Posted on 01/30/2007 3:34:43 PM PST by mdittmar
HARLINGEN, Texas Customs officials in South Texas say an Iraqi family was caught within miles of the Rio Grande after crossing the border illegally. The family of five was detained Saturday night near U-S Highway 281 in Pharr.
Border Patrol spokesman Oscar Saldana says computer searches revealed no ties to terrorism.
Saldana says the family remains in Customs and Immigration Enforcement custody while being processed for deportation.
Saldana confirmed the capture after an anonymous tip was phoned in to the Valley Morning Star newspaper.
He said he could not disclose whether there had been similar apprehensions of Iraqi nationals within the sector.
He also could not say whether the family claimed they were in the U-S for religious reasons, as did eleven Iraqis caught with illegal passports last week in northern Mexico.
Iraqi families coming across our porous border, or are terrorists coming across our porous border?
Call me a pessimist.
Iraqis cross the border all the time. Refugees mostly.
There have been several of these stories recently. Were these the Iraqi Christians, or is this another family?
I gotta admit that I'm a lot more trusting of a family. However, terrorists have proven that they don't mind killing their own families.
ping
It is the other part that we should be worried about for national security reasons and in addition to the immigration issue.
Mr. Bush, Build that wall!
Ship them back to Iraq!!!!
Yeah like the ones who took their families to the fight to get in to kill the religous pilgims. Bring the women and kids to give themselves cover. By the same token, I'd bring my kids to get to this country if I wasn't already a citizen. But then again my mother was a LEGAL immigrant.
Dang straight. Give 'em the opportunity to get their purple fingers...whether they want them or not. Dern Iraqis, who do they think they are?!?
How soon we forget.
we're ALL JUST PILGRIMS...can't we all just get along?
(those would get some big muskies.)
Well if you can get elephants accompanies by a mariachi (sp?) band across the rio grande like that rep from PA did why not an Iraqi family ?
something like guarding the front door, while the back door is wide open....
The bush legacy
ping
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
LOL. Yah. Those borders were ~so~ secure under Clinton until Bush opened them up?
You guys crack me up.
LOL. Yah. Those borders were ~so~ secure under Clinton until Bush opened them up?
It's not a laughing matter.
He has had six years and what has he "actually" accomplished?
In Houston you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting an illegal alien or two.
Relax, El Presidente Jorge says not to worry.
sw
Bttt!
An intriguing method. Have you told the border patrol about this idea?
OK... seriously: of course there's a huge problem with illegals. I know that. We ALL know that. This is not news to anyone. But to sit here day after day and pretend that *nothing* has been done about it is disingenuous and frankly unfair to a whole lot of people that have in fact been working harder than ever to secure this country.
Of course it's not fixed. But the border patrol is about tripled from a few years ago, interceptions are increasing and the borders are getting better, not worse.
One of the biggest problems comes right back around on US, people like here at FR. All this feigned outrage at any sort of guest worker program is one of the bigger roadblocks to making any real improvement from here.
Like it or not there is in fact a job surplus in this country. Whether its agriculture, hotels, restaurants... it really is true that we've got more jobs than citizens. Lucky for us there's a hardworking work force handy and close by. It makes absolute sense to come up with some system where all those jobs can be filled by legal workers, cutting all those people out of border crossing enforcement in the proces...
We all know that the overwhelming number of illegal border crossers are coming here for jobs they've probably aready got lined up before they come. Legalize that process. Relieve the border patrol of that burden... cut down the number of illegal crossings to a far, far, smaller number-- a number that the border patrol could undoubtedly be much more successful in catching. Cut it down to a more manageable level overnight.
My .02
But it won't happen. We won't let congress do anything like that, because we want revenge on the illegals already here. So we won't fix it.
They can do it legally or they can go to hell. I'll pay $6.00 for a head of lettuce for two reasons. First, it will be picked by workers who are here legally and hopefully ones who aren't crapping on the crops.
Oh, they can also show proof of insurance or pay in advance at the hospital.
The 50% of students that drop out of HISD and other school districts could do these jobs if welfare was denied.
I could go on all night.
