Free Republic

A Catholic diocese in New Mexico is challenging an effort by the Trump administration to seize part of its southern border property through eminent domain for the construction of a border security wall. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces filed a complaint against the federal government over plans to acquire roughly 14 acres of diocesan land for border security purposes. Filed last week, the lawsuit argues that the proposed land seizure would interfere with access to Mount Cristo Rey, a popular pilgrimage site featuring a 29-foot-tall statue of Jesus Christ overlooking the border region. Located near the borders of...

In [2021-2023], thousands of children crossed the border alone and ended up working in some of the most dangerous jobs in the country. Migrant children as young as 13 suffered chemical burns on overnight factory shifts, had their limbs mangled by conveyor belts or fell to their deaths from roofs......[HHS Secretary] Xavier Becerra [who was in charge of finding homes for the kids] began urging staff members to move them more quickly through shelters... Employees told me they loosened protections that had been in place for years, including in screening sponsors... Most of [the kids Becerra placed with sponsors] were...

California Democratic gubernatorial front-runner Xavier Becerra went viral yesterday for saying to a local Los Angeles television (KTLA) reporter, after she asked a hard question, “By the way, this is a profile piece, this is not a gotcha piece, right?” Reporter Annie Rose Ramos responded, appropriately, “These questions are fair. It’s in order to learn about you as a candidate.” Progressives responded by criticizing Becerra’s messaging. A progressive Pod Save America co-host and former Obama spokesman, posted on X, “Politicians and candidates…let your staff have these whiny conversations! Or at least don’t do it on camera!” Former Obama strategist David...

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s White House counterterrorism director Sebastian Gorka told The Post that he believes China intentionally flooded the United States with fentanyl in a present-day “Opium War” designed to weaken America through the “targeted killing” of its citizens. Gorka unloaded the blistering assessment Monday in a “Pod Force One” interview with The Post’s Miranda Devine — before Trump departed Tuesday afternoon for a state visit to Beijing that is expected to focus on trade relations. “They see our city on a hill as the newest version of the British Empire, and it is now payback time for the...

Earlier this spring, a mysterious explosion blew up a car carrying an alleged cartel operative in broad daylight on one of Mexico’s busiest highways just outside of its capital city. Francisco Beltran was killed instantly along with his driver, their bodies found slumped over in their seats after the concentrated blast. Video and pictures of the attack on March 28 show a quick burst of flames with the car continuing to roll forward, drifting off the highway. Known as “El Payin,” Beltran was accused of being a mid-level member of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficking...

Hong Kong has become a critical financial and logistical lifeline for Iran’s regime — helping move illicit oil, weapons technology and surveillance tools that fuel Tehran’s military machine and domestic repression, according to a bombshell report set for release Monday. The 26-page report by the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, titled “Oil, Arms, and Cash: How Hong Kong Fuels the Iranian Regime,” alleges that dozens of Hong Kong-based companies have helped Iran evade Western sanctions while funneling billions of dollars into the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its terror proxies. “Simply put, without Hong Kong’s...

A top Padres prospect has self-deported to Mexico after pleading guilty to transporting undocumented immigrants within the United States. Humberto Cruz, a pitcher ranked as the Padres’ fifth-best prospect by MLB Pipeline, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge related to receiving money for the transport, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, and acknowledged it was a “virtual certainty” he’d be deported. The Athletic confirmed that Cruz, 19, had decided to self-deport and was back in Mexico. The Padres’ understanding is that Cruz would lose his work visa for 10 years, but could reapply after five years of good behavior, the...

CalGuard is working with federal, state, and local agencies to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the state, and break up drug-trafficking networks as part of Newsom’s border security and public-safety plan. March...the task force seized 633 pounds of fentanyl and 268,679 fentanyl pills worth more than $5 million. During a recent narcotics task force operation in San Bernardino County, officials seized 188 pounds of fentanyl, 16.8 pounds of heroin and 4.4 lbs of cocaine, worth an estimated $1.5 million. The bust helped to “significantly disrupt” a major drug-trafficking network operating in Southern California, according to California Military Department...

A Chinese researcher was sentenced to more than four months in prison after pleading guilty to smuggling Escherichia coli (E. coli) into the United States, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday. Youhuang Xiang, 32, a former Indiana University postdoctoral researcher and Chinese national, admitted to concealing E. coli DNA in a shipment from China that was falsely labeled as women’s underwear, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana. Prosecutors said the FBI also uncovered evidence that Xiang was a member of the Chinese Communist Party and had lied about that affiliation to immigration authorities. Authorities said the...

