Free Republic

--snip-- Despite President Obama's call to end deportations of nonviolent undocumented people, repeat border offenders remain on ICE's priority list. A minor legal infraction also has complicated Benito's case. He arrived illegally in the United States in 2000, left in 2004 to visit his widowed father in Puebla, Mexico, and was caught coming back through Arizona and deported. He sneaked back in that year to rejoin Bautista and the daughter who was then their only child.

Camden, New Jersey, with a population of 70,390, is per capita the poorest city in the nation. It is also the most dangerous. The city's real unemployment—hard to estimate, since many residents have been severed from the formal economy for generations—is probably 30–40 percent. The median household income is $24,600. There is a 70 percent high school dropout rate, with only 13 percent of students managing to pass the state's proficiency exams in math. The city is planning $28 million in draconian budget cuts, with officials talking about cutting 25 percent from every department, including layoffs of nearly half the...

For Michael Powell, a 53-year-old ex-convict, his tent off the highway in Camden, N.J., is what he has called home for nearly a decade. But on Tuesday, he and dozens of others living in homeless encampments known as “tent cities” throughout Camden were forced out—leaving many of them homeless all over again. The eviction was conducted by the state of New Jersey, as well as Camden county and city, for health and safety reasons. […] Amid the commotion on Tuesday, Gino Lewis, director of housing at the Camden County Improvement Authority, assured people that the county would work to find...

A year after Camden disbanded its police department and brought in a new one with more officers on the street, reported crime has dropped significantly in a city that still ranks as dangerous by any measure. After years of doing little more than responding to emergency calls, police are on intensive neighborhood patrols, a move that has sent drug dealers scattering. But residents, advocates and officials agree that law enforcement alone can go only so far to heal a city that is also among the nation’s most impoverished. […] Camden, a city of 77,000 across the Delaware River from Philadelphia,...

Camden, New Jersey dumped its unionized police force last spring, unable to afford the lucrative union contract the city was stuck with, and instead contracted for police services with the nonunion county force. Crime promptly dropped. Ed Krayewski reports for Reason: The city has been run exclusively by Democrats for several generations, and some local leaders openly worried that Camden, which already had the highest crime rate per capita last year, would get worse. But it hasn't. In fact, crime's gone down, as Fox News Latino reports: The reorganization increased the amount of police on the streets and incorporated cutting...

Last year, the city of Camden decided to can its unionized police force in favor of ununionized county cops who hit the streets this April. ... The city has been run exclusively by Democrats for several generations, and some local leaders openly worried that Camden, which already had the highest crime rate per capita last year, would get worse. But it hasn’t. In fact, crime’s gone down

Forbes put Detroit Mayor Dave Bing on its cover in 2011 for a story with the optimistic headline: “City of Hope.” The premise was that the city had hit rock bottom and was poised for a turnaround. “Right now, it’s all about survival,” Bing told Forbes. Two years later, Detroit’s problems continue to multiply, sadly. It is still dealing with high levels of violent crime and unemployment. Home prices, already at historic lows, plummeted a further 35% during the past three years to a median of $40,000 as net migration out of the city continued. The latest blow was Tuesday’s...

“Think of the children.” I’ve heard that a lot lately, or variations thereof. One woman recently chided me on Twitter with the following: “Imagine if you had kids! Think about others instead of your pocketbook suffering. I don’t have to imagine having kids. I actually have five of them, from a 26-year old daughter to 7-year old twins. Just like every gun-owning parent I know, I love them more than I love my firearms. And I know first hand that gun control laws like a ban on commonly owned firearms, tough restrictions for legal gun purchases, and even mandatory background...

Massive response attributed to Friday's killings in Newtown, ConnecticutThose who showed up at Camden, New Jersey program were given up to $250 per weapon soldCamden is known as one of the most violent American city, with a staggering murder and violent crime rate Deeply affected by the massacre at Sandy Hook, gun owners in Camden, New Jersey, America's deadliest town, turned in a record number of weapons in a buy back scheme over the weekend. 1,137 firearms including an elephant-gun were handed in on Friday and Saturday at two churches in the crime-plagued town as the ramifications of the...

