Free Republic

On Wednesday, a Charlotte, NC man and woman -- illegally residing in the U.S. -- were charged in federal court with conspiracy to kidnap two children in Mecklenburg County, NC in 2009, according to reports obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. According to the indictment, Ruben Garcia-Rosario, 25, and Linda Gonzalez, 21, aided and abetted one another in the attempted kidnapping through the use of cellular telephones and a motor vehicle. Garcia-Rosario is also charged in three additional counts alleging possession of a firearm by...

Arrests of illegal immigrant workers have dropped precipitously under President Obama, according to figures released Wednesday. Criminal arrests, administrative arrests, indictments and convictions of illegal immigrants at work sites all fell by more than 50 percent from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009. The figures show that Mr. Obama has made good on his pledge to shift enforcement away from going after illegal immigrant workers themselves - but at the expense of Americans' jobs, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the Republican who compiled the numbers from the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Mr. Smith,...

John McCain's problems inside his own party were hardly overcome by his place as its nominee, Rasmussen reports. The new poll shows McCain up just two points, 45% to 43%, in a hypothetical contest with former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, now a popular local radio talker, who's mulling a bid.

This interview is the fifth installment of an on going series of conversations with the former Congressman and 2008 presidential candidate. It appears that the extended Idaho retirement vacation is coming to an end. Hunter and his wife Lynne were on the road, driving south through the Beehive State with the ultimate destination of their home in El Cajon, CA. Once again, we used the conference call service that allowed several of us to partake in this unique opportunity to query the man who is perhaps the most solid and consistent conservative legislator to have served our nation in modern...

We guess immigration is never not an issue, even in putting terrorists on trial. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee today are demanding to know the immigration status of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other 9/11 plotters, should they be brought to the United States to stand trial. Their fear is that KSM and his henchmen might seek asylum under immigration laws, setting all kinds of worrisome precedents. “As you can imagine, even if they are not ultimately eligible for relief, terrorist detainees may seek legal rights under our immigration laws or assert such rights in federal court, thereby setting a...

Immigration: For illegal immigrants, the good times are back. Workplace raids have been halved, and easily fudged paperwork audits are up. Make no mistake, this is a politically driven precursor to amnesty. How times change. In 2007, an outraged public made itself heard to politicians by saying "enough" to policies that produced 12 million illegals in the U.S. It sank the bipartisan 2007 immigration bill, dismissing it as "amnesty," and demanded enforcement of the law. The result rocked the country. Arrests picked up, and President Bush took on the politically tough task of telling immigrants that reform was off the...

Few issues have caused as much of a stir this year as the question of whether illegal immigrants will be included in the Democratic healthcare bill. Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" outburst after President Obama stated in September that illegal immigrants wouldn't be covered is one example of the tension. Eighty percent of Americans are loath to subsidize illegal immigrants according to a June 2009 Rasmussen poll. But there's something that might help solve part of the problem, a campaign by Mexican officials to improve the state of healthcare in their own country. Mexico's healthcare system is corrupt, unwieldy, and...

Trouble for McCain in 2010? By Tony Romm - 11/20/09 09:21 AM ET A new poll perhaps foretells of a tough primary fight for Arizona Sen. John McCain (R). In a hypothetical match-up against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who is reportedly considering a 2010 bid, McCain holds only a two-point lead, besting his potential opponent 45 percent to his 43 percent, according to Rasmussen. That means Hayworth is already polling within the margin of error -- a tough spot for any incumbent to be in, especially one who formerly won his party's presidential nomination. Nevertheless, Rasmussen is quick to point...

November 20, 2009 -- Chicago-Rosanna Pulido, staunch defender for unemployed American citizens in her district, expressed outrage this afternoon at Luis Guterriez's Amnesty reform bill, to be introduced some time this month. "With unemployment in Illinois at 10% and rising, our nation's legal law abiding citizens do not need more competition for jobs", Rosanna said. "It is irresponsible public policy". 53 rallies have been held across the country this week protesting the Obama administration's amnesty for undocumented immigrants already living in the United States, along with a promise of tougher enforcement and a streamlined legal immigration system. In other countries,...

A federal judge in Pittsburgh on Tuesday sentenced an illegal immigrant to time served in jail for his 10th illegal entry into the country. Uziel Jesus Lopez-Jiminez, 28, of Mexico has been deported nine other times between 1998 and 2007, prosecutors said. He was last deported in March, re-entered the country in May or June and was arrested in Beaver County on Aug. 16.

