Alabama's Homeland Security Steadily Losing Funds

Officials with Alabama's Department of Homeland Security say the agency has been steadily losing funds during the past decade.

The department's federal funding this year is less than one-tenth of what it was in 2003.

Department officials say state funding — $374,000 this year — is used mostly to meet the demands of Alabama's immigration law.

State-level homeland security departments sprang up across the U.S. in the months and years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Alabama was one of the first states to pass a law elevating its homeland security effort to cabinet-level status Alabama's Homeland Security Department has 13 employees.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.