Free Republic

International travel to the United States took a significant hit after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, research shows. Efforts to reverse this trend culminated in Senate approval last week of the Travel Promotion Act, which President Obama is expected to sign today. The measure provides close to $200 million annually to create a national agency - the Corporation for Travel Promotion - modeled after successful tourism-advancement organizations in this country and in other developed nations.

Desperate Somalis Seek 'Back-Door' Route To U.S. By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press Writer LANCASTER, Calif. – The asylum seeker from Somalia hung his head as an immigration judge grilled him about his treacherous journey from the Horn of Africa. By air, sea and land he finally made it to Mexico, and then a taxi delivered him into the arms of U.S. border agents at San Diego. Islamic militants had killed his brother, Mohamed Ahmed Kheire testified, and majority clan members had beaten his sister. He had to flee Mogadishu to live. The voice of the judge, beamed by videoconference from...

LANCASTER, Calif. – The asylum seeker from Somalia hung his head as an immigration judge grilled him about his treacherous journey from the Horn of Africa. By air, sea and land he finally made it to Mexico, and then a taxi delivered him into the arms of U.S. border agents at San Diego. Islamic militants had killed his brother, Mohamed Ahmed Kheire testified, and majority clan members had beaten his sister. He had to flee Mogadishu to live.

To those out there desperately trying to paste together scraps of enthusiasm by singing the poetic praises of VP Dick Cheney, please don’t expect the average conservative out in flyover country to join your little Republican booster club. Certainly, there is not much to disagree with in what the former VP says. No doubt, we’re “less safe” under Obama. Pres Obama’s administration is obviously lowering all of our defenses. Opening us wide to all manner of political, economic and violent terror attacks. So why does the GOP Base continue to rapidly shrink? (now down to 27% - Gallup) Why is...

McALLEN -- A man accused of aiding three Sri Lankan nationals to enter the country illegally is set to make an early court appearance this morning. U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Suresh Suntharalingam, 38, of Canada, on Wednesday, after customs inspectors at McAllen-Miller International Airport found him holding plane tickets for the three illegal immigrants carrying fake Canadian identification cards. The men later told authorities that their families had paid $32,000 to Suntharalingam to guide them to Canada through Mexico and the United States. After flying into Mexico City and traveling to the border, the group snuck across the Rio...

Amid all of the xenophobia and nativism surrounding the immigration debate, there is a real security concern. In the language of the bureaucracy, the problem is referred to as the "OTMs," or Other Than Mexicans. Thousands of non-Mexicans are caught crossing the United States border every year. They cannot be sent back to Mexico, but must be deported to their home country. Until recently, most were given a deportation hearing date and then simply released. Not surprisingly, few showed up for their scheduled appearances. Beginning last year, however, most who are caught are put into detention. They are then put...

COLUMBUS, N.M. - On Sept. 5, a man calling himself Miguel Alfonso Salinas was apprehended off a deserted highway near the U.S.-Mexico border. The tinted windows on Alfonso Salinas' vehicle aroused the suspicion of Border Patrol agents patrolling a dark and desolate stretch of Highway 9, which runs parallel to the border and is the site of large numbers of illegal crossings. The agents discovered three Mexican migrants in the vehicle with Alfonso Salinas. But what they discovered several days later made a far greater impression. Alfonso Salinas was not who he seemed, according to U.S. Department of Justice and...

Are Middle Eastern terrorists posing as Mexican immigrants? Click to watch video A warning from some Texas congressmen: Middle Eastern terrorists may be trying to pose as Mexican immigrants. But is it a warning based on fact or politics? Some people in Houston are worried about the message. You couldn’t miss it during the election. Texas politicians saying the border needed protection, not just to stop undocumented workers, but terrorists. A month before the election, Mike McCaul, a congressman from a district northwest of Houston, released a report (snip) The FBI director has confirmed that there’s Middle Easterners with known...

*** NOTE*** Take your blood pressure medication before viewing this report... McCaul Releases Report on Border Violence (Tuesday, October 17, 2006) Today, U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (TX), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, released a report on border violence in the Southwest. The report examines the alarming rise in the level of criminal cartel activity, including drug and human smuggling, along the Texas-Mexico border and its effects on Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies. The report also looks at what steps are being taken to counter the threat, and the significance of these issues pertaining...

Several legal advocacy groups asked a judge to order the immediate release of four immigrants who have been detained for months or years without receiving a hearing on why they're being held so long. The motion filed Friday in federal court in Los Angeles asks U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter to release the detainees under conditions of supervision or grant them hearings. The move followed a class-action lawsuit filed Sept. 25 on behalf of six detainees by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic. Two detainees...

