Free Republic

The United States is facing a major obstacle in its efforts to deport thousands of illegal immigrants, including many convicted felons: Their home countries don't want them back. This does not sit well with Sen. Arlen Specter, a veteran Republican lawmaker and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Specter was stunned at the situation after touring several prisons in his home state of Pennsylvania, where taxpayer dollars are paying to house foreigners who have served their sentences but could not be deported. In response, he drafted legislation that would punish countries that refuse to take back illegal immigrants. "There...

KEARNEY — A Guatemala man has been sentenced to 20 to 32 years in prison for stabbing his girlfriend and her sister in their northwest Kearney apartment. Mauro Yos-Chiguil pleaded guilty in March to second-degree murder and felony second-degree assault charges in Buffalo County Court. Authorities have said the 33-year-old Yos-Chiguil stabbed his girlfriend and mother of his twin sons in her head, shoulder, chest and stomach. She was released after treatment at a local hospital. Also injured was the girlfriend’s teenage sister. After he completes his sentence, Yos-Chiguil could face deportation. Authorities have said he is an illegal immigrant.

WASHINGTON - The government's plan to crack down on illegal workers could cost employers more than $1 billion a year and legal workers billions in lost wages, a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says. Those costs are enough to trigger a federal law that would require the Homeland Security Department to analyze more thoroughly the effect of its proposal, said Richard Belzer, a consultant hired by the chamber to do the study. It was made available to The Associated Press on Thursday. The department's proposed "no match" rule would require employers to fire workers who can't resolve...

LOS ANGELES Immigration officials say the suspected Los Angeles street gang member charged in the shooting death of a high school football star may have been in the country illegally. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said Saturday her agency has filed an immigration hold against 19-year-old Pedro Espinoza. The hold means Espinoza will be transferred into her agency's custody for possible deportation when he leaves local custody. Espinoza was released from jail in an assault case the day before the March 2 killing of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw Junior. Kice did not know if there was a hold...

The alleged gang member accused of killing Los Angeles high school football star Jamiel Shaw is in the country illegally and had been released from jail without anyone questioning his citizenship the day before Shaw's shooting, according to a report by MyFOXLA.com. Meanwhile, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Saturday afternoon was scheduled to join with Shaw's family to dedicate a memorial honoring the 17-year-old at the spot where he was killed. Police say Pedro Espinoza, the 19-year-old suspect arrested in Shaw's death, has been in a street gang since he was 12. Until this month, he had been in jail on...

When Woodrow Wilson went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war in 1917, the U.S. Army was ranked 17th in the world, behind Portugal. On Armistice Day, 19 months later, there were 2 million doughboys in France, where they had helped to break the back of Gen. Ludendorff's theretofore invincible army in its final offensive, and 2 million more in the United States ready to march on Berlin. No other nation could have done that. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, FDR demanded that a disarmed America "build 50,000 planes" -- a seemingly impossible number, but one...

(WCCO) The driver of the van and the owner of the van involved in the fatal Cottonwood bus crash were each charged with four additional federal charges Friday. Prosecutors charged Olga Martina Franco del Cid, 24, the driver of the van, with two counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of false representation of a Social Security number. Authorities have said she is in the country illegally. Francisco Sangabriel-Mendoza, 29, was the registered owner of the van involved in the crash and was also charged with two counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of false representation of...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Immigration agents say they've learned the true identity of a van driver charged in a Minnesota bus crash that killed four children. Twenty-4-year-old Olga Marina Franco of Guatemala is accused of running a stop sign and hitting the school bus. Investigators say she gave them a fake name after last week's crash and told them she was from Mexico. Franco is charged with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide and lesser crimes. Authorities say she claims she stopped at the sign and the bus hit her. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers say they believe Franco is an...

COTTONWOOD, Minn. -- Authorities have confirmed that the the driver of the van that struck the school bus that killed 4 students on Tuesday is an illegal alien. Officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement are checking to see where she came from and how long she's been in Minnesota. FOX 9 has also learned that the name she gave to police, Alainiss Morales, is an alias.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday decried anti-immigrant perceptions in the United States and argued that Mexican immigrants complement American workers. On his first trip to the U.S. as Mexico's president, Calderon said he is working to combat anti-Americanism in Mexico and to improve job prospects there to reduce migration. He said he hopes that Americans resist anti-Mexican sentiments. "The worst thing that happened in this country is this anti-Mexican or anti-immigrant perception of people. We need to contain this," Calderon said after a speech at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "I need to change...

