Free Republic

Even as Congress struggles with the ongoing crisis at the border and the President plans some sort of meeting with Central American leaders, there seems to be no shortage of elected officials who want to get in on the action. Of course, if you’re looking for help with a huge problem on the Texas border, your first thought might not be to ask somebody in upstate New York. But that won’t stop the city’s mayor, Stephanie Minor. (Go ahead… say “Mayor Minor” five times fast.) The mayor’s latest pitch came in a letter to President Obama. “We have a network...

Dr. Elaina George, an ear, nose, throat and chest specialist from Atlanta, told Charles Payne on FOX News today that the US could be facing a health crisis as the thousands of newly illegal children enter the classrooms this fall. “There’s an example in Maryland, where parents got a letter from the school that there children had been exposed to an illegal child who had TB who was one of their classmates. So this fall it is potentially possible that these children entering the school systems could be carrying all sorts of things, diseases that are not on the radar.”...

As I’ve noted here before, the current crisis of unaccompanied minors crossing the border has had one upside. It has forced the actual GOP stance on immigration out into the open, increasingly boxing Republicans into a position where their main solution to the broader immigration crisis is effectively advocating for maximum deportations from the interior, including of the DREAMers. Now, as the battle over the crisis continues to roil the political landscape, the point is being underscored by none other than Ted Cruz: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz plans to take a hard-line stand that could rile up conservatives just as...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says immigrants who came to the country illegally at a young age are now legitimate residents and should not be deported. Reid made the remarks in response to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is demanding that an emergency spending bill for the border reverse President Obama’s 2012 order halting deportations of so-called Dreamers. “Before Republicans help our Border Patrol agents and all the personnel trying to do something to handle this humanitarian crisis, they want President Obama to deport the Dreamers who are already here, legitimately here,” he said on the Senate floor Thursday...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)NEW YORK -- Following the noxious scenes in Murrieta, California earlier this month in which women and children from Central American were greeted by flag-waving mobs shouting, "go home" and "you’re not welcome", the ugly face of American populism was given another airing on Tuesday as protesters descended on the small town of Oracle, Arizona, to rally against the transfer of 40 immigrant children to a local academy for troubled youths. Yet unlike in Murrieta, those demonstrating against the arrival of the destitute and vulnerable were met by a counter protest organised by pro-immigrant supporters, with heated exchanges between the...

We have an immigration problem along our southern border, mostly with the Texas portion. The border is leaking like a sieve, with hundreds of children fleeing Central America and the drug induced bloodshed that has moved recently from Mexico down to Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. A child has a higher chance of being killed in Central America than they do in Chicago’s South Side. Who are buying the drugs that are causing all the violence in Central America? Americans are. So if we want to stop the influx of children from Central America we need to do something about...

In a Monday letter to a Mexico City Vatican conference, Pope Francis wrote that the tens of thousands of Central American children illegally crossing into the United States should be “welcomed and protected.” Just days after President Obama visited Texas and pledged a solution to the US border crisis, the Pope said migrant children’s human rights are being violated. “Many people forced to emigrate suffer, and often, die tragically,” he said. “Many of their rights are violated. They are obliged to separate from their families and, unfortunately, continue to be the subject of racist and xenophobic attitudes.” The Pope also...

Crime: A core constituency asks: If the president is concerned about unaccompanied children from Guatemala fleeing deplorable conditions and violence, what about fatherless children here burdened by gang violence with nowhere to flee? Some 748 of the unaccompanied children from Central America have found their way to the Chicago area, Fox News reports, far from our open border and virtually unannounced to local residents or their political leaders who are unaware of exactly where the children were sent or being kept. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., told Fox last Friday that he was unaware of the exact locations of the facilities...

Illegal immigrants are being secretly flown to Massachusetts and kept in local lockups in an under-the-radar operation that has alarmed lawmen who are raising health and security concerns amid recent spikes in detainees coming up from Texas during the latest border crisis. “We’re all becoming border sheriffs now with these people being carted all over the country,” said Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson. “The blame goes all the way up. It’s a travesty and people ought to be upset,” Hodgson said. “This is un-American and has raised the stakes to the public health and public safety threat.” Hodgson said...

The “ugly American” has gotten a lot uglier over the past few weeks, from the streets of California to the halls of Congress and state houses around the country. A growing number of our fellow Americans have taken on grotesque features, in looks and sounds, in reaction to the thousands of children from Central America who have crossed our borders as they flee poverty and violence in hope for something better. Sadly, the arrival of these youngsters has been greeted by flag-waving, sign-carrying, Bible-thumping and Constitution-quoting citizens demanding that they not be received here and that they be returned immediately...

