Free Republic

Chris Crane warned us.The ICE agent leader who is suing his own bosses at DHS to stop their lawless "prosecutorial discretion" policies - told us that DHS' policy of releasing illegal aliens would put the American people at risk. And Crane also told us not to believe ICE leadership when they insisted that the 2,262 illegal alien "detainees" they released in February (using the "sequestration" as an excuse) were all "low-risk" illegals without criminal records. And yesterday, Crane was proven correct when ICE was compelled - under threat of Congressional subpoena - to reveal the details of those released, which...

The Homeland Security Department has granted legal status to 99.2 percent of all illegal immigrants who have applied under President Obama’s new non-deportation policy for young adults, according to the latest numbers released Friday. That’s a slight drop from the 99.5 percent approval rate reported last month. The policy, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, grants legal status to most illegal immigrants under the age of 31 who came to the U.S. before age 16 ... DACA is seen as a test-run should Congress pass a broad legalization for the 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to be in the...

Scientists have long used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of today's largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica believing, for example, that markings of a high shoreline from 3,000,000 years ago during a warm period on Earth were evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at the time. This assumption has, in turn, led many to hypothesize that if the world's largest ice sheets collapsed before, the same could very well happen again as the Earth continues to warm again. More than ever, however, this theory is at risk of disintegrating under the weight of...

PHOENIX (CBS5) - According to a new letter released to Sen. John McCain's office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers released 622 people with criminal records back in February. The Obama administration claimed the controversial move was due to budget cuts faced by ICE due to sequestration. "ICE's reprehensible actions put Arizona at risk by setting free into our communities hundreds of detainees who were guilty of criminal offenses, said McCain. "The ICE officials responsible for this must face disciplinary action and must take all actions necessary to ensure that this never happens again," he continued. The letter stated that 112...

Surprise, surprise the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has rejected the media’s requests for the immigration records of the Boston Marathon bombers, likely because they contain information that could further embarrass the government. After all, the feds ignored critical warnings from Russia about the older Chechen terrorist (Tamerlan Tsarnaev) and the FBI even kept the information from Boston Police, which could have kept a closer eye on him. Additionally, Judicial Watch reported days after the bombings that Tamerlan, 26, and not a U.S. citizen could have been deported years ago after a criminal arrest. Adding insult to injury, the other...

Reader Psalmon writes: "Nenana River ice breakup nears top three latest dates in 97 years of contest." It may have escaped notice, but this last Saturday the locals in Nanana, AK hooked up the clock to determine the breakup and winner of the annual Nenana Ice Classic. Further ice measurements were apparently suspended last Thursday with the last measurement of 40 inches (just). If you think May 11 seems late for starting the countdown, it is. After the fourth earliest breakup in 2012 (April 23), as of this afternoon on May 14th, the tripod still stands, making 2013 the fourth...

Earth's global thaw has reached Mount Everest, the world's tallest peak, researchers said today (May 14) at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancun, Mexico. Glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years and the snowline has shifted upward by 590 feet (180 meters), Sudeep Thakuri, a graduate student at the University of Milan in Italy, said in a statement. Located in the Himalaya Mountains on the border between China and Nepal, Everest's summit is 29,029 feet (8,848 m) above sea level. Thakuri and his colleagues tracked changes to glaciers, temperatures and...

by John HillStand With ArizonaChris Crane, president of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers union, spoke to radio host Mark Levin, and unleashed two bombshells that should outrage all Americans. First, that Obama is "cooking the books" on his so-called "record" deportation numbers - inflating them by up to 50%, by Crane's estimate. And perhaps most shocking, Crane revealed that the race-baiting pressure group La Raza is effectively "running" ICE - forcing agents to stop enforcing the law against illegal aliens nationwide. Crane revealed these stunning facts to a disgusted Levin on his radio show Thursday night (audio...

A wall of ice that was pushed out of a lake and across snow-covered ground by strong winds has destroyed 12 homes and damaged 15. The 9m (30ft) high slab took about ten minutes to rise up out of the water and slide across the beach before crashing into properties near the shoreline of Dauphin Lake in Canada. Resident Doug David described how it pushed furniture around and threw his bath into the hallway when it ploughed through his two-storey home, propelled by 55mph gusts in Ochre Beach, Manitoba. The wall of ice destroyed 12 homes in CanadaThe wall of...

Chris Crane, president of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers union, spoke to Mark Levin on The Mark Levin Show Thursday evening. Crane recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the immigration bill working through Congress. Crane explained how President Obama and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano have, since the administration’s start, “attempted to shut down” border enforcement and “absolutely” tied law enforcement’s hands.

