Free Republic

At least 20 reputed members of one of Los Angeles' most notorious gangs have been indicted in connection with a violent extortion racket that targeted food-truck operators in the Hollywood area over at least five years, according to state grand jury records unsealed Monday in a downtown courtroom. The 20 defendants — including four women — named in indictments returned Jan. 28 are allegedly tied to Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. The individuals, charged with extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion, are all being held on bail ranging from $2 million to just more than $3 million. At least five other...

"We need immigration reform. We need it for ourselves, our children, and every one of our families,"said Veronica Chavez, a field worker who addressed the audience before Gutierrez. "I want to ask all of you to do our part and attend the march so we stop being afraid." Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a prominent figure in the national movement for immigration reform, fired up a Salinas crowd Sunday morning with his remarks about the need for legalizing undocumented workers. "Today, 1,400 people were deported. Yesterday, also 1,400 people were deported. Tomorrow, another 1,400 people will be deported," he said in Spanish....

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- He's filed more than 600 ADA lawsuits against small business owners in Southern California, but now, the serial plaintiff, illegal immigrant and convicted felon may be out of business himself. He has stopped filing news ADA lawsuits, but not before he was caught in another lie. Alfredo Garcia has been ordered back to Mexico. Garcia was arrested on immigration violations in February 2011. But while his case -- and now his appeal -- work through the courts, Garcia remains free. He is monitored but not incarcerated. "This guy doesn't work. He's been here for past how...

California Dream Act: 20,000 illegal immigrant students apply for state financial aid for the first time.. More than 20,000 college-bound students are seeking state financial aid for the first time under California's new Dream Act law that allows them to get the help despite their immigration status. While far from a complete picture, that number -- which matched state estimates -- is the best indicator yet of how many students statewide hope to benefit from a pair of laws known as the California Dream Act that took full effect in January. The changes could radically change the college experience for...

As Congress looks toward meaningful immigration reform, we must take care not to neglect one of the most heartbreaking problems within the current, broken system: what happens to children when their parents or guardians are deported. Currently, according to the Applied Research Center's report "Shattered Families," at least 5,000 children of immigrants live in U.S. foster care because their parents were detained or deported. If the current trends hold, the center estimates, 15,000 more children over the next five years will be ripped away from their mothers and fathers as a result of federal immigration enforcement actions. In the wake...

HANFORD -- Pablo Reyes-Morales walked into the Navy recruiting station here Thursday and tried to enlist. But the 21-year-old, a native of Mexico who can now legally work under the new federal "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" policy, lacks a green card that's required for foreign nationals to join the military. Under the "Deferred Action" policy, young undocumented people who were brought to the U.S. as children and who are in school or have completed high school and have no serious criminal record are eligible to get a Social Security number and authorization card from the Department of Homeland Security,...

LOS ANGELES — Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles officials maneuvered behind the scenes to shield molester priests, provide damage control for the church and keep parishioners in the dark, according to church personnel files.

In the midst of national debates on fiscal cliffs and gun control, could this also be the time to tackle our immigration woes? Let’s be honest and agree that U.S. immigration policy is a complete disaster. For too many decades, this country has ignored violations of our immigration laws, and now we have a real mess on our hands — an estimated 11 million people who have entered the country illegally and are living and working here under the radar. Whose fault is it? There is plenty of blame to go around, so I suggest we don’t even go there...

WASHINGTON (KABC) -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in the national spotlight Monday calling for federal immigration reform. With so many priorities in Washington D.C. right now, the mayor said he doesn't want this issue to fall off the radar screen. Villaraigosa spoke at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and called repairing the nation's broken immigration system an economic imperative. He wants a pathway to citizenship as the core of any reforms. "No human being is illegal. No human being should be illegal. We must enshrine this principle into the heart and soul of this country's immigration...

