Free Republic

Dems’ health plan would limit immigrant aidLatinos shaken by Senate gambit to win conservative and moderate votes By LYNSI BURTON HOUSTON CHRONICLE Nov. 21, 2009, 9:16AM WASHINGTON — The latest loser in the political pandemonium over health care reform may be immigrants living in America, an estimated 24 million people likely to be bartered in order to win support in Congress from fence-sitting Democratic moderates and conservatives. Just as House Democratic leaders sacrificed the wishes of abortion-rights activists in a successful gambit to win the votes of anti-abortion Democrats last week, the Senate leadership has included provisions in its health...

Italy: Northern mayor launches 'immigrant clean-up' initiative Brescia, 18 Nov. (AKI) - The mayor of the small town of Coccaglio, located in the northern Italian region of Lombardy has launched a campaign to "clean-up" the city of immigrants, ahead of the Christian holidays next month, Italian media said on Wednesday. The town council has dubbed the operation "White Christmas". "There is no crime here. We only want to start cleaning up," said the mayor of Coccaglio, Franco Claretti. The "White Christmas" campaign is being spearheaded by Claretti and six town councillors from Italy's ruling conservative People of Freedom party and...

A Democrat congressman from Ohio has introduced innovative legislation that would require foreign countries to reimburse American taxpayers for the exorbitant medical expenses of illegal immigrants. Appropriately titled, PAYBACK Act (Preventing All Your Bucks from Aiding non-Citizens is Key), the measure would save the U.S. government billions of dollars annually and ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to fund health care services for illegal immigrants, according to its author, U.S. Representative Zack Space. Medical bills for illegal aliens would be passed along to their country of origin, according to the proposed law, which was introduced in the House this...

A Dallas rookie police officer erred when he cited a woman earlier this month for being a non-English speaking driver, police said. Officer Gary Bromley issued a citation Oct. 2 to 48-year-old Ernestina Mondragon after stopping her for making an illegal U-turn in the 500 block of Easton Road, near East Northwest Highway, according to a copy of the citation.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Immigrant rights activists are calling on U.S. retailers to stop selling two controversial "Illegal Alien" costumes that have surfaced for Halloween, saying the outfits are a broadside attack on illegal immigrants. The "Illegal Alien Adult Costume," manufactured by Forum novelties, includes an orange jumpsuit, similar to prison garb, with "Illegal Alien" stamped in black across the chest; a space alien mask; and a fake Green Card. The "Illegal Alien Mask with Hat" also includes a space alien mask, this time with a dark handlebar mustache and a baseball cap

Whoever coined the phrase "big things come in small packages" had in mind people such as Mai Cong Haworth. Although she stands 4 feet 8 inches tall, Haworth's petite frame houses a towering sense of patriotism and love of country. She proved that on Sept. 11, 2001, as she sat in front of a television set and wept at the carnage and destruction from the terrorist attacks. Over the past eight years, Haworth has altered hundreds of uniforms, stitching on the badges, stripes, name tags and insignias on the uniforms, following exact placement guidelines for the respective branch of the...

Some gun rights advocates worry that immigrants from other cultures will dilute support for gun rights in America. But I'm not so sure that's true, especially since immigrants come to America for freedom and opportunity not found in their home country. And the fact that two out of two random CHP applicants in Virginia are immigrants just goes to show you that it appears that gun rights are for immigrants too.

“The Civil Rights Division is also parachuting in its attorneys from the Coordination and Review Section (one of whose staff lawyers is a former illegal alien) to probe whether Sheriff Arpaio has engaged in ‘national origin discrimination’ against illegal aliens, including failing to provide ‘meaningful access’ to county services for ‘limited English proficient’ inmates.”

NEWBURGH, N.Y. — The four men accused of plotting to bomb New York City synagogues and shoot down military airplanes with missiles are down-and-out ex-convicts living on the margins in a faded industrial city. One is a petty criminal who spent a day in 2002 snatching purses and shooting at people with a BB gun from an SUV. His lawyer calls him "intellectually challenged." Three have histories of drug convictions, one of them for selling narcotics in a school zone...But if they sometimes seemed amateurish, the men were dangerous people fueled by their hatred for Jews and America, prosecutors said....

