Free Republic

He came to put his backbone into the construction boom. He built roofs over breezy apartments and stately million-dollar homes. Yet he lives in Lake Worth, in a dilapidated trailer with eight other immigrants. Water-stained carpets cover the floor, and the smell of latrines hangs in the humidity. He has affixed a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the wall with construction tape. "We don't come here to live in luxury," said the heavyset Mexican, who requested anonymity because of his illegal immigration status. "We come to send money home."

Raul Garcia-Gomez, 19, is suspected of shooting two Denver police officers at about 1 a.m. Sunday after they refused to let him re-enter a baptismal party. Detective Donald Young, 44, died at the scene after being shot from behind three times in the back and head.

Suspect freed, OK despite speeds of up to 120 mph By Becky Pallack ARIZONA DAILY STAR A man who led Highway Patrol officers on a high-speed chase Wednesday morning violently crashed his car east of Tucson and had to be pulled from the burning wreckage, officials said. Neither the man nor his rescuers were seriously injured in the crash, near the Vail interchange on Interstate 10. The 10-mile chase began when Officer Ted Edwards of the Arizona Department of Public Safety tried to stop a white 2004 Chevy Impala near the eastbound Kolb Road exit on I-10 around 9:45 a.m....

PHOENIX, Ariz. Federal authorities say members of a violent Mexican gang are using the Arizona border as a corridor to the country. In the past year, Border Patrol agents have arrested about ten members of Mara Salvatrucha -- a notorious international street gang in Mexico. Yet according to federal and local law enforcement officials, the gang members don't appear to stay in the state. The gang is commonly known as M-S-13 and has been linked to murders from Honduras to Los Angeles to Virginia. Original Mara Salvatrucha members were guerrilla fighters who fled the Salvadoran civil war in the 1980s....

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Newspaper publisher Chris Simcox, who helped organize last month's Minuteman vigils and promised more in the future, was denied access to a Department of Homeland Security press conference in Arizona last week. Mr. Simcox, who writes for, edits and owns the Tombstone, Ariz., Tumbleweed, wants the American Civil Liberties Union to determine whether his First Amendment free-press rights were violated. He said the Border Patrol refused to let him attend the Thursday press conference featuring Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who spoke in Douglas, Ariz., on the need for additional agents and increased technology to gain control...

A 24-year-old Mexican charged with the Oregon murder of a father and the shooting of his 16-year-old son in a home-invasion robbery is an illegal alien with an Oregon driver's license who has been previously deported from the United States. Juan Carlos Solis is awaiting trial on 41 counts of aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, attempted murder, assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree, robbery in the second degree and burglary in the first degree, along with at least three other suspects in the July 2004 home-invasion robbery of 12 farm workers. Solis and the other suspects...

On Saturday afternoon, I drove to Rockville, Md., for a large "gathering to condemn the REAL ID Act." (The act will tighten driver's license standards to prevent illegal aliens from obtaining the IDs, close asylum loopholes, and provide funding to fix a huge gap in a border fence between California and Mexico.) Casa de Maryland, a government-funded open-borders group, organized the protest on the public school athletic field at Richard Montgomery High School. You can see the rally photos I took at my new Flickr site. Here's a sample: www.flickr.com Several hundred "documented" and "undocumented" workers attended, demanding driver's licenses...

When opponents of the “Real ID” legislation announced a rally for illegal immigrants and their allies in Montgomery County, MD, there was one immigration-related group I was absolutely certain would not show up: The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the people responsible for actually enforcing our immigration laws. Casa de Maryland and others claimed 5,000 people would gather on Saturday to protest the “Real ID” Act working its way through Congress, and many of these people would be illegal immigrants themselves, we were told. If I were looking for immigration criminals, it’s exactly where I would be. That’s why...

Motorist Shot on San Diego Freeway in North Hills LOS ANGELES (AP) — An 18 year-old motorist on the San Diego (405) Freeway was shot three times today by a gunman in black Honda, police said. A no-hits shooting occurred shortly afterward on the eastbound Foothill (210) Freeway near Hubbard Street. The victim from the 405 went to the Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, and police said his vital signs were stable, said Los Angeles police Sgt. Jeff Hart of the Devonshire Station. The victim, whose name police refused to make public, told police he was shot on the northbound...

SANTA ANA - Frustrated by illegal immigrant criminals who slip their grasp, a growing number of state and county police agencies nationwide are moving to join a federal program that enlists local officers to enforce immigration laws. The U.S. government has already granted that authority in Florida and Alabama, and the program is under consideration in Connecticut, Oklahoma and Arkansas. To the dismay of immigrant advocates, it's also in the works in Southern California -- one of the nation's most ethnically diverse regions, where it would reverse a long-standing policy of avoiding questions about immigration status during local criminal investigations....

Snips:[The scowling handyman suspected of killing a Rockland County mother of two — who was busted last week after a terrifying suburban manhunt — made a series of "disgustingly" obscene phone calls to his victim's friends after brutally murdering her, police said yesterday.] [Clarkstown Detective Lt. Charles Delo said Douglas Herrera, 29, charged in the murder of Mary Nagle, 42, used her cellphone to automatically dial at least 20 people listed in her directory. ] [...capture the handyman in a wooded area about a mile from the murder scene after a four-hour manhunt.] [Cops said yesterday they had recovered the...

I predict that the immigration reform movement is about to score a monumental victory in Congress with the impending passage of "Real ID," a measure that will, among other things, set federal standards for driver's license documents and prohibit states from giving driver's licenses to anyone in this country illegally. All of which means that Bush must have some other reason for continuing to push his ill-conceived proposal for amnesty for illegal aliens and for turning a blind eye to the dangers of open borders. He appears to be pandering not to Latino voters but to the government of Mexico....

A Los Angeles-based gang member suspected of committing a murder in Mexico will be deported – for a second time – to El Salvador, U.S. authorities said. Border Patrol agents caught Alexander Fuentes-Moran as he crossed illegally into Imperial Beach about three weeks ago, said Border Patrol spokesman Nicholas Coates.