NYPD, Homeland Security won't let residents watch fireworks from their own buildings

From NBC:

Residents of one apartment building in Queens say they are being barred from everything and say they are fed up. Michael George reports.

Landlord threatens to call ICE on tenants

From the Daily News:

A landlord who’s faced past allegations of tenant harassment has posted signs touting a Department of Homeland Security tip line in some of his Queens buildings, which have unnerved some tenants.

Between President Trump’s push to deport undocumented residents and a spike in immigration raids, the Bangladeshi tenants of a Zara Realty apartment building on 168th St. in Jamaica are on edge.

“It’s to scare the people,” said Abukhar Hossain, whose family has lived at the nine-story brick address for 15 years.

A recent visit showed the DHS placards posted prominently at 168th St. and at another Zara-managed building a block away on 88th Ave.

Tenants at 168th St. said the signs have been up since Zara arrived in 2014. Tenants at 88th Ave. didn’t know when they first went up.

Hossain said he couldn’t say whether the signs at 168th St. resulted in DHS activity, but noted that at least one undocumented family was among several tenants who’ve moved out since Zara Realty took over.

The USCIS agents weren't even "turned away"

Wow, this is getting better and better. Of course, most of the news media is only going to go with the scared immigrant children angle when the only one doing the scaring is the de Blasio administration and his supporting pols.

DHS issued the following statement today on @USCIS activities in New York City. pic.twitter.com/oL8VkW7x1m

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) May 15, 2017

Federal agents showing up at a school didn't cause panic. The mayor did.

Thank you to NY1, who has had the most honest reporting of all.

It's an embarrassing time to be a New Yorker.

Attack of the drones!

From WPIX:

More concerns at JFK Airport after a series of midair drone sightings, making three over the weekend.

Two separate flight over JFK spotted drones flying too close for comfort on Friday, prompting warning’s from the Department of Homeland Security that would be terrorists could use drones to attack the public. Another was spotted Sunday near the Queens hub.

The concern among security officials is the possibility that recreational drones could dangerous side of the coin is the threat to commercial jetliners.

Senator Charles Schumer over the weekend called for tough FAA rules on drones, as well as geofencing software that could prohibit a done to fly higher than 500 feet, and keep it two miles away from any airport or sensitive area.

Both of those flights landed safely without having to take evasive action on Friday, and the drone sightings are being investigated by both the Port Authority and the FAA.

Now this is comforting

From the NY Post:

One in five applications by young undocumented immigrants applying for President Obama’s “deferred action” protection has been fraudulent, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said Tuesday.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) provided no details during a congressional hearing, where Obama’s expansion of his 2012 protective order was under scrutiny.

But an aide said later that the figure had been provided by US Customs officials at a closed briefing.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson didn’t dispute the numbers.

Shot fired at Cross Bay Diner

From the Daily News:

A federal agent fired off a shot as an undercover drug operation at a Queens diner fell into chaos late Monday, authorities said.

A multi-agency narcotics task force involving Homeland Security was conducting the drug buy at a parking lot connected to the Cross Bay Diner on Cross Bay Blvd. in Howard Beach at about 11:18 p.m. when an agent fired a single round while trying to apprehend a suspect, police said.

No one was hit by the bullet. It was not immediately clear why the agent fired.

Task force members netted two suspects, officials said.

A third man, who is not believed to be armed, ran off and was still being sought early Tuesday.

Cockfighting ring busted

From the Daily News:

The chickens came home to roost Sunday for members of a bloodthirsty New York cockfighting and betting ring.

As many as 3,000 birds were seized and more than 70 people rounded up in "Operation Angry Birds," the largest cockfighting takedown and rooster rescue in state history, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.

State investigators carried out three simultaneous raids that stretching from Saturday night into Sunday morning, busting up a cockfighting event in Queens, a secret rooster coop in Brooklyn and breeding farm in upstate Ulster County.

Nine people were arrested.

The crackdown began Saturday night as Schneiderman's Organized Crime Task Force joined state police and U.S. Department of Homeland Security cops to execute a search warrant at 74-26 Jamaica Ave. in Woodhaven, Queens, where chicken-livered rooster owners, gamblers and spectators were watching birds fight to the death.

Six people who brought and fought gamecocks at the event were arrested and charged with animal fighting, a felony punishable in New York by a maximum penalty of four years in prison and a $25,000 fine.

