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The McCain-Palin website now has a page soliciting "thoughts" on his "Homeowner Resurgence Plan." Here is the link: http://www.johnmccain.com/involving/petition3.aspx?guid=84a6fec2-583a-47c8-b332-4d2a9c4bd407

PORTERVILLE, Calif. — National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said. The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains, as well as on federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

More than a few pundits and commentators have called the Oct. 7 debate between Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama a snoozer because the two candidates didn't go at each other. Whether you concur or not with their assessment, one thing is certain, the candidates are not being grilled on the issue of illegal immigration and its inextricable link to our economic well-being and our national security. Exhibit A is a violent snapshot from Mr. McCain's home county, Maricopa County, Ariz. It unveils, in brutally honest facts and candid law-enforcement comments, what happens when sanctuary and amnesty policies tied...

The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development says there is no basis to news reports that more than 5 million bad mortgages are held by illegal immigrants. A HUD spokesman said Thursday his agency has no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages. But news reports, including one aired on KFYI-AM 550 in Phoenix, cite HUD as a source for the illegal immigrant mortgage number. The widely read “Drudge Report” posted a link to the KFYI report, but as of Thursday afternoon the link no longer connected to the story. Anti-immigration groups point to...

Figures released today by the Texas Border Coalition, a group of south Texas officials who oppose the proposed construction of that border fence, indicate that the number of people crossing into Texas illegally has fallen by more than fifty percent in the past four years, 1200 WOAI news reports. The largest drop in illegal border crossings has been in the El Paso and Marfa Border Patrol sectors, where the number of people arrested for illegal entry has fallen by more than 70% since 2005.... Texas officials credit expanded Border Patrol surveillance, backed up by the Texas National Guard and Operation...

SAN DIEGO -- A Border Patrol agent was injured Tuesday after he was struck by a car driven by a suspected smuggler, 10News reported. The incident occurred before 5 p.m. at a vehicle checkpoint on westbound Interstate 8 at Buckman Springs Road.

“Sanctuary Cities” are replicating disease like throughout the country. These make-shift communities serve as safe havens for illegal immigrants, with sometimes tragic results. Just ask Jamiel Shaw, a 17-year-old Los Angeles resident, who was recklessly gunned down by a 19-year-old "Sanctuary City" resident named Pedro Espinoza. Espinoza, an illegal immigrant and member of the 18th Street gang, murdered Shaw without reason. Even worse, Espinoza was allowed to seek cover for his murder by hiding out in "Sanctuary Cities." Espinoza’s motive for killing Shaw was imprinted on the two-letter tattoo that stretched across his neck: "BK." The letters are an acronym...

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Federal agents raided a chicken processing plant in Greenville on Tuesday during what they called an illegal-immigration investigation.

<p>I just wanted to let you know so that we can get the word out that Nacho will be resentenced at 9am on November 13th in El Paso.</p> <p>This could be the only opportunity for everyone to see him before they take him back and lock him up again. I'm still trying to gather more information on the resentence. It has to do with our first appeal - they dropped one of the charges and ruled that he had to be resentenced.</p>

Overall, 16.5% of violent crimes in Maricopa County can be linked to illegal immigrants. The average cost for each offense? A whopping $20,000, which includes prosecution, incarceration, and other costs. This study breaks down felonies committed into categories, revealing that contrary to media myths, illegal immigrants commit more crimes in categories completely separate from the crime of illegally crossing the border.  The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has released a groundbreaking study with the help of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office breaking down the numbers of felonies illegal immigrants in Maricopa County commit. Contrary to media myths, illegal immigrants commit more felonies...

Now that we officially have $700 billion of bad debt thanks to sundry advantages of deregulation, the state governments are looking for their due recognition among mismanaged giants. The Golden State, currently under the enlightened leadership of the Governator, is asking the federal government for $7 billion. The Los Angeles Times has obtained a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warning that the state may need emergency funds in that amount within the next few weeks. Locked out of the bond market, the state doesn’t have the money necessary to fund schools. The $3 billion due...

