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Border Patrol agents arrested a 31-year-old illegal entrant from Mexico late Wednesday night who was convicted of sexual assault in Colorado and had been deported last week in Douglas. Agents captured the man overnight and discovered his sexual assault conviction Thursday morning while running his fingerprints through an electronic database at a processing center in Nogales, said Jim Hawkins, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman. The man, whose name was not released Thursday, was convicted of sexual assault on July 26, 2006, in Littleton, Colo., and deported through Douglas last week, Hawkins said. Border Patrol officials estimate that about 10 percent...

(06-30) 04:00 PDT Cardenas, Mexico -- Gonzalo Rodriguez has an unenviable task as the boss of a major oil field -- ripping out a large part of the pumping and compressing machinery that collects the output from scores of wells. "Unfortunately, we don't need this capacity anymore," he said. "This isn't like the old days, and they aren't coming back." Like much of Mexico's giant oil production apparatus, this area, known as the Bellota oil field, is in an apparently unstoppable decline. At current extraction rates, the nation has only 10 years of proven oil reserves remaining. And as Mexico...

PHOENIX A Spanish news agency apologized for a report that described a Republican gubernatorial candidate's proposed work program for illegal immigrants as "concentration camps." The story last week caused an international stir when EFE, a national news agency of Spain, quoted candidate Don Goldwater as saying he wanted to hold undocumented immigrants in camps to use them "as labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they're polluting." EFE Executive Vice President Emillio Sanchez said a freelance writer for the news agency inaccurately described Goldwater's plan. "Upon further reflection, our investigation...

MEXICO CITY, June 27 (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior police officer in the Mexican resort of Cancun on Monday night, blowing his head open in the latest grisly assassination to hit the country. Police officials in Cancun said local police chief of staff Wilfrido Flores, 56, and his bodyguard were shot dead in their car in a busy avenue in the Caribbean resort, one of Mexico's biggest tourist pulls, just before midnight. However they played down links to a spate of similar killings in cities like Acapulco and Tijuana in a brutal war among drugs cartels and security forces....

At $6.5 million per year, a Medicaid program that pays for prenatal care for immigrant women is costing the state more than five times what officials predicted two years ago. The unexpected higher cost stems from Medicaid officials underestimating the number of women who would qualify and failing to factor in the cost of prescription drugs and hospital stays after deliveries. "I can't imagine the department missing the target so far on cost," said state Rep. Jay Bradford, D-White Hall. "And I'll have to follow up with them on that as chairman" of the Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee....

SHAMOKIN - More than a dozen suspected illegal immigrants were discovered Wednesday but not detained at a strip mall construction site, authorities said. None of the 18 Spanish-speaking laborers could be detained because the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency did not have agents available to go to the scene, and other law enforcement agencies did not have jurisdiction, District Attorney Anthony J. Rosini said. The raid was conducted after Rep. Robert E. Belfanti Jr., D-Mount Carmel, received a tip of possible child labor law violations at the site in Coal Twp., Rosini said. About two dozen workers laying blocks...

An illegal immigrant who on numerous occasions failed to heed previous warnings about entry into the United States was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois in Benton to 15 months in federal prison. Maximino Perez-Angeles, 21, of Hidalgo, Mexico, had previously pleaded guilty to illegal reentry into the U.S. after deportation and illegal possession of a firearm by an illegal alien. In addition to the prison time, Perez-Angeles will also serve two years supervised released, fined $150 and is also subject to deportation. On Nov. 25, 2005, an Illinois State Police trooper pulled over...

Friday, April 21, 2006 Local News Four killed, 20 hurt when truck wrecks near Elgin By Manuel C. Coppola Friday, April 21, 2006 12:42 AM MDT Wick News Service ELGIN — Four people died and 20 people were taken to Southern Arizona hospitals after a pickup truck believed to be filled with illegal immigrants crashed around midnight Thursday. “This is the worst incident (in Santa Cruz County) involving so many victims in recent memory,” said Antonio Estrada, the sheriff of Santa Cruz County. Estrada said his department received a call shortly after midnight Thursday from Border Patrol. His department is...

An illegal immigrant who tried to bring down a U.S. Border Patrol helicopter by throwing rocks at it was sentenced to 38 months in federal prison, the U.S Attorney's office said. Antonio Eretza-Florez, 33, will also be on supervised release for 36 months following his release for the July, 2004 incident. Eretza-Florez was a passenger in a stolen vehicle packed with immigrants that a police officer in Huachuca City tried to stop. A chase ensued and the officer ran his patrol car into a ditch. U.S. Border Patrol agents arrived to help, and a helicopter and an unmanned aerial vehicle...

NEW YORK -- Immigration agents Wednesday rounded up 50 foreign-born New Yorkers who had been convicted of sex offenses, including child molestation and rape, but remained free after receiving relatively light punishments. Twelve sex offenders were paraded before journalists as they left a federal building in Manhattan in chains, bound for detention centers where they will face deportation proceedings. (snip) Fourteen of the people arrested were legal permanent residents of the U.S. (snip) Most of the remaining sex offenders were in the country illegally, officials said.

