Free Republic

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A defense attorney got a little over two weeks more today to review the evidence in the case of an undocumented day laborer who police said set an Englewood neighborhood on edge last summer by torching several cars and a house, then two more cars weeks later. Marco Antonio Rene has been held on $2.5 million bail in the Bergen County Jail since his June, 2012 arrest. The INS has placed a retainer on the Guatemalan citizen for deportation purposes once the case has been resolved. Rene has been in the country illegally since 2010,...

President Obama’s surprise decision last summer to use executive authority to halt the deportation of some immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children won raves from advocates stung by the defeat of similar legislative proposals in Congress. Since then, the administration has granted more than 400,000 of those young immigrants temporary waivers to live and work in the United States, making Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals one of largest legalization efforts in decades.

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a federal lawmaker, said he separates illegal aliens from criminals even though “it’s obvious that they broke the laws and did things that were criminal and they shouldn’t.” At an Aug. 2 immigration forum in Ames, Iowa, Harkin explained his reasoning. “I separate out people who came here illegally from people who are criminals," he said. "Now it’s obvious that they broke laws and did things that were criminal and they shouldn’t." “But I’m just saying simply because they came here to work – to provide for their family. They’ve broken no laws other...

In recent years if you were an illegal immigrant in L.A., and there are many of you, you faced losing your car for at least 30 days if you were stopped by the LAPD. Under the urging of then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the department last year changed that policy and said you could pretty much keep your car if you hadn't done anything else wrong. The policy, called Special Order 7, was challenged by the police union and a citizen, and today a local judge ruled against the LAPD: L.A. Superior Court Judge Terry Green said that the LAPD's policy was...

For a little sneak preview of where our ruling class’ obsession with amnesty for illegal aliens will lead us, take a look at what’s happening on the border right now. An astonishing surge of asylum seekers has literally overwhelmed U.S. Immigration in San Diego, forcing them to rent out hotel rooms to accommodate the overflow, while some aliens were “released to cities around the U.S.,” according to Fox News: Sources say one day last week, 200 border-crossers came through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry claiming asylum while and as many as 550 overflowed inside the processing center there and...

What would you do if your mother, thousands of miles away, was dying and it would jeopardize your immigration status to see her one last time? It was February 2, 2004, my junior year at college. I’d just stepped out of my linguistics class when my dad phoned to tell me that my mom’s diabetes had worsened. She was in Intensive Care at a hospital in San Antonio, Texas. He told me that I needed to come home. I freaked out. I didn’t have any money for a plane ticket to get home from New Haven, Connecticut. Thankfully, my friends...

"Comprehensive immigration reform," like virtually any initiative containing the magic word "comprehensive," looks good on the surface. But the details of the comprehensive immigration bill passed by the Senate in June by a 68-32 margin reveal a lot gone wrong underneath. Oblivious to this, top union leaders are gearing up for an all-out blitz this fall to secure passage of similar legislation in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Led by AFL-CIO Presi