Free Republic

'Illegal immigrant is held over death of missing Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts' after her body is found dead on rural property 15 minutes from where she vanished a month ago one week after the FBI said 'her abductor was hiding in plain sight' The 20-year-old's body was found on Tuesday five weeks after she went missing A suspect was held on a federal immigration detainer, Iowa officials revealed Police will not release any details until 4pm local time on Tuesday Her remains were found on a rural property near 460th Avenue which is close to Guernsey Mollie vanished 10 miles...

Politics: Despite the "gotcha" sniping at Thursday's debate, Republicans need to keep their eyes on the prize. The target for 2012 is not Santorum, Cain, Bachmann, Romney or Perry. It's the current White House occupant. Texas Gov. Rick Perry must have felt a bit like Gen. Custer at Little Big Horn at the Orlando debate, a made-for-TV contrivance in which those who have a real chance to be president must take pokes and jabs from those who don't. We appreciate this may be a necessary evil in which front-runners without stamina — the Ed Muskies and Rudy Giulianis, for example...

On the heels of a federal crackdown, lawmakers in Nebraska are scrambling to pass legislation that will allow pregnant illegal immigrant women to continue receiving free, taxpayer-financed medical care. The state has for decades offered the costly perk to pregnant illegal aliens, whose “anchor babies” are automatically United States citizens. However, the federal government recently notified the state that it was illegally determining eligibility for publicly-funded medical care known as Medicaid. Nebraska has skirted federal guidelines by using the illegal immigrants’ yet-to-be-born children to qualify for the medical care otherwise not available to undocumented aliens. Nebraska women who are legal...

As if Katie Couric didn’t already have enough problems. Weighed down by record-low ratings at the anchor desk of “CBS Evening News,” and by reports suggesting she will leave that post two years before her multimillion-dollar contract expires, Couric now has civil rights groups — mostly Hispanic — on her back. And for good reason. The CBS newscast that carries her name recently aired a one-sided and inaccurate report about illegal immigrant women who give birth to their children in the United States. The news story challenged the broader constitutional law of birthright citizenship and stated — without providing the...

A tactic to prosecute first-time illegal border crossers has cut down illicit crossings in the Laredo sector by as much as 36 percent, Customs and Border Protection said Friday. "Word is spreading quickly that illegal entry has its consequences," Carlos X. Carrillo, chief patrol agent for the CBP Laredo sector, said in a news release touting the sector's first 45 days of Operation Streamline. The zero-tolerance program drew national attention to Del Rio when courtrooms overflowed with immigrants who formerly would have been released at the border or given a notice to appear in court. Instead many never reappeared in...

As a group of homeless day laborers cluster around her in a dusty Lake Worth parking lot, Sister Rachel Sena takes names and numbers. The Catholic nun doles out cash to men and women from such far-flung provinces as Huehuetenango, Guatemala, all recently evicted from overcrowded apartments for code violations. She tells them where they can find shelter and medical care. She does not ask for Green Cards. If some members of Congress have their way, Sena's work would soon be a crime. A proposed federal law could make it illegal for individuals like her to help undocumented immigrants. Sena...

ONE NATION, TWO WORLDS Whether they need credit for a new couch or a mortgage for a home, undocumented immigrants are finding it increasingly easy to go into debt here. Gone are the days when those who lacked a Social Security card had no chance of obtaining a loan. A recent liberalization among lending institutions means that those who are undocumented need not be unbanked. Spanish-language radio stations carry ads for furniture on credit, with "no social" necessary. Banks, including Banco Popular and now Citibank, have started programs that allow illegal immigrants to buy homes by using an identifier issued...

Seeptember 10, 2004 When I write that I like Mexico, that it enjoys much that we have lost, that Latin societies are more livable if less prosperous than ours, dismissive letters arrive. They amount to the same letter: “If Mexico is so great, how come they all want to come to the United States?” The writers invariably believe that they have made a telling point. Mexico is not so great, of course. It has plenty of problems. But why do Mexicans swim the river? Money. Period. If asked, an immigrant will usually say that he seeks “una vida mejor,”...