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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:

There was a YouTube Video, but it was pulled. . . . In a panderfest to La Raza, Obama once again shows his love for America and its laws.

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 But it rescinded the rental restriction after a legal challenge was filed and bills began to mount.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...

As al-Qaeda in Iraq’s fortunes wane, it has no one but itself to blame. President Bush’s troop surge indisputably has crushed al-Qaeda and other terrorists, while Iraqi soldiers have honed their ability to hammer deadly insurgents. But much of al-Qaeda’s damage has been self-inflicted. Largely overlooked is the Islamo-puritanism that it inflicted on the Iraqi territories it seized. Rank-and-file Iraqis tasted life under bin Laden-style Islam, and they gagged. They responded by collaborating with American and Coalition forces to expel these mad zealots from their midst. At one level, al-Qaeda’s religious decrees have been nearly comical. As the Institute for...

2 leaders and 3 managers face charges after operation Last week their undocumented workers were hauled off to a detention facility, but today the owners and managers of a Houston rag exporting firm are in custody for employing the illegal immigrants. This morning a U.S. magistrate in Houston is scheduled to preside over the initial court appearance of two owners and three managers of Action Rags USA. The eastside company, located in a sweltering factory near the Port of Houston, was the scene of one of Houston's largest immigration raids when 166 undocumented workers were detained June 25. Federal charges...

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....

LAWFUEL - A senior attorney with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was arrested today after allegedly taking a $20,000 bribe from an immigrant seeking documentation to remain in the United States. ICE Assistant Chief Counsel Constantine Peter Kallas, 38, and his wife, Maria Kallas, 39, both of Alta Loma, were arrested this afternoon by special agents with ICE Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They were arrested at the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino in Highland, where they allegedly accepted a bribe payment from an immigrant. The couple is expected to make their...

U.S. authorities helped facilitate a $32,000 ransom payment in Mexico for a relative of a U.S. congressman who was kidnapped last week by gunmen in Ciudad Juarez..... Erika Posselt, a Mexican national described only as "a relative of the wife" of Rep. Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat and powerful chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, was abducted June 19 ......in Juarez. Held for three days, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents - at Mr. Reyes' request - helped arrange her safe return. ........ the kidnappers negotiated with Mrs. Posselt's brother in Juarez and agreed to release her...

Immigration agents detain 166 undocumented workers at east side plant As anxious relatives stood outside, van after van of mostly female undocumented workers were removed from a sweltering rag-sorting factory on Houston's east side and whisked to an immigration processing facility. The early morning raid Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, while netting 166 undocumented workers, did not include arrests of company officials with Action Rags USA. But those charges may be on the way. "The office of investigation is looking at allegations of the hiring of illegal aliens, which is a crime," said Special Agent Bob Rutt, of...

Ancient_antarctic_microbes_2_2 The unusual properties of frozen water may have been the ticket that made life possible. Over the decades, several notable scientists have began to suspect that life on Earth did not evolve in a warm primordial soup, but in ice—at temperatures that few living things can now tolerate. The very laws of chemistry may have actually favored ice, says Jeffrey Bada, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. “We’ve been arguing for a long time,” he says, “that cold conditions make much more sense, chemically, than warm conditions.” If Bada and others are correct, it would...

Loudoun County law enforcement officials said yesterday they will start routinely checking the immigration status of all people arrested in the county if deputies suspect they are in the United States illegally, implementing a policy similar to one that set off controversy in neighboring Prince William County. Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson (I) told the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors that he had reached agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to participate in a program that ultimately seeks to deport illegal immigrants convicted of serious felonies.

TUCSON, Ariz. – Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it. "It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that." The chunks were left at the bottom of a trench...

Click photo to enlargeTwo young girls play hand games as Congresswoman Barbara Lee and a panel of community leaders...«12345»OAKLAND — Pledging to "take them on big-time," Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, sharply criticized the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency Friday and declared she would push for measures to reduce the fear she said agents have caused East Bay immigrant families. The Oakland Democrat told a packed North Oakland church that she wants to "ensure that ICE is following the rules and that those rules are well-known and publicized — especially when it comes to actions at schools, hospitals, religious centers...

