Free Republic

With the White House, the leaders of both political parties and the media all solidly behind the "comprehensive" immigration "reform" bill, how could it be stopped in the Senate, as it was last week? The people stopped it. That is what democracy is all about. When members of Congress began to be deluged with angry letters, phone calls and e-mails from their constituents, they knew the game was over — and that their careers could be over if they didn't pay attention to what the voters were saying. This bill was an insult to people's intelligence from start to finish,...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- To his bosses at Pilgrim's Pride, he was Juan Jose Rodriguez -- it said so on the birth certificate and Social Security card he presented when the southwestern Arkansas chicken plant hired him six years ago. At his De Queen, Ark., home, he was Joel Garibay-Urbina -- with a wife, three kids and a mortgage under his own name. And to police officers responding to a domestic violence call, he was just the latest illegal immigrant to have two identities after an arrest. "We've arrested them and they offer an Arkansas identification card, and they give...

Immigration: The Senate's 53-46 defeat of the immigration bill Thursday was more than a victory for rule of law over alien amnesty. It was a triumph of citizens' will over politicians' disdain. Real reform must follow. The Bush-Kennedy immigration reform bill is dead and unlikely to be served up again before a new administration takes office. No wonder. It was a pork-laden spending bill that offered de facto amnesty to illegal immigrants, federal contracts to the usual contractors, spoils for businesses that habitually hire illegals, and new layers of bureaucracy, supposedly to speed immigration entries. The only people it didn't...

FBI Director Robert Mueller said this week that his agency busted a smuggling ring organized by the terrorist group Hezbollah that had operatives cross the Mexican border to carry out possible terrorist attacks inside the U.S. "This was an occasion in which Hezbollah operatives were assisting others with some association with Hezbollah in coming to the United States,” Mueller told a House Appropriations subcommittee during a Tuesday hearing on the FBI's budget. In a stunning revelation, Mueller admitted that Hezbollah had succeeded in smuggling some of its operatives across the border, telling the House committee: "That was an organization that...

Somali community leaders in Sana'a said on Saturday that 130 African migrants died at sea when their boat capsized off the Yemeni coast after coast guards opened fire on them. Three boats carrying 460 African migrants, Somalis and Ethiopians, left the Somali port of Bossaso on 9 April and arrived in Yemeni regional waters late on 12 April. "As the smuggling boats entered the Yemeni waters, coast guards began firing on them, causing one boat to capsize," Sadat Mohammed, head of refugee affairs in the Somali community in Sana'a, told IRIN. "The boat was carrying African migrants, most of whom...

The Mexican drug runner whose testimony sent two Border Patrol agents to prison for shooting him in the buttocks brought drugs into the United States more than once, thereby diminishing his credibility as a witness in the investigation, according to a California congressman. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., presented new evidence in a Capitol Hill press conference Wednesday that revealed what he says was U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's deliberate attempt to mislead the public about Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila's involvement in the transport of a second load of drugs in October 2005.[snip].... ....[snip]But the Drug Enforcement Agency found that Aldrete-Davila brought in another...

With 30 million third-world Mexican illegal aliens dumped on the backs of U.S. taxpayers, one would expect Mexican officials to keep their mouths shut about border violation issues. You know, do not bring up a subject that will expose your own criminality and vulnerability. But Mexico is obviously a land of pandemic stupidity. What else can one conclude after learning that Mexico's Congress has condemned what it says is a border violation by U.S. workers building a controversial barrier between the two countries? Here: Can you imagine-- Mexico complaining about the U.S. and borders? In order to resolve this issue...

MEXICO CITY – Mexico plans to begin an aggressive lobbying effort in the United States to secure an immigration reform agreement, the country's new ambassador in Washington said Tuesday. Mexican consulates in the United States will talk with state and federal lawmakers, business chambers, civic organizations and “all actors of U.S. society” who support comprehensive immigration reform, Arturo Sarukhan said. “There are few matters so important to the future of this country,” Sarukhan told reporters in Mexico City before departing for Washington. The ambassador said Mexico has a brief window to convince Washington to approve immigration reforms before campaigning begins...

