Posted by Richard Serino, Deputy Administrator, FEMA

Today, along with Secretary Janet Napolitano and Special Assistant to the President on Homeland Security Richard Reed, I had the pleasure of participating in the White House Champions of Change Awards Ceremony in Washington, D.C.  We honored 17 exceptional leaders in local communities across the nation who have excelled in helping to build a more resilient nation by preparing their communities for disasters. These men and women have demonstrated significant innovation and creativity in getting their communities ready for unexpected emergencies.

I had the opportunity to hear from the honorees about their experiences, ideas, and solutions, as well as their advice on how other citizens and organizations can emulate their success.  I was truly inspired by their innovative ideas on how to make their community stronger and more prepared for disasters.

For example, one of these remarkable honorees is Venus Majeski, the Director of Development & Community Relations for the New Jersey Institute for Disabilities.   She spearheaded the Alianza Emergency Preparedness Project Plus, a project designed to address the disaster readiness of people with access and functional needs, and who also live in underserved areas.  She works to ensure that all individuals are integrated into their community’s overall disaster readiness preparations.   Others took an innovative approach, such as Michael Smith, the fire chief for the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians. Chief Smith helped San Manuel develop a "Send Word Now" system which provides text messages, email and voice alerts to tribal members during emergencies.

Several of this year's honorees also distinguished themselves by involving their entire community in emergency preparedness. Herman Schaeffer, the Director of Community Outreach for the New York City Office of Emergency Management, helps oversee the New York City Citizen Corps program, which collaborated with more than 60 community organizations, government agencies, private sector organizations, and volunteer programs to promote emergency preparedness.  And Jodi Simpson, a Homeland Security Planner for the St. Clair County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, who created a robust new public preparedness campaign called, “Be Ready St. Clair County.”  They played public service announcements at local movie theaters, hosted video contests, and launched a Facebook page where residents ended up sharing information with one another during and after storms.

These are just a few outstanding examples of how any person or organization can make a different in their community’s emergency preparedness and response. And there are many more like them. Check out the full list of awardees.   The initiative and involvement of these honorees represents the role that each one of us plays in making sure that together, as a nation, we are better prepared for disasters.  And this serves as a reminder to all of us that we can make a difference in our community, whether we are in a faith-based, tribal, non-profit, private sector, or community-based organization – or even just one individual.

I hope these awardees have inspired you to take action within your own community.   Here are some easy ways to get started and get involved:

• Contact your local emergency management agency or Citizen Corps Council to get involved in your community’s planning process.
• Join a local Community Emergency Response Team to train you in basic disaster response skills so that you can help your neighbors immediately after an emergency.  
• Start a preparedness project.  Identify a need, build a team, set goals, and serve your community.  
• Know your risk, develop a disaster communications plan, and build a kit.  

For more information and ideas, visit Ready.gov.  And maybe you will be the next Champion of Change.

Posted by Secretary Napolitano

Today I joined local law enforcement and elected officials from communities along the Southwest border at the White House for a roundtable discussion on the ongoing collaboration among federal, state and local partners to keep our border communities safe and secure while facilitating legal travel and trade.

Protecting communities along our borders is vital to our homeland security and critical to our economic prosperity. Since 2009, DHS and partners across the federal government have deployed unprecedented levels of personnel, technology, and resources to the Southwest border.  The Border Patrol is better staffed today than at any time in its 87-year history with more than 18,500 agents along the Southwest border, more than double the boots on the ground a decade ago. 

The men and women of DHS work closely with our state and local partners each and every day to ensure the safety and security of our borders.  As a result, the Southwest border is safer, illegal immigration attempts are at historic lows, and we are seizing more cash, drugs, and contraband.

During the meeting, I also conveyed the Obama Administration’s support for these border communities and for communities all across America to helping police officers and first responders who are charged with the responsibility of ensuring a safe, secure and resilient homeland through the American Jobs Act. Even in a difficult economic climate where we are faced with budget cuts across the board, we cannot afford to undermine law enforcement and first responder capabilities and jeopardize public safety. That is why the American Jobs Act provides $5 billion to state and local communities to create or save thousands of police and first responder jobs.

As we discussed in our meeting today, the Southwest border is open for business.  While we continue our work securing our borders, we must also facilitate legitimate trade and travel.  Our efforts to encourage economic development support jobs in communities along the border and all across America.

