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SAN FRANCISCO — Customs agents have intercepted more than 50 shipments of counterfeit Tamiflu, the antiviral drug being stockpiled in anticipation of a bird flu pandemic, marking the first such seizures in the U.S., authorities said Sunday. The first package was intercepted Nov. 26 at an air mail facility near San Francisco International Airport, said Roxanne Hercules, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Since then, agents have seized 51 separate packages, each containing up to 50 counterfeit capsules labeled generic Tamiflu. The fake drugs had none of Tamiflu's active ingredients, and officials were running tests to determine what...

WASHINGTON – President Bush has recently been promoting his proposals for a large temporary worker program as a way to effectively enforce immigration laws. As Mr. Bush presents it, such a program to address growing concerns over the flow of illegal workers would rest securely on a "win-win" basis in the following ways: • The willingness of temporary workers and employers to participate in the program would allow both to "win." • The U.S. economy would benefit from higher productivity without increasing tax burdens for existing public services. • U.S. politicians would gain support from employer groups or sympathetic ethnic...

Judiciary Committee Approves Legislation Preventing Illegal Immigration and Bolstering Border SecurityTo: National Desk Contact: Jeff Lungren or Terry Shawn, 202-225-2492, both of the House Judiciary Committee, Office of Communications, Web: judiciary.house.gov WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The House Judiciary Committee today on a party-line 23-to-15 vote approved legislation introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wis.) that prevents illegal immigration and takes needed steps to gain control over our borders. H.R. 4437 is expected to be considered by the House next week. Chairman Sensenbrenner said, "This legislation will help restore the integrity of our Nation's borders...

While I appreciate the editors of The Roanoke Times giving some attention to the TRUE Enforcement and Border Security Act, H.R. 4313, on the editorial page ("Immigration absurdity survives the election," Nov. 15), I only wish the whole bill had been addressed. The bill I introduced along with California Congressman Duncan Hunter does provide for construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. However, the fence is only a small part of the bill's plan to control mass illegal immigration. If your editors had focused on the whole bill, they would have discovered that we, too, believe that a fence...

WASHINGTON - A new survey of migrant Mexicans shatters the myth they are largely unemployed farmworkers who struggle to pick up jobs on street corners. Only 5 percent of the most recent migrants were unemployed before they crossed the border, and only an equal percentage remained unemployed within six months of crossing, the survey found. Newer migrants were just as likely to have worked in construction zones and hotels than in the fields, the survey found. The findings released today by the Pew Hispanic Center based on questionnaires in Spanish filled out by 4,836 persons in Los Angeles, New York,...

Immigrants have long sent money to help their families back home [but] they said immigrants are increasingly banding together to build community projects in their hometowns -- from paved roads to hospitals to water systems -- and getting the government and companies to help.snip Tenango's electrical grid is a prime example: It was built through a government program called "Tres por Uno," or "Three for One." For every dollar immigrants contributed, the Mexican government threw in three -- funding 1,436 projects in the country last year.snip Companies and nonprofits are joining in the new trend toward community projects, too. In...

Diehard optimists still hoping for a forward-looking binational migration accord based on mutual respect and regional cooperation got hit with a cruel dose of reality last week. As a flood of xenophobia-tinged border security and immigrant-crackdown bills work their way through both houses of the U.S. Congress, President Bush delivered a long-awaited major speech that left no doubt about how Mexico's neighbor and trading partner will deal with reform. The message comes down to this: The United States will not regularize the millions of undocumented immigrants working in its territory. It will instead seek more efficient ways to find them,...

SALT LAKE CITY – Mexico's ambassador to the United States pressed for a political solution for the U.S. immigration problem in a visit Friday with Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. The diplomat, Carlos de Icaza, endorsed a guest worker program for his countrymen and a fair resolution for the millions of undocumented workers already in the United States. "Building walls and fences is not the way to solve problems among neighbors," said de Icaza, whose two-day visit ended with a demonstration by the Utah Minuteman Project outside the Utah Capitol. The immigration opponents called for tougher border security and sanctions against...

[snip] But Bush still clings to a "guest worker" provision, which puts a huge hole in that new wall. Why? Perhaps "W" is trying to court Hispanic voters, perhaps he is appealing to business, perhaps he is simply stubborn. [snip]The author's prediction: A wall will get built with none of Bush's holes. It will be part physical barrier, part electronic surveillance, part get-serious law enforcement. And it will work, because while walls might not be politically correct, they are effective. Walls keep people and property secure, they keep nations secure. [snip] The forthcoming wall symbolizes our new realization that Mexicans...

President Bush wants unmanned drones used along the U.S.-Mexican border as part of his broader immigration initiative unveiled this week, but border patrol officials are still negotiating with the Federal Aviation Administration about where and when it can deploy the systems. "We're going to use drones to be able to help enforce the border in rural Texas and in rural New Mexico and rural Arizona," Bush said Tuesday. "Slowly, but surely, technology is being employed up and down the border, and that's a key part of our strategy." The president's proposal also includes a guestworker program and bolstering immigration laws.After...