Unease about potential for spillover rises in U.S. After a particularly violent week in Tijuana that has left 54 dead in a fierce cartel power struggle, experts on both sides of the border fear the worst is yet to come. Law enforcement officers inspected several bodies found on a Tijuana street Friday. The string of violence continued yesterday, with 10 more bodies found around the city. Since early last year, Mexican President Felipe Calderón has deployed thousands of soldiers and federal police to drug-route battlegrounds such as Baja California, Chihuahua and Michoacan. Experts say it's clear that the recent bloodbath...

"Are they blind?" said one fundraiser attendee, Jane Tourino, as protesters yelled toward her. "They're robots. I feel they are so uninformed. Palin is the right choice. But I suppose it's American, how they are just expressing themselves."

With a month to go until Election Day, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told an enthusiastic crowd Saturday afternoon that it was time to "put on the heels and take off the gloves." And while she credited the line to a campaign worker, it and the rest of her 24-minute speech at the Home Depot Center rally was delivered with her trademark panache. The Republican hit the familiar topics of the economy, energy and defense, but offered a few surprises as well.

Some 40 people have been killed in drug-related violence in the past week in Tijuana, bringing the total so far this year to more than 400. On Monday, 12 bodies were found outside an elementary school and an additional four victims were discovered in another section of the city. Nine more bodies were discovered near a day care on Thursday and two other bodies were found elsewhere.

Deal helps avoid criminal charges in probe involving illegal immigrants A national waste disposal company has avoided federal criminal charges in Houston after agreeing to pay $3 million in fines and cooperate with an investigation of illegal immigrants hired by a local subsidiary. Republic Services Inc., with 13,000 employees and operations in 21 states, agreed Wednesday to pay the U.S. government $1 million and another $2 million to the city of Houston. The agreement involves criminal wrongdoing at the firm's Houston subsidiary, Republic Waste Services of Texas, located at 2010 Wilson Road. Republic Waste had a contract with Houston from...

Arizona taxpayers shell out $114 million annually to cover the cost of incarcerating them. Click here to read the study A new study from the Maricopa County Attorney is showing that illegal immigrants are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. Data used in the report wasn't gathered until the passage of Prop 100 two years-ago. The voter-approved law denies bail to those in the country illegally accused of a class 4 felony or above. The study concluded that nine percent of Arizona's population is in the country illegally, yet nearly 22 percent of felonies sentenced in Maricopa County are...

New Media on Immigration by: Jesse Masai, October 02, 2008 The U.S. media have hindered effective policy-making on immigration for decades, and their impact has been increasing in recent years as a result of an ongoing evolution in the media industry. That was the consensus emerging out of a panel organized by the Brookings Institution to assess democracy in the age of new media on September 25 at the Ronald Reagan Building. The Institution released a report examining the new media’s role in the U.S. Immigration debate, and exploring how the media conditioned public opinion and the policy landscape. “Changes...

WASHINGTON -- Illegal immigration has slowed in the past three years and legal permanent residents in the United States now outnumber undocumented residents, according to a report released today by a Washington think tank. There were approximately 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States as of March, down from 12.4 million in March 2007, says the report by the Pew Hispanic Center. The number of people coming into the country illegally has decreased from 800,000 a year from 2000 through 2004 to about 500,000 a year from 2005 through 2008. The study cautions that the changes may not...

WASHINGTON — The federal government's top immigration enforcement officer on Wednesday released a report that showed Houston has fallen short in a nationwide crackdown on violent, predominantly Latino street gangs that draw strength from undocumented immigrants. Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city, accounted for just 71 of the 1,759 arrests in the roundup in 53 cities over the past four months, according to the report provided by Julie L. Myers, the assistant secretary of homeland security in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE.

With help from a bribed official in Mexico's Belize consulate office, two men from Ghana ran a transcontinental smuggling operation that ferried dozens of unauthorized immigrants into Texas from countries the State Department regards as terrorist havens, federal court records and interviews show. link to article

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama suggested this weekend that the children of illegal immigrants should have an opportunity to attend public community colleges -- thereby interjecting himself into a contentious North Carolina issue. Obama said children who attended public schools should have the chance to continue to improve themselves rather than being consigned to the fringes of society. "For us to deny them access to community college, even though they've never lived in Mexico, at least as far as they can tell ... is to deny that this is how we've always built this country up," Obama said in an...

