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Presumptive Republican U.S. presidential nominee John McCain told Mexican leaders security at the border is a precondition of immigration reform. McCain ended a visit to Colombia and Mexico Thursday, The Arizona Republic reported. I believe we must have comprehensive immigration reform. The American people want our borders secured first, McCain said at a Mexico City news conference. That will require some walls. It will require virtual fences. It will require high-technology equipment. We must secure our borders, and then we will address the issue of comprehensive immigration reform. McCain was one of the authors of an immigration reform bill that...

As pointed out by this representative of the Florida Attorney General's office, it is impossible to separate national security issues from illegal immigration, and one of the most important illegal immigration issues in Florida is the issue of human trafficking. And as Jake at Freedom Folks notes (thanks for the tip), this story doesn't appear to have been covered by the news wires. Here, a horrifying story is described of a little girl who, after being taken to the Florida panhandle from Mexico, resisted while being raped, and was subsequently made an example of by being beheaded in front of...

Refugees shot fleeing North Korea Michael Sheridan in Hunchun, China North Korean guards, newly armed with Russian Dragunov sniper rifles, have shot dead refugees attempting to ford the river that divides their hungry homeland from China, according to human rights campaigners. On the Chinese shore alone, two bodies, marked by several bullet holes, were found by a local activist, said Tim Peters, an American pastor who runs a Christian group supporting the fugitives. The shootings indicate a coordinated change in tactics by North Korea and China to deter refugees from crossing. They want to stamp out bribery among border guards...

<p>Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff issued a strongly worded statement Wednesday on the release of a Mexican man suspected of killing a Yuma Sector Border Patrol agent in the Imperial Sand Dunes west of Winterhaven. SNIP The 22-year-old Navarro Montes, an alleged narcotics smuggler, is suspected of running over 32-year-old Agent Luis Aguilar in a Hummer while fleeing agents on the morning of Jan. 19.</p>

(CNSNews.com) - An appeal by environmental groups to stop the federal government from waiving regulations during construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border was turned down by the Supreme Court on Monday. In its decision, the high court rejected a plea from Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club to challenge a provision of a 2005 law that gives the U.S. Department of Homeland Security the authority to bypass environmental and other laws obstructing completion of the border fence. The controversy began after Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, invoked the REAL ID Act while issuing...

Caltrans has announced it will no longer accept applications for its Adopt-a-Highway volunteer cleanup program. The move comes after members of the San Diego Minutemen sued the state agency over the right to sponsor a stretch of I-5 south of San Clemente near a Border Patrol checkpoint. Caltrans routinely posts signs noting the individuals or groups who sponsor that particular stretch of highway, but removed the Minuteman group's sign in January. Caltrans officials said then that they feared vandalism or protesters along the freeway. Caltrans offered the group another stretch of San Diego County highway, but the Minutemen have sought...

The evidence suggests the answer is yes. Regardless if they are secret or not, the bigger problem is that McCain just won’t let go of his Pro-Amnesty agenda:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court rejected on Monday a legal challenge by two environmental groups to the U.S. Homeland Security secretary's decision to waive 19 federal laws so a fence could be built on the Arizona-Mexico border. The high court refused to hear an appeal by Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club challenging a 2005 law that Secretary Michael Chertoff invoked on the grounds that it violated the constitutional separation of powers principles. The Republican-led Congress in 2005 gave Chertoff the power to waive environmental and other laws to build fences and other border barriers in an effort...

FoxNewsChannel Megyn Kelly just now (9:15am CST) reported as breaking news that the Supreme Court will not hear the appeal from the Texas group who sued to stop the DHS from building the border fence......

It was as frightening as a Halloween trick can be: It happened in broad daylight. It was caught on camera. The government says it really happened. On Oct. 31, 2006, a covert agent of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) pulled to the side of a Canadian highway that runs along the U.S. border. Greg Kutz, GAO's managing director of forensic audits and special investigations, explained what happened in a May 16, 2008, report to Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus. The report summarized GAO's efforts (from 2003 to 2007) to covertly test the effectiveness of U.S. border security. The covert agent...