The FBI is worried a group linked to al-Qaeda is training up a new generation of terrorists. They're thought to be targeting young Somali immigrants, radicalising them to carry out attacks on their home country and possibly the US in the future. The grey high rise flats in Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis, are clustered together and are home to hundreds of Somali immigrants. It's not clear why teenagers like these are giving up their comfortable lives in America and returning to their war torn homeland. But over the past three years, authorities believe 20 young Somali men have gone back to fight...

Marine Corporal Brian Mathews was home on a three-day leave for the 2006 Thanksgiving holiday. He had finished an eight-month tour of duty in Iraq and was planning to leave the military in June, 2007. Corporal Mathews, 21 years old, had enlisted in the Marines on his 17th birthday. Brian’s mom, Trudy, had been worried about her son’s decision to enlist. This trip home was a rare moment of peace for her. “He felt on top of his world,” Mrs. Mathews said. “He was real happy. Very, very happy.” Brian told his mom how Southwest Airlines had let him board...

A story was just released by 10News.com that really upset me. It concerns "a desolate corner of San Diego County" that is "so dangerous 10News crews had to put on bulletproof vests before entering the area." "The violence in this area is so bad that a 12-year-old was raped to death." This kind of news make me sick. It makes me angry. And makes me wonder what can we do to stop it. News10 reports "They're ruthless; they'll come over here, they'll pick one out that they want, they drag her off onto the rocks, they'll rape her and they...

From a group calling themselves Electronic Civil Disobedience comes the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a simple mobile application intended to aid and abet border-crossers from Mexico to the United States by mapping the safest routes to take. This GPS app is built to work on the cheapest cell phones available. It brings to mind every petty-but-illegal transgression the casual user could commit and stretches the boundaries of the permissibility of tech's uses for plausibly illegal means. The next time you use P2P or bit torrent clients to download media or use an iPhone app to detect police radars, think about this...

EDITORIAL November 16, 2009 There are 16 million children in immigrant families in the United States, one of the fastest-growing segments of the population. It’s an old American story made new (snip) when waves of human displacement in recent decades have led to immigration on a scale not seen since Ellis Island. But a country that has been so good for so long at integrating new Americans is stumbling under the challenge. That is the conclusion of Professors Marcelo and Carola Suárez-Orozco, fellows at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and co-directors of immigration studies at New York University....

More than 50 Anti-Amnesty tea party rallies were held across the nation this past weekend. The events were put together by Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC), but NumbersUSA played a role in the events held in Alexandria, Va. and Pasadena, Calif. High unemployment rates, overpopulation, and declining public services motivated grassroots activists to attend one of the many tea parties. In Alexandria, protesters stood outside of Rep. Jim Moran's (D-Va.) district office, fighting against any amnesty plans from Congress. "If the situation continues as it is, we are powerless unless we speak out like this," an attendee said. "Cut off...

There is a battle brewing in California, should we count only those who are citizens, or should we count everyone that resides inside of the Glden State. So ponder this. When we take the census in 2010 should we be counting everybody or just U.S. citizens? There are non-citizens and illegal aliens in this country. What have we done in the past and why is it important? First of all just in California if we excluded counting non-citizens we would lose 5 House seats in Congress. Exclude counting illegal immigrants we would lose an additional 2 seats. In 1990 California...

The writer of a letter to the editor recently asked: Whose side is the Chamber [of Commerce] on – American citizens or illegal immigrants? That's actually a very good question. For example, if the U.S., state and local Chambers of Commerce were on the side of American citizens they would protect Americans from job related felonies, including illegal alien driven identity theft, which accounts for 15 percent of total identity theft and directly impacts over a million kids in Arizona and 50,000 more in Utah. They would do everything possible to ensure that unemployed American workers are given priority for...

In the battle on the U.S.-Mexico border, the fight against illegal immigration often loses out to environmental laws that have blocked construction of parts of the "virtual fence" and that threaten to create places where agents can't easily track illegal immigrants. Documents obtained by Rep. Rob Bishop and shared with The Washington Times show National Park Service staffers have tried to stop the U.S. Border Patrol from placing some towers associated with the virtual fence, known as the Secure Border Initiative or SBInet, on wilderness lands in parks along the border. In a remarkably candid letter to members of Congress,...

