Free Republic

Russom Solomon, a University civil engineering graduate, said he has relied on trial and error to learn the American way of business since immigrating in 1991. “Nothing prepared us for this. Nothing,” said Solomon, an African immigrant and aspiring business owner. “It is a little harder for us who are first immigrants here. There’s nobody to teach you that stuff,” Solomon said. “For us, you learn the hard way.” The hard way takes years of empirical learning, sometimes even requiring new business practices to reconcile cultural and religious differences. But many immigrants in the Cedar-Riverside area near the University’s West...

QUITO, Ecuador, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Washington wants to negotiate a treaty with Ecuador that would enable the United States to intercept boats carrying illegal migrants and drugs, the U.S. ambassador to Quito said in an interview on Thursday. "What we've said so far is we'd like to negotiate a treaty to cover these issues," U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney told Reuters on Thursday, adding the details of an agreement would need to be worked out. This small Andean nation of 12 million has seen at least 500,000 people emigrate since 1999, hard-hit by an economic crisis that left thousands jobless...

The Mexican and United States governments must review the level of violence against undocumented immigrants along the northern border and take immediate action, a Democratic candidate for a legislative seat in Arizona said this week. Raul Grijalva, who is expected to win the U.S. state's seventh district in the Nov. 5 elections, underscored the need for "immediate dialogue" to reinforce bilateral cooperation on migrant safety, government news agency Notimex reported. Grijalva, a Mexican-American, said undocumented Mexican immigrants cross the border in search of a better life, but when they do, they face dangers other than the adverse weather conditions that...

A bad day means a new piercing for Christina Aguilera. That's what the singer tells Rolling Stone magazine in its new issue. Aguilera has 11 piercings so far -- five in her ears and one each in her nose, her lower lip, and right nipple. As for the rest of them, Aguilera said one's in a place known only to her doctor and her boyfriends. Aguilera said it's diamond-studded, "really beautiful and expensive." She said she's gotten a lot of compliments on it and it's "in a place that most people wouldn't have the guts to do it." But even...

LAREDO -- Border Patrol agents working a highway checkpoint station found 51 undocumented immigrants in a locked tractor trailer bound for San Antonio. The agents said a dog trained to detect both contraband and human cargo alerted to the rear doors of the trailer late Tuesday night. The agents unlocked the truck and found 34 migrants from Mexico, 16 from El Salvador and one from Honduras. The agents arrested the 39-year-old driver, a U.S. citizen, on federal smuggling charges. He said he was being paid $2,000 to drive through the checkpoint. The migrants said they had each agreed to pay...

<p>Meanwhile, the antiwar petition over at "Not in Our Name" continue to attract prestigious signatures from all walks of life. Here's a sample, just from the "A" page: Idi Amin, "Retired from Military"; Marie Antoinette, "Aristocrat, noblewoman, progressive dietician"; Emma Ahstrach, who describes herself as coming "from a long line of peace-loving Ahstriches who deplore all forms of violence"; Trendy W. Annabee, who asks "Will this help me get chicks?"; Ayatollah Assaholla, a "physicist" and "Nobel prize candidate for discovery of subatomic nion particles"; and Kemal Anis, "Director of Misanthropic Studies, STD College."</p>

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - A flood of immigration appeals from Thai nationals has clogged the country's appeal system, in an apparent scam to delay deportations, New Zealand's refugee authority said Wednesday. The Refugee Status Appeal Authority said it had received 1,277 appeals in the 12 months through June 30, twice the number of the previous 12-month period. Thai nationals made up 304 of the total. The applicants were appealing decisions by refugee authorities denying asylum, and most of them "were part of a well-orchestrated scam perpetuated against the refugee determination process,'' the report said. Appeals from 284 Thais for...

A Middle Eastern couple jailed on immigration charges that came to light during the terror investigation pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday and will be deported to Saudi Arabia. In separate hearings, Majeda Dweikat and Osama Yousef Basnan admitted they used false immigration documents. Dweikat was sentenced to 60 days in jail, and Basnan to 53 days – about the equivalent of time they have served. They will be sent back to Basnan's native Saudi Arabia, where a relative is caring for their six children, who are U.S. citizens, their attorney said. Basnan became emotional when U.S. District Judge Irma...

MGARR, Gozo (di-ve news) - - Another 74 illegal immigrants landed at Mgarr in Gozo on Tuesday afternoon at around 1500CET. This brought the total of illegal immigrants landed in the Maltese islands to 121 within around 12 hours. This arrival put further pressure on the immigration centres on the islands with the total of immigrants currently in Malta now exceeding the thousand mark. Late in the afternoon, a ship loaded with around 74 immigrants was spotted just outside Mgarr bay in Gozo and was also taken over by AFM forces who escorted the boat into the port. The immigrants...

A lifeboat carrying at least eight men believed to be Chinese refugees floated to shore at a Big Sur beach early Monday, several hours after a missing Taiwanese fishing vessel was found some nine miles off the coast. The men were taken into custody after being spotted outside a Big Sur restaurant trying to use Chinese coins to make a call from a pay telephone. Local authorities who detained the men on behalf of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said the Coast Guard indicated that it had boarded the 119-foot, Taiwan-registered Kuai Le and had found the captain and...