With the ongoing construction work at the border, the illegal crossers are attempting to cross at new locations and in more creative ways. G Man reports that his total reported and subsequently apprehended by the Border Patrol is now at 644 since January 1, 2008. Things are not slowing down and in his section he is having at least 2 groups a night trying to get through.

Selling illegal immigrants the American dream Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, June 15, 2006 Ramiro and Marisol looked on proudly as their 3-year-old son, Alexis, took out his toolbox and pretended to fix a closet in their new San Jose home. He was imitating the flurry of work his parents had put into the one-bedroom condominium over the past two weekends, installing new linoleum and carpets from Home Depot, painting and repairing.

Local and national business groups are funding a media campaign launched Wednesday in Arizona to convince voters the United States has done enough to secure the border and now needs to legalize the 12 million or more undocumented immigrants and consider allowing more foreigners into this country. The group, Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together, is going to spend “several hundred thousand dollars” on TV advertising in four states. Jim Pignatelli, president and chief executive officer of UniSource Energy Corp., the parent of Tucson Electric Power, said the time has come to move the debate along and find ways to help...

California’s Illegal Nanny-State by: Bethany Stotts, September 25, 2008 The debate over illegal immigration—a culture war fought on the dual fronts of terminology and selective media coverage—reached another milestone this September, when the California state appeals court decided that a class-action lawsuit represented by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) was improperly dismissed by the Yolo County superior court. The out-of-state plaintiffs filed suit in 2006 after California passed a law providing in-state tuition for exemption holders, including foreign nationals and illegal immigrants. The complaint (pdf), issued by IRLI, argues that the California statute violates federal law and the U.S....

My syndicated column today tackles the bailout angle no one wants to talk about: Open borders and the home loan debacle. You’ve heard a lot about Fannie/Freddie and the minority lending shakedowns, but you haven’t heard most commentators/analysts on either the left or the right talk about the massive illegal alien mortgage racket — a topic I’ve reported on for the past five years. That’s because fault lies at the feet of the crime-enabling banking industry and the ethnic lobbyists and the illegal alien-enabling Bush administration. They screwed us. Now, they want us to fork over a trillion dollars. Screw...

New barrier to limit families' socializing: It was like any seaside picnic, with family members sitting on folding chairs, colorful umbrellas and a cooler full of sodas. The only unusual thing was the steel mesh fence running through the middle of it. On a recent Sunday, the Sotomayor family rose early, packed a lunch and drove south to Border Field State Park, where the fence that separates the United States from Mexico meets the ocean.As many Mexican-American families have done for years, they were there to spend the day with relatives unable to legally cross north to hug them and...

Report from Gman: We have been busy around here my year to date is now 671. The Border Patrol are responding quick to my calls and apprehending approximately 80% of the groups that are trying to get through. The hard work is paying off and it feels good. If you could just see what I have been able to see it would send chills down your spine. These groups sneaking into our country in the middle of the night; they know it is illegal, you can tell by the way they move through the trails all crouched down and sneaky....

The Mother of All Bailouts has many fathers. As panicked politicians prepare to fork over $1 trillion in taxpayer funding to rescue the financial industry, they've fingered regulation, deregulation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, both Bushes, greedy banks, greedy borrowers, greedy short-sellers and minority home ownership mau-mauers (can't call 'em greedy, that would be racist) for blame. But there's one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: how illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis. It's no coincidence that most of the areas hardest...

September 23, 2008 Exclusive: How Many Subprime Mortgages Were Awarded to Illegal Aliens? This short news report [see my comment below] might have been a bit longer if it had been written a couple of weeks later than it was. This story is dated September 5th and deals with one of the key issues about immigration that virtually no one is willing to talk about - especially politicians and others who subscribe to the open borders philosophy and to the idea of providing the millions of illegal aliens who are in our country with a Guest Worker Amnesty Program and...

