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National Security

National security is the capacity of the United States to defend the nation, sustain its essential systems, and preserve constitutional self-government against external and internal threats.

Biggest Threats Facing America

  1. China: U.S. defense planning treats China as the central long-term strategic military competitor, especially in the Indo-Pacific, because of its growing military power, technology ambitions, pressure around Taiwan, and coercive activity in the South China Sea.

  2. Russia: Russia remains a major threat through military aggression, cyber operations, disinformation, and broader destabilization efforts.

  3. Cyberattacks: A major cyberattack could disrupt power, communications, finance, transportation, or government operations without a conventional invasion. U.S. defense strategy explicitly includes cyber as part of integrated deterrence.

  4. Nuclear Danger: Nuclear deterrence remains central because nuclear weapons still pose the most catastrophic military risk.

  5. Information Warfare: Disinformation, propaganda, and influence operations can weaken trust, divide the public, and make a country easier to destabilize.

  6. Supply-chain Weakness: If America cannot reliably access semiconductors, energy, pharmaceuticals, critical minerals, and industrial inputs, it becomes strategically vulnerable.

  7. Major Concerns: U.S. intelligence also identifies transnational criminal organizations, illicit drug trafficking, terrorism, missile threats, and WMD threats as major homeland-security concerns.

Our Adversaries Are Increasingly Cooperating

The 2026 U.S. intelligence threat assessment warns that selective cooperation among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is strengthening the threat each poses to the United States. However, the relationships remain limited and mostly bilateral, so the danger is real but should not be overstated.

We Must

  • Keep the grid running.
  • Defend our networks.
  • Produce what we need.
  • Trust our institutions under pressure.
  • Withstand simultaneous shocks.

Our Strong Nation Must

  • Defend the homeland.
  • Deter major attacks.
  • Protect critical infrastructure.
  • Maintain a resilient military and industrial base.
  • Secure alliances.
  • Preserve constitutional self-government under stress.

A Simple Citizen Scorecard

AreaKey question
Military readinessCan the U.S. deter aggression?
Homeland defenseCan America protect its people and territory?
Cyber resilienceCan critical systems survive major attack?
Industrial capacityCan we build what we need in crisis?
Supply chainsAre we dangerously dependent on rivals?
Nuclear deterrenceIs strategic deterrence credible?
Alliance strengthWill allies stand and act together?
Technology leadershipAre we ahead in AI, cyber, space, and advanced manufacturing?
Information integrityCan the country resist disinformation and manipulation?
Institutional stabilityCan democracy function under pressure?

The Core Lesson

U.S. intelligence also identifies transnational criminal organizations, illicit drug trafficking, terrorism, missile threats, and WMD threats as major homeland-security concerns. It is about whether the United States can deter enemies, absorb shocks, defend its systems, out-produce rivals, and preserve a free constitutional society under pressure.

Sources

  • 2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community
  • 2026 National Defense Strategy
  • 2025 National Security Strategy
  • 2025 China Military Power Report.

What You Can Do

Next: Executive Summary.

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Immigration Metrics

A congressional performance dashboard that compares legislative activity and immigration-system outcomes against clear requirements: secure borders, lawful process, due process, humane treatment, workforce needs, family stability, measurable accountability, and data transparency.

Latest available local data will be shown when the JSON files are present.

Immigration Metrics Dashboard

Executive Summary

This dashboard measures whether Congress and the immigration system are producing practical, measurable results: lawful border management, timely processing, fair adjudication, workforce stability, family stability, data transparency, and due-process protection. It is designed to separate measurable performance from political noise so citizens can see where the system is working, where it is failing, and where Congress should legislate, fund, oversee, or require public reporting.

Congressional Work: This measure tracks bills, sponsorships, cosponsorships, votes, hearings, oversight, funding, and enacted laws. It is used to determine whether Congress is doing measurable work that aligns with the immigration requirements rather than relying on speeches or symbolic activity.

System Results: This measure tracks backlogs, processing speed, lawful entry, border management, integration, workforce needs, and transparency. It is used to determine whether public outcomes are improving and whether legislation is producing operational results.