MONTREAL (CP) - As tears rolled down her cheeks, an unsuccessful Algerian refugee claimant vowed to remain holed up in a church until authorities allow her family to remain in Canada. "I will stay here if I must all my life," a pregnant Yakout Seddiki, 36, told a packed news conference Monday in the basement of the Union United Church. The woman's doctor has claimed that her health and that of her unborn child were at risk from a gynecological condition that would be aggravated by deportation and ineffective care in Algeria. The woman and husband Mourad Bourouisa, 37, failed...

Corrections officials in Thailand are mixing male and female inmates in prison to try and control homosexuality. Under the experiment, prisoners of both sexes will be placed in the same environment, but there will be no physical contact. The mixing of sexes will be for limited periods only and under close watch, said the Thai Corrections Department. In the trial, 922 female inmates in a prison in Nakhon Sawan will be allowed into a men's area where they will work on vocational activities. If it is a success, the scheme will be used in other prisons in Thailand. The Thai...

At the urging of Somali activists, a Metropolitan Council committee will consider adding Somali instructions to ticket vending machines for Hiawatha light rail. On Tuesday, the rail transit committee decided the machines would offer written and audio instructions in English, Spanish and Hmong, although there is a high concentration of Somali households along the 11.6-mile line. “People who are new Americans, they’re an important part of the community and an important part of our ridership,” said Frank Hornstein, who plans to propose adding Somali at the next transportation committee meeting on Oct. 28. He’ll also propose exploring and ways to...

PARIS (AP)--More than 5,000 people marched through Paris on Saturday in the latest in a series of protests to demand residency permits for illegal immigrants. Similar marches occurred in the cities of Marseille, Lille, Le Havre and Clermont-Ferrand. ``It's not immigrants or people without permits, but the law that must change,'' the demonstrators in Paris shouted. They were joined by Communist and Green party leaders. The immigrants are known in France as ``sans-papiers,'' meaning ``those without documents.'' Many have lived illegally in France for years, hiding from police, surviving on charity, working for little pay. The Interior Ministry has promised...

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (IPS) - Africans and descendants of Africans have agreed to establish a global organization to help them fight for compensation from nations that participated in the slave trade. The Pan African Movement was the main outcome of a week-long meeting of more than 500 delegates that concluded last week in Barbados. Participants said the body would deal with a plethora of issues, from racial profiling to poverty, to the need for reparations from Europe and the United States for the trans-Atlantic slave trade that cost an estimated 350 million lives.The conference was billed as the first major follow-up...

The stares and the second-takes were inevitable the minute Mary Peterson stepped onto the South Fork High campus Thursday morning. They were expected. Even desired. Peterson's dress, after all, was not the typical student fare. The 17-year-old senior of Scottish and Irish descent had put aside jeans and T-shirts for the burka, the traditional garb of Muslim women. Covered from head to ankle, the only skin visible was on her hands, between her sandal straps and through an opening around her eyes. As she walked into an 8:55 a.m. geometry class, it was clear the students had seen nothing like...

Britain is planning to create an elite squad to tackle illegal immigrants anywhere in Europe. The move, which has dismayed refugee groups, will set up a team of immigration officials based at Dover but with a brief to travel within hours to any European Union border. Members of the Mobile Detection Unit will use the latest equipment to find people hidden in lorries, cars, trains, planes and boats. They will act on tip-offs from local police that specific smuggling operations are being planned. The proposal is part of wider EU moves to stiffen border controls and increase co-operation between member...

FRAMINGHAM - The Immigration and Naturalization Service is cracking down on illegal immigrants, carrying out raids and knocking on people's doors to arrest and deport those who have outstanding deportation orders. In a recent INS pre-dawn raid in Cape Cod, the largest ever done in the Boston area, 35 Brazilians were arrested, and in another operation in East Boston, eight more were arrested. According to officials from the INS Boston office, the Brazilian community wasn't targeted. The crackdown is a result of a post-Sept. 11 shift within the agency that has put more resources into operations to arrest illegal immigrants...

HE was little known to the West a week ago. But Abu Bakar Bashir is now being dubbed the Osama bin Laden of South East Asia. The Islamic cleric with buck teeth, a wispy white beard and large tinted specs is the chief suspect in the Bali bomb massacre - the world's deadliest terrorist strike since September 11. Yesterday, hours after police announced he was being called in for questioning about the nightclub bombing, the Daily Mirror tracked Bashir down to a remote village on the Indonesian island of Java. He denied being involved in the bombing, and said: "Terrorism...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Cartoonist Larry Gonick knew he might be asking for trouble when he set out to draw a comic-strip version about the birth of Islam. He had no idea that the third volume in his Cartoon History of the Universe series, now in bookstores, would arrive at such a contentious time. As tensions reach a breaking point in the Middle East, Gonick hopes to give readers a lively history lesson in his From the Rise of Arabia to the Renaissance. Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury, said Gonick's "unexpectedly timely" volume may help people understand the current tensions....