Free Republic

Not a single word in the 844-page "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act" introduced by Senator Marco Rubio and the "Gang of Eight" addresses the controversial practice of "birthright citizenship." Birthright citizenship is the common description given to the automatic grant of U.S. citizenship to babies born in the U.S. regardless of the citizenship status of the parents. Many experts agree with the verdict of law professor Lino Graglia -- that the practice generates "perhaps the greatest possible inducement to illegal entry." The failure of Congress to confront the subject is nothing new. The "four pillars" of the...

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley says that the circumstances behind the Boston Marathon bombing should give lawmakers pause when considering comprehensive immigration reform. “It's important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system,” the Iowa senator said Friday during an immigration reform hearing. “While we don't yet know the immigration status of people who have terrorized the communities in Massachusetts, when we find out it will help shed light on the weaknesses of our system. How can individuals evade authority and plan such attacks on our soil?” Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother Dzhokhar, 19, are suspected...

The term "illegal immigrant" dehumanises and criminalises people who are denied the opportunity to obtain authorisation. Language has been in the news lately. Last Tuesday, on April 2, the Associated Press announced it would no longer use "illegal immigrant" to refer to people living in a country without permission. The previous week, Alaska Republican Congressman Don Young referred workers in his father's farm as "wetbacks", although he subsequently apologised for the racialised slander. Why is language so important? What are people so upset about? The word "wetback" is a reference to the fact that many people who cross into the...

In 2008, Mark Krikorian published an important new book arguing against permissive immigration. The book's central idea: what has changed since Ellis Island days is not the immigrants; it's the society they are immigrating to. In 1913, a Sicilian who migrated to New York City to do manual labor would discover a society willing to pay a high wage for his effort. In 2013 … not so. Yesterday's New York Times reports on a new study confirming Krikorian's insight. People of Mexican descent in New York City are far more likely to be living in poor or near-poor households than...

EL PASO, Texas - This dusty desert city sits directly across the Mexican border from what has been widely labeled as one of the most dangerous cities in the world, Ciudad Juarez. The bloody drug war has claimed an estimated 10,000 lives in Juarez in the last five years. Yet this week, for the third year in a row, El Paso was ranked as the safest U.S. city with a population greater that 500,000 by CQ Press, which compiled FBI's Uniform Crime Reports.

This lazy August morning while many Americans are on vacation blissfully detached from current events, one of President’s Obama’s most radical transformations of the American landscape takes hold. A lawless, unlegislated illegal alien amnesty becomes reality today as the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) begins to officially accept applications (no personal interview required) from almost 2 million illegal aliens seeking “deferred action.” Americans won’t like the amnesty and they won’t like how it was done, but they’re not to blame. Only Congress has the power to act against a president who throws the constitutional system into chaos by...

The Obama Administration’s Department of Justice informed House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that it would not honor any request for enforcement of it’s finding that Attorney General Eric Holder is in contempt of Congress for his refusal to hand over copies of DOJ correspondence. “The President’s declaration of Executive Privilege has already ruled that Congress is not entitled to these documents,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole asserted. “This preemptively exonerates Attorney General Holder and vetoes any action Mr. Boehner might contemplate taking in his effort to obtain this information.” Cole called Congress’ efforts to secure DOJ correspondence on Operation Fast...

On January 1, 2011 a law banning certain “ethnic studies” classes went into effect in Arizona. The law makes it illegal for a school district to teach courses which “promote the overthrow of the US government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ‘ethnic solidarity’ instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” (1) But it was not the ever-compassionate, ethnicity-conscious left which wrote and implemented legislation making it a crime to teach violence and racism. Rather, the law was passed by the Republican controlled...

A high school basketball team with mostly white players has been accused of racism for chanting 'USA! USA!' after winning against a rival school. The players from Alamo Heights in San Antonio, Texas yelled the phrase after beating a team from Edison high school made up of minority players. The winning team's coach immediately stopped the teenagers chanting the phrase - and now the local school district has been forced to apologize. But many students and local residents have lambasted the response as 'an overreaction', taking to the players' Facebook page to vent their anger. 'As an outsider, and a...

Last year, just over 4 million boys and girls were born in the 50 states. 4,316,233. That's how many babies were born in the United States in 2007, the highest number ever. But after that, the number dropped. Last year, just over 4 million boys and girls were born in the 50 states. The likely reason? The economy, of course. A decline in fertility rates that began in 2008 is closely linked to financial woes that started at the same time, said a new Pew Research Center report issued Wednesday. Changes in personal income, per capita GDP, unemployment rates and...

