Free Republic

Humboldt County leaders are shedding light on an issue that has many community members scared for themselves and their children. Sheriff Honsal and 4th District Supervisor Virginia Bass attended a meeting at the Multigenerational Center in Fortuna Wednesday regarding undocumented citizens and fears of mass deportation. "There's people last night that were saying during this meeting that they were afraid to send their kids to school, they were afraid to go to the doctor, they were afraid to go out in public,” said Sheriff William Honsal, “They're in fear that one day they are going to be gone or their...

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...

A day after being released by federal immigration authorities on Tuesday, Yuba City resident Baljit Singh ran his dogs along the river, played with his sons and started thinking about what may be his last three months in America. Singh, 39, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in Sacramento during a required check-in with federal authorities on Aug. 1. After being held for a week at Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center near Elk Grove, he was granted a three-month reprieve to get his affairs in order and make arrangements to leave the country. Singh, from India, is undocumented...

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...

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. - A man could be forced to leave the country after police say he left his puppy in a hot car. The puppy was spotted Sunday night panting in the back seat of an SUV in Lawrenceville. A witness said the dog had been in the SUV for at least a half hour and was struggling. “The external temperature outside was about 82 degrees. However when they put a thermometer inside the car, they determined the temperature inside the SUV was 94 to over 100 degrees,” said Cpl. Michele Pihera with the Gwinnett County Police Department. Police...

The "fiscal drain" of illegal immigrants on American taxpayers is about 6 times the price of deporting them, according to a new study that bolsters the Trump administration's bid to remove criminal illegals and cut overall immigration costs. The Center for Immigration Studies on Thursday said in a new report that deportation costs an average of $10,854. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that includes apprehension, detention, and processing. Letting illegal immigrants stay in the U.S., results in a bill to taxpayers of $65,292 "for each illegal immigrant, excluding their descendants," according to Steven A. Camarota, director of research at...

The European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday blocked Germany’s planned deportation of a Russian 18-year-old, who had been deemed a potentially “dangerous” Islamist. The young man had already been on the way to Frankfurt airport on Tuesday when the court decision was made, forcing the driver to turn around, according to media reports. The European court’s ruling to block the deportation was not a final decision on the case itself, but rather was a way to ensure that the procedure would run properly as the court begins to consider the case, explained a court spokeswoman. Germany’s own Constitutional Court...

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...

President Donald Trump’s executive orders to increase enforcement and follow existing immigration law is leading some illegal aliens to self-deport. In a report by the Pueblo Chieftain, sources told the local newspaper that illegal immigrants, fearful of being prosecuted and deported by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), are self-deporting primarily back to Mexico. “Sources report that some undocumented families have left the area for Mexico rather than run the risk of having a parent arrested or even sentenced to prison for immigration violations,” the newspaper reported. According to the report, families began self-deporting after a total of 14 illegal...

The federal crackdown on illegal immigration is causing anxiety among Europeans who have long been able to fly under the radar even though they're living in the country illegally. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data provided to The Associated Press show that more than 1,300 were deported from October 1, 2016 through June 24. That pace is likely to exceed last year's federal fiscal year total of roughly 1,450 European deportees. Romanians make up the largest share of European deportees, followed by citizens of Spain, the United Kingdom, Russia and Poland.

BOSTON (AP) — A prominent Irishman who lived illegally in Boston for years has been deported, closing a case that has generated fear and anxiety within the state’s sizeable Irish expat community. John Cunningham returned to Ireland on Wednesday night, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed on Thursday. The 38-year old electrical contractor had been in custody since he was arrested at his home on June 16. Federal immigration officials have said Cunningham represented an ‘‘enforcement priority’’ because he overstayed a 90-day visa by more than a decade....

A prominent Boston man nabbed by ICE last month for overstaying his visa by more than a decade has been sent back to Ireland, and the city’s Irish community is still worried about further deportations, an advocate said. John Cunningham, 38, was a Brighton-based electrical contractor before he was detained for overstaying a 90-day visa that he used to enter the U.S. in 2003. Cunningham left on a commercial flight Wednesday night. “ICE is enforcing the law, it’s simple and sometimes painful but they’re just doing their jobs,” said immigration attorney John Foley, a board member of the cultural center...

Bottom line: So-called real Americans are screwing up America. Maybe they should leave, so that we can replace them with new and better ones: newcomers who are more appreciative of what the United States has to offer, more ambitious for themselves and their children, and more willing to sacrifice for the future.

For the first time in U.S. history, attorneys for an illegal immigrant in Houston are appealing to federal religious freedom laws to annul his impending deportation. Lawyers representing Juan Rodriguez filed a lawsuit Monday on the unprecedented grounds that Rodriguez’s deportation would violate his family’s religious beliefs, specifically a Seventh Day Adventist requirement that requires families to remain together. Rodriguez’s lawyers hope that their lawsuit will be upheld based on the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which “ensures that interests in religious freedom are protected.” Rodriguez is represented by Raed González and receives legal counsel from three other members...

If you are in a country illegally, breaking the laws of the country you are in, shouldn’t you be afraid of being found and deported? Well that’s what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Thomas Homan said Tuesday in response to a growing cry from liberal activists complaining about ICE agents enforcing federal law. Anyone in the country without authorization can be arrested at any time. And those who have been ordered deported by judges and who did not show up for hearings (which happened countless times during the Obama years) must be removed from the country if those laws...

In Britain, as in the U.S., when an Islamic terrorist is said to be, “known to law enforcement,” the translation is: “He is being actively ignored by law enforcement.” After the latest terrorist attack in Britain — at least as of this writing — Prime Minister Theresa May bravely announced, “Enough is enough!” What is the point of these macho proclamations after every terrorist attack? Nothing will be done to stop the next attack. Political correctness prohibits us from doing anything that might stop it. Poland doesn’t admit Muslims: It has no terrorism. Japan doesn’t admit Muslims: It has no...

NEW YORK (AP) — A crackdown on illegal immigration under President Donald Trump has driven some poor people to take a drastic step: opt out of federal food assistance because they are fearful of deportation, activists and immigrants say. People who are not legal residents of the U.S. are not eligible to take part in what is formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But many poor families include a mix of non-legal residents and legal ones, such as children who have citizenship because they were born in the U.S. In those cases, it is often an adult...

During a Friday interview with NPR’s Latino USA and anchor Maria Hinojosa, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti said that increased immigration enforcement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could lead to growing tensions in his city, to the point that it could be the “tinderbox” on the scale of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Here is the transcript from the interview: GARCETTI: If something goes wrong, I fear a tinderbox out there, where people will suddenly say “no” and try to defend, you know, keep that person from being taken. That’s a very dangerous situation. That’s dangerous for those officers....

In a speech otherwise laden with praise for President Trump, Rep. Roger Marshall broke ranks on immigration, questioning the feasibility of a mammoth border wall and saying mass deportation would wreck Kansas’ economy. Marshall represents Kansas’ 1st District, a sprawling, mostly rural and agrarian district that covers the western two-thirds of the state. He said the U.S. needs to revise its immigration policies and document those who come to the United States to work in the farms and feedlots....

It is not just irresponsible but ludicrous that Congress and the president would ignore the need for comprehensive immigration reform even as government agents round up and deport scores of the undocumented who deserve an avenue to legal residency in this country. In a special report titled “The Undocumented,” staff writer Luis Ferré Sadurni shared stories of immigrants who entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas and are now living in fear that any day might bring their arrest by the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These are men and women living otherwise law-abiding lives...