Free Republic

A Honduran woman with legal immigrant status was sentenced to two years probation Friday in Baton Rouge federal court after admitting that she illegally transported minivan loads of undocumented immigrants from Houston to Miami. Eight months of her probation must be served at a halfway house. Sonia Lisseth Suazo, 39, of Houston, could have been sentenced to as many as 14 months in prison under federal guidelines. But she begged Chief U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson for leniency. “I don’t want to leave my daughters alone by themselves,” Suazo said through a Spanish interpreter. “They need me, as does...

by John HillStand With Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is facing an unprecedented campaign to recall him from office. This follows a re-election campaign last year which saw unprecedented amounts spent on both sides, as George Soros committed $10 million to oust "America's Sheriff". Joe was forced to spend his entire 'war chest' of $8 million to (barely) hold onto office - the closest race of his career. Why?Why is the Left in America so focused on a single county's Sheriff, and willing to spend Congressional-level funds to defeat him? Well for starters, Sheriff Joe is the biggest national symbol in...

Brazil's borders are so vast, and the terrain so inhospitable, that attempting to secure them has seemed a virtually impossible task. But Brazil's rapidly expanding economy has made the country a magnet for illegal immigration, and other illicit activities, and now the country has announced its own border protection program. Called the Sistema Integrado de Monitoramento de Fronteiras and known by its Portuguese acronym, SISFRON, it is intended to act as a virtual border shield along a frontier that stretches more than 10,000 miles and is shared with 10 other countries. The sheer size of the terrain that will be...

Richmond judge gives babysitter maximum term in abuse case Copyright..refer to link..............http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/local/crime/article_e9864e31-0d33-54ea-bdb3-eeeba4c11908.html

There is no way Texas Gov. Rick Perry can support the bipartisan immigration reform bill because, he says, it fails to deal satisfactorily with border security. "You cannot have a legitimate conversation about immigration reform until you deal with the issue of border security. And, as far as I'm concerned, this bill does not address it,'' Perry told Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview.

Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume warned Friday that the “Gang of Eight” efforts to pass immigration reform could be in trouble not only in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, but also in the Democratic-controlled Senate as well. Hume said by rejecting all efforts to beef up border enforcement, the bill was being condemned to “a death sentence.” “I think the bill is in trouble,” he said on Laura Ingraham’s radio program, “And it would in trouble whether they had a gang in the House or not, and will continue to be in trouble unless or until the enforcement...

Experts can’t always predict exactly how public policy will affect the nation, despite our best efforts. But when it comes to immigration policy, we have tried many of the types of reforms advocated by today’s Gang of Eight—so we should consider the effects these reforms had in the past.In the mid-’80s, many Members of Congress advocated amnesty for long-settled illegal immigrants. President Reagan considered it reasonable to adjust the status of what was then a relatively small population, and as his attorney general, I supported his decision.The path to citizenship was not automatic. Immigrants had to pay application fees, learn...

Mark Zuckerberg and Marco Rubio have become amnesty’s two indistinguishable amigos. They have morphed into Marco Zuckerberg and Mark Rubio. You’ve heard the radio spots and seen the television ads featuring Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio talking about the dire need to do something about the “immigration problem” not “illegal immigration” but immigration. During a minute’s worth of huffing and puffing Rubio tries to bulldoze past any logical objections to erasing our borders with faux tough talk designed to impress us with his credentials as an “insider’ who KNOWS more than we do. Rubio’s media crusade is funded by liberal...

Among the criticisms leveled at the new Senate immigration bill is the secretive manner in which it was written. And given the details, it's hardly any wonder that the eight senators overseeing the proceedings - the "Gang of Eight" - refused to hold hearings or debate until after the bill's release. Tucked away in the measure are two sections that would route a combined $150 million or more to "public or private, non-profit organizations" that are "community, faith-based or other immigrant-serving." Recipient groups could use funds to aid potentially tens of millions of illegal immigrants and family members to obtain...

