Free Republic

President Obama will ask Congress to provide more than $2 billion in new funds to control the surge of illegal Central American migrants at the South Texas border, and to grant broader powers for immigration officials to speed deportations of children caught crossing without their parents, White House officials said on Saturday. Mr. Obama will send a letter on Monday to alert Congress that he will seek an emergency appropriation for rapidly expanding border enforcement actions and humanitarian assistance programs to cope with the influx, which includes record numbers of unaccompanied minors and adults bringing children. The officials gave only...

FORT HUACUCA — Friday’s induction of the late Army Col. Kurush Bharucha-Reid into the Military Intelligence Corps of Hall of Fame was one of two special recognitions given to him. An award, established this year, recognizing honor graduates of the Human Intelligence Training Joint Center of Excellence has been established and the first five recipients have been named — Capt. Robert Hammond, Capt. Todd Miguel, 1st Lt. Janie D’Amato, Staff Sgt. Eric Hack and Spc. Mark Phelps — as winners of the Col. KB Reid HUMINT Award for the Special Operations Course and the Defense Advanced Tradecraft Course. Col. Kurush...

FORT HUACHUCA — At least it wasn’t a life-size replica of the sphinx, which sits out the Intelligence Center of Excellence headquarters building. Rather, it’s a small model which Capt. Chad R. Lorenz was presented at a Friday luncheon during the day’s Military Intelligence Hall of Fame events. He was named this year’s winner of the Lt. Gen. Sidney T. Weinstein Award, at which the general’s widow, Pauline, and several of their children and grandchildren attended. Earlier, the general’s widow had been inducted as an Honorary Member of the MI Corps. Speaking at the luncheon was retired Army Col.Daniel F....

FORT HUACHUCA — It was an unusual start to a change-of-command ceremony Friday morning when an Army RC-12 aircraft flew over Chaffee Parade Field to begin the ceremonial transfer of the leadership of the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade, as soldiers stood on the field. The twin-engine flying intelligence platform, on which pilots and crews train as part of the 111th’s mission, signified the hand-over of the brigade from Col. Mike Monnard to Col. Kevin Wilkinson. Saying it is “a time-honored tradition of passing the unit colors and recognizing the accomplishments of one commander and welcoming another,” Maj. Gen. Robert P....

FORT HUACHUCA — A special company of heroes was increased Friday with the induction of eight members to the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. Looking out over the audience in Fitch Auditorium, Maj. Gen. Robert P. Ashley Jr., said present members of the MI Hall of Fame and those who were about to be inducted reminds him of the closing interview with Maj. Dick Winters in the “Band of Brothers” TV series, of about 45 seconds during which Winters recalls a question from a grandson. The question was whether Winters was a hero during World War II to which he...

A group of American independent security contractors on the ground in Arizona witnessed smugglers and mules running for the American side of the border, when a Mexican military helicopter shot at U.S. border patrol agents. "They saw the smugglers and mules hastily moving ahead of the Mexican army crossing the river and moving quickly for cover on the US side. Then the helicopter flew in firing at near by border patrol. The smugglers and mules scattered,” Matthew Leber, spokesman for The American Patriots The Three Percent, an organization who helps solicit private donations for the team of former special ops,...

Yet perhaps even more shocking was a 45-second segment of the interview that has received scant attention: A claim by Arpaio that he’s close to discovering who forged Barack Obama’s birth certificate. His comments were made between 9:59 and 10:44 in the interview and began as an explanation of why he would not run for Arizona governor despite appeals to do so. Arpaio said, “I would have to resign; I’m not going to leave this office to somebody coming in when I have sensitive investigations going.” And then came the bombshell. Arpaio continued: “including the president’s birth certificate — I...

SIERRA VISTA — With a 60-day public comment period underway, the U.S. Army is looking for feedback on a plan that would cut 2,700 jobs at Fort Huachuca as part of an overall force restructuring that will bring troop levels down from more than 570,000 soldiers, to 420,000 by 2019. The revelation that 2,700 positions may be cut from the local post was first announced in March by Maj. Gen. Robert Ashley. “For Fort Huachuca the planning (reduction) numbers are 1,700 military and 1,000 civil service (positions). Again, it is not the (approved) number but part of the planning assessment...

Border Patrol agents in Arizona were reportedly fired upon by a Mexican military helicopter that traveled across the border. KVOA-TV reports that Mexican authorities were conducting a drug interdiction operation when the incident happened early Thursday morning on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation. The Mexican chopper fired at the agents and then flew back into Mexico.

The primary driver of the flood of unaccompanied minors across the southern border is the belief they will be allowed to stay and afforded legal status, according Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake. In an interview with USA Today Flake, a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight that pushed immigration reform legislation through the Senate last year, explained that while there are factors like violence and poor economies acting to push Central Americans northward, there has been a “dramatic spike” that requires a remedy from President Obama. (SNIP) He added that while he does not believe House Majority Leader Eric...