OP-ED: Illegal immigrants are heroes Growing up in this land of "equal opportunity," it is not uncommon to hear about the American dream. But what is the true American dream, who has achieved it and more importantly who can actually achieve it? James Turslow Adams coined the phrase "the American dream" in his 1931 novel, The Epic of America. Adams states in his book: "the American Dream is 'that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.'" The United States prides itself on...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An illegal immigrant who uses false identification papers must know they belonged to another person to be convicted of identity theft, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The high court's unanimous ruling was a victory for Ignacio Flores-Figueroa, a Mexican illegal immigrant who used false identification to get a job at a steel plant in Illinois. He was convicted of aggravated identify theft, a law adopted in 2004 that carries a mandatory two-year prison term. The law has been increasingly used by the federal government to charge some of those arrested in raids at work sites...

Jose Calzadillas spent two years serving his faith as a Mormon missionary. He worked with the Spanish-speaking community in Ohio, spreading the word about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and doing volunteer work on his days off. Those who knew him in the mission field describe him as kind and hardworking. When he had completed his two years, he attempted to board a plane at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, only to be detained by Customs and Border Patrol officials for having improper documentation.

In a major legal win for immigrant workers, thousands of California construction workers will start receiving checks April 15 to compensate for unpaid wages and other alleged labor violations committed during California's housing boom. The $8.5 million legal settlement benefits nearly 3,100 former and current workers for several companies that built houses in Southern California, the Central Valley, Central Coast and San Francisco East Bay. A few workers initiated the complaint in 2006 after approaching a Spanish-speaking attorney, but lawyers say the case grew into one of the biggest class-action lawsuits in California involving mostly Latino construction laborers, including some...

Binghamton's police chief said a man who killed 13 people inside an immigrant community center was depressed after recently losing a job and angry that he couldn't speak English well. Police Chief Joseph Zikuski told CBS' The Early Show that the motives of 41-year-old Jiverly Wong, who had taken classes at the American Civic Association, to kill so many were not very clear. "He recently lost a job, spoke very little or no English, and was angry because people looked down upon him," Zikuski told Early Show anchor Erica Hill. "That's all we have at this point. There's been no...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — It is one thing to be an immigrant in New York City, and quite another to be an immigrant in this working-class city 175 miles to the northwest. The American Civic Association headquarters on Front Street is not much to look at — a one-story blond-brick building in a neighborhood of small businesses, some of them boarded up. But for years, it had been, in its own quiet, multilingual way, the equivalent of Ellis Island for Binghamton and the rest of Broome County. The association, a member agency of the United Way of Broome County, offers citizenship...

{snip} The French government forbids aiding illegal migrants and sets quotas for arrests of those who do as it tries to control growing clandestine immigration. This year's target: 5,000 arrests. {snip} The Immigration Ministry, created when President Nicolas Sarkozy took office in 2007, proudly makes public its yearly expulsion quota – the 2008 goal of 26,000 expulsions went far beyond to 29,796 – but, until now, there had been no talk of quotas for those who help those in the country illegally.

HANNIBAL, Mo. (AP) - A Hannibal police officer was finishing up mundane paperwork on a quiet Saturday morning when Manuel Cazares walked into the station, blood splattered on his hands and shoes. Cazares put his hands out, crossed them, and told the officer to arrest him. "I killed two people," he allegedly said. Details surrounding the allegations are far too common: an abusive relationship, a jilted lover, a sudden attack. But some in this Mississippi River community of 17,000 best known as Mark Twain's hometown aren't just outraged by the violence. They also question why Cazares was in Hannibal at...

The dreaded "i-word" is not part of the mainstream media lexicon these days. Most coverage does not use "illegal immigrant" or "illegal alien" to describe the suspect in the Levy case.

Police on Tuesday obtained an arrest warrant for El Salvadoran immigrant Ingmar Guandique for the 2001 killing of Modesto's Chandra Levy, opening a dramatic new chapter in one of the nation’s most enduring murder mysteries.

Local activists were scheduled to hold a press conference Wednesday in front of the State Capitol to kick off a 100-day campaign against local, state and federal laws that target immigrant communities."We're going to be working very hard during these 100 days to keep pushing things on every single level, the federal, state and local, to change the things we need to change," said Alex Gillis, co-founder of the Immigrant Workers Union. The press conference will be at the State Street entrance of the Capitol building at 5 p.m. The local 100-days campaign will run in conjunction with other efforts...

