Free Republic

Months after Prince William County began one of the country's toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants, officials and residents report signs that substantial numbers of people have left the county, particularly from Hispanic neighborhoods. Dave Whitlow, town manager of Dumfries, said officials started noticing the change a few months ago when they canvassed communities popular among Hispanic families and found roughly 165 residences vacant among 1,600 houses and town houses. Shopkeepers and teachers of English as a second language also have noticed a drop-off. "We are having many more leaving," said Mr. Whitlow, who could not estimate what percentage of those...

LONDON (Reuters) - Customs officials charged a Mexican woman with drug trafficking on Thursday after discovering 15 kg of cocaine strapped between the legs of two children at Heathrow airport. The three were detained when the cocaine was found after they arrived on a British Airways flight from Mexico City on Tuesday, HM Revenue and Customs said. Elisa Vazquez Sanchez, 40, was charged with attempting to smuggle Class A drugs into Britain. The two children were placed in the care of social services, with the 13-year-old boy given bail for one month and the 11-year-old girl released without charge.

Three men were due in court Thursday for allegedly smuggling a boatload of illegal immigrants who were stranded without food or water for three days off the San Diego coast.The three were among 15 people aboard a rickety 24-foot boat rescued Wednesday 12 miles off the San Diego coast and 20 miles north of the Mexican border, according to Customs and Border Protection.The trip started in a fishing village near Playas de Rosarito, said Mike Unzueta, the lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigator in San Diego. The smugglers switched boats on Mexico's Coronado Islands but the boat's engine died...

SAN DIEGO - The migrants board rickety boats in the dark, taking orders from inexperienced seamen. From sandy Mexican shores popular with weekend tourists, they can see downtown San Diego's lights when the sky is clear. Smugglers who charge them about $4,000 each for the illegal crossing often use two boats with different crews for the short trip, forcing them to change at sea, authorities say. That way, the hired hands will have less to tell if they are captured. U.S. officials and academics suspect heightened enforcement on land is pushing migrants to gamble their lives on the kind of...

It's not yet 3 a.m. Juana Rivas grabs her shopping cart and steps off the curb into the dark.She shields herself from the cold with a sweat shirt and jacket, along with a pink hat and gloves she bought at the 99-cent store. Only a barking dog interrupts the silence. Rivas arrives at the first house, lifts the trash can lid and shines her flashlight inside. Nothing. "No hay. No hay," she says in Spanish. She peers into another trash can. Nothing. She zigzags back and forth across the street, stopping at each house to search for aluminum cans, glass...

On King's Anvil Ranch along Highway 286 there's a spot of desert littered with trash left behind by illegal immigrants. The mess is repeated in multiple areas of the 50,000 acre ranch. It's a problem for the owners and lately an issue for Arizona Game and Fish. Gabriel Paz has been an officer for 11 years. He grew up in Tucson, even frequented the Altar Valley. "Hunting 25 years ago I never remember finding any trash out here in the desert." Things are different now. Here you can find everything from backpacks to clothes, cans to diapers even a letter...

Border Patrol agents found 60 illegal entrants in a drop house in Rio Rico on Tuesday and discovered 4,400 pounds of marijuana in two tractor-trailer rigs at the Interstate 19 checkpoint in separate incidents in the past two days. At about 5 p.m. Tuesday, agents found the group of illegal Mexican border crossers in a small home in Rio Rico, a press release from the agency said. Five men were being held pending prosecution of smuggling. Three vehicles were seized. Later in the evening at the Interstate 19 checkpoint north of Tubac, an agent, with the help of a drug-sniffing...

Seven people were injured when the driver of a pickup truck fleeing from Border Patrol agents crashed into a second pickup in Marana. A Border Patrol agent spotted the Chevrolet truck on Arizona 86 near Sandario Road about 10:30 p.m. Sunday, said Agent Sean King, a Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman. The agent was suspicious because the truck had no license plate. He tried to pull it over, but the driver sped away, King said. A helicopter followed as the truck turned onto Interstate 19 and then Interstate 10, he said. It left the freeway at Tangerine Road and ran...

Commentary, “No one’s life, liberty or property is safe when the legislature is in session,” stated wise man, Samuel Clemens AKA Mark Twain. James Sensenbrenner, Chairman of the House of Representatives, marginally carried the day in the House to criminalize a large portion of the country’s population for going about their everyday activities of working and hiring others to work. The Sensenbrenner bill instantly turns millions of people into felons. There’s the estimated 11 or more million mostly Mexican illegal aliens in the country plus the people who know and or employ them, as well. It builds a wall on...

MEXICO CITY – Mexico described as "significant" the immigration-reform positions laid out by the administration of President George W. Bush on Tuesday, but said any U.S. plan would have to "recognize the contributions of migrants" and take into consideration those already living north of the border. Bush on Tuesday argued for his temporary worker plan for foreigners, hoping to win over skeptical conservatives with get-tough promises about illegal immigration. "The Mexican government considers it significant that the administration of President Bush has a solid and unified position on immigration reform that allows safe, legal and orderly migration, and takes into...

INVASION USA Homeland Security bill lets illegals go free Without more detention facilities, 'other-than-Mexicans' must be released Posted: May 22, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com The president of a labor organization representing Border Patrol employees and a Texas congressman are criticizing the House's recently passed Homeland Security bill for failing to fund construction of new detention facilities to hold illegal border-crossers from countries other than Mexico, resulting in their automatic release pending a later hearing date. HR 1817, the Department of Homeland Security authorization bill passed last Wednesday by the House, approved adding 2,000 new Border Patrol agents,...