A liberal organizer told the Daily Caller on Thursday afternoon that he paid some Hispanics to attend “Occupy DC” protests happening in the nation’s capital. TheDC attended the protest event, an expansion of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that began in New York City. Some aspects of the protest, it turned out, are more Astroturf than grassroots. One group of about ten Hispanic protesters marched behind a Caucasian individual from the DC Tenants Advocacy Coalition, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting rent control in Washington, D.C. Asked why they were there, some Hispanic protesters holding up English protest signs could...

A fatal accident that the police say involved an illegal immigrant driving drunk has stirred outrage in Massachusetts and put Gov. Deval Patrick on the defensive for his resistance to a federal program intended to deport criminals.

Spokeswoman for Nevada’s Joint Information Center, Lesley Henrie has just confirmed that Eduardo Sencion, 32, the man who on Tuesday, killed five people, including himself yesterday in a shooting spree at a Carson City IHOP is a Mexican national in the country on a valid passport. Sencion reportedly opened fire outside the restaurant, then walked inside and continued to shoot. Three of those killed were members of the Nevada National Guard, and there is a great deal of speculation on whether or not they were targeted because they were in their uniforms. There was also a 67-year-old woman killed in...

El presidente de los Estados Unidos Barack Obama observó la celebración mexicana del Cinco de Mayo ayer con una fiesta grande. Durante su discurso a los asistentes, el presidente hizo una broma a costa de su esposa, Michelle Obama, y su predilección por los tamales. Miralo en el segmento de más abajo. (Apunte de sombrero a Jim Newell de Gawker) VIDEO AT LINK

Hartford, Conn. (AP) - A Mexican college student who won allies in Connecticut's governor and two U.S. senators as he fought a deportation order will be allowed to stay in the country for now, Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Tuesday. -snip- "With the three of them, I guess they had enough power and enough momentum to be an advocate for me," Cardoso said. "I feel really privileged and honored that they assisted me." Blumenthal said the Department of Homeland Security called his office to say Cardoso had been granted a stay of removal. -snip- Cardoso, 23, has lived in the United...

ANCHORAGE (AP) — For years, the man known as Rafael Espinoza was widely respected as an exemplary police officer popular among his peers here. All that ended last week when the authorities accused him of actually being Rafael Mora-Lopez, a Mexican citizen who stole another man’s identity and was in the United States illegally. “His reputation here is one of a hard-working officer, one who was very professional,” Chief Mark Mew of the Anchorage police said Friday in announcing Mr. Mora-Lopez’s arrest. “The problem, obviously, is he is not Rafael Espinoza.” posted using frpa

There is increasing evidence that Mexican drug gangs are expanding their operations across the U.S. border and moving into other parts of the country at an alarming rate.

(CNSNews.com) - April is National Fair Housing Month, and to mark the occasion, the Obama administration is addressing discrimination in housing based on national origin. The emphasis is on immigrants, legal or illegal. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced on Monday that it plans to educate the public -- through community talks and a media campaign -- about discrimination against "persons of foreign descent." “Through this education campaign, HUD will work with communities to prevent housing discrimination and promote immigrant integration into the broader society," said John Trasvina, HUD Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal...

In a move closely watched by other Southern California law enforcement agencies, LAPD Chief Chalie Beck has ordered his officers end the practice of immediately seizing the cars of undocumented immigrants who are stopped at sobriety checkpoints. The move comes amid concerns that police were unfairly targeting those drivers. The news came as a relief for Maria Ranjel of Boyle Heights. Her husband and three sons are undocumented immigrants who drive all the time, even though they're ineligible to apply for drivers licenses in California. “We know well that it’s against the law to drive without a license but it’s...

U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper told lawmakers here that drug-related violence in Mexico poses a security threat to the United States and acknowledged that the system in place to prevent a potential terrorist from penetrating the U.S. southwestern border is not "iron-clad." During an appearance Thursday before the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Clapper reiterated the U.S. government's position that drug trafficking and the prevalence of drug cartels in Mexico is a "matter of national security interest in both countries." Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/03/11/intel-chief-mexico-drug-violence-poses-security-threat/#ixzz1GZkPVmI8