beg for your life! reporter: to new york city, where the station w nbc got an exclusive look at the nypd s critical response command. hundreds of officers trained in counter-terror measures. police holding drills battling hostage takers. they re trained in counter-terrorism. they ll be briefed on intelligence every time. that means over time they ll have a context of the intelligence. reporter: in boston, preparing to host a new england thanksgiving tradition. high school football. any special event we have, we make sure that people are safe going to those venues. reporter: president obama, of course, among those trying to balance tradition and security this holiday. later this morning, as you noted, he will meet with his national security advisers that review the security situation here in the u.s. and monitor any potential threats out there. this afternoon, they ll pardon the national thanksgiving turkey with a ceremony they like to do
the new york city police department stepping up security as manhattan prepares for the massive thanksgiving day parade tomorrow. nbc s craig melvin is live in new york s times square. craig, what s the scene like there this morning? reporter: well, you know what, jose? you see a lot more folks here than you did just a couple hours ago. we ve been here since 7:00 a.m. you mentioned the thanksgiving day parade tomorrow. 3 million people expected for that. next week of course you ve got the lighting of the rockefeller center christmas tree. then believe it or not, just a few weeks after that the ball will drop here in times square as we bring in 2016. new york city police department on heightened alert, especially since what we saw happen in paris there. the critical response command, critical response command is this new unit that has been created here in new york city. hundreds of officers specially equipped, specially trained to fight terrorism. we ve seen a number of their exercises
nypd is doing. we ve had the macy s thanksgiving parade for years. it s always been a very big event. the nypd has really perfected over the years how to handle these large events and actually the most impressive version of that is when we had the pope here with 140 leaders from around the world, presidents of different countries and the president of the united states all in the course of one week and the nypd literally made it look easy. they were that good. since then we ve now added the beginning of a 500-person counterterrorism force which we call critical response command. this is a specifically trained armed force for counterterrorism activities only. you saw the drills on sunday. very impressive group of men and women in our police force who have volunteered to focus on fighting terror and they are the best of the nypd and i m really happy to say this is the best prepared city in the country to both prevent terrorism and to respond in god forbid we had any
commissioner, what extra steps are you taking? well, we re fortunate that over the past year mayor de blasio here in new york has funded us to the extent that we now have about a thousand more officers that will be focused on counterterrorism and crowd management. we have a new response group, 800 officers. we have a new critical response command, over 500 officers. they will be out at that parade. for a change we ll have great weather, low wind, the balloons will be up. we re expecting about three million people to be in new york city for that event. it s going to be a great event and it will be a safe and secure event. secretary johnson, we ve had a heated debate about the syrian refugee issue, but there talking with law enforcement officials, you hear that if congress did anything, you d like them focus on the visa waiver issue. explain. is it easier for an isis operative to get into this country to get a visa than it is
commissioner, what extra steps are you taking? well, we re fortunate that over the past year mayor de blasio here in new york has funded us to the extent that we now have about a thousand more officers that will be focused on counterterrorism and crowd management. we have a new response group, 800 officers. we have a new critical response command, over 500 officers. they will be out at that parade. for a change we ll have great weather, low wind, the balloons will be up. we re expecting about three million people to be in new york city for that event. it s going to be a great event and it will be a safe and secure event. secretary johnson, we ve had a heated debate about the syrian refugee issue, but there talking with law enforcement officials, you hear that if congress did anything, you d like them focus on the visa waiver issue. explain. is it easier for an isis operative to get into this country to get a visa than it is for the refugee process?