About 50 protesters marched in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to decry violence by illegal immigrants and to demand that the Los Angeles Police Department change its controversial policy limiting when someone can be questioned about their immigration status. The marchers, including anti-illegal-immigration Minutemen and local community activists, also called for justice for Jamiel Shaw II, 17, a black athlete who was shot and killed in March by an alleged gang member who was in the country illegally.

When the border fence is constructed along the Rio Grande, Fermin Leal will watch as the barrier slices through the backyards of his neighbors, bypassing his 500-acre farm in San Pedro. The fence's trajectory, incontiguous and largely unexplained, has left many border residents suspicious of the federal government's plans. "I'm still not sure how my land is different than theirs," Leal said. "They still haven't given us any answers." The fence will run nearly unabated through Brownsville before stopping at River Bend Resort and golf course. It will break again for nearly seven miles in San Pedro, where the federal...

The two presidential candidates will discuss matters of interest for the latin american community in this country. The Angeles.- The two main presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, will be the guests of honor at the third Latin American National Congress, that will be carried out on July 18 and 19 in Los Angeles. The organizers confirmed the participation of the two politicians in the event, that will be performed in an exclusive hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, where it is expected that more than 300 organizations of 20 cities will attend. On the first day, McCain...

People don’t have much faith in government, especially the federal government…and who can blame them? The public looks to Washington and sees neither competence nor integrity in the people and institutions who are determining their fate. Into the vacuum have stepped the evangelists for a new god: the free market. In his new book, Let Them In:The Case for Open Borders, Wall Street Journal editorial board member, Jason Riley, argues that immigration policy ought to be set not by legislators and bureaucrats in Washington, but by the demands of the free market. Americans have been raised to believe that free...

Azteca Televsion Visits The Campo Minutemen TV Azteca is the second largest Mexican Television Network. The network also operates Azteca 13 Internacional, reaching 13 countries in Central and South America. Journalism is a dangerous business in Mexico, second only to Iraqi in violence toward the profession.The crew from Azteca was interested in the concerns of American Citizens and the situation in their country which is causing so many of their countrymen to flee. They were amazed at the absence of any physical barrier at the border. The Following Pictures feature Campo Minutemen Ray and Robin and Juan Rocha of Azteca...

*Unconfirmed Reports of three killed* 1:02 a.m. June 14, 2008 CAMPO – At least three people were hit by gunfire Friday night on the Mexican side of the border near Campo, authorities said. The California Highway Patrol said several shooting victims came across the border. The shootings occurred some time after 10 p.m. A Heartland fire dispatcher said he knew of three victims, but that the Border Patrol had said there were more. The dispatcher said he did not know if anyone was killed. Border Patrol officials were unavailable to comment on what occurred. Ambulances were sent to state Route...

Hands down, Joe Arpaio is the toughest sheriff in America. And although he is most well-known for his tough treatment of prisoners, Arpaio has over 30 years experience with different federal drug enforcement agencies, and, as the former head of border and drug enforcement in Texas and Arizona, he is one of the country’s leading experts on how to shut down illegal immigration and cross-border drug trafficking. His is a hard-core, no-frills approach to incarceration, with 10,000 Maricopa County, Ariz., prisoners held in old Army surplus tents, fed on bologna sandwiches, and clothed in black-and-white striped, old-style prison uniforms and...

Guatemala plans to send hundreds of troops, elite presidential guards and anti-drug police to its border with Mexico to stem growing drug violence, the government said on Saturday. "The unit should be ready within about 90 days. We are talking about 500 troops" and members of the presidential guard, Interior Ministry spokesman Ricardo Gatica said. Gatica declined to say how many counternarcotics police would be sent to the border, where drug smuggling into southern Mexico, bound for the United States, goes unchallenged. In southern Mexico, suspected drug gunmen dumped a man's head outside a newspaper in Tabasco state on Saturday...