Arcata Ca - ICE conducted an I-9 audit of the California flower growing company Sun Valley Group Sun Valley Group and found 283 of approximately 500 workers, or one fifth of the agricultural workers in Humboldt county, were using face social security numbers and identification.

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...

An immigrant couple, here legally, and their U.S.-born son have joined a statewide lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security after their Paterson home was raided last month by federal agents looking for illegal immigrants. Walter Chavez and his wife, Ana Galindo, said Thursday that on April 2, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, forced their way into their home, pointing guns at Galindo and their child. "It was a nightmare for our family, and continues to be even today," said Galindo, 42. "The very worst part of it all was when an agent, who screamed at me...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — After the biggest immigration raid in U.S. history, hundreds of workers have been sentenced but not one company official as yet faces any charges — something critics say is typical of a federal government that is tough on employees but easy on owners. Worker advocates and lawmakers say the fact that nearly 400 workers were arrested in the May 12 raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville — or more than one-third of the total number of employees — proves that company officials must have known they were hiring illegal immigrants. "Until we enforce...

The deportation of illegal immigrants is on the rise, according to immigration officials who attribute the record numbers to increased enforcement. Deportations in the first five and a half months of fiscal year 2008 were higher than in all of 2001, according to U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement figures. In all of 2001, 116,202 immigrants were deported. To date in 2008, 119,429 immigrants have been ordered to return home, records show. Scott Sutterfield, assistant field office director in the Office of Detention and Removal in New Orleans, said that over the last several years immigration officials have redoubled their efforts...

The fallout from April's Immigration Raid continues in Chattanooga's immigrant community. Local Social Service Agencies, already stretched to the max, have combined forces to help those affected. Still, the need is great... April 16th in Chattanooga hundreds of lives were disrupted in an immigration raid at Pilgrim's Pride Poultry Plant. More than 100 accused illegal immigrants were arrested, leaving families without an income and children without caregivers. Local social service agencies stepped in for assistance. Rev. Mike Feely, Executive Director of the St. Andrew's Center says, "The reality is, like a lot of other situations, whether it's a flood or...

More than 900 illegal aliens have been sent packing after a three-week U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in California. Half of the criminal aliens and fugitives arrested during the statewide sting have already been sent to their home countries. Since a large number of the illegals have faced previous deportation, immigration authorities immediately ousted them from the U.S. The rest remain in police custody, awaiting travel arrangements for deportation or hearings before an immigration judge. Brian DeMore, acting field officer director for ICE detention and removal operations in Los Angeles, issued a press release about his team's success. "ICE...

Scientists have discovered what may be ice that was exposed when soil was blown away as NASA's Phoenix spacecraft landed on Mars last Sunday, May 25. The possible ice appears in an image the robotic arm camera took underneath the lander, near a footpad. "We could very well be seeing rock, or we could be seeing exposed ice in the retrorocket blast zone," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., co-investigator for the robotic arm. "We'll test the two ideas by getting more data, including color data, from the robotic arm camera. We think that if the hard...

Federal immigration agents arrested 17 illegal immigrants in the Canal area of San Rafael in raids that began early Thursday morning, putting residents on edge and angering parents who worried about the impact on children. Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement department, said enforcement teams removed 16 men and one woman. Detainees are generally taken to a center in San Francisco and dispersed to other facilities from there. Three of those arrested had failed to comply with deportation orders and one had been deported and illegally returned to the United States, she said. The group...

SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says agents have arrested more than 900 people in California on immigration violations during a three-week sting targeting people who ignored deportation orders. The agency says 495 of the 905 people arrested were targeted in the operation. The other 410 just happened to be on the scene when agents arrived. Northern California accounted for the most arrests, with 441. The Los Angeles area followed with 327 arrests. The San Diego area accounted for the other 137. ICE agents increasingly have been tracking people who ignore deportation orders. When authorities visit a...

WATERLOO, Iowa — In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents. The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported. The convicted immigrants were among 389 workers detained at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in nearby Postville in...

Veronica Matias and her aunt Eulalia Matias were leaving for a church retreat Saturday morning when two vehicles blocked their driveway in East Ridge. Men got out of the cars and, without identifying themselves, started asking if she and her aunt were in the country legally and demanding identification, Ms. Matias said. “I got out the car and asked them why they needed my information,” said Ms. Matias, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen. “I was told they were looking for a murderer, and they showed me the picture of a man from Ecuador.” She told the men she didn’t recognize the...

