region.

While this is going on DHS and its various components polish up on a variety of skills at conferences that cost American taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, afederal audit reveals. This includes a dozen events that each exceeded $100,000. For those wondering what publicly-financed, extracurricular event could possibly merit such a large sum, here are a few examples: DHS paid $196,308 for a San Francisco forum aimed at preventing terrorism as well as “securing and managing our borders” and an additional $130,941 for a separate San Francisco shindig so 39 senior agency officials could engage with “key influencers and decision makers” in the cybersecurity industry.

The agency responsible for protecting the nation from terrorist threats also blew $179,053 on the International Oil Spill Conference in Savannah, Georgia, which focused on environmental impacts of oil spills and $125,348 on a Washington D.C. event aimed at “maximizing the benefits of gender diversity.” The idea behind that conference was to promote gender equity through a group known as Women in Federal Law Enforcement (WIFLE), a nonprofit created by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Treasury to address why women remain underrepresented in federal law enforcement.

A $110,993 “outreach” summit in Washington D.C. brought Customs and Border Patrol senior managers, transportation executives and foreign government partners together to discuss “securing and managing our borders” and a $108,617 Ft. Worth Texas conference provided a “platform for conveying information regarding relevant issues in immigration enforcement.” DHS also doled out $131,868 on the Afghanistan Pakistan Illicit Procurement Network Symposium in Tampa, Florida where discussions focused on preventing hostile nations and illicit procurement networks from illegally obtaining U.S. military products or sensitive technology that could be used against the U.S.

While all this costly nonsense is going on at taxpayer expense, the southern border remains dangerously porous, airport security is a huge joke and DHS gets exposed for spending $360 million on drones that have failed miserably after nearly a decade. The agency promised Congress that the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAC) would help effectively guard the Mexican border and, even after the experiment failed repeatedly, DHS asked Congress for another $443 million to keep it alive.

Via: Judicial Watch

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REPORT: JEH JOHNSON SPARED FROM COURT OVER ILLEGAL AMNESTIES

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen will spare Department of Homeland Security Sec. Jeh Johnson from appearing before his court later this month to answer for the Obama administration’s illegal issuance of amnesty documents.

According to the Washington Times, in a court filling Tuesday, Hanen — who had threatened to require the agency chief to appear and explain the violations earlier — excused Johnson from testifying but said the administration still must answer for their errors at a hearing on August 19.

At issue is the Obama administration’s violation of Hanen’s February injunction, which stopped President Obama’s executive amnesty programs from taking effect — namely Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Hanen’s ruling was made in the matter of 26 states’ challenge of Obama’s November 20 executive amnesty.

While the order was supposed to halt all implementation, the administration — which had already started issuing expanded DACA three-year work permits instead of the acceptable two-year permits in advance of its official start date— continued to issue three-year permits in violation of the injunction.

According to USCIS, more than 2,100 three-year permits were issued post-injunction and another 500 were issued before the injunction but, due to mail issues, were re-sent after the injunction. On July 7, Hanen pressed the Obama administration to recoup the illegal three-year permits and come in compliance with the order.

The administration embarked on an aggressive effort to replace the three-year permits with two-year ones and in the process also discovered another 50 three-year permits issued post-injunction. The administration said it had either recouped, accounted for or terminated the initial 2,600 three-year permits.

“The court does not consider mere substantial compliance, after an order has been in place for six months, to be acceptable and neither should counsel,” the Times quoted Hanen’s Tuesday filing.

Although the administration has taken action on the illegally issued permits, a source of consternation remains the more than 108,000 three-year permits that were issued in advance of expanded DACA’s official start date. According to the Times, in his filing Tuesday, Hanen noted that he “remains concerned” about the outstanding three-year permits.

Via: Breitbart

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HOMELAND SECURITY CHIEF: WE WON’T CALL CHATTANOOGA ‘ISLAMIC TERRORISM’ OUT OF RESPECT FOR MUSLIMS

THEY HAVE NO RESPECT FOR US, WHY SHOULD WE HAVE ANY FORM THEM??

