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Three American hikers who have been detained in Iran after crossing into the country from Iraq have been charged with espionage, according to reports by Iran's State News Agency. Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, have been detained in Iran since July 31. Their families say they entered the Islamic Republic accidentally while hiking in a scenic area of northern Iraq. The families, who have had no contact with the detainees, released videos in October that showed them dancing and singing before they were captured by Iranian authorities.

So now the cat is well and truly out of the bag. For years, as the number of immigrants to Britain shot up apparently uncontrollably, the question was how exactly this had happened. Was it through a fit of absent-mindedness or gross incompetence? Or was it not inadvertent at all, but deliberate? The latter explanation seemed just too outrageous. After all, a deliberate policy of mass immigration would have amounted to nothing less than an attempt to change the very make-up of this country without telling the electorate. There could not have been a more grave abuse of the entire...

A committee of the North Carolina Board of Community Colleges on Thursday approved a policy that would allow illegal immigrants into the two-year colleges.

NORTH ROSE – A Wolcott fruit grower is accusing the U.S. Border Patrol of racially profiling four of his workers who were stopped on Route 414 Aug. 17 as they were returning to his farm from a trip to purchase clothing. The men were all detained and taken for processing; Border Patrol Officer E. Rodriguez, who was in charge of the scene, told fruit grower Brian Doyle the men volunteered they were in the U.S. illegally. Doyle said Rodriguez then accused him of being a “federal criminal” because he employed the men. He said Rodriguez continually referred to the men...

Editor’s note: This is the next in a continuing series about the forgotten victims of illegal alien crime – weekly stories you do not see in the mainstream media. Mississippi – Frankie “Blue Eyes” Brooks Five-year-old Frankie died after being hit by a speeding SUV allegedly driven by an intoxicated illegal alien who fled the scene of the crime in rural Mississippi. On the morning of May 24, 2008, five-year-old Frank Brooks, “Frankie Blue Eyes,” died in his mother’s arms just steps away from their home in rural Tate County, Mississippi. Frankie and his brother Drew and his sister Penelope...

President Obama's nomination of a Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court does not give him breathing space to put off a contentious fight on immigration, Hispanic groups and immigrant-rights advocates said Wednesday. "They operate on parallel tracks, separate tracks," said John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, as he joined nearly a dozen other leaders of a coalition laying the groundwork so Obama can tackle immigration this year. After Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, pundits said her selection would buy the president enough good will among Hispanic voters that he might be able to go...

London, UK (BANG) - Britain's Prince Charles wants grey squirrels exterminated. The future king - a keen environmentalist - has claimed it is essential to eliminate the animal, introduced from North America in the 19th century, because of the threat they pose to native red squirrels. In a letter to the Country Land and Business Association, Charles - patron of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust said: "In order to be able to save the red squirrels and ensure their future in this country, it is absolutely crucial to eliminate the greys which, as you know, are an alien species to...

WASHINGTON -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that increasing skilled foreign workers in the U.S. could mollify housing-price declines that have caused "the plunge in the value of the vast quantity of U.S. mortgage-based securities." Mr. Greenspan said a separate group of workers, illegal immigrants, have made a "significant contribution" to the country's economic growth. He called for a temporary-worker program that could make use of that work force in a legal fashion. "Unauthorized immigrants serve as a flexible component of our work force, often a safety valve when demand is pressing and among the first to...

The flu epidemic has finally reached America and already we have our first casualty, a toddler in Texas. The flu epidemic will no doubt have an effect on these and other vulnerable groups with weak immune systems including the elderly and Aids patients. I decided to write about this after listening to Michael Savage discuss it. His take was as you can very well imagine controversial as is some of his other remarks. Savage noted also that the government has done nothing useful to prevent the spread of this new influenza strain despite the fact that it may have as...

Some advocates of tighter immigration rules are jumping on the swine flu public health emergency to call for the closing of the border with Mexico, including a ban on all air and ground traffic and importation of products. "The Obama administration's failure to secure our borders against a possible pandemic is putting American lives at risk at a time when days and hours matter," said William Gheen, head of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, accusing the Obama administration of "treating Mexico like a 51st state, instead of separate nation."

The deadly flu strain sweeping across Mexico and into the U.S. has world health experts sounding the alarm bells. Mexico City has been shut down. Officials are advising citizens there to wear masks. There’s talk of a pandemic. California and Texas have seen several reported cases, but no deaths in the U.S. A NYC prep school saw 75 students fall ill on Friday and health officials are testing to see if it’s the new strain of swine flu. The World Health Organization is set to declare the outbreak an “international concern.” I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious...

The pace of lower-skilled migration has slowed due to higher unemployment. This could make it less contentious to ease the path to legalization for the 12 million undocumented workers and their families in the U.S. It's also a good time to ask why we turn away skilled workers, including the ones earning 60% of the advanced degrees in engineering at U.S. universities. It is worth pointing out the demographic shortfall: Immigrants are a smaller proportion of the U.S. population than in periods such as the late 1890s and 1910s, when immigrants gave the economy a jolt of growth. snip There's...

