Free Republic

Barrack Obama: F- Ron Paul : D- Newt Gingrich: D Mitt Romney: C+ Rick Santorum: A-Excerpts about Rick's grades STOPPING AMNESTIES Sen. Santorum earned an A+ on stopping amnesties while in Congress. And he has challenged his own Catholic Church leaders as well as other candidates for supporting the legalization of millions of people who have broken immigration laws. MANDATE E-VERIFY. In 1996, Sen. Santorum voted against creating the program that became E-Verify. But on the campaign trail 15 years later, he has promised to push mandatory verification. He misses an EXCELLENT rating because he continues to talk about there...

A proposed immigration law being cast in jest across the country as a way for Texans to rid the work force of illegal immigrants while protecting their low-paid nannies and gardeners drew serious concern Thursday from advocates who fear the bill could have a chilling effect across the state. Rep. Debbie Riddle's House Bill 1202 calls for two years in jail and up to $10,000 fines for people who "intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly" hire unauthorized immigrants. Specifically exempted: Laborers relegated to "work to be performed exclusively or primarily at a single-family residence." "House Bill 1202 has just really created an...

LOS ANGELES/DALLAS (Reuters) – Chipotle Mexican Grill has a lot going for it -- an upscale burrito concept, a hip and eco-friendly image, expansion plans galore and a 500 percent-plus stock price gain in just over two years. And then it has something not going its way -- a federal crackdown on its immigrant labor force that has so far forced Chipotle to fire hundreds of allegedly illegal workers in the state of Minnesota, perhaps more than half its staff there. The probe is widening. Co-Chief Executive Monty Moran told Reuters on Friday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)...

....An estimated 230,000 illegal immigrants were living in Washington state last year — 35 percent more than three years earlier, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center. The total represents one of every 20 workers in the state. ... They found that nationwide, illegal immigrants numbered 11.2 million, virtually unchanged from 2009 and down from a peak 12 million in 2007...While 57 percent are from Mexico, the illegal immigrants hail from across the world...They include people who sneaked across the borders, as well as those who came legally but overstayed employment, student or visitor visas. Continued failure...

Congressman Hinojosa files for bankruptcyby Action 4 News Staff Posted: 02.03.2011 at 6:46 PM WASHINGTON (AP) -- An eight-term Texas congressman who serves on the House Financial Services Committee has filed for personal bankruptcy and is blaming his family meat company for his problems. According to federal bankruptcy court documents, Democratic Rep. Ruben Hinojosa has $2.9 million in liabilities, though he also has nearly $1.5 million in assets. **SNIP** The Financial Services panel has jurisdiction over legislation affecting banks. House aides and outside experts say the House has no rules forbidding a lawmaker who owes large sums to a bank...

A man has been decapitated in a horrific accident at a chicken processing factory in Melbourne, Australia. Mr Sarel Singh, 34, was killed instantly when he was sucked into a machine and decapitated in an incident that has now placed the entire poultry processing industry under review. The factory was already under investigation over claims of unlawful and unethical treatment of its majority migrant workforce, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Lateline programme reported. Mr Singh's brother, Harry, said that Sarel had migrated from India four years ago 'in the hope of finding a better life in Australia'. But Sarel had told...

Meg Whitman's former maid today was awarded $5,500 in back wages she claimed was owed to her from the former candidate for governor. Nicky Diaz Santillan and her celebrity attorney, Gloria Allred, met this morning at the California Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement in San Jose, seeking more than $10,000. She said she was owed the money for work she did beyond the 15 hours a week for which she was paid during the nine years she worked for Whitman. Santillan said she was asked to perform jobs, including running errands and grocery shopping, that fell outside of her...

An amateur cameraman claims he's got video proof that California Sen. Barbara Boxer's supporters enlisted day laborers to hold signs protesting her Republican opponent. Derek Broes, a supporter of GOP Senate nominee Carly Fiorina, has released a video he shot outside a Pasadena debate that showed two Spanish-speaking men holding a slapdash white sign accusing "corporate cash" of loving the Republican candidate. Though the audio is hard to hear, one of the men clearly says he did not make the sign -- another appears to say a "lady" was paying them to hold it.

For several years, Mexico has been solving their own unemployment problem by sending their jobless citizens to the United States. The result has been a low, steady rate of unemployment in Mexico since 2000. Of course, the unimpeded flow of cheap labor headed north, has had a disastrous effect on U.S. workers. Consider the following facts: -Between 1991-1999, Mexico had an average unemployment rate of 3.7 percent. Now, as economies around the world are falling apart and experiencing record joblessness, Mexico still has a relatively low unemployment rate of 5.5 percent (July 2010). -While the U.S. currently has an anemic...