A bipartisan group in the House working on an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws reached a deal in principle Thursday evening, aides said. The group plans to introduce its bill in June. Details of the compromise were not released, but, much like a bill introduced in the Senate, the House legislation will include a path to legalization for the 11 million undocumented workers already in the country, as well as increased border security measures. The House version, though, is expected to be more conservative in its approach to granting illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, among a number of...

Bipartisan House group reaches an "agreement in principle" on immigration reform, says GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.

Three accused people smugglers now face federal hostage-taking charges after they were caught holding Washington-bound immigrants for ransom, a Homeland Security Investigations spokesman announced Thursday. Federal investigators contend Espiridion Pablo-Madrigal, 34, Abel Donce de la Torre-Gonzalez, 32, and Luis Bretado-Aragon, 19, are accused of holding three immigrants hostage in a “drop house” in Phoenix, Ariz. A department spokesman said the kidnappers threatened to kill their hostages if the victims’ family didn’t pay. Homeland Security Investigations agents learned of the house on May 13, after a caller contacted HSI Seattle to report the kidnapping. HSI agents in Phoenix then worked around...

The Senate Gang of Eight stayed unified through the third day of marking up immigration reform legislation, frustrating Republican attempts to strengthen the bill’s enforcement provisions. Democrats touted the Senate Judiciary Committee’s passage of three Republican amendments to crack down on the future hiring of illegal immigrants but senior Republicans on the panel were left disgruntled by the failure of stronger proposals. “The gang’s agreement to stick together is firmly in place. They’ve united in opposition to a lot of good amendments,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). “Anything that comes close to being a significant vote they voted ‘no’ on....

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...

The mere thought of granting amnesty to 11 -- 20 million illegal immigrants should frighten any common sense American citizen. Amnesty means that wannabe tyrants like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Michael Bloomberg, and Barack Obama will achieve their "dream of a permanent Democratic majority" in the U.S. The entire political, cultural, social, and economic landscape created by our Founding Fathers will be destroyed by amnesty. Concerned citizens must engage in the democratic process to stop the current immigration "reform" madness. This article provides them with all the tools they need to do so by clicking here. Please take action NOW...

Jon Feere is the Legal Policy Analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) appears in a new television advertisement designed to promote the immigration amnesty bill currently being debated in Congress. The minute-long advertisement calls the proposal "conservative immigration reform" and attempts to make amnesty appealing to Republican voters. Partisan politics aside, the amnesty ad is misleading on a number of counts, outlined below.The ad was produced by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg who created the floundering FWD.us, an advocacy group aimed at promoting amnesty. One of the group's offshoots is something called "Americans for a Conservative Direction",...

(Reuters) - Wading into the national debate over immigration, California Governor Jerry Brown is pushing for a faster path to citizenship for the millions of people who are in the country illegally. Brown's is the latest in a chorus of voices from the most populous U.S. state calling for swift enactment of reform - but also demanding that a provision that would delay full citizenship for 10 or more years be removed from the immigration overhaul legislation being considered in the U.S. Senate. The delay is of particular concern to policymakers in California, because it means that the state's mostly...

Catastrophic failings by police and social services allowed a child sex ring to sexually torture girls as young as 11 for eight years, despite victims repeatedly telling officers they had been raped or abused. Last night – after the vicious and 'medieval' predators were convicted at the Old Bailey – the police and social services apologised for failing to answer the girls’ desperate pleas for help, but bosses of both refused to resign over the scandal. This morning Sara Thornton, chief constable of Thames Valley Police since 2007, twice refused to acknowledge calls for her to resign in the wake...

Despite being told to keep his question short at the North Miami immigration forum, Carlos Rivas plunged into the story of his father's impending deportation to Mexico, only hours away, and followed with a plea for help. His story moved Florida Representative Frederica Wilson, one of the four members of Congress in attendance. She proceeded to make late night phone calls to immigration officials, ultimately halting the deportation of Carlos' father. Carlos' mother Ana Rivas, pictured above with her family, told The Stream that her husband, Rene Rivas, was arrested on March 29 in an undercover US Immigration and Customs...

