Free Republic

Supporters of a proposed Los Angeles voter initiative that would allow police to arrest illegal-immigrant gang members solely for being in the country illegally said they collected enough petition signatures before Friday's deadline to qualify the measure for the May ballot. The signatures still need to be verified by the Los Angeles city clerk's office, a process that could take up to three weeks. Proponents, who needed to gather 73,963 signatures from valid registered voters in the city, said they had submitted more than 76,000. Jamiel's Law, as it is known, is named after 17-year-old Los Angeles High School football...

Because it is obviously more important to count all the illegals than it is to have fewer of them. More . . .

This is a response I received from an elected official, Vancouver City Councilman Pat Campbell, Thursday, Nov 20th. I was respectfully asking him (and other councilmen) to sign an Initiative that would stop Washington State from granting ILLEGALS benefits, INCLUDING drivers licenses...This is to expose elected officials who think they are above the law Eric, We are having a financial crisis down here in Vancouver. Not sure that this is an issue we can deal with locally except through the referrals to ICE which have been ongoing when a person who may be the the category you speak of is...

Earlier this month Congress and President Bush committed $700 billion of our children’s and grandchildren’s money in a desperate effort to stave off a financial meltdown. Judging from the reaction of the markets, that sum may only be a small down payment on the real cost of decades of criminally irresponsible policies promulgated in Washington and on Wall Street. Even from our vantage point in the midst of an unfolding catastrophe, its causes are easily identifiable: Greed and reckless expediency on Wall Street and greed and reckless irresponsibility in Washington... At the intersection of Greed and Recklessness & Greed and...

Nearly 3,000 of those deported had criminal records. More than 10,000 immigrants were deported in the past year from Alaska, Oregon and Washington, an increase of 37 percent over the year before, according to new numbers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The deportees are both illegal immigrants and permanent residents -- in the country legally but not citizens -- who have committed crimes. The spike in deportations reflects a continuing nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration by ICE and other federal agencies. Nationwide, the number of deportations in the period increased from 290,000 to more than 345,000, an increase of almost...

Stricter driver's license requirements, which block illegal immigrants from getting a license, have slashed the number of Spanish speakers taking the license test in Oregon. Critics of illegal immigration say the new law is a success. But community advocates say there has been no exodus of undocumented immigrants from Oregon. "It's obviously working in that people who shouldn't be getting a license are not getting them," said Jim Ludwick of Oregonians for Immigration Reform. "I don't think all of them will leave the state, but we have been champions of attrition through enforcement." Gov. Ted Kulongoski ordered Driver and Motor...

It’s the issue both presidential candidates have largely ignored as they court the nation’s growing Hispanic population, but one-out-of-four U.S. voters (26%) is still angry about the current immigration situation. Twenty-eight percent (28%) express frustration about immigration, but for 43% it’s just one of many issues, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. With increased enforcement of the borders and America’s struggling economy serving as less of a magnet for illegal immigrants seeking better-paying jobs, it is perhaps not surprising that the number who are angry is down from 34% in August. But as in August, 74% continue...

A state lawmaker in Pennsylvania says illegal immigration is an issue that affects everyone, from the federal level all the way down to local communities. "Immigration is, certainly, 100% a federal issue but I think what we have going on in our nation is an illegal alien invasion," says Pennsylvania State Representative Daryl Metcalfe. Metcalfe was in Charleston on Monday to join in a rally involving a number of West Virginia state lawmakers. "It's really incumbent upon us as officeholders at all levels of government to work together to bring an end to the illegal alien invasion," he says. Metcalfe...

In the six months since the Frederick County Sheriff's Office began working closely with federal immigration authorities, 183 illegal immigrants have been identified, detained and put on track for deportation, a crackdown that has spooked the area's Latino community and provoked accusations by rights groups of ethnic profiling. Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, the first law enforcement official in Maryland to sign a cooperative agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that since April, about 9 percent of all people arrested and taken to the county detention center have proven to be illegal immigrants. He called those results a success and said...

Two Days Left to Demand a 5 Year E-Verify Reauthorization E-Verify is in true jeopardy right now and unless your Senators act now we are in jeopardy of losing the basic tool that helps companies determine worker's eligibility and weed out illegal aliens! Our sources on Capitol Hill tell us that instead of responsibly reauthorizing E-Verify for the necessary full five-year term, Senators are going to pander to special interests and the Senate will only extend E-Verify for six months in a continuing resolution (CR). A CR is a stop-gap spending measure meant to keep the government from shutting down...