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — An agent with the Department of Homeland Security and a former immigration officer surrendered to federal authorities Wednesday after a grand jury indictment named them, as well as three others, as participants in a long-running immigration fraud scheme. The conspiracy was allegedly orchestrated by a Los Angeles attorney who paid bribes as high as $10,000 to officials with several agencies in the Department of Homeland Security to help secure immigration benefits for aliens he was representing, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. KNX 1070′s Claudia Peschiutta reports an 18-count indictment returned Tuesday outlines a wide-ranging bribery...

ICE Agent Crane to Obama: "Mr. President, you've overstepped your boundaries. It's your job to enforce the law, it's Congress' job to enact the law."- Last week, ICE union chief Chris Crane won a stunning initial court victory in his lawsuit against the Obama Administration. As we reported, Federal Judge Federal Judge Reed O’Connor told the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that they had no power to refuse to deport illegal aliens, and that he was likely to strike down Obama’s virtual “DACA” amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. The ruling stunned Washington, and Crane’s lawsuit could derail Obama’s four-year...

Federal authorities have launched an investigation into a Saudi Arabian compound in Northern Virginia over suspicions its residents may be engaging in human trafficking. Federal and local police responded to a call from a house in the D.C. suburb of McLean and found “two potential victims of trafficking” who hailed from the Philippines, Raw Story reported. One of the women tried to run. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the investigation could move sluggishly because of complications from diplomatic immunity rules.

It’s a good thing Jan Brewer is a politician and not a journalist. The Associated Press recently struck the term “illegal immigrant” from its lexicon. Not so Arizona’s feisty governor — and she’s not backing down on this one. Brewer defended her use of the word during an interview with a clearly irritated ABC News Senior National Correspondant Jim Avila, who repeatedly pestered Brewer to change her language, to no avail: “I’ve heard you use the phrase over and over and over again. They’re insulted by the term, ‘illegal immigrant.’ That that brands a person. What they do is illegal...

Senator Marco Rubio, the leading Republican behind the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform proposal, has often challenged those who criticize the bill to come up with ways to improve it. And not just his fellow lawmakers; Rubio has opened a new page on his Senate website asking for help from the public. “Visit our website and submit your ideas to ‘Help Us Improve the Bill,’” says an announcement from Rubio’s office Friday. “Since the immigration legislation was introduced, Rubio has received over 1,100 suggestions for how to improve the bill. Rubio encourages the public to continue reviewing the bill...

A retired Army officer wrote to a U.S. senator Saturday about his concern that the Department of Homeland Security is preparing to arm itself against the people of the United States. Retired Capt. Terry Michael Hestilow posted his letter to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, on his Facebook page, noting that Homeland Security has made a number of large ammunition, weapon and light-armored vehicle purchases recently and has refused to answer questions about them. Hestilow begins by noting the large ammunition, weapon and light armored vehicle purchases recently made by DHS, as well as that agency’s refusal to answer any questions...

Here is a comparison of the snow and ice charts published by the NOAA for April 27, 2012 and April 27, 2013. One year doesn't make a trend, but it is interesting. 2012:

“Never before have I seen such contempt for law enforcement officers as what I’ve seen from the Gang of Eight” - Chris Crane, ICE Agent union president.- Last week, ICE union chief Chris Crane won a stunning initial court victory in his lawsuit against the Obama Administration. As we reported, Federal Judge Federal Judge Reed O’Connor told the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that they had no power to refuse to deport illegal aliens, and that he was likely to strike down Obama's virtual "DACA" amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. The ruling stunned Washington, and Crane's lawsuit could derail...

Mercury, traveling in its 88-day-long orbit around the Sun with basically zero axial tilt, has many craters at its poles whose insides literally never see the light of day. These permanently-shadowed locations have been found by the MESSENGER mission to harbor considerable deposits of ice (a seemingly ironic discovery on a planet two-and-a-half times closer to the Sun than we are!*) But if there are places on Mercury where the Sun never shines (insert butt joke here) then there may also be places where it always does. That’s what researchers are looking for in illumination maps made from MESSENGER data…...

Congress is still steadily pursuing the investigation on the very dark spot on the Obama administration's record that is Operation Fast and Furious --- and when I say "dark spot," I do mean that literally, because so much of the evidence was so thoroughly redacted. The administration is continuing to fight Congressional attempts to uncover all of the details into the deadly gun-walking operation, and the dispute has moved into district-court territory. In front of a federal judge on Wednesday, the Department of Justice argued that the court should really just decline to decide on the case and leave the...

