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<p>MCALLEN, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Border Patrol says two Central American women have reported being raped by human smugglers in two separate incidents in South Texas.</p> <p>A Border Patrol statement Friday says a Honduran woman apprehended Tuesday in the brush by agents from the Kingsville station said she was raped Jan. 6 by three men at a stash house near Hidalgo. She was taken to a Kingsville hospital for evaluation.</p>

McALLEN — Federal authorities arrested three men accused of holding 51 undocumented immigrants, threatening them with a handgun and a machete as well as paddling them to keep them in line. The arrests came after a Guatemalan immigrant managed to escape the house and alert authorities. On Friday afternoon, agents with U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division went to a house in the 6600 block of North Bentsen Road, where they arrested 51 undocumented immigrants and three men who, in addition to being immigrants from El Salvador, were in charge of holding them...

Disobedience and preaching against the teaching of the Catholic Church about women's ordination led to his excommunication, dismissal and laicization. Then Fr. Bourgeois engaged in an obstinate crusade which involved public and direct defiance of the Holy See and a repudiation of the unbroken teaching of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church concerning sacred ordination. MARYKNOLL, N.Y. (Catholic Online) - The short Press Release from the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers confirmed some sad news on Monday, November 19, 2012. The priestly ministry of Roy Bourgeois has come to an end: ***** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThe Congregation For The Doctrine Of The...

BROOKS COUNTY -- A search is underway for a 12-year-old El Salvadorian girl has been missing for 17 days. Officials said the girl is an illegal immigrant who was traveling with a group of other immigrants that left her behind in Brooks County. Kimberly Orellana was last seen near the Falfurrias checkpoint on August 8th. Kimberly was traveling with a group of immigrants who were smuggled into the United States and dropped off in Mcallen. Immigrant activist Livio Danna said the group was heading to Houston but left her behind after she couldn't walk anymore. Now, Danna is doing whatever...

After years of bulldozing, President Obama finally got Senate confirmation for a scandal-plagued diplomat forced out of a U.S. ambassadorship for her close ties to a terrorist-sponsoring foreign government. That means a leftist open borders activist (Mari Carmen Aponte) with a controversial past officially represents the administration abroad. In a 62-37 vote last week, the U.S. Senate approved the confirmation of Aponte, a former board member of the National Council of la Raza (NCLR) and Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), as the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador. Obama originally nominated Aponte in December 2009 and made her...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is vowing to break with conservatives in his party and help confirm President Obama's controversial choice for ambassador to El Salvador when she comes before the Senate, possibly as early as Wednesday. Obama gave Mari Carmen Aponte a recess appointment in 2010 but it expired at the end of last year after Senate Republicans filibustered her. Some Republicans have raised concerns that Aponte might have dated a Cuban spy 20 years ago, while others sought to use her nomination to pressure the administration to change other Latin American policies. Rubio, a possible GOP vice presidential candidate...

EDINBURG — Two men face human smuggling charges after authorities detained 115 illegal immigrants who claimed they had been starved and held against their will. Border Patrol agents detained Vicente Ortiz Soto, 24, and Marcial Salas Gardunio, 24, after Edinburg police received an emergency call from inside a stash house Wednesday on the 2800 block of East University Drive. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents named four people, from Honduras and El Salvador, as witnesses kept inside the stash house, a criminal complaint states. They told agents Salas fed them little, locked the illegal immigrants inside the stash house and offered...

It was easy to see this coming. When the news about Secret Service agents hooking up with prostitutes in Columbia first broke we were told there were 11 men (some reports had it at 12) being investigated. Immediately we heard six were kicked out leaving; five “still under investigation.” In this case “under investigation” meant being squeezed to see if they would break and roll on their partners. Three decided to clam up and take whatever was coming instead of turning on their teammates. That left two. Any good cop knows why those two weren’t immediately fired. They handed up...

A day after U.S. lawmakers were briefed on an alleged prostitution scandal in Colombia involving Secret Service members, a report emerged Thursday of similar allegations, this time in El Salvador. Seattle TV station KIRO, a CNN affiliate, cited an unnamed U.S. government contractor who worked extensively with the Secret Service advance team in San Salvador prior to President Barack Obama's trip there in March, 2011. The source said he was with about a dozen Secret Service agents and a few U.S. military specialists at a strip club in the city a few days before Obama arrived, KIRO reported. The men...

