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"Mexico does not end at its borders," said Mexican President Felipe Calderon last week during his first state of the nation address. The comment was part of his condemnation of U.S. immigration policies that include deportation of Mexican citizens who are in the United States illegally. "We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers," he said. Calderon didn't mention this particular incident specifically, but he likely had the episode involving Elvira Arellano in mind. A year she spent living in a church in...

MIAMI -- For the first time in a U.S. presidential campaign, candidates vying for the Democratic nomination will take part in a debate Sunday that will be broadcast across the U.S. in Spanish. The event, held at the University of Miami and broadcast by the Univision Network, marks the Democratic candidates' recognition of the growing political muscle that the country's more than 44 million Hispanics could wield in the 2008 election. Seven of the eight Democratic candidates will be taking part in the debate — including front-runners Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Texas have been ordered to abbreviate national security checks at one of the nation"s busiest ports of entry to speed up travel between the United States and Mexico, according to official documents and multiple interviews with agents. An Aug. 16 memorandum from CBP El Paso field office Director Luis Garcia directs agents to limit inspections of vehicle and pedestrian border crossers as wait times escalate. The document, obtained by The Washington Times, sets new guidelines that border inspectors say undermine efforts to prevent terrorists and other criminals from entering the United States. The...

(CNSNews.com) - Building a fence across the entire 1,952-mile border of the United States and Mexico can be done, with only two requirements needed, according to engineers. "All it takes is time and money," said Brian Damkroger, senior manager for border security and exploratory systems at the New Mexico-based Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia is working with the federal government in securing the border through a border fence and other measures. Sandia also helped design the 15-foot-high, 14-mile-long, double layer security fence in San Diego, viewed by fence proponents as a model of what works in deterring illegal immigration. A border...

Yesterday, I read Bob Novak's column titled "Republican Melancholy," which correctly caught the current depressed mood in GOP circles. President Bush's position on illegal immigration has deeply alienated much of the loyal rank and file Republicans across the country. Key Republican incumbents, such as Sen. John Warner of Virginia and Rep. Debbie Price of Ohio, are announcing their retirements. Sen. Larry Craig's cringe-inducing disgrace only adds to the funereal mood. And, of course, the Iraq War, for all the surge's success this summer, remains vastly unpopular with the public. To top off this GOP discontent, none of our presidential candidates...

Immigration-limits groups are in the midst of a Labor Day campaign to pressure Congress and presidential candidates to pledge to cut the flow of foreign labor in order to protect American workers. The groups' plea — being made in a new television-ad campaign and an online petition — occurs as think tanks on both sides of the immigration debate ponder the role of immigrants in the labor force, and arrive at different conclusions about how necessary foreign workers will be over the next half-century. The new ad campaign is stark and blunt: It features a young couple sitting at a...

Is Elvira Arellano — the recently deported Mexican illegal alien — the new Rosa Parks? Some of her supporters describe her this way. But Arellano's credentials as a "role model," to say the least, fall short. Indeed, even some "immigrant rights activists" find the comparison embarrassing. A check of the Web sites of the National Council of La Raza and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund finds no statement one way or the other concerning Arellano. Rosa Parks, a black woman, was born in 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama — that is, Tuskegee, Alabama, United States of America. She thus...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement criminal investigators will no longer be involved in immigration work site enforcement or conduct checks for illegal alien prisoners. Almost 1,000 ICE Office of Investigations agents will be reassigned exclusively to customs investigations, reducing the manpower involved in detention and removal of illegal aliens to 4,000 nationwide, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times and interviews with ICE union representatives. ICE officials refused to comment on the internal documents or clarify the number of investigators that are to be reassigned. The Washington Times has obtained an internal August memorandum written by ICE Office of Investigations...

EL PASO, Texas - The mayors of the Texan city of El Paso and the Mexican city of Juarez led a protest by dozens of people on Saturday against a planned border wall to stem illegal immigration into America. The protesters held hands across the Paso del Norte Bridge, which spans the Rio Grande and connects the downtown cores of the two cities. Resentment against the wall runs deep in the border areas of Texas. Landowners are concerned it may cut across their property, conservationists see it destroying crucial riverside habitat, and some activists see it inflaming ethnic tensions. El...

Yes, this land (the United States of America) is my land, and I don't plan to give it up easily. In fact, I don't plan to give it up at all, nor do I plan to give it away. Those words, with that emphasis, have clear meaning. I speak as an American citizen and for fellow citizens who value our country and our citizenship. We won't give up what's ours and what has been preserved with the lives and blood of millions who fought to protect what we have and what our freedoms make possible. Those four words constitute the...

