Our nation has been is disarray, ever since the World Trade Center attacks.  We have constantly been living in fear of what could happen next, we are in a war that the majority of the nation doesn’t agree with.  We are entering a time of change, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are afraid that other terrorist attacks could happen.  The Department of Homeland Security was developed after the attacks on the World Trade Center to help stop various terrorist attacks and keep the American public safe.

There are various duties the Department of Homeland Security are involved in.  They are to respond to terrorist attacks and natural disasters to provide police, medical and other emergency personal and services.  They are also involved in protecting the border from illegal immigrants. They also deal with various things with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, protecting airplane transportation, protecting subway systems, bio defense, research into next generation security technologies, among other things.

Ever since the Department of Homeland Security was made, it has been under heavy criticism.

  Many people feel that they have violated many Constitutional rights both historically and textually.  Among other things they have also been under fire from minorities because they felt the department was targeting them.  People have also been concerned that the costs of the Department of Homeland security outweigh its benefits.  People argue that the whole concept it lives by is misled and hasn’t had any positive effects at all.  In this idea, many people feel that it was just created so that the American public would feel like their government was doing something to counteract what happened on September 11th.

Even with all the criticism, the Department of Homeland Security is still working, and on February 14th, 2008, they went in front of the U.S. House of Representatives to testify on budget requests.  For 2009 they hope to get a budget of $50.5 billion, a 7% increase of that for 2008. 

Department of Homeland Security has done a lot in its few years of existence and it’s no question that it will be around for a while, especially if they keep getting more funding.  With the war in Iraq seemingly never coming to an end, and American’s living in constant fear of terrorist acts and natural disasters and the immigration problem America faces, you can definitely say they still have a lot to do.