Free Republic

Maricopa Co., AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio reported that 36 percent of the criminals his sheriffs turned over to ICE “keep coming back” ... Last month a guy came back 25 times. So what is this? Either the border is really unsecure, or they're letting these guys out in the streets of Maricopa County. We got a big problem” he said. Arpaio added that releasing illegal aliens with criminal records was a “form of amnesty by the Obama administration.” ... Arpaio also said that the Mexican border has become so dangerous, law enforcement are afraid to cross,

A former aide to Gov. Susana Martinez (R., N.M.) who was involved in the hacking of emails from the Martinez campaign and was implicated in the subsequent FBI investigation is now being used as a source for anti-Martinez articles in New Mexico. The Santa Fe New Mexican last week published allegations made by former Martinez campaign aide Anissa Galassini-Ford that the governor’s office improperly used government databases against political opponents. The article on Ford’s claims was the paper’s cover story last Thursday and was featured on its website for much of the day.The author of the story, Steve Terrell, notes...

Most political observers expect incumbent Democratic Sen. Tom Udall to easily win re-election in New Mexico, but a new poll suggests the race has suddenly tightened. Udall is only up four points over Republican Allen Weh, according to a new Vox Populi poll shared first with The Daily Caller. The poll has Udall at 47 and Weh at 43. “Our survey shows that the New Mexico Senate race has tightened down to a four point lead heading into Election Day,” said Vox Populi pollster Brent Seaborn. “The deteriorating national political environment for Democrats and President Obama has put Senate races...

Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats in New Mexico voter registration 47 percent to 31 percent, while independents, or voters who decline to state (DTS) a party affiliation, represent 19 percent.

The top deputy to Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation on Thursday amid revelations that Operation Fast and Furious scandal guns were used to harm Americans in Phoenix in 2013, a development top congressional Republicans say President Obama’s administration sought to cover up. ... Holder, the attorney general, has failed to cooperate with the Fast and Furious congressional investigation led by Issa and Grassley. Holder was voted, on a bipartisan basis, into both criminal and civil contempt of Congress—a first in the history of the United States for a Cabinet-level official—after he failed to provide documents to Issa’s committee...

Public Enemy No. 1 for rural Utah sheriffs just happens to be a fellow peace officer: Dan Love, the Bureau of Land Management’s special agent in charge. Elected law enforcement officers from Nephi to Blanding call him an arrogant and dishonest bully who has little regard for local authority and dodges accountability, derailing a collaborative approach to police work on the state’s federal lands. Love reportedly just laughed when Garfield County Sheriff James "Danny" Perkins relayed ranchers’ complaints about federal officers removing plastic feed tubs from the range and threatening the ranchers with litter citations. He drew early controversy during...

Immigrant rights groups filed a Freedom of Information Act court action in Washington, D.C. Tuesday to compel the release of documents regarding the use of the expedited removal process against families with children, including those detained at the family detention center in Artesia, N.M. The groups, in a news release, said the government has not publicly released critical information about the procedures governing its operations at the facility, despite the potentially life-threatening consequences for the women and children detained there.

Fearing for his life, a clerk shot at two robbery suspects at a South Valley store on Monday night, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department. One of the suspects [20 year-old Christopher Garza ]died as result, but the clerk is not facing any charges at this time. According to Sgt. Aaron Williamson, the other suspect, 20-year-old Ruben Lucero, has been charged with an open count of murder. Sgt. Williamson said because the two men conspired to commit the armed robbery that led to the murder, Lucero will face the murder charge. In addition to the open count of murder,...

Once upon a time, the liberal position was to reject the old discriminatory branding of people by the color of their skins rather than by the content of their characters. Not now. Political and career advantage is found in trumpeting -- or occasionally making up -- genealogies. Take the inexact category of Latino or Hispanic -- an often constructed identity that increasingly no one quite knows how to define. Almost anyone can be a Latino or Hispanic, from a fourth-generation American with one-quarter Mexican ancestry, to a first-generation Cuban, to a youth who recently arrived illegally from Central America, to...