1. They must pay back taxes Jon Feere is the legal policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies. Despite claims from amnesty advocates, the bill does not contain a requirement that illegal immigrants pay back taxes for the many years they have been working off the books. The only requirement in the bill is that illegal immigrants must iron out any existing problems they may have with the IRS. If the IRS has ever audited the illegal immigrant and requested payment of unpaid taxes, they would be required to pay them before receiving amnesty. The reality is that the...

There wasn’t much time. The hour was getting late at the North Miami immigration forum. The four members of Congress were hungry. But 18-year-old Carlos Rivas had something to say. “My dad, he was two months ago arrested by ICE. I have my family right here: my mom and my three brothers and sisters. We don’t know what to do,” Rivas said. “He’s about to be deported tomorrow [Tuesday] at 4 a.m.” he said. “And I wanted to know what you could do for us. … What can you do? Is there any help you can try to give us?”...

Senators voted Tuesday to weaken current immigration law that requires biometric checks of all visitors to the U.S., arguing that it would be too expensive to follow through and could end up keeping illegal immigrants from getting citizenship. The 12-6 vote in the Judiciary Committee came as the panel began a second day of votes on the 867-page immigration bill, and it signaled that the bipartisan authors of the bill continue to hold firm against efforts to stiffen security measures in the bill. Some Republicans continued to try to poke at the bill, but 10 Democrats and two Republicans have...

Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R – S.C.) is standing by the controversial Heritage Foundation study that put a $6.3 trillion price tag on the Senate immigration bill, saying: “There’s no doubt that these numbers are real.”

I have worked on the issue of immigration’s fiscal impact for a long time, having presented my first academic paper on the subject at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association almost two decades ago. I can thus say with confidence that the Heritage Foundation’s recent report on the fiscal cost of illegal immigrants is the most detailed and exhaustive ever done on this topic. The report’s lead author is Robert Rector, intellectual godfather of welfare reform. Rector finds that illegal-immigrant households use about $55 billion more in services than they pay in taxes each year. Under the...

As you no doubt have already heard, on Friday the Heritage Foundation accepted the resignation of one Jason Richwine, who in 2009 had completed a Harvard dissertation in which he probed the nexus between immigration and IQ. The decision revealed a shocking unwillingness on the part of Heritage to stand up to bullying and protect the academic freedom of its researchers. Perhaps the only good thing to emerge from all this has been the wide-scale distribution of the dissertation itself, a worthy if highly debatable document. It’s a pity that none of Richwine’s detractors seem to have seriously engaged the...

Executive Summary Unlawful immigration and amnesty for current unlawful immigrants can pose large fiscal costs for U.S. taxpayers. Government provides four types of benefits and services that are relevant to this issue: Direct benefits. These include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation.Means-tested welfare benefits. There are over 80 of these programs which, at a cost of nearly $900 billion per year, provide cash, food, housing, medical, and other services to roughly 100 million low-income Americans. Major programs include Medicaid, food stamps, the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.Public...

Vice-President Joe Biden hit back at those criticizing the current immigration reform bill as a grant of amnesty to lawbreakers. “Considering everything these people have already suffered through, granting them amnesty is the least we ought to be doing for them,” he argued. “Think about it,” Biden demanded. “A person in this country illegally had to cross hundreds of miles of baking desert, dodging INS officers along the way. Many had to pay Mexican criminals for the right to pass through their drug territories unscathed. Once here they had to take on menial jobs at low pay while eluding detection...

When South Carolina’s Republican Senator Jim DeMint resigned to head the Heritage Foundation most “outside the Beltway” conservatives were at first apprehensive about the net effect it would cause. The thinking on DeMint’s move slowly evolved to “Jim can do things outside of the system he can’t do/say while in the Senate.” It sounded reasonable – after all this was Jim DeMint. Since he took over Heritage DeMint has been an irritant to the Gang of Eight as they fight to destroy America by erasing our borders, but time has shown that alas he is not the “all in” warrior...

