Free Republic

Marco Antonio Reyes Alvarez, the undocumented Ecuadorian immigrant who has found sanctuary from deportation in a church downtown, might face a prolonged stay at First & Summerfield due to a new directive that limits the ability of members of Congress to halt removal orders. Federal legislators have regularly introduced “private immigration bills,” which, if passed, would grant permanent legal residency to a person who entered the country illegally. More importantly, while the private immigration bills were being considered, federal agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used to hold off on deporting the individual. If a U.S. senator was...

SAN FRANCISCO — The much-publicized saga of Highland Hospital nurse Maria Sanchez and her husband Eusebio, who for the last 15 years had sought to obtain green cards and remain in the U.S. legally, ended with hugs and tears Wednesday night before the undocumented couple boarded a flight bound for their native Mexico. They had booked their flight Tuesday after receiving word that a final attempt to delay their deportation had been denied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The couple is now prohibited from returning to the U.S. for a decade, when they can begin the process all over...

WASHINGTON — Before President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies took effect early this year, thousands of undocumented residents were given a break from being deported. Government immigration officials would hold off if the illegal immigrants were married to American citizens or longtime residents of the U.S., gainfully employed and had committed no crime other than being in the country illegally. It was, said immigration lawyer Heather Prendegast of Cleveland, the “government’s attempt to be nice.” The cordiality ended when Trump officials instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to get tough on illegal immigration, according to a study by the...

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Thursday for the federal government to reverse the deportation of an Oakland nurse and her husband, saying their removal after more than two decades in the country revealed the “cruel and arbitrary nature” of President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Responding to a front-page Chronicle story about the couple — who plan to leave for Mexico on Tuesday with their 12-year-old son, while leaving behind three older daughters who have legal status — Feinstein’s office set up a meeting Thursday between the California Democrat and the family to discuss their plight. “These are the kind...

Maria and Eusebio Sanchez are not exactly high priority targets for deportation. They aren’t drug lords, convicted criminals or the “bad hombres” the president wants to be rid of. But the couple are undocumented immigrants. And, after moving to the Bay Area in the early 1990s from a small town in Mexico, they have worked hard to embrace the American Dream. Over the years, Maria, 46, rose from being a housekeeper at an East Bay nursing home to become a registered nurse at Highland Hospital today, caring for patients with cancer, heart, and kidney disease. Eusebio, 47, graduated from construction...

A previously deported illegal alien in Johnston County, North Carolina, is accused of attempting to rape an 89-year-old elderly woman in her home. Jose Campuzano-Ramirez, a 52-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, is being held on bail after being charged with breaking into the woman’s North Carolina home, assaulting, kidnapping, and attempting to rape her, according to the News-Observer. According to police, Ramirez allegedly broke into the 89-year-old’s home and tried to rape her, but eventually fled before authorities responded. K-9s chased Ramirez, catching him and arresting him for the incident. Police arrived at the scene and noticed that the elderly...

"I cannot process it," she said, choking back tears. Without much evidence, President Donald Trump has often referred to millions of people voting illegally in this country. Fitzpatrick now admits she did cast two ballots improperly — but she insists it was not intentional. Her story is one that stretches over three presidential administrations: those of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. It's a story that sheds light on potential gaps in federal law, the limits of the judicial system and the agonizing consequences of what one woman calls a horrible mistake

This is a story which began ramping up back in March. Liberal activists in a number of states were complaining that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was making arrests of illegal aliens in the vicinity of courthouses when they would show up for hearings. (The fact that the same thing happened on an as needed basis while Barack Obama was president didn’t appear to cross their minds.) For their part, ICE argued that illegal aliens frequently have no listed permanent address or place of employment, and if local law enforcement wasn’t going to assist them in their duties, a court...

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH)– Senator Richard Blumenthal is calling on the acting head of Homeland Security to end what he called “irrational and cruel” deportation policies. Blumenthal said in a press release that he “plans to release a letter calling on new Acting Secretary Elaine Duke to review and reverse the inhumane, unwise policies and practices and dedicate Department resources to cases involving individuals with criminal records or other indicators of danger-not parents and spouses who have committed no crime and often have voluntarily appeared at ICE offices in accordance with previous policies.” The senator will bring up the case of...

