Free Republic

More than 180 migrants crossed into Poland through a tunnel hidden in a forest on the border with Belarus, frontier guards said on Friday. Around 130 of them were detained in Poland after the passage was discovered on Thursday, but the rest were still on the run, the Polish Border Guard said in a statement. It released video of the tunnel dug through roots and bare earth, supported by wooden posts and metal rods and just 1.5 meters (5 feet) high – not enough for most people to pass through without crouching. European Union member Poland has been grappling with...

With most European leaders talking tougher about immigration amid a rise in far-right populism and Trump administration warnings that they could face “civilizational erasure” unless they tighten their borders, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stands apart. The Iberian nation has taken in millions of people from Latin America and Africa in recent years, and the leftist Sánchez regularly extols the financial and social benefits that immigrants who legally come to Spain bring to the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy. Spain’s choice, Sánchez often says, is between “being an open and prosperous country or a closed and poor one.” His words stand in...

Dozens more migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats as the total number of people making the dangerous journey this year passes 40,100. There were 74 arrivals in one boat recorded by the Home Office on Tuesday, December 16. It means that in 2025 so far 40,155 people have made the perilous crossing. The last time more than 40,000 migrants crossed the Channel was in 2022 when 45,755 were recorded arriving in the UK. The total for 2023 was 29,347, while 36,816 crossed last year. It comes after 732 people came to Britain in 11 small boats on Saturday...

“They don’t move from the Arab world to Europe. They move the Arab world to Europe.” So said Professor Mordechai Kedar when he spoke to me for an extended interview as part of my podcast series. That episode was published the very day the Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, was attacked. The massacre only confirmed his words. Migration, as he described it, does not merely transfer people from one place to another. It carries cultures, ideologies, and systems of meaning with it, and those systems do not remain inert; they spread and even flourish. Kedar’s claim is...

There is now a modern twist to be considered in the birthright citizenship debate.Last week, our friends at The Federalist ran a couple of pieces — one by Brianna Lyman and the other by John Daniel Davidson — on the opportunity currently before the U.S. Supreme Court with respect to birthright citizenship and the legal absurdities our current practice encompasses.If you’re familiar at all with the history of this highly unusual practice, you know that it emanates from the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which reads…All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the...

Today, President Donald J. Trump will award the newly established Mexican Border Defense Medal to U.S. service members for their extraordinary work to safeguard our nation’s southern border and uphold American sovereignty.Under President Trump’s decisive leadership, the southern border has undergone a profound transformation to turn back the invasion unleashed by the Biden Administration — achieving levels of security unseen in decades. By reversing Biden-era failed policies and swiftly implementing robust enforcement, the Trump Administration has restored order, deterred illegal entries, and protected American communities from the threats posed by unchecked migration, transnational crime, and fentanyl trafficking.Here’s what you need...

Last week, the National Association of Evangelicals published its monthly newsletter, whereby it heralded the Christmas season not by celebrating “joy to the world” but by repeating its annual Yuletide claim that because Christ was a “refugee,” all Christians are obligated to welcome all immigrants (regardless of status) into our country, our towns and our neighborhoods. How are we to do this? How exactly are some 60 million American evangelicals purportedly represented by the National Association of Evangelicals to welcome the “sojourner” and “foreigner” in our midst? What practical steps does the association suggest we take?

Adam tried to engage the teenager in conversation before continuing to target her aggressively as she desperately tried to flag down passing cars for help. Terrifying footage shows Adam attempting to grab the 'petrified' young woman and drag her across the road as she tried to break free. But the scuffle and her screams are noticed by hero bus passengers who jump off and come to her rescue - chasing her would-be kidnapper away.

More than 700 migrants crossed the Channel on Saturday after a four-week gap in small boat crossings, according to the latest Home Office figures. The arrival in Dover of 737 migrants on 11 boats marked the end of the longest period without any small boat crossings in seven years. It brings the total number of people making the Channel crossing so far this year to 40,029, surpassing 2024, when there were 36,816 for the entire year. The last recorded arrivals before Saturday were on 14 November, marking the longest uninterrupted stretch since 2018. December is typically a quieter month for...

LONDON (AP) — In the past year, tens of thousands hostile to immigrants marched through London, chanting “send them home!” A British lawmaker complained of seeing too many non-white faces on TV. And senior politicians advocated the deportation of longtime U.K. residents born abroad. The overt demonization of immigrants and those with immigrant roots is intensifying in the U.K. — and across Europe — as migration shoots up the political agenda and right-wing parties gain popularity. In several European countries, political parties that favor mass deportations and depict immigration as a threat to national identity come at or near the...