What if you came home one day and found people living in your den - and they said the government had given them the right to stay? Take a look at what happened to "The Jensens." http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/whats-next-pathway-ownership

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...

Why? Because Mr. Rivera likens it to calling someone a “negro” or a “homosexual.”

Por La Raza, Todo! Joe Biden in full pander mode, totally without shame.- by John HillStand With ArizonaFew can equal Vice President Joe Biden as a race-baiting panderer. And Joe is increasingly making his professed amor for "Hispanics" standard fare for his stump speeches pushing amnesty for illegal aliens. Biden never misses an opportunity to put Hispanics - and especially illegals - on a pedestal. In January, addressing a group of newly-elected Latino members of Congress, Biden insisted that "now the nation -- and I might add the hemisphere -- understands the Hispanic community must be courted. Must be courted....

How different would the immigration debate look today had Barbara Jordan lived? It’s a question frequently pondered by those of us who believe the answer to every problem concerning immigration isn’t necessarily more immigration. Jordan was the first woman elected to Congress from Texas and the first Southern black female ever elected to the House. She compiled a similar record of firsts in Texas state politics and was active in the civil rights movement. But Jordan capped her career chairing the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. The commission’s vision of immigration reform was very different than the “comprehensive” variety pushed...

If Republican leaders were to fully embrace a conservative reform agenda, it would address pressing national needs. It would position the GOP as forward looking, contemporary, and have appeal to swing voters. It would demonstrate a commitment to a brand of conservatism that is practical rather than narrowly ideological. And it contrasts well with today’s reactionary liberalism, by which I mean liberalism that opposes virtually every effort to reform institutions and programs that are sclerotic, outdated, and ineffective. .... There are five obvious areas for Republicans to focus on, beginning with entitlement reform ... A second area Republicans should focus...

<p>A more than 800-page bill for immigration reform, which the Senate has begun debating, carries a measure privacy advocates worry could lead to the creation of a biometric database of every adult in the United States.</p>

Then the identity verification could become a necessary step to prove one's identity before ordinary activities, like opening a bank account, buying a car or boarding a plane, David Kravets from Wired Magazine suggested. 'Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in,' he wrote. Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union, told Wired that this measure could 'change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things. More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.' Mr...

A group of Hispanic custodians at the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver are claiming they are victims of discrimination.

Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and 2008 vice-presidential candidate, released a statement today concerning the news that the IRS targeted conservative leaning groups during the 2012 presidential election. She said, “today we learned that our government targeted and harassed conservative Americans who simply wanted to be involved in the national discussion. Is it any wonder why Americans are so distrustful of D.C.? I'm sure President Obama is grateful for all the help the IRS gave his reelection campaign, but, still, you have to wonder how the bureaucrats who tried to pull this off can sleep at night.” “So many...

FRESNO, Calif. — The rumor spread like wildfire via phone calls, text messages and social media postings and has persisted now for more than three weeks:

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced new criteria for sponsoring parents and grandparents to come to Canada today that are aimed at ensuring elderly immigrants don't end up on welfare or in social housing. "If you think your parents may need to go on welfare in Canada, please don't sponsor them. We're not looking for more people on welfare, we're not looking to add people as a social burden to Canada.

American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray suggested on Friday that former Heritage Foundation analyst Jason Richwine, whose doctoral dissertation at Harvard included evidence that Hispanic immigrants have lower IQs than non-Hispanic whites, had been railroaded and forced to resign by people without integrity or “balls.” Quote: Jason Richwine, guilty of crimethink, "resigns." The bashing from the right has been as mindless as from the left. Thank God I was working for Chris DeMuth and AEI, not Jim DeMint and Heritage, when The Bell Curve was published. Integrity. Loyalty. Balls.DeMuth was the president of AEI from 1986 to 2008. The Bell...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) --- Recalling the devastating consequences suffered by workers and families affected by a 2008 immigration raid at a kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa

The night before Thursday's marathon committee markup, members of the Senate's Gang of Eight and their staffs huddled in a room in the Capitol to decide what amendments to their immigration bill they would let live—and what must die. As a comprehensive immigration overhaul advances through the Senate, its chief architects will remain firmly in control of its fate. This week's drama at the Senate Judiciary Committee provided a valuable test run for the group, which must protect their bill from changes that undermine the principles they agreed on but accept enough suggestions from their colleagues to garner at least...

