Free Republic

U.S. Sen. Al Franken stopped by the state Capitol on Monday to tout the benefits of the Senate's recently passed immigration bill for Minnesota and the nation. The measure would bolster the employment pool for Minnesota's agricultural industry, particularly dairy farming, as well as for high-tech and medical firms, Franken said. The bill includes new border security measures and a 13-year path to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants.

Executive Summary Unlawful immigration and amnesty for current unlawful immigrants can pose large fiscal costs for U.S. taxpayers. Government provides four types of benefits and services that are relevant to this issue: Direct benefits. These include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Means-tested welfare benefits. There are over 80 of these programs which, at a cost of nearly $900 billion per year, provide cash, food, housing, medical, and other services to roughly 100 million low-income Americans. Major programs include Medicaid, food stamps, the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy...

A man charged with four counts of intoxication manslaughter is an illegal alien who only a few weeks ago was arrested on another alcohol-related charge, officials say. Roberto Castillo, 19, remained in the Washington County jail this morning under $2 million bond after authorities say he slammed into another vehicle at the intersection of Highway 36 South and FM 109 about 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Authorities said Castillo’s pickup truck struck a 1998 Mustang carrying four people, who all died from injuries they suffered in the crash. Their identities had not yet been released this morning. Authorities were carefully piecing together...

The elderly are killed. Young women are raped. And able-bodied men are given hammers, machetes and sticks and forced to fight to the death. In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins. In an in-person interview arranged by intermediaries on the condition that neither his name nor the location of his Texas visit be published, the trafficker also admitted to helping push cocaine worth $5 million to $10 million a month into the...

MISSION TX - We expect to learn more today about a shootout between drug runners and U.S. authorities neaar Chimney Park south of Mission. Dozens of Texas state game wardens descended on Chimney Park along with Border Patrol agents and Texas Rangers. They saturated the area after a shootout between game wardens and drug smugglers. Authorities in Austin have released only basic information, saying a suspicious vehicle was spotted on the U.S. side of the river around 6 Thursday morning. They then saw two cartel drug recovery boats loaded with people and what appeared to be marijuana. As they approached,...

(CNN) -- Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, made its own history Tuesday as its homicide rate reached 3,000 deaths for the year -- 10 times the number of killings annually that the border city counted just a few years ago. With two weeks left in the year, 2010 is now the deadliest year Juarez has ever seen, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general's office told CNN. "At 12:15 p.m. we hit 3,000 murders for the year. The state attorney general's office had the number at 2,998 as of Monday and with the two murders today that brings us to 3,000,"...

Slowly but surely Washington is acknowledging the high cost illegal immigration inflicts on local governments. The New York Times reports on a study by the University of Arizona and San Diego State University showing counties along the Mexican border spent $1.23 billion processing illegal immigrants through the justice system. Heritage research shows the cost of low skilled immigrants does not end there. In FY 2004, at the local and state level, the average low skill immigrant household received $14,145 in benefits and services and paid only $5,309 in taxes. The average low skill immigrant households imposed a fiscal burden on...

The number of immigrants without health insurance has soared, accounting for most of the growth in the nation's uninsured population, a new study finds. Immigrants are much more likely than native-born Americans not to have health coverage, accounting for 86 percent of the increase in the uninsured population in the five years ended in 2003, according to research by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. The report, released Monday, finds that the increase is partly due to a 1996 federal law banning legal immigrants' participation in public insurance programs for five years after arrival in the U.S. Those restrictions have since...