Rights and Due Process: This measure tracks legal access, detention review, error correction, complaint handling, wrongful-detention risk, erroneous-removal risk, and civil-liberties safeguards. It is used to ensure enforcement performance is measured together with constitutional protection and human consequences.

System Score Summary

Overall Score—Grade—Last Refreshed—
Scored Metrics—Pending Metrics—Points Earned—
Data Quality—Info Metrics—History Points—

Top Dashboard Metrics

Metric Current Value Meaning
IssueImmigrationRequirement-based congressional and system-performance scoring.
Bills Reviewed--Bills classified to this issue by the report-card ETL.
Members Assessed--Senators and Representatives scored for measurable issue activity.
Average Grade--Average grade based on overall score for the selected filters.
Loading local dashboard data. If data files are not present yet, starter metrics will be shown.

Live Immigration System Metrics

This section adds operational immigration-system metrics to the congressional report card. Together, they show both legislative performance and practical outcomes.

Requirement Domains

Immigration performance should be measured against what the country actually needs. These domains can be connected to bill tags, budget items, hearings, agency performance data, and member report-card scoring.

Domain Requirement Metric Connection

Congressional Performance Summary

This summary focuses on legislative performance: whether Congress is doing useful work on immigration, whether that work is moving forward, and whether it aligns with the requirements.

Metric Value Meaning

Member Leaderboard

Members are scored by engagement, progress, outcome, and overall requirement alignment. This table reads local JSON exported from the report-card ETL.

Rank Member State Chamber Party Engagement Progress Outcome Overall Grade

Status of Immigration Legislation

This table summarizes where immigration-related bills are in the legislative process. A healthy Congress should show meaningful movement beyond bill introduction and referral.

Status Bucket Bills Interpretation

Scoring Method

Score Component What It Measures Evidence Examples
EngagementWhether a member did measurable work.Sponsorship, cosponsorship, votes, hearings, oversight, amendments, constituent-facing activity.
ProgressWhether legislation moved through the process.Committee action, markup, reports, calendar placement, chamber passage, conference action.
OutcomeWhether work produced enforceable results.Enacted law, funding, oversight requirements, implementation, public reporting, measurable agency change.
Requirement AlignmentWhether the action addresses the actual immigration requirements.Secure lawful entry, faster processing, due process, civil liberties, family stability, workforce needs, data transparency.
GradesA through F based on overall score.A = strong measurable action; B = useful progress; C = partial action; D = minimal useful action; F = no meaningful action or action contrary to requirements.

References and Data Sources

The dashboard should rely on official government data where available, supplemented by reputable public datasets when official recurring data are incomplete.

Source Use on Page Reference
Congress.gov API / Library of Congress Bill text, bill summaries, sponsors, cosponsors, actions, subjects, and legislative status. https://api.congress.gov/
U.S. House Clerk House roll-call votes and chamber activity when vote-level scoring is added. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes
U.S. Senate Senate roll-call votes and chamber activity when vote-level scoring is added. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/votes_new.htm
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Processing times, backlog data, naturalization, work authorization, and immigration-benefit performance metrics. https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border encounters, lawful port-of-entry measures, inadmissibility, and operational border-management context. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats
Executive Office for Immigration Review Immigration court backlog, pending cases, case completions, adjudication activity, and due-process-related court metrics. https://www.justice.gov/eoir/statistical-year-book
DHS Office of Homeland Security Statistics Immigration yearbook data, lawful permanent residence, temporary admissions, enforcement actions, and long-term trends. https://ohss.dhs.gov/
DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Civil-rights complaint handling, detention conditions oversight, civil-liberties safeguards, and due-process accountability. https://www.dhs.gov/office-civil-rights-and-civil-liberties
Local Voice to Congress JSON Website-facing exports generated by the local ETL and metrics scripts. data/issues/immigration_2025_summary.json; data/leaderboards/immigration_2025_leaderboard.json; data/metrics_current.json; data/metrics_trends.json
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Copyright © 2001-2026 Voice to Congress. All rights reserved.