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(CBS News) Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said recently that al Qaeda terrorists may regroup in Africa, and that is why the U.S. is sending 100 Special Forces troops to one of the most violent places on Earth. The first 40 Americans have arrived in the region that includes South Sudan, scene of a long running civil war, and the Congo, site of the deadliest conflict since World War II. CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley sat down with Panetta, who said the Americans will train local forces to fight terrorists, including al Qaeda. Pelley: You're sending a hundred troops...

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Gov. Rick Perry of Texas said on Saturday that as president, he would consider sending American troops into Mexico to help defeat drug cartels and improve border security. He indicated that any such action would be done “in concert” with the Mexican government. “It may require our military in Mexico working in concert with them to kill these drug cartels and to keep them off of our border and to destroy their network,” Mr. Perry said during a campaign appearance here. “I don’t know all the different scenarios that would be out there,” he said. “But I...

WikiLeaks has dumped another batch of State Department cables, and among them are communications which shed some light on a number of controversial issues involving the drug cartels on the south side of the border. * * * Perhaps the most disturbing cable reveals an effort by the United States to keep the border violence out of the American press. On Feburary 15, 2010 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a ceremonial event on the international bridge between the sister cities of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and Laredo, TX which was hit with stray bullets during a gun battle the prior evening,...

........The Iranian-born officer, now a U.S. citizen, was taken to federal court in San Antonio late Friday on a charge of making false statements about his citizenship to get a job in law enforcement. He was released on $50,000 unsecured bond following a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo. If convicted, Amrollah could face up to five years in prison. ........The FBI claims Amrollah lied about his U.S. citizenship in applications to be a jailer, a police officer and, most recently, an FBI agent. In April 2010, the affidavit said, Amrollah e-mailed the FBI expressing interest in attending WMD...

WASHINGTON — Nearly 900 "special interest aliens" from 35 nations with suspected ties to terrorism have been apprehended along the border between Texas and California over the past 17 months, the Lone Star State being the land route of choice, according to a Border Patrol report obtained by the Chronicle. The arrests include the high-profile case of former Montreal imam Said Jaziri, a native of the watch-list country of Tunisia, who was arrested for unlawful entry by the U.S. Border Patrol near San Diego in January. ..."There are a lot of people crossing the border who came from scary parts...

PHOENIX – Gov. Jan Brewer sued the federal government Thursday for failing to control Arizona's border with Mexico and enforce immigration laws, and for sticking the state with huge costs associated with jailing illegal immigrants who commit crimes. The lawsuit claims the federal government has failed to protect Arizona from an "invasion" of illegal immigrants. It seeks increased reimbursements and extra safeguards, such as additional border fences. Brewer's court filing serves as a countersuit in the federal government's legal challenge to Arizona's new enforcement immigration law. The U.S. Justice Department is seeking to invalidate the law. "Because the federal government...

Hezbollah terrorists are entering the US through the Mexican border, yet the Obama Administration ignores the evidence. Americans should now not only be vigilant against illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico (and bringing with them all their lovely crime, diseases and salary depreciation). They should also be vigilant against a second headache that is piggybacking its way into the US through the underground tunnels that drug cartels normally use to gain entry into the US. According to a congresswoman who has seen evidence from the Drug Enforcement Agency, this additional problem of the porous US-Mexican border is a worrisome...

“ … intelligence reports from various sources say al Qaeda has already smuggled from 7 to 70 nuclear weapons into the country across the Mexican border. American intelligence experts believe the number to be closer to 7 than 70 but admit the threat is very real.” (SOURCE) “ … Intelligence information from captured al Qaeda documents, computers, and operatives indicates that al Qaeda has targeted 9 American Cities for nuclear attack.” (SOURCE) While the Obama Regime fiddles modern day Rome is about to burn. Iran is quickly, quickly, reaching the point at which they can produce an atomic bomb. Never...

Senator John McCain says he's worried that border violence will spill into Arizona.

Last year, UC San Diego art professor Ricardo Dominguez spearheaded a project to help illegal immigrants. He and his team equipped GPS-enabled mobile phones with border-specific information that would provide people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border a way to find water and, ergo, to continue living. In order to fund the development of the app, called the Transborder Immigrant Tool, Dominguez applied for, and was awarded, a grant by his institution, the University of California at San Diego. Funding the TBT to the tune of $5,000, apparently, enfuriated some SoCal high and mighties, including Congressman Duncan Hunter, who believed the project...