Digger’s Realm did a terrific job compiling this clip reel of open borders zealot/McCain Hispanic outreach director Juan Hernandez’s greatest hits. He considers Canada, the U.S., and Mexico “a bloc, not one nation.” He puts “Mexico first.” He doesn’t believe there are any criminals among the 12-20 million illegal aliens he thinks should be legalized. He’s been saying all of this for a long time. The McCain campaign knew what it was getting. So should Republican voters: VIDEO at michellemalkin.com

President Bush has maintained neutrality but privately expresses exasperation with Romney's hard-line stance on immigration......Bush is upset Romney changed his position at the expense of the president's immigration reform. Bush and McCain are not close, but he's grateful for McCain's support on Iraq and immigration. Florida Gov. Crist's unexpected late endorsement, which helped propel McCain to victory, was an unpleasant surprise to state Republican leaders. Crist had said he was not making an endorsement after shunning Giuliani's courtship and suggested that they also stay neutral. His support for McCain irked Republican activists who generally would have preferred former Romney. Romney...

McCain's love of amnesty will be a key issue. He supported amnesty in 2003 by name, proposed it in 2006 and 2007 without calling it amnesty, and says that anyone who says that he ever supported amnesty is a liar. He has insulted Americans who advocate border security and has cursed at the thought of building a border fence. The presence of Juan Hernandez in the background of the McCain campaign tells us that John McCain is as weak on border security now as he ever was. Dr. Juan Hernandez, a dual citizen of the US and Mexico, and past...

"A Howard County judge rejected a plea agreement yesterday that called for a sentence of up to eight years for a 26-year-old man accused of killing a Marine and his date in a drunken-driving accident on Thanksgiving night in 2006. ...Eduardo Raul Morales-Soriano, an illegal immigrant whose blood-alcohol level, authorities say, was four times the legal limit on the night of the crash. "

Less then a week after saying he has heard the American people regarding illegal immigration and their opposition to the McCain-Kennedy Pro-Amnesty bill, John McCain would still SIGN THE BILL into law if he was President and it came across his desk: (VIDEO) This explains his receiving the endorsement of fellow Pro-Amnestians, Senator Mel Martinez, (who almost single-handedly bankrupted the RNC with his support of the bill), the NY Times, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and of the Mexico-first pro-amnesty open borders advocate Dr. Juan Hernandez. “My friends", let me give you some “straight talk", a vote for John McCain is...

CHANDLER, Ariz. — A suspect in the sexual assaults of several young girls in Chandler has been arrested and police said Saturday that DNA positively links the man to the case. Santana Batiz Aceves, 39, was booked into a Maricopa County jail in Phoenix on 25 counts of kidnapping, sexual assault and trespassing in connection with the assaults that began in June 2006, police announced at a news conference. They said the most recent attack linked to the case occurred June 8 on a 14-year-old girl. Police had been searching for months for a man who raped four girls and...

Arizona Serial Rape Suspect Arrested, Linked to Attacks by DNA CHANDLER, Ariz. — A suspect in the sexual assaults of several young girls in Chandler has been arrested and police said Saturday that DNA positively links the man to the case. Santana Batiz Aceves, 39, was booked into a Maricopa County jail in Phoenix on 25 counts of kidnapping, sexual assault and trespassing in connection with the assaults that began in June 2006, police announced at a news conference. They said the most recent attack linked to the case occurred June 8 on a 14-year-old girl. Chandler Police Chief Sherry...

MERIDEN (CT) — A New Haven man was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison for the vehicular manslaughter of West Haven minister Alan B. Broome in a wrong-way drunken driving crash on Interstate 91 last year, according Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the victim’s widow. Israel Quintero, 30, of 981 Ella T. Grasso Blvd., was sentenced in Superior Court in Meriden. Effie Cotto, a victim advocate with MADD, and Broome’s widow, Renee Broome, said Quintero must serve eight years and would then be subject to deportation, because he is an illegal immigrant from Mexico. Cotto and Broome attended the...

SPENCER, Iowa -- The tiny jail here has housed many a typical small-town Iowa criminal since its bricks were laid in 1938 -- drunk drivers, drug abusers, the occasional thief. These days, though, Sheriff Randy Krukow walks the cell row and behind the bars sees a new kind of increasingly typical lawbreaker: illegal immigrants. Six of the eight men locked up this month were in the country illegally, accused of identity fraud and drug dealing. They worry Krukow, as did the 99 illegal immigrants he watched being arrested on television last year when federal agents swarmed a meatpacking plant three...