It has been a refrain during the exhausting battle for the Democratic presidential nomination that once Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama emerged as the party's choice, we could finally dispense with the personality battles and get down to nitty-gritty policy differences. Indeed, now that Obama seems to have the position locked up, he and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain will have plenty to argue about. But some might be surprised at the breadth of issues on which they largely agree. On McCain's side, this is understandable. With a Republican president experiencing some of the worst approval ratings ever, it's...

In response to my recent piece on enforcing our established immigration laws (I did not mention the potential effectiveness of machine guns and land mines, which would be the first resort of any statesman or military commander who really wanted to "secure our borders"), some well-meaning souls have responded with the traditional Libertarian prescription that there's "no need to limit immigration; all we have to do is get rid of the welfare state." First, before anyone tries to insist that "most illegal aliens aren't on welfare," let's stipulate once again that the so-called "public schools" are one of our most...

BISBEE — An employee of American Border Patrol, a non-governmental organization, was threatened on Thursday by a suspected smuggler near the U.S.-Mexico border near Palominas. At about 2:15 p.m. Thursday, Mike Christie was driving a quad on the group’s ranch toward Border Monument Road on his way to Highway 92. Christie saw a white pickup truck heading north and he suspected the driver was involved in nefarious activity. “As he approached it, the fellow turned around and went back to the border,” said Glenn Spencer, president of American Border Patrol. A short time later, the man revved the engine of...

CALEXICO — Two street gangs vying for control of a human-smuggling operation here has resulted in two shootings in a dense neighborhood near the border fence, police said. A man is recovering from a bullet wound after being shot by masked gunmen. Two other men are in Imperial County jail for their suspected involvement of an attempt to murder a rival. “We be-lieve it involves illegal alien smuggling and their attempts to cut into each other’s area and operations,” Calexico police Sgt. Gonzalo Gerardo said. Human smuggling in Calexico is lucrative: smugglers could receive as much as $1,500 per head...

http://www.campominutemen.com/reports/reports.aspx Gman: First I would like to thank the Campo minutemen for their help and support . This week alone I spotted and called the Border Patrol in to apprehended 36 illegals mostly after sundown. The smaller groups try in the day with not much luck Year to date is now 378 apprehensions Gman Gman's name and location are kept secret for his security. He would like to thank everyone for their expressions of Support ***************************************************************** Dan: Last night South of the High School, at approximately .8;17PM near the 7.5 mile marker on Buckman Springs Rd. (West side of range...

TX and AZ Border Watches FOR YOUR INFORMATION...... Border watches on the TX and AZ borders have been scheduled by Texas Border Volunteers and Patriots Border Alliance (AZ). If you are interested in participating....please go to the following websites or contact the following e-mail addresses for further information. MEMBERSHIP IS REQUIRED TO PARTICIPATE ON ANY BORDER WATCH!! BACKGROUNDS ARE CHECKED!! Texas Border Volunteers.....for information to join....go to www.texasbordervolunteers.org and download application or e-mail questions to vol052000-tbvmbrship@yahoo.com . Patriots Border Alliance (AZ).....for information to join (online)....go to www.patriotsborderalliance.com or e-mail questions to quetzal@wbhsi.net . As to recent news articles.....illegal aliens are...

The latest threat assessment prepared for special border enforcement teams says pleasure boats are among the increasingly inventive means used by crafty couriers to slip illicit cargo — including drugs, guns and people — from one country to the other. The marine environment “is viewed as particularly vulnerable and porous to smuggling activity” due to the many challenges in keeping tabs on lakes, waterways and tiny coves, says the August 2007 report, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. One American criminal group has children carrying bags of tobacco swim across the St. Croix River between...