YUMA, Ariz., Feb. 15 (UPI) -- National Guard soldiers patrolling the Arizona border with Mexico say illegal crossings have dropped dramatically since they arrived. Officers say apprehensions of illegal immigrants around Yuma, Ariz., are down 62 percent from the same time last year and the amount of marijuana seized fell 36 percent in the same period, the Christian Science Monitor reported Thursday. On the entire U.S.-Mexico border, apprehensions have declined 27 percent since the start of President Bush's Operation Jumpstart, which began eight months ago to protect the area while more border patrol agents are trained.

<p>The Border: Depending on whose estimate you use, there are anywhere from 12 million to 30 million people in the U.S. illegally. Why so many? One word: incentives.</p> <p>Some of the incentives are small, some large. But taken together, they constitute an economic magnet too powerful for poor people south of the border to resist.</p>

FireSociety Exclusive: Interview with WND’s Jerome Corsi on Mexico’s Role (audio) World Net Daily’s Jerome Corsi -- author of the best-seller “Unfit For Command” -- is reporting that the Mexican government was directly involved in the initation of the investigation against Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean which led to their arrest, conviction and imprisonment. Corsi, quoting members of Congress and sourcing Hill staffers, reports that Department of Homeland Security investigators informed Congress that it was the Mexican Consulate that initiated the events by contacting the U.S. Consulate. WND article here. Mexican Consulate requests action In an interview with Grassfire.org's...

EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- A former U.S. Border Patrol agent who was convicted of shooting a drug smuggling suspect and then lying about it was beaten by fellow inmates in prison, his relatives and a congressman said Tuesday. Prison officials did not immediately confirm that Ignacio Ramos had been attacked. The convictions of Ramos and fellow former agent Jose Alonso Compean sparked outcry from critics who argued that the men were merely doing their job defending the border against criminals. U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., a vocal supporter of the agents and opponent of illegal immigration, criticized the Bush...

U.S. immigration officials announced Friday that they would drop efforts to deport the illegal immigrant parents of an academically gifted American child, ending a nine-year battle over whether exceptional educational needs can avert deportation. Benjamin and Londy Cabrera, who illegally emigrated from Mexico and Guatemala, respectively, in the 1980s, argued that deportation would cause "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" to their two American daughters, both Los Angeles natives. In particular, attorneys for the Cabrera family cited the special academic needs of 15-year-old Diana, a straight-A student who has been identified as exceptionally gifted and honored with national awards. Their case...

U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral said Wednesday that remittances are a driving force of Mexico´s economic growth and that the country should encourage migrants´ families to invest their money. Speaking at the Bankers Club, Cabral said Mexico´s financial sector should do more to bring remittance money into formal financial channels by making credit, insurance and mortgage products easily available. Remittances to Mexico last year reached US$23 billion, a 15 percent increase over 2005, which was considered a record year, Mexico´s central bank announced Wednesday. In recent years, banks have competed for customers wiring money to Mexico by lowering their transaction...

Immigration: Leftists tout Hugo Chavez's trip down the socialist road as "reform" that rights past wrongs. What they never notice is that as property is confiscated and freedoms evaporate, talented Venezuelans are fleeing. In 2005, over 10,000 Venezuelans sought permanent residence in the U.S., more than twice as many as who sought admission to the U.S. in 1999, when Chavez first took office. Of these, about a tenth were people fleeing political persecution for asylum. As Chavez confiscates productive farms, sends red-shirted political rabble to take over apartments, shuts down TV stations, restricts government jobs and services to his friends,...

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher makes the Dixie Chicks sound like bosom buddies of President George W. Bush. Politics being politics, it's easy to dismiss the antipathy liberals have for Mr. Bush. But Bush has lost the support -- and even the respect -- of Mr. Rohrabacher. The California Republican is serving his ninth term and has a lifetime score of 95 from the American Conservative Union. He also has had it with a commander in chief who prefers surrender to being the defender of America's defenseless border with Mexico. Rohrabacher said the minute two unjustly convicted men who had been Border...

Latin America: The weekend inauguration of Rafael Correa as president of Ecuador was a spectacularly sorry show of anti-U.S. sentiment. Maybe it's time the U.S. just quit funding this ungrateful country. Correa did more than bring in his best pal Hugo Chavez of Venezuela as guest of honor at his extravaganza. Correa also went out of his way to dedicate the inauguration to ailing Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. "Down with imperialism," he shouted, using the regional code to accuse the U.S. Seldom has anti-Americanism been so in our faces. But to make sure the U.S. knew the inaugural wasn't just...