The White House has been pushing its immigration reform desires around via Twitter this week, sending one doozy of a tweet that sparked hilarious responses. If the Obama administration had a sense of humor, one could think this was almost a setup designed to elicit reaction and interaction on Twitter. But, alas. This administration believes its own babble-speak, which makes the comments even funnier.

Everytime I hear Marco Rubio pitching amnesty courtesy of Zuckerberg's fake, Trojan horse "Americans for a Conservative Dirction" I get madder and madder. I just heard another such radio spot with Rubio telling lie after lie about the 8 gangsters' amnesty bill. The ad says its the "toughest border measure in America's history", "border security on steroids", "bold, very conservative", etc., etc. ad nauseum. Any guy that can pitch for Zuckerberg like this, telling the most bald-faced lies imaginable, is no conservative. A FReeper (sorry, I can't remember to whom to give the credit) accurately called him "Marco Dupio" the...

The immigration debate has taken a sudden and nasty turn with the publication of a new report by The Heritage Foundation claiming that reform legislation will end up costing American taxpayers $6.3 trillion. The Heritage Foundation, one of the most respected conservative organizations in the U.S., has sullied its reputation by lending its name to this tendentious piece of propaganda. First, the study grossly exaggerates the "cost" of immigration reform by assuming that all of those who gain legal status will claim welfare and other social service benefits as soon as they become eligible. While it is true that Hispanic...

San Diego Fire and Rescue crews were called to the San Ysidro border crossing for nearly 160 childbirth emergencies in 2012 — one almost every other day. Such calls continued in 2013, with 15 childbirth emergency calls to the gateway into Tijuana in January, eight in February and 17 in March, according to city records obtained by U-T Watchdog. There are no statistics on how many of the moms being rushed by emergency crews to local hospitals are U.S. citizens, as federal laws prohibit emergency crews and hospital teams from asking. Babies born under the circumstances are U.S. citizens as...

Al Hunt prefaced his remark by describing the issue of ethnicity and IQ as a "swamp". But did he then proceed to wade right into it? Morning Joe today took up the topic of the flap over a report on immigration produced by the Heritage Foundation. The panel's particular focus was a statement by report co-author Jason Richwine contained in his Harvard dissertation that "the average IQ of immigrants is substantially lower than that of native whites." Rather than rejecting the notion out of hand, Hunt asked "is that true of Asian immigrants? Is that true of all immigrants?" Ruh-roh!...

Two-term Sen. Lindsey Graham expects a primary challenge from the right, making his starring role in immigration reform a confounding political vulnerability for the South Carolina Republican. Graham knows it, too. But he thinks he’s correct—on both the policy and the politics. Graham says his position on immigration is in line with voters’ evolving sentiment on the issue—namely, that voters in South Carolina oppose the “de facto amnesty” in place under the current “broken” system. And it has not gone unnoticed by Republican strategists that Graham enjoys some political cover created by conservative Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., stepping out front...

Biden: Amnesty for 11 Million Illegals is ‘Granting Them the Dignity & Respect They Deserve’. What does breaking the law – those identical to international regulations Americans are jailed for in Mexico and abroad – have to do with dignity and respect? If anything, these trespassers showed no respect for America or her citizens: both natural born or naturalized. In what other country are criminals, non-citizens at that, rewarded for breaking the law? The real problem is that a simple ...issue, applying for and obtaining citizenship, has been muddled and shamelessly exploited by unscrupulous politicians trying to maximize power. If...