The Texas Department of Public Safety is warning parents across the state that violent Mexican cartels and transnational gangs are actively recruiting Texas youngsters in schools and communities. These criminal organizations are luring teens with the prospect of cars, money and notoriety, and promise them that if they are arrested, they will receive light sentences. The gangs are responsible for massive drug deals and related slayings, and authorities say that they will often use youths in their crimes because juveniles are typically treated with more leniency by the criminal justice system.

El Universal (Mexico City) 11/13/09 UN idea rejected A number of business organizations in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, have called for a United Nations peace force to come to their city to quell the violence of narco-traffic and other organized crime activities, but President Calderón today rejected that possibility or any other involving foreign intervention. In his statement, Calderón said, “Clearly, it is not a case that requires it. Mexico would not accept the presence or any foreign intervention in the country, for these are matters of internal security.” —- Another tunnel found in Baja California An anonymous tip to Baja...

This news story gets more interesting by the minute. You should be seeing this on the news pretty soon. If not, it may not fit the liberal media’s narrative. What you see in this video is a TEA Party protester holding a video camera on a mono-pod moving in to mingle with the ANSWER amnesty crowd . Within seconds, a bald guy in a black tank-top moves in -- while the guy is leaving -- and starts taking swings to the head. This video is different since it is not at night and the video does not just cover the...

The Episcopal Church is joining the Interfaith Immigration Coalition postcard campaign, aimed at sending a holiday message to members of the U.S. Congress. The message: "Help keep immigrant families together by supporting comprehensive immigration reform now." An action alert from the Episcopal Public Policy Network (EPPN) said its goal is to collect 10,000 signed postcards "and send a strong message to Congress that people of faith want to see action on comprehensive immigration reform." "Your participation in the Holiday Postcard campaign will help us remind Members of Congress that our broken immigration system is hurting immigrant families, and needs to...

We are beginning to see way too many echoes of the 1930s, as national socialist and Marxian socialist thugs try to drive competing political views off the streets. The worst offenders so far have been the Service Employees' International Union, which has repeatedly sent its members out into the streets to beat up anyone who isn't toeing the Obama line on issues like socialized medicine. (Video at link)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats and Republicans in Congress are working together to craft an immigration reform bill that could become law as early as next year, a senior White House adviser said on Sunday. That legislation could create a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the United States, David Axelrod, senior advisory to President Barak Obama, told CNN's State of the Union with John King. "I think some good work is being done on both sides of the aisle to achieve that," Axelrod said, referring to the partisan divide on Capitol Hill.

This video depicts an attack by ANSWER and the SEIU on tea party protesters in Florida protesting the Amnesty bill and Obamacare.

Law Firm's Scam Reopens Hundreds Of Asylum Cases Stephen Magagnini Nov. 16, 2009 For years, Sacramento's Sekhon & Sekhon law firm was renowned as a beacon of hope. The firm, boasting a 95 percent success rate, helped more than 1,000 immigrants from a half-dozen nations get political asylum in the United States based on a fear of persecution. Many of those new Americans now stand to be deported, because as many as 700 – coached by the firm's lawyers and interpreters – told phony stories of torture and rape to immigration judges and asylum officers. In June, following a three-month...

During the best of the times, Miguel Salcedo’s son, an illegal immigrant in San Diego, would be sending home hundreds of dollars a month to support his struggling family in Mexico. But at times like these, with the American economy out of whack and his son out of work, Mr. Salcedo finds himself doing what he never imagined he would have to do: wiring pesos north. ==snip== Still, poverty is a relative concept. It is easier to get by on little in Mexico, especially in rural areas, allowing the poor to help the even more precarious.

Dobbs got $8M to quit CNN 'wanted him out' CNN was so sick of Lou Dobbs, it gave him an $8 million severance package to leave, The Post has learned. "They wanted him out," according to a source. Dobbs, who a source said had a year and a half to go on his $12 million contract, shocked viewers last Wednesday by announcing he was quitting. CNN boss Jonathan Klein and Dobbs, 64, had been publicly feuding over the kind of reporting Dobbs was doing on his show -- especially stories about illegal immigration and the anti-Obama "birther" movement, which contends...