Time to PIN THE TAIL ON THE DONKEYS!!! McCain has opened up a winning issue, and he and Sarah need to beat Obama on the head. Here are a few suggestions on challenges/questions for Obama: When will you stop embracing the failed economic policies of Freddie and Fannie and throw Raines and Johnson under the bus? When will you return the contributions from Freddie and Fannie to the American Tazpayer? When will you show presidential leadership and demand that all others in your party return the contributions they received? When will you stop blaming Bush for failed economkc policy when...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The men gather early on street corners here in storm-battered Houston, ready for the jobs they know will come their way, sweeping up broken glass and clearing downed trees and debris from city streets. They speak mostly Spanish, while looking warily at strangers. And these undocumented, also called illegal, immigrants worry that instead of a job and a day's wages, they might instead find themselves arrested and deported. Indeed, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, which left a trail of destruction across southeast Texas, America's ongoing debate over U.S. immigration policy is again aflame. On the one...

<p>Nearly 150 illegal immigrants in the Chicago area have been arrested during a four-day sweep that ended earlier this week, officials announced Wednesday, the same day that Immigration advocates held a Citizenship Day protest against federal policies.</p> <p>The arrests occurred in northern Indiana, Chicago and 26 other Illinois communities, with agents targeting immigrants who have failed to leave the country after being ordered by a judge to do so, said Gail Montenegro, Chicago spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.</p>

PHOENIX (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld an Arizona law that penalizes businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants and requires them to verify the employment status of their workers. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision rejected a challenge by business and Hispanic groups who contend that the law infringes on federal immigration powers. The law, intended to lessen the economic incentive for immigrants to sneak into the country, imposes civil penalties on employers by suspending or revoking their business licenses when they are found to have knowingly hired illegal immigrants.

Francis Hernandez, a Guatamalan native who had been arrested almost 20 times in the last five years, faces multiple felony charges in connection with the crash. Bill Serecky, husband of victim Debbie Serecky, Guntharp's passenger in the truck, said he was outraged at the lawyer's claim. "Regardless of how fast he was going, it was going to be somebody else's fault," Serecky said. "He was speeding, weaving in and out of traffic and ran through a red light." The 23-year-old is accused of causing the incident, abandoning the Suburban SUV he was driving and then fleeing the scene on foot....

 M. Simon traces the funds Fannie Mae pumped into vote fraud  specialists ACORN, and explains how that organization pressed for the grant of mortgages to unqualified buyers, leading to the subprime mortgage  mess and Fannie Mae collapse. He also links the organization to Chicago politician and "post-partisan" nominee for President, Barack Obama: ACORN is a former legal client of Senator Obama's, as the Sun-Times reported in 2006: In 1995, former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar refused to implement the federal "Motor Voter" law, which Republicans argued could invite fraud and which some Republicans feared could swell the ranks of Democratic voters....

MISSION - Hidalgo County Republican Party Chairman Hollis Rutledge says he is confident that John McCain and John Cornyn will patch up any differences they still have over immigration policy, should McCain be elected president. In May 2007, the two U.S. senators famously got into a shouting match over the finer points of a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill. The Washington Post reported at the time that McCain swore at Cornyn, accusing the Texas Republican of trying to “blow up” a pact between Republicans and Democrats. Cornyn countered that the Arizona Republican was trying to “parachute” in on delicate Senate...

Latino advocates and a civil liberties group have filed a federal lawsuit against a Dallas suburb whose officials are trying to drive out illegal immigrants. The groups say the plan by the city of Farmers Branch to ask house and apartment renters to obtain a license is unconstitutional. Rental applicants would be run through a federal database to check their immigration status. The lawsuit filed Friday by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants' Rights Project is the latest facing Farmers Branch. The suburb faces several other lawsuits in a nearly two-year...

The suspects are identified as Arthur Galindo, 29, and Romulo Cardona, 23, said Sgt. Andy Hill, a Phoenix police spokesman. Police believe the pair were recently released from the Department of Corrections for prior armed robbery convictions, Hill said. Police have also connected Cardona to an armed home invasion robbery and a Sept. 8 carjacking, both in Phoenix, Hill said.

