Free Republic

There’s always been an internal debate when thinking about President Joe Biden – you have to wonder whether he does or says something because he’s a liar or because he’s genuinely stupid. This extends back to when he was a Senator, too. Now you have to add a third option: senile. It’s tough to tell if he walks off stage with other world leaders without shaking their hands because he’s an aloof ass who looks down his nose at others or because he’s unaware of where he is. There’s no real way to know, but it’s probably safest to bet...

What's happening at the southern U.S. border with Mexico is in fact an invasion, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe says. “We’re experiencing a silent invasion of military age men,” Coe told The Center Square when describing what his deputies have been increasingly facing over the past two years. He spoke with The Center Square during an Operation Lone Star task force multi-day operation during which law enforcement officers rescued foreign nationals from a burning vehicle and revived a five-year-old girl being smuggled who’d been stashed inside of a car’s trunk. The “silent invasion,” Coe said, is being committed primarily by...

… A few afternoons each month, I am also a volunteer with an organization that helps migrants released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention reunite with their families. As much as we try to smooth this last leg of the journey, the only part we can control, Delta Airlines’ credit card policy foiled us multiple times last month. For some number of people, Delta flags their flight bookings and requires the credit card used for purchase to be shown at check-in. There is no way out and no way around it. The migrants detained by ICE and flown to a...

Two hundred miles north of the border, Sheriff Roy Boyd of Goliad County, Texas, has placed warning signs at his county line, written in Spanish. “Warning! Drug and human traffickers: Turn around, do not enter Goliad County,” the sign reads. “Go around. Otherwise, we are going to hunt you down and put you in Goliad County jail.” He says they work. When the signs are up, cartel activity decreases, and when the Texas Department of Transport removes the signs, cartel activity picks up again. “When the signs are in place we notice that we do not have fresh activity at...

President Donald Trump, beginning a section of his State of the Union speech on immigration, rhetorically played off the ongoing efforts to reach a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, saying, "Americans are dreamers, too."While addressing Congress on Tuesday night, Trump said, "I am extending an open hand to work with the members of both parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion and creed. My duty and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber is to defend Americans, to protect their safety, their families, their communities...

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) - A Valley mother is waiting to find out if she will be deported. She could be among the first impacted by the president's efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants. Family and supporters were at the regional ICE office in Phoenix on Wednesday, waiting to learn the fate of this mother, wife and friend. As more time passes, they grow more worried. Just before noon, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos walked into the regional ICE office for a check-in, but instead of a regular check-in, she was issued an order of deportation. ~~clip~~ "She was convicted of...

Note: Asterisks ** are used for emphasis since bold and italics don't seem to be available. Deportations are a Bitter Pill I. Introduction Most of us empathize with illegal immigrants and understand why they would come. We think of illegals we’ve met or known personally – they’ve seemed like decent people and cost us little in the grand scheme of things. On most days, the sky isn’t falling. Counter-intuitively, these sentiments make the issue of immigration so existential, dangerous, and urgent. Like the free rider problem, the cost of an individual is trivial but in aggregate can cripple. Immigration’s impact...

Yessica Ochoa made headlines in 2014 when her 9-year-old daughter, Ligsdenis, became the first child to show up in Charlotte as part of a surge of unaccompanied Central American children who walked by the thousands across the nation’s southern border. Nearly 70,000 made the trek that year, seeking asylum from gang and cartel violence, and hoping for reunification with parents who had left them behind to establish better lives in the U.S. Ligsdenis Ochoa photographed shortly she arrived in the U.S. from Honduras in 2014. T. Ortega Gaines ogaines@charlotteobserver.com Ligsdenis is now a fourth grader at Merry Oaks Academy and...

Sen. Ted Cruz shut down Univision anchor and Fusion TV host Jorge Ramos on illegal immigration, by turning a gotcha question around into a gotcha answer, and giving the host a lesson on the rule of law. “I think rule of law matters,” the Texas Republican said on Tuesday’s edition of Fusion TV’s “America with Jorge Ramos.” After the two volleyed the immigration issue back and forth, presidential candidate Cruz asked Ramos — an open advocate of legalizing the millions of illegals currently in the country — what happens to an American who crossed illegally into Mexico. When Ramos admitted...

The business group that has been pushing for amnesty but that has often backed Republican candidates is throwing its support behind Democrats in several key House races this cycle... the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will have endorsed four Democratic candidates in the House races by the end of the week. Wednesday the Chamber endorsed California Democratic Rep. Scott Peters, a vulnerable freshman facing reelection against Republican challenger Carl DeMaio. ... Georgia Democratic Rep. John Barrow is also slated to receive the Chamber’s official endorsement at an event on Friday... Other Democratic House members receiving the Chamber’s endorsement this year to...