While the White House argues with the Heritage Foundation over how many new immigrants will be minted by the administration’s immigration plan, and Congress debates how many miles of fencing they should fund along the Mexican border, no on is paying attention to the real immigration scandal. If left unattended, this one could cost the lives of millions of Americans, not just their livelihoods. Even as we speak, tens of thousands of illegals from terrorist-sponsoring states are roaming the streets of America, according to a stunning new report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General. Although the...

After all the legislative hash that the Republican Congress has made of immigration policy, the worst is yet to come. Any workable compromise that a bipartisan mix of senators may manage this week must, perforce, run into negotiations with House obstructionists. And none are more hard-core than Speaker Dennis Hastert. He stands waiting with his triumphalist decree that no bill, even one fairly balancing border protection and enlightened naturalization law, can be put to a vote unless a majority of his Republican caucus — not some larger majority of, yes, the people's House — agree to it. "The job of...

Iraqis entered the Valley illegally Monday, May 01, 2006 Posted: 06:57 PM Three Iraqis slipped into the US over the weekend HARLINGEN – NEWSCHANNEL 5 is tracking information on three Iraqis who slipped into the Valley over the weekend. We’re told the men are each in their early 20s. They were caught near the Los Indios International Bridge near Harlingen on Saturday. FBI agents say the men claim to be Christians who are afraid they will face persecution if they are returned to Iraq. Before they were caught at the border, the men were arrested in Mexico carrying Greek passports....

Former Tucson sector Border Patrol agent Scott James says he caught his fair share of illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico during his years of service with the agency. Not that it really mattered, he added. James, who resigned from the Border Patrol two months ago, said his job, like those of his colleagues, was little more than a sham. Enforcing the law was the last thing the Department of Homeland Security wanted, he said. Some illegal immigrants apprehended on the border are from Pakistan, Iraq, China and other countries considered by the Department of Homeland Security to be...

Two immigrants are now the legal owners of a Douglas-area ranch seized from an anti-immigrant activist. Documents granting the 70-acre ranch once owned by Casey Nethercott to Fatima del Socorro Leiva Medina and Edwin Alfredo Mancia Gonzales were signed by a Cochise County judge on Monday. Nethercott is serving a five-year prison term in Texas stemming from a 2003 incident on a Texas ranch where he confronted Leiva and Mancia and was accused of pistol-whipping them. He was acquitted of assault but convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Nethercott was a member of the group Ranch...

Why hasn't the President given in to our (conservatives') demands for a border solution? It is going to hamstring his presidency and our country! http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/zito/s_417921.html

WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security wants to end the special immigration status that has allowed some 300,000 illegal Salvadoran, Honduran and Nicaraguan migrants to remain in this country, many of them in Florida, Bush administration officials say. But the final decision on the Temporary Protected Status for the three nations, which would force those migrants to return home or remain here illegally and risk deportation, still is under intense debate within the administration, the officials add.

He denies it all now. It is unclear why he would have asserted it all in this phone call, however, if it were not true. Of course, there could be any number of reasons. But this case bears monitoring. "Infiltration from the south feared: Terrorist smuggling denied by admitted drug runner," from The Brownsville Herald, with thanks to Richard: Officials are pointing to records in a South Texas drug case with alleged terrorist ties that they say underscores the lack of preparedness here. The attorney for a jailed Gulf Cartel member cited in the incident, however, says his client was...

EAGLE PASS, TX (AP) - Illegal immigrants crossing part of the Texas-Mexico border will be detained and deported now that officials are cracking down on a "catch-and-release" policy that was meant to save jail space but ended up being a free pass into the country. The catch-and-release method drew up to 150 non-Mexican immigrants near Eagle Pass each day last year, many actually hoping to get caught because the policy allowed them stay in the U.S. if they promised to appear in court after 30 days. Some 90 percent failed to show. The policy didn't apply to Mexicans because immigration...

At least 51 people who crossed the border illegally have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism since such tracking began 14 months ago, according to figures released to Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., by the Department of Homeland Security. Tancredo, a leading congressional advocate of immigration reform, says the figures document the national security risk the nation's porous borders pose on the eve of Congress' first attempt in nearly a decade to rewrite immigration law. Since October 2004, the Joint Terrorism Task Forces have kept track of arrested terrorist suspects who are in the U.S. illegally. The JTTF document released to...