An illegal immigrant pleads guilty to driving other illegal immigrants across the country for money. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Pedro Antonio Antonio Mateo admitted to the crime in Roanoke Federal Court today (Wednesday, May 21st). 10 On Your Side’s Scott Leamon first uncovered the case, after a State Police Trooper pulled Mateo over on I-81 in Botetourt Co. back in April.  Investigators say Mateo was driving a large SUV on I-81 northbound, past Troutville. Officers with the state police criminal interdiction team stopped the SUV, after an alleged traffic violation on April 11th. Federal court records show agents from...

(05-21) 04:00 PDT Washington - -- When federal agents raided a San Rafael apartment complex in the early morning hours of March 6, 2007, searching for 30 undocumented immigrants, they left behind a lot of terrified children, Kathryn Gibney, the principal at nearby San Pedro Elementary School, said.The agents shone flashlights in the children's faces. Several parents were handcuffed in front of their kids. The next day 40 of the school's 400 students were too frightened to show up for class, and others arrived in tears. A year later, Gibney said the effects continue with higher absenteeism, lower test scores...

Ice flow alone explains why fjords are cut so deep 20 May 2008 NewScientist.com news service Fjords form when ice sheets gouge out a valley below sea level - but what makes the ice bite so deep? A variety of factors was thought to be behind the rapid and deep incisions made as ice sheets flow down from the mountains. For example, if the sheet moves from a region where it is frozen to the bedrock to a region where the rock surface is slightly warmer, the ice might start to slide against the rock, eroding it more rapidly. Mark...

The newest analysis of trace gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores now provide a reasonable view of greenhouse gas concentrations as much as 800,000 years into the past, and are further confirming the link between greenhouse gas levels and global warming, scientists reported in the journal Nature. They also show that during that entire period of time, there have never been concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane as high as the current levels, said Edward Brook, an associate professor of geosciences at Oregon State University, and author of a Nature commentary on the new studies. "The fundamental conclusion that today's...

POSTVILLE, Iowa -- Antonio Escobedo ran to get his wife Monday when he saw a helicopter circling overhead and immigration agents approaching the meatpacking plant where they both work. The couple hid for hours inside the plant before obtaining refuge in the pews and hall at St. Bridget's Catholic Church, where hundreds of other Guatemalan and Mexican families gathered, hoping to avoid arrest. "I like my job. I like my work. I like it here in Iowa," said Escobedo, 38, an illegal immigrant from Yescas, Mexico, who has raised his three children for 11 years in Postville. "Are they mad...

Press conference denounces Utah raid On May 13, pro-immigrant organizations held a press conference and emergency rally to protest the ongoing raids and deportations targeting undocumented workers across the United States. Community leaders and organizers demanded that the raids and deportations be stopped and called for immediate and comprehensive immigration reform. The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on May 12 in Postville, Iowa, at Agriprocessors Inc., the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse, is a prime example of these racist attacks against the working community. About 700 workers, more than half of the plant’s workforce, were arrested in the raid. As...

DALLAS — A dozen family members spanning three generations were arrested Tuesday in connection with a marriage fraud ring in which foreign nationals paid up to $12,000 each to marry U.S. citizens, authorities said. Eleven people were arrested in the Dallas area and the 12th was arrested in Corpus Christi, officials said. Four others remain at large. Authorities said the marriages allowed the foreign nationals to apply for permanent residency and citizenship. The alleged conspiracy involved various schemes to make the fraudulent marriages appear legitimate. Couples filed applications for permanent residency using fraudulently obtained legitimate documents. Some couples used fake...

WATERLOO — Normal operations on the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds have been suspended for most of May as the federal government has leased out virtually the entire facility for a training exercise, NCC general manager Doug Miller said Saturday. Miller said he could release few details. But activity on the NCC fairgrounds was apparent Saturday, as contractors installed massive generators adjacent to many buildings on the NCC fairgrounds and windows of many of the buildings were covered up, blocking views of any work going on inside. A number of large mobile home-size trailers also have taken up residence on the...