Though he has lived with his family for two years at The Meadows, an apartment complex in Dillon Valley, Rafael is desperately looking for a new home. Rafael, 25, who asked not to reveal his last name because he is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, said he will not be able to pay what the new owners are asking to renew his lease for the two-bedroom apartment — $1,250 instead of the $950 he pays now. “We are going to wait until the lease expires in March, and we’ll go to another place,” said Rafael, who works painting houses. “We’re...

Don't believe Barack Obama's grandmother? Don't believe the ambassador to Kenya? How about Barack Obama's own Cabinet member? That's right – former presidential candidate and Obama's choice for secretary of commerce, Gov. Bill Richardson, slipped up. In an effort to reach out to the Hispanic community, he admitted what Barack Obama has been trying to hide all these months: "Barack Obama is an immigrant." See it for yourself:

The chasm between those who want President-elect Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate to verify his eligibility to hold the nation's highest office and those who simply support the Democrat is widening. "The Constitution means what we today decide it means," opined one participant on a new WND forum that offers readers an opportunity to express their opinion on the birth certificate dispute.

A tightening economy and social hostility are driving once-hopeful Mexican immigrants such as Absalom Lopez out of Colorado. Seven years after an illegal crossing that led to abundant work cooking and cleaning, Lopez, his wife and their 6-year-old, Denver-born son plan to chase their dream of opening a tortilla factory in Mexico. They say their $1,000-a- week combined earnings here plummeted in recent months to around $300. They're moving from a $700-a-month rented house in Wheat Ridge to a less costly two-room apartment until they head home to Veracruz next year, Lopez said. Negative remarks and lower wages for Latino...

Friends Of The Border Patrol Report offers Change #1 to newly elected administration and Congress Chino, CA – Friends of the Border Patrol has released a report uncovering corruption and security compromises within the government titled “Unjustifiable and Impeachable: The FOBP Report on DHS, DOJ, and the Courts. Andy Ramirez has authored this report with a section featuring 50 Exhibits documenting compromises, corruption and unconscionable incidents that go back 15 years in some cases. The report contains two volumes, with Volume I authored by Andy Ramirez, and Volume II written by Attorney John Cavicchi, which primarily addresses the court system....

This is old but........We need a chuckle today! Video: Pelosi hired illegal immigrants for Napa Valley vineyard...

RUSH: Now, Aunt Zeituni living in the "Slum, Sweet Slum" in Boston. Do you know that Aunt Zeituni attended Obama's swearing in to the US Senate in 2004? She did, folks. She attended his swearing-in to the US Senate in 2004, Aunt Zeituni did. Campaign officials said that Obama provided no assistance in getting her a tourist visa. He doesn't know the details of her stay. He doesn't know how she got here. By the way, Aunt Zeituni's life has not changed much since Obama's rise to fame and power. SNIP Obama has no idea how she got here. She's...

Nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants and legal residents with green cards who ran afoul of the law in the New York area were detained by US immigration last year - a startling 43 percent increase over fiscal year 2007, records show. The increased vigilance by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, especially those stationed on Rikers Island, led to the spike over 2007, when about 7,000 incarcerated immigrants were detained for deportation proceedings, officials said. It's not clear how many of them were actually deported. The number of jailed immigrants snared by the government is expected to balloon under a recently announced...

Barack Obama would use his presidential power to discourage enforcement of federal immigration laws and offer blanket amnesty to 12 million illegal immigrants as part of his quiet plan to dismantle U.S. immigration policies. In numerous speeches and interviews, Obama has repeated his pro-illegal immigrant stance, aimed squarely at filling voter rolls with hoards of newly minted Democratic voters. But giving amnesty — and eventually, citizenship — to 12 million illegal immigrants would not only overwhelm social service programs but also forever alter the nation’s political profile, especially in the South and the West, experts warn. Despite such dire predictions,...

A state lawmaker wants Texas license officials to rescind a new policy requiring non-U.S. citizens to prove they live legally in the country before receiving a Texas driver's license or identification. State Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon sent a letter Friday to Public Safety Commission chair Allan Polunsky asking for revocation of the administrative rule until the Legislature considers it. McClendon, D-San Antonio, writes that the rule is a major policy decision that should not be initiated as a part of agency rule-making. Under the guideline, the Department of Public Safety will require immigration documents that prove a person's lawful status...