Why won’t the Obama administration call Fort Hood Islamic Terrorism? Why aren’t they calling Chattanooga Islamic Terrorism? Because it’s disrespect to Muslims and Islam is about peace:

ARUTZ SHEVA – Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson announced the policy this past Friday at Aspen Institute’s annual security forum in Washington, D.C. He explained that though it was a Muslim terrorist who shot to death four unarmed Marines in Tennessee two weeks ago, the government will call the attack, and other similar ones, “violent extremism” and not “Islamic terrorism” – out of respect for the Muslim community.

Johnson said it is “critical” to refrain from the “Islamic” label in order to “build trust” among Muslims.

The Tennessee murderer, Mohammad Abdulazeez, is officially a “homegrown violent extremist,” according to the government – even though he blogged about his Islamic religious motivations for the attack. He and his family also attended a local mosque controlled by a terror-tied Islamic trust.

Johnson explained that if officials called Islamic terrorism “Islamic,” they’d “get nowhere” in gaining the “cooperation” of the Muslim community.

The moderator of the panel tried to protest: “Isn’t [the] government denying the fundamental religious component of this kind of extremism by not using the word Islamic?”

“I could not disagree more,” Johnson responded, and explained that Islam “is about peace.”

So if we say we want Muslims to stand up against Islamic extremism but we won’t call it Islamic extremism, how will they know it’s Islamic extremism if we won’t even tell the truth about it?

Heck, it’s not even extremism, really. It is simply Muslims taking their religion very, very seriously and trying to walk in the footsteps of Muhammad. Now there is an extreme component to it, as some believe the time is now to wage Jihad and others believe that time will come when their Mahdi returns. But that’s just a matter of ‘when’, not ‘what’.

But hey, let’s not offend Muslims here by telling the truth about Islam. Let’s just pretend Jihadis are just a bunch of angry poor people who can’t get jobs in their countries. And let’s send them money to see if that fixes the problem.

Good plan.

Via: The Right Scoop

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Homeland Security Leaders Bent Rules on Private E-Mail

By Josh Rogin

Jeh Johnson, the secretary of homeland security, and 28 of his senior staffers have been using private Web-based e-mail from their work computers for over a year, a practice criticized by cybersecurity experts and advocates of government transparency.

The department banned such private e-mail on DHS computers in April 2014. Top DHS officials were granted informal waivers, according to a top DHS official who said that he saw the practice as a national security risk. The official said the exempt staffers included Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Chief of Staff Christian Marrone and General Counsel Stevan Bunnell.

Asked about the exceptions on Monday, the DHS press secretary, Marsha Catron, confirmed that some officials had been exempted. "Going forward," she said, "all access to personal webmail accounts has been suspended."

Future exceptions are to be granted only by the chief of staff. Catron said that a "recent internal review" had found the chief of staff and some others were unaware that they had had access to webmail.

The DHS rule, articulated last year after hackers first breached the Office of Personnel Management, states: "The use of Internet Webmail (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL) or other personal email accounts is not authorized over DHS furnished equipment or network connections." Johnson and the 28 other senior officials sought and received informal waivers at different times over the past year, the official said. Catron said exceptions were decided on a case-by-case basis by the chief information officer, Luke McCormack. DHS employees are permitted to use their government e-mail accounts for limited personal use.

Erica Paulson, a spokeswoman for the DHS Office of the Inspector General, said that the office does not confirm or deny the existence of any open investigations.

It remains unclear whether Johnson and the other officials conducted DHS business on their private webmail accounts. (The DHS spokeswoman said "the use of personal e-mail for official purposes is strictly prohibited.") If even one work-related e-mail was sent or received, they could be in violation of regulations and laws governing the preservation of federal records, said Jason R. Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration.

