Free Republic

PHOENIX - People who hire "coyotes" to get them into this country can be prosecuted under a state law aimed at the smugglers, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Thursday. In the first decision of its kind in the state, the judges rebuffed even the comments of Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, one of the architects of the 2005 legislation, that it was never designed to go after the immigrants themselves. Judge Lawrence Winthrop, writing for the court, said it is possible that Paton may have intended that the migrants be considered the victims of the crime of human smuggling. "This...

Woman allegedly handed over fake documents to be screened for a job. HAMILTON — An illegal immigrant was arrested this week in the lobby of the Butler County Sheriff's Office when she allegedly passed fake identification while trying to get a background check for a job, according to sheriff's officials. Genesis Mahelet Garcia-Garcia, 25,(photo) of Sixth Avenue in Hamilton was arrested Wednesday, July 16. She is charged with two counts of forgery and one count of identity fraud. She is in the country from Mexico illegally, according to deputies. Garcia-Garcia is being held in the Butler County Jail and faces...

Lost amid news about rising fuel costs, falling stock prices, mortgage foreclosures, and one African-American’s nutty surgical wish are stories of push backs by communities fed up with illegal immigration. Out in Thousand Oaks, Calif., earlier this month, some residence scored a small victory by effectively closing down for a day a city-sponsored day-labor center. Last year Judicial Watch wrote the mayor about the organization’s concerns that the city was violating federal immigration laws by spending more than $133,000 of public funds between 2001 and 2007 to subsidize what amounts to city-sanctioned criminal activity, since mostly illegal aliens hang out...

Despite pleas from the White House and the State Department, as well as an international court order to review their cases, Texas will execute five Mexicans on death row, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday. The first of the executions — that of José Ernesto Medellín, 33, convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of two teenage girls here — is scheduled for Aug. 5. The decision by Gov. Rick Perry to allow the executions is the latest twist in a long-running battle between Mexico, which has no death penalty, and the United States over the fate of 51...

Maria Dolores Tacuri talks with a reporter Wednesday in her temporary home in Brockton as her 5-year-old son, Jonathan, looks on. The Tacuri family is facing deportation to Ecuador and have lost their house and savings. BROCKTON, MA — In December, immigration agents arrested Milford Ecuadorean roofer Daniel Tacuri on charges of hiring and harboring illegal immigrants. From that time until his sentencing in federal court last Friday, the case has had a ripple effect in the Ecuadorean community, immigrant advocates say. Nearly half of its members are gone. Many remain in fear of U.S. immigration authorities and are disheartened...

Washington -- Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on Monday blamed tightened security on the U.S.-Mexico border for increased violence there, and he said the border probably will not be fully secured until 2011, two years after President Bush leaves office. "(Increased violence) is what typically happens when you start to enforce and make it harder to fight over the shrinking pie, so to speak, and who gets the best opportunity to exploit the additional space that's left," Chertoff said at a news conference at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Monday. "That's a good...

Thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote in some states, and tens if not hundreds of thousands may be present on the voter rolls nationwide. These numbers are significant. Local elections are often decided by only a handful of votes, and even national elections have likely been within the margin of the number of non-citizens illegally registered to vote. Yet there is no reliable method to determine the number of non-citizens registered or actually voting. Federal and state officials must increase their efforts to enforce laws against non-citizen voting that are already on the books. Every vote cast by a...

PROVIDENCE — Federal immigration agents and state police raided six Rhode Island courthouses yesterday, arresting dozens of people employed by two contractors hired by the state. The detainees are all believed to be maintenance workers. The raid led to a noisy demonstration by at least 100 people outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office at 200 Dyer St. last night. Police officers arrived as the crowd grew; at one point the police pushed a line of demonstrators across the parking lot. Some in the crowd were relatives of the arrestees. Others included clergy and at least one state representative, Grace...

Father of victim says U.N. body's order 'don't mean diddly' Texas is refusing to bow to yesterday's World Court order to stay the Aug. 5 lethal injection of convicted rapist-killer and illegal alien Jose Medellin. (snip) Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office rejected Mexico's complaint. "The world court has no standing in Texas, and Texas is not bound by a ruling or edict from a foreign court," Perry spokesman Robert Black said. "It is easy to get caught up in discussions of international law and justice and treaties. It's very important to remember that these individuals are on death row for...