Posted by Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs

This blog post is cross posted from the White House Domestic Policy Council blog.

This week, I had the pleasure to share remarks with an auditorium full of immigration professionals as they prepared to spend their day identifying ways to continue improving citizenship and immigration services provided in our nation.

As part of its increased effort to provide a forum for government and non-government stakeholders to collaborate on sometimes challenging issues, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman (Ombudsman’s Office) hosted its First Annual Conference on October 22^nd at the U.S. National Archives, a fitting location given that it is home to millions of U.S. immigration records and information.

This full-day conference facilitated dialogue between multiple federal agencies, leaders from national and community-based organizations, and over 300 government and stakeholder participants on pressing immigration services issues spanning humanitarian, employment, and family programs.

As an Administration, we are committed to doing the best possible job of administering the law and providing information and services to the people we come into contact with.   We also know that the best way to do this well is to stay in constant contact with constituents and stakeholders who can tell us frankly what’s going well and what isn’t.  The Ombudsman’s Office seeks to learn from individuals’ experiences with a federal agency – the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services – that interacts greatly with the public so that we can improve the way that they carry out their day-to-day activities. At stake is something very fundamental: the relationship between the government and the people it serves.   In preparing for the conference, I thought back to my very first memory of an interaction with the government, it was when I was very young and accompanied my mother to take her fingerprints before becoming a citizen.  It made an enormous impression on me in many ways, including my commitment to public service.  That experience is what this agency delivers, and how we do it matters.

The Ombudsman’s Office Annual Conference is one result of an increased focus by this Administration over the last two years to facilitate solution-oriented dialogue across federal agencies with stakeholders and members of the public.  USCIS has also engaged in an unprecedented amount of outreach to a variety of stakeholders that interact with their agency, through their Office of Public Engagement, which was created at the start of the Obama Administration.

Ombudsman January Contreras noted:  "What makes our work in this conference particularly valuable is that we have gathered, from across the Federal Government and non-profit and private sectors, as immigration professionals who share the same goal of continuing to improve immigration services."

Participants included federal representatives from the Department of Homeland Security's Ombudsman's Office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State.  They had thoughtful substantive discussions that will contribute mightily to the work of USCIS, and ultimately to their impact on the people we all serve.

Cecilia Muñoz is Director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. 

We announced the other day that Secretary Napolitano would sit down for live Facebook chat on aviation security. The White House posted the video for those that missed the livestream. Check it out below.

Join Secretary Janet Napolitano TODAY for a live Facebook chat – hosted by the White House – on aviation security. Secretary Napolitano is engaging with leaders around the world as part of a broad initiative to strengthen the international aviation system against the evolving threats posed by terrorists. We realize that the American public has questions about new screening measures and technology, and about how we’re working with our international partners to bolster security on flights coming to the United States from foreign countries.

Secretary Napolitano will answer your questions at 3:00 PM EST via the White House’s facebook chat application.

Watch the chat @ WhiteHouse.gov/live

Watch, discuss, and engage through Facebook

UPDATE: The Secretary will now brief from the White House today at 5:15 PM EST. You can still watch live at whitehouse.gov/live.

We mentioned it in the morning roundup, but the Secretary will participate in a briefing this afternoon at the White House with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan to discuss the report on the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack.

You can watch the briefing live on the White House’s website at 3:45 PM EST today.

We're all used to the blue bins, the green bins – you know the ones with holes exactly as big as a soda can, encouraging you to recycle rather than tossing it into the local landfill, where it would spend the next 200-500 years ever-so-slowly decomposing.

We hear it all the time: Everyone can do their part to make their homes and offices more sustainable. So recycle that can, think of the environment before printing an email, and turn your computer and lights off when you leave the office – trust me, it doesn’t make your boss think you’re still there – or finish up in the kitchen at night.

There's a bigger question here, though. What can government do? How do we make enterprise-wide changes that will conserve energy, recycle goods, and make our facilities and resources more sustainable as we plan for the future? Well, we can start by setting an example.

Last week, the President signed an Executive Order on federal sustainability. The order commits the federal government and its employees to "lead by example" - furthering a culture of sustainability by:

• establishing real greenhouse gas emission reduction targets;
• increasing energy efficiency;
• reducing vehicle fleet gas consumption;
• conserving water and reducing waste;
• and leveraging the government's purchasing power to promote more environmentally-conscience products and technologies.

