Free Republic

Note: The following text is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThursday, December 17, 2009 Guyanese National Charged with Smuggling Indian Nationals to the United States A Guyanese national has been indicted on charges of conspiracy and alien smuggling in connection with her role in the smuggling or attempted smuggling of four Indian nationals to the United States. Annita Devi Gerald, aka Annita Rampersad, 52, was charged in a nine-count indictment returned yesterday by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas. Gerald was arrested by ICE special agents in Houston on Nov. 17, 2009, and has been held without...

A leftist La Raza activist previously forced out of a U.S. ambassadorship for her close ties to a terrorist-sponsoring foreign government has been nominated by President Obama to a key administration post. Mari Del Carmen Aponte, a former director at the extremist Mexican group National Council of La Raza (see the press release applauding her nomination) and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, has been handpicked by Obama to be the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. That means Aponte, an attorney and independent consultant, will represent the State Department in the civil war-ravaged Central American country. In 1998...

President Obama's recent nominee for ambassador to El Salvador was forced to withdraw her nomination to another diplomatic post a decade ago following concerns about ties to Cuba, raising red flags as her name heads to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee once again for approval. President Obama's recent nominee for ambassador to El Salvador was forced to withdraw her nomination to another diplomatic post a decade ago following concerns about ties to Cuba, raising red flags as her name heads to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee once again for approval. The White House announced the nomination of Mari Del Carmen...

STERLING, Va. - A close inspection by Customs and Border Protection officers at Dulles International Airport turned up something unexpected. Inside a fully-cooked chicken they found cocaine with an estimated street value of $4,300. The 60.4 grams (2.3 ounces) of coke was found inside two small, clear plastic bags inside the chicken's cavity. Officers discovered the white powdery substance during a secondary inspection after a flight from El Salvador arrived shortly after midnight Saturday. It tested positive for cocaine. "CBP officers have seen many unique narcotics concealment methods, and they all present the same challenges to discover them. Our officers'...

An illegal alien has been sentenced to life in prison for breaking into an 83-year-old woman's home, grabbing her by the throat, smashing her head into furniture, saturating her with gasoline and setting her body on fire while she was still alive – all to cover up his check fraud scam after she hired him to cut her lawn.

New York Daily News SNIPPET: "NEW YORK — El Salvadoran leaders of the MS-13 gang allegedly put out a contract on the federal agent responsible for a crackdown on its New York factions, the Daily News has learned. The brazen plot to assassinate the unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was revealed in an arrest warrant for reputed gang member Walter (Duke) Torres. Torres tipped authorities to the plan after he and four other MS-13 members were stopped by NYPD detectives for hassling passersby on Northern Blvd. in Queens last month."

A new video of Jeremiah Wright has surfaced, showing Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years praising Marxism and discussing his ties to communists in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the Libyan government. Equally important, Wright is being introduced in the video by Robert W. McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, an organization which has come under scrutiny for its links to the Obama Administration and dedication to the transformation and control of the private media in the U.S. In an article in the socialist Monthly Review, "Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle," McChesney declared, "Our job is to make media reform part...

EL SALVADOR (Tier 2) El Salvador is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Salvadorans are trafficked to Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States. Salvadoran women and girls are also trafficked internally from rural to urban areas of the country. The majority of foreign victims trafficked to El Salvador are women and children from Nicaragua and Honduras trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. The Government of El Salvador does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The family of a father and two sons who were slain in San Francisco last year can go to state court with a claim that the city is to blame for failing to turn their alleged killer over to immigration authorities when he was arrested earlier as a juvenile, a federal judge has ruled. City Attorney Dennis Herrera had asked U.S. District Judge Susan Illston to rule on the claim herself after dismissing the rest of the suit last month by Tony Bologna's widow and daughter. But Illston said Friday that the remainder of the family's case...

REYNOSA — Soldiers on Thursday freed more than 100 persons who were being held against their will by a group of alleged kidnappers, authorities said. Military personell discovered the sequestered group's location through an anonymous tip, the Mexican Defense Ministry said in a news release issued Saturday. Soldiers checked out the area at Callejón Golondrinas about 11:30 p.m. and discovered a house with about 123 persons crammed inside. Soldiers interviewed several victims who told officials they had been abducted. The people found inside the house, all Central American, were described as follows: >> 94 Honduras nationals (24 females) >> 15...

