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Sixteen migrant workers were taken into custody early this morning from a tenant house on a farm in Savannah. Lev Kubiak, with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office says 11 men and 5 women were taken into custody after an investigation that began with complaint from a citizen. Kubiak wouldn't comment on the length of the investigation leading up to the raid. Those in custody were transported to Batavia for further questioning at a DHS facility there. New York Farm Bureau President Mark James says he arrived at the scene on Route 31, and believes there is evidence that authorities...

The raid today at Agriprocessors, Inc. meat packing plant targeted individuals who were using stolen Social Security numbers. Officials say at least 300 have been arrested but that the number could go as high as 700. The raid was the largest of it's kind in Iowa according to Claude Arnold of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Friday stormed 11 El Balazo restaurants around the Bay Area, arresting 63 illegal immigrants - and drawing the outrage of immigration advocates who had marched the previous day to call for the legalization of undocumented workers. The raids began at 10:30 Friday morning in San Francisco, San Ramon, Lafayette, Concord, Pleasanton and Danville and involved 62 people from Mexico and one from Guatemala. Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for the immigration agency, called the arrests "a targeted enforcement action" that is part of a continuing criminal investigation she couldn't discuss further. Immigration officials photographed, fingerprinted...

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors will vote Tuesday on whether to use all but a sliver of its contingency reserve fund to support the anti-illegal immigration resolution. The police department needs $793,425 to begin enforcing the resolution that was adopted by the board in October. County documents show that the money will be used to pay for salaries, overtime, training, computer services, software upgrades, hardware replacement, vehicle maintenance, gasoline, printed supplies, new police equipment, help desk support and new and leased vehicles. The expenditure will leave $3,369 in the contingency fund which comes from the county's general fund....

Illegal immigrants will be rounded-up by roaming prison vansBy TOM HARPER - More by this author » Last updated at 20:48pm on 12th January 2008  Caught: Two Kurdish immigrants trying to enter Britain hidden in a lorry   Prison vans are to cruise the streets of Britain searching for illegal - immigrants.  The "mobile detention centres" will aim to catch recently arrived foreigners as they emerge from peoplesmuggling lorries. Immigration officers will hold the suspects inside the vans until background checks are performed. If they are found to be here illegally, they will be taken by police to a...

PHOENIX — Illegal immigrants in Arizona, frustrated with a flagging economy and tough new legislation cracking down on their employers, are returning to their home countries or trying their luck in other states. For months, immigrants have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward the state's new employer-sanctions law, which takes effect Jan. 1. The voter-approved legislation is an attempt to lessen the economic incentive for illegal immigrants in Arizona, the busiest crossing point along the U.S.-Mexico border. And by all appearances, it's starting to work. "People are calling me telling me about their friend, their cousin, their neighbors — they're moving...

Around 25 activists from the "Black Sheep" group invaded the garden of the Swedish ambassador in Berne Friday, demanding political asylum in the wake of Sunday's victory by the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party (SVP), the Swiss news agency ATS reported. The group's name refers to a controversial campaign poster used by the SVP during the election depicting three white sheep on a Swiss flag booting out a black sheep. The SVP – which campaigns against illegal immigration, asylum abuses and demands the repatriation of foreign criminals – came out of Sunday's Swiss elections the comfortable winner, with 29% of...

It appears that the People's Party (unfairly described as "far right") has won 29 percent of the vote, up 2 points from 2003. The Social Democrats dropped to 19 percent, from 3 points. The Free Democrats (or, Radicals), a pro-market liberal party finished third, with 16 percent (down from 17). The Christain Democrats, a mildly conservative center right party, fourth, with 15 percent (unchanged). The Green Party together with a so-called Liberal Green Party, totalled 11 percent (up 4 points). In one sense, the results represent little change from 2003. A net of 1 point shifted from the three main...

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SACRAMENTO, (AP) -- A California man convicted of attending an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison Monday for supporting terrorists, concluding a case that divided a Central Valley farming community. U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell Jr. imposed the sentence against Hamid Hayat on his 25th birthday, saying he had "attended a terrorist training camp, returned to the United States ready and willing to wage violent jihad when directed to do so." Hayat faced up to 39 years in prison after his April 2006 conviction on one count of providing material support to terrorists...