The raid today at Agriprocessors, Inc. meat packing plant targeted individuals who were using stolen Social Security numbers. Officials say at least 300 have been arrested but that the number could go as high as 700. The raid was the largest of it's kind in Iowa according to Claude Arnold of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Berkeley -- Two dozen students from Berkeley High School protested raids by immigration agents, donning brown armbands on Thursday to show solidarity with the Latino community that is most often the target of immigration crackdowns. The protest came a day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided homes in Berkeley and Oakland and arrested suspected illegal immigrants. The raids touched off rumors that swirled around Berkeley and Oakland schools that ICE agents were going on campus to detain students who were in the country illegally. The school districts said no ICE teams had entered school property, and that they were...

Oakland -- Immigration arrests at homes in Berkeley and Oakland on Tuesday sent a wave of panic among parents in both cities, as authorities mistakenly believed immigration agents were raiding schools. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were in both cities Tuesday, performing routine fugitive operations, spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. Teams go out virtually every day looking for specific "immigration fugitives," she said. Officers arrested four family members at a Berkeley home and a woman at an Oakland residence. They were not at schools. Yet, within the next few hours, rumors of raids circulated throughout the communities. In Berkeley, school...

SAN FRANCISCO — Jose Luis Sanchez was a veteran cook at El Balazo, working at the popular Bay Area taqueria chain for eight years before a Friday immigration raid ended his career and left his family's future uncertain."My kids are sad," said the 32-year-old San Pablo resident, one of 63 illegal immigrants employed by the 11-restaurant chain who were arrested Friday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "They want to know if they're going to send me to Mexico."With an electronic surveillance bracelet attached indefinitely to his ankle, Sanchez contemplated his future Monday afternoon outside the Sansome Street high-rise building...

Drivers along Interstate 85 on Monday saw an unusual site along the side of the road. Numerous people were lying face down along I- 85 just after the Highway 9 exit. A News Channel 7 photographer was on the scene as 16 people were taken into custody. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington D.C. tells News Channel 7 that a Spartanburg County Deputy stopped a van on I-85 and called the ICE team to investigate. 14 men and two women were taken into custody. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says all are from Mexico and Quatemala and appear to be in...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Friday stormed 11 El Balazo restaurants around the Bay Area, arresting 63 illegal immigrants - and drawing the outrage of immigration advocates who had marched the previous day to call for the legalization of undocumented workers. The raids began at 10:30 Friday morning in San Francisco, San Ramon, Lafayette, Concord, Pleasanton and Danville and involved 62 people from Mexico and one from Guatemala. Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for the immigration agency, called the arrests "a targeted enforcement action" that is part of a continuing criminal investigation she couldn't discuss further. Immigration officials photographed, fingerprinted...

The first defendants from the April 16 immigration raid at the local Pilgrim's Pride chicken processing plant will be in Federal Court in Chattanooga on Tuesday. They are due to appear at 2 p.m. before Magistrate Susan Kerr Lee for hearings on whether they should continue to be detained. They include: -Jose Luis Ramirez-Vasquez Authorities say he is an alien who was previously deported and came back into the U.S. at Lukenville, Ariz. -Alfred Gabriel-Torres (also known as Jaime Hernandez) He is charged with using an invalid Social Security card for citizenship purposes -Roberto Gabriel-Ramirez Officials said he was deported...

SWEETWATER, Tenn. — A routine traffic stop on Interstate 75 late Wednesday netted the Monroe County Sheriff’s department a vanload of suspected illegal aliens, authorities said. Monroe County drug interdiction officer B.J. Johnson said in a police report that he stopped a large Ford window van near mile marker 60 on suspicion of driving under the influence. In a news release, Monroe County Detective Jennifer Bledsoe said neither the driver nor passenger of the van possessed a legal driver’s license. Then Officer Johnson discovered 15 Hispanic people riding in the back of the van, none with valid identification cards, she...

LITTLE ROCK (AP) - Federal judges ordered 18 illegal immigrants arrested a north Arkansas poultry plant to be processed for deportation. However, none will serve any jail time for using fake Social Security numbers and state identification cards. Magistrate Judge Beth Deere and U.S. District Judge James Moody accepted guilty pleas today from 17 of those arrested at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Batesville last week. Federal prosecutors dismissed the misdemeanor charges against one man, but say they planned to ask U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to begin deportation proceedings against him. Those arrested had faced up to up to...

