Free Republic

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano this afternoon brushed off Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s request for surveillance planes and 1,000 fresh troops along the Mexican border. That drew swift denunciation from the governor, who put state police and other assets on standby, citing the heightened risk of spillover violence from Mexico’s drug war.

Illegal immigrants who try to apply for driver’s licenses in Erie and Niagara counties will be subject to arrest — and deportation — under a plan being developed by the two county clerks and law enforcement officials. The move is the latest — and potentially most serious — challenge to Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer’s new policy to permit illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses if they possess a valid foreign passport and other identification. “I’m being asked to look aside to something that’s illegal, and I’m not going to do that,” Niagara County Clerk Wayne Jagow said Wednesday. Jagow and...