Free Republic

A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed a man Tuesday night near Sells on the Tohono O'odham Nation. Initial reports indicate that the agent shot and killed a man who was assaulting another agent, said the Border Patrol in an emailed statement. The shooting occurred at 8 p.m. The citizenship of the man who was shot has not yet been determined, the statement said. The agency said it "regrets the loss of life" and that it is fully cooperating with the investigation led by Tohono O'odham Police and the FBI.

by John HillStand with ArizonaThere was a time when farmers were just concerned with protecting their animals. That's no longer the case. "Now I'm worried about am I going to come home at night after work," said Scott Blevins. The Pinal County farmer and father has every reason to worry. A recent run-in with drug smugglers on his farm hit way too close to home. That's why this farmer isn't playing around. For safety he wears a bullet proof vest and packs a handgun and rifle to work. "I’m convinced somebody’s going to see something they shouldn’t see and somebody’s...

When Zach Taylor, a retired U.S. Border Patrol supervisory agent, talked about the situation on the U.S. border with Mexico, he didn't pull any punches. Disputing assertions by Barack Obama, the president, and Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, that the border is "safer than it's been in years," Taylor was blunt in his disagreement: "It's more dangerous than I've seen in my 26 years in the Border Patrol." According to Taylor, ever since the Border Patrol was moved from the jurisdiction of the Justice Department after 9/11 to the Department of Homeland Security, it's become a political tool of...

"Brian Terry’s murder was entirely preventable. The incompetence of the DEA and FBI let his Border Patrol unit walk into an ambush. After the ambush, it appears the FBI tampered with evidence to cover up that one of their informants was involved with the murder of a federal agent."

PHOENIX - A Tucson police officer has no legal right to challenge last year's tough state law aimed at illegal immigrants, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments by Martin Escobar that SB 1070 puts him in the untenable position of being disciplined for refusing to enforce a law he believes to be illegal or enforcing the law and being subject to lawsuit for violating the civil rights of others. The judges also said Escobar's status as "a Hispanic residing in Arizona" does not...

Elaborate tunnel and discovery of more than 32 tons of marijuana are the latest in recent record busts as a new group boosts production after the decline of the Arellano Felix cartel. Reporting from San Diego— Smugglers stacked the bundles of dope on a freight elevator that descended to an underground staging area, where electric carts whisked the marijuana down a tunnel into California. The passageway linked a warehouse in Tijuana with another nondescript building in San Diego, and just like several other drug tunnels, its discovery this week yielded another jackpot seizure.

..The Texas governor has faced criticism from Republican rivals like Mitt Romney for being "soft" on illegal immigrants, because those who live in Texas can attend state universities at the same cost as other Texas residents. Perry, who made the remarks while campaigning in New Hampshire with a controversial Arizona sheriff, said that if elected he would immediately order the deportation of any illegal immigrant detained in the United States. "My policy will be to detain and deport every illegal alien who is apprehended in this country," Perry said. "And we'll do it with an expedited hearing process so that...

<p>Editorial: You just thought Arizona was anti-immigrant Let’s check in on the virtual fence, over in Arizona, to see how this high-tech solution to our porous border is delivering on its promise. If the goal along our southern flank is to secure every inch, then electronic eyes posted along the 1,900-mile frontier are in our future.</p>

Established 15 years ago, the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number [ITIN] is a seemingly innocuous administrative requirement that the Internal Revenue Service assigns to anyone who is employed and pays taxes. According to the IRS website, the numbers are used for federal tax reporting only. But since ITINs, as they are commonly known, are issued to wage earners regardless of immigration status, they’ve frequently been abused by the aliens who hold them. Although the real estate crisis is fading from our memory, it’s important to recall that the ITIN was the vehicle used in lieu of Social Security numbers, which then...

Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America's southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond. President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents – less than one-tenth of today's force. The operation is still highly praised among veterans of the Border Patrol. Although there is little to no record of this operation...

The mission was supposed to be a textbook “controlled delivery” — a routine trap by law enforcement officers using a secret operative posing as a truck driver to bust drug traffickers when their narcotics are delivered to a rendezvous point. Instead, things spun out of control. Shortly before the marijuana delivery was to be made Monday, three SUVs carrying alleged Zetas Cartel gunmen seemingly came out of nowhere and cut off the tanker truck as it rumbled through northwestern Harris County, sources told the Houston Chronicle. They sprayed the cab with bullets, killing the civilian driver, who was secretly working...