"Lawmaking in our nation has indeed taken a strange twist. Senators invite illegal aliens to testify before Congress…but American citizens working as law enforcement officers within our nation’s broken immigration system are purposely excluded from the process and prohibited from providing input".

Above: ICE Union President Chris Crane, who filed the lawsuit against DHS.- In a stunning order, a federal judge Wednesday said that the Obama administration is likely violating the law by telling immigration agents and officers not to arrest illegal aliens they deem "low priority", in a lawsuit brought by ICE agents that could derail Obama’s plan to undermine immigration enforcement nationwide.Federal Judge Reed O'Connor said in a court order Tuesday that Congress, not the president, sets priority for arresting illegal immigrants, and said the law requires them to be put in deportation proceedings.“The court finds that DHS does not...

A federal judge seemed skeptical Wednesday of the Justice Department's bid to dismiss a congressional lawsuit seeking records related to Operation Fast and Furious, a bungled federal gun-tracking operation in Arizona. Judge Amy Berman Jackson sharply challenged the department's claim that federal courts have no jurisdiction in the dispute. Department lawyer Ian Gershengorn said the battle over the documents should be resolved by the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches. "I'm a check and balance," countered Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama. "The third branch exists."

During a Senate hearing on immigration reform Tuesday, Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had a testy back-and-forth over the performance of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Sessions challenged Napolitano on whether she had met with leader of the ICE employees’ union in the wake of reports of low morale among ICE agents. Napolitano replied that she had not. “I think you should have met with them,” Sessions said. “I think there’s a real problem there. We have a very real problem. In December of 2012, a few months ago, a survey of federal...

Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council 118, made a number of stunning revelations during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday — and he’s begging Congress for help. The ICE union boss argued that agents are no longer allowed to arrest illegal aliens solely for illegal entry or expired visas and morale is at an all-time low. Most Americans would be shocked to find out that immigration agents are regularly “prohibited from enforcing the two most fundamental sections of United States immigration law,” he said. Instead, the administration has ordered that only illegals...

Boston bomber's US citizenship bid 'rejected after background check' Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s application for US citizenship was reportedly rejected after US officials carried out a background check that showed he had been interviewed in 2011 by the FBI. By Barney Henderson, Damien McElroy, Philip Sherwell and Nick Allen 3:28PM BST 21 Apr 2013 An official told the New York Times that the Department of Homeland Security halted – at least temporarily – the application after the FBI interview of Tamerlan Tsarnaev was discovered in a routine background check. It had been previously reported that the application might have...

Just a few minutes ago our jib operator Justin came up to me. He said, ‘Glenn, out of all of the things you’ve covered in your life where does this fit in importance? And I said ‘Most people are going to think this is maybe 20 or 50.’ In the last 50 years this is we’ve had the Watts Riots, and the death of the Martin Luther King and the things that I have covered in the last 40 years, I would say this is top five. Maybe number 2. And possibly number one in importance. Number one, is clearly...

SAN DIEGO -- A reserve deputy with the Imperial County Sheriff's Department has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling illegal immigrants into the U.S., officials said. Elizabeth Hernandez, 23, of El Centro, was arrested Wednesday after being spotted by Border Patrol agents smuggling three illegal immigrants past a checkpoint on Highway 86 near Salton City, prosecutors said. The three were in the trunk of Hernandez's personal car, according to prosecutors. She was wearing her uniform and carrying her department-issued firearm, court documents indicate. Hernandez admitted to agents that she has smuggled immigrants about eight times and has been paid more...

Nice that our president is getting a reputation as the friend of lawbreakers and immigration scofflaws. WOAI Radio: The debate in Washington on immigration reform has had no political impact, but the debate is having a major impact on south Texas, 1200 WOAI news reports. Officials say the number of people entering the U.S. illegally is way up and, tragically, the number of undocumented immigrants who have been found dead in the unforgiving Texas Brush Country is way up, and is on path this year to beat last year's record for the number of people found dead in the ranch...

One admitted to kidnapping and ransoming hostages in the Ivory Coast. Others said they had molested children or committed rape. And one, as he prepared for survival in a post-apocalyptic world, contemplated assassinating President Barack Obama. These are among the thousands of applicants who have sought sensitive law enforcement jobs in recent years with the U.S. Border Patrol and its parent agency, Customs and Border Protection. In many cases, these people made it all the way through the hiring process until one of the last steps – a polygraph exam. Once sitting with a polygraph examiner, they admitted to a...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement union president Chris Crane told reporters on Wednesday that the Mexican drug cartels’ influence inside the United States has been “almost completely absent” from the immigration reform debate but needs more attention. “I mean, if these folks coming over here taking work, we know that the drug cartels’ troops and the soldiers are all within the interior of the United States as are many other criminal elements and criminal individuals,” Crane said on a conference call with media. “There are people coming here for this to be a land of opportunity and there are people coming...