President Bush's top intelligence aide has confirmed that Iraqi terrorists have been captured coming into the United States from Mexico. The confirmation comes from National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, who talked about the situation in an interview with the El Paso Times recently. "Coming up through the Mexican border is a path," McConnell said. "Now, are they doing it in great numbers? No, because we're finding them and we're identifying them and we've got watch lists and we're keeping them at bay." But, he said, "There are numerous situations where people are alive today because we caught them (terrorists)." (Story...

Let's say the 7-year-old daughter of illegal immigrants working in a big American city wakes up this morning with a high fever and a rash. Is it in that city's interest for the little girl to receive treatment at a local public clinic or hospital? Or is that community better off if the child's parents try to treat her at home because they fear a doctor will ask about their immigration status -- and report them to the federal government if they can't prove they are here legally? Before you answer, recall that in the 1982 Plyler vs. Doe decision,...

Will the execution-style murder of three young students in Newark, N.J., finally turn the tide in the immigration enforcement debate? Will we at last abandon the deadly, chaotic, lawless sanctuary nation experiment and restore America's lost status as a sovereign nation under the rule of law? The death of six innocent men and women and the injury of more than 1,000 at the hands of several illegal alien 1993 World Trade Center bombers wasn't enough to convince politicians in New York and across this country to end illegal alien sanctuary policies. The death of nearly 3,000 innocent men, women and...

You can’t have national security without border security. It’s not only necessary for any meaningful immigration reform; border security plays a key role in both the interdiction of illegal drugs and in defending America against terrorist threats. Weak borders allow terrorists and smugglers, as well as millions of illegal aliens, easy entrance to the United States. Unfortunately, it’s not at all clear our government is committed to its first responsibility: the protection of our borders. In June 2006 the federal government began Operation Jump Start, deploying 6,000 National Guard troops to assist the Border Patrol in securing our border with...

HURON -- A man suspected of being an illegal alien was charged with gross sexual imposition after he was accused of entering an apartment and lying down next to and touching the thigh of a sleeping 8-year-old girl, according to Huron police. Lucio Sanchez-Martinez, 32, also was charged with entering the apartment where the girl lived with her father and two other children, said Huron police Chief Randy Glovinsky. Huron police began investigating the morning of Aug. 8, when they received a call for a sex offense investigation, according to the police report. When officers arrived at an apartment building...

PORTSMOUTH — An illegal alien wanted by the Department of Homeland Security is being held on $75,000 cash-only bail for charges alleging he restrained and sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in a Water Country wave pool Sunday. Marvin Hernandez, 27, of 11 Ingall St., Lynn, Mass., is alleged to have twice grabbed an inner tube in which the minor girl was floating, pulled her toward him and put his hand inside her bikini bottom. As a result, he is charged with a felony count of criminal restraint, felony false imprisonment and two Class A misdemeanor counts of simple assault. Prosecutor...

(CBS/AP) In a surprisingly strong attack, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Republican rival Rudy Giuliani had turned New York City into a sanctuary for illegal immigrants during his two terms as mayor. Immigration is a hot-button issue in the GOP and may play especially well in Iowa, an early battleground state where the federal government has raided meat processing plants employing illegals, and where some longtime residents feel their pay is being undercut by cheaper-working immigrants. "If you look at lists compiled on Web sites of sanctuary cities, New York is at the top of the list when Mayor...

SANTA ANA – Responding to a refusal by city leaders to declare the city a sanctuary for illegal immigrants, more than a dozen people gathered outside City Hall Monday night to denounce recent immigration raids, accusing federal officials of "terrorizing" immigrant communities and breaking up families. A coalition of local immigrant rights groups, including the Orange County Alliance for Immigrants Rights and the Front Against the Raids, announced a planned program to create a hotline that will notify people where and when immigration raids will take place. The program would also coordinate a support system for the families of deportee...

BISBEE, Arizona -- An Arizona judge ruled on Monday that a U.S. Border Patrol agent must stand trial for murder for shooting dead a Mexican immigrant in a case that prompted condemnation and increased tensions with Mexico. Agent Nicholas Corbett was charged in April on four counts of homicide in connection with the January 12 shooting death of Francisco Dominguez Rivera shortly after he crossed a stretch of desert border between Douglas and Naco. Cochise County Justice of the Peace David Morales ruled on Monday the evidence supported lesser charges of second degree murder in the shooting, but tossed charges...

