Free Republic

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain‘s wife, Monica Medina, has been selected as President Joe Biden‘s newly-created Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources. To steal a tongue-in-cheek phrase from New England radio legend Howie Carr, Medina was “chosen after a nationwide search,” I’m sure. We actually don’t know because the State Department refused to say. When asked point blank if there was a nationwide search process, a State Department spokesperson skirted the question and instead claimed this wasn’t a new position at all. “The Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources is not a new position but rather...

The former managers of the Vallejo Empire Buffet were sentenced Thursday on federal charges for housing and putting illegal aliens to work in their restaurant. Rui Yang Lin, 48, and Bi Xia Ni, 46, were each placed on 36 months' probation and fined $36,000 after pleading guilty in October to hiring 12 illegal workers between March and September last year. The sentencing and fines were on top of an earlier $36,000 penalty each paid before Thursday. Though the listed Empire Buffet owner was Lin's daughter, prosecutors said he and his wife ran most of the day-to-day restaurant operations. The undocumented...

Top conservative leaders have written President Bush telling him to drop his insistence on a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens and instead support the 85 percent of congressional Republicans who want to tighten law enforcement first. Signers include William J. Bennett, Robert H. Bork, Ward Connerly, David A. Keene, Phyllis Schlafly and a number of think-tank academics and pundits. The immigration debate is the first major issue on which Mr. Bush finds himself opposing a majority of Republicans in Congress and depending on Democrats to deliver a victory. In their letter, the conservatives tell Mr....

Illegal-hiring penalties fall Agency's focus since 9/11 has been protection of U.S. infrastructure By Lisa Friedman LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON - Penalties against employers who hire illegal immigrants have all but disappeared since 1999, a federal homeland security investigator told Congress.Three U.S. employers were threatened with sanctions in 2004, compared with 162 the previous year and 417 in 1999, Richard M. Stana, director of the homeland security and justice team at the Government Accountability Office, testified Tuesday.Meanwhile, he said, the number of agents devoted to enforcing employer sanctions has dropped by more than half."Worksite enforcement has been a low...