Pasadena officers talked to girlfriend after shootings A woman who knew one of the burglars gunned down by Pasadena homeowner Joe Horn told police she had warned her friend that his habit of breaking into homes would cost him his life, according to recently released police records. As part of a 31-page police report, Diamond Morgan, 24, of Houston, told Pasadena police investigators that she knew Diego Ortiz was a criminal. "Morgan stated that she told Ortiz three days ago that he was going to end up dead for the things that he was doing," police detective M.E. Bruegger wrote...

The final vote was 80-16 with Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, both original sponsors of the bill, on the campaign trail and not available to cast a vote However, the $200 billion already spent by U.S. taxpayers on HIV/AIDS here and around the world has not resulted in any cures or a vaccine. On final passage, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky voted with Majority Leader Reid and the Democrats.In addition to spending $50 billion at a time of growing economic difficulties in the U.S., the bill lifts the ban on entry into the U.S. of AIDS-infected aliens,...

Migration: Who Cares? by: Ben Giles, July 17, 2008 Coming to the conclusion that migration should not be thought of as a distinctly national issue, authors Marie Price and Lisa Benton-Short presented data on their research of metropolitan cities experiencing and influx of foreign-born immigrants. Their new book, Migration to the Metropolis: The Rise of Immigrant Gateway Cities, reveals that 20 major cities across the globe account for 37 million of foreign-born residents. Or, one in five immigrants will choose one of those cities as their end destination. Audience reception to the authors’ July 15 presentation of their book was...

A McDonald's franchisee in Nevada pled guilty and agreed to may a $1 million fine for its knowing employment of illegal aliens (the two executives involved will be sentenced later). This is indeed "a coup for the government's crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants," as the Wall Street Journal put it, but the fact that it's McDonald's is especially important. McDonald's is believed to be the company with the largest number of no-matches — that is, W-2s filed by the employer that have fake or mismatched Social Security numbers. That's from a 2004 report by the Social Security Administration...

In their speeches this week to the National Council of La Raza, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain illustrated why the American public holds Congress — and politicians in general — in such low regard, particularly on the issue of illegal immigration.

This is only one State...............If this doesn't open your eyes nothing will ! From the L. A. Times 1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County ( L. A. County has 10.2 million people)are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card. 2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. 3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens. 4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal...

When Barack Obama addressed the National Council of La Raza on Sunday, he pandered when he said America's immigration system "isn't working ... when companies hire undocumented immigrants instead of legal citizens to avoid paying overtime or to avoid a union; when communities are terrorized by (U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency) raids - when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel." When Obama accuses the men and woman who administer federal laws of viciously tearing nursing babies from their...

SAN DIEGO — “I’m not taking a single Latino vote for granted,” Sen. Barack Obama promised thousands at the National Council of La Raza’s national conference here, July 13. To show his seriousness, right after Obama’s speech his campaign held a three-hour Latinos for Obama briefing for NCLR members where top-level Latino staff outlined the nuts and bolts of his Latino campaign strategy and answered in detail questions about his positions on key issues. Daniel Sepulveda, senior policy advisor on Obama’s Senate staff, said Obama's core commitments that he will not compromise are “ending the war in Iraq, providing health...

A company that owns 11 McDonald's restaurants in Nevada was fined one million dollars Wednesday after pleading guilty to employing 58 illegal immigrants. The company, Mack Associates Inc., knew the employees were illegal immigrants and had offered them names and social security numbers belonging to other people, the US Justice Department said. The company pleaded guilty in federal court in Las Vegas to conspiracy to encourage and induce an alien's unlawful residence in the United States and aiding and abetting an alien to remain in the country, the department said. The company's director of operations also pleaded guilty to aiding...

Tucson open-borders official gloats about effigy-beating By Michelle Malkin • July 16, 2008 12:45 PM [See Picture at link--Oyarsa] Tucscon residents remain up in arms over the unhinged open-borders mob, led by reconquistadora Pima County (AZ) public defender Isabel Garcia, who beat and tore apart an effigy of tough, anti-illegal immigration Sheriff Joe Arpaio at his recent book tour event. See the videos here in case you missed it yesterday. Garcia is now gloating about the incident–calling it “funny.” She has posted a bigotry card-playing response at her militant website, Derechos Humanos. Laugh line: “We stand for the principles of...