The mission was supposed to be a textbook "controlled delivery" - a routine trap by law enforcement officers using a secret operative posing as a truck driver to bust drug traffickers when their narcotics are delivered to a rendezvous point. Instead, things spun out of control. Shortly before the marijuana delivery was to be made Monday afternoon, three sport-utility vehicles carrying Zetas cartel gunmen seemingly came out of nowhere and cut off the tanker truck as it rumbled through northwest Harris County, sources told the Chronicle. They sprayed the cab with bullets, killing the civilian driver, who was secretly working...

People entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico are believed responsible for more than one-third of human-ignited wildfires in Arizona over a five-year period, according to a government report that could stoke congressional debate over illegal immigration. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the Government Accountability Office report supports remarks he made earlier this year after his state was hit hard by wildfires. At the time, McCain was accused of "scapegoating" immigrants. "I hope this report is a lesson to the activists and public officials that would prefer to engage in partisan character attacks rather than help focus the discussion on the...

by John HillStand With Arizona The war against Alabama's immigration law has intensified in recent weeks, with a Justice Department lawsuit, visits by DOJ officials, and a showdown over illegal alien children who have been pulled from Alabama schools. Eric Holder sued Alabama, trying to block every aspect of its enforcement provision. Why has the Administration and their ACLU and La Raza allies frantically tried to stop Alabama's law from being enforced? Because it's WORKING - and putting legal Alabamans back to work. As illegals have fled the state by the tens of thousands, the jobs they took -...

PERRY,IOWA - Rick Perry will be in Iowa to participate in a family values forum Saturday evening, but he has yet to light in the small Iowa town that bears his name... "You can't win this state without showing up," said Phil Stone, a retired high school history teacher and current Perry city councilman. The lifelong Republican favors former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney,.... ...........Neither the tea party nor evangelical Republicans have made much of a splash in Perry. "That's mostly the mega-churches over in Des Moines," Pattee said. Bob VanderPlaats, the minister and evangelical activist who organized Saturday's Thanksgiving Family...

NEW YORK—Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry says President Barack Obama and his administration are responsible for policies that have endangered agents patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border. The Texas governor made his remarks while picking up an award from the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation. Perry said lack of funding and "bureaucratic bungling" in Washington have made the border less safe. He singled out one program in particular, Operation Fast and Furious. The arms-trafficking probe run by the Justice Department allowed AK-47s and other weapons to leak into the black market.

The Obama amnesty plan officially begins this week, according to a mainstream newspaper that obtained internal Homeland Security documents outlining “sweeping changes” in immigration enforcement that will halt the deportation of illegal aliens with no criminal records. Much has been reported about the administration’s intention to implement a stealth amnesty plan if congress doesn’t act to spare the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens, but this is the first confirmation that it’s come to fruition. Beginning this week the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will review all deportation cases and start a nationwide “training program” to assure that enforcement agents...

A huge drug tunnel under the U.S. border south of San Diego, apparently dug by a Mexican drug cartel, has yielded 14 tons of marijuana, say U.S. and Mexican authorities. The narrow opening of the 400-yard-long tunnel, outfitted with structural supports, electric lights and ventilation, was discovered by federal agents in a warehouse in the border neighborhood of Otay Mesa, California. After officers stopped a van leaving the warehouse and found three tons of marijuana aboard, they searched the warehouse and found more than six tons inside.

The president just concluded what was billed as a major policy speech on immigration in El Paso. In fact there was little news in it. Obama reaffirmed his support for the DREAM Act and for a path to citizenship for large numbers of illegal aliens, while touting his efforts to increase deportations and improve border enforcement. Perhaps the most colorful bit of rhetoric was his dinging of Republicans for being unsatisfied with border security. “All the stuff they’ve asked for, we’ve done,” he said, and the fence along the Mexican border “is now basically complete.” (That’s not true, by the...

Federal authorities have discovered another cross-border tunnel in rental house in downtown Nogales. Agents served a search warrant Tuesday at a house on West International Street and discovered the exit underneath a wooden front porch, said Kevin Kelly, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations in Nogales. U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican federal police crawled into the tunnel and tracked 70 feet into Mexico where it began in the underground drainage system that runs east to west below the city, Kelly said. The tunnel was three feet wide by two feet tall...