One of three centers used for detaining Central American families who have entered the U.S. illegally this year has started releasing many more detainees than it deports, a New Mexico city official said. Federal immigration authorities reported 61 releases and no deportations last week at the Artesia Family Residential Center in southeastern New Mexico, Artesia Mayor Phillip Burch said. The numbers show a dramatic change from the center's first two weeks, when 135 people were deported and 12 were released, according to figures provided to Burch by ICE officials.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) said Tuesday nightthat U.S. border officials have caught “at least 10″ Islamic State fighters or people with ties to the group as they tried to enter the U.S. through Mexico,a claim that was immediately disputed by the Obama administration. “I know that at least 10 ISIS fighters have been caught coming across the Mexican border in Texas,”Hunter said on Fox News Tuesday night. “There’s nobody talking about it.” Rep. Duncan Hunter Claims "10 Isis Fighters" Caught At The Southern Border. Greta ( 3:23 ) When asked by host Greta Van Susteren how he knows this,...

Santa Fe Public Schools is among three school districts suing the state of New Mexico and its Public Education Department in an effort to force an increase in funding for public schools in a state that perennially scores near the bottom in national ratings. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in state District Court in Santa Fe, asks the court to declare that current funding levels violate the New Mexico Constitution and asks the state to change its funding formula to offer equal support for students who are English language learners or living in poverty.

Border Patrol Agent and National Border Patrol Council #3307 Vice President Chris Cabrera said that “nothing” has been done to secure the border in the event the Ebola virus spreads to Central America, and that the apprehension rate on the border was down to about 30% . ... Cabrera continued his criticism of the upper management of the Border Patrol, saying, “What needs to be done is we need to have our agents in the field where they belong, we need to stop cutting our manpower and stop cutting our hours and get our guys out there on the front...

Two Utah congressmen say the public needs more time to weigh in on a "sweeping" proposal to designate more than a half-million acres as critical habitat for the Western yellow-billed cuckoo. Republican Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Chris Stewart are among 17 members of Congress who urged U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe to extend the comment period on the designation beyond Oct. 14. "While we oppose this listing proposal, we find it completely unacceptable that the (agency) has proposed only 60 days of public comment with no public hearings, effectively shutting out meaningful comment on a sweeping critical...

Wednesday on Newsmax TV's "America's Forum," Mayor Phillip Burch Mayor of Artesia, NM, a isolated town that houses a federal immigration detention center, said there has been a sudden large increase in the number of illegal immigrants being released from the center into the United States. Burch said, "We have seen some changes in how the cases of these immigrants are being handled. There can be gowing concern about how this is being handled by the government."

A California woman wasn't able to honor her late husband at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta after a thief made off with the balloon her daughter planned to pilot. Police say Lucinda Wallace's hot air balloon was taken sometime early Saturday morning from the Nativo Hotel. The suspect also took a trailer holding the balloon and a Chevrolet Suburban with a California license plate that reads "baluner."

Pot is one thing, but three ounces is a lot for a casual user and is usually reserved for dealers. Wait…. You weren’t selling that weed were you, Mark? And, then, amphetamines? Really? It’s no secret in Colorado that Sen. Mark Udall has some problems telling the truth. It’s probably also relatively well-known that Mark Udall admitted to The Rocky Mountain News (RIP) that he was arrested for possession of marijuana. But, here’s Sen. Udall’s dirty little secret – it wasn’t just marijuana and it was a little more complicated than he shrugged off in the Rocky. ... The punishment...

Scientists say it’s almost certain that massive injections of waste water caused recent quakes in the Raton Basin, including a 5.3 tremor in 2011 FRISCO — A surge in earthquakes in southern Colorado and New Mexico has almost certainly been caused by the injection of fracking wastewater deep into the ground, U.S. Geological Survey scientists reported last week. The study details several lines of evidence directly linking the injection wells to the seismicity. The timing and location of the quakes is clearly linked with the the documented pattern of injected wastewater. Detailed investigations of two seismic sequences (2001 and 2011)...

A sheriff in New Mexico was convicted by a federal jury Friday of weapons charges and violating a man’s civil rights after a car pursuit. Rio Arriba County Sheriff Thomas Rodella, 56, was found guilty of violating the civil rights of a driver, identified as Michael Tafoya by the Associated Press, and brandishing a firearm during a violent crime in an assault on Tafoya. Federal prosecutors said Rodella and his son chased the man in their car and once they cornered him on a dead-end street, the sheriff got out with his gun, got into the man’s car and pistol-whipped...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Health officials are investigating nine cases of muscle weakness or paralysis in Colorado children and whether the culprit might be a virus causing severe respiratory illness across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday sent doctors an alert about the polio-like cases and said the germ - enterovirus 68 - was detected in four out of eight of the sick children who had a certain medical test. The status of the ninth case is unclear. The virus can cause paralysis but other germs can, too. Health officials don't know whether the virus...