Free Republic

TUCSON - A 28-year-old man accused of driving drunk and killing an 18-year-old man in an accident on the south side has been in the country illegally for years with a checkered criminal history. News 4 Tucson learned that Juan Miguel Hernandez-Rodriguez, who was arrested and booked into the Pima County Jail on Saturday, also had an immigration hold placed on him. Hernandez-Rodriguez faces four felony charges, including 2nd degree murder, after a fiery accident on 6th Avenue near the rodeo grounds. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials confirmed that Hernandez-Rodriguez is a Mexican national and was previously detained at...

Feds deny requests from 3 states to require proof-of-citizenship on voter registration forms WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The U.S. Election Assistance Commission found Friday that heightened proof-of-citizenship requirements likely would hinder eligible citizens from voting in federal elections, handing down a ruling that denied requests from Kansas, Arizona and Georgia to modify the registration form for their residents. The decision came just hours before a court-imposed deadline in a lawsuit filed in federal court by Kansas and Arizona that seeks to force the commission to modify state-specific requirements for registering to vote in those states. Georgia, which has a similar...

HOENIX (CBS5) - Arizona remains front and center in the debate over immigration, but the big news this week came from Washington D.C., when U.S. House Speaker John Boehner cast doubts on whether immigration reform will happen this year. Immigration reform activist Erica Andiola was not surprised. The undocumented immigrant and co-founder of the Dream Action Coalition has been leading the fight for change. "We want to be able to understand the politics, but at the same time it's frustrating," said Andiola. "I know they're still thinking about elections and how it will affect their party, but for us undocumented...

Reuters) - Dozens of inmates in Arizona jails run by a sheriff who has been a controversial figure in the national immigration debate have been put on a diet of bread and water for desecrating U.S. flags that hang in each cell, authorities said on Friday. Maricopa County lawman Joe Arpaio, who has been called "America's toughest sheriff," said 38 inmates were currently getting these meals twice a day as punishment for destroying government property while in custody at six jails. "These inmates have destroyed the American flag that was placed in their cells. Tearing them, writing on them, stepping...

BISBEE — The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the reported shooting death of a suspected illegal immigrant by a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carol Capas said the incident happened around 9 p.m. Thursday approximately one-half mile east of Highway 80 near Apache.The scene of the incident was about 25 miles north of the border and slightly south of Portal, she said. “Sheriff’s deputies and investigators responded to the scene and located a Hispanic male, possibly in his late 20s, who had been shot,” Capas said Friday. According to initial information that county deputies and investigators gleaned at...

A 77-year-old man who was in the home shot at the suspect with a shotgun about 3:19 a.m., said Sgt. Tommy Thompson of the Phoenix Police Department. The man told police his house had been burglarized the day before, Thompson said. The intruder, William Thomas Mackey, 30, died at the scene, Thompson said. A pickup truck he drove was found in front of the residence, but Thompson said it was not clear if Mackey was involved in the burglary the day before. "I heard some commotion with all the dogs barking," said a woman identified only as Sandi. She said...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A veteran lawman who oversees embattled police departments in Detroit and Oakland was appointed on Friday to monitor the operations of a controversial Arizona sheriff whose deputies had racially profiled Latino drivers. Robert Warshaw, a former police chief in New York and North Carolina, was appointed by a federal judge to enforce a sweeping court order against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a prominent but divisive figure in the national debate on immigration reform. A federal judge ordered Arpaio in May to stop using race when making law enforcement decisions, in response to a lawsuit that tested...

Second amendment supporters at Arizona Capitol in 2013 A recent poll from the Seattle Times ran through the blogosphere with decidedly positive results for second amendment activists.   In spite of splitting the second amendment supporters with two answers, the total came with 79% in favor of a strict reading of the second amendment (no infringements) and 18 percent in favor of the status quo.   Only 7% were for increased restrictions on second amendment rights, even worded as a "background check" measure. It appears that many people have been educated and have become more sophisticated in their understanding of the...

Jose Patiño is a 25-year-old Dreamer from Arizona who recently appeared in “The Dream is Now” documentary. I was sitting in the kitchen with my mom and her prayer group when one of her friends, Lucero, got a call about her son, Luis, who is in detention. As my mom serves us menudo (spicy Mexican stew), I ask Lucero what happened to her son. She tells me that Luis was detained after a police officer stopped him and discovered he didn’t have a driver’s license. He is now in the Eloy Detention Center. Despite having two U.S. citizen children and...

Armed Arizonans at an Anti-IRS Rally This story in Arizona follows a classic defense of others scenario.  A suspect pulls a gun and points it at an unarmed security officer.   A former Marine, 61 years old, sees the situation and pulls his own gun.  He is concerned not only for the security officer, but his wife, who has just left the store and arrived at the scene.  He orders the suspect to "freeze", but the suspect points her gun at the former Marine, who fires.  The suspect and confederate then flee the scene on a motorcycle.   It...