Maria Rivera sits in the Cobb County Jail, facing deportation after a traffic stop. If the Mableton mother of three, who is here illegally from Mexico, had been pulled over in any other county in Georgia, she likely would have bailed out and gone on with her life. But Cobb County's jail is at the forefront of local enforcement of immigration laws, going a step further than many states and further than a new Georgia law requires. Cobb has trained some sheriff's deputies to determine the legal status of all foreign born inmates at the jail, no matter how minor...

It's clearly necessary to begin thinking about what form deterrence will take against future terrorist attacks on the U.S. At least 5 such attacks have been prevented at the operational stage by Bush administration policies over the last six years. What is needed is more serious consideration of the value of policies that deter such attacks. This is likely to become a more pressing concern, as America's ability to interrupt such attacks, if a Democrat becomes President, will be severely eroded. The Democrats are profoundly indifferent to national security, and have even managed to convince themselves that terrorism is some...

As many U.S. cities and states arrest illegal immigrants in raids and toughen laws against them, a Connecticut city is offering to validate them under a controversial, first-in-the-nation ID card program. Starting Tuesday, New Haven will offer illegal immigrants municipal identification cards that allow access to city services such as libraries and a chance to open bank accounts. Supporters say the cards will improve public safety and give undocumented workers protections now afforded legal residents. Critics contend it will unleash a flood of illegal immigration, straining services and wasting taxpayer money. New Haven officials overwhelmingly approved the program last month...

The GOP leadership is waking up to a persistent reality, and it's one that has fundraisers and strategists at the RNC up at night. Conservatives, the core constituency of the Republican Party, are irate. Far from a passing hobbyhorse, the illegal immigration issue has galvanized Republican voters like no single issue in recent memory, and conservatives are refusing to let it go. The Senate's comprehensive immigration bill, backed by the President and pushed by the GOP establishment, was more than a mere legislative miscalculation, is was the straw that broke the conservatives' back. Moreover, to listen to conservatives, it wasn't...

Construction on the wall already has begun in Arizona, Chertoff said. Washington aims to have "operational control" of the border by 2013 by building the 700-mile (1,120-km) wall along parts of the frontier and creating a "virtual fence" in desert areas with drones, sensors, cameras, satellite technology and vehicle barriers.

My fellow Americans, we have a problem. We spend billions of dollars on homeland security, but our government can't even track and deport convicted criminal aliens. These are not the well-meaning "newcomers" who just want to "pursue economic opportunities" by "doing the jobs no one else will do." These are foreign-born thugs, sex offenders, murderers and repeat drunk drivers who are destroying the American Dream. If our immigration and entrance system cannot effectively monitor, detain and kick out convicted criminal aliens -- including illegal border-crossers, illegal visa overstayers, fugitive deportees, and green card holders who have committed serious crimes and...

No matter where my colleagues came down in 2003 about the centrality of Iraq to the war on terror, there can simply be no debate that our efforts in Iraq today are critical to the wider struggle against violent Islamic extremism. Already, the terrorists are emboldened, excited that America is talking not about winning in Iraq, but is rather debating when we should lose. Last week, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy chief, said that the United States is merely delaying our “inevitable” defeat in Iraq, and that “the Mujahideen of Islam in Iraq of the caliphate and jihad are advancing with...

The alliance of talk radio, blogs and grassroots efforts was a winner when it came to defeating the "shamnesty" bill. Conservatives were enraged and showed just how much power we possess: A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of 15,000 adults in June found that just 32.0% now say they're Republicans. That's up more than a full percentage point from a month ago and is within a tenth-of-a-point of the GOP's best showing in ten months. This is purely because of the efforts put forth to defeat a bill that would've rewarded those who broke our laws. The Bush administration suffered...

The cause behind the Senate's failed immigration reform bill was an Achilles' heel that its advocates ignored but opponents instinctively understood — you can't hold a right hostage to an ultimatum. The architects behind the bill insisted that before we Americans could have our constitutionally entitled protection from invasion, we first had to accept legalizing the invaders as the condition for that protection. You might as well try to convince a poker player to use cash while his opponent gets to toss around IOU's.

In the war of words the immigration reform debate has degenerated into lately, a few terms have taken on lightning-bolt authority - a kind of "we know which side you are on" usage. Do you say "illegal alien" or "undocumented worker?" Path to earned "citizenship" or "amnesty?" A favorite phrase, increasingly heard in dialogues both heated and mild, is "rule of law." Now, this principle has an important place historically in legal and political theory, but you wouldn't know it listening to the patriots fulminating against illegal immigrants. To them, "rule of law" is a way simply to call out...