Obama's senior advisor said today that a plan to grant citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S. is in the works and could be made law as early as next year. On CNN's "State of the Union" with John King, the White House's David Axelrod dodged a question asking him to commit to pushing immigration reform regardless of the political climate, but nonetheless confirmed earlier hints by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano that Democrats and Republicans are working behind the scenes to pass major new legislation. "I think some good work is being done on both sides...

The TERRY ANDERSON SHOW.. Articulating the Popular Rage! A warrior in the fight against illegal immigration and those who promote it for over a decade! From the streets of Los Angeles to the halls of congress, Terry has been there. No one has the passion and common sense of Terry Anderson...He is A MUST listen! The BEST one hour of radio you'll find anywhere. Sunday Nights- Listen on the radio! 12-1 AM EDT, 11-12 PM CDT, 10-11 PM MDT, 9-10 PM PDT KRLA - 870 AM - Los Angeles -- KDWN - 720 - Las Vegas -- KFNX - 1100...

From the WSJ: "Immigrant Bill Is Back on Table Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called Friday for Congress to consider an overhaul of immigration law early next year, a move that could rekindle a divisive debate during an election year. Ms. Napolitano said the immigration landscape has changed sharply since 2007, when attempts at a comprehensive overhaul failed because many members of Congress lacked confidence in the government's ability to enforce existing laws, she said. Immigration overhauls backed by the Bush administration and some congressional leaders from both parties foundered in part because critics portrayed them as rewarding illegal immigrants...

"Let me emphasize this: we will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows," she said, adding that the recession-hit economy would be strengthened "as these immigrants become full-paying taxpayers." "I've been dealing hands-on with immigration issues since 1993, so trust me: I know a major shift when I see one, and what I have seen makes reform far more attainable this time around," Napolitano said.

On Wednesday, police in Brewster, New York arrested a 24-year-old illegal alien for molesting an 8-year-old boy. The abuse was discovered during an October 30 medical exam by the boy’s pediatrician. The little boy told his doctor that Mendez-Depaz was responsible. Nelson Mendez-Depaz has been charged with first-degree sexual abuse, and is being held in the Putnam County Jail without bail. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has also placed a retainer on the suspect. The following facts help illustrate the growing epidemic of child molestation being committed by illegal aliens: -Deborah Schurman-Kauflin Ph.D. of the Violent Crimes Institute reports that the...

Hundreds of defendants awaiting trial for violent crimes in Dallas County have been deported by federal immigration officials and then set free in their home countries. The practice goes back to at least 1991 and includes the release of murder, kidnapping and child rape suspects. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say they're required to deport illegal immigrants quickly but are now in talks with local agencies who are trying to resolve the problem. Across Texas and the nation, defendants post bail and are immediately taken to immigration facilities, where they volunteer to be deported. Just how often this happens...

Thursday, 11/12/09 La Hora (Quito, Ecuador) 11/11/09 Ecuador asks U.S. for immigration reform The issues of security, commerce and immigration between the United States and Ecuador were dealt with at the U.S. Department of State when a 25 person delegation, including Luis Gallegos, the Ecuadoran Ambassador to the U.S., met with Thomas Shannon, U.S. Undersecretary for Latin America. The Ecuadoran delegation, headed by Jorge Orbe, the Sub-Secretary for Bilateral Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Relations, Commerce and Integration, also brought out the problems which concern the two million Ecuadorans estimated to be residing in the United States. Ambassador Gallegos...

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo appears to be inching closer to getting into the Colorado gubernatorial race. While he has yet to formally declare his candidacy or fill out paperwork with the secretary of state's office, the Littleton Republican on Thursday told a Westword reporter he "fully intends to run."

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – An American anti-kidnapping expert who was himself abducted last week in northern Mexico was likely snatched by drug traffickers seeking to protect their turf, police said on Tuesday. Gunmen hauled Felix Batista into a white SUV outside a restaurant last week in the relatively safe industrial city of Saltillo in Coahuila state, where he was giving seminars on security to police and business people. Batista, a Cuban-American from Miami who is credited with negotiating the release of people abducted by Colombian rebels, was snatched when he stepped outside the restaurant after answering a cell phone call,...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the White House point person on immigration, said Friday that Congress must provide temporary worker programs and a path to citizenship for 12 million undocumented workers when it takes up reform legislation next year. Napolitano was optimistic a reform bill could pass in an election year because border security goals have been met and the economic downturn has decreased illegal immigration significantly since a bipartisan bill died in the Senate two years ago. "I know a major shift when I see one, and what I have seen makes reform far more attainable this time around,"...