The Woodhaven location, a two-story rowhouse with a shuttered first floor barber shop, hosted cockfights twice a month, an informant told cops, who zeroed in on the spot last May. It stank of wet bird feathers Sunday.

The unnamed informant, who made video recordings of an event for authorities in the lead-up to the takedown, admitted he bred, trained and fought roosters for roughly 10 years before turning in his non-feathered friends.

The roosters were plied with performance-enhancing drugs and fitted with razor-sharp spurs to tear each other apart in a small pen surrounded by alcohol-swilling gamblers, authorities said.

Spectators were charged admission and seating fees and booze was sold without a permit during the all-night fights. The ring even had security guards who frisked spectators and wagers reached as much as $10,000.

"I don't know what they were doing in there," said Sammy Ayala, who works down the street. "I never saw any chickens."

Bodega owners busted in WIC fraud scheme

From NBC:

Homeland Security Investigations agents and police arrested more than two dozen store owners across the city Wednesday in welfare benefit fraud schemes totaling millions of dollars, authorities said.

Law enforcement officials say that instead of providing food and necessities, store owners allegedly cashed in Woman, Infant and Children (WIC) benefits and split the money with benefit recipients.

Some store owners allegedly cashed up to 20,000 vouchers per month, taking 20 cents on the dollar, law enforcement officials said. Officials said one store on Broadway in Elmhurst, Queens, processed more than 25,000 coupons in one month.

An average store usually collects about 200 coupons a month, authorities say.

Airport security catching 40 winks on the job

From CBS New York:

Protecting some of the world’s most strategically important sites in the New York area – including the airports, bridges and the new World Trade Center and memorial site – is a matter of vital concern and large sums of money.

But as CBS 2’s Steve Langford reported, a series of stunning security blunders at John F. Kennedy International Airport in particular is raising more questions about just how secure the sites are.

The private security firm that has a big contract with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is again getting the blame for the problems.

In March, a private security guard employed by the company, FJC security, was spotted fast asleep. The company is paid hundreds of millions of dollars by the Port Authority to help protect sensitive sites such as JFK.

And the trend was not an isolated incident, said former FJC Security Manager Stephen Jackson.

“I found several there sleeping — one female at night I photographed, but I found this gentleman there twice during broad daylight,” Jackson said.

Jackson said he shot video and took photos of two security guards ostensibly watching Jamaica Bay at Kennedy Airport, when a man managed to land his jet ski at JFK, and cross two active runways, without being stopped in August of last year.

“I was told: ‘Don’t show it to me. I don’t want to see it, because if I see it, I have to deal with it,” Jackson said.

Queens native back home

From NBC:

A 26-year-old Queens man who was banned from flying without explanation while trying to return home after visiting family in Montenegro is finally back in New York.

Samir Suljovic arrived at Penn Station Monday night after spending three weeks fighting to get back to the U.S. He went to Montenegro in July, and when he tried to fly back home out of Vienna, Austria on Oct. 1, airline officials told him he couldn't board the flight, citing orders from the Department of Homeland Security.

Suljovic, who was raised in Queens and lives in Oakland Gardens, believes he was banned from flying because he's Muslim.

Traveling Queens student denied re-entry into USA

From the Daily News:

A Queens man has been trapped in Europe for the last 17 days, says a civil rights group, because his name is allegedly on the no-fly list.

Samir Suljovic, 26, first tried to fly back home to New York from Vienna, Austria, on October 1. Airline agents told the New Yorker that he could not board a return flight at the request of his own government.

On Wednesday, the New York Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) issued a statement that demands that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) allow Suljovic to return home from his current location, Germany.

Suljovic tried to contact the DHS and CBP liaison at JFK International Airport but has not received a response, says the rights group. He was advised to ask for help from the Germany's U.S. embassy. But instead of support he was allegedly interrogated and his cell phone was searched without his consent.

Suljovic, born and raised in Oakland Gardens, Queens, was attending Queensboro Community College, according to CAIR-NY’s statement. He initially traveled to Europe to visit family and friends in Montenegro.

Illegal alien recidivism rate is high

From Fox News:

Roughly one in six illegal immigrants is re-arrested on criminal charges within three years of release, according to new government data being released Tuesday.