They should be able to do it legally.
We won't do a damn thing about it until their's a mushroom cloud.
People do it everyday.
Just not the criminals crossing illegally. The ones that came here illegally should lose this opportunity because they have already thumbed their snotty noses at my country.
Yup. And that's why it ain't getting fixed. Retribution is valued higher than a more secure border.
Now you're talkin'.
It has to do with security. Bush's compound has a fence and guards as does the Whitehouse. If walls don't work why do they have them?
I have posted the link below to some of the open border creeps here so many times I now no longer bother to ping them because they cannot answer but they do try to get me banned.
Do you think that the US should adopt Mexico's immigration policy?
This is an honest question. One that the OBL will not answer. Because they cannot. Perhaps you can. I appreciate the civil discourse.
Mexico's immigration policy doesn't fit us. They don't have the draw of excess jobs that we do. We do actually need immigrant labor, and we need far more than is presently legally allowed. We need to develop a system to legally allow in, and track, far more than we do. It wouldn't be that tough.
A good fence is part of the solution, but honestly only a small part. There are too many ways over, under and around a fixed barrier like that. There needs to be more open and honest working with employers to enable them to get the legal employees they need and enforcement when they break the rules. If we make the process of hiring legal immigrants more workable it makes sense that the illegal hiring will start to dry up.
We need to make the legal process better and more accessible, and this will serve to turn the flood of illegals into a trickle. Then enforcement at the border becomes that much more effective.
It is true, though, that our border enforcement is in fact quite a bit better than it was only a few years ago.
There was a story here in Seattle last week that was intriguing. Perhaps you've heard of a variety of pot sold on the street called "BC Bud". This is a particularly strong and high quality marijuana that's been grown up in Canada, in British Columbia, for over a decade or two, and smuggled over the border into WA, OR... and points south.
Turns out that over the last few years, now most of the BC Bud is actually grown in Washington. That's right... the increased border security since 9/11 has made the smuggling too much of a hassle and was interfering with the operations, so they've moved most of the operations into Washington and now it is mostly domestic.
This is actually good news, at least from the standpoint of concern over the borders. We're doing something that appears to be working. No, it ain't fixed yet, but we should recognize the successes, while we're vigilant about the problems.
Bottom line for me is illegal = no. Go through the process = possibly yes.
Go to Home Depot and hang with them and you will see that these are the drunks killing Americans, not Brain Surgeons picking fruit. Many, if not most are scum.
I'll do the work alone rather than let these crminals know where I live. They gave me gang sign signs and crotch grabs when I drove off.
They are scum.
Is there room on the USS Pessimist for me?
Yes! Of course!!! Brilliant!!!
A family of terrorists!!!
Now why didn't I think of that!!!
hehehe...
Exactly. They only catch a small percentage of those crossing illegally. Thanks George!
LOL! You obviously haven't seen the fully legal, American citizen, native-born farm workers around here. It's crummy work and it gets crummy workers: elderly crack addicts and winos from the Jacksonville skid rows, for example. Plus, many of them are HIV positive, to give you even more of a thrill. One of the labor camp managers down here was even paying them in crack. You think they care about sanitation?
And the gang-banger high school drop outs are not going to do this work - well, not until they turn into elderly AIDS infected crack or crank addicts, if they live that long.
We need more legal workers, and that's simply how it is, and how it always has been with immigration in this country, from the days of the Irish immigrants on foward. Our quotas are unrealistically low, mainly to satisfy people like you, who don't like immigrants in general and appear to hate Mexicans in particular, and the result is that we have created a much bigger problem.
Very nice graphic!
"Mr. Bush, Build that wall!"
Can't. He's an open borders kinda guy. Nation Security be danged.
And you KNOW this how?
Can't. He's an open borders kinda guy.
No open borders kinda guy will be getting my vote.
Our quotas are unrealistically low, mainly to satisfy people like you, who don't like immigrants in general and appear to hate Mexicans in particular,
You don't know me. I have no problem with Mexicans, I do have a problem with illegal alien scum. If you are the first then fine, if you are the second get the hell out of the USA.
Thank you!
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