Free Republic

Amparo Cid traces her work as an attorney helping recent immigrants and their families in the Central Valley fight injustices and potential deportation to her experience as a child in 1994. That was when California voters passed Proposition 187, an initiative that denied undocumented immigrants access to publicly funded services. Back then, many California officials blamed the federal government for not doing more to keep people from crossing the border illegally. Today, the roles are reversed.

The sheriff's department in a major Los Angeles metro area county announced Monday that it will begin publishing a list of inmate release dates, spurning a provision of California's sanctuary state law that limits communication between local officials and immigration authorities. As of Monday, the Orange County Sheriff's Department's online inmate database includes the date and time of a prisoner's release, a change that agency officials say will improve communication with federal law enforcement partners. While the database will include release dates for all inmates, not just illegal immigrants, the newly public information is aimed at helping Immigration and Customs...

Leaders in Orange County, California, have voted to join a U.S. government lawsuit against the state over its so-called sanctuary law for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

Support for the Flat Earth movement has been exploding in popularity, with millions believing NASA is trying to dupe us about the shape of our planet. Google Trends data reveals searches for “flat earth” in the past two years have tripled, with a 90 percent surge in interest in the cranky conspiracy theory. High-profile celebrity endorsements have helped grow a community of people who reject “globehead” thinking and insist that the world is in fact flat. Those coming out about their belief include NBA player Kyrie Irving, who said in a podcast that he believed the Earth is not the...

More California cities may consider defying the state’s “sanctuary state” laws, after the city council of Los Alamitos passed an ordinance defying the state’s controversial new legislation preventing cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Leaders of Los Alamitos, in Orange County, passed the ordinance 4-1 and instructed the city attorney to file an amicus brief in the ongoing Department of Justice lawsuit against the State of California. The lawsuit challenges the Immigrant Worker Protection Act (HB 450), the Inspection and Review of Facilities Housing Federal Detainees law (AB 103); and the California Values Act (SB 54). The Orange County Register reports...

Supervisors voted Monday for Orange County to spend $70.5 million on permanent housing for the homeless, and to create temporary homeless camps in Irvine, and possibly in Huntington Beach and Laguna Niguel. The vote comes a week after supervisors committed $20 million toward permanent housing for the homeless. The combined $90 million is likely the single largest appropriation ever committed by the county to fight homelessness, and signals a shift in the county’s strategy to solve the growing issue. The decision came as supervisors admitted that they’ve failed to spend money that’s been available for homeless housing – tens of...

Thousands of pounds of human waste, close to 14,000 hypodermic needles cleaned out from Santa Ana River homeless encampments Orange County Public Works released eye-popping figures Thursday, March 8, on the total amount of debris, needles and hazardous waste removed when crews cleaned up the area along the Santa Ana River Trail once populated by the encampments of homeless people. Here’s what was collected between Jan. 22 and March 3 from a more than two-mile stretch of bike trail roughly from I-5 in Orange to Ball Road in Anaheim, according to OC Public Works spokesman Shannon Widor: 404 tons of...

The last of more than 700 homeless people living in the tent encampments at the Santa Ana River Trail left on Monday — 697 of them gone to motels. In the days since, Orange County Public Works crews have cleared away most of the debris left behind on a roughly two-mile stretch from I-5 in Orange to Ball Road/Taft Avenue in Anaheim. It won’t be known until next week just how much trash, feces, discarded syringes and other hazardous waste was collected, said OC Public Works spokesman Shannon Widor. The last official tally from the county was on Feb. 9,...

What happens when homeless people are sent to motels? Some are welcomed, some treated warily, some kicked out Erik Teasley was happy to leave behind the ragtag encampments at the Santa Ana River Trail where he and hundreds of other homeless people had lived until last week, when the county resumed its mass dispersal of an entrenched tent-city community. A comfortable motel sounded good to Teasley, 47. A homeless man from Santa Ana, he’d spent two years sleeping in different spots on the banks of the flood-control channel. But, last week, when he initially was moved away from the riverbed,...

Orange County’s largest homeless encampment is no more. On Monday, following a six-day blitz during which county officials moved 732 homeless people into local motels and shelters, the once-bustling tent encampment sat unoccupied. The last few occupants packed their belongings and left. Sheriff’s deputies guarded locked gates to the flood control channel, preventing people from reentering. -snip- The county attempted to clear the Santa Ana River encampment beginning Jan. 22 so it could conduct an environmental cleanup of the flood control channel. But U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter suspended that process by granting a temporary restraining order in...

