Free Republic

Up to 50 miles of new fencing would be built along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona under a measure from Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. The committee also voted Thursday to double the size of Border Patrol by hiring an additional 10,000 to 12,000 new agents in the next five years. Judiciary Committee members approved an amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act that would replace old fencing in Arizona border towns including Douglas, Naco, Lukeville and Nogales with double- or triple-layered fencing and extend that same fencing at least two miles in each...

PHOENIX — Gov. Janet Napolitano wants Congress to fund a federal regional prison where Arizona and other Western states can send inmates who are in this country illegally. The governor said Wednesday that she has asked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons to build and operate a facility to house people convicted of state crimes but who also are illegal immigrants. She said existing law already makes the U.S. Justice Department legally responsible when people here illegally commit state crimes. So far the response has been to leave them in state prisons — and promise reimbursement. But the governor noted...

PHOENIX — Under pressure from state lawmakers, Gov. Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she is now willing to consider spending state tax dollars to expand the presence of the National Guard along the border. But she said it would be on her terms — and her timetable. The governor's stance comes as legislators are preparing to send her a measure to force her to deploy the Guard as a necessary part of the border emergency she declared last year. That legislation, which awaits a vote of the full Senate, includes $10 million to cover the costs. Napolitano suggested Wednesday she...

An unusual toolbox in the flatbed of a dusty, beat-up Chevy pickup truck catches the eye of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers on this relatively cool and quiet day at the Mariposa port of entry in Nogales. Their suspicions prove true when, after removing tools and lids and using a mobile X-ray device, they find nearly 47 pounds of marijuana hidden on a sliding metal tray in a lower compartment of the toolbox the 62-year-old U.S. citizen driver said was a gas tank. Federal border officials have been carrying out drug seizures like this one Thursday at rising rates...

Jurors began deliberating the fates Thursday of two suspected illegal-entrant smugglers who authorities say were involved in a crash that killed five in Sierra Vista. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Ferraro told jurors in federal court in Tucson that once they weigh the "avalanche of evidence" against Jose Luis Zepeda-Cruz, 25, and Jimir Valle-Martinez, 22, they will no doubt return a guilty verdict on all 15 counts they face. According to authorities and court testimony, Valle-Martinez was traveling between 88 and 96 mph when he lost control of the Ford F-350 pickup he was driving, skidded sideways, crashed over a median...

NOGALES, Ariz. -- Incursions of what appear to be Mexican military personnel on the American side of the border have been commonplace for years and have actually decreased since 2002, the U.S. Border Patrol chief said Thursday. Responding to reports this week that heavily armed drug smugglers wearing Mexican military gear confronted Texas and federal law enforcement before retreating across the Rio Grande, Chief David Aguilar said American officials will continue to work with the Mexican government to find a solution. "I feel confident that it will get the attention that's needed," said Aguilar. Aguilar said reports of incursions on...

The map being distributed by Humane Borders and Mexico's Human Rights Commission shows, using semicircles, how far people entering the United States illegally can expect to walk in one, two and three days. The text at bottom center warns people "Don't go!" into Arizona because of insufficient water and says, "It's not worth it!" Circles show where entrants have died, flags are water tanks and stars are rescue beacons. Emergency phone numbers are at lower right; the graph at the top shows the most dangerous months. ...A Tucson human-rights group has teamed up with Mexico's Human Rights Commission to provide...

The woman at the podium was angry about U.S. immigration policy. She loudly criticized President Bush, Senate Republicans and business interests, telling a Tucson audience they were working against the kind of solution that most Americans want. "We're going to hold Republicans responsible," she said as the crowd of more than 100 responded with loud applause. Democrats? Immigration rights advocates? Far from it. This was a meeting of Republicans. Few issues divide the GOP like illegal immigration, as this gathering at a Downtown hotel on Friday morning showed. On one side are conservatives like Bay Buchanan, the woman who fired...

The Minuteman Project will catapult itself back into the spotlight this weekend with a return to the border and a big-screen debut. Today and Sunday, a group of 50 to 65 Minuteman civil defense corps volunteers from Arizona will patrol three to four miles of dirt road off Arizona 286 near Three Points, southwest of Tucson and 35 miles north of the border, said Stacey O'Connell, Minuteman Arizona director. On Friday, Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox was in Park City, Utah, at the Sundance Film Festival promoting the premiere of a documentary, Crossing Arizona, that features footage and interviews with Minuteman...

Jay and Margaret Miller drove from their Northeast Side home to a Downtown hotel for an 8 a.m. breakfast Friday —not something the retired couple normally does. But dealing with commuter traffic was inconsequential for the Millers, who came to the Hotel Arizona to hear a reaffirmation of their bedrock belief that illegal immigration is devastating America. They came to listen, even if for a only few minutes, to the clarion call from two of their political heroes who want to shut tight the U.S.-Mexican border. The Millers were more than pleased when Republican Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, one of...

