Free Republic

The nation's border czar has concluded that Mexican soldiers who held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint in August did so after bypassing a barbed-wire fence and other clearly visible barriers to cross into the United States, contradicting claims by the State Department and the Mexican government that the soldiers were simply lost. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner W. Ralph Basham, in a private letter to the National Border Patrol Council Local 2544 in Tucson, Ariz., described the Aug. 3 border incident as a "potential lethal encounter involving four Mexican armed military soldiers north of the international...

Oct. 14 (UPI) -- A U.S. federal judge ruled Mexicans who participated in a U.S. guest-worker program during the 1940s can seek funds from their government that were withheld from their paychecks and never distributed. The preliminary ruling, made Oct. 10 by Judge Charles Breyer at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, clears the way for a class-action lawsuit, said Matthew J. Piers, a lawyer with the Chicago firm Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym that originated the suit. The group suit may include thousands of Mexican workers, known as braceros, who participated in the program...

FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

MONTERREY, Mexico - Assailants opened fire on the U.S. consulate in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, a Mexican official said. Nobody was injured in Sunday's shooting. Shell casings were found outside the consulate, but there were no witnesses to the attack and no one was in custody, said a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office who was not authorized to give her name. The spokeswoman had no further details. Mexican media reported that one man opened fire on the consulate and another man threw a grenade that failed to explode. El Universal newspaper, citing a U.S. Embassy statement, said...

In early May I went to the Guerrero highlands to see the celebrations that take place during the Catholic Holy week, which coincides with the beginning of the spring planting season. The people in several mountain towns practice a type of Catholicism that incorporates religious beliefs and rituals that pre-date the arrival of Europeans. The most spectacular of these rituals are the Tigré fights. Men in the village of Acatlan dress in jaguar costumes and box each other as a kind of sacrifice to the rain god, Tlaloc. (The goggle-like eyes on their headgear match ancient depictions of both Tlaloc...

Drug gangs working with Islamic Terrorists on routes into U.S.It’s happening right now—and it’s a big reason to be worried. That’s the word from terrorism experts who will tell you Latin American drug gangs are letting terror groups use the same routes they use to move their products in to the United States. “We’ve had several cases of individuals linked to radical Islamic groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas who have been smuggled across the Texas Border in to the United States via these drug routes” said Jeff Addicott at the Center for Terrorism Law at Saint Mary’s University in...

Mexican marijuana cartels use pesticides, herbicides that pollute US parks, forests 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. Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 — and authorities say the...

Jose Canseco was held for nearly 10 hours by immigration authorities after agents said they stopped the former baseball star as he attempted to bring a fertility drug from Mexico, his lawyer said Friday. Canceco was detained at San Diego's San Ysidro border crossing Thursday after agents searched his vehicle and said they found human chorionic gonadotropin, which is illegal without a prescription, said his attorney, Gregory Emerson. Emerson declined to say if Canseco — who admitted to using steroids in a 2005 book that also alleged steroid use by other baseball players — had the drug, which is banned...

An illegal immigrant serving five life terms for the strangling deaths of his wife, three young daughters and a neighborhood girl apparently took his own life Thursday by hanging himself, authorities said.Simon Rios, 36, was found in his cell at the Pendleton Correctional Facility northeast of Indianapolis after noon Thursday, prison spokesman David Barr said. Rios was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later after guards and medical personnel couldn't revive him. There were no signs of foul play, Barr said. An autopsy was scheduled.Rios' attorney, Michelle Kraus, said he left a note requesting that his remains be returned to his...

After more than a decade of stability, the Mexican peso has slid more than 15 percent in value against the U.S. dollar this week, a run that has ominous implications for San Antonio and South Texas. Peso trading closed Wednesday at 12.32 pesos to $1. The peso momentarily plunged Wednesday to 14.29 pesos to $1, a 27 percent fall from Friday's close. A devalued peso means Mexican shoppers will have reduced purchasing power when shopping in San Antonio and in Texas border cities. Texas exports to Mexico will be more expensive for Mexicans to buy. The Mexican currency is a...