A man who was fed up with paying massive bank charges decided to give one of the high street giants a taste of its own medicine. When Royal Bank of Scotland refused to refund £3,400 charges that Declan Purcell believed he was owed, he sent in the bailiffs. Stunned customers at his branch of RBS watched as debt collectors seized four computers, two fax machines and a till filled with cash. The branch manager was told that the items would be sold unless RBS came up with the money owed to Mr Purcell. Only when the manager gave an undertaking...

Last Friday’s revelations the dirty and in excusable conduct of former Congressman Mark Foley ( Rep. Fla. ) set off a wild series of events that have not slowed down yet. From all over the country, we heard cries of outrage. This is as it should be. Outrage and disgust are normal and natural reactions to the “facts” as originally presented. Yet not all of the “outraged” cries came from the usually expected quarters of our public arena. To the contrary, a sub- segment of the “outraged” comes from those whose motives are somewhat suspect. This group has been fighting...

The widow of Tom Burnett, who helped lead the passenger revolt on hijacked Flight 93, says in a new book that he had struggled to figure out what he believed was a message from God that might have presaged the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Deena Burnett wrote that a year before the attacks, her husband, who rarely spoke openly about his faith, told her he'd been attending Mass daily to try to understand a message from God that had "something to do with the White House." He told her he hadn't figured it out, "but I know it will impact...

PHILADELPHIA — Christian DeJohn returned from a National Guard tour in Bosnia only to fight his own war with academics at Temple University who he says have held up his master's thesis because of political conflicts in the classroom.To some conservatives, the case represents a national trend by some liberal professors to infringe on conservative students' right to free speech at public colleges and universities. The debate has reached more than a dozen state legislatures, which dole out the taxpayer funds to those schools, but so far there's been more talk than action. Legislation modeled after an "academic bill of...

HELENA - A confident and combative Sen. Conrad Burns spent much of the last week in newsrooms proclaiming his innocence in the influence-peddling scandal that's ensnaring Washington. "I have done nothing wrong," he said at each news organization he visited. Burns also put the kibosh on the rumors that he'll bow out of the Senate race because of looming legal and political problems from the scandal. "Write it down, real quick: I've never had more enthusiasm or higher energy for a campaign in my life than I got right now, OK. End of story," he told the Gazette State Bureau...

President Bush yesterday warned Iraq war critics to make sure they don't give "comfort to our adversaries," as the debate heats up in the run-up to the November elections for Congress. Bush also said more U.S. troops may come home later this year "if Iraqis continue to make progress" — in addition to the 20,000-plus already slated to return. But in his first Iraq speech of 2006, Bush sought to frame the debate for next fall's election — when Republican control of Congress will be at stake — just as he energetically defended his tax cuts in an economic speech...

    Time to Push BackBy Jed Babbin Published 1/9/2006 12:07:56 AM It's time to take the gloves off, and push back -- hard -- against the dishonest and deranged rhetoric of the left. Thanks to their relentless Bush-bashing and their reckless condemnations of how we are fighting the war, the latest polls say that only about one American in three says the nation is headed in the right direction and only 44% say the president is doing a good job. The hyperlib rhetoric not only flies in the face of the facts -- the economy is booming and the war...

YOUTH MOVEMENT: Anthony Dedousis wants North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman's job. Photo: Mary McLoughlin EXCLUSIVE This kid has got a prayer. Spurred on by a Long Island politician's tirade over a priest's benediction at a public Christmas tree lighting, a 16-year-old boy has thrown his hat into the ring, seeking to oust the official. Anthony Dedousis said the reason he's planning to run against North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman "is pretty simple." "I think I can do a better job," the Manhasset HS junior said, acknowledging Kaiman's religion-neutral holiday rant was the impetus for his campaign. Dedousis will...

Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, or so goes the old saw. For decades, the famous and the infamous alike largely followed this advice. Even when subjects of news stories felt they had been misunderstood or badly treated, they were unlikely to take on reporters or publishers, believing that the power of the press gave the press the final word. The Internet, and especially the amplifying power of blogs, is changing that. Unhappy subjects discovered a decade ago that they could use their Web sites to correct the record or deconstruct articles to expose...

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday will remind the world that while the path toward Iraqi democracy has been somewhat rocky, so was the path to American democracy over 200 years ago. In an 11:20 a.m. ET speech to the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia, birthplace of the U.S. Constitution, the president will argue that, like the Americans who gathered in Philadelphia for the constitutional convention in 1787, Iraqis are showing their resolve to govern themselves. Bush will discuss how Iraqis have completed each of their political hurdles on schedule and will continue to do so with Thursday's election of...