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PHOENIX -- A Phoenix police officer shot point blank in the chest said he credits his vest and law enforcement training for saving his life. Officer Bret Glidewell was shot Sunday after pulling over a 1998 Chevrolet S-10 pickup around 5 p.m. for running a stop sign near 32nd Street and Sweetwater Avenue. "Something about the traffic stop gave me a gut feeling that something is not right," Glidewell told reporters on Tuesday. "Because of that, I changed my tactics a little," he said. Police said the driver, identified as Jose Abel Cabrera-Somosa, 35, stuck a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol out...

The Mexican government is giving its consulates in the U.S. wide latitude to ramp up a campaign to toughen their defense of immigrants and plans to give them more resources as well, officials familiar with the strategy said. The move comes as deportations reach an all-time high in the toughest crackdown in decades by the U.S. government and police authorities. Among the actions under discussion are the creation of an anti-defamation league similar to that focused on protecting Jews; budget increases for some of the 47 consulates, especially in regions such as North Texas, where Mexican migration has been swift...

MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying "Mexico does not end at its borders." The criticism earned Calderon a standing ovation during his first state-of-the nation address. "We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers," he said. "The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle ... for their rights." He...

FREE TO KILL ILLEGAL-ALIEN NEWARK FIEND ON BAIL - TWICE By AUSTIN FENNER, JEANE MacINTOSH and ERIC LENKOWITZ August 11, 2007 -- He shouldn't have been free. New Jersey authorities twice allowed a suspected child rapist to slip out of custody with minimal bail without reporting his illegal immigrant status to the feds - leaving him free to allegedly massacre three college students in a Newark schoolyard. "This is one that slipped through the cracks. He's an illegal alien," said outraged dad James Harvey, whose son Dashon was murdered last Saturday, along with Terrance Aeriel and Iofemi Hightower. While 28-year-old...

(CBS/AP) In a surprisingly strong attack, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Republican rival Rudy Giuliani had turned New York City into a sanctuary for illegal immigrants during his two terms as mayor. Immigration is a hot-button issue in the GOP and may play especially well in Iowa, an early battleground state where the federal government has raided meat processing plants employing illegals, and where some longtime residents feel their pay is being undercut by cheaper-working immigrants. "If you look at lists compiled on Web sites of sanctuary cities, New York is at the top of the list when Mayor...

For reader, accident with apparent illegal alien crystallized city's changes TULSA, Okla. - “Our sovereignty is under direct attack,” warns a commanding voice emanating from a pool of light in the corner of an otherwise dark airplane hangar. Dan Howard, an airplane salesman by day, is in the middle of his weekly two-hour radio show titled Outraged Patriots, a nighttime broadcast devoted entirely to the topic of illegal immigration. Howard, who charges that the U.S. government is failing in its duty to protect the country from a “silent invasion” by illegal immigrants, taps into a deep vein of anger and...

A recent study from Wharton University found teen employment has hit historic lows in the last three years, and, according to the report, "experts say we should be worried." Researchers found that in the summer of 2006, 37% of teens nationwide worked - nearly 11% fewer than were working in 1989, the peak of a nationwide economic boom. One labor professor said, "If adult employment fell by the same rate teen employment has in the last 10 years, that would be the greatest job loss in American history since the Depression." The report said that teens want to work, but...

ATLANTA — One of the main arguments leveled at a crackdown on illegal immigrants passed by the General Assembly last year was that the state shouldn’t meddle in a federal issue. Now, with Congress struggling mightily even to get a floor vote on comprehensive reform legislation, supporters of the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act are saying “I told you so” about the state law, which takes effect July 1. “Georgia’s put together the strictest package yet,” said Jimmy Herchek, a member of Georgians for Immigration Reduction from Gwinnett County. “It’s because of the federal government’s failure to act.” But...

My fiancee just got a phone call from the Tustin, CA police department. It appears that the police are in a Tustin apartment that is "packed with stuff." It turns out that some of that stuff is wedding gifts, to myself and my fiancee, that was apparently stolen from our home (we're getting married July 14). The police asked us if we had given a group of hispanic males permission to enter our home and to take our things. My fiancee and I are peeved. Of course, we are most grateful that she and I are unhurt (we were not...

A spokeman for the Bush administration sent an e-mail to Jim Robinson and myself confirming the authenticity of a post on Free Republic this afternoon regarding the immigration bill currently before the Senate as having been posted on behalf of the White House.The spokesman, Nicholas Thompson, works for the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. The Politico reported yesterday that Thompson and Kerrie Rushton, associate directors in the Office of Strategic Initiatives who work under Karl Rove, would be engaging the blogosphere on the immigration bill.Thompson's post is on the thread titled Penalty Mitigation in the Immigration Reform Bill, a...