"I suppose it is remotely conceivable that in seeking a waiver, 20 or more government officials could all be wishing to talk to each other through a Web-based e-mail service about such matters as baseball games or retirement luncheons they might be attending," he said. "But it is simply not reasonable to assume that in seeking a waiver that the officials involved were only contemplating using a commercial network for personal (that is, non-official) communications."

In March, the New York Times reported that as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton had used a private e-mail server exclusively to conduct her State Department business. Clinton said she had not violated any transparency laws because the Federal Records Act states that officials are permitted to use private e-mail, so long as they forward on any government-related communications to their government accounts so they can be archived and used to respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

In November 2014, the Federal Records Act was amended to impose a 20-day limit on the time an official has to transfer records from private e-mail to government systems. Clinton transferred over 30,000 e-mails from her private server to the State Department in early 2015. She deleted another 30,000 e-mails on her private server, claiming they were all strictly personal.

It is unclear how Johnson and the other officials used their webmail accounts, and whether they forwarded any messages about government business to their official accounts.

Johnson has used his personal Gmail for government business at least once, before he was head of DHS; that was disclosed during the scandal that led to David Petraeus's resignation as CIA director. The Justice Department is fighting to keep Johnson from having to give a video deposition in that case.

Via: Boomberg View

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[VIDEO] Sanctuary Cities Beyond Federal Control, Homeland Security Chief Jeh Johnson Says

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson admitted Tuesday that the administration goofed in releasing an illegal immigrant to sanctuary city San Francisco ahead of a shocking murder earlier this month, but said there’s little the government can do to pressure sanctuary communities to change their minds.

Facing lawmakers for the first time since the slaying of Kathryn Steinle, a 32-year-old killed while out walking with her father, Mr. Johnson said he’s made personal appeals to San Francisco to rethink its refusal to let police cooperate with federal immigration agents, and will try again in the wake of the killing.

But he declined to criticize sanctuary cities themselves, and told Congress not to try to pass laws forcing cooperation, saying it could conflict with the Constitution, and it won’t win over the hearts of reluctant communities.

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SEE ALSO: Jeh Johnson: No contact with family of S.F. victim, not sure about Obama

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“My hope is that jurisdictions like San Francisco — San Francisco County — will cooperate with our new program,” he told the House Judiciary Committee. “I’m making the rounds with a lot of jurisdictions. My deputy secretary and I and other leaders in DHS have been very, very active for the purpose of promoting public safety to get jurisdictions to cooperate with us on this.”

He said several dozen jurisdictions who had previously refused to cooperate have already signed up or signaled interest in working with the new Priority Enforcement Program.

Republicans doubted that asking nicely would work with the five cities and counties that have turned Mr. Johnson down already, and they wondered why he and President Obama didn’t want to get tougher on the recalcitrant ones.

“How in the hell can a city tell you ‘No’?” demanded Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican. “And when a young woman is shot walking with her father, with somebody with this resume, either you got to do something, we got to do something, or maybe we can do it together.”

Steinle’s death has refocused the immigration debate, which, for the last few years, had been won by immigrant rights advocates arguing for more lenient treatment for illegal immigrants, symbolized by the most sympathetic category of the Dreamers, young adult illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

Now, Steinle’s slaying — and the suspect, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, deported five times before and out on the streets after San Francisco refused to hold him for pickup by immigration agents — has put attention on victims of illegal immigration.

Via: Washington Times

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[VIDEO] DHS boss can’t say if admin reaching out to SF murder victim’s family

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson could not say Tuesday whether the Obama administration was reaching out to the family of the young woman killed earlier this month on a San Francisco pier, allegedly by an illegal immigrant, after the family complained that no one had been in touch. 

During a Capitol Hill hearing, Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, asked Johnson if the administration had reached out to the Steinle family. 

Johnson initially said: "To who?" 

Chabot clarified he was talking about Kathryn Steinle, 32, who was killed in San Francisco, allegedly by an illegal immigrant who had a lengthy felony record and had been deported several times before. (Johnson, who had spoken about her case earlier in the hearing, later told Fox News he simply couldn't hear the question.) 

