Free Republic

When Mike O’Brien, Ballard’s Seattle City Council member, biked up the Ballard Bridge last Thursday night, he counted five tents camped under the north ramp. He went back Tuesday, and those tents were gone. The underpass was fenced off, and workers were drilling holes to put up a 10-foot-high spiked fence to prevent homeless people from camping there.

The last time a president visited the border in Yuma, Arizona, was 2007, when then-President George W. Bush came to oversee the massive fence-building campaign he’d begun a year earlier, hoping to get a handle on the sea of illegal immigrants flowing north. Ten years later, as President Trump visits Yuma on Tuesday, the region is considered one of the border’s clearest success stories. A surge in fencing and Border Patrol agents and a get-tough approach to prosecuting illegal immigrants have produced results that once seemed unimaginable. The number of illegal immigrants arrested — a rough yardstick for the overall...

A fat beaver stuck in a wrought-iron fence was rescued this week by a quick-thinking animal services officer. The adult beaver, still carrying excess fat from winter hibernation, was found stuck between two fence bars around noon Tuesday on a private property in Hamilton, city spokesperson Ann Lamanes said in a release. Officer Sarah Mombourquette used soap to free the beaver, which suffered some injuries. After resting at the city’s animal services shelter and snacking on some vegetables, the beaver is recovering at the Hobbitstee Wildlife Refuge in Jarvis, Ont., and is expected to eventually be released back into the...

Yes, border fences work. And that is exactly why the political class is so stridently intent on opposing the construction of a full double-layered fence or any effective barrier at the border. The bipartisan open borders cartel is all in favor of discussing sundry forms of “border security,” especially if it will afford them the political cover to pass amnesty. But the one tangible form of border security they will never support, and, in fact, will pull out all stops to prevent, is the completion of the border fence. .. Border fences work … just look at San Diego and...

Mexican cartel bosses have a history of seeking a safe haven in the United States in an apparent effort to avoid dying at the hands of their rivals or having to shoot it out with Mexican military forces. U.S. law enforcement officers arrested several key cartel bosses after they sought refuge in Texas.

Tran could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the charges, which include a dangerous weapon charge. Tran had two cans of mace, according to an ABC News reporter, and said he had been called schizophrenic.

Donald Trump’s proclamation that he would build a “wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border was a major selling point in his campaign ... It was this commitment that helped propel Trump to the forefront of a crowded field of primary opponents ... and it no less helped distinguish him significantly from Hillary Clinton ... nationwide. It will soon be show-time for Trump, ... millions of Americans are eager to see him follow through on this promise—... There is some angst, that Trump and .. advisers might be taking a step back from ... a wall ... instead considering a virtual barrier,...

Derick Ion Almena, the founder of the artists collective that was the scene of deadly fire, is on probation for receiving stolen propertyThe man who founded and ran the artists' collective at the Ghost Ship warehouse where dozens of people died in a massive fire is is currently on probabion in connection with a stolen property case, according to Alameda County court records. Derick Ion Almena, 46, who friends knew as Derick Ion, was convicted in January of receiving stolen property, specifically an Airstream trailer from his landlord in January 2015, court records show. He spent two days in jail...

On October 26, 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (Pub.L. 109–367) into law stating, “This bill will help protect the American people. This bill will make our borders more secure. It is an important step toward immigration reform." The bill was introduced on Sep. 13, 2006 by Peter T. King (R-NY). In the House of Representatives, the Fence Act passed 283 -138 on September 14, 2006. On September 29, 2006 – the Fence Act passed in the Senate 80 -19. The Secure Fence Act of 2006’s goal is to help secure America’s borders...

Giant fence expands further midway through the DNC as protestors find themselves miles from the action

TEL AVIV – As the debate over Donald Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border continues to dominate the presidential race, Israel is reportedly planning to move ahead with a massive above and underground concrete barrier along the entire border with the Gaza Strip. The barrier was revealed on Thursday in a story splashed across the cover of Yedioth Aharonot, Israel’s largest daily newspaper. The story was published with the approval of the country’s defense ministry. Yedioth’s affiliated website, Ynetnews, has the details:

WASHINGTON – A plan to increase the overall height of the fence surrounding the White House by approximately 6 feet, about doubling its current height, won preliminary approval from a Washington arts commission Thursday. The move follows high-profile security breaches at the executive mansion over the past two years. The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts gave its concept approval Thursday to the new design, which also includes thicker and stronger metal fence pickets.