Federal troops lock down region in effort to bring gangsters to heel CULIACAN, MEXICO — Automatic weapons at the ready, the platoons of federal police officers descend from the transport planes and high-step as neatly as majorettes into the searing heat of this violent city. Gen. Rodolfo Cruz, short, fit and wearing the same starched blue uniform as his troops, puts the policemen through their paces as television cameras whirr. "Here we are, showing our faces," says Cruz, 65, a career army officer, who sprinkles conversations with English phrases learned during military training in Oklahoma. "I fight crime, I put...

Border Patrol drug-sniffing dog detected almost 1,400 pounds of marijuana stacked between pallets of squash in a tractor-trailer rig at the Interstate 19 checkpoint Wednesday. The trailer contained 63 bundles of marijuana, with an estimated street value of $1.1 million, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. The driver, a 41-year-old Mexican national, was taken into custody. The vehicle and marijuana were confiscated by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Officials said that since October 2007, the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector has seized more than 520,000 pounds of marijuana. Dog units have been responsible for one-fourth of the seizures.

One windy afternoon last week at the border fence, a construction platform carrying a crew of National Guard personnel moved slowly along the barrier, sparks flying from blowtorches as the guardsmen straightened and retrofitted the steel posts. For most of them, it would be their last task on the border. “I'll go wherever they want me to go,” said Staff Sgt. Dan McBride, 44, the crew's supervisor, a mail carrier from Fresno who plans to go back to his full-time job for a while before his likely deployment to Iraq in February. “But this has been sweet, San Diego.” After...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday will join governors from both sides of the border in Mexico City to push for more action on crime-fighting and border security, a visit that comes as Mexico is facing unprecedented violence. Schwarzenegger will offer support to Mexican President Felipe Calderon for his crackdown against the drug trade, in which he has deployed more than 20,000 federal troops across Mexico. Cartels have responded with increasingly bold attacks against security forces, including beheadings and assassinations of top police officials and soldiers. On Tuesday, seven federal officers were killed in a shootout with one cartel. Beyond policy...

HIDALGO - U.S. Border Patrol agents Sunday detained 18 people from the horn of Africa - an uncommon but not unheard of origin for illegal migrants to the United States, officials said. The east African immigrants - 13 from Eritrea and five from Ethiopia - were walking along a road in Hidalgo on Sunday when they were spotted, said local Border Patrol spokesman Daniel Doty. Agents peacefully took the illegal immigrants into custody, Doty said. None of them was carrying drugs or firearms. Doty said illegal immigrants who come from countries other than Mexico either face an expedited deportation hearing...

Actual headlines from major Texas newspapers: “Is Cornyn in trouble?” “Cornyn not a lock, poll says.” “If challenger raises $10 million, Texas could see a close race.” If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, Rick Noriega would be looking pretty good. Noriega is the Houston state legislator who’s taking on Texas U. S. Senator John Cornyn. He’s got a lot going for him. An Hispanic name. An easy victory in the primary election. Democratic coattails of Barack Obama. But after that, the “candy and nuts” go back to being just “ifs and buts” with the notable exception of a...

Feds OK 'enhanced' NY driver's licenses for border crossingsPublished May 27, 2008 01:05 pm - ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. David Paterson says the federal government has formally approved the state's "enhanced" driver's license, which can be used to cross the United States border without a passport. The optional enhanced driver's license will be available for use next summer when passports or approved driver's licenses will be required for border crossings, including entry into Canada. New Yorkers will have to provide proof of citizenship to apply for the enhanced license at a Department of Motor Vehicles office. The...

Report from G - Man - 337 apprehended this year It has been very busy over here ,at least two groups every 24 hrs and sometimes three to four with six to 18 per group. I'm not getting much sleep because they are coming through at all hours. In the last 24 hours alone we have apprehended 47. My year to date is now 337, yet the news says apprehensions are down. Who are you going to believe? ----------------------------------------- Campo Minutemen Cleaned up Buckman Springs Road, removing 200 gallons of trash. They had a BBQ dinner at 141 and lit...

