Free Republic

Hector may not believe it, but he’s one of the lucky ones. The 18-year-old Mexican national was abandoned in the desert by the smugglers whom he had paid about $3,000 to get him across the southern border and into the United States. He was supposed to pay them another $3,000 upon reaching his destination — Indianapolis, where he said his father works as a roofer. Because of a condition that was causing his muscles to deteriorate from overuse, Hector couldn’t keep up with the rest of the group. The smugglers, having already received half their $6,000 fee up front, apparently...

TIZAMARTE, Guatemala - Alvina Jerónimo Pérez tries to avoid going out. She doesn’t want to see neighbors. She’s even changed the chip in her cellphone since her failed journey to the United States. The 42-year-old woman is fearful her unsuccessful migration could cost her more than she can bear — even the single-story concrete block house her husband built on land passed down from her great grandparents in this mountaintop hamlet in south-central Guatemala. From afar, it seemed a safe bet. Many others in town, even in her own family, had made similar journeys. “Since people were passing (the border),...

As the longest government shutdown in American history lurches toward its fifth week, a grim but growing consensus has begun to emerge on Capitol Hill: There may be no way out of this mess until something disastrous happens. This is, of course, not a sentiment lawmakers are eager to share on the record. But in interviews this week with congressional staffers on both sides of the aisle (whom I granted anonymity in exchange for candor), I heard the same morbid idea expressed again and again. The basic theory—explained to me between weary sighs and defeated shrugs—goes like this: Washington is...

On Day 13 of the partial government shutdown, an 11-year-old from North Potomac is on a mission. “My mind was just going through like, how can I help, how can I contribute to my family,” said Bella Berrellez. The fifth grader’s mother works for the FDA and is currently furloughed as a result of the government shutdown. She got her last paycheck on Friday, December 28. “I woke up one morning and went downstairs to eat breakfast and I saw the television was on and I saw it said the government was shutting down,” said Berrellez. “I just want my...

A little girl from Honduras stares into the camera, her young features contorted in anguish. She’s barefoot, dusty and clad only in a diaper and T-shirt. And she’s just had to run from clouds of choking tear gas fired across the border by U.S. agents. A second photograph, which also circulated widely and rapidly on social media, shows an equally anguished woman frantically trying to drag the same child and a second toddler away from the gas as it spread. The three were part of a much larger group, perhaps 70 or 80 people,..... pictured in a wider angle image...

The 12-year-old daughter of two undocumented immigrant parents delivered an emotional speech at the Families Belong Together rally in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. The girl, identified only as “Leah” in a CNN video, fought back tears while speaking out against the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which has resulted in more than 2,000 migrant children being detained and separated from their parents. “Why do they hurt us like this?” She said. “It is unfair that they get to spend time with their families today while there are children in detention centers and in cages all alone missing their parents, who...

Received a copy of the message pasted below that apparently is circulating via freepmail. In response, all I can say is John is my son and my partner in FR along with Chris and Amy. None of us make a six figure salary. I designed and wrote the original version of FR back in '96, but it was my very first internet project ever. It worked, but codewise it was a dog. And virtually impossible to maintain. When John came in with me, he rewrote the software and made it work greater than ever before and included maintenance tools that...

Immigration agents detained an undocumented Los Angeles father of four U.S.-born children as he was about to drop off his daughter at school earlier this week, dramatic video shows. Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, a 48-year-old Mexican immigrant who has lived and worked in the country for over 25 years, was pulled over by agents a few blocks from his 12-year-old daughter's school in Pasadena on Tuesday morning, attorney Emi MacLean told the Daily News. The agents, donning blue jackets with the word "police" emblazoned across their backs, cuffed Avelica-Gonzalez and placed him in an unmarked vehicle, as his daughter and wife could...

The New York Times had a very compelling story about an illegal alien who came to the US and immediately gave birth to a sickly baby who died. The problem with the story was that the Times implausibly tied the death of the baby to the lack of immediate amnesty for illegal aliens, and that implausibility made for a weak storyline. Since we've seen so many of these kinds of articles, I thought I'd provide some tips on how to write a better one. His mother was still in McAllen, a town 10 miles from the Texas-Mexico border —...

A woman is packing up her home after being served an eviction notice — a situation that drove her husband to commit suicide. “I lost my husband and it hurts me like hell,” said Oriane Rousseau, whose husband, Norman, took his life Sunday after an eviction notice was placed on their front door. Norman’s death has delayed the eviction but Oriane said it’s difficult for her to stay in the home where he died. “I don’t want this to happen to anybody. This is horrible. I lost my husband. I lose my pets, I lose my house, I lose my...

