Free Republic

At issue is a provision in the bill that would impose, per the legislative text: "criminal penalties for persons who knowingly and willfully violate, or who reasonably should know and who violate, certain provisions relating to the transporting into or within this state, or the concealing, harboring, or shielding from detection, or the attempt thereof, of individuals who entered the United States unlawfully and without inspection by the Federal Government."Violators could be charged with a second-degree felony under the bill, which in Florida is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The bill is also opposed by the ACLU,...

CNN)The relocation of about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, initiated this week by Florida's governor, has revived memories of strikingly similar tactics employed by southern segregationists 60 years ago. In 1962, a group of conservatives, intent on retaliating against desegregation efforts during the civil rights movement, funded one-way trips to the north for Black citizens, in what they called "Reverse Freedom Rides." Hundreds of Black Americans were transported to cities such as New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, recruited by members of a segregationist group called the White Citizens' Council, with false promises of jobs and housi

As the coronavirus continues to infect more and more people, food supply chains have started to become more strained in recent days. It was announced yesterday; the world’s biggest pork producer is closing a primary U.S plant indefinitely after a coronavirus outbreak amongst employees. Smithfield Foods Inc. will halt its pork-processing facility in South Dakota, which accounts for 4% to 5% of U.S pork production. The company also warned that closures across the country are taking American meat supplies “perilously close to the edge” of shortfalls. This is just one of the latest examples of the coronavirus beginning to disrupt...

A tick species that's native to Asia has now spread to the United States, and it's popping up in numerous places along the East Coast, according to U.S. officials. Females can reproduce asexually and lay thousands of eggs. Female longhorned ticks don't need a male to reproduce. They can spawn asexually using a process known as parthenogenesis. After feeding, a single female can lay around 2,000 eggs, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. That's enough to establish a tick population in a new location, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says. They suck so much blood, it can cause...

Ditch Brooklyn, millennials. The real place to be is Des Moines, a city with a blossoming culture scene, thriving start-ups, and urban beauty.(VIDEO-AT-LINK) DES MOINES, Iowa—This is too nice a place to spawn a war cry. But if the city had one, it would be the sentiment heard across a downtown populated by baristas, tech start-up founders, musicians, and nonprofit professionals alike: "It's Des Moines against the world." Young people here know what you think of this city. It doesn't need repeating. But ambitious minds are in the process of building a new Des Moines, a tech hub in Silicon...

OAKLAND -- Seven years of waiting are over for Jesus Navarro, an illegal immigrant who finally received a new kidney after his story motivated one man plus thousands of others to fight on his behalf for a transplant. Navarro, 36, was recuperating at his small Oakland apartment Thursday with his wife and daughter after the successful transplant last week at UC San Francisco Medical Center. The hospital became embroiled in controversy nine months ago after Navarro came to believe -- despite having private health insurance, despite his wife's pledge to donate her own kidney -- that his immigration status doomed...

Salinas’ top cop is reaching out to allay fears many Spanish-speakers have of the police, feelings born from mistrust and misconceptions of law enforcement. “You’re hearing this from my voice and I’ll say it over and over again: We don’t care where you’re from; we don’t care how you got here,” said police Chief Kelly McMillin during a forum Thursday aimed at improving community relations on Thursday. “All we want is your information and your support. As long as you reside in our community, our mission is to keep you safe. Nothing else is important to us.”

Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, chairman of the Committee on Migration of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has issued a statement supporting efforts by Alabama’s bishops to overturn a recently enacted immigration law. “The Catholic Church provides pastoral and social services to all persons, regardless of their immigration status,” Archbishop Gomez said in his statement. “Our mandate is to provide for the pastoral and social care of all of God’s children. Government should not infringe upon that duty, as America’s founding fathers made clear in the US Constitution.” “This new Alabama law makes it illegal for a...

A longtime federal fugitive who was an undocumented immigrant cost taxpayers more than $350,000 in healthcare at Miami-Dade hospitals before he died last year, a county investigative report has revealed. The Miami-Dade Office of the Inspector General said the patient was a Colombian who fled the United States in 1983 after a cocaine smuggling conviction but returned under a false name. In 26 visits to the Jackson Health System from 2003 through 2010, his care cost $201,716 — $155,334 in charity care paid by Miami-Dade taxpayers and $46,382 paid by Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor. The man also...

AUSTIN — When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in June it was urging prosecutors to use discretion when placing illegal immigrants in deportation proceedings, skeptics urged caution. “We’ve heard this before,” they claimed. People like Roxann Lara give them one more reason to say they were right. Lara, originally from Delicias, Chihuahua, is five months pregnant and the mother of two U.S. citizen children. She is in the country illegally because she overstayed a visa. Her attorney says she’s the “poster child” for leniency under the June directive. Instead, Lara was detained and processed by immigration authorities in Anthony,...

WASHINGTON – Rep. Tom Tancredo's charge that Mexican drug cartels are buying up legitimate businesses in U.S. cities to launder money and using some of the proceeds to win local mayoral and city council seats for politicians who can shape the policies and personnel decisions of their police forces, has been backed up by a veteran gang investigator. Richard Valdemar, a retired sergeant with the L.A. County sheriff's department and a longtime member of a federal task force investigating gang activity, went beyond the charges made by Tancredo, the chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus who has led the...

HB 347 - AS AMENDED BY THE HOUSE 01Feb2006… 0236h 01Feb2006… 0446h 2005 SESSION 05-0583 03/01 HOUSE BILL 347 AN ACT relative to indicating citizenship on drivers’ licenses and nondrivers’ identification cards.SPONSORS: Rep. Lund, Rock 5; Rep. Hopfgarten, Rock 5 COMMITTEE: Election LawAMENDED ANALYSIS This bill requires that drivers’ licenses and nondrivers’ identification cards indicate whether the holder is a United States citizen. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -...

Four illegal Mexican immigrants arrested in a Monday raid on a large marijuana farm near Strawberry have been booked into Coconino County jail, one seen guarding the crop with an assault rifle, another taken down by a police dog when he ran.

Oakland -- Eight people, including four employees of the state Department of Motor Vehicles office in Oakland, have been charged in a scheme in which some of the DMV workers allegedly accepted thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for providing driver licenses, identification cards and registration stickers for cars that did not pass smog tests, authorities said today. Four of the defendants, including three DMV employees, appeared in U.S. District Court in Oakland this morning on charges that they accepted bribes to sell identification documents to non-U.S. citizens. All four were ordered to return to court Friday for further...

"Americans should be told that diseases long eradicated in this country — tuberculosis, leprosy, polio, for example — and other extremely contagious diseases have been linked directly to" illegal immigrants, Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) told the Business Journal of Phoenix last month.