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At most baptisms only close relatives and friends are in attendance but this is not exactly a normal 'family'. Cited by the US as major players in the international drugs trade the 'Familia Michoacana' had its christening gate-crashed by 400 police officers and two Blackhawk helicopters. Mexican federal police arrested 44 alleged members of the drugs cartel at a family baptism in Morelia, capital of the western state of Michoacan. Among those detained was Rafael Cedeño Hernández, the gang’s second in command, who is said to be responsible for the shipment of drugs from Central America and expanding its empire...

WESLACO — Police here arrested three illegal immigrants from Mexico on Friday in connection with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a South Texas College student. Efrain Ozuna, 30, Martin Rosas, 33, and Benito Zaragoza, 22, were each charged Friday with aggravated kidnapping. Ozuna and Zaragoza are also accused of sexually assaulting the 23-year-old woman. Wednesday's kidnapping took place about 8:15 a.m. as the student parked at the southeast parking lot of South Texas College's Mid-Valley Campus, 400 N. Border Ave., said David Molina, a spokesman with the Weslaco Police Department. The woman told police one of the men grabbed...

A Rosarito Beach police officer was found dead yesterday, a day after he was kidnapped, authorities said. The Baja California Attorney General's Office identified the victim as Juan Eduardo Huerta Carrera, 49. His decapitated body was discovered inside a 2009 Dodge Durango with California plates found parked on the side of a highway. Huerta had been reported kidnapped Wednesday from the entrance of an exclusive neighborhood. A police department spokesman said Huerta had been on the force less than a year and was an auxiliary officer. Authorities reported the shooting death of Rosarito Beach's deputy police commander, Tomás Cárdenas, on...

American officials say ties between Shiite organization, Mexican drug lords for trafficking of drugs, money, people into US strengthening over recent year. One official voice concern that al-Qaeda may use same routes. Ties between Lebanon's Shiite Hizbullah organization and Mexican drug cartels have been strengthening over the past few years, the Washington Times reported Friday. Hizbullah relies on "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels," said Michael Braun, former administrator and chief of operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). "They work together," added Braun, "They rely on the same shadow facilitators....

Border Patrol agents are arresting an increased number of dangerous criminals at the border, officials say. "We're talking about major things. Homicides, sex offenders, big robberies, armed robberies--things to that degree," says agent Mike Scioli. Scioli says more dangerous criminals are trying to enter the U.S. -- a disturbing yet growing trend along the southern border. This past weekend, a group of 34 illegals were apprehended by agents near Ajo. Two of them were members of a notorious and ruthless gang known as MS-13. How did agents find out? Finger prints and tattoos were a dead-giveaway. "These two individuals, not...

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/PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- A nationwide survey of actual voters reveals that Americans strongly support immigration enforcement, and that less than one-third of Obama voters favor granting amnesty to illegal aliens. The poll conducted by Zogby International on behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) on November 5 and 6 also found that a decisive majority of voters believe that an illegal alien amnesty would "further harm the interests of struggling American workers." Among the key findings of the poll are: -- Only 32% of Obama voters considered his support for amnesty as a factor in their decisions...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - He was accused of killing a Nashville mother and daughter after being in the country illegally, and Monday Jose Sosa will be in court facing a jury for the beginning of his trial. Jose Sosa was just 16-years old when he allegedly stabbed Lori and Adrian Roundtree to death in April 2006. Police matched fingerprints at the crime scene to Sosa's in the FBI's database. They were taken when he was arrested for illegally entering the country. He was sent back across the border, only to re-enter later.

PETERBOROUGH, N.H. -- As his campaign nears its end, John McCain convened a town hall meeting tonight in New Hampshire, the state that has sustained his presidential aspirations during the darkest times. McCain's first-place finish in New Hampshire in 2000 made him a serious contender against George W. Bush, though it failed to carry him through the rest of the primaries. Nearly eleven months ago, winning here put him on the path to securing his party's nomination. While only a couple of dozen people showed up eight years ago when he held one of his first town halls here, tonight...

ABOARD “Straight Talk Air” (between New York and Miami)—Sen. John McCain would “absolutely” not compromise on Supreme Court nominations if elected and would continue to nominate strict constructionist judges if any of his Supreme Court nominations were defeated by a hostile Senate. McCain said that and much more to HUMAN EVENTS chief political correspondent John Gizzi in an exclusive interview Friday morning. The Republican presidential nominee also said, if elected, he would gladly join running mate Sarah Palin on a trip to Alaska to view the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but has not yet changed his mind on oil drilling...