Latino immigrants increasingly pessimistic about life in U.S. By Hernán Rozemberg - Express-News The combination of a lack of jobs due to a worsening economy and an unprecedented series of governmental work raids have got immigrants down in the dumps, according to findings in a new survey. The Pew Hispanic Center, a nonprofit research think tank based in Washington, concluded that Hispanics across the country, and in particular immigrants, are increasingly concerned about staying employed and being deported. According to Pew's annual national survey of Latinos, nearly two-thirds of Latino immigrants said their lives have worsened over the last year...

Nearly one in 10 Hispanics in the U.S. reported that in the last year police or other authorities have stopped them and asked them about their immigration status, the Pew Hispanic Center said in a report released Thursday. The finding comes amid the biggest crackdown in decades against illegal immigration – one especially evident in Texas, the No. 2 destination for such migrants. Municipal police in several suburbs of Dallas, including Irving and Carrollton, have stepped up cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Nationally, deportations or removals of Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans from the interior of the United States have doubled...

Last year, Arizona passed a set of enforcement laws known as the Legal Arizona Workers Act. Before the laws came into effect and ahead of legal challenges to their constitutionality, there was anecdotal evidence that tens or hundreds of illegal immigrants were leaving the state on a daily basis. The "massive deportations" argument was shown to be a strawman. Most illegal immigrants will leave of their own volition when laws are passed requiring them to do so or risk facing forcible action. Make it more difficult for illegal settlers to live in a place illegally, and they are less likely...

Unless Congress steps in, on November 30, E-Verify is set to expire. E-Verify is a system that allows employers to verify electronically whether their newly hired employees are legally authorized to work in the United States. E-Verify should be re-authorized.A Valuable Voluntary ProgramThrough E-Verify, participating employers can check the work eligibility status of new personnel they are hiring through an online service that compares information from an employee's I-9 form against Social Security Administration (SSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) databases. This service is provided free to employers (though the individual companies must bear the cost of providing the...

Hazleton will get to argue before a federal appeals court Oct. 31 that a federal judge wrongly struck down the city's ordinance making it against the law to hire or rent housing to illegal immigrants, Mayor Lou Barletta announced today. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to have the appeal heard by a three-judge panel, and recent rulings by other circuit appeals courts have given the city hope it can prevail, said Kris Kobach and Hank Mahoney, attorneys representing the city in defending its Illegal Immigration Relief Act. "We're not going to waver, we're not going to back...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. immigration agents have arrested 595 people at a Mississippi factory in what was the largest workplace enforcement raid in the United States to date, an immigration official said on Tuesday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said federal agents arrested the workers in a raid at the Howard Industries Inc. factory in Laurel, Miss, on Monday, "This is the largest targeted workplace enforcement operation we have carried out in the United States to date," Gonzalez told Reuters by telephone. The swoop at the plant, which makes electrical equipment including transformers, was part of an ongoing...

Largest such sweep in the country.

Link Only

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Federal immigration agents raided a major manufacturing plant in south Mississippi on Monday, but it wasn't immediately clear how many illegal workers were taken into custody. Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, said the target of the operation was Howard Industries Inc. in Laurel, a town of about 18,000 people located about 85 miles southeast of Jackson. Howard Industries produces dozens of products, ranging from electrical transformers to medical supplies, according to the company's Web site. "This is a targeted enforcement operation that is part of an ongoing ICE investigation that has revealed...

In a backroom deal just prior to the Christmas break, Congress passed the omnibus Appropriations bill which included the Hutchison Amendment that gutted the Secure Fence Act. Her amendment essentially guaranteed that the DHS didn't have to build the fence! After Grassfire broke the "Secure Fence Hoax," key members of Congress took action in an effort to undo what the Hutchison amendment did, by restoring deadlines and double fence mandate for the entire 854 miles of border. Two bills have been introduced which Grassfire is supporting. Each of these bills demands Congress make good on their original promise to build...