Please keep chat and one-liners to a minimum. This thread is intended to be a one-stop-shop for all of todays NEWS and info related to the Mexican Swine Flu. To make it faster for everyone to catch up on the actual NEWS, PLEASE PLEASE minimize chat, jokes, bashing the administration, soapboxes, and so forth. These live threads can become useless monster threads if everyone throws in their one-liners, and we all have 'em! So let's try to keep this thread useful for the latest NEWS. Thank you all in advance.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British Airways cabin crew member was taken to a London hospital as a precaution after developing flu-like symptoms on a flight from Mexico City, the airline said on Saturday.

(CNN) — John McCain’s general election campaign began as “the strategic equivalent of throwing a football through a tire at 50 yards” – and was doomed weeks before Election Day, his former chief strategist said Thursday. “We were running a campaign under extra difficult circumstances — the state of the Republican Party, the president’s unpopularity, the economy — a lot of issues that were not John McCain’s fault, but were John McCain’s problem in this race,” Schmidt told an audience at the University of Delaware, according to Politico. “When Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall I knew pretty much right...

Former Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks is going through the revolving door again, this time to be an advisor at the Defense Department, specifically to Michele Flournoy the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. There's a lot about her not to like; here's just some of it: She was affiliated with George Soros' Open Society Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations. During the Clinton years, she advised Harold Koh in his previous position at the State Department. In her farewell column, she advocates for a "government bailout of journalism." In addition to various subsidies, she wants to "[use] tax...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has delayed a series of proposed immigration raids and other enforcement actions at U.S. workplaces in recent weeks, asking agents in her department to apply more scrutiny to the selection and investigation of targets as well as the timing of raids, federal officials said. A senior department official said the delays signal a pending change in whom agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement choose to prosecute -- increasing the focus on businesses and executives instead of ordinary workers. "ICE is now scrutinizing these cases more thoroughly to ensure that [targets] are being taken down...

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here Wednesday with the clearest acknowledgment yet from a senior Obama administration official of the role the United States plays in the violent drug trade racking Mexico.“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” she said, using unusually blunt language. “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Obama administration's initiative to deploy additional federal resources in the fight against rising drug-related violence along the Mexican border was criticized as insufficient in a Senate committee hearing Wednesday. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, said the administration's plan to send hundreds of extra federal agents and new crime-fighting equipment to the border "represents a significant step forward" but is not enough. Mexican drug cartels, believed to be operating in more than 230 American cities "from Appalachia to Alaska," represent a "clear and present" danger to the United States, Lieberman said at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing...

IT sounds like parody, but it's not: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week an nounced a four-year program of US scholarships and "opportunity grants" for "disadvantaged young Palestinians" to attend universities. What next? Mortgage-refinancing seminars for Somali warlords? Universal health-care for at-risk children of homeless (caveless?) al Qaeda refugees?

Mexico’s attorney general said Tuesday he sees no need for U.S. troops to intervene in his country’s war on drug cartels, nor to gear up for a spillover of violence across the border. U.S. officials view the violence as a potential national security threat, and last month the Bush administration’s homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, said Washington has drawn up contingency plans for a “surge” of both civilian law enforcement and military assets along the border. On Tuesday, Gov. Rick Perry demanded a tighter security net from Washington, saying he’s asked the Obama administration for more aircraft and “a thousand...

February 11, 2009, 4:00 a.m. Free Speech Is Great, But . . .The open-borders lobby's attempts to silence its critics. By Mark Krikorian Across the West we see efforts to restrict free expression of political ideas related to immigration. We’re familiar with what’s been happening in Europe: not only the Muhammad-cartoon riots in Denmark, but more recently a court in Holland applying Saudi blasphemy rules to a local politician. There was also a U.N. resolution passed in December prohibiting defamation of Islam with the goal of making such defamation a crime under international law. Accusations of “Islamophobia� have been...

Mexico slams Border Patrol clemency. Criticizes commutation for former Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean. Plus, President Bush and Administration Corruption Exposed Part II 01.22.09 CNN Lou Dobbs Video: "Mexico Meddling" (Ramos-Compean, Bush Corruption Exposed Pt II) 01.14.09 CNN Lou Dobbs Video: President-Elect Barack Obama and Mexico's President Felipe Calderon met SEGMENT INTRO: New questions about Mexico's brazen meddling in the case against former border patrol agents Ramos and Compean who remain in prison tonight, we'll have special coverage of this continuing miscarriage of justice and the intervention of the Mexican government in the Bush administration's policy making. # And...

“Lou Dobbs Tonight: Transcript” Justice Delayed: (Because of Bush) Ramos & Compean could be in prison for 2 more months Outrageous President Bush, Administration, and Mexican government collusion and corruption against our border patrol agents January 21, 2009 # This was Lou Dobbs first broadcast this week. SEGMENT INTRO: Former Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean, their sentences commuted, but they may be in prison for another two months. There is rising anger at the continued imprisonment of former Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean two days after President Bush commuted their sentences. And there is outrage at the Mexican...