How Many Non-Citizen Voters? Enough to Make a Difference October 13, 2008 By David Simcox The Impact of Non-Citizen Voting on American Elections Executive Summary The approaching 2008 general elections underscore concern that the growing access of non-citizens to the ballot box could distort the outcome. Groups arguing for easier access to the polls deny there is a problem at all, seeing restrictive registration and identification rules as anti-democratic and even racist. They dismiss non-citizen voting as rare, not criminal in intent or concerted, and more harmful than beneficial to non-citizens. Yet anecdotal evidence persists and grows that non-citizens are...

One illegal alien was arrested this year in Tucson after allegedly using a stolen social security number to buy two homes and rack up over $780,000 in bad debt. Some five million fraudulent home mortgages are in the hands of illegal aliens, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It's not known how many of those have contributed to the subprime housing mortgage meltdown, but it has affected every state, including Arizona. The problem began years ago when banks were forced to give mortgages without confirming social security numbers or borrower identification. As a result, illegal immigrants...

Immigration law enforcement has been a key ingredient contributing to the success of criminal gang suppression efforts in many jurisdictions across the United States. Since 2005, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested more than 8,000 gangsters from more than 700 different gangs as part of a special initiative known as Operation Community Shield. This effort has produced incalculable public safety benefits for American communities, despite being criticized periodically by immigrant and civil liberties advocates that are consistently opposed to all immigration law enforcement. Local governments and law enforcement agencies that shun involvement in immigration law enforcement...

With help from a bribed official in Mexico's Belize consulate office, two men from Ghana ran a transcontinental smuggling operation that ferried dozens of unauthorized immigrants into Texas from countries the State Department regards as terrorist havens, federal court records and interviews show. Since at least 2005, the operation helped as many as 100 U.S.-bound immigrants, paying as little as $5,000 each, from such countries as Sudan and Somalia, travel by air and ground to Mexico and then over the U.S. border to Houston. Some of the money ended up in the pockets of at least one Mexican Consulate employee...

(Article: May 23, 2005) In an attempt to make itself more attractive to Hispanic consumers, Wachovia Bank is offering some new services, including Spanish language bank statements and a different way to transfer funds to Latin America. A foreign remittance card that can be used at ATM machines across Latin America is one of the services in the bank's "Cuenta con Todo" or "account with everything" package of services. They are, for the most part, the same services offered to other customers, but with the addition of bank statements and information offered in Spanish, a spokeswoman for the bank...

My syndicated column today tackles the bailout angle no one wants to talk about: Open borders and the home loan debacle. You’ve heard a lot about Fannie/Freddie and the minority lending shakedowns, but you haven’t heard most commentators/analysts on either the left or the right talk about the massive illegal alien mortgage racket — a topic I’ve reported on for the past five years. That’s because fault lies at the feet of the crime-enabling banking industry and the ethnic lobbyists and the illegal alien-enabling Bush administration. They screwed us. Now, they want us to fork over a trillion dollars. Screw...

A legislative panel took the first steps today toward launching a probe into how an illegal immigrant accused of causing a traffic accident that killed three people was allowed to remain in the country despite his criminal record. The Legislative Audit Committee voted to authorize State Auditor Sally Symanski to do preliminary research on conducting such an audit. Symanski expected that the inquiry would look at how state and local law-enforcement agencies and the judicial system interacted in the case of Francis Hernandez, 23, an illegal immigrant who had been arrested more than a dozen times in the previous five...

WASHINGTON – Congress approved a shift of $400 million from technology accounts to construction of the U.S. border fence despite a Customs and Border Protection admission that it cannot be completed by year's end, officials said Monday. The House Appropriations Subcommittee for Homeland Security agreed to a CBP proposal to transfer funds from other accounts to build the remainder of the 670 miles of border fence. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, voiced disappointment over Congress' decision to continue to fund “the border wall.” “It won't work. It is lethal to people and wildlife and...

SCRANTON, Pa. -- During the Republican primaries, John McCain delicately balanced his record of pushing for immigration reform with satisfying his party's new appetite for harsher restrictions. Now in a general election against an opponent who broadly shares his views on the issue, McCain is showing greater ease asserting his distance from the anti-immigration right.