Free Republic

A federal judge in San Francisco has refused to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Wells Fargo bank of denying loans to immigrants who came to the U.S. as youngsters and have been allowed to remain here. Denial of loans based on citizenship status violates a federal law, passed in 1870, and a California civil rights law, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney said Thursday in rejecting the bank’s attempt to dismiss the proposed nationwide class-action suit. Wells Fargo, according to the suit, has a policy of granting loans only to U.S. citizens or to noncitizens who have become permanent legal residents and...

Miami announced Friday it will receive a government grant because it has ended its sanctuary city policy. The Hill reported Acting Assistant Attorney General Alan Hanson sent Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez a letter that said the city is now eligible for Department of Justice grants based on its enforcement of federal immigration laws. The website cited a memo Gimenez then sent to the Miami Board of County Commissioners as saying the city will receive $481,347 in Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program (JAG) grants. Miami-Dade County commissioners voted in February to uphold the city's decision to enforce federal...

On Monday, Fox News Senior Judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano weighed-in on Chicago’s pending lawsuit over the federal government’s sanctuary city policy. [snip] “The courts will stop him [Attorney General Jeff Sessions],” he said. [snip] Napolitano pointed out this grant money isn’t the Trump administration’s money to take, however. That grant was from the Obama-era, and at the time, there were no strings attached in the original bill that Congress passed related to helping the feds with immigration. [snip]

California Labor Commissioner Julie Su has ordered state employees to prevent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from entering the department’s offices without a warrant. According to the Sacramento Bee, Su issued the directive last month, ostensibly to protect illegal aliens reporting employee abuse at the hands of employers. One Democrat Assemblyman from San Francisco is pushing it one step, further the Bee reports, proposing a law to limit ICE accesses to workplaces: “The atmosphere of fear created by Trump and ICE’s expanded dragnet hurt all California workers,” said Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, who sponsored the bill that would...

A D.C. suburb in Maryland is considering a plan that would give undocumented immigrants the right to vote, making their city the largest in the Old Line State to do so. The city, which is home of the University of Maryland’s main campus and nearly 30,000 residents, is weighing approval of the new measure to let noncitizens cast ballots for mayor and City Council, The Baltimore Sun reported Sunday.

Officials in College Park are weighing a plan that would make their city the largest in Maryland to give undocumented immigrants a right to vote in local elections, a long-standing practice elsewhere in the state that has drawn new scrutiny amid the simmering national debate over immigration...

A previously deported illegal alien in Johnston County, North Carolina, is accused of attempting to rape an 89-year-old elderly woman in her home. Jose Campuzano-Ramirez, a 52-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, is being held on bail after being charged with breaking into the woman’s North Carolina home, assaulting, kidnapping, and attempting to rape her, according to the News-Observer. According to police, Ramirez allegedly broke into the 89-year-old’s home and tried to rape her, but eventually fled before authorities responded. K-9s chased Ramirez, catching him and arresting him for the incident. Police arrived at the scene and noticed that the elderly...

HOUSTON, Texas — A Texas district attorney says MS-13 leaders in El Salvador are green-lighting hits by gang members in the U.S. Her comments came in reference to an MS-13 gang member arrested last week in Virginia on warrants relating to the murders of two Houston-area residents.

Few issues so fixate and divide our nation of immigrants as much as how we should govern immigration. This has been especially true since the recent presidential campaign, when immigration debates loomed large.While the Trump administration has enacted various immigration-related policies by executive orders, Republicans have finally introduced an actual piece of legislation to represent their views. The “Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act” (RAISE Act henceforth) will undoubtedly be in the news in upcoming days and weeks, so it behooves the careful conservative media consumer to know what’s in the bill and what it means.First, the...

The most tempting, obvious epithet for the enthusiasm with which the Trump administration is scaring displaced Haitians out of the United States is shameful. Utterly, debasingly, shameful. But you might as well scold a dog for farting. Trump and his cohort are shameless. They're most likely proposing toasts, grinning and backslapping; waves of (black) foreigners are fleeing America, voluntarily. Even better, they're landing up in Canada. Prissy, hectoring, self-righteous Canada. It's a beautiful thing. Let the refugee-lovers up there have them. We're making America great again. Never mind, of course, that these particular Haitians were effectively invited to the United...