Asked again if the administration was reaching out, Johnson said: "I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that question, sir." 

Chabot urged Johnson to check, and he said he would. 

Via: Fox News

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Obama administration scales back deportations in policy shift

The Obama administration has begun a profound shift in its enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws, aiming to hasten the integration of long-term illegal immigrants into society rather than targeting them for deportation, according to documents and federal officials.

In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has taken steps to ensure that the majority of the United States’ 11.3 million undocumented immigrants can stay in this country, with agents narrowing enforcement efforts to three groups of illegal migrants: convicted criminals, terrorism threats or those who recently crossed the border.

While public attention has been focused on the court fight over President Obama’s highly publicized executive action on immigration, DHS has with little fanfare been training thousands of immigration agents nationwide to carry out new policies on everyday enforcement.

The legal battle centers on the constitutionality of a program that would officially shield as many as 5 million eligible illegal immigrants from deportation, mainly parents of children who are U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. A federal judge put the program, known by the acronym DAPA, on hold in February after 26 states sued.

[Administration halts work on DAPA program ]

But the shift in DHS’s enforcement priorities, which are separate from the DAPA program and have not been challenged in court, could prove even more far-reaching.

The new policies direct agents to focus on the three priority groups and leave virtually everyone else alone. Demographic data shows that the typical undocumented immigrant has lived in the United States for a decade or more and has established strong community ties.

Via: Washington Post

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Authorities Warn of Potential Fourth of July Terror Attacks

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says his department is encouraging law enforcement "to be vigilant and prepared" ahead of the July 4th holiday in the U.S. following attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait. 

Johnson says people should attend Independence Day events as planned but "remain vigilant" and report any suspicious activity.

He says U.S. authorities will adjust security measures, including those unseen by the public, as necessary.

On  Sunday, House Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul said Americans should heed the government's warning. 

"It is concerning," McCaul told "Fox News Sunday." There is a great deal of chatter, a high volume," he said of terrorist network communications.

He noted that a spokesman for the Islamic State (ISIS) has called for jihad during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan — currently under way — the one-year anniversary of the establishment of the ISIS caliphate and the American Independence Day holiday.

In addition to that confluence is the "Bloody Friday" attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait, all within hours of each other, in which ISIS claimed credit.

The warning to Americans was issued jointly by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center.

"I think given these confluence of events we're being on the cautious side here to warn the public to remain vigilant," McCaul said, "to enjoy the Fourth of July parades, but remain vigilant during these celebrations."

Foiled terror plots have increased "exponentially" in the past year, McCaul said, because of Internet recruiting. 

"I'm extremely concerned about the way the Syrian ISIS recruiters can use the Internet at lightning speed to recruit followers in the United States, with thousands of followers in the United States," he said, "And then activate them to do whatever they want to do, whether it's military installations, law enforcement or, possibly, a Fourth of July event parade."

A gunman killed at least 37 people and wounded 36 in an attack on a beach resort in Tunisia Friday. In Kuwait, a suicide bomber killed at least 25 people, while a man with suspected ties to French Islamic radicals rammed a car into a gas factory in southeastern France, triggering an explosion that injured two people. The severed head of a local businessman was left hanging at the factory's entrance.

While there was no specific or credible threat of attack, one law enforcement official told USA Today that a new intelligence bulletin is alerting local colleagues to the ongoing threats posed by the group that calls itself the Islamic State [also known as ISIS or ISIL] and other homegrown extremists. The official was not authorized to comment publicly.

The bulletins are frequently issued in advance of major U.S. holidays out of an abundance of caution and concern that operatives may exploit the timing to generate greater attention.

The FBI and other agencies have worked to disrupt a number of Islamic State-inspired plots, including a planned assault earlier this month on police officers in Boston. In that case, authorities fatally shot Usaamah Rahim as he allegedly planned to attack police with military-style knives.