Obama Argues He's More Open-border Than McCain: "The 12 million people living in the shadows, communities taking immigration enforcement into their own hands...they're counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling the airwaves. Yes, they broke the law and we should require them to learn English, pay a fine and go to the back of the line." CIS notes: These oft-repeated "penalties" are not serious. As for the fine, immigrant rights attorneys will cry discrimination and those aliens who don't pay it will never be deported. The English language requirement would be impossible to regulate and likely never enforced....

Excerpt - Acting on a claim by Mexico’s government that the U.S. government has not done enough to assure the treaty rights of Mexican nationals facing execution for murders in the U.S., the World Court on Wednesday ordered the U.S. — by a 7-5 vote — to stop five imminent executions in Texas. Leaving it up to the U.S. to choose the way to carry out the order, the international tribunal — formally, the International Court of Justice that sits in The Hague, Netherlands — told the U.S. only to “take all measures necessary to ensure” that Texas does not...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain defended his stance on comprehensive immigration reform Tuesday and said that, if elected to the White House in November, he will make the U.S. borders secure within a short period of time. Speaking on CBS’ “Early Show,” McCain said Americans want the confidence that its borders be secured first before supporting a humane and compassionate approach to temporary worker programs and comprehensive immigration reform. “We are moving forward right now with securing our borders,” McCain said. When asked if the daunting task could be accomplished within a two-year period, McCain assured, “It will be secure...

San Diego For many Latinos on hand for Barack Obama on Sunday, attraction to the Democratic presidential candidate went beyond policy issues to the matter of identity. "He's closer to our community," said immigrant Pietro Ferrari after hearing Obama address the National Council of La Raza at its conference in San Diego. "He gives me the sense of somebody who has emerged without privilege," said Ferrari. "He understands immigration first hand. And he understands the promise of being American." Obama was the first in the candidate line-up at the conference for La Raza – the country's largest advocacy group for...

Here is the piece I was telling you about. It is a little tough to read because the webmaster, for reasons I still do not understand even though he explained it, occasionally omits spacing between paragraphs. http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19857067&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8 I will also include the link in the first reply.

Immigrants infected with HIV may no longer be banned from living in the U.S. for the first time in more than 20 years. A $50 billion Senate bill (SB 2731) intended to combat AIDS in Africa and other impoverished areas may effectively repeal a 1987 ban prohibiting travel and immigration for people infected with HIV. The U.S. is one of several countries to have such a rule, including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Russia, the Associated Press reports. Supporters of the proposal say the policy is dated and must be eliminated. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, said even China has lifted...

PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Federal immigration agents have arrested 31 contracted maintenance workers during a sweep of six Rhode Island courthouses. The arrests were made Tuesday evening and targeted workers hired by two state contractors, Falcon Maintenance and Tri-State Enterprises. Investigators say the workers were in the country illegally

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The World Court ordered the United States on Wednesday to do all it could to halt the imminent executions of five Mexicans until the court makes a final judgment in a dispute over suspects' rights. (snip) One of the five Mexicans on death row, Jose Medellin, is due to die on August 5 in Texas, while the others also face imminent execution.

Seattle, Washington - The number of immigration violators deported from three Pacific Northwest states surged nearly 40 percent when compared to the same period last year, according to statistics released today by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In the first nine months of fiscal year 2008 (Oct. 2007 through June 2008), ICE returned 7,345 illegal aliens to their home countries who had been living in Washington, Oregon and Alaska. During that same period last fiscal year, ICE removed 5,256. This year’s statistics reflect a 39 percent overall increase in the volume of deportations from the three-state area. Of the...

San Francisco's political establishment has long prided itself on providing a haven for illegal immigrants. Mayor Gavin Newsom even launched a taxpayer-funded $83,000 "public awareness campaign" earlier this year assuring illegal immigrants that the "sanctuary city" by the bay was in their court. And indeed it is. Under the city's 1989 voter-approved sanctuary ordinance, police officers and other city employees are prohibited from inquiring into immigration status. In addition, the city will not direct municipal funds or employees towards assisting federal immigration enforcement, unless such assistance is required by federal or state law or a warrant. No doubt such protections...

Mexican law enforcement officials are walking into U.S. ports of entry in increasing numbers to seek political asylum, and the flow may soon become a flood as Mexico's battle with the drug cartels intensifies. Our first instinct is to welcome them, but there is more at stake than humanitarian sentiments. The problem is that if our immigration laws are stretched to grant asylum to law enforcement personnel on the grounds that their own government cannot protect them, any Mexican threatened by these violent criminal gangs can claim the same right of asylum. U.S. immigration law does not easily accommodate these...

