Free Republic

PROVIDENCE -- About 30 opponents of legislation that would link getting a driver's license to a motorist's immigration status, marched into Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee's downtown office yesterday, exercising one example of democracy while learning about another: The game of politics, Washington style. The office visitors, members of the American Friends Service Committee and a group called ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), had hoped to meet with Chafee and persuade him to vote against the legislation. The senator, however, wasn't in the office; he was in Washington, D.C. So his office staff politely connected them via...

Posted: May 11, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Out here in Southern California, a local Spanish-language TV station caused a stink recently by putting up several billboards reaching out to potential viewers in Los Angeles, Mexico. Predictably, as soon as outraged gringos complained, they were accused of being racists. How is it, I keep asking myself, that it's only the biggest racists in America who are given carte blanche to condemn others for being what they are themselves? Who but a racist would conclude that America's sovereignty is merely a minor inconvenience they are free to ignore for...

Minuteman Project organizer Chris Simcox is expected to testify before Congress next week, but he's not good enough to attend a Homeland Security Department press conference in Arizona. On Thursday, Mr. Simcox, who also edits and writes for the Tombstone Tumbleweed, tried to gain entry to the press conference, where Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was speaking, as a member of the press. As Jerry Seper of The Washington Times reported on Monday, Mr. Simcox was turned away for "security reasons," according to a spokesman for the Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol, which was acting as security detail for...

SALEM -- The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the nation's renewed interest in border security have caused the debate over immigration to spill out of Congress and into Oregon's Capitol. Although immigration policy is largely a federal responsibility, the Legislature is considering several bills intended to crack down on people who are in the country illegally. They include making it tougher for immigrants -- some say even legal ones -- to get a driver's license, register to vote or secure a pay raise. Oregon lawmakers are "much more open" to talking about immigration issues than they used to be, says...

PHOENIX, Ariz. Federal authorities say members of a violent Mexican gang are using the Arizona border as a corridor to the country. In the past year, Border Patrol agents have arrested about ten members of Mara Salvatrucha -- a notorious international street gang in Mexico. Yet according to federal and local law enforcement officials, the gang members don't appear to stay in the state. The gang is commonly known as M-S-13 and has been linked to murders from Honduras to Los Angeles to Virginia. Original Mara Salvatrucha members were guerrilla fighters who fled the Salvadoran civil war in the 1980s....

So what is a “totalization” agreement? These are bilateral agreements between the U.S. Social Security Administration and its counterpart in foreign countries to coordinate their Social Security programs. Presently the U.S. has 20 such agreements, mostly with European nations. This overall program has been in place since the Carter Administration. However, this is the first totalization agreement between the United States and a nation responsible for nearly 70 percent of the illegal immigration into the United States.

Stricter immigration laws now on the books in Arizona that require elections officials to check for proof of citizenship have uncovered thousands of new registrants who don't qualify to vote. According to the Arizona Daily Star, state election officials credit the citizenship requirement contained in Proposition 200, the illegal-immigration initiative passed last November, for screening out the illegal voters. In Arizona's Prima County alone, elections officials have rejected 59 percent of all applicants in the last two weeks - or 423 of the 712 new registrants. "We rejected none during the same period last year," when six times as many...

Rockville (AP) - Hundreds of Latino immigrants - many of them illegal - gathered this afternoon in Rockville to protest proposed federal restrictions that would deny driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The federal Real I-D Act is part of the bill covering the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been passed by the U.S. House and endorsed by the White House. Opponents say the bill will likely pass in the Senate - maybe as early as next week. Maryland is one of ten states that don't require applicants to prove they are citizens or legal residents....

DANBURY, Conn. - Mayor Mark Boughton blames the government for his town's inability to cope with 15,000 illegal immigrants, approximately 19 percent of the overall population. "This is one community that has been incredibly stressed by failed federal policy and we need help," said Boughton. Because the illegal residents aren't counted in the U.S. census, Danbury doesn't receive any federal aid for them. "In terms of our social services, this presents a tremendous strain, particularly on quality of life of our neighborhoods, our schools our health care system," Boughton said. Residents complain the influx is killing property values. Homeowner Peter...

Chris Simcox just announced on Hannity & Colmes that the Minuteman Project will be coming to San Diego in June. Nothing follows.

LIKE MANY other southern Arizonans, I am deeply grateful to the few dozen vigilantes calling themselves Minutemen who set up camp along the Arizona-Mexico border last month. That few people around here were much impressed with a bunch of retirees in camouflage playing soldier, and that there turned out to be almost as many reporters as patriots on the ground, was irrelevant: We were just thrilled by the publicity. We’ve been trying to get the rest of the country to notice what’s going on down here for years. U.S. immigration policy has turned the Arizona desert between Tucson and the...