PHOENIX — Republican officeholders critical of a federal judge's decision to fine the state heavily if it doesn't improve programs for students learning English are pointing a finger of blame at illegal immigration. The judge's order in a 13-year-old lawsuit would impose daily fines starting at $500,000 and rising to $2 million on the state if the Legislature fails to adequately fund programs for an estimated 160,000 children attending Arizona public schools. Arizona has become the busiest entry point on the southern border for illegal immigrants, and concerns related to illegal immigration are being increasingly voiced in connection with public-policy...

As Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss await another day in federal court, hundreds of miles away, fretting about the outcome, are the young pair's biggest supporters. "I'm so proud of my daughter," said Susan Rogusky, Sellz's mother, during a phone interview from her Iowa office. "We certainly are," said Strauss' mother, Barbara Strauss, from her Manhattan home. Sellz, 23, and Strauss, 24, are the No More Deaths volunteers facing charges of transporting undocumented immigrants and conspiracy. The pair contend they were driving three undocumented immigrants to Tucson for medical aid. Last week, attorneys for Sellz and Strauss asked that the...

Studies suggest high rate has link to illegal migrants Arizona consistently has one of the nation's highest rates of fatal hit-and-run crashes. And some statistical evidence suggests the state's large number of illegal immigrants is one reason. An Arizona Daily Star analysis of nearly 10,000 fatal crashes in the state from 1994 through 2004 found that drivers left the scene in 5.6 percent of the accidents. That's a higher rate of hit-and-runs than in any state except California. Just in 2004, 77 people in Arizona died in hit-and-runs. Over the past decade, half of Arizona's fatal hit-and-runs involved pedestrians —...

Arizona would get nearly 300 miles of new border fencing along key stretches as part of a new congressional effort to crack down on illegal immigration. The House of Representatives on Thursday approved a measure to build a fence along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border as an amendment to a controversial GOP bill that also would make living in the country illegally a felony and increase penalties for employers who hire illegal workers. In addition, it would require all employers to verify the legal status of all workers. The overall bill was passed 239-182 by the full House late...

CULIACÁN, SINALOA — The meth lab by the seminary was exceptional, even by narco-trafficker standards. Equipped with cylinders of acetone, ethanol and oxygen tanks, principal ingredients of meth production, the superlab was capable of producing at least 12 pounds of crystal methamphetamine — nearly 18,000 quarter-gram doses — a day, investigators estimate. Its discovery surprised investigtors in Sinaloa, where a dose of crystal sells on the streets for 30 pesos, about $2.50. But across the border, federal and state officials believe a much more lucrative market has opened its doors: Arizona. Arizona has long been a distribution point for Mexican...

It was several hours before President Bush touched down Monday afternoon at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base to talk up his immigration reform plan. On a South Side street corner, several day laborers were already talking about Bush's immigration ideas. "He should give us work permits so we can work and return home to be with our families," said Carlos Jos¨¦ Vel¨¢squez, a 31-year-old Honduran. The morning air was still cold from the overnight freeze, but the three men know the political winds are burning hot with talk about illegal immigration. Nearly everyone has been talking about how to deal with...

America can both welcome immigrants and punish those who enter the country illegally, President Bush said here Monday in his latest push for a guest-worker program coupled with beefed-up border security. Bush didn't reveal new details about his guest-worker proposal in a 26-minute speech inside a hangar at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The president also didn't choose favorites among the host of proposals in Congress that deal with border and immigration issues. Bush did talk tough about illegal immigrants, first highlighting how they burden hospitals, schools and law enforcement in border states, then pledging to "promptly return every illegal entrant...

The U.S. Border Patrol could add up to 10,000 agents in the next five years. The training this sometimes-controversial agency requires can seem brutal, and the job can be deadly. So who would sign up for work like this? ARTESIA, N.M. - On Independence Day 2004, Pedro Infante was driving through Mosul, Iraq, manning a 50-caliber gun atop a cargo truck, when an explosion hurled shrapnel into his helmet. A year later, Infante is here in another desert, training for another dangerous and highly politicized job: working as a Border Patrol agent in Southern Arizona, the nation's hot spot for...

Guest-worker plan to top Monday agenda Hoping to straddle a fracture in the Republican Party, President Bush is due in Tucson on Monday to promote his border and immigration policies. The 2:40 p.m. speech at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is the president's only scheduled stop here. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff are expected to appear with the president at D-M. With the backing of businesses who need foreign employees, Bush is pushing a guest-worker program that would let undocumented workers obtain three-year work visas. Workers could extend that for another three years, but would then...

Those with older driver's licenses don't meet citizenship guidelines ... PHOENIX - A voter-approved proposition passed last year to prevent noncitizens from voting may also prevent Arizonans with older driver's licenses from voting as well. Under Proposition 200, anyone registering to vote must provide proof of citizenship. The most popular form is usually an Arizona driver's license issued after Oct. 1, 1996, when the state began demanding evidence of legal U.S. residency to get a license. But according to a report in The Arizona Republic, one in 10 Arizona motorists - more than 400,000 - currently hold licenses issued before...