Free Republic

...Terrazas said her relationship with Ruiz soured after her return to the U.S. Ruiz became jealous when Terrazas accompanied another agent to nightclubs, she said, and he threatened to deport her...Despite the fact that locals now know she is in the U.S. illegally, Terrazas said, she still gets asked out by agents. One agent assured her that "my job is my job, and when I leave I can do what I want to do," she said. But Terrazas is not interested anymore. She said, "I don't trust any of them."

These people see themselves as refugees, fleeing a country that offered little hope for a better life, and yet the law does not consider them refugees...... It is a legal distinction that infuriates Napoleon Robert, 26, a former economics students who fled his village in southern Sudan four years ago, hoping that Egypt would be a first stop on his way to refugee status and then relocation to the West.

Where's the holiday spirit? I bet that's what a lot of U.S.-born Hispanics are wondering as 2005 comes to an end. These are scary times for the nation's largest minority. Everywhere you look, it seems that some Americans are trying to erect more walls, deploy more guards, and whenever possible, roll back the influence of Hispanic culture. Maybe it's all about the numbers. There's something about accounting for 40 million people that makes some folks uncomfortable – as if it's only a matter of time before they are edged out for admission to colleges and some of the better jobs....

President Bush's Republican Party's love affair with Hispanic voters may soon come to an end: Judging from the xenophobic measures proposed by conservative Republicans in Congress last week, many Latino voters will think twice before casting a vote for Republicans in the 2006 congressional elections.

A glass-sided bus filled with sand, palm trees and bikini-clad beachgoers is roaming the wintry streets of nearly 20 US cities, from New York to Chicago, writes Amy Yee in New York. This is not a hallucination induced by frigid temperatures. It is part of Mexico's marketing campaign to say it is open for visitors after Hurricane Wilma devastated some of the country's important tourist spots. Nearly 90 per cent of international tourists to Mexico last year came from the US and the Mexico Tourism Board has spent $10m (€8.3m, £5.7m) on a campaign primarily aimed at North American visitors....