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey waged an assault yesterday against in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants as the students waited to urge lawmakers to approve the controversial bill. ``Breaking the law should not entitle you to public benefits,'' Healey told the Committee on Ways and Means. ``America is a nation of immigrants, but America is also a nation of laws.'' The bill, which has failed to pass before, would provide illegal immigrant students who have been in Massachusetts at least three years and graduated from a state high school the opportunity to attend state colleges and universities at the same cost...

Congress set to impose ID card rules States would need to verify papers By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | May 5, 2005 WASHINGTON -- Congressional negotiators have agreed on a sweeping new system that would nationalize standards for driver's licenses and state identification cards, requiring states to verify the authenticity of every document that people use to prove their identity and show their legal residency. If the House and Senate both pass the bill next week as expected, by May 2008 every state will be required to contact the issuers of birth certificates, mortgage statements, utility bills, Social Security cards,...

Police are still trying to identify a man they say shot at two officers, who shot back and killed him. Officers Josh Otzenberger, 25, and John Garcia, 35, were taken to the University of New Mexico Hospital after the shootout. According to Police Chief Gil Gallegos, Garcia pulled over the unidentified man on suspicion of drunk driving about 12:40 Friday morning. Garcia then called for assistance from a DWI officer, so Otzenberger was dispatched. The man then ran away through the Doubletree Hotel parking lot, Gallegos said. The officers followed, so the man turned around and fired several rounds from...

The local news said some of these guys were on INS holds. Four arrested in poaching investigation Dana L. Bowley El Defensor Chieftain Editor, news@dchieftain.com Four men were arrested and dozens of pieces of evidence confiscated when state game officers raided suspected poaching and illegal woodcutting camps straddling the Socorro-Torrance county line. Monday's raid, which took place more than eight miles off the nearest paved road, 12 to 15 miles southeast of Mountainair, was the first operation of a statewide Department of Game and Fish "strike force" that was organized this month to combat poaching. "The strike force struck," said...

Ex-Sandoval clerk writing book on same-sex marriage ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Former Sandoval County Clerk Victoria Dunlap, who fueled the nation's marriage debate by issuing licenses to same-sex couples, is writing a book about her experiences. The Republican clerk issued more than 60 same-sex marriage licenses on Feb. 20, 2004, before Attorney General Patricia Madrid filed a lawsuit that stopped her. The lawsuit was dismissed in January. Dunlap, who lost the June primary for Sandoval County commissioner, has moved to Ohio where she is researching about 20 boxes of notes about her experiences in a basement office. Her term as clerk...

'Raunchy' bumper sticker may be free speech issue Associated Press CLOVIS, N.M. (AP) - A Clovis man has been charged with distribution of sexually oriented materials to minors because of the stickers displayed on his car. The stickers portray cartoon images of bare-breasted female devils in sexually compromising positions. Dean Young, 31, owns the car and faces the misdemeanor charge. Young has contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, which is considering representing him, said Peter Simonson, executive director of the ACLU of New Mexico. Simonson hasn't seen the stickers, but says he doubts they would violate the law. "I've never...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Heather Wilson is scheduled to arrive at Fort Bliss, Texas, today on her first, and quite possibly last, junket as a member of the House Armed Services Committee. The Albuquerque Republican said House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, has refused to sign a waiver of House rules to let her stay on a second major committee. That comes after the Republican Steering Committee on Thursday rejected Barton's request to oust Wilson from his committee.

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Frigid temperatures, blasting wind and more snow than some places normally see in a year left parts of the Midwest and South paralyzed Thursday, and transformed a section of highway in southern Indiana into a parking lot. The winter storm dumped double-digits of snow from Ohio to Wyoming, the Texas Panhandle to the Great Lakes, disrupting pre-Christmas travel. Motorists in parts of Mississippi and Tennessee were warned Thursday to stay off highways iced up from freezing rain. Hundreds of thousands lost power in Ohio. Southern Indiana barely had time to catch its frosty breath after a snowstorm...

N.M. Church May Use Special Tea for Now Fri Dec 10, 8:09 PM ET By MARY PEREA, Associated Press WriterALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) sided Friday with a New Mexico church that wants to use hallucinogenic tea as part of its Christmas services, despite government objections that the tea is illegal and potentially dangerous. The high court lifted a temporary stay issued last week against using the hoasca tea while it decides whether the Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal is permitted to make it a permanent part of its services. The...