Richard Stana, the Government Accounting Office’s (GAO) Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues, testified before a congressional subcommittee on July 22 that “alien smuggling along the southwest border is an increasing threat to the security of the United States and Mexico as well as to the safety of both law enforcement and smuggled aliens.” “According to the National Drug Intelligence Center’s (NDIC) 2008 National Drug Threat Assessment, the southwest border region is the principal entry point for smuggled aliens from Mexico, Central America, and South America. Aliens from countries of special interest to the United States such as Afghanistan,...

Border: A Hezbollah-like car bomb explodes in a border town as a congresswoman asks Homeland Security about links between the terrorist group and Mexican drug cartels. This is more than an immigration problem. Car bombs are a terrorist specialty and not a drug cartel modus operandi. The heavily armed cartels are more into shootings and kidnappings. So the car bomb that exploded Thursday in Ciudad Juarez, near a federal police headquarters, killing four, was either a change in tactics for the cartels or a sign of teaming up with a terrorist group, one of which could be Iran-linked Hezbollah. Officials...

Illegal Immigration: Democratic governors warn of an apocalyptic November if the administration pursues its war on Arizona. They fear defeat by people who want jobs, not "comprehensive immigration reform." The main topics at the National Governors Association's summer meeting were supposed to be jobs and the economy. Instead, the buzz was about immigration and the political consequences of Washington's mindless suing of a sovereign state for daring to enforce federal immigration law. "Universally the governors are saying, 'We've got to talk about jobs,'" Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, said. "And all of a sudden we have immigration going on."...

Be aware and on the lookout for possible suicide attacks in America on Independence day this year.  There are intelligence reports that there is more buzz about attacks on America and Europe ever since two female suicide bombers blew themselves up in Moscow's metro train stations killing 38 people and wounding another 100. In America, the increased talk comes from the fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands of terrorists in America and ready to strike.      Many if not all of these terrorists have made it into America the same way millions of illegals have been coming for...

Security: After letting Mexico's president trash Arizona's immigration law and his immigration enforcement chief say he won't enforce it, the president wants to send a token National Guard contingent to the border. There's something disingenuous about the president's plan to deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the Arizona border to help the Border Patrol catch illegal aliens. His director of immigration and customs enforcement, John Morton, has said he might not enforce immigration crimes reported by Arizona officials, though the state's new law merely copies federal law. Morton is director of ICE, not chief justice of the Supreme Court. He...

This revealing note, with sickening photographs, is making the email and message board rounds this week. It's about the degradation of Arizona soil (and yours will be next) by thousands, if not millions, of illegal aliens who cross the border into this country via the Sonora Desert, not that pResident Zero would do anything about it.

Immigration: An Arizona official asks a good question: If California wants to boycott Arizona over the way it enforces federal law, what about the electricity California gets from there? The problem with righteous indignation is that when others call you on it and tell you to put your money where your mouth is, it can cause an embarrassing leak in your hot air balloon. Gary Pierce, a commissioner on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission, has done just that, calling the bluff of the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Pierce wrote Villaraigosa a letter saying in essence that...

Diplomacy: The administration's apology tour continues with a mea culpa to the world's worst human-rights violator for Arizona's enforcement of U.S. immigration law. You'd think Tiananmen Square was in Phoenix. In talks last week with China on the subject of human rights, the U.S. delegation volunteered how sorry we were for Arizona's decision to protect its citizens and its border against illegal immigration — the operative word being "illegal." You would assume the Chinese broached the subject to blunt any criticism of their policies and record. But our delegates beat them to it by groveling on their own initiative in...

DOUGLAS, AZ -- The U.S. Border Patrol uses choppers, ATVs and horses to patrol the 2000-mile border between the Southeastern U.S. and Mexico. Agents say most of the illegals caught crossing are from Mexico or South America. Still, they say thousands of people caught are classified as O.T.M.'s, which stands for "other than Mexican". They report that includes hundreds of people from nations that sponsor terrorism. Channel 2 Action News anchor Justin Farmer traveled to Arizona to view a detention center near Phoenix. He viewed records that show illegals in custody from from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and...