Though some American firms are bringing overseas work back home, evidence is growing that companies are moving more jobs than ever to China and other countries — a trend that could exacerbate efforts to bring down the nation's stubbornly high unemployment rate. One sign of increased offshoring is the rising number of applications for federal Trade Adjustment Assistance, which usually goes to factory workers who lost their jobs because their work was sent overseas or was undercut by cheaper imports. For the six months that ended Sept. 30, workers at about 1,200 offices and plants nationwide were approved for federal...

The former housekeeper for Meg Whitman -- the Republican candidate for Governor of California -- is about to make "controversial and explosive allegations about her former employer," TMZ has learned. 092710_meg_whitman_getty We're told the housekeeper has lawyered up with none other than Gloria Allred. The housekeeper and Allred will hold a news conference today in Gloria's office at 11 AM PT, "to tell how she suffered as a long-time, Latina household employee in Meg Whitman's home. We're told the housekeeper will be filing a legal claim against Ms. Whitman. From what we're hearing, the disclosures could have a significant impact...

WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says illegal immigrants do essential work in the U.S. and that he has firsthand knowledge of that — because they fix his house.A moderate Republican, Powell urged his party on Sunday to support immigration generally because those who come from abroad are, in his words, "what's keeping this country's lifeblood moving forward."Powell said a path to legal status should be offered to illegal immigrants because they do work that needs to get done.

WEST PALM BEACH — The national battle over the government's inability to stem the tide of illegal immigrants got personal Friday in a federal courtroom. U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra bristled at the suggestion that the government's time would be better spent keeping illegal immigrants from entering the country than prosecuting a suburban West Palm Beach man for hiring them. Business people such as Mark David, Marra said, are a big part of the problem. "One of the reason they come is because people hire them," Marra said. "If people wouldn't hire them they wouldn't be coming in droves."...

WINNIE, TEXAS (WKZO) – Forty-two undocumented aliens, who had been working the oil spill clean up in Michigan, have been arrested after they were found inside a couple of buses parked behind a bank in Winnie Texas. The Buses had been chartered by Phillip Hallmark, the owner of Hallmark Industrial. About 40 others ran off and were not captured. Immigration agents took the 42 to holding cells for eventual deportation.

More than a week after a judge blocks parts of Arizona's immigration law, the executive director of a Georgia Latino group said if that law is passed in the peach state, the poultry industry would feel the fallout. Jerry Gonzalez with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials said anywhere between 40 and 50 percent of the workforce in the poultry industry is illegal. "If we were to remove 40 to 50 percent of the workforce, would our economy suffer," Gonzalez asked during WDUN's The Local Hour Friday morning. "The answer to that is yes." He said lawmakers need to...

SACRAMENTO, CA (KGO) -- A Sacramento woman says a tech support engineer in India managed to expose her secrets and make charges to her credit card after she called him with a desperate request. ... Shortly thereafter, 16 nude photographs appeared on a vulgar website created for the sole purpose of displaying her pictures. ... In conversations that became increasingly personal, the support technician offered to help Fitzgerald remove the offensive website and somehow convinced her to ship him a brand new Dell laptop so he could work on her case from his home in Mumbai.

PHOENIX (AP) - Sheriff's deputies raided two Sizzler steak house restaurants in Phoenix, arresting nine employees who are suspected of being illegal immigrants and using fraudulent documents to get jobs. The Saturday raids were part of an investigation into whether the operators of the two Sizzler locations broke a civil law by knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

You have two families: “Joe Legal” and “Jose Illegal.” Both families have two parents, two children, and live in California. Joe Legal works in construction, has a Social Security Number and makes $25 per hour with taxes deducted. Jose Illegal also works in construction, has NO Social Security Number, and gets paid $15 cash “under the table.” Ready? Now pay attention…

Yes, we Jews unfortunately have our criminals. Yes, we Orthodox Jews unfortunately have our felons. We’re human, too. At middle age I have come to accept my limitations. Although I like to have an opinion on almost everything, I am conscious of the fact that I am not a legal scholar and do not understand all the complexities of the criminal case against Sholom Rubashkin, former CEO of America’s largest kosher meat plant, Agriprocessors of Postville, Iowa. But I am not a stupid man either. And I and a heck of a lot of other fairly intelligent and educated people...