“Let’s face it: I’ve been a thorn in leadership’s side,” says Arizona Republican Rep. Matt Salmon, sitting at his desk in the Rayburn House Office Building. Earlier that day, Salmon had just been named by Speaker John Boehner to a special “working group” on the crisis at the southern U.S. border, where tens of thousands of unaccompanied children are streaming into the country with hopes that President Obama will grant them amnesty. Salmon is the most conservative member of the new group, and his selection by Boehner is surprising, to say the least, given that the Arizonan has been a...

MCALLEN, Texas—In one weekend, the U.S. Border Patrol prevented murder suspects, multiple sex offenders, and an MS-13 gang member from entering the interior of Texas after they illegally entered into the U.S. from Mexico. The arrests occurred in the Rio Grande Valley sector, ground zero of the current border crisis. The murder suspect was caught approximately 85 miles from the border in Texas, near the town of Falfurrias. He is a Guatemalan who is wanted for alleged murder in the State of Florida. Another of the arrests occurred near McAllen, Texas as a man from El Salvador who crossed the...

Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday that he has appointed a “working group” of House Republicans tasked to respond to the border crisis involving the surge of unaccompanied minors trying to enter the United States illegally. (SNIP) Members of the working group include Republican Reps. John Carter of Texas, Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, Kay Granger of Texas, Michael McCaul of Texas, Steve Pearce of New Mexico and Matt Salmon of Arizona. Granger chairs the subcommittee that oversees funding for the State Department and foreign operations.

FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. - The Joint Interoperability Test Command hosts a birthday celebration 10-11 a.m., July 2, at its headquarters on the local post. JITC is celebrating more than 27 years of testing excellence at Fort Huachuca. Its history is built on the testing legacy of prior organizations such as the Tri-Service Tactical Communications Joint Test Element; the Joint Interface Test Center; and the Joint Tactical Command, Control and Communications Agency, all of which were involved in previous command and control testing on Fort Huachuca and Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Twenty-five years ago on June 28, 1989, a ribbon-cutting ceremony...

El Paso, Texas (CBS HOUSTON) – The Department of Homeland Security is looking to fulfill an order for thousands of pairs of men’s underwear – with hundreds of the requested men’s briefs in the 5X and 6X-large sizes. A solicitation posted earlier this month by the Immigration & Customs Enforcement office seeks thousands of “White 100% Cotton Men’s Briefs” ranging from mediums to hundreds of 6X-large pairs of the underwear. ICE facilities have seen a recent influx of detained immigrants awaiting deportation, during which time, the detention facilities require such basic items for the detained aliens, Breitbart reported. The ICE...

A woman accused of defrauding an elderly World War II veteran of more than $2.6 million confirmed everything police and prosecutors said about her crimes was true. “I took advantage of that man,” a tearful Donna Iman said at a mitigation hearing Monday in Pima County Superior Court. “I got greedy.” Iman pleaded guilty to fraudulent schemes and artifices in connection with defrauding 93-year-old Thomas Gerbing from 2010 to 2012. Testifying before Pima County Superior Court Judge Teresa Godoy, Tucson Police Detective Nicole Greene said Iman, 47, met the victim through the church they attended. As their friendship grew, Greene...

Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal admitted earlier this week that he has been posting anonymously on a number of political blogs using a handful of pseudonyms. Some of the postings attributed to Huppenthal, a Republican, are inflammatory and impolitic. He called food stamp recipients “lazy pigs,” for example, and equated Margaret Sanger’s promotion of abortion for poor black people to the extermination of Jewish people by the Nazis, reports The Arizona Republic. He also blamed Franklin Roosevelt’s policies during the Great Depression for the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany and suggested that Obama’s policies are similar to Roosevelt’s.

Glenn and TheBlaze have been covering the growing crisis at the southern border for a number of weeks now. With the situation further deteriorating, Glenn came before his audience on Monday morning with an interesting ask. In fact, Glenn described what he was about to say as “the hardest thing” he has ever asked for. But as he shared troubling new information about the humanitarian crisis at the border, Glenn asked his listeners to consider donating to Mercury One. I’m not going to tell you who is giving me this information because things down at the border are extraordinarily difficult...

HOUSTON (AP) — Mayors from the GOP-dominated states of Texas and Arizona are calling on cities to use nature to fight the impacts of climate change, even while Republican governors and lawmakers repeatedly question the science that shows human-caused pollution contributes to global warming. As conservative governors criticize the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new rules designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the mayors — many from cities already struggling with climate-change effects — are taking steps and spending money to stem the damage. Attendees of the U.S. Conference of Mayors will vote Monday on a resolution that...

Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal this week admitted he was the author of a series of pseudonymous blog posts describing people who receive welfare as "lazy pigs." He also compared Planned Parenthood to Nazis, and said the organization is responsible for most abortions among Black people in America.