A federal effort aimed at cracking down on immigrant child sex criminals has resulted in the arrest of more than 6,000 people, officials say. Known as "Operation Predator," the law enforcement effort is part of a two-year-old Department of Homeland Security initiative carried out by the agency's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Some 85 percent of those arrested are foreign-born, according to DHS officials; 40 percent are illegal aliens. "We are seeing an alarming number of illegal aliens with criminal records for everything from homicides to rapes of children as young as three years of age," states...

It was 35 years ago when a phalanx of police officers fired tear gas at a crowd of Latino war-protesters, but Jaime Cruz remembers the event as if it was yesterday. A student at what was then San Fernando Valley State College, Cruz is among a handful of organizers and participants whose lives have been shaped by the Chicano Moratorium, an Aug. 29, 1970, anti-war protest that degenerated into a deadly riot. The march marked an awakening of political consciousness for many of those who are now leaders in the Latino community. Decades later, some of the original organizers are...

Garfield Sheriff Says Shooting Suspect Worked At Nearby Ranch POSTED: 4:07 pm MDT June 16, 2005 UPDATED: 6:10 pm MDT June 16, 2005 GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. -- Authorities said Thursday that they have a suspect in the recent shooting death of Qwest Communications executive Jeff Garrett. "We have recovered the weapon, we have a witness, and we have a suspect," said Lou Vallario, the Garfield County Sheriff. Vallario told reporters Thursday afternoon that investigators believe a Mexican national -- who has since reportedly fled to Mexico -- is responsible for the May 14 fatal shooting. The suspect's name was not...

The U.S. government will spend more than $14 million this summer to fly home more than 30,000 undocumented immigrants caught near the Arizona-Mexico border. The first plane in the Internal Repatriation Program, a joint U.S.-Mexico venture, will leave this morning from Tucson, bound for Mexico City. It's the second year that U.S. Customs and Border Protection will run the program, meant to curb the increasing migrant deaths in the Arizona desert, as well as put a significant dent in people-smuggling rings. Though it's still limited to Arizona, the flights may expand to the rest of the U.S.-Mexico border if judged...

Terms: no death penalty, no life without parole Mexican authorities will not return Raul Garcia-Gomez to the United States unless prosecutors agree to spare him from execution and life without parole, the Mexican consul in Denver said Monday. Juan Marcos Gutierrez-Gonzalez, consul general of Mexico in Denver, stressed the cooperation between Mexican and U.S. authorities that resulted in Garcia-Gomez's arrest Saturday night. "We are now having one of the best moments of Colorado-Mexico relations," he said. But the consul said recent court rulings in his country prevent the extradition of suspects facing either of the United States' harshest penalties. A...

MEXICO CITY - Reputed drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has launched a bloody offensive to control drug smuggling along the entire Mexico-U.S. border, Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said. Mexico's top law enforcement official said Guzman was behind a wave of violence that has killed hundreds of suspected smugglers, hit men, police, soldiers and civilians along the 2,000-mile border. "Definitely, he is the most active man in his group. He is trying to fight for the border corridors, trying to control places like Culiacan just like the rest of the communities of Sinaloa (state), and the border cities,"...

ABC13 Eyewitness News (6/01/05 - WEST UNIVERSITY, TX) — Residents in West University witnessed a chaotic and unsettling scene as close to 100 undocumented immigrants were released in their neighborhood. It happened just after 4:30pm Tuesday. Police say a U-Haul truck pulled up to the intersection of Cason and Wakeforest and unloaded the undocumented immigrants. They also say the human smugglers pulled over after the immigrants locked in the back of the truck rocked it back and forth to get their attention. "They said they'd been in the Houston area for about 24 hours, but they were in the U-Haul...

PHOENIX A 39-year-old Iranian man has been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle other Iranians into the United States through Mexico. The U-S Attorney's Office in Phoenix says Zeayadali Malhamdary was arrested Thursday in the parking lot of a Mesa tailoring business he owns. The F-B-I began investigating Malhamdary after a source told immigration officials that Malhamdary had sought help getting false Mexican visas so he could bring Iranians into Mexico. The feds say he then intended to bring them across the border into Arizona. During a court appearance today, an innocent plea was entered on Malhamrary's behalf. Malhamdary is...

A man arrested in the death of a Camden woman found hidden in a closet admitted that he sat on her chest and strangled her, prosecutors said today. The woman, Robin Mitchell, 39, was found dead on May 15 in an apartment in the 2300 block of Federal Street. Investigators arrested Fernando Chapo, 29, yesterday. He was arraigned in Superior Court in Camden today, and his bail was set at $600,000. Prosecutors said Chapo was an illegal immigrant from Mexico who used several aliases. When he was arrested, he had an identification under another name, said Assistant Camden County Prosecutor...

DRAPER - An aspiring veterinarian, Lindsey Fawson often lugged home cats and dogs, birds, rabbits and fish - creatures she fancied. The 22-year-old mother of two was studying for her GED and hoped to land a job as a veterinarian's assistant. Fawson's life was cut short Monday when her ex-boyfriend of four months, Juan Carlos Diaz-Arevalo, allegedly shot her once in the head in front of her older sister and 3-year-old son. (snip) Police said Diaz-Arevalo was a known methamphetamine dealer. Diaz-Arevalo - who has been deported to Mexico at least twice - was wanted for a first-degree felony count...