Free Republic

A Texas congressman wants to know why the former treasurer of a Mexican border state who's under indictment in that country — and has connections to San Antonio — was granted a visa and was released after his arrest this month in Texas. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, said he asked the State Department why Hector Javier Villarreal, the former head of the tax office for Coahuila who's facing fraud-related charges, was allowed to enter the United States. Villarreal was granted a visa in October, Gohmert said, shortly after Mexican officials released him on bail. Gohmert said he also wants to...

FLORENCE, Ariz. - An officer-involved shooting may have involved as many as seven illegal immigrants. The shooting occurred just outside of Florence, near the Hunt Highway and Felix. That’s about 60 miles southeast of the valley. An officer with the Florence Police Department attempted to pull over a black pickup truck that stuck out to that officer for a couple of reasons. No. 1 -- this happened early in the morning, so there weren't many vehicles out on the road, and No. 2 -- the officer says the truck appeared to be having some mechanical problems. Just before 7 a.m.,...

American Ethnic Studies and Leadership Studies will be teaming up for a new intersession course beginning in summer 2012. The course will involve cultural awareness and service learning projects involving Latino migrant workers in the American southwest. The idea for this course began with Jonathan Berhow, academic counselor for the Academic Assistance Center. Berhow said he had wanted to start a course like this for some time to raise awareness and dispel myths about migrant workers from Mexico and other countries who come to the United States for work. Migrant workers take many risks in coming to the U.S. for...

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., is wondering just when Attorney General Eric Holder will get around to answering his questions about the prosecution of a U.S. Border Patrol agent for "improperly restraining a 15-year-old drug smuggler." At least, that's the question he asked in a new letter today to Holder addressing the dispute over the prosecution of Agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. for lifting the smuggler's arms to force him to comply with orders when he was arrested. "I am still awaiting your response as to why the Justice Department would actively pursue such a case against a U.S. Border...

WASHINGTON -- A group of Mexican senators announced Tuesday they are preparing to meet with state legislators in Georgia and four other states next month, hoping to head off more stringent immigration laws like the one Georgia enacted this year.The senators plan to share information with state lawmakers that shows illegal immigrants generally stay out of trouble and contribute to the economy while they are here. Sen. Carlos Jimenez Macias, a member of the Mexican Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, confirmed those plans Tuesday at a workshop on immigration reform in D.C. at the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan public policy...

(CNN) -- The family of an illegal immigrant paralyzed in a workplace accident says hospital officials have eased their pressure to send him back to Mexico because he is unable to pay for his care. Francisco Martinez broke his neck in a fall from the roof of a shrimp packing business in Galveston, Texas, in August. "He thought he was going to die" said Brandi Cullen Valderrama, Martinez's common-law wife. "He could not even breathe." Martinez was taken to the University Of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where he received life-saving treatment but remains paralyzed from the chest down. Cullen...

A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been sentenced to two years in prison for improperly lifting the arms of a suspected 15-year-old drug smuggler while handcuffed — in what the Justice Department called a deprivation of the teenager’s constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force. Agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. was named in a November 2009 federal grand jury indictment with deprivation of rights under color of law during an October 2008 arrest near the Rio Grande River in Eagle Pass, Texas, where he and other agents had responded to a report that illegal immigrants had...

GALVESTON - Francisco Martinez wasn't happy about the free trip back to Mexico offered to him by a social worker at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Martinez, 37, of Bacliff, broke his back Aug. 17 after falling off a ladder while working on the roof of a bait shop where he was employed. UTMB doctors saved his life, but he is paralyzed from the chest down, can barely move his hands and needs special care.

AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Public Safety is warning parents about drug cartels recruiting Texas high school students. DPS officials say they caught a 12-year-old boy driving a stolen pickup truck containing more than 800 pounds of marijuana last week. Last month, two Texas teenagers were lured to Mexico where they were kidnapped, beaten, ransomed and released in a remote area along the Rio Grande River. In one Texas border county, more than 25 juveniles were arrested for drug trafficking within the past year. “Mexican cartels have corrupted nearly an entire generation of youth living in Northern Mexico and...