DURHAM -- After figuring in the Duke lacrosse case and becoming Reader's Digest magazine's Hero of the Year, former Durham cabbie Moezeldin Elmostafa has launched what his lawyer described Tuesday as a priceless and perhaps unprecedented court claim. It involves his U.S. citizenship, which Elmostafa contends was delayed for two years by an old and bogus criminal charge that resurfaced in 2006 while the lacrosse debacle was in full swing. "Citizenship is absolutely priceless," said Elmostafa's lawyer, Tom Loflin of Durham. Still, Loflin wants several defendants to come up with a figure. "If they don't agree to my number, we'll...

History was made in Thousand Oaks California on the corner of Hampshire Boulevard and Royal Oaks Street, Saturday July 12. Hundreds of illegal alien day laborers have been crowded in this peaceful city owned park area along Hampshire Road in Old Thousand Oaks. For many years, hundreds of possible illegal alien day laborers have littered this area. Sadly, this rundown area is the first thing outside tourists see when tourists exit the 101 Freeway on their way to visit the state-of-the-art Thousand Oaks City Theater complex. This Thousand Oaks city sponsored day laborer center was essentially CLOSED for that one...

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The World Court on Wednesday ordered the United States to do everything necessary to ensure five Mexicans on death row are not executed before the court makes a judgment in a dispute between the two countries. One of the five on death row, Jose Medellin, is due to die on August 5 in Texas. In 2004 the World Court found in favor of Mexico and ruled the United States had violated international law by failing to inform 51 Mexicans sentenced to death of their right to consular assistance and ordered the cases should be reviewed.

McCain at The Race conference: Capitulation complete; Update: Juan Hernandez to broker meeting with Morones? By Michelle Malkin • July 15, 2008 08:32 AM As expected, John McCain’s appearance at the annual convention of La Raza/The Race yielded no Hermana Souljah moments. Ed Morrissey points to McCain’s mild, almost apologetic rejoinder to open-borders zealot Enrique Morones and compares it to Barack Obama’s embrace of the radical activist. That’s a relief. But it’s the very least we could expect of a Republican candidate. And when you watch the clip Ed posted, you’ll notice that in response to Morones blasting our Border...

Barack Obama believes you, the taxpayer, should pay for lawyers whose job it is to find slick legal loopholes to keep illegal aliens HERE IN THE U.S. This hasn't received the attention it deserves. In pandering to his far left friends at National Council of La Raza the other day, Obama went off: "The system isn't working...when communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, WHEN PEOPLE ARE DETAINED WITHOUT ACCESS TO LEGAL COUNSEL..." Illegal aliens can have a lawyer, they just...

Interesting grass roots piece about a protest this weekend at a neighboring town. Labelled "the safest city in the country", Thousand Oaks' average income is in the six digits. I was pretty amazed to learn there was even a day laborer center THERE since they don't even allow RV's on the streets.

“All the illegal border crossings are down. It looks like the border patrol is doing their job. There’s really no need for a wall like that,” said Mark Abeyta from east El Paso. The El Paso sector has reported that they have apprehended 25,500 illegal border crossers during the first nine months of this fiscal year. This is the lowest since 2000, and it was made possible because of more barriers, increased agents and the zero-tolerance policies. Currently the Department of Homeland Security has completed around 300 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fencing and they expect to have a total...

Just back from my first trip to the Berkshires (in western Massachusetts) where the affluent of the East Coast megalopolises like to summer and play, and I was just stunned to see nearly every visible job filled with an English-speaking American. This is intriguing because it is among the nation's elites that we find most of the resistance to passing the SAVE Act or other legislation mandating the use of E-Verify to ensure that illegal aliens don't keep U.S. jobs -- with the elites complaining that without all the illegal foreign workers, large parts of our service economy would...

Unhinged in Arizona: Open-borders mob, led by public official, ravages Joe Arpaio effigy By Michelle Malkin • July 15, 2008 03:34 PM Scroll down for updates…Jon Justice has more… Reader Tim C. in Tucscon sent me an e-mail about some completely unhinged open-borders activists who mobbed a book event for Sheriff Joe Arpaio. A group of young pro-illegal alien protesters repeatedly beats an effigy of Arpaio as Isabel Garcia–local reconquistadora and an official from the Pima County legal defender’s office–eggs them on. She then parades around with the effigy’s head as onlookers cheer and hoist up the rest of the...