(NOTE — Update at the End of the Column) One of the things that changes you, when you become a parent, is the body of knowledge you acquire to protect your spouse and children including things like knowledge of infectious diseases in public schools. In my case that meant looking at the NY Times saying the following: “…the administration has begun to send the expected 240,000 migrants and 52,000 unaccompanied minors who have crossed the border illegally in recent months in the Rio Grande Valley to cities around the county.” And at headlines for the open border crisis like this...

With the children being sent across the country, a Houston woman went on an epic rant when she learned that officials were looking at a closed school in her neighborhood as a potential detention facility. Bernadette Lancelin not only opposed the idea, but did so emphatically: It’s not right. Now billions of dollars want to be borrowed from the White House to help feed and house them. What about the kids here? In our neighborhood? In our country? Not just in this neighborhood but in our country. All these kids? Really? Why can’t they go back? I’m sorry that their...

Yes, Rick Perry is awful for not shaking his hand, but the president needs a Pope Francis-like moment with the border kids to signal America is more than blowhards and racists.Let’s get Rick Perry’s jackass-ery out of the way quickly: Refusing to shake hands in public with the president of the United States is just an idiot thing to do. Perry is trying to claim the faux moral high ground here by arguing that he held out for a more substantive meeting and got it, but come on. It’s not as if that meeting wouldn’t have happened if the governor...

This is odd. In an appearance on CNN addressing the crisis at the southern border, CNN contributor and The Daily Beast columnist was asked about the “optics” of the president failing to go to the border to see the situation with his own eyes. While Kohn said that she would go to the border in between Democratic fundraisers if she were the president, but simultaneously suggested that to demand he do so – an increasingly frequent phenomenon on the left – represents a double standard. That was not, however, the oddest of odd moments which occurred in this short segment....

Rarely have we been presented with a policy problem as complex as the crisis unfolding on the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas, where thousands of women and children, including many unaccompanied minors, have been making their way from Central America to the Rio Grande Valley under the impression, or simply the hope, that they will be able to remain in the U.S. once across the border. There are countless facets of the crisis to consider. What role are child trafficking laws playing in hamstringing the Obama administration in sending the kids back home? Should we, in fact, reevaluate our asylum...

Multiple deportations are not stopping Central Americans from vowing to try again to illegally enter -- and remain -- in the United States. Illegal immigrants who have been deported and those that were caught before they made it to the United States are thinking of even more creative approaches they can use to enter the United States. According to NBC News, "nearly every mother" interviewed at a repatriation center in Honduras that expects to receive about "10 buses a week" of people who were caught making the journey to America "said they would leave Honduras again until they were permanently...

Five far left counter-protesters were arrested today in Murrieta, California as protesters and open borders supporters gathered outside a Southern California Border Patrol facility.(VIDEO-AT-LINK)From the video - the protesters were charged with “lynching.” The pro-illegal immigrant counter-protesters were the ones arrested. MURRIETA, CA – JULY 4: A counter-demonstrator to protesters opposing arrivals of buses carrying largely women and children undocumented migrants for processing at the Murrieta Border Patrol Station is arrested on July 4, 2014 in Murrieta, California. Five people were arrested. (Yahoo-Getty) NBC Los Angeles reported: Five people were arrested Friday as crowds of protesters and immigrant rights supporters...

As illegal immigrants flood across the border, President Barack Obama is still reportedly planning to issue an executive action to give temporary amnesty and work permits this year to the parents of illegal immigrant children. A "senior official familiar with the White House deliberations" told the Los Angeles Times that the "work is continuing" on a Deferred Action program for the parents of so-called DREAMers and other executive actions to ease deportations. The Times noted that the program "was tentatively slated to be announced this fall," but the Obama administration may try to enact it after the midterm elections because...

Some Congressional leaders are coming out in support of creating an emergency refugee program that they believe would help deal with a massive surge of child immigrants coming to the U.S. from Central America. Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain said that establishing refugee application programs in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador is “key” to help stem the tide, according to Reuters. Since October, 52,000 Unaccompanied Children, or UACs, have been apprehended at the U.S. border. That is up from 6,000 in 2011. Another 39,000 parents with children have been apprehended as well. The surge has strained resources at the border...

DALLAS, Texas--Nerves are starting to fray. Texans want answers about the tsunami of undocumented and unaccompanied minors that may well hit public school classrooms this Fall. Breitbart Texas reported that the Clear Lake Tea Party (CLTP) voiced strong concerns about how these minors will be absorbed into classrooms across the state. Locally, it stands to tax Texans in more ways than one and how schools prepare comes with a surprising answer. Breitbart Texas asked Texas Education Agency (TEA) Director of Media Relations Debbie Ratcliffe who said, "We are monitoring the situation but, at this point, we have no districts report...