Free Republic

Johhny Sutton. You hired him in 2001. It’s time he was on his way. Give him his walking papers. Let him go. Heck, give him a freakin’ medal like you did George Tenhet, I don’t care, just put his azz on the road. After crucifying Border Agents Ramos and Compean, this piece of legalistic trash has done it again: this time to a 25 year old Texas Deputy who had the misfortune of being the victim of attempted murder by a carload of illegal immigrants. They tried to run him over with a Chevy Suburban. He fired his gun at...

Asked again at a recent White House press conference whether President Bush would consider a pardon for two Border Patrol agents facing long prison sentences for shooting in the rump a drug dealer they were pursuing, Tony Snow said: "Border guards must obey the law, too." Apparently, Snow and the president are appalled about the fact that the agents retrieved spent shells at the scene; a violation of procedure in what was perceived as a cover-up of the incident. Snow's reaction in speaking for the president raises some questions in my mind. Hasn't the problem with the border and immigration...

- Williamson commissioners tour facility in response to residents' protests - When protesters expressed outrage last month that an immigrant- detention center in Taylor has children in custody and charged that they are housed in prisonlike conditions with substandard care, Williamson County commissioners pledged to learn more about the T. Don Hutto Residential Center. After touring the private facility in visits over the past two weeks, most commissioners say they are satisfied with the care for the families held there. "I think it's a very well-run facility, and they probably are doing the best thing they possibly can," said County...

MEXICO CITY -- Sylvester Stallone defended boxing, praised the hard work of Mexicans and dished out some jabs against U.S. plans to build a wall on its southern border, as the 60-year-old actor visited Mexico City to promote his sixth "Rocky" film. Stallone said Thursday that "Rocky Balboa," the latest installment in the underdog saga of the Italian Stallion, shows an ordinary man fighting back against life's difficulties represented by his stronger ring opponents. "It's like bullfighting or certain sports where you understand the brutality," he told reporters. "The thing is you have two men who are prepared; two men...

First it was the chaos. Then it was the confusion as to who was arrested and where they would be taken. Now, the Spanish-speaking residents of Cactus, Dumas and other neighboring communities who escaped Tuesday's raid because they either are here legally or do not work at the Swift meat plant, face an even bigger problem: what is going to happen to the more than 100 children whose parents were rounded up and arrested? "Right now the children are being taken care of by relatives or friends of those who were deported," said Orlando Gajardo, spokesman for the St. Peter...

-Attack on Americans on private ranch may signal shift in Laredo-area violence- I'm surprised it hadn't happened sooner, hunters being attacked or kidnapped along the border. The news that Laredo businessman Librado Piña Jr., his son and three other men were kidnapped Sunday from Piña's ranch just across the border in Coahuila was shocking in the brazen way the attack was carried out. Less surprising was the fact that it happened. According to news reports from Laredo, Piña, his son Librado Piña III, David Mueller of Roscoe, plus Fidel Rodriguez Cerdan and Marco Ortiz were taken hostage by a group...

VAN HORN, TX (AP) - For years, Sheriff Oscar Carillo all but gave drug runners a free pass in the rugged and desolate desert that makes up most of southern Culberson County. With an annual budget of about $720,000 and eight deputies to patrol nearly 3,800 square miles, he felt he had little choice. "We have no police departments (in the county) and we've had to leave the off road stuff alone," said Carillo, whose county begins three miles north of the Mexican border. But Houston radio talk-show host Edd Hendee has offered to donate a plane for Carillo and...

The government is considering creating an unprecedented security system for the Jewish community of Hebron, including never-before-used hi-tech laser radars, as part of a new NIS 400 million allocation for security systems at settlements, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The state-of-the-art Hebron defense system would be part of a second phase hi-tech settlement security project carried out by the IDF; NIS 300m. was spent on phase one over the past year and a half. The governmental body that creates security systems for settlements in the West Bank is a branch of the IDF Home Front Command called the Shabam Administration....

New Survey: Challenge for GOP Leaders is Motivating the Base Posted by Bobby Eberle September 7, 2006 at 6:39 am We are now in the home stretch of the 2006 mid-term elections. Pundits will say that it’s a tough year for Republicans, and they are right. Much needs to be done in these next two months, and one of the key challenges for GOP leaders is to motivate a grassroots base of activists who are keeping their wallets closed and feeling less inclined to help with get out the vote efforts. With over 2,500 responses received in less than 24...

Often, in the middle of a heated debate, people forget exactly what they're arguing about. But we employers on the front lines of American business cannot forget - we know why the nation must come to grips with illegal immigration. We know that Americans must face up to the reality of the foreign workers we need to keep the economy growing and bring them under the rule of law, for their sake and ours.

