Free Republic

This weekend in San Francisco while speaking to the National Automobile Dealers Association, former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) said, “First and foremost we need to control our border.” “The 40 percent of the people that have come here illegally came with a legal visa and overstayed their bounds,” he added. “We ought to be able to figure out where they are and politely ask them to leave.” State and local enforcement should partner with the federal government to encourage illegal aliens to return to their home countries in a “compassionate” way, Bush continued. The 9/11 hijackers, whose airliner suicide mission...

The FBI's arrests of two Boston-area men tied to the Times Square bombing attempt -- both held on immigration violations -- underscore continuing homeland-security lapses. FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say two men of Pakistani descent, who may have provided cash to Times Square bomb plotter Faisal Shahzad, were taken into custody in raids on Thursday. One was here on an expired visa. The other was on the loose while an immigration court adjudicated his deportation-and-removal order. He'd reportedly been ordered deported in 2002, yet managed to embed himself in American society for more than seven years. But...

U.S. Can’t Trace Foreign Visitors on Expired Visas By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. and JULIA PRESTON October 11, 2009 DALLAS — Eight years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and despite repeated mandates from Congress, the United States still has no reliable system for verifying that foreign visitors have left the country. Hosam Maher Husein Smadi entered the United States legally, but then overstayed his visa. [Pic in URL] New concern was focused on that security loophole last week, when Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year-old Jordanian who had overstayed his tourist visa, was accused in court of plotting to...

Does Air Force One have nameless, anonymous, or mysterious Mid Easterners on board while cruising at 30,000 feet? Can you imagine the utter shock and concern of the President, his family and the Secret Service if a number of suspicious, mysterious Mid Easterners started to board Air Force One? We all know this would never happen as the Secret Service and Homeland Security would never allow this to occur, as the safety and security of the President and his family are a priority and paramount. My point is, why are the rest of the flying public subjected to this on...

Undercover federal air marshals on board a June 29 Northwest airlines flight from Detroit to LAX identified themselves after a passenger, “overreacted,” to a group of middle-eastern men on board, federal officials and sources have told KFI NEWS. The passenger, later identified as Annie Jacobsen, was in danger of panicking other passengers and creating a larger problem on the plane, according to a source close to the secretive federal protective service. Jacobsen, a self-described freelance writer, has published two stories about her experience at womenswallstreet.com, a business advice web site designed for women. “The lady was overreacting,” said the source....

Undisputedly, the FBI needs major reorganization and updated ground-rules on initiating investigations. However, in many aspects, some reports are starting to sound like déjà vu all over again. Growing up in a large Polish-Russian neighborhood back in the 1950s, many residents were relatively new arrivals or first generation Americans. They were here because they had fled their homeland from the communists and/or the Nazis. Generally speaking, they were a hard working and happy lot and, even with the economic problems of the time, life was quite pleasant for us back then. The FBI, however, acted like we were a bunch...