Even though Los Angeles is considered the epicenter of the fake ID trade, for years the problem didn't register as a high priority for an already burdened police force. The lack of consistent enforcement allowed the underground industry to build up until it was "out of control," said LAPD Officer Fernando Flores. [snip] "When you first get here, you don't know where to go," said Flores, 25, who lives in Huntington Park. "The people who have been here a long time tell you. Everybody knows you can buy papers in MacArthur Park." [snip] Mica [slang for laminated ID cards] mills...

<p>ONTARIO, Calif. - A man wanted in connection with the shooting of a California Highway Patrol officer last week was arrested in Kansas, officials said.</p> <p>Jaime Zavala Garcia, 37, was arrested Sunday along with his brother, 33-year-old Antonio Garcia Zavala, during a traffic stop in Liberal, Kan., said Ontario police Detective Dave McBride.</p>

HAMILTON, Ohio - Far from the southwest U.S. borders with Mexico, states and counties are making their own stands against illegal immigration. In southwest Ohio's Butler County, some leaders want state legislation that would make it a state crime of trespass to be here illegally and would allow local authorities to boot illegal aliens out of the state. The sheriff has challenged federal authorities by sending them a bill for undocumented immigrant inmates and erected large yellow signs outside the jail announcing: "Illegal Aliens Here." In Arkansas, the Legislature wants police to get training in immigration enforcement. One county in...

Schemes that trapped drivers into rear-end collisions netted $3 million from insurers, California officials say. The leader of a major auto insurance fraud ring that tricked unsuspecting drivers into rear-end collisions has been arrested, state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi announced Wednesday. Huntington Park attorney Bernard Laufer, 52, was arrested Tuesday morning. Laufer's recruiter in the scheme, La Verne resident Humberto Carlon, 22, was arrested earlier in the investigation and is serving a two-year prison sentence, Garamendi said. The San Gabriel Valley-based scheme is nearly identical to one in the South Bay that Garamendi's office shut down in December, and one...

KANSAS CITY, MO. -- Shipping U-S vehicles and electronics to Mexico may become much cheaper and faster next year. That's when the first Mexican customs facility in the U-S is expected to open in the Midwest. It's nearly one-thousand miles to the border from Kansas City. But the area will soon start building an inland port to whisk thousands of trucks through export inspections and back onto the North American Free Trade Agreement corridor. The three (M) million dollar facility is expected to be approved by the U-S and Mexican governments by year's end. Chris Gutierrez with nonprofit Kansas City...

LOS ANGELES - A Jewish Defense League activist imprisoned for his role in an alleged plot to bomb a California mosque and the office of a Lebanese-American congressman was killed at a federal prison in Phoenix. Earl Krugel, 62, of Reseda, who was sentenced in September to 20 years in prison in a plea bargain, was killed Friday in what his wife said she was told was an assault by another inmate, who hit him from behind with a concrete block. "Earl never saw it happening," Lola Krugel said. "He was exercising." Krugel's sister, Linda Krugel said her brother had...

The House yesterday approved a $20.9 billion foreign-aid package that includes a provision to cut off funding to countries that refuse to extradite anyone suspected of killing a U.S. law enforcement officer. The extradition section is aimed at resolving a long-standing treaty dispute with Mexico... the amount at stake [for Mexico] is about $40 million... Next week, the Senate is expected to approve the bill, which passed the House 358-39, and send it to the president for his signature. As many as 4,000 fugitives have avoided arrest on murder warrants in the United States by fleeing to Mexico. An estimated...

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina - Twenty-nine countries in favor of a planned Free Trade Area of the Americas may establish it without the participation of five dissenting countries, Mexican President Vicente Fox said Friday. Fox said these pro-FTAA countries - which include the U.S., Mexico, Canada and Chile - are discussing an alternative agreement. The five dissenting nations include the four members of the South American trade group Mercosur - Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay - which have opposed plans to establish a deadline for relaunching FTAA talks, as well as Venezuela, which outright opposes the region-wide trade deal. Fox...

FAYETTEVILLE — Wal-Mart management knew people who cleaned dozens of their stores in 2003 were illegal aliens, some of whom lived in poor conditions and, in one case, slept in the back of a store, a federal affidavit released Wednesday said. The affidavit was used to secure two search warrants in October 2003 to raid Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s home office in Bentonville as part of Operation Rollback — an investigation that led to the arrests of 245 illegal aliens working at 61 Wal-Mart stores, including five stores in Arkansas. U.S. District Magistrate Judge Beverly Stites Jones in Fayetteville unsealed the...

[The Temporary Worker Program is in the last paragraph] Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced today a comprehensive multi-year plan to secure America's borders and reduce illegal migration, entitled the Secure Border Initiative (SBI). "We will address all aspects of the border security problem across the board -- deterrence, detection, response, apprehension, detention, and removal," said Secretary Chertoff. "The goal of SBI is to transform the way immigration issues have been viewed. We will address the challenges in each of these areas with an integrated mix of increased staffing, new technology, and enhanced infrastructure investment, as well as a...