With security like this...

From the Daily News:

Airline and security officials at Kennedy Airport let 150 passengers arriving from an international flight leave the airport without going through customs, the Daily News has learned.

American Airlines Flight 1671 arrived at JFK from Cancun, Mexico, at 8:50 p.m. Friday.

When the plane landed, passengers walked out of the airport without having their passports or bags checked by Customs and Border Protection, sources told The News.

A source familiar with the matter said passengers disembarking the plane “just followed” a gate agent. The security snafu came just two days after ISIS released a video threatening New York City with a terrorist attack.

Surge in illegal aliens crossing the border

From the LA Times:

The number of children and teenagers traveling alone from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador is expected to reach up to 90,000 across the Southwest border by the end of the year, along with a surge of families with children seeking safe passage into the U.S.

Detentions along this stretch of the river have gone from up to 50 immigrants a week to as many as 300. On Tuesday night, constables captured 100, on Monday nearly 200. Authorities are comparing the onslaught of homeless detainees to the displacements brought by Hurricane Katrina.

Children detained by immigration authorities are supposed to be held a maximum of 72 hours, then moved to temporary shelters, where they spend about a month on average before being placed with relatives or sponsors while their immigration cases are pending.

But senior Obama administration officials who briefed reporters this week acknowledged that they haven't been able to meet the 72-hour requirement: There is simply not enough staff to process all the new arrivals.

Once they are processed, the Border Patrol has been flying many families to other states and releasing them en masse at bus stations with notices to appear in immigration courts at their destinations.

Let me guess...they're bound for JFK?

Did spy shop peddle phony DOT placards?

From the Daily News:

The feds have uncovered something other than cloak-and-dagger stuff going on at the Queens Spy Shop.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted a shipment of 1,000 counterfeit hologram logos for New York City Department of Transportation parking permits sent from India to the East Elmhurst store, which sells high-tech surveillance equipment. DOT issues only about 500 legitimate permits.

An airway bill which described the contents of the shipment only halfway truthfully as "plastic pouches" didn't fool the agents who made the seizure on Aug. 18 at Kennedy Airport, according to a search warrant affidavit unsealed Thursday in Brooklyn Federal Court.

The counterfeit items were indeed clear plastic sleeves with the official-looking DOT hologram embossed on the surface and is used as a cover for the parking permit which authorizes employees to parking just about anywhere in the city.

The Queens Spy Shop on Astoria Blvd. is not an authorized vendor of the parking pass, Homeland Security special agent Rosanna Licitra stated in the affidavit.

"There is probable cause to believe that the (Queens Spy Shop) manufactures counterfeit NYCDOT permit parking passes," which makes it a federal crime to traffic in goods using a counterfeit mark, the agent stated.

The spy shop is operated by Jonel Van Demark who was charged by Manhattan federal prosecutors with bank fraud last July.

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.

Queens company selling dog fur products

From CBS 2:

The Humane Society is sounding the alarm on what it said is a highly disturbing investigation involving dogs.

The organization found that dog fur is being used in products ordered online, although it’s illegal, and is worried that the cruelty behind the products may be more widespread than anyone knows.

Patrick Kwan of The Humane Society led a two-year investigation into the sale of dog fur. Acting on a tip, the society ordered items online from a Queens company.

Lab analysis confirmed that the fur came from a dog, even though dog-fur use has been outlawed since 2000.

Khapra beetle is no joke

From the Daily News:

[The Khapra beetle] might not look like much, but the pest could wreak agricultural and economic havoc if allowed to infiltrate the U.S.

Native to India, it's considered one of the 100 worst invasive species worldwide and can destroy grains, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In just the first four months of this year, agents intercepted the beetle 44 times at U.S. ports - more than in all of last year.

The importer is given the choice of having the cargo returned or destroyed.

The beetle was first discovered on our shores in 1953 and the government spent $15 million to eradicate it, according to experts at the University of Florida.