As required by President Biden’s Executive Order on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety, today Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas announced the first Department-wide policy on Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) for its law enforcement officers and agents. The Department’s plan will include a phased implementation of BWCs while working with Congress to secure the necessary funding to equip agents nationwide with BWCs.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is prepared to screen high volumes of passengers at airport security checkpoints nationwide this summer travel season, which begins Memorial Day weekend and runs through Labor Day. The agency forecasts Friday, May 26, to be the busiest day of the long weekend, projecting to screen approximately 2.6 million passengers.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) published a new 5-year strategic plan. It incorporates input we received from stakeholders on the strategic framework—a summarized version of the plan that we published in June 2022. The plan includes six strategic goals.
After receiving and considering over 50,000 public comments in response to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) finalized a new rule to further incentivize individuals to use lawful, safe, and orderly pathways to enter the United States. The rule builds upon efforts to combine lawful pathways with consequences for failure to use them, by placing certain limiting conditions on asylum eligibility for those who fail to use those pathways.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is working with vendors and manufacturers of portable drug detectors to improve their ability to identify different narcotics, like fentanyl. Through collaboration with the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), S&T has offered 12 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) access to collect reference data on 17 commercial-off-the-shelf narcotics detection systems. In return, OEMs will provide an updated version of their libraries to first responders who use their systems.
The Department of State and Department of Homeland Security are announcing sweeping new measures to further reduce unlawful migration across the Western Hemisphere, significantly expand lawful pathways for protection, and facilitate the safe, orderly, and humane processing of migrants.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced the award of an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, with a value of up to $128 million, to Idemia Identity and Security USA, LLC for the second-generation Credential Authentication Technology (CAT-2) systems and support services at TSA security checkpoints.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced the award of three orders for a combined total value of up to $1.3 billion for Computed Tomography (CT) scanners to include up to 426 base, 359 mid-size, and 429 full-size units, if all options are exercised, for deployment across TSA checkpoints starting Summer 2023.
DHS issued an update today on Operation Blue Lotus as part of the Biden Administration’s significant and historic actions to disrupt the trafficking of synthetic drugs, representing a major contribution to a government-wide effort to save lives and pursue justice and accountability. In its first month, Operation Blue Lotus, a coordinated U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) surge operation, has stopped over 4,000 pounds of fentanyl at ports of entry, where more than 90 percent of fentanyl is trafficked in cars and trucks.
The Hazardous Materials Committee of the International Fire Chiefs Association is happy to welcome attendees back in person for HAZMAT 2023! The International Hazardous Materials Response Teams Conference (HAZMAT) is a four-day event that will be held this year at the Hilton of Baltimore, Maryland from June 8-11, 2023, with an additional pre-conference day on June 7, 2023. Attendees are provided the latest classroom, hands-on, and field trip-based training on topics covering all aspects of HAZMAT.
