Free Republic

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,...

Naco Border Patrol agents were pinned down by automatic weapon fire from cowardly assailants in Mexico on Tuesday, February 18th. The agents, who were pinned down for 5 to 7 minutes, were not injured and were unable to return fire. The shooting took place in broad daylight and the shooters knew exactly who they were shooting at. After the assailants left the area, they fired on other Border Patrol agents nearby. Hundreds of shell casings were reportedly scattered about area after the shootings. More to follow.

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - California communities will be reimbursed for the hundreds of millions of dollars they have spent on security since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge pledged during an appearance before the state's fire and police chiefs.</p>

RANCH RESCUE BACK IN THE SADDLE, GOING BACK TO JIM HOGG COUNTY ! http://www.ranchrescue.com/texas.htm#falcon From what I see on the Operation Ranch Rescue website they have regrouped and are going back in strength.  It is my understanding that the usual number of participants is 50.   This time they are putting together about 200 (sounds like FReeping to me!) and are headed back at the end of the month.  It looks like there will be a LOT of documentation going on, I suppose County Sheriff E-Raz-Mo is gonna have some `splanin to do. GO TEAM! Check out the site link and...

Four U.S. Marine Corps reservists stationed at Fort Bliss died late Wednesday when their AH1W Super Cobra helicopters crashed while providing night-time support to a Border Patrol counterdrug mission in South Texas. The Cobras, working with Joint Strike Force Six and carrying two-person crews, went down near Falcon State Park on the U.S.-Mexican border about 9:30 p.m., according to a press release from Armando Carrasco, spokesman for Joint Task Force Six. The site is about 700 miles from El Paso, midway between Laredo and McAllen. Carrasco said the crews were part of Detachment A Helicopter Marine Light Attack squadron 775....

AUSTIN — A Rio Grande Valley lawmaker in whose district six men were shot to death early Sunday has called for more federal and state dollars to fight the war on drugs. State Rep. Aaron Peña, who lost a son of his own to drugs in 2001, said the Texas-Mexico border region was rapidly becoming a war zone due to the proliferation of cocaine and marijuana, and associated violent crime. The claim was not disputed by Edinburg Chief of Police Quirino Muñoz or Hidalgo County’s drugs task force commander Lupe Treviño Monday, even though the massacre on Monte Christo...

Charles Bowden's engaging new book, "Down by the River" (Simon & Schuster, $27), is about a part of the border that many people like to pretend doesn't exist: the underworld ruled by drug lords and their corrupt accomplices. It pulls back the veil on scenes that ought to shame authorities on both sides of the border into action. The way Bowden tells it, the corruption propelled by drug money is so extensive that it has reached into El Paso's financial and law-enforcement communities. According to Bowden, the Drug Enforcement Administration had information in the 1990s that the late drug lord...

Fabiola Ochoa holds up her new Laser Visa Crossing Card at the US Port of Entry in Nogales, Ariz., on Tuesday. NOGALES - Despite new requirements that Mexicans carry new high-tech border-crossing cards to make short visits to the United States, federal authorities do not have enough machines in place at U.S. border checkpoints to read the encoded information encrypted on the cards.The computer equipment at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexican border also are still unable to read biometric information - digital photographs and fingerprints - that appear embedded in the card, Marie Sebrechts, an Immigration and Naturalization Service...

Mexico Migrants Risk Death to Cross U.S. Border Sat Aug 10, 9:11 AM ET By Deborah Tedford TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION, Mexico (Reuters) - Less than 2 miles from the U.S. border, a mishmash of trash and personal effects hangs in a tangle of thorn bushes, marking a makeshift camp where each day 1,500 migrants prepare to walk the "Devil's Path" into the United States. Under a stand of scrubby mesquite, job seekers from impoverished regions of Mexico and Central America sit on fallen branches to swig electrolyte solution in preparation for a dangerous sojourn in the Sonoran Desert. Scattered among...

TERRORISM: The Danger Beneath August 7, 2002; Since the first of the year, the US Border Patrol has found two elaborate tunnels under the US-Mexican border. One of them had a rail system, electric lights, and forced air ventilation. Such tunnels begin and end in buildings, so they are hard to spot. The Border Patrol estimates that many new tunnels have been built since last September due to increased border security.--Stephen V Cole

<p>Don't miss The Pulse this Thursday evening, July 11 on the FOX network at 9 p.m. ET/PT.</p> <p>Hosted by Shepard Smith from the pulse of New York city, we've got a great show in store for you this week.</p> <p>Are Muslim extremists still getting into the U.S. nearly nine months after September 11? The people who want to bring terror to our 50 states are being smuggled over the Mexican border. And they're getting some help from the most unlikely people. This week award winning correspondent Geraldo Rivera breaks the chilling story of Terror On Our Doorstep. The results of this investigation will shock you to your core.</p>