The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.

I was thinking about the warning shots fired by Napolitano to say the border was more secure despite thousands of gang, drug and human trafficking deaths in both the US and Mexico and then began to ponder Lou Dobbs' sudden resignation. Dobbs made his announcement to the chagrin of the Open Borders crowd (LULAC, MeCHA, Hispanic Congressional Caucus, La Raza, et al) but in less than 24 hours after his announcement, Janet Napolitano announced that Amnesty for illegals was back on the President's agenda. Dobbs was one of the most outspoken media voices against the runaway fiscal, cultural and criminal...

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday that providing some kind of legal citizenship pathway and status to illegal immigrants -- which critics say is amnesty -- is key to U.S. national security. “We will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows,” Napolitano said in a speech Friday to the liberal advocacy group Center for American Progress. Napolitano said the Obama administration favors immigration reforms that include pathways for the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. to gain legal status. That includes paying back...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday that the Obama administration will push for “immigration reform” by giving the estimated 14 million people who are in the United States illegally “fair pathway to earned legal status.” “A tough and fair pathway to earned legal status will mandate that illegal immigrants meet a number of requirements—including registering, paying a fine, passing a criminal background check, fully paying all taxes and learning English,” Napolitano said Friday at a panel discussion at the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. “These are substantial requirements that will make sure this population gets right...

This afternoon Department of Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano announced that President Obama Plans push for “immigration reform” by giving the estimated 14 million people who are in the United States illegally “fair pathway to earned legal status.” in other words to give Amnesty to Illegal Aliens so Obama can get 14 million new voters and the unions that bankroll him can get millions of new members . “A tough and fair pathway to earned legal status will mandate that illegal immigrants meet a number of requirements—including registering, paying a fine, passing a criminal background check, fully paying all taxes...

The Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force just released a report which claims that due to tougher laws and a concerted effort by law enforcement, many illegal alien gangs are leaving Virginia for the safe havens of Maryland. The report said: "Many gang members from Northern Virginia are moving or driving to Prince George's and other Maryland counties, into the District of Columbia or further south and west into Virginia to avoid dealing with police departments that are unrelenting in their efforts to keep gangs under control.” The report also found that there are 5,000 gang members in Northern Va.,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration has met many of the border security benchmarks Congress set in 2007 as a prerequisite to immigration reform and now it's time to change the law, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday. Napolitano, designated by President Barack Obama to lead the administration's immigration reform efforts, said many members of Congress had said they could support immigration reform, but only after border security improved, Napolitano said. "Fast forward to today, and many of the benchmarks these members of Congress set in 2007 have been met," she said in a speech to the Center for...

The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in legislation to overhaul the immigration system that it will begin to push early next year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday. In an address at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano sought to dispel any notion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — might postpone the most contentious piece of an immigration overhaul until after midterm elections next November. Laying out the administration’s...

Group also wants overhaul of Mexican border agencies A binational task force on U.S.-Mexico border issues will call Friday on the Obama administration and Congress to reinstate an expired ban on assault weapons and for Mexico to overhaul its frontier police and customs agencies to mirror the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The recommendations are among a broad set of security, trade, development and environmental proposals that come as President Obama and his Mexicans counterpart, Felipe Calderón, move to deepen engagement on issues including economic recovery, climate change, illegal immigration and narcotics trafficking. Robert C. Bonner, the U.S. co-chairman of...

Few words have been more popular in recent years than "diversity." And few concepts have been more destructive. Destructive of our social fabric, destructive of our moral well-being, destructive of our ability to make judgments. In schools, non-profits and government programs across the nation, diversity has been held up as a great and noble prize. Some objective to be fought for and given prominence. It has become the top priority in institutions from colleges to corporations. And it has become a philosphy handed down like the word of god from the pulpits of education, business and government. And yet it...

Federal program checks fingerprints of local crime suspects D.C. police will be the next department to take part in a federal program whose ultimate aim is to check the immigration status of every person booked into a local jail, homeland security officials announced Thursday. The program, known as Secure Communities, matches inmates' fingerprints against a federal database so that federal authorities can identify and possibly remove deportable illegal immigrants before they are released from custody. Similar checks are done at all 1,200 federal and state prisons. But authorities have lacked the ability to do them across the nation's 3,100 local...