PHOENIX (Reuters) - The criminal underworld in the sun-baked Arizona capital of Phoenix has long enjoyed the hot money profits from illicit smuggling of drugs and people over the border from Mexico. But now its members are living in fear as they are stalked by kidnappers after their proceeds, authorities say. Police in the desert city say specialized kidnap rings are snatching suspected criminals and their families from their homes, running them off the roads and even grabbing them at shopping malls in a spiraling spate of abductions. "Phoenix is ground zero for illegal narcotics smuggling and illegal human smuggling...

Four Mexican officers are found guilty in the death of an Oregon tourist near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The Yoncalla tourist on vacation was beaten in a Mexican jail, after getting arrested for stabbing a man outside his rented condo. A judge decided to convict the four Mexican jail guards of manslaughter. A surveillance video shows the men beating Sam Botner to death in a Cabo San Lucas jail. Botner and his wife were vacationing in Mexico to celebrate his completion of a commercial fishing trip.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Armed men stole five small planes from a private airstrip in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa on Tuesday by overpowering a police officer and flying away, security forces said. The group of around 20 men stormed the small airstrip at dawn, seized the officer's gun, tied him up, filled the planes with fuel and flew off, said Emma Quiroz, spokeswoman for the government's anti-organized crime operations in Sinaloa. It was not clear if there was a link to drug gangs who use small aircraft to spirit cocaine through northern Mexico toward the United States. Quiroz's...

God help me. I’m beginning to sound like Joe Biden. I hope there is a cure. If not, the next thing you know, I’ll be confusing Herbert Hoover with Franklin Roosevelt, insulting Indian-Americans who don’t work at 7-11, calling Barack Obama “clean” and “articulate,” and vowing he’ll will never take away my gun. For now, I’ll have to accept the fact that my views on Mexico are similar to those espoused by the Democratic vice presidential candidate. A few weeks ago, while addressing about 20 Latin American professionals in San Diego on the subject of immigration and the 2008 election,...

MIGUEL CERVANTES 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 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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. 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 along the border, felt...

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...

In a town once predominantly Eastern European but now mostly Mexican, there's a flag flap blowing in the wind. Cicero residents recently complained that the Mexican flag was flying at the town's new Cicero Community Park. Although the U.S. and Illinois flags, as well as a sports flag, are flown there, some longtime residents accused town officials of being un-American and demanded the Mexican flag be taken down. "We are at war and you're flying a foreign flag?" Susan Masek, 56, said at last week's town meeting. "We want that flag down. This is the United States. Only the American...

In Mexico, the world's second-biggest Catholic country, an unofficial cult of death is winning followers, from influential politicians and police officers to drug pushers and violent criminals. On a sidewalk in Mexico City's lawless Tepito district, gangsters and ordinary housewives rub shoulders as they pay homage before a shrine to Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, leaving offerings of colored candles, cigarettes and alcohol. A statue of the unorthodox saint cuts a ghoulish figure as a life-size skeleton in a glittering robe, a tiara atop her long-haired wig and bony fingers laden with gold rings and money offerings in many currencies....

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.

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Missing in Mexico: 5,000 condoms, sound equipment and a motor used to inflate a giant prophylactic, all stolen from a «condom-mobile» used to promote HIV/AIDS awareness. The coordinator of an HIV/AIDS awareness tour, Polo Gomez, said the truck was boosted Sunday from its parking spot in front of a friend's house in Mexico City. It was recovered Wednesday in a shopping mall parking lot in a northern suburb _ minus the condoms and the equipment. Gomez said the thieves left some 800 HIV tests and a 23-foot (7-meter) inflatable prophylactic, which were also in the vehicle....

Yeah, crazy Joe and his crazy ideas. Here’s the source for his “dysfunctional” comment. Try to contain your outrage. Joe Biden shared his views on illegal immigration with an Iowa crowd, saying that the solution starts with big changes in the Mexican economy. “They’re being irresponsible. This is the second-wealthiest nation in the hemisphere - we’re not talking about Sierra Leone,” the Democratic presidential candidate said. “This is a dysfunctional society.” The full translated script follows below. Exit question one: Who exactly is supposed to take exception to what Biden said? If Mexican immigrants turned U.S. citizens didn’t (fundamentally) agree...