Many arguments, pro and con, about how to deal with illegal aliens have been passionately debated over the past couple of years, but there are still other arguments that need public exposure. Mark Krikorian presents a new argument in his forthcoming book called "The New Case Against Immigration, Both Legal and Illegal." The pro-more-immigration crowd argues that today's immigrants are just like immigrants of a century ago: poor people looking for a better life who are expected to advance in our land of opportunity. Krikorian's new argument is that while today's immigrants may be like earlier ones, the America they...

COLUMBUS, N.M. – Talking with officials in this high-desert town, it doesn't take long to understand just how concerned they are over the widespread violence south of the border, which they can't control. From the American side of the U.S. Port of Entry in Columbus you can actually look down the streets of Palomas, Mexico – the town is that close. The problem is that Palomas, along with other Mexican cities, has fallen victim to a vicious turf war between rival Mexican drug cartels that has claimed about 4,000 lives since the start of last year. Among those assassinated are...

In another case of politicians not having a clue what's really going on in this country, an interesting exchange took place in Washington this week. Three Democrat legislators spoke to reporters about what they claim is "anti-immigrant coverage" by conservative media outlets. Apparently, they think floods of illegal aliens crossing into America and the crime and violence at the border are just overblown incidents developed by conservatives to attack our neighbor to the South. After they spoke, the Democrats were asked if they realized that the State Department had issued a "travel alert warning Americans about military-like 'combat' along the...

As reported executively in the Laguna/El Paso Journal the Calderon administration was expected to rush more Mexican Army troops to the border cities of Juarez, Tijuana, Mexicali, Palomas and others. The first leg of that troop enforcement became an reality yesterday -- Hundreds more Mexican army soldiers arrived in Juárez under the cover of darkness as part of Joint Operation Chihuahua, intended to augment the Mexican governments war against the Mexican Drug Cartels operating in Mexico.

CULIACAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Violence has exploded in Mexico's drug smuggling heartland in a three-way battle between rival gangs and security forces, the biggest challenge yet to President Felipe Calderon's war against the cartels. About 300 people have died in drug murders so far this year in Sinaloa, an arid western state that serves as the home turf of one of Mexico's main drug gangs and where traffickers worship a bandit as their own patron saint. The killing spilled over to Mexico City this month when assassins hired by Sinaloan smugglers shot dead one of Mexico's top federal policemen at...

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. State Department has issued an alert, warning travelers that the "equivalent to military small-unit combat" is taking place across the southern U.S. border in Mexico and that Americans are being kidnapped and murdered there. "Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades," said the State Department alert. "Confrontations have taken place in numerous towns and cities in northern Mexico, including Tijuana in the Mexican state of Baja California, and Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez...

Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement got a call from elected officials in Mission Viejo who wanted help cracking down on day laborers they said were a public nuisance. Brian DeMore, ICE's acting field office director for detention and removal in Southern California, told officials that federal agents focused on major, not petty crimes. But he suggested that local deputies could cite laborers who caused any trouble on a local violation and book them into the county jail, where their immigration status would be checked by ICE-trained personnel. That's precisely what anti-illegal immigration advocates wish law enforcement agencies would...

Members of the Texas Border Coalition yesterday said Department of Homeland Security officials "lied" about reaching out to Texas landowners over the U.S.-Mexico border fence, and filed a class-action lawsuit against Secretary Michael Chertoff demanding he give landowners more say before the fence is built. Under the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, the group of border mayors, county judges and community leaders said the federal government violated the rights of landowners and intimidated them into signing away, for a $100 payment, rights to come on their land and prepare for building the fence. "What's being forced upon...

SAN DIEGO -- — The U.S. Border Patrol is installing razor-sharp concertina wire atop border fencing between San Diego and Tijuana, marking a major shift in approach along a frequently violent stretch of the frontier. The triple-strand wire, meant to keep smugglers from attacking agents, will stretch five miles when completed this summer -- the longest expanse of this type of wire ever used on the Southwest border. Federal authorities in the past have avoided using fortifications with such negative symbolism. Hundreds of miles of barriers going up in other areas have had to meet "aesthetically pleasing" federal design standards....