JOIN THE SING-ALONG ON YOUTUBE MIDI - ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL We must close the southern border We are angry as can be How about some law and order Senators, we don't like what we see Do what's right or start resigning Build the wall...build the wall We will soon have lost our culture We're committing suicide Thanks to all the money vultures Senators, don't let this nation die Do what's right or start resigning Build the wall...build the wall

202.224.2417 FAX TO SENATOR KENNEDY Senator, what you are doing to this country with your immigration bill is unconscionable. Your legacy will be a trifecta: 1. Kicked out of Harvard for cheating 2. Running away and leaving a young woman to die 3. Helping to kill America You are probably celebrating with a fifth of Seagrams. Hiccup. Shame on you. ...Doug from Upland Here is the FreeRepublic thread; come and join us. (URL to be added for the fax)

CARLSBAD ---- Some Latino immigrants say recent cooperation between Carlsbad Police Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has resulted in the deportation of at least 15 people and is creating an atmosphere of fear in the community. Immigrants said police officers are frequently calling immigration authorities after stopping them for traffic violations. Some immigrants said they are specially concerned about patrols in the area around Jefferson Elementary School in the heart of the city's Latino neighborhood. Carlsbad police Chief Tom Zoll could not be reached for comment Thursday. But he told a group made up primarily of Latinos...

WASHINGTON — The murder rate jumped by more than 10 percent among dozens of large U.S. cities since 2004, a study shows in the latest sign of the end of a national lull in violent crime.

I am getting really sick of the Mexican Invasion costing so many jobs in the Southwest Virginia- East Tennessee area. My husband is a brickmason. He is the 5th generation mason in his family- our son is the 6th. Up until just a couple of years ago brickmasons had contractors ringing their phones off of the wall wanting them to do work for them. My husband had to turn down dozens of callers because he couldn't do it all. Things have sure changed . Now, a lot of contractors in this area have gotten dollar signs in their eyes and...

A protest Saturday at Four Points rapidly devolved into a profanity-laden shouting match as passers-by and protesters butted heads. When the shoving started, deputies stepped in to defuse the conflict. By that time, a roiling crowd had engulfed a gas station at the corner of Pearlblossom Highway and Fort Tejon Road, with fuel customers leaving their vehicles to join the fray. Profanity and insults flew from both sides. At one point a protester with a bullhorn asked a laborer he referred to as "Fisheye" to "run and get me some tacos." He went on to give a detailed order over...

First it was the chaos. Then it was the confusion as to who was arrested and where they would be taken. Now, the Spanish-speaking residents of Cactus, Dumas and other neighboring communities who escaped Tuesday's raid because they either are here legally or do not work at the Swift meat plant, face an even bigger problem: what is going to happen to the more than 100 children whose parents were rounded up and arrested? "Right now the children are being taken care of by relatives or friends of those who were deported," said Orlando Gajardo, spokesman for the St. Peter...

WASHINGTON, DC (AgapePress) - A Republican senator is hailing it as the strongest effort to secure the U.S. border with Mexico in his lifetime. But one expert on political violence and terrorism doubts the border fence authorized by President Bush's signature on Thursday will ever become reality. Yesterday the president signed a law authorizing construction of 700 miles of fence along a third of the U.S.-Mexico border. At the signing Bush acknowledged "the United States has not been in complete control of its border for decades." If the barrier is built as planned, the state of Arizona would be virtually...

SOMEONE OUGHT to tell the Bush administration that prisons are for criminals, not law-enforcement personnel trying to do their jobs. On Thursday, a federal judge in Texas sentenced two former Border Patrol agents to 11 and 12 years in prison because they shot at a drug smuggler who was evading arrest. In February 2005, Border Patrol agent Jose Alonso Compean got in a scuffle with smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who was driving a van that carried 743 pounds of marijuana. Compean and fellow agent Ignacio Ramos shot at Aldrete-Davila -- they say they thought he had a gun, which Aldrete-Davila denies....

Bloodsucking bedbugs are plaguing housing complexes across the Hub, leaving elderly and handicapped tenants in at least one building furious at the city’s inability to uproot the insatiable pests. “The exterminator told me not to sit on my chairs because they’ll crawl on my clothes,” said Mary Doucette, a 59-year-old diabetic Southie widow whose left arm is pocked with red welts she fears are the pandemic pests’ personal brand. “I’m lucky it’s just the arm.” The Foley Apartments at 199 H St. are meant to be an affordable refuge for its older and infirm residents, but to many it has...