Those charges range from murder to drunken-driving and, according to House Republicans pushing out the report, are symptoms of what they describe as a "dangerous and deadly" immigration policy.

The findings, obtained by Fox News, are contained in reports by the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee and nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. They are the result of the committee’s subpoena request for Department of Homeland Security records from October 2008 to July 2011.

The information was analyzed by the CRS, which also broke down the information for criminal immigrants -- legal immigrants who committed crimes and were arrested again over the three-year period. Together, the two groups also had a roughly one-in-six recidivism rate.

The records show 276,412 reported charges against illegal and criminal immigrants over that three-year period as identified by Secure Communities, a federal program that essentially attempts to make best use of resources by identifying and prioritizing which illegal immigrants pose the biggest threat to public safety and should be arrested or deported.

Of the 160,000 people in the database, more than 26,000 were re-arrested -- accounting for nearly 58,000 crimes and violations.

They allegedly committed nearly 8,500 drunken-driving offenses and more than 6,000 drug-related violations. The records also show major criminal offenses, which included murder, battery, rape, kidnapping and nearly 3,000 thefts. Roughly 2 percent of the crimes included carjacking, child molestation, lynching and torture, according to the 13-page Congressional Research Service report.

Illegal alien stole ID of Queens murder victim

From 1010WINS:

A top-ranking security official at Newark Liberty Airport is expected in court today after being arrested on charges he stole the identity of a murder victim to get hired.

For the past 17 years, Nigerian immigrant Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole has sailed through background checks by the Port Authority using the name Jerry Thomas, police said.

But the 54-year-old’s secret is now out thanks to an anonymous tip that led to his arrest.

Oyewole somehow obtained the birth certificate and Social Security number of Thomas, who was murdered in Queens on July 20, 1992, officials said.

Oyewole used Thomas’s identity to secure a driver’s license, security guard license, an airport ID and even credit cards, according to authorities.

At the time of his arrest Monday, Oyewole was in charge of 30 other security guards and had access to airport tarmacs and passenger plans.

Oyewole is actually an illegal Nigerian immigrant with at least four other aliases who entered the country in 1989, investigators said.

Sources tell CBS 2 authorities are concerned about the identity scam itself. They are worried the scam could have been used by thousands, including by some who might by terrorist “sleeper agents” working at critical locations throughout the country.

Feds forcing cooperation with Secure Communities program

From the Daily News:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told the NYPD and other local police departments in New York that the controversial Secure Communities program will be activated Tuesday across the state.

The program is already running — feeding fingerprint information from local police to Homeland Security through the FBI — in Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Last June, Cuomo unsuccessfully tried to pull New York from the program, which the feds initially characterized as voluntary.

Homeland Security officials now say it is mandatory.

ICE calls Secure Communities their “single most valuable tool” to find and deport dangerous criminals.

Chuck calls for crackdown on phony colleges

From CBS:

Five U.S. senators are calling for a federal crackdown on what they say are phony colleges handing out student visas to potential criminals and terrorists.

Sens. Diane Feinstein of California, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana, Bill Nelson of Florida and Charles Schumer of New York say the colleges are fronts for people who pay to illegally enter the United States.

The Democrats are calling on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Homeland Security to share information that could help identify the fake colleges.

The senators note several of the Sept. 11 terrorists entered the United States on student visas. They also cite recent incidents in California and in Florida where schools have been accused of being involved in the illegal visa scheme.

The senators will ask the federal departments to determine “high-risk factors” within 90 days and conduct site visits at schools that show a high risk factor through data — or the lack of data — that legitimate schools must provide to the federal government. The senators also seek stiffer penalties for “sham universities” that engage in student visa fraud.

Really big hole in the fence at JFK

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A Port Authority source concerned about security gave Eyewitness News the photographs showing the perimeter fence at JFK Airport in complete disrepair.

But it was only after getting an aerial view from NewsCopter 7 that the extent of damage became clear.

At least a quarter mile of the perimeter fence is down, leaving a gaping hole in security along a main JFK runway.

A memo from a Port Authority Police Officer warns "higher-ups" that "There is nothing to prevent a vessel or person" from entering the runway, and added that it is a ''severe security risk".

Sex trafficker busted at Mohegan Sun

From the NY Times:

A Queens woman suspected of involvement in a human-trafficking ring that smuggled young Korean women into the United States and forced them into prostitution in New York and elsewhere on the East Coast was arrested while gambling at a casino in Connecticut, immigration officials said Monday.