The most important action we can take to stop the deluge of illegal immigration is to eliminate the jobs that attract and support illegal aliens. The expansion of the federal E-Verify system is a valuable tool in this effort. AB 2076, which would prohibit state agencies and local governments in California from using E-Verify, passed the Assembly and will probably receive a floor vote in the State Senate this week. The legislation would also discourage private employers from using the system.

At this moment there are more than 300 million people living in the United States. How many are here illegally is uncertain and the estimated number changes depending on the political or social persuasion of the numerator. While liberal or “compassionate” Americans like to denounce any objections to the presence of illegal aliens as racism or bigotry over just a few, indeed as little as 12 million, cooler heads place the number closer to double and maybe even triple that amount. While those same high-minded theologians and social reformers also claim that the few illegal aliens are only here for...

Looks like Homeland Security has come up with a Self-Deportation Plan for people here illegally. It sounds a little silly, something only a government bureaucrat could cook up. Hey, if this works, we could start a criminal self-identification plan! Forget having the police chase down bad guys, we'll just get them to turn themselves in! Don't laugh too soon: The Christian Science Monitor reports that immigrants are self-deporting. They estimate that 1.2 million have chosen to return home. The reason? Enforcement. Here's an excerpt: Americans who want strict law enforcement before a "total" immigration solution now have proof that stronger...

WASHINGTON -- A report Wednesday indicating a marked decline in the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. fueled a widening national debate over the Bush administration's policy of immigration enforcement through aggressive workplace raids. The largest such enforcement action was in May in Postville, Iowa, where federal immigration agents descended on a meatpacking plant and arrested nearly 400 workers later detained in a building used to house cattle.

Workers at a second county-owned golf course have abandoned their jobs after managers announced the county was auditing their immigration status. The flight from Eisenhower Golf Course in Crownsville last week followed a similar scenario that unfolded at the other county-owned facility, Compass Pointe Golf Course in Pasadena. "Some voluntarily saw fit not to return to their jobs the next day, and we haven't heard from them since," confirmed Rich Katz, senior vice president of Billy Casper Golf, the Northern Virginia company that manages both courses for the county. Workers fleeing the courses have drawn the suspicion of a county...

Memo to, shall we call them, Enforcement-Deniers: Enforcement is causing massive self-deportation. And the authors suggest that if the trends they identify are sustained, "it would cut the illegal population in half within just five years." Half gone in 5 years. Nice.

Whaddya Know? Enforcement Works! Real-life immigration lessons. By Mark Krikorian ‘They’re not going back unless they are rounded up” — Hillary Clinton, 2007 In this quote, Senator Clinton nicely summed up the conventional wisdom on immigration enforcement: the only options before us are either arresting and deporting every single illegal alien or legalizing them. George Will was more colorful with his image of “200,000 buses in a caravan stretching bumper-to-bumper from San Diego to Alaska” as the only way to reduce the illegal population. The Bush administration shared this view and for six and a half years pushed amnesty, which...

The Los Angeles Police Department says one of its officers was shot and wounded by Long Beach police.

US VISIT needs fixing — an opportunity for McCain. Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential hopeful, says he has learned his lesson on immigration. His vision of a “comprehensive reform” in which at least some illegal aliens would be rewarded with legal status must, he now knows, await major deposits in the credibility bank by a government Americans do not trust to enforce the law. He says it’s time to get serious, and that the way to do that is “Border Enforcement First.” Unfortunately, that’s not very serious. Long before September 11, 2001, the government well knew that smuggling across...

Latino neighborhood slowly disappearing in central Mesa Cannot quote or excerpt so here is the link http://www.azcentral.com/community/mesa/articles/2008/07/29/20080729mr-neighbor0730.html

Mayors Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Newsome of San Francisco both want to become California's next governor. Both men, moreover, have granted "sanctuary" to all illegal aliens -- even gang members like those who shattered the lives of the Shaw Family, the Bologna Family, and Heaven only knows how many other families. Should these two Mayors be elected governor, or should they instead be indicted for aiding and abetting illegal immigration? Let's look at the law: Entering the country illegally is a crime, punishable by up to six months' imprisonment. (8 U.S.C. 1325.) Aiding and abetting illegal immigration, moreover, is...

