Standstill On DHS Funding Continues After Judge Halts Obama Immigration Actions

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration have been halted temporarily, thanks to a preliminary injunction issued late Monday by a federal district court judge in Texas.

The order doesn't appear to have shaken congressional Republicans' commitment to gutting the immigration policies as part of a funding package for the Department of Homeland Security. Should Obama and Democrats keep their promises to block the Republicans' package, DHS could shut down on Feb. 27.

If anything, the order seems to be making Republicans dig in their heels.

How will Boston bombings change U.S. homeland security? Experts don't anticipate increased security

Nothing like the security changes in the United States that followed the Sept. 11 attacks are expected because of the Boston Marathon attack, according to experts contacted by CBC News.

"It's not 9/11," Steven MacMartin, a former senior special agent with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said, and "you're not going to see the kind of changes you saw after 9/11."

Homeland Security Bill 2012: House Passes $46 Billion Measure Containing Anti-Abortion Rider

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Homeland Security spending bill approved by the GOP-led House on Thursday includes a provision to bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement from providing abortions for illegal immigrant detainees.

The measure, proposed by Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., would block ICE from using agency funding to provide abortion services for detainees except in the case of rape, incest or if there life of the mother would be endangered.

The provision was attached to a $46 billion Homeland Security spending bill approved on a party-line 234-182 vote. It has little chance of surviving in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Is Homeland Security spending paying off?

On the edge of the Nebraska sand hills is Lake McConaughy, a 22-mile-long reservoir that in summer becomes a magnet for Winnebagos, fishermen and kite sailors. But officials here in Keith County, population 8,370, imagined this scene: an Al Qaeda sleeper cell hitching explosives onto a ski boat and plowing into the dam at the head of the lake.

The federal Department of Homeland Security gave the county $42,000 to buy state-of-the-art dive gear, including full-face masks, underwater lights and radios, and a Zodiac boat with side-scan sonar capable of mapping wide areas of the lake floor.

Up on the lonely prairie, Cherry County, population 6,148, got thousands of federal dollars for cattle nose leads, halters and electric prods -- in case terrorists decided to mount biological warfare against cows.