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=15202 MMEDIATE RELEASE No. 291-12 April 19, 2012 Detainee Transfer Announced The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of two Uighur detainees from the detention facility at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to the Government of El Salvador. These detainees were subject to release from Guantanamo as a result of a court order issued on October 7, 2008 by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and are voluntarily resettling in El Salvador. As directed by the President's January 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a...

Lackland AFB will become a temporary home to 100 children who have been stopped recently by the U.S. Border Patrol, officials said Monday. Details were sketchy, including when and where the children were found, and when they would come to San Antonio. Brent Boller, a spokesman for Joint Base San Antonio, referred most questions about the incident to the Department of Health and Human Services, which said the oldest is 17 and that only 17 percent are below 14. Boys make up 77 percent of the group, said Marrianne McMullen, director of public affairs for HHS' Administration for Children and...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Jaime Alas scored in stoppage time and El Salvador ousted the United States from Olympic qualifying Monday night with a 3-3 tie. The Americans had to win to reach Saturday's semifinals in Kansas City, Kan., and they led 3-2 on Joe Corona's goal in the 68th minute. But Alas scored his goal off the hands off keeper Sean Johnson to stun the Americans, who missed the Olympics for the second time since 1976.

Several Democratic senators are calling on the Obama administration to allow Syrians who are already in the United States to stay, at least temporarily, out of concern it would be "too dangerous" for them to return home. The senators want President Obama to invoke what's known as "temporary protected status" for thousands of Syrians in the U.S. The designation typically is given to foreign nationals whose home countries are beset by war or natural disaster and who could face harm should they return. The senators argued that Syrians in the U.S. are in just that kind of predicament, as Syrian...

President Bush had many important foreign policy issues to discuss when he went to Lima, Peru, last weekend, but you wouldn't have known it from watching NBC's weekend "Today" show on Sunday. Because while Bush was talking about narcotics trafficking, trade and international terrorism with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, "Today" and other Sunday news shows led with the case of convicted American terrorist Lori Berenson. American media coverage of President Bush's trip to Mexico, Peru and Central America revealed how our media establishment views Latin America. Basically, our journalistic agenda-setters in New York and Washington ignore our neighbors to the...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador's president says he will ask Washington to halt deportations of Salvadorans and extend a program that allows those who are in the U.S. illegally to stay.

SAN DIEGO, Texas - A reserve deputy driving home from work swerved violently off the road and overturned his car after his headlights revealed the battered bodies of three men on a dark South Texas road. The incident happened about 1 a.m. Tuesday as Duval County reserve deputy Alonzo Zamora was driving along Farm-to-Market Road 1329. Sheriff's Sgt. David Canales says Zamora suffered only bumps and bruises in the crash. Canales says the men were a 30-year-old from El Salvador, a 23-year-old from the Dominican Republic and a 23-year-old from Mexico. Each suffered head injuries, and the Salvadoran also had...

"Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike" Plato (BC 427 - 374BC). Open rigging and clinging brazenly to power have become common features of emerging democracies in the world today especially in Africa. Many Countries in Africa have become accustomed to "sit-tight dictators" or military style of leadership, with democracy being propelled by the West for their replacement. This is at the centre of the on-going conflict in many emerging democratic nations. Democratization of the world today as being championed by United States of...

Although it is not in the form of binding resolution, the American push for U.N. action has helped win over a handful of new countries to the cause. A resolution could be brought to a vote later this year. The issue of gay rights has polarized nations at the U.N. for years. And despite growing acceptance for homosexuality in Western nations and parts of Latin America, lawyers say there is still a gap in human rights treaties for the protection of gays against discrimination and mistreatment. "We are very concerned that individuals continue to be killed, arrested and harassed around...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) -- President Barack Obama stood, eyes closed, in a personal moment of silence before the tomb of slain Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, whose fight for the poor during El Salvador's bloody civil war made him a national hero - and an international figure in human rights. The visit Tuesday in the final hours of Obama's five-day swing through Latin America was a symbolic gesture that some called U.S. recognition of Romero's cause. Obama toured the national cathedral with Monsignor Jose Luis Escobar Alas, the current archbishop, and paid respects to a man ordered...

CIUDAD ARCE, El Salvador - El Salvador's Maya Indians on Sunday invoked the forces of nature in an ancient ritual to help US President Barack Obama - set to visit the Central American nation - make wise decisions. The ceremony for Obama was part of an annual equinox ritual held by members of the country's Maya community. "We beg the volcanoes, the mountains, and the grandmothers and grandfathers, to call on the energy of the sun to surround ... Obama as he makes decisions," an indigenous shaman named "Tata" Neto said. Five Maya priests, including Neto - also known as...