-Focus is on states' growing role in federal issues- When U.S. and Mexico border governors meet at the Texas Capitol today for talks on border security and trade, protesters outside will demonstrate against proposals to build border fences and make felons of people in the country illegally. The planned protests would seem misplaced, since those are federal issues, but the tempest that usually surrounds the nation's illegal immigration debate more and more is moving to the states. With Congress deadlocked on how to deal with an estimated 12 million immigrants living in the United States, Texas and other states are...

SAN YSIDRO, Calif. -- U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers arrested a U.S. man Tuesday morning after they say he tried to smuggle three migrants into the country hidden in the seats of his vehicle. CBP officers said they encountered the driver, a 33-year-old resident of Rosarito, Mexico, as he entered the port at about 5 a.m. driving a GMC Vendura van. According to authorities, the driver stated he was a citizen of the United States and presented a valid California identification and birth certificate to the officer. The primary officer said the driver has a nervous demeanor. The officer...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korean troops along their heavily fortified border exchanged gunfire for the first time in about a year, a military official said on Tuesday, with the incident coming as ties between the two have soured. North Korean troops fired two shots at a South Korean guard post near the Demilitarised Zone on Monday night and South Korean troops returned six shots, an official said by telephone. "No one was injured in the incident," the Joint Chiefs of Staff official said. One of the shots hit the guard post, causing South Korean troops to immediately return...

DONNA — Bandits shot hundreds of rounds of automatic gun fire at Hidalgo County Sheriff’s deputies and Border Patrol agents Wednesday from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. The deputies were responding to a call from two brothers who swam across the river after an initial gunfight at a ranch in Mexico, Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said. Treviño would not identify the two brothers, but said the two U.S. citizens are suspects in other criminal investigations. The two brothers called 911 around 7:45 p.m. Wednesday and told the operator that they were near the Brewster Ranch south of...

The security of the border should be the No. 1 priority for an immigration bill, Sen. Arlen Specter said yesterday, and he's open to a compromise that sets goals for border and interior enforcement ahead of a guest-worker program and path to citizenship for illegal aliens. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said that in order for Congress to produce an immigration bill this year, President Bush must lobby personally on specific details in the bill -- something he has not done. "The president's got to be there. He's got to get involved, in my opinion, in the negotiations....

The President visited Federal a Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, N.M speaking about border and immigration issues. First Lady Laura Bush spoke at the Helping America's Youth Regional Conference in Indianapolis and Meadowbrook Collaborative Community Center Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga at the State Department Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld continued his far east trip today being in Indonesia. Former Presidents George H. W. Bush took part in a fund raising event at the Cape Arundel Golf Club in Kennebunkport, Maine Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

"No human being is illegal," says a Quaker organization that will spend much of Wednesday demanding "real solutions" to America's immigration crisis. The group advocates a path to citizenship for people who came to this country illegally; it wants "worker rights" for future migrants; and "respect and protection of civil and human rights for all migrants and border communities." On the other side of the debate, those who insist that people should not be rewarded for sneaking into the country illegally will visit Capitol Hill on Wednesday, hoping to change the minds of so-called "Amnesty Republicans."

SAN DIEGO -- The world's busiest border crossing reopened early Friday following a nine-hour closure that occurred after federal authorities shot and killed the driver of a sport utility vehicle headed for Mexico, officials said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents began following the black SUV after somebody reported seeing it pick up suspected illegal immigrants near the U.S. side of the Otay Mesa border crossing, said Lt. Kevin Rooney of San Diego Police Department. As traffic backed up near the border, the vehicle stopped on the shoulder. When agents approached and tried to get the driver to step out...

WASHINGTON -- I do not doubt the president's sincerity in wanting to humanize and regularize the lives of America's 11 million illegal aliens. But good intentions are not enough. For decades, the well-traveled road from the Mexican border to the barrios of Los Angeles has been paved with such intentions. They begat the misguided immigration policy that created the crisis that necessitated the speech that purports to offer, finally, the ``comprehensive'' solution. Hardly. The critical element -- border enforcement -- is farcical. President Bush promises to increase the number of border agents. That was promised in the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty legislation...

What the president's immigration speech and "The DaVinci Code" have in common. What was missing in the president's approach the other night was the expression, or suggestion, of context. The context was a crisis that had gone unanswered as it has built, the perceived detachment of the political elite from people on the ground, and a new distance between the president and his traditional supporters. The president would have done well to signal that he knew he was coming late to the party, as it were; that he'd come to rethink his previous stand, or lack of a stand, and...