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  6. Morning Roundup - January 29th

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In an effort to keep DHS.gov current, the archive contains outdated information that may not reflect current policy or programs.

Morning Roundup - January 29th

Oddball State of the Union Moments - CNNA real eye-opener from CNN:

From KGO-AM San Francisco, an interview with Secretary Napolitano following the President's State of the Union address:

According to a New York Times breakdown, President Obama used the word "jobs"29 times during Wednesday's State of the Union address and spent only nine minutes on national security. "Jobs are part of security too, economic security is part of security," says Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano who talks with KGO's Ed and Jen on the Liveline about the speech.

From the Wall Street Journal, on a USCIS officer's work in Haiti:

Dozens of times a day, Pius Bannis helps decide the fate of a Haitian orphan.

An immigration officer at the American Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Mr. Bannis is charged with determining whether orphans had been matched to U.S. families before Haiti's devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. If so, he clears them to leave for the United States.

Hundreds of Haitian children have been brought to him since the quake, some only a few months old, others in their teens. With many of the country's orphanages damaged or destroyed, Mr. Bannis often pieces together cases assembled from records extracted from the rubble.

Even before the earthquake, Haiti was home to 380,000 orphans. Americans adopted 330 of them in the fiscal year that ended last September, making Haiti the 8th-most popular country for adoption by U.S. families. After the quake, the U.S. announced a humanitarian parole policy to expedite the processing of orphans already assigned to U.S. families.

Some 500 Haitian orphans have been cleared since then. Several hundred are already in the U.S., after passing through Mr. Bannis.

It is too early to say how the immigration officer's decisions will play out in the lives of hundreds of children who will stay or leave Haiti based upon his determinations.

But the impact could be great. Inundated by cases from newly overcrowded orphanages, Mr. Bannis must stay on guard against fraud.

From Homeland Security Today, on the effects of the President's proposed spending freeze:

With the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and homeland security functions exempted from a three-year freeze on most federal spending beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2011, funding for homeland security purposes should remain strong and active.

President Barack Obama unveiled the freeze proposal in his State of the Union address last night. However, details of the freeze were revealed to the media by Rob Nabors, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Jan. 26. In that press conference, Nabors stated that the freeze would not affect the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs or State.

The official details of the freeze won't be known until Monday when the full federal budget for FY 2011 is unveiled.

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Published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C.
Last Updated: 09/21/2018
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