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A gang member and two registered sex offenders - a father and his son - have been detained by federal immigration agents and Greeley police and face deportation. The sex offenders are illegal immigrants from Mexico, while the accused gang member is a legal permanent resident from Mexico, a news release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. Authorities called the busts Wednesday a victory for twin federal immigration campaigns - "Operation Predator" and "Operation Community Shield." The efforts aim to protect the public from child molesters, Internet predators and human traffickers, as well as international gangs. "ICE and local...

20 hosts gather in Iowa to focus on candidates' border positions. DES MOINES -- Twenty talk show hosts from across the nation are gathering in Des Moines today and tomorrow in a "Talk Radio Row" organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform that is intended to bring presidential candidates' positions on immigration reform into the spotlight. FAIR's plans include a forum in which top Democratic and Republican Party presidential contenders, Iowa politicians, and national experts can meet to be interviewed in a talk radio marathon that reflects the growing importance of the immigration debate to the 2008 presidential campaign....

FREELAND – The founder of a Hazleton-based anti-illegal immigration group left for Iowa on Wednesday to join other activists to discredit GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee before the Iowa caucus. “We’re going to expose to Iowa voters that Mike Huckabee, who is currently leading in the Iowa polls, is … a fraud, and his record speaks volumes. He does not care about immigration reform, and basically, we need to go out there and get the word out,” Dan Smeriglio, president and founder of Voice of the People USA, said Wednesday at a press conference at the Veterans of Foreign Wars...

Power Line hits us to a Reuters report that says illegal immigrants are going back to Mexico. A] growing number of illegal immigrants across the United States … are starting to pack their bags and move on as a crackdown on undocumented immigrants widens and the U.S. economy slows, turning a traditional Christmas trek home into a one-way trip. *** There is no tally of the number of illegal immigrants who have already left the United States, many of whom simply head south over the border with their belongings packed into a car during the annual Christmas exodus, or board...

Mike Huckabee is still supporting illegal immigration: So what happened to Tom Tancredo’s Iowa supporters after his ‘big announcement’ earlier this week? We know that the former-candidate threw his support behind Mitt Romney, but on Friday Tancredo’s Iowa state chairman Bill Salier announced that he was supporting Fred Thompson. And while riding through Muscatine on the Huckabus this week, Mike Huckabee was confronted by a very well informed former Tancredo staffer who argued with the Iowa frontrunner over the issue of immigration. Deb Miller described herself as “looking” for a candidate after her old boss dropped out of the race,...

According to the Potomac News, Christian Molina, an illegal alien from El Salvador plead guilty to the murder of Ronald Hollingsworth, explaining that the reason he strangled him to death was because he misunderstood the term “homo sapien” during a discussion about evolution, thinking Hollingsworth had called him a homosexual. Black Velvet readers in a discussion of this matter on another thread have identified numerous criminal cases for a person with this same name that suggests that we had an opportunity to catch this illegal alien while he was still a petty criminal, before he graduated to being a murderer....

Law enforcement officials on both sides of the border are seeing a crime wave fueled by U.S. deportation policies, which dump busloads of criminal immigrants in large groups at border cities like Tijuana. "Nobody saw this coming," said Tijuana's Mayor Kurt Honald, who has protested the dumping of criminals at the Tijuana gates. He says deportees have triggered a 300 percent rise in petty crime during the last year, as criminals raise money for a return to the U.S. Others join narcotics cartels and smuggling organizations to pay for their return. "They just go right back to the United States....

Mike Huckabee cannot be trusted on immigration matters. I'll say that again: Mike Huckabee cannot be trusted on immigration matters. In fact, just after releasing a plan that unfortunately took in some people, he now admitted on Fox News Sunday (link, video below) what I suspected: his plan includes a revolving door whereby former illegal aliens would leave the U.S. only to return within "days, maybe weeks" as legal workers. He didn't specify whether they'd just be coming back as "guest" workers with no chance at citizenship, but considering that he's supported a "pathway to citizenship" in the past, and...

Federal authorities said Friday they shut down two major Mexico-based drug operations that were using Atlanta as a hub for trafficking marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine up the East Coast. By late Friday, 88 suspects had been indicted and criminal complaints — charges brought until an indictment is returned — had been brought against another 25.

Mike Huckabee’s just-announced plan to stop illegal immigration is about as tough as Fred Thompson’s. It includes the border fence and the employer verification measures that are important to pro-borders voters like me. NumbersUSA now gives Huckabee’s promises scores that are almost as good as the ones it gives Thompson’s. It’s heartening to see Huckabee move so far on this issue; as a governor, he was much more sympathetic to illegal aliens, even supporting special scholarships for them that were not available to US citizens. With Republican presidential candidates endorsing strong pro-borders measures, our prospects of getting the SAVE Act...