Looks like Camden, New Jersey is ready for a Robocop police force I have seen the future of law enforcement, and recent news suggests that it could be coming to New Jersey. First of all, we are closer to having Robocops than ever. Over at C|Net, Tim Hornyak reports on a new project to deploy remote-controlled robotic police: Researchers at Florida International University's Discovery Lab are working with a member of the U.S. Navy Reserves to build telepresence robots that could patrol while being controlled by disabled police officers and military vets. In a sense, they would be hybrid man-machine...

While the stock market in the US continues to surge (if not so much in China where the composite is back to 2009 lows) as the relentless liquidity tsunami makes its way into stocks, and other Fed frontrunning instruments, and only there, reality for everyone else refuses to wait. Last week we saw reality striking in Greece, where a section of Athens literally shut down after it ran out of all cash. Today, reality comes to the US, and specifically its poorest city, Camden, which is a twofer, doubling down also as America's deadliest city. It turns out Camden...

This city, long among the nation's poorest and most crime-ridden, is on the verge of dismantling its police department and starting anew with a force run by the county government. City officials are making the move to increase the number of officers while keeping the cost the same by averting rules negotiated with a union that city officials have seen as unwilling to compromise. Unless the union - which is skeptical of the stated motivations for the change - reaches a deal with the county, no more than 49 per cent of the city's current officers could join the new...

Crime-ridden Camden, New Jersey - often referred to as the most dangerous city in the United States—is getting rid of its police department. In the latest example of a cash-strapped municipality taking drastic measures to deal with swollen public sector liabilities and shrinking budgets, the city plans to disband its 460-member police department and replace it with a non-union “Metro Division” of the Camden County Police. Backers of the plan say it will save millions of dollars for taxpayers while ensuring public safety, but police unions say it is simply a way to get out of collective bargaining with the...

Christian ministry leader Dawn Martinez was told she could no longer hold the twice-a-week Bible studies she has taught for homeless people for the last two years inside a McDonald's in Camden, N.J. A night manager at the fast food restaurant told her last week that a customer had filed a complaint. Martinez wonders if it could have been because of the topic briefly discussed at one point last Monday – the Muslim faith. The 33-year-old, who began the ministry to transients and drug addicts two years ago, describes the Bible study group's last meeting on Monday. "It was a...

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (CBS) – A mother from Texas was formally charged with two counts of second-degree murder Thursday in the death of her 6-year-old son. Prosecutors say Julianne McCrery “knowingly and recklessly” caused the death of her son Camden Pierce Hughes by asphyxiation. No other details were revealed at her arraignment in Portsmouth District Court. She did not enter a plea and responded “yes, ma’am” when asked if she wanted a court-appointed attorney. It was the second time in a day McCrery appeared before a judge. She was arraigned in Concord, Mass. District Court on a fugitive of justice charge...

CAMDEN, N.J. - April 30, 2011 (WPVI) -- Police in Camden say a gas station clerk killed a man who tried to rob him.

Camden will lay off nearly half of its police officers and a third of its firefighters while eliminating positions in every city office, according to a layoff plan approved Tuesday by the state. The 383 total layoffs represent about a quarter of the city's work force, and touch all corners of city government, from 15 positions in the municipal court to 20 police dispatchers.

Deep layoffs of city workers go into effect on Tuesday - cutting up to 383 jobs, or one-fourth of the city's employees. The exact number depends on whether public workers' unions make last-minute concessions... Three of Camden's past seven mayors have been sent to prison for corruption, including one who was convicted while he was still running the city.

Two months after Camden, NJ, laid off 160 police officers, city prosecutors have released a sobering report showing a dramatic rise in violent crime in the drug-and-crime-ridden city of 80,000 residents. Aggravated assaults with firearms jumped 259 percent in January and February compared to last year, and violent crime over all is up 19 percent, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Murders and robberies, however, were down for the period.

The second most violent city in America just approved plans to layoff half its police force, according to NBC New York. Camden, N.J. will fire one in four city workers on Jan. 18, including half of police. This comes just days after Newark, N.J. fired 167 police officers, which marked the biggest force reduction in 32 years. Camden was named the second most violent city based FBI crime data that came out last week. Newark was named the 23 most violent city in America.