Free Republic

McALLEN — Federal agents arrested four people accused of smuggling 131 illegal immigrants found at a stash house near Alton. ICE agents detained the 131 illegal immigrants Tuesday after a raid at a house near Rhode Island and St. Jude streets, outside Alton, said Nina Pruneda, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman. The immigrants found at the house were from Mexico and Central America, and did not require medical attention, Pruneda said. The four people arrested had been expected to appear before a U.S. magistrate judge in McAllen to face human smuggling charges, but no court filings detailing the alleged...

Rachel Nyirahabiyambere with two of her grandchildren in 2008. WASHINGTON, D.C., March 10, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Rwandan immigrant who survived the genocide of 1994 has now had her life cut off by starvation and dehydration, reportedly because a U.S. hospital affiliated with Georgetown University decided that caring for the woman who lost her health insurance was too expensive. The New York Times reports that Rachel Nyirahabiyambere, a 58-year-old grandmother and refugee from war-torn Rwanda, has been denied food and water since Feb. 19 after her feeding tube was removed. “It’s all about money,” son Jerome Ndayishimiye, 33, told the...

For the second time to three days, the Washington Post has an op-ed calling on us to help Haiti by reducing the number of Haitians living there. Elliott Abrams' piece, which I critiqued here on Friday, was wrongheaded in calling for substantial increases in Haitian immigration but at least it didn't reject American sovereignty. On the other hand, this most recent piece, by tranzi economist Michael Clemens at the Center for Global Development, is remarkable as an example of forthright post-Americanism. For instance: "We do know, however, why many individual Haitians are poor. For a large number, there is a...

NEAR ALTON — Gunshots broke out late Friday afternoon before a gang of men kidnapped two others near a rural workshop beside an orchard. Sheriff’s deputies said several men kidnapped Armado Cantu and Eliberto Mireles were working at the tool shop at 10612 N. Moorefield Road about 5:30 p.m. Friday. Dispatchers received a call about a shooting, but after deputies arrived it was clear two men had also been kidnapped, Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said. Witnesses told deputies Cantu and Mireles were working outside the tool shop when several men pulled up in a white Ford Explorer and a...