If the Republican Party really wanted to hold on to the White House in 2009, it's pretty clear what it would do. It would grit its teeth, swallow its doubts and nominate a ticket of John McCain for president and Mike Huckabee for vice president — and president-in-waiting. Those two are far from front-runners. They trail Mitt Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire and lag behind Rudy Giuliani in national surveys of Republican voters. But, in a series of debates, including last week's CNN/YouTube extravaganza. McCain and Huckabee have been notable for their clarity, character and, yes, simple humanity. From...

It’s been my opinion for a while that Fred Thompson could be the only top-tier major-party candidate I could comfortably support in the general election. That’s because all the other top-tier candidates have more or less an open-borders policy, which they try to conceal with fool-the-yahoos rhetoric. The latest e-mail from NumbersUSA’s Roy Beck supports my view that Thompson stands out for his immigration views: I find myself overwhelmed with a sense of thanksgiving that – after three decades as a journalist observing reckless, thoughtless federal immigration policies attack the lives of the American people – I can clearly see...

Ames, Ia. - Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson on Wednesday said the United States' sovereignty is threatened by the nation's failure to secure its borders. "We have made a terrible mistake in this country to have let the situation get to where it is now," he said. The former Tennessee senator, in the midst of a two-day swing through Iowa, focused most of his remarks on fighting illegal immigration, bolstering national security and increasing military spending in a question-and-answer session with about 100 people at a Main Street coffee shop. Thompson criticized some recent immigration proposals in Congress as offers...

Here’s something for the really hardcore, political geeks. Fred’s first Iowa mailer. http://bp1.blogger.com/_5d_fpdUHmxc/R0MC_gjyK1I/AAAAAAAAAhw/ep7W574fYPc/s1600-h/dont+compromise.jpg Much talk is about campaigns’ tv commercials but in Iowa mailers are very important. Disclaimer: I work for Friends of Fred Thompson, Inc.

In politics, the surest path to irrelevance and powerlessness is to be taken for granted by one party and written off by another. That's the road Latinos are on, thanks to major blunders by the Republicans campaigning for president. In June, all but California's Duncan Hunter blew off an invitation to address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. In September, a debate on Spanish-language television had to be postponed after all but Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to commit. After taking criticism for the snub, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney have committed to taking part...

"Fred Thompson's immigration plan seems to include a contradiction. He promises to bolster border security, yet his plan relies on "attrition through enforcement", or the self-deportation of illegals going back to Mexico. Illegals can not exit through a secure border, nor is it likely that they will attempt to if they have no way to prove they are leaving instead of entering (and would be arrested). Is this plan realistic? If no, which is more important, border security or reduction of the illegal population and business enforcement?" -- Mike_M Answer: First of all, it might be a "contradiction" if he...

<p>It's a big day for political TV ads, and in the case of Fred Thompson, he's got great timing. On the same day Rudy Giuliani releases his first TV ad, and the day Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-N.Y.) decides to withdraw his plan to give illegal immigrants access to driver's licenses, the former Tennessee senator releases a 30-second spot called, "No Amnesty." It starts airing across Iowa today.</p>

America needs a gun ban. Yes, a ban that denies possession, transfer and ownership of firearms. I say that as a gun owner myself. I say this as a strong defender of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. I say it with the belief the Second Amendment empowers American citizens to defend their sacred honor, their homes and families and to help “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” It is the phrase “all enemies foreign and domestic” that leads me to endorse a gun ban. The Second Amendment is clear: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to...

<p>The rapid escalation of the U.S. anti-immigration hysteria fueled by ratings-hungry cable-television hotheads and leading Republican presidential hopefuls is a dangerous trend: It may lead to a Hispanic intifada that may rock this nation in the not-so-distant future.</p>

RICHMOND -- House Republican leaders, who made immigration a centerpiece of the fall campaign, said Thursday that efforts in the Virginia General Assembly to crack down on illegal immigrants probably are doomed because of losses their party suffered in the election this week. "It's dead on arrival," said Del. David B. Albo, (R-Fairfax), who chairs the Virginia Crime Commission, which is considering immigration proposals. "It's very disappointing." House leaders said they still would introduce anti-illegal immigration bills, including those that would prohibit illegal immigrants from attending public colleges, require sheriffs to check immigration status and suspend the business licenses of...