Author says government's actions are 'comparable to U.S. funding al-Qaida' WASHINGTON—The U.S. government running guns to Mexican cartels is “comparable to the United States funding al-Qaida to make someone in the United States look bad,” according to the author of a new best-seller. Katie Pavlich is the author of “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up,” news editor of Townhall.com and an expert on the Fast and Furious scandal. In an interview with WND, she asserted that the Obama administration intentionally orchestrated a “false flag” against lawful gun dealers, the U.S. Border Patrol and Mexican citizens...

by John HillStand With ArizonaWebsite | Facebook | Twitter Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council 118, made a number of stunning revelations during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee — and he’s begging Congress for help. The ICE union boss argued that agents are no longer allowed to arrest illegal aliens solely for illegal entry or expired visas and morale is at an all-time low.Most Americans would be shocked to find out that immigration agents are regularly “prohibited from enforcing the two most fundamental sections of United States immigration law,” he said. Instead, the...

As Easter and Fiesta approach, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is reminding that border crossers are allowed only 10 cascarones each. The confetti-filled eggshells also must be clean and dry and for personal use, CBP said this week in a news release. Fines for importing undeclared cascarones can run as high as $1,000 per person and up to more than $50,000 for commercial use. Cascarones are closely regulated to prevent the spread of Exotic Newcastle Disease, a highly contagious, usually fatal viral disease that affects every species of bird, the news release said. END is so virulent many birds die...

by John HillStand With ArizonaWebsite | Facebook | Twitter Releasing illegal alien criminals - it's not just for Arizona anymore... In a political hissy fit, the Obama administration canceled White House tours and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released thousands of detainees ahead of the implementation of sequestration, all in attempt to make the public “feel” the effects of the forced spending cuts. But effort has largely backfired on Obama from a public relations standpoint, with children being denied access to “the people’s house” and the American public outraged at the potential harm from the release of illegal immigrant...

The second of two reports examining who's to blame over the federal anti-gunrunning scheme known as Operation Fast and Furious exonerates top officials at the Department of Homeland Security, but paints a picture of ineptitude, ignorance and mismanagement at the DHS operations in Arizona. A report by the Homeland Security inspector general, obtained Friday by Fox News, concluded many in the agency's Arizona operation knew for a long time the U.S. helped criminals smuggle guns to Mexico in violation of policy, but did nothing to stop it. Further, the report said word of the gun-smuggling operation within DHS never traveled...

The Department of Homeland Security's long-awaited Office of Inspector General report on Operation Fast and Furious “gunwalking” has been obtained by The Los Angeles Times, Richard Serrano reported Thursday. “ATF agents asked their Border Patrol counterparts not to pursue criminal leads or track gun smuggling in southern Arizona so they could follow the firearms themselves, and senior Homeland Security agents ‘complied and the leads were not investigated,’” Serrano writes. “The report … also said that a Homeland Security special agent on the border was collaborating with the ATF in Fast and Furious, but his ‘senior leaders’ in Arizona never read...

The second of two reports examining who's to blame over the federal anti-gunrunning scheme known as Operation Fast and Furious exonerates top officials at the Department of Homeland Security, but paints a picture of ineptitude, ignorance and mismanagement at the DHS operations in Arizona. A report by the Homeland Security inspector general, obtained Friday by Fox News, concluded many in the agency's Arizona operation knew for a long time the U.S. helped criminals smuggle guns to Mexico in violation of policy, but did nothing to stop it. Further, the report said word of the gun-smuggling operation within DHS never traveled...

The top House Democrat on homeland security criticized a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Friday for its role in the failed gun tracking operation, Fast and Furious, after a new report detailed the agency’s involvement. At the urging of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), officials with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit did not pursue leads on potential weapons smugglers, according to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) inspector general report released on Friday. The 84-page report also found that senior leaders in ICE’s investigative Arizona division failed to read the reports from agents...

Jupiter's icy moon Europa is a prime target for future space missions as it harbours a buried ocean that could have the right conditions for life. But attempts to land may face a major hazard: jagged "blades" of ice up to 10m long. A major US conference has heard the moon may have ideal conditions for icy spikes called "penitentes" to form. Scientists would like to send a lander down to sample surface regions where water wells up through the icy crust. These areas could allow a robotic probe to sample a proxy for ocean water that lies several kilometres...