It's good, occasionally, to take a trip down memory lane. It helps to put things into perspective. Hugo Chavez ought never to have been elected president. By rights, he ought to be growing old in a jail cell somewhere. Well, it's been seventeen years, maybe he’d be in a half-way house by now. As an army officer in 1992, he led a military revolt against the legal, constitutional government of Venezuela, and attempted to overthrow the democratically elected president of the time, Carlos Andres Perez. He gambled that once the shooting started, the minister of defense and the rest of...

During the 1970s and 1980s, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), then based in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, vigorously lobbied for Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, the Cuban-style Marxist regime that shot its way to power in 1979. Today, WOLA pretends it is concerned about the rule of law in Honduras after the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court supported removing the leftist president for defying its constitution. WOLA and Jim Wallis' publication Sojourners have teamed up to spin Honduras' defense of its democracy as another example of a U.S.-supported, imperialist military coup. The constitutional coup in Honduras was...

Ousted Zelaya fails to land in Honduras 05 Jul 2009 23:42:51 GMT Source: Reuters CARACAS, July 5 (Reuters) - The Honduran army thwarted an attempt by ousted President Manuel Zelaya to land at Tegucigalpa airport on Sunday by blocking the runway with military vehicles.

In a high-stakes move to reclaim his post, ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya tried to fly to this Central American nation on Sunday. The provisional government said it would turn the aircraft away, even as it signaled a new willingness to negotiate a solution to the region's biggest political crisis in years. Honduras' civil aviation director said Mr. Zelaya's plane was being redirected to El Salvador. Mr. Zelaya, a leftist kicked out by Honduras' army last week in his nightshirt, departed from Washington to Tegucigalpa on an aircraft believed to belong to Venezuela's government. He was accompanies by the U.N....

Note: The following text is a quote: June 24, 2009 46 street gang members and associates arrested in New Jersey-wide operation ICE works with local law enforcement agencies to make arrests NEWARK, N.J. - Forty-six gang members and associates were arrested as a result of a statewide public safety initiative in New Jersey led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of Investigation in Newark. The operation ended June 20. Each of those arrested were targeted for their membership, participation or association with violent street gangs. The success of the operation dubbed "Community Shield" was the result of an...

I'll be on hiatus into July after this. So I looked for some waterfall pictures as a send-off. Waterfall in the Caucasus Mountains (Chegem Gorge). Click for full-size. Katibawasan Falls, Phillipines (click for full size) El Chorro waterfalls, El Salvador

Three Mexican men accused of holding 12 undocumented immigrants against their will have been charged with alien smuggling and conspiracy to smuggle aliens into the U.S., according to court documents. U.S. Magistrate Felix Recio on Tuesday ordered that Leonardo Juarez Torres, Abel Martinez-Rendon and Santiago Cisneros Diaz, all Mexican nationals, be held without bond until a detention hearing Friday morning. The immigrants, 10 Mexican men and two Salvadoran women, were being held in a house at 1936 Woodway Drive, said Brownsville police spokesman Sgt. Jimmy Manrrique. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is investigating several leads to identify other individuals possibly...

SNIPPET: "Police were nearby and took one suspect into custody while another was arrested after a getaway car was followed to a nearby trailer park."

Caption Hillary with the First Lady of El Salvador!

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1242212406822&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Note: Photos included. # Taking a Stand Against MS-13 05/01/09 Our MS-13 Task Force was able to resolve the case quickly because the victim came forward with security surveillance tapes of the robbery. After MS-13 gang members robbed a Houston beauty salon at gunpoint last January and sexually assaulted a salon employee, one of the gang members went a step further: he took the owner’s picture so he knew exactly who she was. If she thought about going to the police, he said, she would be sorry. The owner was also told that from now on, she would be expected...

LIMA -- Public health authorities of South American countries took precautionary measures to fend off a possible pandemic after a deadly swine flu virus claimed dozens of lives in Mexico and infected at least 11 people in the United States. In Peru, experts with the Health Ministry said the ministry had initiated a nationwide precautionary plan to deal with potential threats, though no suspicious cases have been reported so far in the country. The Chilean Health Ministry expressed concern over the situation and drafted a contingency plan for epidemic prevention. It also ordered a public health alert that included health...