The USCCB Committee on Migration sent a delegation to the U.S./Mexico border region to study the plight of unaccompanied minors and human trafficking victims. The ever-growing problems with these populations are some of the gravest and many times most overlooked symptoms of the broken and out-dated immigration system currently employed by the United States. The delegation met with a broad cross-section of agencies and individuals involved with or knowledgeable of these populations to gain critical insights and to understand their needs. The delegation also met with Church officials, government officials, community-based organization, and other with important perspectives. Programs established to...

An illegal immigrant was sentenced today in Chesapeake Circuit Court to a year in prison for having sex with a 13-year-old girl and producing nude images of the child. Carlos De La Cruz Ramos, fomerly of the 3700 block of S. Military Highway in Chesapeake, was arrested in May after a Wal-Mart store clerk processed film he had dropped off that showed images of a nude child, police said. Ramos was convicted in August of producing child pornography and carnal knowledge, both felonies carrying maximum punishments of 10 years in prison. Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney David Whitted said Ramos was 19...

Back in 2002, I wrote this.... "Personally, I’d love to see our government abolish the 14th Amendment. One of the original intents of the Amendment was to make the children of slaves U.S. citizens in an effort to better assimilate them into American society. That good intention has been taken advantage of by people coming across the border eight-and-a-half months pregnant. The United States may just be the only country that allows foreign nationals automatic citizenship for their offspring and the fact that it is obviously now being abused is an understatement." It's comforting to know that Fred Thompson has...

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson today discussed his new immigration proposal which, he said, distinguished him from his key rivals on the hot-button issue. “This does draw a distinction between myself and others,” Thompson said in a Des Moines Register interview before attending the Iowa GOP’s annual Ronald Reagan dinner in Des Moines. Thompson, a former Tennessee senator, said he would end the policy of sanctuary cities, where illegal immigrants can obtain government benefits without fear of deportation. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also is seeking the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, has been criticized by some Republican candidates...

Two days ago half-dozen illegal aliens suspected of stealing wildfire relief supplies from Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Now, this: Police have arrested a man in Los Angeles after witnesses say they saw him lighting a fire on a hillside. Authorities say 41-year-old Catalino Pineda was seen starting a fire in the San Fernando Valley Wednesday and then walking away. Witnesses alerted authorities and followed the man to a nearby restaurant where police arrested him. Pineda was booked for investigation of arson. Authorities say the Guatemala native is currently on probation for making excessive false emergency reports to law enforcement....

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Another man was arrested on suspicion of arson in California as authorities were investigating into some of the wildfires that have been devastating large areas in the state for five days, officials said Thursday. Los Angeles police said they have taken Catalino Pineda, 41, into custody Wednesday after local residents reported that he light a fire and walked away from a hillside in a suburb area. The arrest was made a day after law enforcement officers shot dead an arson suspect and detained another in San Bernardino, about 100 kilometers east of Los Angeles....

The Senate rejected Wednesday an attempt to move ahead with a bill to allow illegal immigrants under age 30 to remain in the United States and gain legal status if they attend college or join the military. The vote to move ahead on the Dream Act (the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), got 52 votes, eight short of the 60 needed. Among those voting against moving ahead with the bill were eight Democrats, even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appealed to his majority to back him. But this was yet another case when the Democratic majority...

An illegal immigrant who previously had been deported has been ordered held without bond for allegedly trying to kill a Phoenix police officer. Thirty-5-year-old Jose Abel Cabrera is accused of shooting the officer after he'd been pulled over in northeast Phoenix for running a stop sign. Police credit the 22-year-old rookie officer's bulletproof vest with saving his life. The officer, who was treated at a hospital and then released, returned the fire as man who shot him sped away in a pickup. Cabrera was arrested seven hours later at his northwest Phoenix home. Police say he denied being involved, alleging...

GRAHAM, N.C. (WGHP) -- One of two men arrested in a huge heroin bust Thursday turned out to be an illegal immigrant who had previously been kicked out of the United States. Julian Lizarraga Pena, 30, and Jose Mesa Jiminez, 37. were arrested during the largest heroin bust ever in Alamance County. The stash included more than a kilogram of drug called Mexican black tar heroin, which is some of the least refined but most potent and deadly on the planet. DEA agents said the quantity of drugs rivaled the amounts often found in cities like New York and Los...

State lawmaker Russell Pearce says Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon is wrong to blame the federal government for Officer Nick Erfle's death at the hands of an illegal immigrant. "That blame also belongs at the local level. We have an obligation to protect our citizens and enforce our laws, our citizens have a constitutional right to expect our laws to be enforce," says Pearce. He is critical of a Phoenix policy that bans police from arresting illegals when their only offense is violating federal immigration laws. Pearce says Phoenix is sanctuary city. "To ignore the obvious and not enforce the laws...