Via: Newsmax

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Open-Borders Sociology Prof. Behind New DHS Rule Freeing Illegal Alien Families

A renowned open-borders sociology professor with published research on “victims of deportation policies” is behind the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new regulation ordering the release of illegal immigrant families in U.S. custody.

This week DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson announced the outrageous new policy that will let illegal immigrant families go free in the U.S. All they have to do is claim a “credible or reasonable fear of persecution in their home countries,” Johnson said. The country’s top homeland security official explained that he decided to create this new measure after conducting numerous visits to family residential centers, including one in Karnes, Texas, where he spoke to the Central American mothers who “came to this country seeking a better life for their children and themselves.”

Based on the detention center visits and chats with illegal immigrants Johnson concluded that the government had to make “substantial changes” in detention practices with respect to families with children. “In short, once a family has established eligibility for asylum or other relief under our laws, long-term detention is an inefficient use of our resources and should be discontinued,” Johnson said. DHS is also ensuring access to lawyers, paid for by American taxpayers, for the detained illegal aliens as well as social workers, educational services and comprehensive medical care.

Of interesting note is that Johnson failed to mention the driving force behind his agency’s new policy. His name is Luis Zayas and he is the dean of Social Work at the University of Texas, Austin. In late May a group of pro-illegal alien members of congress, led by amnesty champion Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, wrote Johnson a letter demanding an end to the use of family detention for illegal immigrants. “It is undeniable that detention in a secure facility is detrimental to mothers and children and is not reflective of our values as a nation,” the letter states. “Children require special protections and should not be placed in jail-like settings.”

To back the claim, the lawmakers cite an affidavit written by Zayas, who asserts that children of undocumented or illegal immigrants are often the unintended victims of deportation policies. The professor has examined the effects of deportation on the psychosocial functioning of U.S.-born children of illegal alien Mexicans, according to his university biography, and often testifies in immigration courts on behalf of children and their families. “Presently, Zayas is focusing on the plight of citizen-children whose parents are being deported,” the public university biography states.

This background information is important because Zayas is the expert cited in the persuading letter Congress fired off to Johnson. Zayas determined that the detained illegal immigrant children are “facing some of the most adverse childhood conditions of any children I have ever interviewed or evaluated.” The professor further concluded that “detention has had serious and long-lasting impacts on the psychological health and well-being” of families at one center and that these impacts were evident in families who were detained for as little as two weeks. Days later the agency created after 9/11 to protect the nation from another terrorist attack, actually caved into this absurd assessment.

Via: Judicial Watch

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Homeland Security Secretary nominee Jeh Johnson is loyal to the [Constitution] Obama

Here’s the guy Obama is expected to nominate to replace Janet Napolitano. He’s talking about being in NYC on 9/11:

“When that bright and beautiful day, a day something like this, was shattered by the largest terrorist attack on our homeland in history, I wandered the streets of New York that day and wonderered, and asked, ‘What can I do?’ Since then, I have tried to devote myself to answering that question. I love this country. I care about the safety of our people. I believe in public service. And I remain loyal to you, Mr. President.”

He remains loyal to Barack Obama? What happened to supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and bearing true faith and allegiance to the same? Isn’t that how it’s supposed to go?

Via: Daily Caller

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OBAMA NOMINATING JOHNSON TO HEAD HOMELAND SECURITY

President Barack Obama has chosen former Pentagon lawyer Jeh (jay) Johnson as the new secretary of the Homeland Security Department.

Obama plans to announce Johnson's nomination Friday. He must be confirmed by the Senate before taking over the post most recently held by Janet Napolitano (neh-pahl-ih-TAN'-oh). Napolitano stepped down in August to become president of the University of California system.

A senior administration official on Thursday confirmed Johnson's selection, first reported by The Daily Beast. The official said Obama chose Johnson because of his experience as a national security leader.

The official was not authorized to speak about the nomination on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity. 

Via: Breitbart

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