Free Republic

REYNOSA, Mexico — Tom and Yedid Kobylecky now wish they'd stayed silent, quietly living a middle-class life in the suburbs of Chicago and keeping her illegal immigrant status a family secret. But Yedid's parents in Cuernavaca, Mexico, were struggling to keep a taqueria stand going despite her diabetic father's sore-ridden feet and her mother's failing legs. As entrepreneurs, neither qualified for any government medical care. Yedid wired money from cleaning and baby-sitting jobs to help them buy medicines, but longed to be able to travel to see them. And so, four years after meeting at the Home Depot where he...

DONNA — After being processed by U.S. authorities, 33 Mexican soldiers who crossed the international boundary in four military Humvees on Tuesday afternoon were allowed to return to Mexico. U.S. officials who interviewed the soldiers about the incursion on the Donna-Rio Bravo bridge could not divulge a reason for it — other than to say that the soldiers had lost sight of the line and crossed inadvertently. But a source outside of law enforcement and with knowledge of border activity said the soldiers were chasing a South Texas resident who had crossed into Mexico, and although the soldiers did not...

SAN DIEGO — San Diego police expect to finish their investigation this week into the June 21 fatal shooting by a U.S. Border Patrol agent of a Mexican man who was hurling rocks and nail-studded wood during a confrontation along the international border. The report will be forwarded to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego, which will review if the shooting was justified and whether the agent who fired the shots that killed 40-year-old Jose Alfredo Yanez Reyes should face charges. The agent has not been identified and only a broad description of the events surrounding the shooting has...

SAN DIEGO — One of five people charged in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent admitted Tuesday that the motivation behind the ambush killing was to rob the agent's night vision equipment. Emilio Gonzales pleaded guilty to murder of a federal officer in court and faces life in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 17.

PREMONT (Kiii News) - A man, thought to be an illegal immigrant, is on the loose after reportedly attacking two women at a cemetery in Premont Wednesday night. Police, sheriff's deputies, and border patrol agents never found the man. The women say the man came out of nowhere, claiming to be from Mexico and in need of a ride to Houston. That man reportedly pushed the two women, grabbed one of their car keys, got in their SUV, and then tried to drive off with one of the lady's five month-old baby in the backseat. The women recently recounted to...

WASHINGTON The embattled head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has told congressional investigators that some Mexican drug cartel figures targeted by his agency in a gun-trafficking investigation were paid informants for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration. Kenneth Melson, the ATF's acting director, has been under pressure to resign after the agency allowed guns to be purchased in the U.S. in hopes they would be traced to cartel leaders. Under the gun-trafficking operation known as Fast and Furious, the ATF lost track of the guns. Many were found at crime scenes in Mexico. Two guns...

Another Border Patrol agent on the southwest border is facing a long prison sentence for doing his job. Isn't it amazing how this happens only on the southwest border and never the Canadian border? Veteran agent Jesus Diaz faces a sentence of five to 25 years in federal prison for "mistreating" an illegal alien who was apprehended crossing the border near Eagle Pass, Texas, in 2008. The man was handcuffed, and allegedly, Diaz lifted his handcuffs to force him to the ground because he was not cooperative. For this "offense" Diaz was prosecuted by U.S. attorney for the West Texas...

WASHINGTON, July 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Obama administration's decision to sign an agreement allowing Mexican truckers full access to U.S. roads poses a threat to national security, American motorists, our ability to control illegal immigration, and to the viability of the U.S. trucking industry, charges the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The agreement was signed in Mexico City on Wednesday by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood without notice from the administration. "Implementation of this provision of NAFTA has been on hold for 17 years with good reason," stated Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "Since President Clinton signed the...

The U.S. Supreme Court today rejected a bid by the Obama administration to spare the life of a Mexican national set for execution for the 1994 rape-murder of a San Antonio teenager.