One of the nation's biggest labor unions, a major backer of President Obama, is condemning his Department of Homeland Security's immigration enforcement practices, protesting the use of deportation quotas for agents and expanded workplace audits. Eliseo Medina, international executive vice president of Service Employees International Union, said SEIU members want DHS "to stop these crazy, irrational policies," while seeking to turn up pressure on Congress to take up overhaul legislation. SEIU is holding vigils and demonstrations Thursday in Oakland and Sacramento, Calif., and then in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Boston, New York City and Minneapolis Friday. Combined with...

19 Terrorists vs Millions of Illegal Aliens September 19, 2009 by DC Lee - A Woodward Report Columnist On September 11, 2001, nineteen terrorists murdered nearly three thousand in a quest to bring the United States to its knees. Today, however, million of illegal aliens are bringing American to its knees in a much different way. They are exploding spending in health care, welfare, education and if steps are not taken soon, they will bring the US economy to the brink of collapse. The United States was created with immigrants poured into a melting pot that made us the envy...

They're not just like the Irish--or the Italians or the Poles, for that matter. The large influx of Hispanic immigrants after 1965 represents a unique assimilation challenge for the United States. Many optimistic observers have assumed--incorrectly, it turns out--that Hispanic immigrants will follow the same economic trajectory European immigrants did in the early part of the last century. Many of those Europeans came to America with no money and few skills, but their status steadily improved. Their children outperformed them, and their children's children were often indistinguishable from the "founding stock." The speed of economic assimilation varied somewhat by ethnic...

General Motors is spending more money where it counts: Latin America. The Latin American market has been generous to the struggling automaker despite struggles at home. Today, GM announced a $1 billion plan to expand its vehicle lineup in Brazil. "We believe the Brazilian market will be very strong, will continue to grow at a rate of at least 5 percent a year and we also believe in the prospects for exports of the new models," Jaime Ardila, GM's chief executive for Brazil and the Mercosur region of South America, said in a statement. Ardila added that GM showed record...

('Cry me a river, illegals denied their RIGHTS!' alert!) For decades, Huffines Plaza in Lewisville (TX) has been an unofficial gathering spot for day laborers. The shopping center, along Interstate 35E near State Highway 121, provides quick and easy access for employers who need an extra hand willing to give a day's work for a day's pay. While this informal employment system seems to have worked for years with few problems, day laborers no longer feel welcome at the plaza, where "no trespassing" signs have been posted recently and police have been asked to start enforcing trespassing laws.

...unlike in 2006, when Democratic and Republican reformers agreed on what was needed in an immigration law overhaul, this year there's a new fault line. It surfaced when Obama called lawmakers to the White House to discuss immigration...Obama had said little about what he wants in a bill -- in fact, he has been studiously vague. But McCain knew enough about what has (and has not) been said recently by immigration experts close to the White House and those pushing Obama to take up reform that he felt it necessary to launch a preemptive strike. This year, organized labor and...

-snip- Day laborer Wayne Coldiron, 41, turned himself in to Escambia County authorities and Leonard P. Gonzalez Jr., 35, was arrested in neighboring Santa Rosa County, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said. Earlier Sunday, authorities charged Gonzalez's father, Leonard P. Gonzalez Sr., with evidence tampering. Police said the 56-year-old tried to paint over and hide damage on a red van that was spotted on surveillance video leaving the home where Byrd and Melanie Billings were shot to death Thursday. Eight of the couple's children were asleep in the house when the shootings took place. -snip-

The uber-establishment Council on Foreign Relations said Wednesday it favors granting legal status to many of the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., creating a guest worker program for low-skilled foreign workers to come and work in the U.S and opposes local police getting to conduct immigration raids. The CFR issued an immigration policy report Wednesday that looks to lift caps on foreign university students in the U.S. and allow skilled foreign graduates to get more work visas. The international policy group also wants to create legal paths to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already...

President Obama will abandon a controversial immigration crackdown, sought by his predecessor, to pressure U.S. companies to fire 9 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced yesterday. Instead, Obama will mandate that federal contractors confirm the identities of 4 million workers against federal databases beginning in September, pushing ahead under pressure from Senate Republicans with another long-stalled Bush administration initiative. Napolitano said her department will rescind a 2007 rule, tied up in federal court, that would have sent Social Security "no-match" letters to 140,000 U.S. employers. The notices were to warn companies to resolve...