Here's something that's not related to the election and the economy. Think of it as a little quiz, if you will. I came across the following article written by an immigrant while surfing the web. For those of you so inclined, answer the following question: 1. How long do you think this person has been in the States? 2. How old do you think this person is? 3. What, in your opinion, is the greatest thing about American culture? ------------------------------------------------------ Because you’re an American 　　 A couple of months ago I went to the Chinese Embassy in New York. The...

Race riots kill man at Spanish holiday town of Roquetas del Mar (EPA/RICARDO GARCIA) Police patrol the streets of Roquetas del Mar in Spain after a man was killed in race riots Thomas Catán in Madrid Riot police were deployed throughout a Spanish seaside town popular with British expatriates today after the second consecutive night of rioting by African immigrants. The fighting in Roquetas del Mar, 12 miles west of Almería, were caused by a dispute between Spanish Gypsies and African immigrants in which a 28 year old Senegalese man was stabbed to death, the Spanish Interior Ministry said. Outraged...

SAN FRANCISCO -- An immigrant suspected of being in the United States illegally - freed after being shielded from possible deportation by San Francisco officials despite committing two gang-related assaults as a juvenile - faces charges that he tried to stab a man to death last year in San Mateo County, authorities say. The case of Eric Antonio Uc-Cahun, now 19, a native of Mexico, is the second in which a youthful offender protected from deportation in San Francisco has later been arrested for a violent crime as an adult. The San Mateo County stabbing was especially vicious, authorities said...

Henry Cejudo called it the American dream. The son of undocumented Mexican immigrants who had to work two jobs to keep food on the table, Cejudo gave the U.S. its first Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling in Beijing with a stunning win Tuesday over Japan's Tomohiro Matsunaga in the 55-kilogram (121 pounds) final "I'm living the American dream right now, man," Cejudo, wrapped in an American flag, said moments after his win. "The United States is the land of opportunity. It's the best country in the world and I'm just glad to represent it." A joyful Cejudo, 21, broke...

For a few hot hours Saturday afternoon, a sterile stretch of South Orange County suburbia transformed into a rowdy free speech zone outside Saddleback Church in Lake Forest. Nearly 1,000 demonstrators from across the political spectrum descended on the megachurch for the forum with presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama.

SHENANDOAH, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- By the time help arrived, Luis Ramirez lay convulsing in the middle of the street, foam running from his mouth. Crystal Dillman displays the religious medal worn by her fiance, Luis Ramirez, who died from a beating. 1 of 3 Blows had struck the 25-year-old Mexican immigrant with such force that they left a clotted, bruised impression of Jesus Christ on the skin of his chest from the religious medal he wore. His attackers were white teenagers, including star students and football players, witnesses told police. After a night of drinking, the teens taunted the undocumented...

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...

An Ogden, Utah, woman said she discovered a spider in her home that she believes to be a species native to Iraq and Afghanistan. Lynnelle Carson said she caught the alleged camel spider in the living room of the home she recently moved into with her family, the Ogden Standard-Examiner reported Thursday. I was working in the living room around 2 a.m. and I looked down and thought, 'Hey, there's a camel spider, I've got to catch that,' Carson said. Carson said she learned to recognize the species, which can grow to up to 6 inches long and can...

PARIS (EJP)---Five youths detained after a Jewish teenager was beaten into a coma by a gang in Paris have been released without charge, AFP reported Wednesday quoting judicial officials. The minors, aged 14 to 17, were held for questioning as witnesses following Saturday's attack in the multi-ethnic 19th district of the capital. The Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin said Tuesday the 17-year-old victim, Rudy Haddad, was beaten by a gang after street brawls between Jewish teenagers and youths of north African and sub-Saharan descent. The boy was so badly beaten by a gang wielding metal bars that he went into a...

Not only was the driver of a Ford Bronco that fatally struck a 12-year-old girl unlicensed, but San Jose police say she is also an illegal immigrant, renewing the debate over whether undocumented people should be allowed to apply for driver's licenses. The revelation that Adriana Fierro De Marin, 31, is in the country illegally struck yet another chord with the family of Breanna Slaughter-Eck, still reeling from the loss of the Hoover Middle School sixth-grader. "I'm worried that she just might flee now and walk away from all this," said Joe Castro, the man who raised Breanna for the...

