Free Republic

MILFORD, Mass. — Six communities around the state have asked to join a controversial federal fingerprinting program aimed at deporting illegal immigrants who have been charged with crimes. These jurisdictions want to join the program, called Secure Communities, before it becomes mandatory for all states in 2013. But one city isn’t waiting. The town of Milford is small. The latest Census says 25,000 people live in this community off Interstate 495 near Hopkinton. Town officials estimate 2,000 of them are from Ecuador. The men work in roofing, the women in service jobs. After A Fatal Car Accident, A Crackdown On...

PHARR — An illegal immigrant faces federal charges after he was found with a stolen handgun and ammunition Friday. Pharr police arrested Mexican national Jose Wilmer Naranjo Aguilar, 25, about 2 a.m. Friday at Value Place, 1207 W. Expressway 83, after a report of shots fired at the motel. Police recovered a stolen .40-caliber Beretta pistol, 48 rounds of .40-caliber ammunition and 29 rounds of 9 mm ammunition, according to a complaint filed Saturday in U.S. District Court. Pharr police encountered Naranjo after the motel clerk reported a suspicious masked male running inside the building. Naranjo told Immigration and Customs...

GOP Rep. Steve King (R-IA) - a stalwart opponent of illegal alien amnesty, came out with a strong response to Barack Obama's "Uncle Omar" - the 20-year fugitive from justice busted for DUI in Massachussetts 2 weeks ago, who was then summarily released by ICE a few days ago. This follows the outrage of Obama's Aunt Zeituni mooching off welfare and public housing for years in Boston, before being outed - and then getting asylum in an unprecedented closed immigration hearing. As Judiciary Chariman Lamar Smith said Friday, "It appears there is a double standard — one for President Obama’s...

A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of Alabama's new law cracking down on illegal immigration, ruling Monday that she needed more time to decide whether the law opposed by the Obama administration, church leaders and immigrant-rights groups is constitutional. The brief order by U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Blackburn means the law won't take effect as scheduled on Thursday. The ruling was cheered by opponents who have compared the law to old Jim Crow-era statutes against racial integration. But Blackburn didn't address whether the law is constitutional, and she could still let all or parts of the law take effect...

Bill would freeze Obama administration's power to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants By Jordy Yager - 06/25/11 05:05 PM ET The Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is crafting a bill that would temporarily freeze the Obama administration’s power to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants. The measure is in response to a memo issued by the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last week that approved a broader breadth of discretion for agency officials when considering whether to deport someone through the Secure Communities program. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who is sponsoring the legislation, blasted the memo. He...

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...

Police say Nicolas Guaman, 34, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador who had his 4-year-old with him in the truck, was drunk when he ran a stop sign and hit Denice’s motorcycle. They say Guaman continued slowly weaving his way around the corner of Congress and Fayette, then onto West Street, and later Bancroft Avenue. A meandering dark streak, accented by orange police spray paint, traces the route.

New Holstein - As daylight breaks, David Geiser is already in the barn of the Gold Star Dairy farm tending to more than 300 head of Holsteins on his sprawling farm. Like his father and grandfather, Geiser has lived and worked on this farm, founded by his Polish and German immigrant ancestors, all his life. Next year the farm will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Deborah Reinhart, whose Quaker ancestors were dairy farmers in Pennsylvania, works alongside her husband as the farm business manager and also cares for the young livestock. The couple raised three sons, who are now grown and...

Hidalgo County Sheriff Department has confirmed that New Mexico rancher, Larry Link, was murdered earlier today on his property. Sources are reporting that the rancher was responding to an alleged- illegal alien on his property at Stein’s Ghost Town when the he was gunned-down. The murder took place on the southwest side of the state near the Arizona border on Interstate 10 at mile marker three. The Hidalgo Sheriff’s Deputies responded to the scene, only to find the rancher had already died.

The illegal alien drunk driver who struck and killed a police officer in Houston had not only been twice deported but also twice released from police custody after he was apprehended. Local news media have uncovered a wealth of details about Johoan Rodriguez, who killed 28-year-old cop Kevin Will. The 26-year-old Mexican illegal killed Will after he crashed a police barrier set up to cordon off an area where Will was investigating an accident. The Mexican vagabond was drunk and carrying cocaine in his pocket when his car struck the officer. Will is just the latest victim of the federal...