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Hispanic activists and the ACLU sued Hazleton on Tuesday over one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants by a U.S. city. Hazleton, a city of about 31,000 people 80 miles from Philadelphia, voted last month to fine landlords $1,000 for renting to illegal immigrants, deny business permits to companies that give them jobs, and make English the city's official language. The lawsuit contends that the Constitution gives the federal government exclusive power to regulate immigration and that the city's ordinance is discriminatory and unworkable. "It makes every person who looks or sounds foreign a suspect, including...

ATLANTA - After waking up one night in sheets teeming with tiny bugs, Josh Benton couldn't sleep for months and kept a flashlight and can of Raid with him in bed. "We were afraid to even tell people about it at first," Benton said of the bedbugs in his home. "It feels like maybe some way your living is encouraging this, that you're living in a bad neighborhood or have a dirty apartment." Absent from the U.S. for so long that some thought they were a myth, bedbugs are back. Entomologists and pest control professionals are reporting a dramatic increase...

Suad Leija has many secrets. The stepdaughter of Manuel Leija-Sanchez -- a key figure in what federal authorities believe is a document fraud organization run by the Castorena and Leija-Sanchez families -- has been in hiding and on the run from her own family. To help U.S. authorities crack down on document fraud, human smuggling and a host of other international crimes, she has revealed her family business, identified relatives and shed light on a series of national security failures. Fraudulent documents allegedly produced by the families include Social Security cards, driver's licenses, passports, hazardous materials licenses, utility bills and...

Yesterday Sean Hannity, a conservative who I think generally tries to do a good job of researching his stories, attacked one of the most conservative members of the House of Representative, Chris Cannon, who happens to be my congressman. In that attack he joined what has become a nationwide campaign to defeat Congressman Cannon over the issue of the illegal immigration problem. Rep. Cannon has been voting for bills to address the illegal alien problem since his first years in Congress during the Clinton Administration, as he points out on his website. Cannon was voting for legislation in the House...

Was on my way to breakfast when I spotted a van full of young men - tag on the van was from Texas (no month & Year sticker). Follewed them to an apartment complex where they're doing a siding job. I'd like to know if the tags are legal. Around here, we have to have month & year stickers. Is that true in Texas?

MIDI - AMERICA (about a one minute intro) Fall...we are going to fall...we must build a big freaking wall Free, they think everything's free...they'll have it made...and so they invade Every day we're overwhelmed...they pour into America There's nobody at the helm...they pour into America Home...watching them flee their home Fox has a smiling face...what a disgrace...what a disgrace They take our generosity...and then what do we see They demand more...now they want more Gangs are running through the streets...they pour into America Leaders are in full retreat...they pour into America At our language they just scoff...they pour into...

From: la-voz-de-aztlan-admin@aztlan.net To: la-voz-de-aztlan@aztlan.net Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:27:37 -0700 Subject: [La Voz de Aztlan] URGENT ALERT: From The Revolutionary Council and Provisional Government of Aztlan Dear La Voz de Aztlan Subscribers: We have received the following communique from the Minister of Information of the Nation of Aztlan. We rarely receive any communiques from the "Revolutionary Council and Provisional Government of Aztlan" so we must assume that it is of upmost importance. We urge that you carefully consider the information that it contains. Please pass this to others in your network! _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _...

Who are the racists? I welcome people here from everywhere who want to be patriotic Americans. Because I want them to follow the rules, I am called racist. No, folks, the Reconquistas are the racists. They are the ones who look at the issue in terms of race. If someone is brown, that is all that matters to them. European America be damned. The Calif0ornia legislature, along party lines, voted 24-13 to support the May 1 boycott. The pandering Democrats are close to making this state collapse. Then, they will get wish. It will be stinking Mexico. MIDI - MRS....

UNDOCUMENTED migrants are rushing to Mexico's border with Arizona, encouraged by the prospect of a guest-worker programme in the United States and anticipating a toughening of border security that would make a dangerous journey even more perilous.Detentions by the US border patrol in south-central Arizona, the busiest migrant-smuggling area, are up by more than 26 per cent since 1 October - 105,803, compared with 78,024 for the same period last year. Along the entire US- Mexico border, arrests have risen by 9 per cent. Many migrants say they are being encouraged by relatives in the US, who are betting on...

