London-based human rights group Amnesty International has launched a campaign to prevent the deportation of aliens to countries unable to accept them. The question is whether the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services must obtain a receiving country’s consent before an alien may be deported there, referencing 8 U.S.C. 1231(b)(2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The issue came to a head in two recent court cases - Ail v Ashcroft in the 9th Circuit, which ruled that aliens could not be deported to Somalia because the government is incapable of accepting detainees, and Jama v INS in the 8th Circuit, which found that Somali-born immigrants can still be deported to that country even if the government is unable to establish Somali “acceptance.”

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The merger of four federal patrol agencies has already tightened security along the U.S. border without encountering many transitional problems, BCBP officials said this week. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection includes elements of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs Service, Border Patrol, and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Inspectors in the field are accepting the combining of the operations and the only details left to work out are different payroll, travel systems, and uniforms.

The changeover, which occurred March 1, has simplified the command process for giving orders and ensuring security. The new organization successfully tested its effectiveness during Operation Liberty Shield, the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to prevent terrorism during the war in Iraq.

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The FBI’s Office of Intelligence Assistant Director, Steven McCraw, told a House panel this week that the FBI believes the controversial Matricula Consular card is “a threat to vulnerability.” McCraw said the cards, issued by the Mexican government to Mexicans living in the United States, were easy to obtain through fraud and lack adequate security measures to prevent forgery.

Mexico has argued that applicants must arrive in person before they are issued a card, and they must show a form of identification, such as a birth certificate. The FBI counters that such documents are easy to forge, and that Mexican officials are not enforcing the standards.

Several agencies and organizations in the US accept Matricula Consular cards as a form of identification, and the State Department has shown a greater tolerance of their use than has the Department of Homeland Security. Some immigrants are allowed to use them to open bank accounts and gain access to certain state and local services. Other countries, such as Brazil and Poland, are planning to introduce similar cards to their nationals living in the United States.

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Thomas Homan, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s interim Associate Special Agent-in-Charge in San Antonio, testified before Congress this week about the agency’s strategies to combat human trafficking. Homan told a House subcommittee that ICE is working to bring together the “once-fragmented” divisions of enforcement agents in order to break up smuggling rings, such as the one that claimed the lives of 19 aliens in Victoria, Texas. Fourteen individuals were charged in that case.

“The successes that we achieved in this operation are a direct result of fully integrating ICE special agents and other personnel, equipment and methodologies into a unified law enforcement effort,” Homan said.

ICE has proposed the implementation of Critical Incident Response Teams that would “deploy resources, equipment and manpower in key geographic areas nationwide.”