The government has identified 18,000 known or suspected terrorists who reached the U.S. during the Biden administration, senior officials told Congress on Thursday. Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said they represent a “persistent” threat inside the country. “The No. 1 threat that we have right now in my view is the fact that we don’t know who came into our country in the last four years of Biden’s open borders,” Mr. Kent told the House Homeland Security Committee as part of a hearing on worldwide threats. He said the 18,000 are just the ones his agency has...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit targeting a proposed Muslim-focused residential community in North Texas, accusing developers of an "illegal development scheme" that violated state securities laws. The 21-page complaint, filed Dec. 5 in Collin County, names the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), its affiliate Community Capital Partners (CCP), and several leaders involved with the targeted development, once known as EPIC City and now called The Meadow. Spanning over 400 acres in Collin and Hunt counties, plans for The Meadow include over 1,000 homes, a K-12 faith-based school, a mosque, elderly and assisted living facilities, apartments, clinics,...

… Among other requirements, Minneapolis' separation ordinance forbids Minneapolis police from taking part in immigration enforcement or assisting ICE agents. It also prevents city employees from investigating an individual when the only law they've violated is being in the United States illegally. City employees are also restricted from inquiring about immigration status except when required to do so by law. This week, the council presented a revised version of the separation ordinance with tougher language intended to combat ICE, amid a targeted immigration operation ordered by President Trump focused on the Somali community. The new ordinance declares the city will...

As the Trump administration is reportedly preparing to deploy 100 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Minnesota, home to an estimated 87,000 people with Somali ties, Lutheran church leaders are pushing back against federal immigration enforcement actions with evangelism. Last Tuesday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said ICE agents are being deployed to the Twin Cities to specifically target the Somali community, which has faced allegations of rampant fraud involving the state’s benefit system after federal prosecutors charged dozens of individuals with stealing over $300 million from the Federal Child Nutrition Program through Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota-based nonprofit....

On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear challenges to President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. The 14th Amendment automatically makes all babies born on American territory citizens. Trump’s effort to overturn the traditional reading of the constitutional text and history should not succeed. Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment provided a constitutional definition of citizenship for the first time. It declares that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." In antebellum America, states...

Last week, a Catholic church in Massachusetts made headlines with its Nativity display — in which Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus were replaced by an empty manger and an anti-ICE poster. Now, it seems the church’s pastor is refusing to take down the display for the time being, against the wishes of his church authority. St. Susanna, located in the Boston suburb of Dedham, “displayed a Nativity scene outside the church with an empty manger and a sign that says, ‘ICE was here,’” Fox News reported Wednesday. The implication, of course, is that the baby Savior was either apprehended or...

A border abandoned and laws ignored have turned public frustration into a sweeping backlash that now threatens even legal immigration. It is hard now even for Democrats to defend illegal immigration, given that the Biden administration allowed in more than 10 million entrants. Among them were an estimated 500,000 criminals. No one believes that was wise or should ever be repeated. Worse, the message went out that there would be few, if any, deportations and no real ICE kinetic activity beyond the border. The world’s poor, sick, both law-abiding and criminal, young and old, understood that anyone could now enter...

Trump is right to warn against mass immigration and the Islamification of EuropeLast week the Trump administration expressed its fear that Europe faces “civilizational erasure.” Its concern was articulated in a 33-page National Security Strategy that outlined Donald Trump’s world view and how America will respond economically and militarily.The sentence that caused the most reaction on the other side of the pond was the assertion that, if current trends continue, Europe will be “unrecognizable in 20 years or less.” Those trends are mass immigration and what conservative French commentators call the “Islamification” of Europe. If Europe doesn’t address these trends,...

An Islamic group hoping to build a 'Muslim city' in eastern Texas has rebranded their project after Governor Greg Abbott accused them of wanting to enforce Sharia law. Developers looking to push forward with the large community have opted to change the name from EPIC City to The Meadow, according to the Houston Chronicle. The East Plano Islamic Community (EPIC) is behind the development and have yet to move beyond the planning stages, break ground or even submit permits. The cleric behind the community, Yasir Qadhi, has a decades-old record of preaching hatred, homophobia and Holocaust-denial to his followers. In...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), Community Capital Partners (CCP), and several of their leaders, alleging that they engaged in an illegal land development scheme that violated Texas securities laws.Promotional materials allegedly described the development as the “epicenter of Islam in North America” and implied it would be reserved for Muslims, despite assurances to the contrary.According to the lawsuit, CCP—formed by EPIC as a vehicle to purchase and develop more than 400 acres in Hunt and Collin counties—engaged in fraudulent practices while soliciting investments for the EPIC City project. Promotional...