Illegal Immigration: Los Angeles' city council votes to boycott Arizona for its enforcement of existing federal law. No word yet on how China's human rights violations will be treated. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. The next time the Lakers play Los Suns in Phoenix, traveling fans are advised to bring their own snacks. The L.A. City Council voted 13-1 on Wednesday to economically boycott the state of Arizona for daring to protect its borders against the crime, violence and illegal immigration that recently took the life of an Arizona rancher and has made Phoenix the kidnapping capital of...

Illegal Immigration: An Arizona rancher is murdered while patrolling his ranch. A gaping hole in the border fence and footsteps back to Mexico tell the tale. When will we put the National Guard back on the border? Robert N. Krentz Jr., 58, scion of one of the best-known and oldest ranching families in southeast Arizona, was found shot to death March 27 on his vast, remote ranch after radioing to his brother that he was checking out someone he believed to be an illegal immigrant. Krentz was found slumped over his ATV on his 35,000-acre ranch about 35 miles northeast...

Immigration: Arizona moves to protect its citizens from a raging border war, and the administration and its activist supporters cry racism. Why is antelope protection more important than protecting American lives?

<p>Border: In a new bead in a string of attacks on the U.S. , our consulate in Nuevo Laredo was bombed last week. But in Washington, the thinking about Mexico is not of war, but of PR — as in amnesty and a first lady's visit.</p>

[L]aw enforcement officials [are] worried that Mexican traffickers — facing beefed-up security on the border that now includes miles of new fencing, floodlights, drones, motion sensors and cameras — have stepped up their efforts to corrupt the border police. They research potential targets, anticorruption investigators said, exploiting the cross-border clans and relationships that define the region, offering money, sex, whatever it takes. But, with the border police in the midst of a hiring boom, law enforcement officers believe that traffickers are pulling out the stops, even soliciting some of their own operatives to apply for jobs. “In some ways,” said...

Shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a secret government report highlighted a way terrorists might easily enter the United States carting weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't by air or sea. The classified analysis pointed to an arid and sparsely populated stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona teeming with drug runners. "This area has become very active with smuggling and encrypted radio traffic," says the report titled "Threat Assessment for Public Lands" completed by the Interior Department in late 2002. "This would be an ideal area to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction." The report, marked...

Several groups of illegal immigrants from China have been arrested in southern Arizona in recent days, part of an increasing trend that U.S. Border Patrol agents said Monday was being fed by smugglers recruiting tourists to Central and South America. The arrests included two Chinese found among a large group of migrants who entered the county from Mexico on Friday. Three more Chinese were found Saturday, a group that included four Chinese was captured Sunday and four more were arrested early Monday

Even though the Border Patrol now reports that almost 1,300 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border is not under effective control, and the Department of Justice says that vast stretches of the border are “easily breached,” and the Government Accountability Office has revealed that three persons “linked to terrorism” and 530 aliens from “special interest countries” were intercepted at Border Patrol checkpoints last year, the administration is nonetheless now planning to decrease the number of Border Patrol agents deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Chuck Schumer said that the number of people captured between Oct. 1, 2008 and May 15 this year was down 27 percent from the same period the previous year. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer cited reports from the Customs and Border Protection officials saying that most of the decrease has been in the number of people taken into custody as they tried to illegally enter the U.S. along the border with Mexico. The New York senator said the lower demand for labor in the U.S. and stepped-up border enforcement measures are behind the decrease."The border is far more secure than it's...

 A Mexican border town has "declared war" on the United States, vowing to clog the U.S. court system with illegal immigrants, because, city officials say, the U.S. Border Patrol is dumping in their town Mexican nationals caught crossing the border illegally. Officials from Agua Prieta, a Mexican city of about 130,000, are also claiming that the U.S. government has repeatedly neglected to inform them about new waves of immigrants before they are routed there from points in the U.S. after capture. Consequently, Agua Prieta leaders are teaching Mexican nationals how to cross into the U.S. and stay there, by instructing...

WASHINGTON, March 24, 2009 – The Department of Homeland Security is “still considering” the use of National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border, along with several other initiatives, the DHS secretary said in a White House press briefing today. “This issue requires immediate action,” Janet Napolitano said. “We are guided by two very clear objectives. First, we are going to do everything we can to prevent the violence in Mexico from spilling over across the border. “And second, we will do all in our power to help President [Felipe] Calderón crack down on these drug cartels in Mexico.” Napolitano...

WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Last year, around 2,500 Mexicans died in the twin wars drug cartels are waging against each other and against the Mexican state, using weapons smuggled in from the United States. In the first 11 months of this year, the death toll was 5,367, according to the Mexican attorney general. Next year? There is no end in sight. At least two of the lethal ingredients in the toxic brew that fuels Mexico's ever-widening violence are unlikely to change: lax American gun laws and a Mexican border that barely controls north-south traffic. On many of the crossing...

WASHINGTON – One of the wealthiest counties in America reports crime skyrocketing by 22 percent in the first quarter of 2008, while its neighbor saw crime plummet by 19.3 percent in the same time period – coinciding with a get-tough policy on illegal immigration. Prince William County in Northern Virginia, a bedroom community for the nation's capital, made national news late last year with a crackdown on illegal immigration that supervisors believed was triggering higher crime and lower living standards. Prince William County reported a 19.3 percent decline in crime, with chairman of the Board of County Supervisors Corey Stewart...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Authorities have seen no signs of al Qaeda trying to insert operatives into the United States from Mexico, but the militant group has considered doing so, a U.S. intelligence official said on Friday. The comments by Charles Allen, Homeland Security undersecretary for intelligence and analysis, could undercut one argument by advocates in and out of government for get-tough tactics to fight illegal crossings at the southern U.S. border -- that they are needed to fight terrorism. In contrast, at least one Islamist militant has been caught trying to enter the United States by land to attempt an...

President Bush's top intelligence aide has confirmed that Iraqi terrorists have been captured coming into the United States from Mexico. The confirmation comes from National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, who talked about the situation in an interview with the El Paso Times recently. "Coming up through the Mexican border is a path," McConnell said. "Now, are they doing it in great numbers? No, because we're finding them and we're identifying them and we've got watch lists and we're keeping them at bay." But, he said, "There are numerous situations where people are alive today because we caught them (terrorists)." Intelligence...

My friend Geraldo Rivera and I had quite the verbal shootout the other day over the needless deaths of Allison Kunhardt, 17, and Tessa Tranchant, 16, in Virginia. Twenty-two-year-old Alfredo Ramos, an illegal alien from Mexico, killed the girls when he slammed into their car while drunk. Ramos had three previous alcohol-related convictions and an identity theft beef as well. Despite all the criminal activity, the feds had no idea Ramos was even in the country because Virginia Beach is a "Sanctuary City" and its police chief, Alfred Jacocks, had ordered his officers not to ask about immigration status when...

Harris co-sponsors fence bill Nelson votes against border security   TAMPA, FL— Congresswoman Katherine Harris, the Republican candidate for United States Senate, became a co-sponsor yesterday for H.R. 6061, The Secure Fence Act, to confront the immediate need for additional infrastructure to help secure our borders from terrorists and other criminal elements. A vote on the bill is anticipated later today. Her opponent, Bill Nelson has stymied recent efforts to bolster border security by voting in favor of Senate Amendment 4188, legislation that includes provisions requiring the United States to consult with Mexico before building a border fence. As noted...

"We've had Hezbollah agents that came across the border with Mexico," Jerome Corsi, co-author of "Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America's Borders", told Sean Hannity during an appearance Wednesday night on Fox News Hannity & Colmes. Appearing with co-author and Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist, Corsi agreed with Hannity that border security is important for national security because Hezbollah terrorists could be coming across the border with weapons of mass destruction.

Nuevo Laredo, Mexico— A young, slightly built Latino boy smiles widely for the camera. The chunk of adobe stuck between Jose Gonzalez’s two front teeth show the world he's been practicing again. "You need more speed, mang," shouts his uncle, Eduardo Gonzalez, as he and a band of others fail in suppressing their laughter. "You can do it!" It's still early in the morning, but Jose will not be the only child to taste sun baked mud from the public library's wall today.

President Bush got it just right for once. His immigration speech had all the key moves he needs to keep his base in order and to reach out to the Latino voters who are the political future of the Republican Party.He began with the wall — the border fence. Whether made of concrete or of high-tech instrumentation, he has finally embraced the reality that border agents, no matter how numerous, cannot police a 2,000-mile border. And Americans have no reason to have faith that they can. Only a fence can control the massive flow of immigrants across our borders and...

A plan for 700 miles of Mexican border wall heads for Senate -- its future is not assured. A proposal to build a double set of steel walls with floodlights, surveillance cameras and motion detectors along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border heads to the Senate next month after winning overwhelming support in the House. The wall would be intended to prevent illegal immigrants and potential terrorists from hiking across the southern border into the United States. It would run along five segments of the 1,952-mile border that now experience the most illegal crossings. The plan already has roiled diplomatic relations...