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EAGLE PASS -- He's been living here off and on for more than half a century, so rancher Bill Moody figured he had experienced about all the excitement and madness the Texas-Mexico border could produce.When there's not a drug bust going down or a lost immigrant begging him for food, Moody sometimes finds himself in the company of Hollywood directors, like the one who filmed Lonesome Dove here years ago and was back again recently working on a prequel called Comanche Moon.But the federal plan for a massive security fence along the border strikes Moody as too far-fetched for a...

Former Sen. Fred Thompson has begun his unannounced quest for the Republican presidential nomination by telling audiences in New Hampshire that Washington is badly out of touch with the country. As a senior campaign adviser put it to The Washington Post's Michael Shear, Thompson believes that "the politicians have lost their connection with what people really want and what they really expect." Few if any of the other 17 men and one woman vying for the presidency would be bold enough to challenge Thompson's claim. The belief that official Washington is deaf to the people's wishes is a staple of...

Attack likely to exploit existing network of cross-border human, drug traffickers. A nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. is better than an even bet in the next 10 years, says a former assistant secretary of defense and author of a book on the subject. "Based on current trends, a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States is more likely than not in the decade ahead," says Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and author of "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe." Allison, who has testified before Congress on...

A funny thing happened to a pro-illegal immigrant activist this week in Dallas, Texas. The activist, a League of United Latin American Citizens representative named Jesse Diaz, was carjacked. Obviously there’s nothing funny about someone sticking a gun in another person’s face and stealing his car. This isn’t funny as in hardy-har-har. And everyone is relieved that Mr. Diaz wasn’t hurt by the punk who threatened his life and stole his vehicle in broad daylight. But the amusing part of this crime is what happened afterward. It seems that Mr. Diaz is plenty steamed that it took the Dallas Police...

<p>Mexican ambulance drivers are transporting hospital patients unable to pay for medical care or emergency-room services in their country to facilities in the United States, where their treatment is mandated by federal law, authorities said yesterday.</p> <p>The border crossings have been reported from Brownsville, Texas, to Douglas, Ariz., and involve Mexican ambulance companies whose drivers have been instructed by hospital officials in Mexico to take ailing and uninsured patients to the United States, the authorities said.</p>

Republican presidential contender Tom Tancredo on Monday said "it's not impossible" to deport the estimated 12 million immigrants living in the United States illegally. Such action would take years and would be difficult but could be accomplished, he said. The Colorado congressman, however, argued that tougher border security and a crackdown on employers would reduce the need for mass deportations and encourage such immigrants to return to their native countries willingly. "It's attrition through enforcement," he said. Tancredo described his views on illegal immigration and other issues during a meeting with Des Moines Register editors and reporters. Illegal immigration is...

Both gloat and glum hang over Washington after last week's Senate defeat of the immigration bill. But now what? Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has the best answer: Enforce current laws, however imperfect they may be. "To regain the credibility with the American people that has been squandered over 30 years, we're going to have to be tough," he said, after losing a months-long struggle on Capitol Hill to pass immigration reform. The squandering he refers to is the unfulfilled promise by several presidents to treat illegal immigrants with justice – and fairness. The justice lies in better securing the...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- To his bosses at Pilgrim's Pride, he was Juan Jose Rodriguez -- it said so on the birth certificate and Social Security card he presented when the southwestern Arkansas chicken plant hired him six years ago. At his De Queen, Ark., home, he was Joel Garibay-Urbina -- with a wife, three kids and a mortgage under his own name. And to police officers responding to a domestic violence call, he was just the latest illegal immigrant to have two identities after an arrest. "We've arrested them and they offer an Arkansas identification card, and they give...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - For day laborers seeking work in a sun-baked parking lot on Thursday, defeat of U.S. President George W. Bush's plans for an immigration overhaul has set back their dreams of a normal life. The bill, which sought to give legal status to many of the 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, failed to get enough support in a make-or-break vote in the U.S. Senate. Workers standing around in searing heat outside a building materials store in Phoenix said hopes of an aboveboard life in this country of immigrants had crashed following news of the...

President Felipe Calderon of Mexico reacted sourly to news of the Senate's rejection of the proposed immigration law overhaul, calling the senators' action "a grave error." "It's a grave mistake first because it's a problem that's not being confronted, and with this evasive action the U.S. Senate is making it worse," Calderon told reporters in Mexico City during a joint news conference with President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, who is finishing a two-day visit to the Mexican capital. "Secondly, because to close the door on legal immigration, the only thing the Senate does is open the door to illegal immigration"...

As an everyday citizen of the United States, what are your realistic options when you believe your country to be in a death spiral from which it almost assuredly won’t recover? If you are an American who still deeply believes in the promise of our republic, how can you fight back against those from within, intent on destroying everything you hold sacred by subverting traditional family values, western civilization, national security, and just plain commonsense? Shockingly, maybe you can’t. I’m told it’s basically too late to save the nation that represents the last best hope for mankind. Six months ago,...