Oct 6 (Reuters) - Mexican trucks will start crossing the U.S. border again in a couple of weeks, reducing transportation costs between the two neighbors by some 15 percent, Mexico's Economy Minister Bruno Ferrari said. The resolution of the long-standing cross-border trucking dispute should give an additional boost to Mexican manufacturers, who have been fighting to increase their market share in the United States. "If you take into consideration that Mexico's manufacturing costs are at least 25 percent lower than in the U.S., this is going to be a very strong competitive advantage," Ferrari told Reuters in an interview late...

LA ROSITA - The search has been called off for Mexican gunmen who fled into the U.S. following a shootout with the Mexican military. It happened near La Rosita in Starr County around 4:00 p.m. Thursday. The Starr County Sheriff's Department, Texas Department of Public Safety, U.S. Border Patrol, and the Texas Rangers all responded to a cornfield six miles west of Rio Grande City following a violent clash between suspected drug cartel members and the Mexican army. At least five armed men crossed into the U.S. during the shootout, but they quickly returned to Mexico to avoid capture.

AGUA PRIETA, Mexico — "My wife, my son — I have to get back to them," Daniel kept telling himself, from the moment he was arrested in Seattle for driving with an expired license, all the way through the deportation proceeding that delivered him to Mexico in June. Nothing would deter him from crossing the border again. He had left his hometown at 24, he said. Twelve years later, he spoke nearly fluent English and had an American son, a wife and three brothers in the United States. "I’ll keep trying," he said, "until I’ll get there." This is increasingly...

A man in the brutal rape of a young girl makes his first court appearance. Alfredo Lopez-Cruz entered the courtroom amid heavy security because of the impact the crime had on the community. For six long years, Lopez-Cruz was Butler County's most wanted man. Today, wearing a bullet proof vest in addition to handcuffs and leg irons, Lopez-Cruz was led into court by the man who tracked him from Hamilton to Mexico for six long years---Butler County Deputy Paul Newton. A translator helped explain the court proceedings to Lopez-Cruz who was given a court-appointed attorney. He is charged with the...

Big-league Mexican drug traffickers imprisoned in the United States are contending that unnecessarily harsh conditions - locked up alone in ultra-high-security confinement - take a physical and psychological toll and may violate U.S.-Mexico extradition treaties.

The Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development and the Utah Department of Public Safety are listed as sponsors of the Mexican Independence Day celebration that was held at the Utah State Fair on September 17. The event featured the Mexican Consul who invited “all the Mexicans in Utah to feel proud of their origins and to keep their culture and traditions, even if they are away from their country.” The Consul’s speech was consistent with the position taken in 2007 by Felipe Calderon, Mexico's current president, who said: "Finally, Mexico does not end at the border. Wherever there is a...

Drip. Drip. Drip. Whether it is Solyndra, Obamacare, or Fast and Furious, President Obama’s push for his “American Jobs Act” has been drowned out this week by the failure of his past policies. Every night it seems there is a new angle on the Energy Department’s failed loan to the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. Not only was there a headline-grabbing hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday (at which Obama officials tried to blame Bush) , but the Treasury Department separately announced that their Inspector General (IG) would join the FBI and Energy Department IG in their...

A date has been set for the third trial of two men, illegal immigrants from Mexico, charged with murder in the deaths of three young relatives in a Baltimore apartment in 2004. Policarpio Espinoza Perez, 29, and Adan Espinoza Canela, 24, also again pleaded not guilty Thursday. They have been held in custody since their arrests seven years ago, and are now scheduled to be tried again Nov. 10 in Baltimore Circuit Court. The first trial ended in a hung jury, and the second resulted in convictions that were later overturned because of a judge's error. "I take it, since...

NOGALES, AZ - The higher the wall, the harder they will fall. That's what border crossers trying to scale the new border fence at Nogales are painfully finding out.The imposing new border fence running through Nogales is proving to be a treacherous obstacle for suspected illegal immigrantsA Nogales Police Department report says on Aug. 12, a woman broke her leg after climbing the border fence.Two days later, officers found a second injured fence climber. And a third, suspected illegal immigrant from China fell and broke his leg on Aug 22.

A new federal reporting requirement for firearms dealers in four border states, including Texas, intended to curb the flow of weapons into Mexico has prompted a veteran San Antonio gun dealer to file suit against the federal government. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued a rule last week requiring licensed firearms dealers to report to the agency any time two or more long rifles are sold to the same buyer within a five-day period. The move comes as the ATF continues to deal with the fallout from its controversial "Operation Fast and Furious," an investigation into...

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...