The 2013-14 online application will be available January 14th, which will give students enough time to complete and submit the application before the March 2nd deadline. The online application is better because it has built in edits to help students from making common errors. However, if you want to complete the 2013-14 application now, please click the 2013-14 Paper The California Dream Act, authored by Assembly Member Gil Cedillo (Los Angeles), became law through the passage of two Assembly Bills, AB 130 and AB 131. AB 130 allows students who meet AB 540 criteria (California Education Code 68130.5(a)) to apply...

SAN DIEGO -- When it comes to how California handles illegal immigrants, the state is all over the map. Not unlike the rest of the country, the Golden State can't decide whether it wants to make life comfortable for the undocumented or make them so unhappy that it runs them off. 'Twas always thus. Consider my home state's history over the past few decades. In the 1980s, Republican Sen. Pete Wilson of California -- at the behest of agribusiness -- drove support for the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which President Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1986. The legislation...

The debate over U.S. immigration policy has been rebooted. There now appears to be bipartisan support for what's generally called comprehensive reform. But a stumbling block remains: What to do about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants among us. Deportation? Complete amnesty? A "path" to citizenship? There is a way forward, and it can be best summarized by "none of the above." It lies, instead, between these choices. It's legalization without citizenship . With as few conditions and as broadly as possible, we should offer undocumented immigrants status as "permanent noncitizen residents." Unlike current green card holders, these individuals would...

BERKELEY, Calif.—The University of California, Berkeley says a $1 million gift will help provide scholarships to nearly 200 students who are illegal immigrants

SAN DIEGO (AP) — An autopsy report says a Border Patrol agent who shot and killed a mother of five after she hit him with her vehicle fired his gun 10 times from the hood of her car as he tried to get the woman to stop

The student government at the University of California-Berkeley (CAL) passed a resolution last month that would ban Salvation Army bell ringers and their iconic red kettles from campus this Christmas because of the Christian organization’s alleged bias against homosexuality. UC Berkeley is "reviewing" whether or not they will prohibit the Salvation Army from operating on campus this Christmas, after students passed a resolution condemning the charity. The resolution, cleared on November 14, accuses the charity of openly discriminating against gay individuals. “Salvation Army church services, including charity services, are available only to people ‘who accept and abide by the Salvation...

The force field protecting Jirayut Latthivongskorn comes from a glossy, federally issued work permit that wards off deportation and lets him get a job, overcoming the legal barriers that have long clouded his ambitions and shadowed his life. Mailed to homes in fast-growing numbers, the cards are changing the lives of about 300,000 young immigrants, a quarter of them from California, who took a leap of faith this fall by revealing their presence to the U.S. government. Latthivongskorn's plastic card, with its 2014 expiration date etched between his fingerprint and photograph, symbolizes what he calls his "two-year lease on life...

Marty Morgenstern, the secretary of the California agency that substantially under-reported unemployment claims last week, contributed to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election campaign, The Daily Caller has learned. On Oct. 11, the federal government reported that weekly jobless claims were down significantly, suggesting a dramatic national increase in economic growth. But within hours, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that one major state had failed to fully document jobless claims. Speculation among market watchers and economists initially focused on California, but the state’s Employment Development Department strongly denied that it had failed to properly document the data. “Reports that...

VERO BEACH — An undercover investigator posing as a corrupt immigration agent led to the arrests of four people at the Vero Beach Bangkok restaurant and helped foil an elaborate scheme where undocumented workers from Thailand were paying as much as $30,000 to obtain illegal green cards. Agents arrested Bangkok owner Sarah Tipfun and the others after they raided the popular 14th Avenue restaurant last week.

Less than a third of a gram of "concentrated marijuana" might get Juan Carlos Rivera deported. The 24-year-old undocumented Mexican immigrant has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Sacramento County jail for more than four months while he awaits a decision in his deportation case.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck stepped into the national immigration debate Thursday, announcing that hundreds of illegal immigrants arrested by his officers each year in low-level crimes would no longer be turned over to federal authorities for deportation. The new rules, which are expected to affect about 400 people arrested each year, mark a dramatic attempt by the nation's second-largest police department to distance itself from federal immigration policies that Beck says are unfair to undocumented immigrants suspected of committing petty offenses.