Free Republic

Republican Meg Whitman’s former maid said Tuesday she’s not a Democratic pawn in California’s race for governor, but her attorney refused again to provide key details about her claims that Whitman employed her for nearly a decade despite knowing she was in the U.S. illegally. Nicky Diaz Santillan, a Mexican who Whitman says used a fraudulently obtained Social Security card and California driver’s license, dismissed claims by the GOP nominee that she was part of a Democratic smear intended to damage Whitman’s standing with voters, particularly Latinos. “I make my own decisions and I am not anyone’s puppet,” Diaz Santillan...

Meg Whitman’s Nightmare, Marc Van der Hout, a UN Narc Turns out Van der Hout’s the brains behind the Nicandra “Nicky” Diaz Santillan Dream Team. He he was part of yet another Dream Team pairing with David Cole as co-counsel of the “LA 8″ that resulted in the release of illegal Arab nationals. Van der Hout and Cole bought enough time in the courts for their defendants to become permanent residents of these United States.

A marathon deportation case against two Palestinian immigrants, pursued by the administrations of four U.S. Presidents over 20 years, has been dismissed. The ruling closes a Byzantine legal saga that wound its way through federal appellate courts, the U.S. Supreme Court and federal immigration boards, breaking new legal ground along the way. It ended at the Department of Homeland Security, where the dismissal order was entered Tuesday. One of the defendants, Khader Musa Hamide, said in an interview that he will never get over the experience of being under suspicion for 20 years but now "I can breathe better." A...

LOS ANGELES A federal judge ruled Friday that a Palestinian man whom the government had denied citizenship based on alleged ties with a terrorist group should become a citizen, the man's lawyers said. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that Aiad Barakat, one of the so-called "L.A. eight," will be naturalized, said Ahilan Arulanantham, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who litigated the case. Barakat's citizenship application had been denied last year by immigration officials, and his lawyers appealed in federal court. "The judge listened and found him to be credible," said Arulanantham. "It was very fact intensive testimony that...