An early-morning shooting at a Columbia apartment complex Saturday heightened fears of continued violence as law enforcement showed its presence in Maury County this weekend. Columbia police said a man was wounded at Parkview Manor Apartments early Saturday morning, but additional details were not available. Maury County citizens are on edge in the wake of a double homicide and the burial of the victims Friday. Balloons popping at a birthday party prompted scanner traffic of shots being fired Saturday afternoon, and one man hurt his hand when he ran away from what he thought were gunshots at Zaxby’s Restaurant later...

Release on bond sometimes leads to deportation bid Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials planned to deport a Mexican woman accused of kidnapping and forcing a teenager to work as a prostitute even though she faces charges that could potentially carry a sentence of life in prison. Gregoria Vazquez, 58, and her son, 27-year-old David Salazar, are accused of forcing a 16-year-old girl from Mexico to have sex with men in a northeast Houston bar, according to police and court records. Vazquez was booked into Harris County Jail March 10 on felony charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault of...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Department of the Interior wants 10 more weeks to decide whether polar bears should be listed as threatened or endangered, a delay conservation groups condemned as tied to the transfer of offshore petroleum leases in one of the animals' two U.S. habitats. The Interior Department on Jan. 9 missed a deadline for a final decision, and three conservation groups sued. In the government response Thursday, Assistant Interior Secretary Lyle Laverty said the department needed until June 30 to complete a legal and policy review of the proposed listing. A spokeswoman for the Center for Biological...

Glaciologists for the first time observed the sudden drainage of meltwater from the top of the Greenland ice sheet to its base, a phenomenon that can help speed up summer ice movement, a report said Thursday. The scientists discovered what they described as a natural plumbing system on the glacier by which meltwater penetrates deeply in the kilometer (0.62 mile) thick ice mass, wrote glaciologists Sarah Das of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Ian Joughin of University of Washington at Seattle. Thousands of lakes form on top of the Greenland ice sheet each summer. Satellite pictures show that the lakes...

Alpine guardians try to put treasures on ice Richard OwenApril 17, 2008 Prehistoric treasures unearthed in the Alps as melting glaciers recede are under threat from looters who are removing many of them. Such is the concern for the newly revealed objects - which include weapons, clothing and tools - that a task force of archaeologists, anthropologists, mountain climbers and Alpine rescue teams has been formed in an attempt to salvage them. Franco Nicolis, an archaeologist from Trento, said: “We must be ready to intervene as if we were dealing with a public calamity.” He said that mountain climbers and...

After a tough day of testing on Wednesday, some Hamilton County Schools students got off their buses to find an even more stressful situation at home: Their parents were nowhere to be found. Tennessee and local officials still are assessing the needs of the children, who they say are among those most profoundly affected by Wednesday’s sweeping federal immigration raid at Chattanooga’s Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plants. “There are a lot of families really hurting,” said Mike Feely, executive director of the St. Andrew’s Center, a resource for the city’s multi-cultural communities. “If you have that many moms and dads arrested,...

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2008 – Retired Army reservist Joseph L. Bowser was 9 years old when he first experienced the thrill of skating and using his hockey stick to whack a rubber puck across the ice on a frozen pond in his birthplace of Toledo, Ohio. Retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Joseph L. Bowser plays competitive ice hockey despite the loss of his lower right leg due to an injury suffered from an exploding enemy rocket April 12, 2004, in Balad, Iraq. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Today, the 48-year-old Iraq veteran still plays ice hockey,...

Workers from the Pilgrim’s Pride chicken processing plant in downtown Chattanooga are being interviewed at a local warehouse to determine if they will be face charges, officials said. Immigration agents interviewed the employees today as part of a yearlong, multi-state investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said. The agents detained about 100 workers at two Chattanooga plants, Suana Betancourt, Pilgrim’s Pride chaplain, said. “Another chaplain of the plant called me this morning to tell me about what was happening,” she said, “We went there right away to try to calm everyone down because they were afraid immigration was...