So where do we begin? This week, The White House launched the GreenGov Challenge - a call to action for federal employees to get involved and submit their best ideas to make our government more sustainable. Employees can submit ideas online and vote on others. The challenge began on October 19th, and continues through the end of the month; employees can head over to the White House's site to get started. Now, while only federal employees may submit ideas, the American public is welcome to log on to view and monitor all the contributions as they are submitted.

So if you're a federal employee, get involved. We need every good idea to make this a success. Those green and blue bins are just a start.

The Secretary participated in a briefing at the White House today on H1N1 preparedness with President Obama, other cabinet secretaries, and White House officials. After the meeting, President Obama was joined by the cabinet secretaries in the Rose Garden and he talked about their meeting, which was focused on the importance of public preparation for H1N1 as we head into flu season.

President Obama:

Secretary Napolitano posted the following on the White House Blog this morning:

I just returned from Guadalajara, Mexico, where President Obama and I met with our Mexican counterparts to continue our collaboration and cooperation on a range of border issues. Today, I'm at the University of Texas at El Paso for their sixth annual Border Security Conference.

Later this morning, I will deliver remarks outlining the cohesive strategy that we've brought to our border security and immigration enforcement efforts. As someone who has been working on these issues for many years, it's clear to me that as our shared border challenges evolve, our approach must evolve as well. That is exactly what we are doing.

In the six months since President Obama's inauguration, we've instituted polices that reflect the reality that border security, enforcement of immigration laws in the interior of the country, and counter-narcotics enforcement are inextricably linked. In my remarks today I will discuss a new strategy, one that relies on simultaneously addressing all these challenges.

It's an approach that uses the laws we have in ways that are smart, tough, and effective. The UTEP speech will be streamed live at 1:15 PM EDT this afternoon and I invite you to tune in here.

Janet Napolitano is the Secretary of Homeland Security.

You can check out the live stream of the Secretary's remarks here.

At today's White House press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announced an all-day H1N1 Flu Preparedness Summit, scheduled for next Thursday, July 9th, at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C.

H1N1 now exists in over 100 countries around the world, and experts say that the virus may worsen this fall when the traditional flu season starts in the Northern Hemisphere.

Continued cooperation among all federal departments, as well as with state, local, and tribal governments and medical, academic, and business sectors (yes, all of the above) will be vital as we continue to tackle this national public health issue.

The Flu Preparedness Summit will bring government officials and health professionals, emergency managers and educators, non-profit organizations and business executives, together in one room. They'll have a forum to talk about their lessons learned from H1N1 thus far, and importantly, discuss the next steps in assessing and building on current pandemic plans.
The initial news blitz has largely subsided, but the simple fact remains that H1N1 flu is still with us. We'll keep you up-to-date on the summit, and on the department's continuing role in dealing with H1N1.

Secretary Napolitano was at the White House yesterday with the President and members of Congress working on identifying a way forward on comprehensive immigration reform. From the White House blog:

While Congressional leaders are working to tackle the complexities of immigration reform, the Administration has already taken steps to improve the system. The FBI has cleared much of the backlog of immigration background checks, the Department of Homeland Security is speeding up citizenship petitions and in conjunction with the Department of Labor, they are working to crack down on employers who are exploiting illegal workers. The President also announced a new collaborative effort that will utilize technology to improve legal immigration:

"Today I'm pleased to announce a new collaboration between my Chief Information Officer, my Chief Performance Officer, my Chief Technologies Officer and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Office to make the agency much more efficient, much more transparent, much more user-friendly than it has been in the past.

In the next 90 days, USCIS will launch a vastly improved Web site that will, for the first time ever, allow applicants to get updates on their status of their applications via e-mail and text message and online. And anybody who's dealt with families who are trying to deal with -- navigate the immigration system, this is going to save them huge amounts of time standing in line, waiting around, making phone calls, being put on hold. It's an example of some things that we can do administratively even as we're working through difficult issues surrounding comprehensive immigration.

And the idea is very simple here: We're going to leverage cutting-edge technology to reduce the unnecessary paperwork, backlogs, and the lack of transparency that's caused so many people so much heartache." --More on the White House Blog.

At the President’s direction, Secretary Napolitano will convene a group of leaders from the White House and Congress to begin identifying the way forward on comprehensive immigration reform.