BAY COUNTY - Local deputies now are acting as immigration agents and will be able to deport illegal aliens from Bay County. Deputy Richard Bagwell and Sgt. John Sumerall, both of the Bay County Sheriff's Office, have graduated from the 287 (g) Program in Charleston, S.C., Sheriff's Office officials said last week. The four-week school was created by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and is named after a section of law under the Immigration and Nationality Act that authorizes the federal government to train local officers to enforce immigration laws. The Bay County Sheriff's Office has a task force...

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, blasted the Bush administration today for conducting what Democrats described as harsh and punitive immigration raids, calling special attention to a raid at a kosher meatpacking plant in Iowa last May where nearly 400 illegal workers, mainly Guatemalans, were arrested in the largest worksite immigration raid in U.S. history. Lofgren, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee's immigration panel, said at a hearing on the raid that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents rounded up workers at the Agriprocessors meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, and then they were "herded into a cattle arena and prodded down...

PROVIDENCE — Federal immigration agents and state police raided six Rhode Island courthouses yesterday, arresting dozens of people employed by two contractors hired by the state. The detainees are all believed to be maintenance workers. The raid led to a noisy demonstration by at least 100 people outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at 200 Dyer St. last night. Police officers arrived as the crowd grew; at one point the police pushed a line of demonstrators across the parking lot. Some in the crowd were relatives of the arrestees. Others included clergy and at least one state representative, Grace...

Seattle, Washington - The number of immigration violators deported from three Pacific Northwest states surged nearly 40 percent when compared to the same period last year, according to statistics released today by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In the first nine months of fiscal year 2008 (Oct. 2007 through June 2008), ICE returned 7,345 illegal aliens to their home countries who had been living in Washington, Oregon and Alaska. During that same period last fiscal year, ICE removed 5,256. This year’s statistics reflect a 39 percent overall increase in the volume of deportations from the three-state area. Of the...

John McCain set a difficult task for himself in his speech to the National Council of La Raza. He had to simultaneously reassure liberal Hispanic activists that he is a more reliable champion of comprehensive immigration reform -- otherwise known as amnesty -- than Barack Obama and convince conservatives that he is still committed to the enforcement-first position he took in the Republican primaries. All while denying that he has flip-flopped on immigration. In substance, his immigration remarks offered something for everyone. He explained his revised position. "Many Americans did not believe us when we said we would secure our...

Future President Barack Hussein Obama makes so many verbal gaffes, it’s barely challenging to find and expose the ignorance. Race-pandering before the hispanic racialist group La Raza, BHO equated Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the government agency charged with carrying out our nations immigration laws, with terrorism. He said: “When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids…when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it.” Play the video below:

If conservatives ever though there was little difference between John McCain and Barack Obama on Immigration -- think again! Yesterday, in a speech to La Raza, Barack Obama likened Immigration Enforcement efforts to "terror" . . . (see video) When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it.As this campaign wears on, Obama is systematically showing himself...

Escondido city officials refuse to give up. Two years ago, the city passed an ordinance to punish landlords for renting to illegal immigrants. But it rescinded the rental restriction after a legal challenge was filed and bills began to mount. Now Escondido is trying a new approach to what it calls the "public nuisances" of illegal immigration, citing residents for code violations such as garage conversions, graffiti and junk cars. The city is also debating a new ordinance that would restrict overnight street parking without a permit. In addition, it is drafting a policy that would prohibit drivers from picking...

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed into law today legislation that will make it harder for illegal aliens living in the state to receive benefits and harder to find jobs. The new legislations requires all public employers to use the E-Verify system to verify the legality of a potential employee and requires and individual to prove their citizenship status before receiving state benefits such as food stamps and housing. The bill also punishes those localities that adopt policies to not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Missouri joins Arizona, Oklahoma, and Georgia in instituting state-wide anti-illegal immigration laws. So far, the laws...

Senator John McCain has been accused of flip-flopping on immigration. Supposedly he tacked right during the primaries and now is tacking left. Actually, McCain has been all too consistent. As he has twice in recent weeks told Hispanic leaders, he remains committed to a “comprehensive immigration reform” that increases enforcement but also creates a “temporary guest worker” program and lets many illegal immigrants become legal residents. His one concession has been a matter of timing. During the primaries he said that the public would need to see enforcement work before it would tolerate the other elements of reform. He did...

