Summary: The Government Accountability Office reports that just 32 miles of the nearly 4,000-mile U.S. border with Canada is adequately secured, according to an assessment by the Border Patrol. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 1, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a female suicide bomber walking among Shiite pilgrims in northern Baghdad detonated an explosives belt, killing at least 54 people and wounding around 117.

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Summary: In a matter of weeks, with a new Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Congress will go from trying to put illegal aliens on a path to citizenship to debating whether children born to parents who are in the country illegally should continue to enjoy automatic U.S. citizenship. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 26, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. agencies were looking into whether al-Qaida extremists in Yemen directed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and provided him with the explosives used in the failed bombing of Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit.

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Summary: The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, anti-government conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 3, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that according to some economists, a Depression doesn’t have to be Great, with bread lines, rampant unemployment, and a wipeout in the stock market; the economy can sink into a milder depression — the kind spelled with a lowercase “d” — and it may be happening now.

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Summary: The Obama administration will allow Haitians who were in the United States illegally prior to the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake to remain in the country for 18 months under temporary protected status. Some critics oppose temporary protected status because of its potential to turn into a de facto backdoor to amnesty. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 15, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that British foreign secretary David Miliband said the phrase “war on terror” — though capturing the urgency of the situation immediately following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — is ultimately “misleading and mistaken,” because it gives the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

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Summary: According to a November 2009 Anti-Defamation League Special Report titled “Rage Grows in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies,” a wave of anti-government hostility has swept across the United States since the election of Barack Obama as president, creating a climate of fervor and activism with manifestations ranging from incivility in public forums to acts of intimidation and violence. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 19, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), at a November 2008 forum at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, leveled harsh criticism at the GOP, the lack of intellectual curiosity among some Republican members of Congress, the Bush administration’s handling of nearly every aspect of governance, and the conservative radio voices that dictate the GOP agenda.

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The terrorism threat to the United States over the next five years will be driven by instability in the Middle East and Africa, persistent challenges to border security, and increasing Internet savvy — with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear [CBRN] attacks considered the most dangerous threats — according to a Homeland Security Threat Assessment for the years 2008-2013.

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