Hillary told Univision (the Mexican Cable TV Station) that we should be “building bridges, not walls.” Of course in reference to Donald Trump’s stand that we need to secure our borders with a ‘wall.’ So in preparation for the DNC Convention in Philadelphia, they are erecting a huge fence to keep out…Sanders supporters? Wait, isn’t a fence like a wall? If they can build one, why can’t we? “I think the idea of building walls as an answer to issues that confront our country is just not the right approach. We should be building bridges, we should be building understanding.”...

The U.S. Secret Service plans to raise the height of the White House security fence by 5 feet and add a new concrete foundation to reduce the risk of fence-jumpers, according to a copy of an agency report obtained by the News4 I-Team. The agency, along with the National Park Service, said it intends to begin building a “taller, stronger” fence to protect the White House grounds by 2018. Details of the plan were included in an audio recording of a briefing made by federal officials, which was released to the I-Team Wednesday. The same briefing is expected to be...

Radical leftists pushing for an open borders agenda are attempting to destroy the ability of over 80 percent of our nation’s Border Patrol agents to speak out and sound the alarm to the public and to Congress. The Huffington Post reported that the open-borders extremist group, Not1More, is a “prominent immigrants rights group” and that they were behind an effort to have the AFL-CIO kick out the National Border Patrol Council from its ranks. Not1More derives its name from the idea that “not one more” illegal alien should be deported from the U.S. The attacks on Border Patrol agents ramped...

Security forces say that they arrested three Palestinians who crossed the fence bordering Gaza this morning (Saturday), under the cover of heavy fog. An early investigation found that the three did not intend to perpetrate and attack on Israelis. They told their interrogators that they were escaping the Gaza Strip due to the difficult situation prevailing there. Earlier this morning, a state of emergency was declared in several communities in the Eshkol region due to reports of the infiltrators. .....

The best part is when she asks the obvious follow-up -- is a path to legalization "amnesty"? -- and he won't even make eye contact. There's a spectrum of answers to this question on the right, of course: 1. Amnesty is citizenship without preconditions. That's the strictest definition, and naturally the one preferred by Beltway Republicans like Marco Rubio in his Gang of Eight days. (Marco Rubio circa 2010 had a different view.) As long as you're forcing illegals to jump through some sort of hoop, be it learning English, paying back taxes, going to the back of the line,...

The action-man mayor of Hungarian frontier town Ásotthalom has invited “all active Europeans” to visit the border fence his government created, so they can learn how to protect their own countries. Praising the remarkable success of the Hungarian border fence, which reduced daily illegal migrant incursions from some 10,000 a day to 30 in just the space of a week, mayor László Toroczkai acknowledged the fence hadn’t actually solved the European migrant crisis. Instead, blocking Hungary off had just shifted the migratory stream westwards to Slovenia. This is not an insurmountable problem for mayor Toroczkai — the rest of Europe...

At the November 3, 2015 press conference to announce his new book, Donald Trump reminds us, "Walls work. All you have to do is ask Israel." What has been the result of the border fence Israel built in 2013 to prevent infiltration from the Egypt? According to Joel Pollak of Breitbart.com in June 2013, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has touted the success of a new border fence that Israel built along its boundary with Egypt to stop illegal infiltrators. In a statement posted at his government website, Netanyahu reported that illegal crossings had declined 99.9%, from 2,000 per month to...

It's true that in 2006, the Republican-controlled House and a large bipartisan majority in the Senate passed, and President Bush signed, the Secure Fence Act, requiring 700 additional miles of double chain-link and barbed-wire fences with lights and camera poles. But in 2007, the Homeland Security Department complained of being, er, fenced in, arguing that different types of terrain required different barriers. So Cruz's predecessor, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, authored an amendment that DHS would not be required "to install fencing . .. if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate...