Free Republic

“Chicago immigration agency a front for terror plot, federal probers allege U.S. probe targets operations of First World Immigration” By Antonio Olivo Tribune reporter January 3, 2010 SNIPPET: “Federal prosecutors charge that the Immigration center served as a front in a Chicago-based terror plot to bomb a Danish newspaper that in 2005 outraged Muslims worldwide when it published unflattering caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. First World’s owner, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, also knew in advance of plans for the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India, which killed 172 people, federal prosecutors allege. Randall Samborn, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in...

LANCASTER, Calif. – The asylum seeker from Somalia hung his head as an immigration judge grilled him about his treacherous journey from the Horn of Africa. By air, sea and land he finally made it to Mexico, and then a taxi delivered him into the arms of U.S. border agents at San Diego. Islamic militants had killed his brother, Mohamed Ahmed Kheire testified, and majority clan members had beaten his sister. He had to flee Mogadishu to live.

FORT WORTH — Maria Wahba slept through her own party. The baby, who was born at John Peter Smith Hospital six minutes after midnight on New Year’s Day, was the center of attention Friday afternoon as cameras gathered to take photos of Tarrant County’s first baby of 2010. Mother Manja Daood joked that it took her two years to deliver little Maria: Her contractions started about 7 a.m. Thursday, in 2009, and didn’t end until just after midnight, she said.

In Mexico the narco insurgents scored a record number of kills in 2009 as reported by Mario Gonzalez and Dave Alsup for CNN: Mexico ended 2009 with a record number of drug-related deaths, greatly surpassing the then-record tally reached in 2008, unofficial counts indicate. The government has not released official figures, but national media say 7,600 Mexicans lost their lives in the war on drugs in 2009. Mexican President Felipe Calderon said earlier this year that 6,500 Mexicans died in drug violence in 2008. * * * Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, leads all other Mexican...

Carlos Ruano was down to his last $50 when his landlord kicked him out in September because he could no longer pay rent. He sent the money to his wife and children in Guatemala and spent the night riding the E train, which has a nickname among his fellow day laborers in Woodside, Queens: “hotel ambulante,” Spanish for roving hotel. [SNIP]We’ve all learned the meaning of the law of supply and demand the hard way,” said Roberto Meneses, 48, a day laborer from Mexico who has been trying to organize his peers under a fledgling group called United Day Laborers...

While their fellow college students recovered from the night's revelry, four South Floridians celebrated the New Year with a more active — and activist — approach. The group set out Friday to begin a 1,500 mile journey they are calling the "Trail of Dreams," from Miami's historic Freedom Tower to Washington, D.C. The goal is to raise support for legislation that would include a path to citizenship for eligible illegal immigrants. The four, all immigrants themselves, plan to walk the entire distance, no matter the weather. They expect students and other supporters to join them along the way and plan...

Immigration law Ignites Fear in Arizona Nicholas Riccardi A new state law requires public workers to report illegal immigrants who apply for benefits they aren't entitled to. The attorney general will decide the law's scope. Reporting from Tucson - Cristina, an illegal immigrant living in South Tucson, recently went to a government office to sign up her children for a state-run Medicaid program. The boy and girl, ages 7 and 3, respectively, are U.S. citizens and entitled to the benefits. But Cristina, who spoke on condition her last name not be used, was fearful. She'd heard of a new state...

COPENHAGEN – Denmark's intelligence service says police have foiled an attempt to kill cartoonist Kurt Westergaard — the artist who drew cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, causing outrage in the Muslim world. Jakob Scharf, who heads the PET intelligence service, says a 28-year-old Somalia man was armed with an axe and a knive when he entered Westergaard's home in Aarhus. The Somali man was shot by police in the knee and the shoulder during the Friday attack. Preben Nielsen of the police in Aarhus, where the attack took place, said the suspect was seriously injured but his life was not...

On Wednesday, the staff at Anaheim Medical Center became suspicious of the story given them by Juana Perez Valencia, 19, who though showing all of the signs, claimed she had not just given birth. Orange County deputies arrived and questioned her, eventually finding the corpse of her newborn daughter in the dumpster behind Sombrero’s restaurant, where Valencia works as a waitress. Apparently, Valencia gave birth to the girl on Tuesday night in the restaurant’s bathroom, and allegedly placed the baby into a plastic bag, before tossing her into the dumpster. An autopsy concluded that the baby had in fact been...

The Nebraska Supreme Court will hear an appeal in a case stemming from Fremont’s proposed illegal immigration ordinance on Jan. 7 in the second floor of the State Capitol Building in Lincoln. The case is subject to call at 9 a.m., pending other cases the court is hearing that day. Attorneys from each side are permitted just 10 minutes to present arguments unless prior exceptions are made. The City of Fremont filed the appeal after Dodge County District Court Judge John Samson ruled in April the city should hold a special election on a proposed ordinance that would ban the...

EJIDO MODELO, Mexico — On the two-hour bus rides from her village on Lake Chapala to a dialysis clinic in Guadalajara, Monica Chavarria’s thoughts would inevitably turn to the husband and son she left behind in Georgia. A decade after crossing illegally into the United States, Ms. Chavarria returned home in September after learning that Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta was closing the clinic that had provided her with dialysis, at taxpayer expense, for more than a year. Grady, a struggling charity hospital, had been absorbing multimillion-dollar losses for years because the dialysis clinic primarily served illegal immigrants who were...

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona. Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain’s job offer. “I’ll take it!� one man shouted. McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. “You can’t do it, my friends.� Some in the crowd said they didn’t appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.

Shots have been fired at a shopping centre in the town of Espoo, near the capital of Finland, Helsinki. An eyewitness said at least one person was left lying on the floor after shooting broke out, the national broadcaster YLE said on its website.

A Kosovan-born gunman shot dead four people in a Finnish shopping mall on Thursday and killed his ex-girlfriend in an apartment before killing himself in Finland's third shooting spree in as many years. Police said Ibrahim Shkupolli, 43, killed three men and a woman at the Sello mall in Espoo, a town near Helsinki, as shoppers stocked up for the New Year holiday. They confirmed that Shkupolli, as well as his ex-girlfriend who had worked at the mall, were among the dead after the five-hour incident. "It has been confirmed that the sixth victim is the suspect (himself). He was...

SAN JUAN — Previous attempts to pass comprehensive immigration reform have collapsed under opposing demands from warring factions. But when an immigration reform bill was introduced earlier this month, it drew broad support from a wide group of parties, said Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes. Ninety-three U.S. Representatives have thrown their name behind the bill and business leaders, agriculture groups and others are in favor of reform. “There is a diversity of support that we’ve never had before” for immigration reform, the Congressman said Wednesday during a meeting with members of La Union del Pueblo Entero at the organization’s headquarters on...

On Saturday night, Virginia Beach police arrested Jorge Alberto Fuertes Loredo, 31, and Isidor Loredo Amaya, 31, after Florentino Martinez-Melendez, 40, was shot to death in a trailer park. A second victim survived the shooting but remains in critical condition in a local hospital. Apparently, the fatal shooting was the result of a heated argument. Both Loredo and Amaya have been charged with murder and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Both Mexican nationals are in the country illegally, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have placed a hold on them. Virginia Beach Commonwealth Attorney, Harvey Bryant,...

Forget 2012. As far as many Mexicans are concerned, the ancient Mayas were being generous: the sky's actually going to fall next year. Why? Because it's 2010, Mexico's bicentennial, and Mexican history has an eerie way of repeating itself. Mexico's 1910 centennial, after all, saw the start of the bloody, decade-long Mexican Revolution, which killed more than a million people. And that cataclysm was precisely a century after the start of Mexico's bloody, decade-long War of Independence in 1810. You get the picture. As a result, there's been no shortage of talk lately about possible unrest, especially in the form...

WASHINGTON — With the health care battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive — a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system. Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., in a meeting with Journal editors in Albuquerque, said last week that House Democrats have also been discussing action on the issue in 2010, even though Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the House might defer to the Senate on taking the lead. Senior White House aides have privately assured Latino activists that the president will back legislation next year to...

(CNN) -- Investigators recovered the remains of more than 500 animals after executing a search warrant Wednesday at a home in the Feltonville section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, according to the city's chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The animals included "dozens of sheep, goats ... every type of farm animal you can think of," the Philadelphia SPCA's law enforcement director, George Bengal, said. The SPCA believes two sets of remains are those of small primates, possibly monkeys.

Roger Simmie is no angel. Twenty years ago, the Mountain View carpenter was convicted of resisting arrest and drug possession. Fifteen years after that, he was found guilty of battering his girlfriend. Three times, he's been convicted of drunken driving. But it's what he didn't do that got him locked up recently in the Santa Clara County Jail. Simmie, a Scot by birth who fought in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine, never applied for U.S. citizenship. Now he finds himself facing deportation as one of about 400,000 immigrants incarcerated this year by the U.S. government. A growing number of noncitizens...

A few weeks ago, Houston immigration attorney Jay Aiyer started to see sure signs that the economy is rebounding: More of his clients requested work visas for professional foreigners and the government finally ran out of H-1B visas. “If we're seeing business visas start to be used up, it means that the overall economy is in a growth pattern,” Aiyer said. “They're not going to be bringing folks in from abroad during a recession.” For the last few years, it would have been futile for employers or their attorneys to submit H-1B applications past April, when U.S. Citizenship and Immigration...

The recession has given new life to a little-known immigration program. Foreigners can get a quick green card if they invest between $50,000 and $1 million in an American business — and can show it created 10 jobs. With traditional sources of funding dried up, more and more companies are turning to this program. The number of visas issued this way has tripled in the past year.

More rhetoric than reform. A couple of weeks ago, amidst the prolonged drama surrounding Senate passage of the Democrats' health care bill, House Democrats unveiled another major policy initiative for 2010--a renewed effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The new bill didn't attract a lot of national media attention at the time. Health care sucked the air out of the news cycle. But a closer look at this developing story reveals an interesting twist. The House's new immigration gambit looks more like a political tactic aimed at dividing Republicans--when the GOP is growing in political strength heading into the 2010...

WASHINGTON - The punishing battle over healthcare is still unresolved, but the Obama administration is quietly laying plans to take up another issue that could generate even more controversy and political division--a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system. Already, senior White House aides have privately assured Latino activists that the president will back legislation in 2010 to provide a road to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers now living in the United States. In a conference call with proponents, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, political director Patrick Gaspard and others recently delivered the message...

They’ll love him as the messiah. They and their next generations will vote for him and his party. Whatever, Barack Hussein ObamaHussein Obama is for votes. He got them when mob hysteriacs kissed him into office. Then he declared, “I won.”

NOGALES — A sinkhole found two days before Christmas revealed a tunnel beneath International Street just west of the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry. The discovery of the sinkhole prompted city of Nogales officials to contact the Border Patrol Station to investigate. Meantime, city crews placed a steel plate over the hole as a temporary fix to facilitate street traffic during the pending holiday. Agents discovered the street had caved in over a portion of a “sophisticated tunnel,” still under construction with two-by-four wood shoring and plywood floors, walls and ceilings, according to a Border Patrol news release. It measured...

A leaked memo sent by an oil industry group reveals a plan to create astroturf rallies at which industry employees posing as "citizens" will urge Congress to oppose climate change legislation. The memo -- sent by the American Petroleum Institute and obtained by Greenpeace, which sent it to reporters -- urges oil companies to recruit their employees for events that will "put a human face on the impacts of unsound energy policy," and will urge senators to "avoid the mistakes embodied in the House climate bill."

TUCSON — As a Border Patrol agent continues to recover from a gunshot wound, the agency’s regional chief says the violence is part of a larger problem. There has been a 300 percent increase in assaults on agents in the first two months of this fiscal year (October and November) compared to last year — 108 compared to 27 in the Tucson Sector. Many of these assaults have involved rocks large enough to inflict serious injury or death. The assaults are usually used as a tactic to evade apprehension or draw agents away from other illegal smuggling activity nearby, the...

Why not? What do they have to lose? They’ve already pissed away independents and re-energized conservatives thanks to ObamaCare. Might as well use next year to check as many boxes left on their agenda as they can before they take their beating. Amnesty, cap-and-trade, transferring Gitmo detainees to the U.S.: Pour it on and hope that progressives and Latinos will react by turning out in numbers just high enough to keep the House in Democratic hands. Even if it backfires, how bad can the damage be? They lose 35 seats instead of 30? In fact, this may help them pass...

White House Prepares For Immigration Overhaul Battle The Obama administration is rallying allies to push for a package with better border security and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants now in the U.S. The effort is sure to be a tough sell. By Peter Nicholas and Tom Hamburger December 30, 2009 Reporting from Washington - With the healthcare battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive -- a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system. Senior White House aides privately have assured Latino activists that the...

AN DIEGO -- The founder of the San Diego Minutemen is facing more legal problems, 10News reported. Jeff Schwilk is the focus of another defamation lawsuit that will be filed next week. In May, a jury decided he helped defame activist Joanne Yoon and was fined more than $130,000. A jury found Schwilk e-mailed members links to a Web site that called her vulgar names and implied Yoon was a prostitute. Recently, another e-mail to Minutemen members allegedly defaming Yoon was obtained by her attorney, Dan Gilleon.

<p>With the healthcare battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive -- a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system.</p> <p>Senior White House aides privately have assured Latino activists that the president will back legislation next year to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.</p>

Independent sources have claimed an on-going set of face-to-face meetings between U.S. military officials and extraterrestrial life. The sources reveal that senior U.S. Navy officers have played a leading role in an inter-services working group responsible for the meetings, and that different extraterrestrial groups are allegedly involved. One source claims that the contact involves extraterrestrial groups known as Reptilians, and a silicon based life form dubbed ‘the Conformers’. Another source claims that the extraterrestrials are called Ebens from the Zeta Reticuli star system, but known colloquially as the Grays. A third source claims that human looking extraterrestrials representing an association...

With the healthcare battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive -- a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system. Senior White House aides privately have assured Latino activists that the president will back legislation next year to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. In a recent conference call with proponents, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, political director Patrick Gaspard and others delivered the message that the White House was committed to seeing...

Most cocaine coming into the United States has been diluted with a veterinary drug that is used to deworm horses and other animals but can cause severe illness and death in humans, public health experts say. So far, eight cases of illness caused by the drug levamisole have been identified in San Francisco, one of a handful of cities in the country where pockets of sickness caused by the drug have been found. All of the cases in San Francisco involved women who used either crack or powder cocaine. At San Francisco General Hospital, where the first cases of the...

MILFORD — .I would like to respond to Mrs. (Marie) Parente's article, "Licensed, unlicensed, and the incensed," published Dec. 16, regarding the exploding quantity of benefits, undocumented aliens receive from U.S. taxpayers. It seems that with all good intentions, our elected officials have determined that the best way to solve a problem is by throwing money at it. As a state, we have changed from a land of opportunity, into a land of entitlement, all at the expense of legal residents doing the right thing day in and day out.

WASHINGTON — Immigration reform is increasingly looking like a political albatross that could hurt Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections whether President Obama succeeds or fails in overhauling today's widely disliked system. After postponing action for a year because of the national economic crisis and a drawn-out debate over health reform, President Obama is being pushed by advocates of comprehensive reform to fulfill the campaign promise he made in 2008. But a 2010 reform push faces daunting political challenges like solid Republican opposition to key provisions and division among Democrats over both strategy and substance. Democrats facing tough re-election battles...

The link above is to a video on YouTube that outlines the numbers of illegal aliens in America. As we give these people more rights, I sincerely hope that we track the increase of illegal aliens coming here, because they know they can get a free ride.

GPS-enabled mobile to aid migrants (UKPA) – 10 hours ago A group of California artists are developing a GPS-enabled mobile phone to help dehydrated illegal migrants find water as they trek through harsh deserts into the US. The Transborder Immigrant Tool created by faculty at the University of California, San Diego, is part technology endeavour, part art project. It introduces a high-tech twist to an old debate about how far activists can go to prevent migrants from dying on the border with Mexico without breaking the law. The designers want to load inexpensive phones with GPS software that takes signals...