Two events last month on the Mexican border, one in Texas and one in California, highlight the challenge the U.S. faces on our Southern border. They illustrate how not only vulnerable our border is but also why it is difficult to fix the problem. Mexico won’t or can’t control its side of the border, and the U.S. doesn’t want to embarrass Mexico by admitting that fact publicly. On the afternoon of January 23, three SUVs crossed from Mexico into Texas 50 miles southeast of El Paso at a shallow place in the Rio Grande called Neely’s Crossing by the locals....

An Al Qaida operative who was on the FBI's terrorist watch list was recently captured near the Mexican border, housed in a Texas jail and turned over to federal agents, Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, said on Friday. "A confirmed al Qaida terrorist, an Iraqi national, was held in the Brewster County jail," Rep. Culberson told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity. "He was captured in Mexico. This was within the last six weeks. He was turned over to the FBI." The Texas Republican said he obtained the stunning information about the terrorist's capture "from the sheriffs who were directly involved. "In...

Federal agents believe they've intercepted intelligence from the notorious Mara Salvatruchas gang who seem to be planning to assassinate federal and local police in the coming days. They have forwarded a safety memo to area authorities. In the intelligence bulletin obtained by Action 4 News, a confidential informant in Virginia claims the Mara Salvatruchas have designated October 30 as "Kill A Law Enforcement Officer Day". The memo cites the informant as someone who's provided reliable information in the past. Reliable or not, Valley police aren't taking chances. In Hidalgo, chief Vernon Rosser believes everyone has their guard up. "Along the...

(Ed: Bill Cavaliere was born on August 27, 1957 and grew up in Parsippany, NJ. At age 20 he moved to southwestern New Mexico, where he was initailly employed with the US Forest Service in the Coronado National Forest. He later attended the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy in Santa Fe. He was hired as a deputy with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office, and during his 18-year tenure he was eventually elected sheriff. He has since worked as an instructor for the National Counterdrug Center, and is currently employed with the Playas New Mexico Police Department. He is married with...

There is a new kind of tree growing out west. Botanists have yet to decide how to classify it. Politicians and the major media seem to want to ignore it. The sight of one is enough to make weathered old cowboys who thought they'd seen everything in life break down and cry. Not many people have seen these trees, for they grow in out of the way places in the southwest desert along the border with Mexico. But those who have seen them are haunted by the memory. In an era of free trade agreements and politically correct euphemisms for...

U. S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a vocal critic of President Bush's immigration policy, announced he would run for President in 2008 - if he could not find a more viable candidate to adopt his views on illegal immigration.

Violent, terror-connected gang threatens to confront civilian immigration patrols. It looks like there is going to be a second "showdown at the OK Corral" in Tombstone, Ariz., April 1. A leader of the violent, terror-connected Latin American gang Mara Salvatruchas, Ebner Anivel Rivera-Paz, has reportedly issued orders from federal prison to members of his international criminal organization to teach a lesson to a group of Americans taking border control into their own hands. The American civilians, known as the "Minutemen," say they have some 750 volunteers ready to show up in Tombstone to start policing the border and dealing with...

Former Mexican soldiers, police and federal agents, originally trained as an elite force of anti-drug commandos, are working as mercenaries for Mexican narcotics traffickers, bringing a new wave of drug-related killings into the United States, authorities said. Law-enforcement and intelligence officials said the well-armed gang, known as the "Zetas," is linked to hundreds of killings and dozens of kidnappings on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly over a wide area of southeastern Texas from Laredo to Brownsville and in cities throughout Mexico.

U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said yesterday's developments suggest that if any of the other people being sought are in the country, then they might be here for economic reasons, as well, and have no links to terrorism.

The year 2004 was a good one for terrorists, violent gang members, law-breakers and fraud artists seeking safe haven in America. Let's reminisce: The rise of MS-13. The savage El Salvador-based gang, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), has now penetrated more than a dozen states. In May, a Fairfax, Va., teenager had his fingers chopped off in an MS-13 machete attack. In November, Washington, D.C.-area police received warning that MS-13 is plotting to ambush and kill them when they respond to service calls. Active in alien, drug and weapons smuggling, MS-13 members in America have been tied to numerous killings, robberies, carjackings,...