Several Republican members of the House Homeland Security Committee in the second half of June introduced four bills as part of their American Security Agenda, which is aimed at strengthening the Department of Homeland Security and its partners.
“DHS must be adequately prepared and properly resourced to combat new and evolving threats to the homeland,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), ranking member on the committee, said in a statement last Friday. “These bills make great strides to advance this goal by identifying new terror threats, combating transnational criminal organizations, staying ahead of emerging threats to our U.S. transportation, and reforming the DHS acquisition process.”
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), who chaired the committee in the last Congress, introduced the Biometric Identification Transnational Migration Alert Program (BITMAP) Authorization Act of 2019 (H.R. 3377), which would reauthorize Immigration and Customs Enforcement to share biometric and biographic data from participating countries in South and Central America about foreign nationals that may pose a threat to the U.S. before they arrive at the U.S. border.
“In the last few years alone, BITMAP has identified several hundred known or suspected terrorists in addition to criminals, drug smugglers, human traffickers, murderers, child predators, and dangerous gangs like MS-13,” McCaul said in a statement.
McCaul said Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), who was a member of the committee in the last Congress, is introducing the BITMAP bill in the Senate.
The DHS Acquisition Reform Act (H.R. 3413), introduced by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), is aimed at fine-tuning management controls and performance requirements as part of DHS’ procurement processes. He said it reauthorizes the Acquisition Review Board and outlines roles and responsibilities for each board member.
Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) introduced the Emerging Transportation Security Threats Act of 2019 (H.R. 3318), which creates a task force to analyze emerging and potential threats to transportation security and requires the Transportation Security Administration to mitigate these threats.
Finally, the Combating TCOs Act of 2019 (H.R. 3273), introduced by Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), creates interagency task forces led by DHS components and made up of international, state, local, tribal and other federal partners to find a comprehensive approach to bringing down transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) that operate across U.S. borders.