Free Republic

The last time anyone saw the San Quintin kangaroo rat was more than 30 years ago, in the arid scrublands of Baja California in Mexico. Mexican authorities declared the small mammal critically endangered, and possibly extinct, in 1994. So biologists couldn't believe their eyes when not one, but four San Quintin kangaroo rats (Dipodomys gravipes) hopped into their survey traps in 2017. Named for their ability to leap like kangaroos, the rats are key species in arid areas across western North America, dispersing seeds and feeding predators such as coyotes and foxes. The San Quintin kangaroo rat is about 12...

For Hispanic girls in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the United States and elsewhere, the 15th birthday marks the most lavish celebration of their lives. Designating a girl’s transition from childhood to adulthood, the quinceañera is a two-part festivity that traces back to both indigenous and European cultural traditions and has become an increasingly opulent affair in recent years. Parents may even spend more on their daughters' "Sweet 15" quinceañeras than their weddings, in fact, which is why some refer them as mini bodas, or miniature weddings. Not counting the birthday presents a young girl might receive, a low-end quinceañera in...

The Trump administration will require 57,000 Honduran people to return to their home country, after having lived in the U.S. with protected status since a 1999 hurricane, according to a report Friday morning. The administration will give Hondurans 12 to 18 months to return home, according to McClatchy. Hondurans are the second-largest national group of people who benefit from TPS. A DHS spokesperson told the Washington Examiner that Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen "has not yet made a decision." But a decision is due by July 6 and the government has yet to formally announce the reported policy change. Elaine Duke, former...

President Donald Trump said Saturday “we want to make everything here” as he promoted his “America First” agenda during an appearance in Cleveland, days before the state’s primary election. Trump spent several hours in Ohio meeting with supporters and participating in a roundtable designed to highlight the benefits of the new Republican tax law. Striking a celebratory tone, Trump listed his poll numbers and recounted the successes of his first year in office. He also looked ahead to his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. “We have the time and place all finished,” Trump said, but he wouldn’t predict...

In an email to the student body, a Gonzaga University administrator cautioned that Cinco de Mayo has become "full of cultural appropriation," directing them to a flyer listing "alternative" ways of celebrating the holiday. "Don't you dare put on that 'sombrero,'" the flyer tells students, suggesting that they "donate to organizations working for immigrant rights" rather than have a party. Another option is to "support AUTHENTIC Mexican businesses" run by "actual Mexican people," though it cautions that "CHIPOTLE DOESN’T COUNT."

Nothing makes the middle finger-infused migrant drama at the Tijuana border look more plastic and phony than news of the real one, over in Venezuela, as real refugees pour over borders. It sounds harsh, and maybe there are a few valid sob stories among the handpicked group chosen to "challenge" the mighty yánqui empire for the "right" to open borders.  Already, at least 158 have been let in, but if they are anything like previous refugees being let in, it's reasonable to be skeptical.  What's really harsh is the horror of the real refugees from socialism out on the Brazilian (and undoubtedly Colombian) borderlands.  The story...

High-tax states face a choice: reduce taxes or lose taxpayers. Stephen Moore and Art Laffer forecast in the Wall Street Journal the loss of 800,000 California and New York residents over the next three years. The exodus, the economics experts say, comes because of the tax bill, which limits the state and local tax (SALT) deduction to $10,000, passed in December. Previously, the feds forced no monetary limit on filers. California taxes individuals earning $1 million or more at a rate of 13.3 percent. New York levies an 8.8 percent rate upon individuals making a similar amount of money annually....

For the residents of La Lomita, President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall is already here. At first glance, this lower-middle class neighborhood is a standard Texan suburban enclave: residents grill chicken on their front patios while their children shoot hoops in the driveways; spoiled pet chihuahuas nap under the parked Jeeps on the curb to keep out of the withering heat. But for the past several years, its backyards have been intersected by a stark twenty-foot-high steel fence, something not too far off from what the president has pledged to build along the border with Mexico Residents have learned to...

A lawsuit filed Tuesday by Texas and six other states may finally result in the long-overdue termination of the DACA program, which was created without legal authority by President Obama in 2012 to allow children brought into the U.S. illegally to temporarily remain here under certain conditions. The lawsuit does not address the question of whether allowing the roughly 700,000 illegal immigrants protected from deportation under DACA is a good policy or a bad one. Instead, the suit contends correctly that President Obama exceeded his authority under law and under the Constitution to create DACA without the approval of Congress...

Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., went nuclear on liberals on Tuesday and introduced an explosive bill that would fully defund sanctuary cities and use the funds toward building President Donald Trump‘s wall along the southern border, according to The Daily Caller

An alarming number of migrants from a south Asian Islamic country that’s well known as a terrorism hotbed are trying to enter the United States through the Mexican border in Texas, according to government figures obtained by Judicial Watch. For the second consecutive year U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) stats show that the Laredo Border Patrol Sector is the favorite crossing point into the U.S. for illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, a recruiting ground for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). The Laredo Sector continues to a have the...

“Trump…has frequently cited the caravan as a justification for tough measures against illegal immigration.” LA Times Question: if the caravan is not a justification for tough measures against ILLEGAL immigration what, pray tell, is? And here’s a little tip from Tucker for illegal immigrants being coached to ask for asylum when they cross the U.S. border: “When you arrive in a country, you don’t wave the flag of a foreign nation. That’s what you do when you invade. Immigration happens with the consent of the host country.” But when you are trying to reformat the basic demographic of the...

On Sunday night, liberal comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell kicked off the third season of his United Shades of America show by spending an hour trying to undermine the case for improved border security, and even pushed for an open border where it is much easier for non-citizens to enter the country whenever they want as he declared that "this idea of borders and walls is ridiculous." CNN's Bell Slams 'Ridiculous' Border With Mexico, Pushes 'Porous' BorderHe began the show by evoking the Berlin Wall, noting that "they realized the wall was dumb, they tore it down, and...

Take a look at the today’s news coverage of the illegal aliens at the San Ysidro Border Crossing “Wall”. The illegal aliens, including women, are having no problems EASILY climbing that tall “see through” wall. They sit on top of it and mock America and its security “Walls”. We need very TALL, REINFORCED CONCRETE Border WALLS with anti-climbing, anti-penetration design. Anything else is not much better than worthless.

Texas' voter ID law that was twice blocked over findings of discrimination can stay in effect for the 2018 elections, a U.S. appeals court ruled Friday. It was the second major ruling over voting rights in the U.S. this week after an Arkansas judge on Thursday blocked that state's voter ID measure as unconstitutional. But in a 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the Texas law that critics have slammed as one of the toughest voter ID measures in the nation was seen as a suitable replacement for the original 2011 law that...

President Donald Trump told supporters at a speech on Saturday that if Congress did not meet his funding demands for border security, he may support a government shutdown this fall. Trump was speaking in Washington Township, Michigan, at the same time that the White House correspondents' dinner was taking place back in Washington, DC, with some lawmakers and current and former members of his administration in attendance. During his remarks, he alluded to the appropriations deadline at the end of September. "We have to have borders, and we have to have them fast," he said. "And we need security. We...

Nearly two out of three American voters say they support President Trump’s plan to reduce overall legal immigration levels in the United States, whereby currently more than 1.5 million legal immigrants arrive annually. In a new poll by Harvard-Harris polling, about 66 percent of voters — or nearly two out of three — said they support a plan by the Trump administration to almost cut legal immigration in half by ending the process known as “chain migration,” as well as the Diversity Visa Lottery, and building a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The deal would couple the wage-boosting relief...

About 20 volunteer U.S. lawyers gave legal workshops Friday just across the border into Mexico to Central American asylum seekers who traveled in a "caravan". The migrants plan to head to the border on Sunday, setting up a showdown with the Trump administration — which has warned that some could face detention, prosecution and deportation. As Sunday's showdown at the busy Tijuana-San Diego border crossing neared, Amnesty International hoisted a billboard promoting the right to asylum in the U.S. on a truck in Tijuana that drove around the city.

A Catholic priest who had been reported kidnapped has been found dead in central Mexico. He’s the third priest to die under violent circumstances in the past week. Prosecutors in Morelos state said a relative identified the body of Father Moises Fabila Reyes, 83. Even though he appears to have died of a heart attack, his death is considered suspicious, since he was kidnapped in early April. On Thursday, Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, archbishop of Mexico City, sent out a statement, asking for “Our Lady of Guadalupe to intervene for him before her Son.” “We join the grief that seizes...

Migrants seeking asylum at the southern border must ask for asylum in the safe countries they transit, says Homeland Defense Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. “Individuals of the ‘caravan’ seeking asylum or other similar claims should seek protections in the first safe country they enter, including Mexico,” Nielsen said in an April 25 statement. The statement spotlights the administration’s legal defenses against the roughly 1,000 caravan migrants trying to get through the legal loopholes in the border wall. Attorney General Jeff Sessions used similar language in an April 23 statement about the caravan migrants, saying “these individuals—and their smugglers—ignored the willingness of...