At the Pima County morgue in Tucson, Ariz., anthropologist Robin Reineke was going through the personal effects of the hundreds of unnamed migrants who try to cross the border between the United States and Mexico each year but instead wind up here among the dead. Reineke co-founded and is the executive director of the Colibri Center for Human Rights, which helps families of border crossers find missing loved ones. It's "important for us to think about the human cost of our border today, the human cost of immigrations," she said.Reineke keeps a locker room filled with personal effects found with...

PINAL COUNTY - An illegal immigrant is arrested in Pinal County and it's discovered he had gained access to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. On Thursday, Dec. 26, at 7 p.m., a Pinal County Sheriff's deputy stopped a 2006 Ford Expedition westbound on Interstate 10 near milepost 180 for a traffic violation. The driver of the vehicle identified himself, using an Arizona Identification Card, as 37-year old Armando Villalobos of Phoenix. The deputy did a routine license and warrant check. Villalobos returned with a "No License" status and a felony warrant for his arrest out of Texas. The warrant showed he...

I had just gotten out of the shower, and was getting dressed for work, when I heard a loud explosion. I looked out the window and saw a large plume of smoke. I went out with my digital camera and recorded the video I posted on my YouTube channel. I don't know what exploded yet, and I don't have time to check because it is almost time for me to start the job. I'll probably find out later what happened. The video is HERE or at the link above.

Shooting in the Arizona Desert has a long history An interesting case from Arizona, where a rancher was dragged into court on the unfounded pretext that he was illegally building a shooting range on his large acreage near Prescott. From the Daily Courier: PRESCOTT - In what has become an issue pitting gun rights against land use codes, a Williamson Valley landowner had his Second Amendment rights upheld in a Tuesday hearing in Prescott. Brad DeSaye, owner of Headhunter Ranch LLC, said he never intended to build gun ranges on his properety. (sic) "The wild rumors that brought us to...

A bombshell revelation, as the News 4 Tucson Investigators uncover exclusive information about an illegal immigrant on the job, with a badge and gun, working as a law enforcement officer in southern Arizona. The investigation in this case began when a man applied for a visa to stay here in the United States. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began their own background investigation on that man. That's when they learned he has a sister, who is an officer with the Arizona Department of Public Safety. The News 4 Tucson Investigators discovered that officer, Carmen Figueroa, has actually been working for DPS...

Officials removed a man with an unspecified infectious disease - possibly tuberculosis - from a US Airways Express flight with 70 passengers on board shortly after it landed in Phoenix over the weekend, authorities said on Monday. The unidentified man was removed from Flight 2846 from Austin, Texas, when it landed on Saturday after the airline received an alert from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding a passenger known to have an infectious disease, a spokesman for the airline said.

Knife Right’s ‘Knife Owners Protection Act’ Introduced in Congress, Crucial Knife Owner Protections Published on Thursday, November 14, 2013 Tags:Doug Ritter|Knife Rights|Preemption Laws|Second Amendment Knife RIghts are Second Amendment RightsKnifeRights.org Washington, DC:-(Ammoland.com)- Knife Rights’ Knife Owners’ Protection Act, H.R.3478 (KOPA), was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives today by sponsor Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ). Knife Rights Chairman Doug Ritter explained, “KOPA will protect law-abiding knife owners travelling throughout the U.S. from the vagaries of restrictive state and local laws.As long as possession of the particular knife is legal in the state where the journey starts and ends, and provided...

TUCSON - How secure are U.S. military installations? You would think the answer is: very. But, as the News 4 Tucson Investigators uncovered, one installation, right here in southern Arizona, continues to face potential outside security risks, and the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better. Fort Huachuca is only 15 miles north of our state's border with Mexico. The Army post covers more than 73,000 acres. In many parts, the terrain is steep and rugged. Much of the work that goes on at Fort Huachuca is classified but, as the News 4 Tucson Investigators learned, keeping people who...

My thanks to Don Cline, who posted this account on the  AZCDL email list.  From the date on the email, this occurred on 16 November, 2013.  It is clear that Don wants wide distribution. From Don: My wife, her mother, and I drove down to Goodyear, west of Phoenix, to my daughter’s home to celebrate our granddaughter’s first birthday today.  We were early and my wife and her mother wanted to do some shopping at Hobby Lobby.  I dropped them off and went to find a Batteries Plus store and ask some questions about the battery I’m using for...

“I think conventional wisdom is that time is not on our side,” McCain told reporters on Monday after an event in Chicago. “But there are a number of members of Congress who have primaries and when those primaries are done, they may be more inclined to address the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.”