Immigration law enforcement has been a key ingredient contributing to the success of criminal gang suppression efforts in many jurisdictions across the United States. Since 2005, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested more than 8,000 gangsters from more than 700 different gangs as part of a special initiative known as Operation Community Shield. This effort has produced incalculable public safety benefits for American communities, despite being criticized periodically by immigrant and civil liberties advocates that are consistently opposed to all immigration law enforcement. Local governments and law enforcement agencies that shun involvement in immigration law enforcement...

WASHINGTON (October 1, 2008) – A new Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder finds that immigration law enforcement has been highly effective in fighting gang activity around the country. Local law enforcement agencies that shun involvement with immigration law enforcement are missing an opportunity to protect their communities, according to the authors. Since 2005, ICE has arrested more than 8,000 immigrant gangsters from more than 700 different gangs under an initiative known as Operation Community Shield. The Backgrounder,'Taking Back the Streets: ICE and Local Law Enforcement Target Immigrant Gangs,' by Jessica M. Vaughan and Jon D. Feere, was funded by the...

Worried wife turned over bloody clothes to police Bloody clothes, a used key card and a tip from a worried wife led Knoxville police to the man charged with strangling a former Alabama homecoming queen, court records revealed today. A fisherman found Jennifer Lee Hampton's nude body floating in Melton Hill Lake on Saturday, seven days after friends reported her missing from her West Knoxville motel room. Valentino Vasquez Miranda, 19, who's described by police as an illegal immigrant, faces a charge of first-degree murder in her death. Authorities served him with the warrant this morning in jail. The charges...

Today we look at the latest moves from Al Qaeda, Pakistan sacks its Pro-Taliban ISI boss and finally a look at the role that Sharia Banking may be playing in the home mortgage crisis in America. That plus the latest in the Somalia Piracy Case, including the latest in the mysterious Iranian frigate-- does it have a nuke on board, plus the latest from the world of transnational gangs and Border Security. Running time 60 Minutes.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Midgett and U.S. Navy maritime patrol aircraft teamed up to interdict a stateless, self-propelled, semi-submersible vessel Wednesday with seven tons of cocaine aboard approximately 400 miles south of the Mexico-Guatemala border. The 60-foot, self-propelled, semi-submersible (SPSS) craft was detected by a U.S. Navy aircraft. The aircraft vectored Midgett to the location of the SPSS whereupon the Coast Guard quickly commenced a boarding of the stateless SPSS. The Coast Guard boarding team located 295 bales of cocaine, valued at more than $196 million, in a huge forward compartment. The SPSS became unstable and began...

MONTERREY, Mexico — In another sign this country is fed up with kidnappings, police corruption and narco-gang killing sprees, some lawmakers have proposed reinstating the death penalty just three years after legislators took it off the books. Mexico's Green Party, or PVEM, drafted legislation allowing execution for kidnappers who are or were police officers and who kill or mutilate victims. The proposal, which the PVEM trumpets in television advertisements, followed a high-profile kidnapping and killing of the 14-year-old son of a prominent businessman, a crime prosecutors say was partially masterminded by a high-ranking federal cop. Legislators from other parties will...

Border patrol agents in the Tucson sector said the 262 miles along Arizona’s border with Mexico can be downright dangerous for them. Surveillance cameras show people on the Mexican side of the border hurling rocks over the fence at agents. “It's a major problem and it's increasing, said Agent Mike Scioli. "That's the danger of it." According to Scioli, assaults against border patrol agents are up 22 percent from last year. He blames frustrated human smugglers. "Now we have more manpower, the fencing is up and the technology,” said Scioli. “It's made their job a lot more difficult." Pictures provided...

An illegal immigrant who struck a Hanover woman with his vehicle then fled to Mexico will spend up to two years in prison after pleading guilty in York County court. Alejandro Aleman, 35, whose last known address was in the 100 block of Lincoln Way East in New Oxford, was charged after police said he struck 69-year-old Esther V. Rodgers in his 1993 Ford Mustang on Feb. 25 in the 400 block of Baltimore Street in Hanover. The crash left Rodgers with a broken right leg and skull fractures. She remained in a coma at York Hospital for several weeks....