The Miami-Dade schools chief has promised he'll continue to provide educational programs to migrant children, but the head of the housing authority says his agency can do better. A day after two schools for migrant children were padlocked, Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho vowed to do everything in his power to reopen them. ''I have decided that it is not our intention to leave,'' Carvalho said outside The Redland Education Center, surrounded by 100 parents, educators and members of the Florida Farmworkers Association. Turning to the farmworkers who bring their children to The Redland and the South Dade Education Centers after...

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration launched investigations of hundreds of businesses around the country Wednesday as part of its strategy to focus immigration enforcement on the employers who hire illegal workers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun notifying businesses of plans to audit their I-9 forms — employment eligibility documents that employers fill out for every worker — the agency told members of Congress in an e-mail Wednesday. Immigration officers served "Notices of Inspection" to 625 businesses, the Homeland Security Department said. By comparison, 503 such notices were issued to businesses last year, the agency said.

A News 8 investigation found that hundreds of aircraft mechanics have been brought into the United States to work at aircraft repair facilities. Insiders say the companies that are importing the mechanics are so eager to save money, they’re overstating their qualifications. The result may be a threat to safety, abetted by lax enforcement of immigration law. At daybreak any morning at San Antonio Aerospace, hundreds of workers amble through the gates for the day shift. They repair big jets like Airbuses, Boeing 757s and MD-11s. But, despite the fact that it's a huge facility in the middle of the...

Citing a backlash from customers who complained that they were finding Indian accents hard to understand, Delta Air Lines has dropped the use of Indian call centers to handle sales and reservations. Delta is retaining its call centers in Jamaica and South Africa, which generate far fewer complaints. Under criticism from angry Florida lawmakers, JP Morgan has also announced that it will no longer route food stamp recipient calls to Indian call centers. The company services Florida’s Electronic Benefit Transfer program. The company directed overflow calls from EBT card holders to two Indian call centers. Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, said,...

When 21-year-old Rigoberto was working on construction sites in the US, he could earn up to $400 a week. Now that he is back home in Mexico, working as a farmhand, he makes just $65. And that is why there are estimated to be between eight and 12 million Mexicans in the US. It is also why the US economic crisis spells disaster for its southern neighbour. I met Rigoberto in a pretty little town in central Mexico called Jungapeo. I also met Martin, who has three sons working in the US. But times are hard for them too -...

Robert and Kay Lynn lay in bed shortly after closing on their new home in the Blue Oaks subdivision in Rancho Murieta, Calif., abutting an 18-hole golf course. They were listening to the “pop, pop, pop” of what they thought were acorns falling onto the roof. The Lynns soon realized those were not acorns dropping on the roof. “Little did we know it was the house cracking,” says Mrs. Lynn, 67 years old. Mr. Lynn, 68, says they bought the property in 2002 for $357,000 as a weekend home and an investment. The stucco house was moving and shifting, with...

A U.S. federal probe has found that about a third of American Apparel's factory workers in the Los Angeles area had supplied suspect or invalid records and were not authorized to work in the United States. The findings, from a January 2008 federal investigation, may deal a blow to the corporation's image as a proponent of immigration reform. But the company said on Tuesday the potential loss of those 1,800 workers would have no significant impact on its results. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency found that some 1,600 current employees at American Apparel's Los Angeles factories appeared to...

US officials say they have greatly shortened delays in getting visas faced by foreign students and researchers, many of whom come from India and China. The time needed for a visa security review, which is aimed at preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, will be reduced from several months to two weeks. The changes follow complaints from academic and scientific organisations over the past year. "We are confident that the new streamlined process both dramatically reduces wait times and maintains the same level of security," Stephen Heifetz, deputy assistant secretary for policy development at the Department of Homeland...

WASHINGTON - Congress should enact "badly needed" immigration reforms to bring in both unskilled and skilled foreign workers if it wants to maintain the nation's economic vitality, former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan said Thursday. Greenspan called for both a temporary worker program for low-skilled jobs and for an increase in visas for highly skilled workers...in testimony at the first Senate hearing this year on the prospects of an immigration overhaul. Noting the "very large participation" of undocumented workers in both low- and high-skilled jobs, he said, "if you were to remove either of those groups, the economy would be...

The immigration bottom line: We need more legal avenues.