Russia has offered to help China with any potential energy shortfall, as the war in the Middle East heightens geopolitical divisions and threatens global commodity supplies. “Russia can certainly fill the resource gap that has arisen in China and other countries interested in working with us on an equal and mutually beneficial basis,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday, according to comments reported by Russian news agency Interfax. Russia’s top diplomat also commented on China and Russia’s ability to withstand the economic impact of “aggressive” U.S military operations against Iran, which have sent global oil and gas prices soaring.

Maritime intelligence experts say that more ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz seem to be adopting tactics to avoid detection since the U.S. blockade on vessels coming in and out of Iranian ports went into effect on Monday. “Now, we are starting to see vessels going dark or using ‘zombie’ or random identification,” Ami Daniel, the chief executive of Windward, a maritime intelligence data provider, said in an interview on Tuesday. In the weeks after the American-Israeli attack on Iran in late February, Iranian exports went “uninterrupted” and had “almost no need to go off radar,” Mr. Daniel...

An Iranian tanker from the country's shadow fleet caught fire after being struck by its own naval forces in the Strait of Hormuz. Omani authorities reported that 20 crew members, including 15 Indians, were rescued as the vessel continued to sink. The tanker, part of a network used to bypass international sanctions, was reportedly targeted for "illegally passing" through the strategic waterway. After being hit, fires erupted on board, forcing a rapid evacuation by nearby rescue teams. Shadow fleet strike sparks chaos The vessel, managed by Red Sea Ship Management LLC, had been sanctioned by the US Treasury in December...

It was Christmas 2011, a year after Roman Abramovich had taken delivery of his new superyacht, Eclipse. But it seemed the oligarch would not be using it over the festive period - records show it had been chartered by a company based in the British Virgin Islands. And yet photographs from Christmas Day that year show Mr Abramovich in the Caribbean sunshine, standing on the swim platform at the rear of the yacht, with Eclipse's large letter-E logo behind him. Charter records such as this were part of a decade-long scheme to mislead tax authorities, now uncovered in an investigation...

The U.S. military said it carried out a strike Wednesday on a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea, killing four people, as the Trump administration pushes forward with a monthslong campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America while waging a war against Iran. The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 163 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September. As with most of the military’s statements on the dozens of strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and...

A California-born American citizen is reportedly rising to lead Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel, and his U.S. citizenship could shield him from the intelligence tools that helped take down his predecessor. Juan Carlos Valencia González, 41, began consolidating control of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel shortly after Mexican special forces killed his stepfather, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, in early March, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Two senior commanders reportedly stood aside rather than contest his takeover, keeping the organization intact, WSJ reported. Valencia González was born in Santa Ana, California. His biological father, Armando Valencia Cornelio, founded the...

ransomnote: According to Fox News, Campo was indicted, arrested, plead not guilty and is in custody.RealRobert@Real_RobNHere it is:The Kenyan administration’s ties to the Mexican cartel.Paul Campo, an Obama-era DEA official, laundered approximately $12,000,000 and participated in narcotics trafficking, aiding and abetting one of the most notorious Mexican cartels, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (also known as Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG), responsible for countless deaths through violence and drug trafficking in the United States and Mexico.Campo served during the Kenyan administration as Obama’s Deputy Chief of the DEA’s Office of Financial Operations.

A former longtime Drug Enforcement Administration agent who rose to help oversee the agency’s financial operations has been charged with agreeing to launder millions of dollars in narcotics proceeds for a Mexican drug cartel, according to an indictment unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City. The former agent, Paul Campo, worked for the DEA for about 25 years, the indictment said, first as a special agent in New York and eventually rising to become a high-level official — the deputy chief of the Office of Financial Operations. He retired in January 2016 and...

As other Asian economies race to conserve energy, China has huge reserves of oil and gas as well as alternative energy sources like wind and solar China, the world’s second-largest economy, appears to be in a very different position to much of the continent. Its energy system has “significant buffers”, Michal Meidan, the head of China energy research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, an independent research institute, explained in a recent paper – from huge reserves of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) to a robust domestic supply, including alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar. Iran...

The illicit trade has long thrived in the region but is feeling the knock-on effects of the war which has engulfed the Middle East following US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Supplies coming across the 900-kilometre (560-mile) border between Pakistan and Iran have dropped by nearly half and driven up prices. "Before the war, the rate was good," Hakeem Ullah, a 35-year-old driver, told AFP. "We used to get petrol for 150 rupees ($0.54). But now, after the war, we are getting petrol for 190 rupees per litre." Ullah is one of dozens of young men in the border towns of Balochistan...

A Chinese national has been arrested in Kenya's main airport accused of attempting to smuggle more than 2,000 queen garden ants out of the country. Zhang Kequn was intercepted during a security check at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in the capital Nairobi after authorities discovered a large consignment of live ants in his luggage bound for China. He has yet to respond to the accusation but investigators said in court that he was linked to an ant-trafficking network that was broken up in Kenya last year. The ants are protected by international bio-diversity treaties and their trade is highly...