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is preparing to vote today on the Senate-approved continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of this fiscal year that would give the Obama administration the discretion to slightly decrease the number of Border Patrol agents. That could make 2013 the second year in a row when the administration has decreased the size of the Border Patrol, according to official data released by the Border Patrol itself. In fiscal 2011, according to the Border Patrol, there were 21,444 Border Patrol agents. Of these, 232 were deployed along U.S. coastlines, 2,237 were deployed along...

by John HillStand With Arizona Today's House Judiciary Committee hearing showed exactly why we would love to see S.C. Rep. Trey Gowdy replace the disgraceful Lindsey Graham in the U.S. Senate next year.Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Gowdy (R), the Chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee, grilled ICE Director John Morton and DHS officials about the release of thousands of illegal immigrants from detention, including Level I violators (aggravated felons).The Obama administration has claimed that sequestration budget cuts forced them to release the detainees. But it has since been revealed that DHS and its division have spent hundreds of millions on other,...

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) defended the recent release by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of 2, 228 incarcerated illegal aliens by saying that only 467 of those had been convicted of a misdemeanor “or two.” “We learned at a recent hearing before the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee that 72 percent of the people released had no criminal record at all,” Conyers said Tuesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, where ICE Director John Morton testified that the releases were done because of federal budget cuts (sequestration) required by the Budget Control Act of...

by John HillStand With ArizonaWebsite | Facebook | Twitter Recent Border Patrol data suggest that the traffic flow of illegal alien across our Southern border may be starting to shift away from Arizona and towards Texas. Maricopa County's Sheriff may be a big reason illegal aliens are increasingly avoiding the Grand Canyon State. Last week Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies smashed a big human smuggling ring that brought thousands of illegal aliens in and through Arizona over the past 4 years - but won't anymore. Arpaio leads the 3rd largest Sheriff's Department in the United States, and - in stark contrast...

Sea ice extent has been above average for about two weeks now. No big deal, but worth a mention. Please see the attached link from The Cryosphere Today page, published by the University of Illinois. http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg

Budget: Over a hundred jobs are at Homeland Security, which is letting criminal aliens go despite billions unspent from last fiscal year, with hundreds more jobs available at an Interior Department that warns of park closings. 'We're doing our very best to minimize the impacts of sequester. But there's only so much I can do," DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said. With regard to the release of illegal aliens from detention in anticipation of cuts due to sequestration, "I'm supposed to have 34,000 detention beds for immigration. How do I pay for those?" Well, Madam Secretary, like other federal departments and...

Buried inside the Senate’s massive spending bill is a provision eliminating the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Public Advocate — an office President Obama created just last year to hear complaints about how immigrants were being treated. “With illegal immigration costing U.S. taxpayers roughly $113 billion each year, one of the last things we should be doing with precious taxpayer dollars is funding an activist for illegal and criminal immigrants who are detained or have been ordered to be deported,” said Rep. Diane Black, the Tennessee Republican who has led the fight to cancel the office’s funding. “The administration needs...

Attorney General Eric Holder told senators on Wednesday that he did not respect the House members who voted to hold him in contempt for not cooperating in the Fast and Furious investigation, and that “the president, the White House was not involved in the operational component of Fast and Furious.” Fast and Furious was the Justice Department’s gun-running operation that allowed about 2,000 guns to flow into Mexico under federal supervision before authorities lost control of the guns. The operation began in the fall of 2009 and was

by John HillStand With ArizonaWebsite | Facebook | Twitter Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies have smashed a human smuggling ring that has brought hundreds and perhaps thousands of illegal aliens in and through Arizona over the past 4 years. The suspects are part of a suspected multi-million dollar illegal alien smuggling ring. After a five month investigation, Maricopa County Sheriff's detectives tracked the leader of a human smuggling operation to a home in Laveen, eight miles outside Phoenix. That's where they found the operation's leader, a man who'd already been deported eight times!That man  is 35-year-old...

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano had one of the starring roles in the White House’s Nightmare-on-Sequester-Street messaging in the run-up to the budget cuts’ implementation last week, warning that “under sequestration, ICE would be forced to reduce current detention and removal operations, potentially affecting public safety, and would not be able to maintain 34,000 detention beds� reserved for detained illegal immigrants awaiting deportation proceedings.After the backlash following that announcement, however, Napolitano tried to make the case that the decision was up to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials, but they certainly aren’t backing away from the decision — and the...