President Trump claims California allowed millions of noncitizens to vote in the 2016 elections. This allegation, while totally bogus, has put California on the defensive as Trump and his allies use the lie to justify a new federal commission devoted to making it harder for all Americans to vote. Californians should go on offense — by embracing Trump’s ugly lie and transforming it into a beautiful civic truth. Let’s make our state more democratic — by guaranteeing California’s noncitizens the right to vote in local and state elections.

Under President Donald Trump’s immigration bill, today’s Miami wouldn’t exist. A vibrant metropolis heralded as a showcase for what refugees and immigrants from all over the Americas can achieve isn’t good enough for his idyllic USA (with an exclamation point).

ICE has dumped over forty illegal aliens on a small Pennsylvania community. They were released from ICE custody under the Alternative to Detention [ATD] program. ATD is considered a “humane alternative” to detention centers but does take into account the communities that are affected. Some of them are required to wear GPS ankle bracelets. The illegal aliens are Gypsies, allegedly from Bucharest, Romania. They have been placed in California, PA which is a town of fewer than seven thousand people. Since Romania was admitted to the EU, there has a been exodus of Gypsies who seek greater welfare benefits in...

"I cannot process it," she said, choking back tears. Without much evidence, President Donald Trump has often referred to millions of people voting illegally in this country. Fitzpatrick now admits she did cast two ballots improperly — but she insists it was not intentional. Her story is one that stretches over three presidential administrations: those of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. It's a story that sheds light on potential gaps in federal law, the limits of the judicial system and the agonizing consequences of what one woman calls a horrible mistake

The immigration reform bill that Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue introduced Wednesday — the RAISE Act — won’t become law anytime soon. But it’s a milestone that’s going to change the way we think about immigration, and will be the biggest issue in 2018 and 2020. There are two simple principles behind the bill. We’re going to admit people on the basis that they’ll make Americans better off. And amnesty is off the table. The bill would reduce the number of family-preference immigrants, people who come here because they have an immediate relative in the country. Right now two-thirds...

Heading to Canada is one of the only options seen by many of the 50,000 Haitians who've been living under temporary protection status in the U.S. — but many don't know they face deportation here, too, should their asylum claim be rejected. The temporary protection status for Haitians in the U.S. granted after the 2010 earthquake is set to expire in January. The Department of Homeland Security considers Haiti to be a safe country now, and it's warned that the U.S. doesn't intend to renew that status, prompting the deluge of asylum seekers crossing into Canada. "There is a major...

According to The Arizona Republic, McCain, before leaving Washington to get cancer treatments in Arizona, reportedly spoke to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) about joining forces again to pass the “Gang of Eight” bill. After joining Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) to defeat the GOP’s “skinny repeal” of Obamacare, McCain, who has always wanted to be known as a straight-talking independent, was lionized by Democrats and the legacy media, with CNN paying homage to his “maverick moment.” Referring to the “Gang of Eight” bill, McCain told the Republic on Thursday that he wanted “to reintroduce the same package that was passed through...

California’s top labor law enforcer wants federal immigration agents to stay away from offices where state investigators weigh claims about underpaid employees and workplace retaliation. Those contacts with immigration officers dovetail with a surge in complaints from California workers about employers threatening to have them deported. Last year, Su’s office in the Department of Industrial Relations investigated 14 complaints from workers who claimed their employers threatened them with immigration enforcement. So far this year, the department has opened 58 immigration-based retaliation cases, Su said. She said the presence of immigration officers in state offices could disrupt the enforcement of labor...

PHOENIX (AP) - A well-known community organizer who used social media and technology in his behind-the-scenes efforts for immigrant rights was killed Tuesday when a 51-year-old woman ran a red light and crashed into his motorcycle. Police say the woman, who hasn't been identified, was cited for running a red light and driving without a license following the fatal crash. Celso Salinas-Mireles was brought to the country from Mexico as a young child and was protected from deportation through former President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Police identified him as Celso Mireles-Martinez, but a close friend said...

WASHINGTON — Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden on Tuesday blew off wanting to talk about an elderly constituent in his state who was raped by an illegal immigrant that was previously deported 20 times. Wyden refused to answer The Daily Caller’s questions about the illegal immigrant accused of raping a 65-year-old woman at her Portland home and assaulting another female in the area. Portland is a sanctuary city. (RELATED: Man Who Allegedly Raped Oregon Woman Had Previous ICE Detainer, 13 Deportations) “We’ll have more to say about that another time. Today is about taxes,” Wyden said, before he veered off...