MIDI - MEXICO (musical intro) Way down there, they are all planning to leave Load the van, they'll drink tequila and heave The U.S., they'll drag down and they won't grieve Oh, Mexico The country is a hellhole of corruption, we know We'll be so screwed if we don't stop the flow Illegals from Mexico Liberals want voters so that they can win One world dream...this is how they will begin We must share...that's because, we all are kin Oh, Mexico The country is a hellhole of corruption, we know We'll be so screwed if we don't stop the...

The public debate over illegal immigration has reached a loud, emotion-charged crescendo. I have listened to various talk-radio shows, watching the demonstrations on TV and read various articles on the subject. I cannot pretend to have anything like a settled solution to offer. All I have at this point are a few simple questions for each side, questions that puzzle me and, I dare say, a few others. For proponents of unrestricted immigration: ...snip... For proponents of the House immigration-reform bill inspired by Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo: ...snip... Perhaps some of those filled with passionate conviction can provide answers...

01/14/2006 10:06 PM ET Garciaparra to suit up for Mexico Dodgers' new acquisition also working on learning first base By Ken Gurnick / MLB.com LOS ANGELES -- New Dodgers first baseman Nomar Garciaparra, a native of Whittier, Calif., but the son of Mexican parents, will play for Mexico in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. "He's honored to be asked and to participate," general manager Ned Colletti said of Garciaparra. Colletti said that Garciaparra will report to Spring Training on Feb. 14 with the pitchers and catchers, and will work with new hitting coach Eddie Murray on making the transition to...

Border Agents Discover U.S.-Mexico Tunnel SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Border Patrol agents discovered a 35-foot-long tunnel beneath the U.S.-Mexico border after it caved in and the asphalt roadway above it collapsed, officials said. The tunnel ended in a patch of vacant land near the San Ysidro port of entry, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was reinforced and was about 3 feet by 3 feet, and it appeared to have been used recently, she said. It wasn't immediately clear when the tunnel was built or whether it might have been used for smuggling drugs...

I just returned from a week on the Mexican border with the New Mexico Minuteman Project. Based in Hachita, the New Mexico Minutemen, aided by volunteers from all over the country-- Washington state to Georgia, Alabama to Pennsylvania and Florida to California-- spend their time broiling by day and freezing by night trying to assist a Border Patrol whose leaders do not want their help. I led a three man recon team from Alabama but this is not about our story, it is about theirs. Hachita was chosen by the Minutemen because it lies at the junction of Routes 9...

LONDON, September 17 - A top Iranian Shiite Muslim cleric blamed the United States for the latest wave of killings in Iraq where Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents have declared war on the majority Shiites. "Killing in Iraq is on the rise. It is no longer tens of dead but now stands at hundreds. The US is not ashamed of what they have caused and they are not leaving the area," Ayatollah Ahmad Janati told worshippers at weekly prayers, according to AFP. "Now that the elected Iraqi government wants to put to vote the draft constitution and seeks to establish peace, the US...

EAST PALATKA, Fla. -- Federal agents raided a migrant farm labor camp where homeless men and women were kept in what labor officials called a version of modern-day slavery. Four people, including the camp's owner, Ronald Evans, face federal charges in a case that officials said is likely to grow. Investigators are looking into alleged environmental violations and drugs found at the camp in Friday's raid. "The word is out that we are concerned about human trafficking, and we will leave no stone or camp unturned," said Steve Cole, a spokesman for Jacksonville U.S. attorney Paul I. Perez. Officials said...

The anti-American, anti-Jewish rhetoric coming from the Hispanic separatist movement in the southwest U.S. threatens to spark a second civil war, says geopolitical analysts Jack Wheeler. In a column on his intelligence website, To the Point, Wheeler covers the implication of a recent rally in Baldwin Park, Calif., where a small group of protesters demonstrated against a taxpayer-supported monument that celebrates the time before the white man came to California. Two inscriptions include: "This land was Mexican once, was Indian always, and is and will be again" and "It was better before they came." "The rally was met by a...

A top Mexican official said yesterday "there is no wall that can stop" the flow of illegal aliens from Mexico into the United States and that money spent on such proposals would be better spent on ways to "regularize" immigration and fight terrorism. Interior Minister Santiago Creel, seen as a likely presidential candidate next year, said U.S. attempts to halt the flow of Mexicans and others into the U.S. through the southern border over the last 100 years have failed. New measures would meet the same fate, he said. "We see this as bad because building walls in no way...

BROWNSVILLE, Texas- Two people were convicted of alien smuggling Tuesday in a case that began when a migrant in the Texas brush promised a dying 18-year-old he would return his body to Mexico. Maria de Jesus Ojeda, 36, of San Benito, and Jose Geronimo Mendez, a 21-year-old illegal immigrant, were found guilty of transporting and harboring aliens and conspiracy to transport and harbor aliens. Both face up to life in federal prison and a maximum $250,000 fine. The men were arrested following an investigation that began when a migrant from El Salvador turned himself in and led immigration officials to...