Just two days after US President Barack Hussein Obama shared a controversial and landmark handshake with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center has released a study analyzing the flowering alliance between the increasingly anti-Western Latin America and the virulently anti-Israel Iran. The study was conducted at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC), a non-governmental organization dedicated to Israeli intelligence and terrorism issues. According to the study, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is using anti-Western Hugo Chavez as a springboard into several Latin American countries, such as Bolivia, Nicaragua, and...

The Burnet County Sheriff’s office has arrested five people in connection to a home invasion early Tuesday morning. According to police, three Hispanic males entered a home in the Stone Mountain subdivision in southwestern Burnet County. The individuals robbed the couple at gunpoint and took cash, jewelry, and firearms. Investigators detained five individuals who were at a residence in Granite Shoals. After interviewing the men, investigators were able to obtain a search warrant for the home. They discovered items that they believed were stolen during the home invasion. Authorities arrested Gilberto Aldana, Alvaro Caceres, and Nauna Fuentes-Sanchez and charged them...

An alleged abduction in southwest Houston earlier this week appears to be part of human smuggling operation that was thwarted when the victim jumped from his kidnappers' car on a freeway near downtown. Six men, including the victim and his relatives as well as three suspects, were arrested following a brief police chase. No injuries were reported. Federal immigration authorities said the men were in the country illegally and were involved in a human trafficking plot. However, officials declined to discuss details of the case because the investigation is ongoing. The names of the men have not been released. "It's...

This week the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, won the presidential election in El Salvador. The former Marxist rebels, who fought a guerilla war from 1980-1992, are the first leftist party to come to power in the country's history.

The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN, made history on March 15, when its candidate Mauricio Funes captured the presidency become the first leftist party elected to El Salvador´s highest elected office, after three failed attempts since it laid down its weapons 17 years ago. The FMLN, which was defeated in three straight presidential elections since 1994, fought for power with arms during El Salvador´s 1980-92 civil war, that left some 70,000 dead. Funes captured 51.3 percent of the vote, topping his closest rival, Rodrigo Ávila, of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena, party, who won 48.7 percent...

President-elect Mauricio Funes Wednesday said he will consider establishing diplomatic relations with China when he takes office on June 1. Funes, who heads the FMLN leftist rebel group-turned political party, said he would discuss San Salvador's links with Beijing with Taiwan's envoy as well as with Chinese officials in the Salvadoran capital. But he insisted the "type of relation" his incoming government will establish with Taiwan and Beijing "will be dealt with later on" in his administration. Funes said however that he is "interested in closer" trade relations with China, given its immense market of more than 1.3 billion people....

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama telephoned the next president of El Salvador on Wednesday to congratulate him on his election.

Hemisphere: El Salvador elected a leftist president in a peaceful vote Sunday that by all accounts was fair. But the odds are now against this U.S. ally remaining democratic. That could cost the U.S. in more ways than one.The narrow election of Mauricio Funes, a representative of the Marxist guerrilla FMLN party, as president of El Salvador Sunday, is a body blow to U.S. influence and the free market model in the region. Don't take it from us, take it from them: "This is the defeat of Ronald Reagan, nothing less," crowed Roberto Lovato, a Funes supporter identified as a...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — A charismatic former TV journalist promised to build strong ties with President Barack Obama and promote investor confidence Monday as he took El Salvador into uncharted territory by being elected its first leftist president. Behind Mauricio Funes is a party of former Marxist guerrillas that fought to overthrow U.S.-backed governments in the 1980s and whose rise to power has raised fears of a communist regime in the war-scarred Central American country.

MIAMI, March 16 -- Mauricio Funes, a former TV newsman who was recruited to run for president, declared himself the winner of El Salvador's presidential contest Sunday night, bringing into power a leftist party built by former guerrillas and ending two decades of conservative rule. Funes, a dynamic speaker and political outsider who compares himself to President Obama and pledged to be an agent of change in the small Central American nation, was leading the polls late Sunday night with 51.2 percent of the vote and more than 90 percent of the ballots counted. Turnout was high and election day...