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Texas mayors and business leaders filed a class-action lawsuit Friday alleging Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff hoodwinked landowners into waiving their property rights for construction of a fence along the Mexican border. Members of the Texas Border Coalition said Chertoff did not fairly negotiate compensation with landowners for access to their land for six-month surveys to choose fence sites. The coalition of mayors and business and community leaders is seeking an injunction to block work on the fence. They also want a federal judge to rescind all the agreements with landowners and to order Chertoff to start...

More than 60 illegal immigrants, including three toddlers, were discovered at a house in South Los Angeles early this morning by federal immigration agents serving a search warrant as part of an investigation into a human smuggling ring, authorities said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entered the single-family, two-story home in the 10000 block of South Normandie Avenue about 6:30 a.m.. and found 61 Central and South American immigrants crowded into the house, with trash and rotting food piled 2 to 3 feet high in each room, agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. The immigrants told agents that they had been...

WASHINGTON - Three Mexican police chiefs have requested political asylum in the U.S. as violence escalates in the Mexican drug wars and spills across the U.S. border, a top Homeland Security official told The Associated Press. In the past few months, the police officials have shown up at the U.S. border, fearing for their lives, according to Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. "They're basically abandoned by their police officers or police departments in many cases," Ahern told AP. Ahern said the Mexican officials — whom he didn't name — are being interviewed and their cases...

DEMING, N.M. (AP) - Governor Richardson says he's concerned about violence along New Mexico's border with Mexico. Authorities say seven men have been killed in the Mexican border town of Palomas in a turf war among drug cartels. The Luna County Sheriff's Department says 162 gun shells were found where five men were killed Sunday in Palomas, across the border from Columbus, New Mexico. Another 67 casings were found where a man and his son were fatally shot Friday. A spokesman for Richardson says the governor has directed New Mexico public safety officials to be vigilant to ensure the problems...

Border Patrol To Get Taste Of Woman PowerTill a few weeks ago, the Wagah border in Punjab (India) was nothing more than a picnic spot for 20-year-old Neha and her friends. It meant packing food and travelling the 85-odd kilometres to watch the fanfare of the retreat ceremony, a daily affair on the India-Pakistan border near Amritsar. All that has changed with the (Indian) Border Security Force (BSF) programme to recruit and train women constables. The Indo-Pak border is now "serious stuff" for Neha. "It used to be a fun outing to see the parade," she says. "It is now...

Zack Taylor, who is a former Border Patrol agent, says a bill being proposed by a member of the Congressional Hispanic caucus would make it very difficult for law enforcement agents to operate in areas along the U.S.-Mexico border where illegal immigration and drug smuggling is rampant. H.R. 2593 is called the Borderlands Conservation and Security Act of 2007. Sponsored by Representative Democrat Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona), it would create new public lands wilderness areas along the southern border, especially in Arizona -- which is the largest point of entry for illegal immigration and drug-smuggling traffic in the United States. Zack...

SAN DIEGO When members of an anti-illegal immigration group offered to sponsor litter cleanup on local roads, they never imagined California officials would offer them an Adopt-a-Highway stretch near a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 5, the main artery carrying illegal migrants north from the U.S.-Mexico border. On Friday, lawyers for the San Diego Minutemen told a federal judge that the state had no right to rescind the offer after state legislators complained to the California Department of Transportation. The group asked that its blue Adopt-a-Highway sign be put back where it stood without incident for about six weeks until...

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's acting federal police chief was shot dead early Thursday outside his home – a brazen attack as drug traffickers increasingly lash back at a nationwide crackdown on organized crime. Edgar Millan Gomez was shot 10 times after opening the door to his Mexico City apartment complex, where at least one gunman was waiting for him before dawn, the Public Safety Department said. Two bodyguards were also wounded. Millan died hours later at a hospital. SNIP Garza urged U.S. lawmakers to approve the Merida Initiative, a US$500 million (euro326 million) proposal that would help fight drug crime...