The woman, An Soon Kim, 52, had been sought by the authorities since at least August 2006, when she was named in a federal complaint describing an elaborate scheme that brought Korean women into the country using false documents and made them work as prostitutes in brothels that masqueraded as massage parlors, health spas and acupuncture clinics, officials said.

Security workers at the Mohegan Sun, a gambling and entertainment resort in Uncasville, Conn., had been on the lookout for Ms. Kim since early December, when she was featured on the television program “America’s Most Wanted” and was recognized by a casino employee, according to the Web site of The Hartford Courant, which quoted the Connecticut State Police.

On Friday, Ms. Kim returned to the resort and was arrested by immigration agents on the casino’s gambling floor, said a statement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security. She was found with $17,045, officials said.

Federal investigators first revealed details of the trafficking ring on Aug. 16, 2006, when they announced the arrest of 31 defendants. The suspects were accused of running a network of at least 19 Korean-owned brothels stretching from Washington, D.C., to Rhode Island. Among them were unnamed brothels on 59th Street and West 26th Street in Manhattan, and a spa called the “Hong Kong” in Flushing, Queens, officials said.

The businesses catered primarily to an Asian clientele, officials said, and some made tens of thousands of dollars a month.

That's not a rabbit!

From the Daily News:

Roger Levans of Queens got off a Delta Airlines flight from Georgetown, Guyana, on Dec. 29, and wrote on a Customs declaration that he was carrying food items, according to a criminal complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

"Levans was asked what kind of food items he was carrying, to which he responded 'cooked rabbit,'" Homeland Security special agent Noah Abbott said in the complaint.

Levans' three suitcases were passed through an X-ray machine and the inspectors were suspicious about what they saw.

The first two bags contained an assortment of fruits and vegetables - and no rabbit, according to the complaint.

The inspectors noted that Levans appeared "nervous and anxious" when they peeked inside the third suitcase.

Again, no rabbit - but there were three brick-shaped packages wrapped in brown masking tape. A Customs and Border Protection agent poked them, revealing three kilos of cocaine.

Levans, who was released on $100,000 bail, stated in an affidavit that he works for Guardsmark Security as a guard at Yankee Stadium.

King has tougher stance on illegal aliens

From the NY Post:

Rep. Peter King, who next week becomes chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, says he will push legislation to tighten border security and arrest more illegal aliens -- challenging what he considers to be President Obama's lax immigration policies.

"The Obama administration continues to display an obvious lack of urgency when it comes to gaining operational control of the border, which is absolutely critical," King (R-LI) said.

He said Obama has "done little" in the past two years to keep out illegal immigrants and the country needs a new strategy "that incorporates the necessary staffing, fencing and technology to do the job."

King's immigration proposals will include an aggressive crackdown on private companies that hire illegal aliens and increased federal support for local police to help arrest illegal immigrants.

These measures are near the top of a packed Homeland Security agenda that includes efforts to better combat domestic radicalization, stopping Obama's plans to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to the US for civilian trials and bolstering national cybersecurity.

The border security initiatives would be a sharp departure from the current Obama administration policy that is focused on deporting illegal aliens who commit serious crimes.

Too bad Paterson decided to go the other way.

Immigrants with criminal records being told to leave

From the Daily News:

Immigrants with criminal records who are desperate to stay in the U.S. are flooding courts across the city with pleas to have old convictions tossed, the Daily News has learned.

A revved-up effort by the feds to rid the country of ex-cons is sowing fear that a decades-old petty theft or drug-dealing case could mean a one-way ticket out of New York.

Noncitizens are bombarding judges with requests to have convictions vacated on the grounds they were never told that pleading guilty to a minor crime could lead to deportation.

Among those who have filed petitions is Carlos Sanchez, who was 17 in 1991 when he punched a man in the face and stole his parka during a fight a few blocks from his Sunnyside, Queens, home.

The following year, he pleaded guilty to attempted assault and robbery and spent 18 months in an upstate prison.

After getting out of prison, Sanchez, now 37, stayed out of trouble for 17 years - holding jobs as a welder and construction worker. He's married and has a 3-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son.

In May, the Department of Homeland Security notified him that it was seeking to send him back to Spain, which he left with his parents as a youth.