The immigration debate takes a technological turn with a new cell phone device that helps illegal immigrants crossing the desert into the U.S. find water. The Transborder Immigrant Tool was developed by UC San Diego prof and activist Ricardo Dominguez and UCSD lecturer Brett Stalbaum. Both believe it will save the lives of hundreds of people who die each year during their trek across "Devil's Highway." Here's how the tool works. The phone, loaded with free GPS software, displays a digital compass that locates water stations installed by John Hunter, founder of the Water Stations project. Stations that are too...

Poll: Pew and Pulpit Disagree on Immigration Zogby Survey Finds Religious Leaders and Members at Odds WASHINGTON (December 29, 2009) - In contrast to many national religious leaders who are lobbying for increases in immigration, a new Zogby poll of likely voters who belong to the same religious communities finds strong support for reducing overall immigration. Moreover, members strongly disagree with their leaders’ contention that more immigrant workers need to be allowed into the country. Also, most parishioners and congregants prefer more enforcement to cause illegal workers to go home, rather than legalization of illegal immigrants, which most religious leaders...

WHARTON, TX - US Border Watch is deeply concerned about the lack of progress being made from both Washington DC and Austin TX in securing our borders from drug smugglers, terrorists and illegal immigrants....

SAN DIEGO — A group of California artists wants Mexicans and Central Americans to have more than just a few cans of tuna and a jug of water for their illegal trek through the harsh desert into the U.S.

Democrats have let down Latino voters again. President Obama promised Hispanic voters he would tackle immigration reform during his first year. He didn't. Big surprise...another broken promise. ...We'll let the left who voted for Obama tell this story. We looked for a Latin American Obama voter and we found one. In a recent article in the UNLV Rebel Yell Eva Rodriquez-Saenz wrote, "It was not long ago that Latinos voted overwhelmingly for President Barack Obama in hopes of attaining a greater presence in the minds and votes of legislators." "..."The chants of “¡Si se puede!” have died down...During an interview...

SAN JUAN — A 16-year-old Mexican girl was forced into household labor, deprived of food and shelter and raped six times by the man who smuggled her into this country, according to authorities. Benito Vargas, 17, is accused of raping the Jalisco native on several occasions while his mother ignored the girl’s cries for help, San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez said. The girl, who was smuggled into the United States on claims she would have a better life here, was also beaten on several occasions, was rarely fed and was forced to sleep on a couch outside while she...

Last Christmas, Ignacio Ramos was in a cramped cell at a federal penitentiary in Arizona, listening to Christmas songs on a small radio and wondering what his wife and children were doing. A lot has changed in a year for the former Border Patrol agent, who became a cause célebre among conservative lawmakers after jurors handed him an 11-year sentence in 2006 for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler near El Paso. In January, George W. Bush commuted his sentence during his last full day in office. Ramos then moved his family from El Paso to Houston, where he began the...

The Obama administration quietly announced last week that it would overturn one of the harsh immigration enforcement measures enacted by the Bush administration following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Beginning next month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said, those who arrive in the United States fleeing torture or persecution abroad will no longer automatically be welcomed with handcuffs and months in a jail cell. Instead, many of those seeking protection will again be permitted to live freely in the country while their applications for permanent asylum are considered by an immigration judge. The measure is the latest in a string...

Nebraska lawmakers are set to again consider repealing a law that offers tuition breaks to some illegal immigrants, and the looming debate is already drawing support. A majority of lawmakers participating in an Associated Press pre-session survey say they support rescinding the offer made after lawmakers fought to override Gov. Dave Heineman's veto to pass the law in 2006. Of the 33 senators responding to the survey, 18 said they support repealing the measure, while six said they don't. Eight said they're unsure. One senator, Amanda McGill of Lincoln, didn't check an answer, but offered a comment asking for more...

CBS News has learned the State Department system designed to keep track of active U.S. visas twice failed to reveal Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been issued an active visa allowing him multiple entries into the United States. According to a law enforcement source, the first failure came on Nov. 19, 2009, the very same day Abdulmutallab father’s, Dr. Umaru Mutallab, a prominent banking official in Nigeria, expressed deep concern to officials at the U.S. Embassy in Abjua, Nigeria, that his 23-year-old son had fallen under the influence of "religious extremists" in Yemen. The second failure to flag...