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WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano avoids mentioning terrorism or 9/11 in remarks prepared for her first congressional testimony since taking office, signaling a sharp change in tone from her predecessors. Napolitano is the first homeland security secretary to drop the term "terror" and "vulnerability" from remarks prepared for delivery to the House Homeland Security Committee, according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press. Tom Ridge, who headed the agency when it was launched in 2003, mentioned terrorism 11 times in his prepared statement at his debut before the oversight committee in 2003. And in 2005 Michael...

Homeland Security plan also accounts for possible border surge by refugees fleeing the violence. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday that federal SWAT teams and military units are prepared to respond to Mexican drug gangs in the event they cross the Rio Grande and confront U.S. law officers. The forces, another department official said, also stand ready to manage any surge to the border by Mexicans panicked by the cartels’ violence. Chertoff described his department’s contingency planning in broad terms in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. The other department official provided details on condition of anonymity. Chertoff ordered...

Border communities from Tucson, Ariz. to Brownsville on Saturday will celebrate the end of Michael Chertoff's term as Homeland Security Secretary with piñatas, music and a retirement cake. There's only one catch: Chertoff isn't invited. Some of the secretary's most vocal critics will gather at Brownsville's Galeria 409, just a few yards from where the fence will be constructed, to commemorate what they consider Chertoff's disastrous tenure. "This is not a protest disguised as a party - this is a party," said Scott Nicol, of the No Border Wall Coalition. "Chertoff has only been secretary for three years but he...

Every few weeks for nearly four years, the Secret Service screened the IDs of employees for a Maryland cleaning company before they entered the house of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation's top immigration official.

Every few weeks for nearly four years, the Secret Service screened the IDs of employees for a Maryland cleaning company before they entered the house of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation's top immigration official. The company's owner says the workers sailed through the checks -- although some of them turned out to be illegal immigrants. Now, owner James D. Reid finds himself in a predicament that he considers especially confounding. In October, he was fined $22,880 after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators said he failed to check identification and work documents and fill out required I-9 verification...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declared success Wednesday on President Bush's vow to double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol and near-success on his pledge to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The two measures leave President-elect Barack Obama in a better position to get an immigration bill passed, he said.

Chertoff's letter to Perry reveals a clash of the titans U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff fired back Friday at Gov. Rick Perry's sharp criticism of federal efforts to deport illegal immigrants booked into Texas jails. Chertoff sent Perry a four-page letter defending what he termed as aggressive and expanded efforts by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to remove illegal immigrants, while complaining of a lack of cooperation from local law enforcement who jailed them for criminal offenses. "ICE, however, cannot remove and deport criminal aliens in State or local jails that it does not know about,' "...

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government arrested and deported record numbers of illegal immigrants — nearly 350,000 — in the past year, authorities say. It has also naturalized a record number of new Americans during the same time period, more than 1 million. Bush administration officials consider these to be great accomplishments within a system that President-elect Obama calls "broken and overwhelmed" on his transition Web site.

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff plans to announce changes to rules designed to stop businesses from hiring people working in the country illegally. The rules proposed to force employers to fire workers whose names don't match their Social Security numbers. A Homeland Security official, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement Thursday, says Chertoff will describe the changes, which were prompted by a judge's order. The American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have sued Chertoff over the rules. They say the rules open the door for discrimination against legitimate workers....

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Washington -- Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on Monday blamed tightened security on the U.S.-Mexico border for increased violence there, and he said the border probably will not be fully secured until 2011, two years after President Bush leaves office. "(Increased violence) is what typically happens when you start to enforce and make it harder to fight over the shrinking pie, so to speak, and who gets the best opportunity to exploit the additional space that's left," Chertoff said at a news conference at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Monday. "That's a good...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has decided to award Boeing contracts for the construction of two sections of a high-tech fence to be built along the border with Mexico in Arizona, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Monday. The two fence sections would be an "operational configuration" of a much-criticized 28-mile (45-km) section of "virtual fence" built by Boeing and tested earlier, Chertoff told a news conference. He said the fence would include fixed towers, with radar sensors, remote control cameras, ground sensors and software linking border agents to give them a "common operating picture" of...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday he had attended the funerals of too many Border Patrol agents killed in the line of duty to permit environmentalists to block construction of barriers and all-weather road along the Texas... Chertoff pitted the safety of Border Patrol agents against the efforts of environmentalists to stymie Bush administration plans to complete a border fence before leaving office in January. Some 670 miles of pedestrian fencing or vehicle barriers are planned along the 1,947-mile U.S.-Mexico boundary.Chertoff, who has set aside some environmental restrictions to speed fence construction, said he didn't want to "get enmeshed...

Security chief stresses that funds would fight drugs in speech at Rice Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Thursday accused congressional critics of imperiling a "historic opportunity" by tinkering with a proposal to provide $500 million in aid to help Mexico combat heavily armed narco-traffickers menacing the U.S.-Mexico border. Chertoff indirectly addressed criticism raised by lawmakers — including Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble; and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin — during a wide-ranging, 48-minute address at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have balked...

GALVESTON — Saying he wanted to “drive a stake through the heart of a misapprehension which is out there,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Border Patrol checks will not bog down Rio Grande Valley or other hurricane evacuations. “Instructions to the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection are clear,” Chertoff said in a statement out of Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington. “They are to do nothing to impede a safe and speedy evacuation of a danger zone. “Now, obviously, the laws don't get suspended, but it does mean that our priorities are to make sure we...

Build the U.S. Border Fence Now! Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and the Bush administration are deservedly under assault for not keeping their promises. After a long public outcry over promises broken, the government says they have agreed to construct a border fence. But this is Washington, promises aren't meant to actually be honored. Chertoff and the Bush administration are creating needless public controversy about the fence over what must be done to and with the land, and they are exploiting a backdoor Democrat Party and Open Borders Lobby effort that provides a smoke screen for the feds to...

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities -- such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps. Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said. The department has previously said...

Three years after Congress granted the federal government unprecedented waiver authority, 14 congressmen are challenging how that authority is being used to construct a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border. On Monday, U.S. Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., led a group, including Rio Grande Valley U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, to file a brief in Supreme Court which questions the constitutionality of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's waivers. Last week's waivers filed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff would suspend more than 30 laws, which Chertoff said could interfere with "the expeditious construction of barriers." It was the fourth set of...

NEW HAVEN — Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff Monday said New Haven’s city ID card program is another example of why the country needs comprehensive immigration reform. Chertoff, who delivered the keynote speech at the Yale Law School at its first Heyman Federal Public Service Colloquium, was asked if the card “promotes or endangers public safety.” Probably the first in the country, the card offers a means of identification to all residents, including illegal immigrants, and provides entry to certain city services. City police have said the immigrants are now more willing to come forward as witnesses to crimes. Snip...

A failure to enact comprehensive federal immigration reform has led to extreme measures at the local level around the country on both sides of the contentious issue, the nation's homeland security secretary said Monday. Michael Chertoff, who spoke at Yale Law School, was asked about New Haven becoming the first city in the nation last year to issue identification cards to illegal immigrants. "New Haven is probably at one extreme of the approach to the issue of illegal immigration," Chertoff said. He said the other extremes were some parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia that have tried to make it illegal...