Free Republic

U.S. Border Patrol officials say they are on track to beef up their ranks from nearly 16,000 today to 18,319 agents by the end of the year. But some critics say the agency is cutting too many corners to meet the goal set by President Bush two years ago. Facing pressure to do more to curb illegal immigration, Bush announced in May 2006 that the federal government would hire 6,000 more Border Patrol agents. He also sent 6,000 National Guard troops to the border, an assignment scheduled to end in July. As of March 29, about 2,000 agents were deployed...

The United States Border Patrol cannot seem to catch a break. Border Patrol agents have to guard both the US-Canadian Border and the nearly 2,000-mile-long US-Mexico Border, the most frequently crossed international border in the world. Traffic across the southern border is both legal and illegal, and the illegal activity is not just men and women trying to enter the US to earn a better living, albeit by breaking the law. It is also violent drug cartels, whose influence, corruption, and murders in border towns like Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez has spiked recently. THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ran an article...

Two California Republican congressmen yesterday called on President Bush to pardon two former U.S. Border patrol agents sent to prison a year ago this week for shooting a drug-smuggling suspect in the buttocks as he fled back into Mexico. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher accused Mr. Bush of being "arrogant and heartless" for refusing to pardon or commute the sentences of former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, who were ordered last January to serve 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively. He said they had spent the past year in solitary confinement "suffering conditions worse than detainees at Guantanamo Bay. "It...

AUSTIN, Texas - Authorities raided the offices of an influential Democratic donor on Friday, prompting accusations by the donor's attorneys that the raid was politically motivated. The state attorney general's office said it was assisting the Nueces County district attorney in the criminal investigation of Mauricio Celis, 36, who has given money to major Democratic candidates including Hillary Clinton and is the subject of numerous ongoing lawsuits and charges. Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, sued Celis in November, accusing him of practicing law without a license. Agents from Abbott's office were among those involved in the Friday search of...

The U.S. Border Patrol has released photos of attacks on agents that they say have led to the use of pepper spray and tear gas in Mexican border neighborhoods.

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.11.2007 A man found dead on the South Side Sunday morning was fatally shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent after he and three other armed intruders burst into the agent's house, an official said Monday. Christian Gomez, 20, and Mark A. Escobar Jr., 19, along with two other intruders burst into the home of an off-duty Border Patrol agent and his family about 4:50 a.m. Sunday, according to police.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 2007 – Coalition forces killed one terrorist and detained 10 suspects during a series of raids targeting al Qaeda in Iraq in central and northern Iraq today, officials reported. -- An armed terrorist was killed by coalition troops during a raid targeting al Qaeda in Iraq leaders in Kirkuk. Information found at the site enabled coalition forces to target and capture a suspected al Qaeda leader operating in Tamim province. The detainee is linked to explosively formed penetrator attacks on coalition forces and local car-bombing attacks. -- Coalition forces captured the alleged al Qaeda in Iraq...

The latest battle in the raw milk wars broke out today in south-central Pennsylvania. A group of ten state police and agents from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) descended on the 100-acre Nature’s Sunlight Farm in Newville, and confiscated about $25,000 worth of raw milk products, along with packaging and equipment. Though Pennsylvania is supposedly one of the more liberal states with regard to raw milk distribution, allowing farmers with permits to sell it not only from their farms and in farmers markets, but also in retail establishments, farmers say the...

WASHINGTON - The House on Wednesday approved a move by conservative Republicans to try to set free two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug dealer. After a long, emotional debate, the House voted by voice to block the Bureau of Prisons from keeping former agents Ignacio Ramos and Alonso Compean in federal prison. Ramos and Compean are serving 11- and 12-year federal prison sentences, respectively, for the 2005 shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila on the Texas border near El Paso. The case has caused a furor among conservative lawmakers and on talk radio across the country. The...

London - Britain's secretive foreign intelligence service MI6 will take a small step out of the shadows when it places its first-ever advertisement for jobs in The Guardian newspaper on Saturday. Officially the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6 did not even officially exist in government records until 1994, but has changed its image in recent years, launching its own website and accepting online job applications. The advertisement in The Guardian, a left-of-centre national newspaper, marks a further break from MI6's shadowy past in an effort to attract a more diverse talent pool - just five percent of the agency's staff, for...

Elements of Governor Schwarzenegger’s health plan proposal are just as big a threat to an agent’s livelihood as Sheila Kuehl’s single-payer legislation, said Alan Katz, president of Insurance Neighborhood and former senior vice president of WellPoint Health Networks. Addressing the Los Angeles Assn. of Health Underwriters recent Pasadena meeting, he said that one provision would require carriers to spend 85% of premium dollars on medical claims, which limits spending on administrative costs. The 15% administrative spending cap would be calculated the same for all of the products regardless of whether it is an HMO or PPO. It would force carriers...