WASHINGTON, June 27 — The threat came in the weekend mail. The recipient was Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, who has been a leading advocate of the proposed legislation for changing the immigration system. His offices in Washington and across Florida have received thousands of angry messages in recent weeks, but nothing as alarming as that letter he received at his home.“I’ll turn it over to Capitol police, and we’ll go from there,” said Mr. Martinez, who declined to elaborate on the nature of the threat. On the eve of a crucial vote on the immigration bill, the Capitol...

A Republican senator from Kentucky says the so-called "comprehensive immigration reform" bill is completely unnecessary because there are already laws on the books the government has yet to enforce that will stop illegal aliens at the border. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is reportedly unsure whether he will support the immigration bill that would grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. McConnell tells Associated Press, "the bill on the merits is a mixed bag," and he won't decide how to vote on the measure until a series of amendments have been considered. But fellow Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning is...

The immigration bill is back on the Senate floor today. To help opponents of the legislation educate their senators about its disastrous consequences, I’m sharing this list of the bill’s Top 10 defects. You’re welcome to use it however you’d like -- share it with family, friends, co-workers, whoever. 1. It repeats the mistakes of the 1986 immigration law. • Like the 1986 law, this immigration “reform” measure grants amnesty immediately while promising security and enforcement in the future. • Actually, the old law was tougher. Back then, illegals had to show they had lived in the United States continuously...

An illegal immigrant is facing vehicular homicide charges in the death of a college student. Victor Benitez appeared in court Thursday morning for a preliminary hearing in the death of Tennessee State University student-athlete Joycelyn Gardiner. Three witnesses took the stand and detailed the events surrounding Gardiner’s death. “There was no sound of breaks or anything; (he) just came straight in. The light was red. I could see the light,” said Kent Redgrave. One witness told the court that he saw Benitez run a red light and slam into Gardiner’s car. The crash occurred early Saturday at the intersection of...

Procedural snares and ``killer'' amendments threaten to disrupt the fragile coalition in the Senate that's holding together the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. immigration policy since 1986. Supporters are scrambling to address the legislative obstacles before debate resumes next week. Opponents plan to try to derail the legislation by using procedural delays and offering poison-pill amendments that may split the coalition that sustains the measure. Passage of the legislation would give 12 million undocumented immigrants a chance at legal status while handing President George W. Bush a victory on his top domestic priority. ``This is a delicate balance. The wheels...

The Senate's Republican leader says he is unsure whether he will vote for the immigration bill President Bush strongly supports, underscoring the measure's precarious status. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has long called for an immigration overhaul, saying the current situation is deeply flawed. And as the Senate minority leader, McConnell is central to shepherding legislation the president wants. But in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, McConnell said he would not decide how to vote on the measure until a long series of amendments are disposed of next week. "The bill on the merits is a mixed bag,"...

Along with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez has been the Bush administration’s voice in an immigration debate that has divided Republicans. Gutierrez, a Cuban immigrant who became chief executive of Kellogg’s, said this week in an interview that he’s not disappointed by Republican opposition to the immigration bill, and that he hasn’t seen evidence that Democrats want to withhold a victory for President Bush. Gutierrez repeatedly framed the debate as a national security issue, predicting victory in part because of the “inevitability” of immigration reform. Q: If the Senate doesn’t approve a comprehensive immigration reform bill...

MISSION - A homeowner found a group of illegals in his kitchen. "One of them ran over and tried to hide in my sister's room," says the man, who didn't want to be identified. Border Patrol agents had followed a suspicious van into the Mission neighborhood. Seventeen illegals inside the van scattered into the neighborhood. A nearby elementary school went into lockdown as a precaution. Some of the illegals ran into neighborhood homes. A man, we'll call "Emilio," says his dog noticed them first and started barking. That's when Emilio got out his bedroom and found the people. "They were...

Ramesh makes an excellent point about Rudy and immigration. (It's first-name day here at LP!) Basically, he (Rudy) has managed to be adamantly opposed to the McCain-Kennedy-Bush-Dobbs (no, sorry, not Dobbs) immigration bill, without drawing attention to the fact that he is extremely pro-immigrant (he was mayor of New York City, for chrissake) and probably even pretty darn pro-legalization. (How's that for use of parentheses?) Or, as Ramesh put it: He could have flip-flopped: But he does not want to get the same reputation as Romney. And he may want to leave open the possibility of pushing for an amnesty...