State and local officials, upset that federal officials simply released an illegal immigrant who had allegedly committed welfare fraud, joined together Monday morning to voice their displeasure. State Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-122, said he and the other local officials are not happy with the way Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials handled the arrest of a man stopped last week by Beaver Meadows police for speeding and found to be an illegal alien. "I am very proud of the work of (Beaver Meadows Police) Chief (Mike) Morresi, and very disappointed in the federal government and how ICE handled the situation," Heffley...

WASHINGTON – Nayely Arreola was a high school junior when a U.S. senator first protected her from deportation. The year: 2003. Nayely is now 25, newly married and a graduate of Fresno Pacific University. She and her family still remain protected, thanks to special bills that need not pass to exert influence. "Perhaps the greatest hardship to this family, if forced to return to Mexico, will be (Nayely's) lost opportunity to realize her dreams and further contribute to her community and this country," Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein declared. As she has regularly since 2003, Feinstein in March re-introduced a so-called...

Both sides are claiming victory in the $650,000 settlement of a lawsuit brought by a group of day laborers who charged their September 2006 arrests in Danbury, Conn. were unlawful and based on racial profiling. According to Yale Law School’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, which helped represent the men pro bono and issued a press release about the settlement, “This is the largest monetary settlement ever paid out to day laborers by any municipality in the country.” “I have no idea what the basis for that assertion is,” said Dan Casagrande, the lead trial counsel representing the city...

OLYMPIA, Wash. — A Republican-led motion to bring a vote on a bill that would have restricted driver's licenses access to illegal immigrants and attempted to stop other identification fraud was defeated Monday in the Washington state Senate, dealing proponents of the measure a major defeat. In a procedural motion, Republicans asked the Senate to consider the bill, which had not been brought to the floor by Democrats, who hold the majority and control of which bills get a vote. But the motion failed 23-25 in the waning minutes of a deadline to vote on bills in their chambers of...

A Mexican national who has been deported at least three times since being convicted in Ramsey County of sexual assaulting a 12-year-old girl was again found in the United States and jailed after traffic infractions, federal authorities said. Juan Dominguez-Soriano, 35, of Little Canada, was being held in the Carver County jail Friday afternoon at the direction of immigration officials on a charge of illegal reentry into the United States.Dominguez-Soriano was picked up Feb. 6 for failing to provide a driver's license and proof of insurance, according to the U.S. attorney's office for Minnesota.

SANTA CRUZ Xochitlquetzal hates the words "illegal" and "alien," especially when they're side by side. "It's dehumanizing this idea that a person can be illegal,' and by calling someone an alien you label them as an other,' as not human," the UC Santa Cruz student said. The community studies major has a remarkable memory and tells vivid stories from childhood, many of which come back to an endless struggle for acceptance. Xochitlquetzal carries a serious demeanor, with broad shoulders that seem to support an unseen weight. None of this is surprising when Xochitlquetzal stares with large, dark, emotive eyes and...

An illegal immigrant's frequent arrests in Minnesota over the past 20 years show cracks in a system meant to bar foreign criminals.The guy found passed out in a St. Paul bus shelter near the University of St. Thomas with a drained bottle of vodka in his coat pocket was not just any homeless drunk. Mario Montalban-Ramirez, 61, was convicted of manslaughter in Illinois in 1982, convicted of murder in Texas in 1984 and sent back to his native Mexico three times -- in 1996, 1997 and 2003 -- for being in the United States illegally. He also has been a...

SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (Reuters) – The parents of a Mexican teenager allegedly killed last year by a bullet fired by a U.S. Border Patrol agent across the Rio Grande river, on Monday sued the U.S. government for $25 million. The U.S. Border Patrol says Sergio Hernandez Guereca, 15, was pelting U.S. agents with rocks from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande river last June when Border Patrol agents on the U.S. side shot him to death. But Bob Hilliard, attorney for the Mexican family, said today that the boy was the victim of "brutality" on the part of the...

The mother of a 14-year-old hitman who confessed to severing heads for a brutal Mexican drug cartel pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a charge that she was in the United States illegally, according to news reports. Yolanda Jimenez Lugo, 43, and her husband, Gabriel Aguirre Manuel, 46, pleaded not guilty to charges in federal court in San Diego, the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper reported.

U.S. marshals are on the hunt for an illegal immigrant wanted for raping an 8-year-old girl, and they are asking the public to help track him down. Salvador Portillo-Saravia, 29, had been deported from the United States six years ago, but illegally re-entered the country and recently sexually assaulted the young daughter of an acquaintance.