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – The National Council of La Raza spends most of its time protecting and advancing the rights of Latinos through advocacy and community work. But as it wraps up its convention downtown, it has found itself defending its name. That's because activists who oppose illegal immigration are saying in e-mails, during street protests and through the media that “La Raza” means “The Race,” and have been calling the organization a hate group. The accusations have prompted soul-searching among NCLR supporters as to what the name actually means and stands for. Most say the situation is the result...

DOWNTOWN SAN DIEGO – The National Council of La Raza spends most of its time protecting and advancing the rights of Latinos through advocacy and community work. But as it wraps up its convention downtown, it has found itself defending its name. That's because activists who oppose illegal immigration are saying in e-mails, during street protests and through the media that “La Raza” means “The Race,” and have been calling the organization a hate group. The accusations have prompted soul-searching among NCLR supporters as to what the name actually means and stands for. Most say the situation is the result...

John McCain set a difficult task for himself in his speech to the National Council of La Raza. He had to simultaneously reassure liberal Hispanic activists that he is a more reliable champion of comprehensive immigration reform -- otherwise known as amnesty -- than Barack Obama and convince conservatives that he is still committed to the enforcement-first position he took in the Republican primaries. All while denying that he has flip-flopped on immigration. In substance, his immigration remarks offered something for everyone. He explained his revised position. "Many Americans did not believe us when we said we would secure our...

(CNSNews.com) – While speaking Sunday at the national convention of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group that favors a “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said federal immigration agents “terrorized” and divided families during immigration raids. “The system isn't working,” said Obama, “when 12 million people live in hiding, and hundreds of thousands cross our borders illegally each year; when companies hire undocumented immigrants instead of legal citizens to avoid paying overtime or to avoid a union; when communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids; when nursing mothers are torn from...

Despite having failed to achieve immigration reform in the Senate, John McCain told the nation’s largest Hispanic advocacy group he would “fix our broken borders.” “Many Americans, with good cause, did not believe us when we said we would secure our borders, and so we failed in our efforts,” McCain said at the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) annual convention today. “We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first, while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States.” McCain said it was important to “recognize the...

...A new poll shows that 82% of Hispanics consider education as one of three most important issues facing this country. The survey also shows that, even while Hispanics trust Democrats over Republicans on education by more than a two-to-one margin, that ratio could change if Republicans heavily promote school choice while Democrats oppose it.... ...This survey found that although Hispanic voters generally consider public schools to be effective...Fifty-two percent of Hispanic voters have a favorable view of school choice, according to the poll, while only 7% had an unfavorable view. When asked about vouchers specifically, 32% expressed a favorable opinion...

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain stood strong for Secure Borders when he responded to a question from radical LaRaza activist Enrique Morones: Morones, a member of Borders Angels, accused the US of killing ten thousand people on the border with our “militarization” and demanded that McCain disavow border security. McCain gave him a very testy reply.Listen to audio . . . .

City to go after bodybuilding firefigher (Greg Wayland, NECN) - Boston's fire commissioner wants the city to deny the disability claim of one of its firefighters. It's the result of a video showing Albert Arroyo out on disability competing in a body building contest. The video of Albert Arroyo turned up on YouTube after the 46-year-old had been granted disability leave for a back injury. The May 3rd event came just six weeks after his injury claim. Arroyo had been collecting his full salary tax free, but has now been switched to regular sick leave. A lawyer for Arroyo says...

Speaking at the National Council of La Raza conference today, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) engaged in a lively give-and-take with several Latino activists who questioned his stance on illegal immigration. In one heated exchange with an audience member, a questioner asked McCain whether he, like presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama (Ill.), would make immigration reform a top priority as president and provide a pathway to citizenship for 12 million undocumented workers living illegally in the U.S. as part of a single immigration bill. McCain responded by defending his record on immigration against Obama's, saying the Democrat took his lead from...

Federal officials said Monday that Gwinnett is now the focal point of competing metro area Mexican drug cartels trafficking cocaine and methamphetamines due to its burgeoning Hispanic population and transportation infrastructure.

SAN DIEGO – Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday vigorously disputed his opponent's assertion that he had backed away from his own comprehensive plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. “I do ask for your trust that when I say I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it,” the Arizona senator told the National Council of La Raza convention here. “I think I have earned that trust.” On Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, told the same group at the San Diego Convention Center that McCain backed off his...