WASHINGTON: In the first-ever indication of its stand on H-1B visas popular among Indian professionals, the Obama administration has informed a court that the US needs this scheme to avoid "competitive disadvantage" the American companies could face otherwise. A submission in this regard was recently filed by Michael F Hertz, acting assistant attorney general, in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of three US bodies, nine individuals and two students challenging government's decision to extend from one year to 29 months the duration of foreign nationals with engineering, science and other technical degrees who can work in the...

The second-biggest bank of the US, JP Morgan Chase, which acquired Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns recently, will increase its outsourcing to India by 25% this year to nearly $400 million. It will also manage the integration of the acquired companies from India to bring down the cost of integrating different information technology (IT) systems. Right now, JP Morgan outsources $250-300 million worth of IT and back-office projects every year to Cognizant, TCS and Accenture, apart from to its own captive centre in Mumbai.

There are a couple of interesting articles in the news about illegal immigration today. Let's take a look at this one. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/03/08/a1a_homedepot_0309.html?imw=Y Apparently mobs of 'day laborers' (euphemism for illegal alien) are descending on Home Depot customers as they attempt to go shopping. Naturally enough, the shoppers find this intimidating, if not frightening. With the typical corporate courage so common among businesses today, Home Depot's reply is basically 'this isn't our problem'.

My translation: The owners of Charmex a maquiladora in Mexicali Baja California was caught by its employees moving it machine back to the US in the middle of the night. The company had been in Mexical for 17 years and had been losing money and planned to re-open in the US. The article uses the verb fuga which means escape or getaway, and not in a nice way. When a compnay closes in Mexico the are reqiured by law to pay a severance and this is what Charmex is trying to avoid.

Can you stimulate the economy by shutting out foreign workers? Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Grassley think so. And for all his anti-protectionist rhetoric, President Obama has shown surprisingly little interest in stopping them. The stimulus bill the president signed into law restricts the use of bank bailout funds (money banks get from the Financial Stability Plan, formerly known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program) to hire skilled foreign workers under the H-1B visa program. This slap at open labor markets is downplayed as a dramatic but toothless gesture in favor of "Hire American," nice companion to the "Buy American"...

WASHINGTON: US federal authorities have claimed to have unearthed a major H-1B visa racket with the arrest of at least 11 persons, most of them suspected to be of Indian origin. Though the officials did not reveal the citizenship of those arrested, the names released indicated that almost all of them are either Indian or persons of Indian origin. Vision Systems Group, an IT company headquartered in South Plainfield New Jersey, has been indicted on 10 federal counts including conspiracy and mail fraud charge. Viswa Mandalapu is its CEO and president, according to the information available on the company's website.

"We're probably anticipating a big crowd to start to live in Shelbyville," said Father Boutros Boutros. Boutros leads a congregation of about 1,700 families. Recently, dozens more arrived in Nashville from Egypt on temporary visas. Some of them of them have alreadyu been hired by tyson food!

ANDERSON, S.C. -- Some people call it racial profiling without a reason, others say it's a suspicious circumstance. For the second day in a row, on Thursday protesters gathered at an Anderson construction site, demonstrating against what they claim are illegal workers. The general contractor said that its masonry subcontractor has made assurances that all its workers are in the U.S. legally. The project is a new Anderson city fire station near Simpson Road and Highway 81.

Senate Stimulus Passes and Allows for the Hiring of Illegal Aliens Updated Tuesday, February 10, 2009, 3:26 PM The Senate has passed an $838 billion economic stimulus package with a vote of 61-37. The Senate bill as it stands allows for the hiring of illegal aliens. The House and Senate will now confer to come up with a unified proposal that will then need approval from both the House and Senate before being sent to the President.Both the Senate Democrats and Republicans have named their conferees, which is likely to begin this afternoon. Senate Democrats appointed Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye,...

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration. “All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our...

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – As violent crime surges, this border city and international manufacturing center is deploying security forces to create safe commuter routes for U.S. executives and others who work in industrial parks. Ciudad Juárez is home to 380 maquiladoras, factories where Mexican workers assemble products for foreign companies. Most are U.S.-owned or subsidiaries. The factories employ more than 230,000 people. So officials created special commuter routes leading to and from industrial parks to protect workers and managers. "The maquila industry is about 60 percent of the economy. And we know how important it is," Mayor Jesús Reyes Ferris...

Environmental activist Lloyd Carter resigned from the California Water Impact Network late Monday afternoon -- after more than 100 people showed up outside Fresno City Hall to rally against his comments last week that disparaged farm workers.