Investigators struggled Tuesday to explain why a 27-year-old man with no criminal record and no apparent signs of mental illness savagely beat his toddler son to death on a dark country road. Sergio Casian Aguiar, who worked at a supermarket in Turlock, was fatally shot by police Saturday night after he refused to stop attacking his 2-year-old son, according to the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department. Aguiar's wife, Frances Liliana Casian, a kindergarten teacher, told detectives that she didn't know why Aguiar would brutally beat their child and said he didn't have any mental illness that she knew about, according to...

SPRINGFIELD -- As the state's unpaid medical bills continue to climb, Illinois has enrolled thousands of undocumented immigrant children into Gov. Rod Blagojevich's All Kids insurance program, yet officials don't know how much taxpayers are spending on their care. "The figure is not available," Mark Iocca, an attorney handling information requests for the administration, said in responding to a Daily Herald legal request about those costs. A total of 1.4 million children receive state-provided health care under All Kids. Many of them were previously enrolled in Kid Care, which was folded into the new All Kids program in 2006. All...

NDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Police made an arrest in a robbery that turned deadly. Police said 18-year-old Keith Chandler lured a lock smith to the 600 block of West 31st Street early Wednesday morning...

By Lizbeth Diaz TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Seventeen Mexican drug gang members were killed near the U.S. border on Saturday, their bodies scattered along a road after one of the deadliest shootouts in Mexico's three-year narco-war. Rival factions of the Arellano Felix drug cartel in Tijuana on the Mexico-California border battled each other with rifles and machine guns in the early hours of the morning, police said. Fourteen bodies were lying in pools of blood on a road near assembly-for-export maquiladora plants on the city's eastern limits. The corpses were surrounded by hundreds of bullet casings and many of their...

Mexico's President Felipe Calderón comes to Dallas on Tuesday with bridge-building credentials. He has a Harvard master's degree, English fluency – and relatives who work illegally in the U.S. All three attributes should serve him well when he meets separately with Mexican immigrant leaders and Texas business executives. A crackdown against illegal immigrants is roiling Texas and much of the U.S., and its scope and fury haven't been seen in this country in at least 50 years, historians have said. Dallas is the setting this week for a three-day conference of an advisory board to the Institute for Mexicans Abroad...

There is an interesting article on USA Today that discusses the Vatican donation of at least $20,000 to build a shelter for Central American immigrants traveling to the USA. This money comes from the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, which reports to the pope. I would like to know if our Catholic friends condone the use of Vatican money from a Pontif Commission for encouraging illegal immigrants. Is it right to use Church funds to support and encourage illegal activities? Your comments would be most enlightening.

The mayor wants the FBI to investigate whether the local county sheriff has violated any civil rights laws with his recent high-profile crackdowns on illegal immigrants. The "saturation patrols" have drawn protests from civil rights and immigrant-rights advocates, but they have drawn support from backers of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and from people who believe the government hasn't done enough against illegal immigration. In an April 4 letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Mayor Phil Gordon asked the agency and the Justice Department's civil rights division to examine what he called discriminatory harassment and improper stops, searches, and...

URBANA – A 30-year-old illegal immigrant faces possible prison and his third deportation following his recent arrest by federal authorities. Fernando Delgado-Cruz, also known as Fernando Lopez, was arraigned and pleaded innocent Wednesday to a federal charge of unlawful reentry of a removed alien. Magistrate Judge David Bernthal, through an interpreter, advised Delgado-Cruz that he faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. The judge set a pretrial hearing for May 2 and a trial for May 12. The judge had previously ordered that Delgado-Cruz be held in the custody of the U.S. Marshal pending resolution of the case....

A man who says he posed as an illegal immigrant for years to dodge criminal charges was back at home with his family in Central Texas. Saul Espinoza, 36, was detained for nearly two months in San Antonio before being released last night. He was allowed to join his family in Boerne pending a final decision in his case. Immigration officials still haven't recognized him as a U.S. citizen. Espinoza said he duped authorities for years and avoided criminal charges by telling officials he was Joel Garza, an illegal immigrant from Mexico. But Espinoza's attorney said the father of 5...

WASHINGTON – The next time a San Diego sheriff's deputy arrests a man who tries to steal a car, hauls him to a county detention center, starts asking questions and discovers he's in the country illegally, here's what will happen: The tax-supported district attorney's and public defender's offices will handle his case, a tax-supported judge will preside if it goes to trial, he'll spend an average three weeks in the local jail at $100 each day, a state prison could house him for years at $121 a day, and tax-funded probation officers will follow his progress. Only after that will...