<p>Texas thumbed its nose at the White House and the United Nations on Tuesday as it cleared the way for Thursday's execution of Humberto Leal Garcia Jr., a Mexican national who was denied access to his nation's consulate after being arrested for a San Antonio rape-murder.</p>

While the investigation continues into the U.S. operation that helped send thousands of guns south of the border, Mexican lawmakers say they'll press for extradition and prosecution in Mexico of American officials who authorized and ran the operation. "I obviously feel violated. I feel my country's sovereignty was violated," Mexico Sen. Rene Arce Islas told Fox News. "They should be tried in the United States and the Mexican government should also demand that they also be tried in Mexico since the incidents took place here. There should be trials in both places." Arce is chairman of Mexico's Commission for National...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — A spray-painted sign threatening death for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents was found Friday next to a school in a northern Mexico state capital, officials said. Addressed with profanity to "Gringos (D.E.A.)," the unsigned graffiti warned: "We know where you are and we know who you are and where you go. We are going to chop off your (expletive) heads."

Reporting from Mexico City— A Roman Catholic priest who has long championed the cause of migrant workers on Monday denounced what he said was another mass kidnapping of undocumented Central Americans purportedly yanked from a train by masked gunmen in southern Mexico. Father Alejandro Solalinde, who runs the Hermanos en el Camino shelter for migrants, said at least 80 people primarily from Guatemala and Honduras were apparently abducted Friday in Veracruz state. He based his claim on information from several members of the group who said they managed to escape.If the report is true, this will be the latest in...

McALLEN — Jurors convicted three men Wednesday for their roles in the sex smuggling of three teenage Mexican girls in Rio Grande City. Jurors deliberated about two hours following the three-day trial, which pegged Juan Antonio Garcia Garay as the ringleader of the operation. The case involved a March 17 traffic stop by Rio Grande City police, who encountered a barefoot 13-year-old girl toting a pistol hidden beneath a purple jumper dress. The girl later told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents she was a prostitute working alongside two others, ages 15 and 18. The three girls had been staying...

A woman accused of leaving the scene of a traffic accident last month where an investigating Houston police officer was later killed has been charged with two felonies and is believed to have fled again — this time, to Mexico. Houston police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Francisca Cortez, 28. Authorities said they believe she is the driver who struck two motorcyclists on Interstate 610 near Yale on May 29. While investigating that wreck, Officer Kevin Will was fatally struck by a suspected drunken driver. In a probable cause affidavit filed Friday in Harris County, police revealed...

By MANUEL DE LA CRUZ - Associated Press TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico -- Mexican police on Sunday discovered 210 mainly Central and South American migrants crammed inside a truck near the country's southern border, an immigration official said. The dehydrated and hungry migrants were found when the truck was searched at a highway checkpoint, said the immigration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk on the record.

SALT LAKE CITY — More than a dozen Latin and South American countries have joined Mexico in expressing potential international fallout over Utah's illegal immigration enforcement law. In a court brief filed Tuesday, the Mexican government lists several reasons for its opposition to HB497, including impeding diplomatic relations, hindering trade and tourism and possible harassment of Mexican citizens. "Mexico respectfully submits that if HB497 is allowed to take effect it will have significant and long-lasting adverse impact on U.S.-Mexico bilateral relations, and on Mexican citizens and other people of Latin American descent present in Utah," court documents say. The brief...

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's border mayors say they are worried about a possible surge in deportations of criminals to their cities after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling ordered California to reduce its prison population by 33,000. .

Mexico City – The most fearsome weapons wielded by Mexico's drug cartels enter the country from Central America, not the United States, according to U.S. diplomatic cables disseminated by WikiLeaks and published here Tuesday by La Jornada newspaper. Items such as grenades and rocket-launchers are stolen from Central American armies and smuggled into Mexico via neighboring Guatemala, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reported to Washington. The assertions appear in embassy cables written after three bilateral conferences on arms trafficking that took place between March 2009 and January 2010 in Cuernavaca, Mexico; Phoenix; and Tapachula, Mexico, respectively. The cables' authors...

Immigration attorneys and immigrant-rights groups in the Texas border city of El Paso said they have formed a coalition aimed at providing greater support for asylum seekers facing a hurdle-ridden application process. The director of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Louie Gilot, said cases of Mexicans fleeing drug-related violence have risen significantly over the past two years and that the asylum seekers include former police officers, rights activists, journalists, business leaders and even government officials. Just across the Rio Grande from El Paso is Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's murder capital and the largest city in Chihuahua state,...