An advisory panel recommended that the government change how it projects Social Security's future finances by assuming significant changes, including increases in immigration. Using such methods to project Social Security's future financial status boosts the system's projected deficit by $200 billion to $3.7 trillion over 75 years, the panel said.

The Social Security Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods was appointed by the Social Security Advisory Board, and independent, bipartisan board created in 1994 to advise the government. The most urgent change the panel recommended would be to assume an increase in immigration rather than a decline, the Washington Post reports.

"Given the steady increase in immigration experienced since World War II, the panel believes that the current assumption of a decline in the annual number of immigrants is unrealistic," the panel said.

The Social Security Advisory Board website is http://www.ssab.gov

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Early last week in Bangkok, President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox met for the first time in a year and agreed that the two governments would work on immigration. The two leaders, meeting in Thailand for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, was described as "very warm," and Fox was invited to visit the Bush ranch later this year.

Fox has been pushing the United States to expand permanent visas and guest worker programs for Mexicans who already live and work in the United States. Bush has said he supports the programs, but relations between the two administrations cooled after the terrorist attacks on 9-11 and after Mexico refused to provide support in the United Nations for the U.S-led coalition against Iraq. Recently, however, tensions have eased, as Mexico supported a U.N. resolution urging international support for the reconstruction of Iraq.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has posted an agency organization chart, on the web at: http://www.bice.immigration.gov/graphics/about/organization/org_chart.pdf

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Last week Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced the appointment of Jason Klitenic as the new Deputy General Counsel for the Department of Homeland Security. Klitenic has served as Deputy Associate Attorney General at the Department of Justice since January 2002. Before working at the Justice Department, Klitenic was a partner at Alston & Bird LLP in Atlanta. Klitenic is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Baltimore School of Law.

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