CHULA VISTA – A 33-year-old man admitted in Superior Court yesterday that he ran down a Chula Vista woman who was out for her morning walk. Daniel Antonio Orantes-Castro pleaded guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter in the Nov. 18 death of Akiko Koehler, 60. Judge Wesley R. Mason scheduled a sentencing hearing for March 23. Prosecutor Terri Wyatt said no promises were made to Orantes-Castro in exchange for his guilty plea. She said the maximum penalty is 10 years in prison. Castro was driving a Ford F-150 pickup in a westbound lane of J Street around 8:30 a.m. when he...

LAREDO —— When two armed men burst into a Rio Grande Valley home, demanding ransom from two parents for one of their sons, the mother darted to a back bedroom. It was the beginning of a horrifying battle on Tuesday night at the Elsa home that would leave the mother, Rosa Ana Alvarez Serna, 45, dead from a gunshot wound to the torso, and the two kidnappers pummeled to death by the husband and son, enraged by the shooting. Once Alvarez made it to the back room, she opened a window and threw three children outside. Then she got between...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of three stories on recent school test results and the No Child Left Behind Act. Teachers and administrators are struggling with a paradox built into the state standards under the No Child Left Behind Act. Federal standards require that students with learning disabilities and English learners meet the same level of proficiency as their peers. And that has put a failing label on many otherwise adequate or improving schools. No Child Left Behind requires all students meet the same standards, which are set by states. The act divides test-takers into subgroups based on ethnicity,...

No More Deaths, a volunteer coalition composed of advocacy groups whose work is to support illegal immigrants with water and medical aid, recently held a meeting in Bisbee to train volunteers in dealing with both law enforcement and illegal border crossers they refer to as "guests". The primary speaker for the workshop was Margo Cowan, who has defended undocumented people for 35 years. Cowan was indicted in 1972 by the Nixon Administration on 52 counts of aiding and abetting illegal aliens; the charges were dropped by former President Jimmy Carter. Cowan currently serves as legal counsel to Rep. Raul Grijalva....

llegal Entry From Mexico to U.S. Spikes 57 minutes ago By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer SASABE, Mexico - After a four-year decline, illegal immigration from Mexico is spiking as several thousand migrants a day rush across the border in hopes of getting work visas under a program President Bush (news - web sites) proposed. Many also are trying to beat tighter security to come in June. The U.S. border patrol told The Associated Press that detentions — which it uses to judge illegal migration rates — jumped 25 percent to 535,000 in the six months ending March 31...

<p>TUCSON - For 42 hours, three kidnappers hid the 14-month-old baby girl in a squalid 100-square-foot apartment in Douglas while they demanded $500 for her release from the girl's father 1,860 miles away in Ohio.</p> <p>The apartment was empty except for a filthy mattress on the floor. The only food available for the infant was a warm gallon of milk.</p>

Federal immigration officials, in a significant strategy shift that is sending shudders through immigrant communities, are for the first time aggressively tracking down foreign nationals who have been ordered deported but who have managed to evade capture. Under a plan dubbed Endgame, teams of federal agents are being deployed to hunt down more than 400,000 illegal immigrants so they can be expelled from the United States. Since the program began eight months ago, more than 7,000 people have been detained across the country, including 427 in Florida. Federal officials have set an ambitious goal: to deport all ''absconders,'' as immigration...

"Stop! Police!" These are two simple words that are easy to understand if you speak English. But in a region where the Hispanic population has exploded over the past 10 years, the meaning may not be as clear. "ÁAlto! ÁPolic’a!" might make a difference if you speak Spanish. But in the case of the lethal March 5 shooting of a Hispanic suspect, law enforcement officials and residents say that whether the deputies knew Spanish would not have made a difference. Running from or attacking police is, or should be, a known wrong among all cultures, said Hendersonville Police Chief Donnie...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Letting many visa-carrying Mexicans to cross the border without having their fingerprints and photographs taken would be an important gesture that would prevent unnecessary bottlenecks and maintain crucial trade ties, Mexican border crossers said. "This is a good-faith gesture toward us Mexicans," said Jesus Nunez Hernandez, 37, who hails from this city of 1.3 million people across the border from El Paso, Texas. "Otherwise, the line at the bridge would be longer and the crossing more delayed." Hernandez is a taxi driver who ferries clients daily across one of three bridges connecting Ciudad Juarez to Texas,...