We must honor the empathy of healthcare workers, the years they have spent in training, and the attention to detail they demonstrate. While these humans toil toward healthy outcomes for their patients, they are punched, kicked, grabbed, verbally assaulted, and routinely subjected to other violent behavior.

The good news is it appears all parties want to see this happen because everyone has something to gain: revenue for government; fairness and simplification for taxpayers. That said, massive reform should be done methodically to avoid litigation and avoidable mistakes.

Tucked inside the bill that reopened the federal government late Wednesday night was language guaranteeing that border-security measures, specifically radar surveillance blimps, would continue to be funded into 2014.

A House subcommittee grilled Customs and Border Patrol agents Thursday over Southwest border security, charging that agents cannot identify which areas of the border are most dangerous.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection needs to do a better job of justifying its plans for $1.5 billion border surveillance project at the Arizona-Mexico border, according to a government report released Friday.

The National Guard began a second 90-day extension of its work along the border this weekend, a move welcomed by border officials and questioned in a recent Government Accountability Office report.

Government auditors say about 55,000 immigrants were in federal prison last year.

Technology to replace a now defunct virtual fence project at the Mexican border likely won't be fully in place for at least another decade, maybe longer, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Federal prosecutors declined 50 percent of cases from American Indian reservations over a 5-year period, and the figure is higher for sexual abuse cases, a report released Monday found.

The Homeland Security Department is close to a decision on what's next for a costly, problem-plagued "virtual fence" ordered by Congress four years ago to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border.