NUEVO LAREDO - There were at least 15 "express kidnappings" of Central Americans in January and February in this border city, civil rights officials said Wednesday. All were released after family members in the United States met ransom demands. The figures were released at a news conference by José Luis Manso Ramírez, coordinator of the Centro de Derechos Humanos del Migrante (center for immigrant human rights), and Father Francisco Pellizari, director of Nuevo Laredo's Casa del Migrante. "I have documents with testimony from victims of express kidnappings in this city," Manso said. "They were deprived of their freedom up to...

Wilfido Joel Alfaro, 29, was fatally shot last week during drug raid Houston police identified the suspect in a shooting last week that critically injured a police officer as an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, saying federal immigration officials missed multiple opportunities to deport him. On Tuesday, Mayor Bill White said the disclosure about the immigration status of Wilfido Joel Alfaro, who was fatally shot by officers executing a drug search warrant Thursday night, highlights the federal government’s failure to identify and deport illegal immigrants convicted of crimes. Officer Richard Salter, shot in the face during the raid, in southeast...

HOUSTON - FOX 26 News has learned there is a multi-agency investigation into the legal status of a man who allegedly shot a police officer during a drug raid. That man is 29-year-old Joel Alfaro. Investigators were serving a warrant on his home in east Houston when detectives say he opened fire hitting officer Rick Salter in the face. Salter remains hospitalized in critical condition. Alfaro was killed in the shootout with officers who were serving a drug warrant on his home. Now FOX 26 has learned Alfaro was investigated by the federal immigration service for his legal status. Court...

The presidential candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the communist revolutionaries in El Salvador the Reagan administration battled in the 1980s, is, a Monday Washington Post story noted, “a former correspondent for CNN en Espanol.” In the March 9 article, “In El Salvador Vote, Big Opportunity for Leftists,” reporter William Booth relayed from San Salvador that the journalist-turned-politician “considers himself to be El Salvador's Barack Obama.” Booth relayed: After a 12-year civil war and a peace undermined by soaring crime, leftists in El Salvador are on the verge of completing a remarkable journey from armed struggle to...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/0902/090223bakersfield.htm February 23, 2009 DMV and ICE dismantle major Bakersfield counterfeit document ring Ring recruited customers outside local grocery stores BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Seven suspects face state charges after investigators from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed state search warrants last week targeting a sophisticated counterfeit document ring that recruited customers at area Latino grocery stores. The enforcement action, which took place Wednesday, resulted in the seizure of a large cache of counterfeit document manufacturing equipment, such as computers, laminators, government seals and card...

CONVOY SUPPORT CENTER SCANIA, Iraq, Jan. 30, 2009 – A 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, maintenance technician deployed here found his freedom in the United States and now fights so that Iraqis may enjoy what he has come to cherish. Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jose Orellana found freedom in the United States and now fights for freedom in Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Rodney Foliente  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jose Orellana of the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team was born the son of a successful politician in...

TONACATEPEQUE, El Salvador — Police said on Wednesday they found the remains of what they believe to be eight to 10 gang victims at the bottom of a well outside El Salvador’s capital. Five detectives were lowered about 100 feet into the well, where they found skulls, bones, hair and possibly the remains of a child, federal homicide investigator Israel Antonio Ticas said. Police suspect the victims were killed by members of Mara Salvatrucha, a violent street gang with roots in Central America and strong ties in Houston. About two dozen of the gang members operate in and around Tonacatepeque,...

Mexican military officials said they rescued 189 undocumented immigrants from a Reynosa stash house during a Sunday night raid. An anonymous tip reportedly led authorities to a home off Calles Doctor Plata and Rio Purificacion in the Colonia Doctores. Mexico's El Universal newspaper reported that officials found 157 men and 32 women inside the house around 11 p.m. Sunday. The newspaper said the immigrants were all from Brazil and Central America. Many of the immigrants told investigators reported that had paid as much of $1,500 to be smuggled into the United States. El Universal reported that it took some of...

