On Sept. 28 Robert Bonner announced he would retire as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP). He served for four years, first as head of US Customs, then as head of CBP after Customs was merged into the Department of Homeland Security in early 2003. (AP, Sept. 28)

Critics are meanwhile questioning the credentials of Julie L. Myers, the White House nominee for Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Myers is the niece of Gen. Richard B. Myers, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This September she married John Wood, current chief of staff for Homeland Securit Secretary Michael Chertoff. Myers previously worked as an assistant US attorney in Brooklyn and was briefly chief of staff for Chertoff when he headed the criminal division of the Department of Justice. More recently, she has been working as a special assistant in the White House handling personnel issues. (New York Times, Arizona Republic, Sept. 24)

From Immigration News Briefs, Oct. 1

See our last posts on rights abuses by US immigration authorities, and the escalating border crisis.