Representatives of the Mexican Consulate are in town from Atlanta issuing matriculas consulares and passports to more than 1,200 Mexican nationals living in Middle Georgia. The Mexican ID cards will enable undocumented residents to corroborate their identities for authorities, open bank accounts and use check cashing facilities, among other things. The cards cannot be used to apply for a state driver's license or qualify for other rights of U.S. citizenship. Moises Valez, a local Hispanic community organizer and publisher of QuŽ Pasa?, a Spanish language newspaper, said the event, which began Wednesday, is in conjunction with National Hispanic Month, celebrated...

Mexican police, troops, thugs seek protection from violence The police officer knelt reverently in the flowered shrine to Holy Death,his right hand blessing himself, lips moving with silent pleas. "She has taken me and protected me," Marco Antonio Olvera, 28, said of the guardian spirit, whose tiny skeletal likeness hangs from his neck as an amulet, along with a .38-caliber bullet he offers in homage. "Many policemen depend upon her." Dating to the native religions before the Spanish Conquest, the cult venerating death has made a strong comeback in a Mexico awash with drug-related violence. Mexicans from all walks of...

MEXICO CITY - Abraham Leon was getting a checkup when he found out he had high blood pressure and was at risk of developing diabetes. On the spot, the 5-foot-6-inch, 240-pound lab researcher joined "Vamos Por Un Million de Kilos" (Let's Lose a Million Kilos), a national campaign to get Mexicans to collectively trim about 2 million pounds.

–Luis Martínez went from being a successful Dallas businessman to a struggling alfalfa farmer in rural central Mexico because of a North Texas crackdown on illegal immigrants. "You make $10 an hour over there and $10 a day here in Mexico," said Mr. Martínez, who added that in addition to his recycling business he has Dallas property and pays U.S. taxes. Of the 500,000 Hispanics who have lost their jobs since January 2007, he estimates 60,000 are illegal immigrants from Mexico. Some have been forced to take jobs that pay much less..... Meanwhile, U.S. authorities are deporting Mexican immigrants at...

DEMACÚ, Mexico – Luis Martínez went from being a successful Dallas businessman to a struggling alfalfa farmer in rural central Mexico because of a North Texas crackdown on illegal immigrants. Now, that crackdown is squeezing towns across Mexico as immigrant unemployment grows in the U.S. and money sent home declines at a record rate.

WASHINGTON – Congress approved a shift of $400 million from technology accounts to construction of the U.S. border fence despite a Customs and Border Protection admission that it cannot be completed by year's end, officials said Monday. The House Appropriations Subcommittee for Homeland Security agreed to a CBP proposal to transfer funds from other accounts to build the remainder of the 670 miles of border fence. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, voiced disappointment over Congress' decision to continue to fund “the border wall.” “It won't work. It is lethal to people and wildlife and...

The House has made it veto-proof clear: The controversial pilot program allowing big Mexican trucks to cross the U.S. border and travel into the country must end. The Senate has yet to act, though. And Mexico and its U.S. big-business allies are ramping up their efforts to block the repeal, including a renewed warning by Mexican officials to retaliate against U.S. exports if the program is abolished. Mexican Embassy officials say the year-old pilot program has been a positive development for both countries, allowing Mexican and American drivers to deliver goods across the border. Before, Mexican truckers were allowed to...

175 Alleged Gulf Cartel Members and Associates Arrested in Massive International Law Enforcement Operation "Project Reckoning" Leads to the Seizure of $60 Million and More Than 40 Tons of Illegal Drugs From One of Mexico's Largest Drug Trafficking Cartels NEW YORK - Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey announced that 175 individuals were arrested on Sept. 16, 2008, on charges related to an international drug trafficking cartel in a coordinated enforcement action by hundreds of international, federal, state and local law enforcement officials throughout the United States and Italy. Including the operations announced today, a long-term investigation of one of Mexico's...

Los Angeles, California - An elevator mechanic employed by Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) was formally indicted today for smuggling foreign nationals into the United States by bypassing established security at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Roberto Amaya Canchola, 53, a United States citizen and Los Angeles resident, is charged in a six-count indictment handed down by a federal grand jury here this afternoon with bringing illegal aliens into the United States for financial gain and with bringing illegal aliens into the country without presenting them to an immigration officer. If convicted on all six counts, Canchola faces a maximum...