Two were killed and three are in the hospital There were 18 people in a pickup that crashed early Monday east of Mathis, killing two men from Honduras, officials said Tuesday. The medical examiner's office Tuesday identified the men as Elder Arely Obando Ramos, 30, and Homero Humberto Rosales Gutierrez. The medical examiner's office determined they both died of blunt-force trauma to the head caused by the accident. Ramos also was believed to have suffered blunt-force trauma to the chest. Authorities Tuesday had not determined Gutierrez's age. All of the people in the pickup were undocumented immigrants from El Salvador,...

President Bush met with President Saca of El Salvador in the Oval Office transcriptSecretary of State attended a meeting at the Useless Nations regarding the piracy off the coast of Somalia Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

SUCHITOTO, El Salvador (Reuters) - Belky Hernandez was three days old when U.S.-backed government troops shot dead her mother, a Marxist guerrilla, in a forest in war-ravaged El Salvador. Her father, also a rebel, was already dead. Seventeen years later, she runs a stall selling civil war memorabilia and mementos of Cold War revolutionaries Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Alongside them, she now sells campaign T-shirts for Mauricio Funes, the man she hopes will heal old wounds by bringing a party of softened former rebels to power for the first time in presidential elections in March. Funes, a bespectacled former...

Two suspected MS 13 gang members accused of fatally shooting a 14-year-old student on a Maryland public bus were arrested Thursday on a Metro bus in Houston. Gilmar Leonardo Romero, 20, is charged with first degree murder in the Nov. 1 shooting death of Tai Lam at a Maryland bus stop. Mario Ernesto Milan-Canales, 30, is charged as an accessory after the fact. Milan-Canales was present at the time of the shooting and also allegedly attempted to destroy evidence, said Montgomery County (Maryland) Police Department Lt. Paul Starkes. The men had been under surveillance by members of the U.S. Marshals...

Just weeks before police say an illegal immigrant and alleged MS-13 gang member shot and killed a 14-year-old Silver Spring boy, the 20-year-old man was charged with concealing a dangerous weapon by a Montgomery County police officer, court records show. The citation was issued on Oct. 3, a little less than a month before police say Hector Hernandez — an El Salvadoran illegal immigrant living in Takoma Park — opened fire on a Montgomery County bus, killing Tai Lam and wounding two other teens, ages 14 and 15. Hernandez was with four or five other alleged gang members when he...

"Recently" I traveled up to the Campus of Columbia University to do some research on BHO's "missing years" as a student at Columbia College. This is my report (fwiw). I looked through every page of every issue of The Columbia Spectator published during bho's time on campus (Aug1981-Jun1983). No smoking guns. Nothing of any great immediate value BUT some interesting leads for further pursuit and some strange stuff to report... First, what I didn't find is almost as interesting as what I did find... * BHO is never mentioned in the paper during the period * No photographs of BHO...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA — Leaders from El Salvador’s Cuscatlán Battalion gathered at Bunker 7 for a quick reaction force demonstration Aug. 23. The demonstration gave the Soldiers an opportunity to show the incoming troops and Salvadoran media the high level of training they achieved in their six months here. A fake explosion initiated the training demonstration. Soldiers reacted rapidly, establishing security and caring for the wounded. The Soldiers displayed the importance and success of their training in Iraq with each task performed. The Salvadorans don’t have armored vehicles to train on before deployment, said Capt. Alejandro Gutierrez, assistant operations...

Former street crew member Ronald Moten initially dismissed as idle talk the rumors that gang members from the notorious Bloods were attempting to infiltrate Washington. The District never had an organized gang problem, said Moten, who is now an anti-violence advocate in the District. The city's crews were homegrown neighborhood cliques while the Bloods were a Los Angeles gang, a huge criminal enterprise widely known for its rivalry with the Crips. But about six months ago, when a teenager showed him the cigarette burns on his arms — an initiation rite the teen endured rather than get a tattoo under...

A girl looks out from the Numaniyah, Iraq, Handicap Association's new facility, soon after it opened, Aug. 8. Photo by Sgt. Daniel West. FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELTA — The Numaniyah Handicapped Association celebrated the opening of a new facility, Aug. 8. The facility, which was built with coalition funds, will be used by the association for administrative purposes, and will also have rooms dedicated to therapy.Soldiers of El Salvador’s Battalion Cuscatlán supervised construction of the 200 square meter building, which cost about $200,000.“It’s good that it will be open to help people with special needs,� said Ahmed, a local citizen...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....