After Mabel Muñoz was stopped by police while driving to her college dormitory, the honor student was

ERWIN - Two Spring Lake men are accused of raping, kidnapping and trying to kill a 17-year-old woman who was found in the Cape Fear River near Erwin on Sunday with at least three gunshot wounds to her face, abdomen and hands. Jose Trinidad Soto Sanchez, 21, and Jose Juan Alvarez, 28, both of the same address on O&H Street, were arrested later Sunday and charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and attempted murder, according to the Harnett County Sheriff's Office.

A bill that would allow U.S. Border Patrol officials to flout environmental laws along the southern and northern U.S. borders may soon be heading to the House, according to news reports. Designed by House Republicans to beef up national security, the bill would grant Border Patrol officials authority to disregard 36 environmental laws on federal land along the Canadian and Mexican borders, according to news reports. Those laws include the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and 33 other federal laws in a variety of protected land, according to the reports.The plan would leave...

Fresh off her veto of her state’s “birther” bill, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says that the White House gave her a “snub” by leaving her off the guest list for a meeting about immigration reform. “I wish I would have been invited,” the Republican said Tuesday night on Fox News. “You would have thought one of the governors would have been invited, since we are on the front lines fighting for security there. It was a little bit of a snub, if you will.” More broadly, she said, the meeting illustrated a disconnect between President Barack Obama’s immigration policy goals...

Indianapolis - Protestors came to the Indiana Statehouse for what they called a "no hate" rally. Their issue is a package of bills similar to the tough new immigration laws in Arizona. One bill requires English-only public meetings. Another would prohibit tax-subsidized tuition for illegal immigrants. Immigration is one issue that seemed to take a back seat to all of the demonstrations for labor and House Democrats currently working in Urbana, Illinois. Tuesday, with the House still in disarray, illegal immigration surfaced again. The rally on the south steps of the Statehouse may be only one indicator of how people...

MANASSAS, Va. — Authorities say a 37-year-old man has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder following a series of shootings in a Virginia suburb of Washington. Manassas Police Chief Doug Keen says Jose Oswaldo Reyes Alfaro is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was ordered deported a decade ago but never left...Two people were fatally shot and two others were hurt about 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Georgetown South neighborhood of Manassas, city police spokesman Sgt. Tim Neumann said. About 20 minutes later, police were called to another home about a quarter-mile away where one person had...

An Arizona rancher who was ordered to pay nearly $90,000 in punitive damages to undocumented immigrants he confronted, with a gun, is going to request a rehearing, his attorney said. “We’ll be filing a motion for a rehearing,” said David T. Hardy, who is representing Roger Barnett. “He feels he got screwed. I have some sympathy for that view.” The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld a lower court verdict ordering Barnett to pay the damages for the 2004 incident, in which the plaintiffs claimed that he approached them with his dog and said he’d shoot them...

Press Release Feb. 1, 2011 Jackson, MS SB 2255 Border Fence Fund Bill passed through the Senate Judiciary A committee at about 4:45pm central time. This bill will fund the border fence by imposing a fee on money sent to foreign countries (remittances) from people unlawfully present in this country and in cooperation with other States. If only half the States participate, they could raise $1.2 billion annually for the border fence with an average remittance fee of 5%. The vote was 5- 5, the tie was broken by the committee Chair and author, Senator Joey Fillingane. The next step...

They may not burst into workplaces wielding guns and dogs, but the effects are no less devastating. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) is increasing immigration controls that have a serious impact on immigrants in the workplace using a different—and quieter—tactic. Recently, eight workers were arrested after they chained themselves together in an act of civil disobedience inside a Chiplotle Mexican Grill restaurant in Minneapolis. The action was part of a protest over the firing of between 350 to 700 immigrant workers from the restaurant chain’s 50 restaurants without notice in December. The workers were dismissed after ICE perused I-9 forms. Chipotle...

Congress ordered the high-tech fence along the border with Mexico in 2006 amid a clamor over the porous border, but it yielded only 53 miles of protection. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the lesson of the multimillion-dollar program is there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution for border security. Napolitano said the department's new technology strategy for securing the border is to use existing, proven technology tailored to the distinct terrain and population density of each region of the nearly 2,000-mile U.S-Mexico border. That would provide faster technology deployment, better coverage and more bang for the buck, she said. Although it...