Click on the link above. The video actually goes on for 10 minutes, but Twitter only allows 2:20 of it to be posted. Beyond disgusting. We spend 125 billion a year on illegal aliens and allow this tragedy in our country. (I suspect that there are illegals among them but how many I have no idea.)

It was bingo night at Main Street Bar & Cabaret, Laguna Beach’s last gay club. Techno music chugged; strobe lights blinked. The game’s caller – a redhead drag queen named Endora – fussed softly over the prizes, like an ikebana master arranging her flowers. But half an hour past the scheduled start time, patrons had yet to arrive. Endora sat at the bar and ordered a cocktail. In walked Craig Cooley, the bar manager for more than a year. “Where is everybody?” he asked, collapsing on a stool next to Endora. As usual, he seemed out of breath. Little wonder....

In what is the first successful prosecution in the scandal involving Planned Parenthood, the abortion industry, and the sale of aborted baby parts, two companies that sold aborted baby parts for the nation’s biggest abortion company have been forced to close down. The two California-based companies reached a settlement with the Orange County District Attorney’s office of almost $8 million dollars. As a result of the settlement the two companies will close up shop over the next couple of months and will no longer be selling parts from babies killed in abortions for Planned Parenthood or anyone else. This is...

Florida lawmakers demonstrated wisdom, foresight and fiscal responsibility in 2014 when they combined county expressway authorities in Central Florida into a single, regional agency. Roads don’t stop at county lines, and it’s inefficient and expensive to maintain multiple bureaucracies to control separate stretches of pavement. It’s also a problem when neighboring toll-road agencies have conflicting policies and plans for the future. Yet the rationale behind that 2014 law hasn’t been completely realized yet. It’s time for lawmakers to step in again. Dueling road agencies The Central Florida Expressway Authority now owns and operates 118 miles of toll roads in Metro...

Richard Losey was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery with a hate-crime enhancement, according to the Laguna Beach Police Department. He was being held in lieu of $50,000 bail. Police said R.C. Maxwell was “peacefully” speaking with a group of people at Main Beach Park when the counter-protester punched him. Maxwell, a black Trump supporter, told The Times he went to speak with counter-protesters “trying to find commonalities” and was explaining his views when he was attacked. He said he was also pepper-sprayed and choked. The confrontation was captured on video that was posted to social media. In the video,...

Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Larry Kurtz said the plane had crashed and two people in their early 60s were hospitalized with traumatic injuries. Both patients “had vitals” when they were removed from the plane, he said. It’s not clear what caused the plane to crash, he said. “As far as exactly what occurred to the aircraft, that’s up to the FAA for investigation,” Kurtz said. The plane’s wreckage was on the southbound freeway near the MacArthur Boulevard exit, on the path that aircraft use when landing at John Wayne Airport. The Cessna 310 aircraft “landed” on the freeway short...

Orange County activists Rida Hamida and Ben Vazquez wanted to find a way to promote unity among the region’s Muslim and Latino communities, so they came up with a novel idea. After daily fasting as part of the holy month of Ramadan, dozens of local Muslims joined their Latino neighbors Saturday night in the parking lot of the new Islamic Center of Santa Ana to take part in the inaugural event of the campaign dubbed Taco Trucks at Every Mosque.

Larry Schweikart - FReeper "LS" - will be appearing in Southern California this week: Date: Thursday, May 18, 2017, 7:00 PM Address: Rush Park Auditorium 3001 Blume Dr Los Alamitos CA 90720 Map The event is being promoted by the 405-605 Patriots. Here is their website and here is their contact information. FReeper Loud Mime is a member and if you plan on attending you may contact him for further information not listed at the website. A special note from Loud Mime: We open the doors at 6pm, we’re setting up at that time but people are welcome, especially...

“You are paddleboarding next to approximately 15 great white sharks,” Deputy Brian Stockbridge announced via a loudspeaker. Stockbridge was in a helicopter, flying off the coast of Dana Point in Orange County, Calif., at about 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday. And, indeed, swimming in the Pacific Ocean below and clearly visible from the air, were several great white sharks. Their fins rose menacingly from the water as they glided back and forth.

What’s in an address? Saying “625 North Grand Avenue” in Orange County doesn’t sound the same as saying “Times Square” in my native New York City. But the Orange County Register has left the storied address it called home in Santa Ana for 60 years – and the paper was based in the city for a total of 112 years. New place? A modest headquarters location just south of Angel Stadium in Anaheim.