Edd Hendee and Pat Gray are scheduled to interview U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton in studio at 7:00 today; consider this your “open comment thread” to talk about it while it’s going on and pick it apart afterwards. http://lonestartimes.com/2007/05/10/johnny-sutton-in-studio-thread links to Pat Gray Podcast also.

TUCSON, Ariz. - Federal authorities on Friday raided a construction company accused of hiring illegal immigrants, detaining eight undocumented workers and arresting several other employees. Scores of agents fanned out in Douglas, along the Mexico border, and in Sierra Vista, about 50 miles northwest, in the raid on Sun Dry Wall & Stucco Inc.'s offices, a foreman's home, the home of a suspected counterfeiter and eight work sites. Company president Ivan Hardt, 44; the firm's human resources manager, Carol Hill, 42; and four other employees were taken into custody on federal counts of conspiring to knowingly hire illegal workers and...

LAREDO, Texas (Reuters) - Frustrated by tighter security on the U.S.-Mexico border, illegal immigrants and drug traffickers are taking it out on U.S. agents, increasingly attacking them with guns, rocks and petrol bombs. Assaults against Border Patrol officers rose 10 percent to 843 incidents in the year to September 2006 from the same period a year before, officials say. It is also a near three-fold increase from two years previously. Mexican drug cartels, locked in a turf feud and under pressure from an army crackdown, are lashing out at law enforcement officers in Texas. "The attacks against us are becoming...

Are Putin's agents behind shooting? By Toby Harnden in Washington and Adrian Blomfield, Moscow Correspondent Last Updated: 2:43am GMT 06/03/2007 Speculation of the involvement of Russian agents intent on silencing opponents to President Vladimir Putin's regime, wherever they may be, has increased with an attempted murder in America and an apparent suicide in Moscow. Alexander Litvinenko, who died last November, was a friend of Paul Joyal On the face of it the two incidents appear to have nothing in common, but Paul Joyal, shot in Adelphi, Maryland, on Saturday, is a friend of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy poisoned...

Support Border Partrol Agents, Ramos and Compean! These men were only doing their important job, protecting Americans! Now they sit in cells as targets for hardened criminals while drug dealers and illegal invaders get immunity and amnesty from our government. Our FEDERAL government is lying, covering up & rebuffing a full investigation by Congress. Mr. Bush is still doing NOTHING! These agents need and deserve a FULL Pardon NOW! WE CAN help them! Please JOIN US at our JUSTICE Rally! Castro Valley Feb. 24th - Saturday 1 – 2 :30 PM Corner of Castro Valley Blvd. / Redwood Rd....

With mounting bipartisan criticism from Republican congressmen and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Department of Justice has stepped up an unprecedented public relations campaign to defend its prosecution of former Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, now serving 11-and 12-year prison terms. But new facts keep emerging to prove that this prosecution was a gross injustice. CNN judicial expert Jeffrey Toobin described it as “one of the most unusual prosecutions I've ever seen. . . . I am baffled why this case was brought.” So am I. The government prosecuted Ramos and Compean criminally for acts that called...

EL PASO, Texas - A federal report released Wednesday on the shooting of a suspected drug smuggler by Border Patrol agents concurs with prosecutors that the men failed to report the shooting, destroyed evidence and lied to investigators. Some members of Congress have criticized the case against Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, who were fired after their obstruction of justice convictions and have each been sentenced to more than a decade in federal prison. Congressional critics, who say the men were doing their jobs when they injured Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila in 2005 near El Paso, had sought the release of...

State Republican Parties Join Calls To Free Border Agents By Fred Lucas CNSNews.com Staff Writer February 01, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - A growing number of Republicans are calling on President Bush to pardon two U.S. Border Patrol agents who shot and wounded a Mexican man suspected of smuggling drugs into this country. Republican parties in two states have now weighed in on the matter. The case sparked public outrage and prompted three congressional proposals to free agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who this month began serving prison sentences of 11 and 12 years, respectively. At an Arizona Republican Party Convention...

RICHMOND -- A Richmond community organizer alleged Friday that federal immigration agents are being deceitful by representing themselves as police officers in order to gain entry to homes and make arrests. Christina Espinosa of Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization, also known as CCISCO, a group of 25 religious organizations, said the tactics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are jeopardizing efforts by Richmond police to gain the confidence of the city's immigrant community. Espinosa said her group and others have been working with Police Chief Chris Magnus on a community policing program aimed at giving immigrants trust...