Today my 12 year old daughter was in class when a student came in and asked her if she would come into the hall to talk to the police. When she went into the hallway a police officer explained that she needed to go to the principal's office with him and she then asked if she was in trouble. He gave her no reply. He asked her if she wanted to walk by herself so she wouldn't be seen with him and she said, "No, I don't care." When she finally arrived at the principal's office across campus there were...

At a ramshackle homeless shelter in Reynosa, Mexico, on the south bank of the Rio Grande, a group of men stand in the suffocating heat all day. From behind a low cement wall, they stare across at the country where, until recently, they lived, worked and raised families. ... Manuel Cantero is among the men at the shelter. He's a 54-year-old laborer originally from Nuevo Laredo. For the past 29 years, he lived quietly in Miami, worked odd jobs, married and had three kids. "But work began to get scarcer; my wife got into drugs. They deported me. I lost...

....The two men are normally part of the vast corps of immigrant day laborers who gather by the thousands on street corners and curbs across Los Angeles every morning..... As members of Teatro Jornaleros Sin Fronteras – Day Laborer Theater Without Borders – they are part of a Spanish-language theater troupe of day laborers who perform for their fellow workers ..... "In our culture, some guys have never seen a play," said Juan José Mangandi, a Salvadoran laborer who serves as the troupe's director. In the final skit, a group of day laborers were shown hanging around a job site...

Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in the L.A. area, terminates more than 200 employees after an IRS audit finds that they had provided 'invalid or fraudulent' Social Security numbers. No immigration agents descended on Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in Vernon. No one was arrested or deported. There were no frantic scenes of desperate workers fleeing la migra through the gritty streets of the industrial suburb southeast of downtown Los Angeles. For more than 200 Overhill workers, however, the effect was devastating: All lost steady jobs last month and now find themselves in a precarious employment market, without...

Maureen Ebel, 60, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, thought she had $7.3 million invested with the New York financier when he was arrested last month and charged with running a massive hedge fun scam, possibly the largest financial fraud in history. But after Mr Madoff's alleged confession that the scheme was "all just one big lie", a revelation that shook the investment world, Mrs Ebel realised she had nothing. She went from an annual income from her investments of 400,000 dollars to worrying about how to pay her next bill and picking up coins in the street. In less than a...

It is a little slice of Long Beach, Calif., brought here by a former gang member by way of a federal prison, an immigration jail and then expulsion four years ago from his homeland, the United States, to the homeland of his parents, Cambodia. The former gang member is Tuy Sobil, 30, who goes by the street name K.K. The boys are Cambodian street children he has taken under his wing as he teaches them the art he brought with him, break dancing, as well as his hard lessons in life. K.K. is not here because he wants to be....

For months, CBS News has been following the deepening troubles of tiny Postville, Iowa, population 2,200. Now the shutdown of the town's main employer following a federal immigration raid has Postville at the point of desperation... Postville, Iowa was just decorated with holiday cheer. But looks can be deceiving. "In the last few weeks - it's really gone downhill dramatically," says Mayor Bob Penrod. With empty streets - and shuttered shops - this small town is facing economic calamity. Penrod is taking steps this weekend to declare a state of emergency here - but not a natural disaster - rather...

A man living in the U.S. since he was 10 worked under the impression he was a U.S. citizen. He was arrested and found out he was actually living in this country illegally. He was deported. Four other undocumented families could also be deported, even though their children are U.S. citizens. These parents are pleading to federal officials to let them remain in this country. Unfortunately for Brian Cadena, there is no hope. Even though he was only 10 years old when he illegally crossed the border with his mom, there is no law that protects him from deportation. And...

ROSWELL, Ga. — Like all illegal immigrants, Lorenzo Jimenez knew the knock on the door from immigration agents could come at any time. Still, he had enough faith in the American dream to buy a house in this Atlanta suburb, even though signing the papers meant raising the risk: He put his 2-year-old, American-born daughter's name and Social Security number on the title. And it worked, for a while. Jimenez and his family lived happily enough for several years alongside "regular" citizens. Nicole Griffin's mom lived a few doors away, and when Griffin visited, she said, her kids played with...

BREAKING — About two years ago, Mexico native Carlos Perez left his job at a factory in Dayton, Tenn., to start Perez Produce, a distributing company for local Hispanic restaurants and stores. Now, Mr. Perez said he regrets leaving a stable job at the La-Z-Boy factory because the produce business is not going well and he is on the verge of closing. “When I first started with the business two years ago it was going well, but starting about three months ago it started going down, down,” he said in Spanish. “If the situation continues to get worse, I think...