Yes, immigration is a complicated and combustible issue for political candidates — and the economic meltdown is everyone’s top priority. No, that is no excuse for ignoring immigration or lying about it to voters, as John McCain and Barack Obama have been doing.

Mary Consuela, a futbol mom from a suburb of Cancun was quick to endorse the fence. “They come to work to support their families in America – I understand that,” said Consuela. “But they drive our highways without insurance, sleep 9 people in a studio apartment and are mostly employed under-the-table to avoid taxes. What happens when they need health care or other services? It comes out of my pocket.” Small protests have popped-up across the country as people waving American flags demanded amnesty. Those without bribe money were taken into the desert and shot by authorities.

Viva la independencia national? Although September 16 is supposed to be the Mexican equivalent of America's 4th of July, upwards of 38 million illegal alien free loaders and scam artists are living on the backs of American taxpayers. Thus, the day should be renamed "Mexican Illegal Alien Dependence Day" to recognize the facts as they are. However, with a minimal amount of political cajoles, there is a way to change things so that September 16 is truly a day of Independence for peoples on both sides of the borders. To begin with, let us round up and deport every last...

Terrance Aeriel, 18, Dashon Harvey, 20, and Iofemi Hightower, 20 Murdered, execution-style, for the crime of being black. Murdered as a part of an enthic-cleansing program being run by Mexican gangs here in the U.S., with operational control coming from a criminal syndicate in Mexico. The plan? To clear neighborhoods of blacks so that they will be 100% hispanic. No, it's not a joke. It's not overwrought xenophobia (something for which this site is NOT known.) It's very very real, and Harvey, Hightower, and Aeriel and his sister are not the only victims.Michelle Malkin, bless her, has been staying...

A state appellate court has put a financial cloud over the future of tens of thousands of undocumented California college students, saying a state law that grants them the same heavily subsidized tuition rate that is given to resident students is in conflict with federal law. In a ruling reached Monday, the state Court of Appeal reversed a lower court's decision that there were no substantial legal issues and sent the case back to the Yolo County Superior Court for trial. "It has a huge impact," said Kris Kobach, an attorney for the plaintiffs and a law professor at the...

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>

Just as Mexico was becoming the rising star of global manufacturing in the 1990s, China's even cheaper wages turned that country into the world's factory. But now, with skyrocketing oil prices, escalating labor costs in China, and an appreciating currency there, companies targeting the US market are doing the math and giving Mexico another look. So-called "nearshoring" could generate a reverse globalization that brings manufacturing back to Mexico. "China was like a recent graduate, hitting the job market for the first time and willing to work for next to nothing," says German Dominguez, who advises companies that are considering producing...

"wenty-four corpses were found bound and shot execution-style in the Mexican city of Atlapulco on Friday, according to Humberto Benitez, secretary-general of government in the State of Mexico. A criminal investigation is now under way to determine if the killings were a result of organized crime, a news release from Mexico's attorney general said Friday. Atlapulco is just south of Mexico City. The killings come roughly two weeks after tens of thousands of Mexicans marched on the nation's capital calling for greater government action to prevent the wave of violent crime sweeping the country. Non-governmental groups estimate there have been...

MEXICO CITY – A gruesome crime wave is shaking Mexico to its core, with children murdered, headless bodies left in piles and ordinary Mexicans losing the little faith they have in the police and government. While violent crime has long been rampant in Mexico, a spate of recent killings have gone beyond anything seen before as drug smugglers slaughter rivals and common criminals, often helped by corrupt police, turn more brutal. Hitmen from the Gulf cartel drug gang left a pile of 11 headless corpses piled up near the city of Merida and police say the victims were likely still...

(VIDEO) Kidnappings and violence are spreading across the border and now the AP reports Mexican drug cartels have green-lighted hits against targets in the United States.

Jose Juarez is a shaman, a Mesoamerican healer from a village in Mexico. He owns a botanica, called New Age Store Leecatzin, in Clifton's Botany Village. In the background an Aztec drawing represents life, strength and prosperity, with a reminder to rem A shaman helps clients with a variety of problemsAlbert Ponce had a broken spirit. Life for the 25-year-old Clifton resident had recently hit a bumpy patch. He couldn't land a job working in an office. He didn't want to settle for a retail job, or working in a factory; he wanted to make use of his business...