In a ruling which could have far-reaching consequences for how the European Union deals with migrants in future, the European Court of Justice on Wednesday upheld the right of member states to deport asylum-seekers to the first EU country they enter. The ruling amounted to an effective rejection of Angela Merkel’s controversial “open-door” refugee policy, which saw more than one million asylum-seekers flood into Germany. The court ruled that the EU’s Dublin regulations, under which refugees must seek asylum in the first member state they enter, still apply despite the unprecedented influx of 2015.

Time is running out. This is a call for activism. Neda Amin, a female Iranian journalist who works for an Israeli news outlet and a UN refugee in Turkey, will soon be deported to Iran by Turkish authorities. Amin said that she has been harassed by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) for a long time. “People who said they work for the Turkish intelligence organization called me on the phone five or six times one-and-a-half years ago. Then they interrogated me at a foreigners' branch directorate. They kept asking me why I wrote for an Israeli newspaper and with whom...

SAN ANTONIO — One of the undocumented immigrants who died in a stifling tractor-trailer here this weekend was a 19-year-old who lived in the United States and graduated from high school in Northern Virginia before apparently being deported to his native Guatemala, according to interviews with government officials and postings on social media. Frank G. Fuentes was one of at least three Guatemalan nationals on a truck packed with undocumented immigrants and driven by James Matthew Bradley Jr., said Cristy Andrino, the consul of Guatemala in McAllen, Tex. Fuentes previously had lived in Virginia, Andrino said. The Guatemalan government said...

America belongs to immigrants because immigrants make the nation more powerful, says a former Wall Street Journal writer who is now working for the New York Times. Immigrants produce more babies, work harder, create more jobs, and have more ideas, claims the revealing column by immigration-advocate Bret Stephens: I speak of Americans whose families have been in this country for a few generations. Complacent, entitled and often shockingly ignorant on basic points of American law and history, they are the stagnant pool in which our national prospects risk drowning… Bottom line: So-called real Americans are screwing up America. Maybe they...

<p>On Monday hundreds of illegal aliens and other sanctuary city advocates filled the Texas House gallery to protest a bill that will protect Texans from criminal illegal aliens.</p> <p>During these protest some illegal aliens held signs saying ‘I am illegal and here to stay.’ Texas Republican Representative Matt Rinaldi then decided to call ICE on the self described illegals.</p>

Officials in El Salvador held emergency meetings after seeing a sharp increase in the number of violent gang members being deported back to the country from the United States under the Trump administration. Salvadoran authorities have held emergency meetings and proposed new legislation to monitor returning criminals and gang members that are returning to El Salvador after deportation, according to the Washington Post. The move by Salvadoran officials comes as a direct result of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration and efforts to deport more criminal illegal aliens from the U.S. This year the U.S. has already deported 398...

Award winning photographer Mathias Depardon has been under detention in southeastern Turkey since Tuesday 9 May. A French photographer who had been living in Turkey for several years was detained in southeastern Turkey on Tuesday according to a report in French daily Le Monde.Mathias Depardon, an award winning independent photographer on assignment for National Geographic travelled to the historical town of Hasankeyf in Batman province on Monday and was detained along with his translator a day after his arrival.Turkish police confiscated Depardon’s equipment and after inspecting his social media accounts charged him with “propaganda for a terrorist organisation” based on four photographs he had shared...

Foreign refugees are continuing to flee the U.S. to Canada through the open, U.S.-Canadian Border. In a report by NBC News, foreign refugees are passing through the U.S. to Canada, specifically a small border town of less than 700 people known as Emerson. The vast majority of the refugees are of Somali descent who were originally placed in the U.S. Other refugees passing through the northern border are from Nigeria, Eritrea, and Djibouti. According to NBC, since January, more than 300 foreign refugees have crossed the U.S. border into Emerson.

You may recall one of President Trump’s earlier executive orders dealing with Public Safety in the Interior of the United States. Part of that order directed the Department of Homeland Security and the Attorney General to begin compiling data on illegal immigrants who are incarcerated, detailing the immigration status and possible detention or deportation orders for each. The first round of data compilation in accordance with that order has been completed and the DoJ sent out a news release today with the figures. It will probably come as no surprise to at least some of you that the figures...

The plummeting number of unauthorized crossings from Mexico may allow the Trump administration to focus more energy on deporting undocumented immigrants already living here, former immigration officials say. Since President Donald Trump took office, the number of unauthorized crossings have dropped to a 45-year low. If those numbers stay down, it could mean that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will see a sizable chunk of its workload evaporate, even as the White House demands the agency hire another 10,000 agents.