U.S. Rep. David Price will have port safety on his mind next spring when he holds new congressional hearings on Homeland Security spending.

Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, recently returned from Hong Kong, where the Department of Homeland Security is testing a program to do 100 percent screening of cargo bound for the United States, Barb Barrett reports.

The program, called the Secure Freight Initiative, aims to see whether it’s affordable and feasible to test 100 percent of incoming cargo for nuclear material. This is important because nuclear material is one of the most feared illegal imports by federal officials. Many want screening to take place overseas, before cargo gets close to U.S. shores.

Some officials are pushing to screen all cargo going into the United States; others want a more affordable option of using random or targeted sampling on which cargo to screen.

"It doesn’t mean the issue is fully settled on how we’re going to do this," Price said in an interview. "We’re still figuring out how to do this in a way that protects the country and in a way that we can manage and afford. A visit like this gives you a reality check."

Price is chairman of the House spending subcommitte on Homeland Security and led a congressional delegation to Hong Kong, Vietnam and the Phillippines. He said port security will be a chief focus in the new Congress next spring.

North Carolina has two ports welcoming international cargo, located in Morehead City and Wilmington.

In the Phillippines, congressional leaders talked with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and other officials about how that country is handling an insurgency and a group of extreme radical Islamic terrorist groups, Price said.

In Vietnam, the group met with a former American prisoner of war. They also talked with officials there about a pending agreement between the United States and Vietnam on international adoptions.

U.S. Rep. David Price, the man in Congress who sends money to the Department of Homeland Security, does not think we’re safer than we were Sept. 10, 2001, at least in a broad, world view.

In a speech this morning at a Washington think tank, Price repeatedly slammed the Bush administration’s foreign policies, saying President Bush squandered global good will after 9/11, punted on the Middle Eastern peace process and effectively issued a self-fulfilling prophecy with his “axis of evil” description of North Korea, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, said he does think the United States is better prepared to deal with specific threats in the wake of 9/11, Barb Barrett reports.

But, he said, “Winning ‘hearts and minds’ is no exercise in sentimentality; it is absolutely central to protecting our nation…”

Price has long advocated what he calls a “diplomatic surge,” saying the United States should focus its attention on diplomacy in the Middle East to attract and maintain allies rather than continuing the war in Iraq.

Price spoke to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive think tank in Washington, in what his staff called a major address on homeland security.

Price also listed his priorities as chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, where he is responsible for shepherding a $40 billion spending bill.

More after the jump.

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U.S. Reps. Brad Miller of Raleigh and G.K. Butterfield of Wilson wrote a letter Friday to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security asking it to answer local residents' questions about a potential biodefense lab in Butner.

Butner, in Granville County, is one of five finalists in a national competition for a new Level 4 facility to research vaccines and therapies for biological agents that could affect both livestock and humans. N.C. State University has led a consortium of local agencies in pushing for the site, Barb Barrett reports.

A handful of Level 4 labs exist across the country. Such labs use the highest security measures and house scientists that work with such agents as anthrax and avian flu.

Granville had joined in pushing for the lab, but county commissioners recently reversed their support in the face of local opposition.

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State Sen. Fred Smith wants every North Carolina sheriff to have immigration authority.

At the Republican gubernatorial debate Saturday, the state senator said every sheriff in North Carolina should be authorized under a federal program to investigate illegal immigrants in custody.

Under federal law, immigration enforcement is handled by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, while local police respond only to crime.

Under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1996, local law enforcement agencies can be granted authority to handle immigration.

That can mean that they check the immigration status of inmates at the county jail and help deport illegal immigrants who have been arrested.

In North Carolina, Mecklenburg, Alamance and Gaston counties are participating in the program. Sheriffs in Buncombe and Henderson counties are in a trial period. 

Undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic violence now can get protected status from deportation.

The Department of Homeland Security issued rules on the new U visa, which offers victims temporary legal status in exchange for cooperating with police on prosecuting their abuser, Barb Barrett reports.

But the new visa comes seven years after Congress first authorized it, and then only after U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, warned that he would pull funding from the agency’s new headquarters. Price said as much in the report his Homeland Security funding subcommittee wrote the agency earlier this year.

"To encourage speedy progress on this issue, the Committee has withheld from obligation any funds for the Department’s headquarters projects until the U– Visa rule is published," the report said.

Today, Price said he was pleased with the results.

"This is good news for victims of domestic violence and for their tireless advocates who have been working to make the U Visa a reality," he said in a release. "Safety and justice for crime victims should never take a back seat to a victim's fear of deportation. This new visa program upholds the right priorities for a compassionate society."