<p>TIJUANA, Mexico -- There is a moment each evening, as the sun melts into the Pacific, when Colonia Libertad is at peace....but it is only a moment. The floodlights click on, bathing the neighborhood in a blinding light. The helicopters return, clattering past. And the smugglers arrive with their ladders and blow torches and groups of people desperate to escape a fate similar to the one residents of Colonia Libertad long ago accepted.</p>

An Atlanta resident who dubbed himself “The Godfather,” faces up to 12 years in prison for running a ring that provided government-issued ID cards and identification documents to illegal aliens. Francisco Santillan Arellano, 36, pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of conspiracy to make and sell fraudulent Social Security cards, permanent resident cards (green cards) and driver’s licenses, and to identification document fraud and aggravated identity theft. Arellano, also known as “El Padrino” (The Godfather), was the head of a fraudulent document manufacturing and sales ring that distributed its products to illegal aliens. He admitted to law enforcement authorities he...

A federal judge this week dismissed a lawsuit challenging a state law that allows cities to impound cars for up to 30 days when people are caught driving without a license. U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero said in his ruling Monday that taking a vehicle temporarily is within the spirit of the law and is necessary to protect the health and safety of "Californians from the harm of unlicensed drivers." "The concern for the public interest here requires prompt action," Otero wrote. Immigrant rights activists have criticized strict enforcement of the law because they say it unfairly targets...

Aurora police said Thursday that for the second time in a week they have arrested an illegal immigrant after a highly dangerous crash on the city's streets. Officers arrested Hipolito Vasquez Rojas, 19, after he and a 16-year-old male accomplice allegedly stole a car, crashed into a police car, plowed into a tree and then led officers on a foot chase Wednesday night. Rojas, who police say is a gang member, was deported in April following his release from the Adams County Jail after serving time for auto theft. It is not known how he turned up five months later...

Fifty-one people were either arrested or detained today during an illegal immigration raid at a Palm Springs bakery, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. However, 24 were released because they are the primary caregivers of children or elderly adults. More than 60 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducted the raid at Palm Springs Baking Co., 1196 Montalvo Way, near the Palm Springs International Airport.

Washington, DC—Today the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), America’s Voice, Center for New Community, and the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) launched a print ad denouncing known hate group, FAIR (the Federation for American Immigration Reform), for poisoning the immigration debate with bigoted, xenophobic hate speech. In support of the ad, SEIU Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina issued the following statement: “It’s time that everyone learns who FAIR’s founders, leaders and followers truly are. They are not reformers, but a group of extremists whose leaders are fostering a bigoted, anti-immigrant, anti-American agenda that we must stop.” “We will not allow...

Gadget recently noticed some new brush growing at the border fence. Closer investigation, however revealed it had been placed there to disguise a recently dug hole under fence. Dan moved the brush away and filled in the hole.

In advance of the 2009 citywide elections, a coalition of immigrant and advocacy organizations is reigniting a fight to give noncitizens the right to vote in municipal elections, drawing the ire of opponents who argue that voting is a right for American citizens only. Click Image to Enlarge Michael Nagle/Getty Protesters gather In May 2007 at Union Square for a May Day immigration-related protest. At a rally outside City Hall yesterday organized by the New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights, supporters of a City Council bill that would extend voting rights to 1.3 million noncitizen New Yorkers said it's...

A candle company in south Chandler was raided Wednesday by Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies acting on a tip that illegal immigrants were working there using stolen Social Security numbers. One of the victims of the identity theft is a member of President Bush’s White House staff, according to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. While the man was not identified, the sheriff said a woman was working at the Gold Canyon Candle Co., 6205 S. Arizona Avenue, using his Social Security number. The investigation began with a tip last July to the sheriff’s office that illegal immigrants were working at the candle factory,...

The Bush administration needs an extra $400 million to complete its fence along the country's Southwestern border, and government investigators say that may not be enough to finish construction by the end of this year. To complete the 670-mile fence -- already half-built -- the administration has asked Congress to approve the use of $400 million set aside for other programs, said Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Higher costs of fuel, steel and labor have led to the shortfall, he said. Ahern is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill today....the Government Accountability Office will tell...