Scores of heavily armed federal agents last month stormed into Agriprocessors, which produces up to 70 percent of all kosher meat in America. The feds seized almost 400 of the plant's 900 workers in the largest single roundup of illegal immigrants to date, charging about 300 of them with identity theft and using stolen Social Security cards. Some of those workers have since sued the company, alleging abuse, fraud and sexual coercion. Postville, which once sold T-shirts boasting of the peaceful coexistence of its many cultures, has been left "absolutely shattered," said the Rev. Paul Ouderkirk of the town's St....

A Horsham car wash company and three of its managers have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the government, harbor illegal immigrants, and commit identity theft. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia said Car Care managers operated a scheme between 2000 and March 2006 that allowed car washes to hire illegal workers by giving them false names and a way to cash their checks at local banks without identification. The banks were given a list of employees who were authorized to cash paychecks without showing identification other than clothing bearing the company logo. Car Care is a wholly owned subsidiary...

PARIS, June 18 -- The European Parliament approved new rules Wednesday designed to standardize the dramatic differences in member countries' treatment of illegal immigrants, whose presence is one of the most heated political issues in Europe today. The measure, which would allow countries to jail illegal immigrants for as long as 18 months pending deportation, was decried by human rights organizations as promoting excessive detention. Supporters defended it as providing greater protections for the foreigners in countries that now permit indefinite detentions and grant detainees few legal rights. Rapidly changing demographics in Europe -- as Muslims arrive from the Middle...

The Bush administration has sharply ratcheted up prosecutions of illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border in the last year, with increases so dramatic that immigration offenses now account for as much as half the nation's federal criminal caseload. In the widening crackdown, administration officials prosecuted 9,350 illegal immigrants on federal criminal charges in March, up from 3,746 a year ago and an all-time high, according to statistics released Tuesday. Those convicted have received jail sentences averaging about one month. The prosecutions are among the most visible steps in a larger effort that includes work-site raids, increased border patrols and the...

Steamed over a perceived increase in federal usurping of states' rights, Oklahoma's House of Representatives told Washington, D.C., to back off. Joint House Resolution 1089, passed by an overwhelming 92-3 margin, reasserts Oklahoma's sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and, according to the resolution's own language, is "serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates." The Tenth Amendment states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." Traditionally, this language has meant that...

Hands down, Joe Arpaio is the toughest sheriff in America. And although he is most well-known for his tough treatment of prisoners, Arpaio has over 30 years experience with different federal drug enforcement agencies, and, as the former head of border and drug enforcement in Texas and Arizona, he is one of the country’s leading experts on how to shut down illegal immigration and cross-border drug trafficking. His is a hard-core, no-frills approach to incarceration, with 10,000 Maricopa County, Ariz., prisoners held in old Army surplus tents, fed on bologna sandwiches, and clothed in black-and-white striped, old-style prison uniforms and...

This is one of the most frightening things I've learned in a long time. Over in the US, a bill has passed the House of Representatives and is heading to Congress – with a huge amount of support. The PRO-IP bill, H.R.4279, significantly increases the state's power to detect and prosecute IP infringement, carrying with it a whole host of new law enforcement positions and capabilities. It establishes an IP Czar, someone with the job of overseeing zealous action on behalf of copyright and trademark owners, and includes such powers as the ability to seize equipment if it contains just...

While other states move away from giving illegal immigrant college students state benefits, the California Legislature appears to be pushing to give them more access to colleges and universities. Last month, North Carolina's community college system said it would no longer admit illegal immigrants. But in California, where illegal immigrants are allowed to enroll in state colleges, some lawmakers are backing a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to qualify for state financial aid and fee waivers. An estimated 65,000 illegal immigrants graduate from U.S. high schools each year and could potentially attend college, according to a study by the...

Yesenia Rangel, 12, looked out her window on a Friday morning in February and saw several officers with the letters "ICE" on their sleeves. Yesenia immediately called her neighbors to warn them that immigration officers were outside their Compton apartment building. Then she watched in tears as officers handcuffed her father and took him away. "I thought, 'I'm never going to see my dad again,' " said Yesenia, a U.S. citizen by birth. As federal authorities expand immigration enforcement in California and throughout the nation, teachers, mental health professionals and immigrant rights advocates are raising concerns about the effect on...