Two Texas border guards sentenced each to about a dozen years in prison have had their sentences commuted by former President George W. Bush in one of last official acts. But the campaign on their behalf is not yet over. In 2005 Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos shot drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks as he fled across the Rio Grande, away from an abandoned van load of marijuana, according to Associated Press reports. The two men, who did not report the shooting and tampered with evidence by picking up spent shell casings, were convicted...

President George W. Bush will give a farewell address to the nation Thursday night, billed by the administration as a chance to reflect on his tenure and welcome Barack Obama without fighting old battles one last time. Bush will deliver the speech, expected to run 10 to 15 minutes, from the ornate East Room of the White House. He will have a small audience of people in the room, chosen for their stories of personal courage. White House press secretary Dana Perino said Monday that Bush will "uphold the tradition of presidents using farewell addresses to look forward — .......

A jury sentenced a Lakeview man to 10 years in prison for growing nearly 7,500 marijuana plants. Andrew Stever, 40, was sentenced on Monday after a three-day trial in the Federal District Court in Medford.Ten years is the mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of growing 1,000 or more pot plants. In July 2007, officers from several local, state and federal agencies found 7,459 plants growing on Stever's Lakeview property, which bordered Forest Service land. Two men fled the scene, leaving behind personal property and three firearms, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Portland. Physical evidence and testimony linked...

Investigators say they believe 64-year-old Paulette Locklear was beaten to death outside her home Tuesday afternoon after confronting a man who was trying to break in. Julio Cesar Ramos, 45, is charged with first-degree murder in Locklear’s death. Ramos, who is from Honduras, has been deported from the U.S. several times and is in the country illegally, said Debbie Tanna, spokeswoman for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office. Ramos told investigators he is homeless and unemployed., Tanna said. Cumberland County sheriff’s deputies responded to Locklear’s home on the 1200 block of Wilmington Road after she called 911 Tuesday afternoon to report...

Well-Coordinated Cartel Hits Show Greater Sophistication CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- The hit was fast, bold, lethal. Jesús Huerta Yedra, a top federal prosecutor here, was gunned down last week in a busy intersection 100 yards from the U.S. border in a murder of precise choreography. In Mexico's chaotic drug war, attacks are no longer the work of desperate amateurs with bad aim. Increasingly, the killings are being carried out by professionals, often hooded and gloved, who trap their targets in coordinated ambushes, strike with overwhelming firepower, and then vanish into the afternoon rush hour -- just as they did in...

An immigration reform organization is voicing concern about president-elect Barack Obama's naming of a pro-illegal alien activist to his White House staff. Obama has named Cecilia Munoz to serve as director of intergovernmental affairs in his administration. Munoz is an 18-year veteran of the National Council of La Raza, which has been a leading advocate for illegal immigrants. According to Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Munoz has been a longtime supporter of open borders.

Janet Napolitano's appointment as Homeland Security would further erode our Civil Rights in an Obama administration that will include another threat,Eric Holder, as Attorney General. We have BIG Brother in the making! The Perfect Storm, Obama, Holder and Napolitano and a Democrat House and Senate. Contact your U.S. Senator and ask them to reject this appointment.

Barack Obama voters, the cheers you hear are from Mexicans getting ready to sneak into our country and start cashing in on his “changes.” They are dancing and celebrating with you at Obama’s surrender of the southwestern states signified by his selection of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. She has been a very good friend to illegal aliens, and now she’s the new Homeland Security chief. Napolitano vetoed a bill to bar in-state tuition at Arizona’s public universities. Thanks to your support for Obama, Napolitano can now force all states to give away your seat or your child’s seat at your...

The Obama transition team declined to comment but sources said Miss Napolitano is expected to get the job once Mr. Obama begins formally announcing and introducing Cabinet choices. Lawmakers were already talking in public Thursday as if the pick were a done deal. The move drew praise from Mr. Obama's Republican presidential opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who said he called his home-state governor to offer his congratulations.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) has been chosen to serve as secretary of the vast and troubled Department of Homeland Security for President-elect Obama, Democratic officials said. Napolitano is a border governor who will now be responsible for immigration policy and border security, which are part of Homeland Security’s myriad functions. Napolitano brings law-and-order experience from her stint as the Grand Canyon State’s first female attorney general. One of the nation’s most prominent female elected officials, she made frequent appearances on behalf of Barack Obama during the campaign. She was re-elected to a second four-year term in 2006. Transition insiders...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's top choice to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources. The Democratic governor, a supporter and campaigner for Obama's presidential campaign, had been reported to be on a short list of people to fill cabinet posts in the new administration. CNN also reported that Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker was Obama's pick for commerce secretary.

Mexican Secretary of Exterior Relations, Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, said that when Barak Obama becomes president, Mexico will reassert its contention that his agenda include an immigration agreement as a priority...In a press conference, she assured that President Felipe Calderon is confident that with Obama’s presidency a migration agreement will finally be reached that permits both nations a flow of migration that is legal, safe and orderly. Espinosa also said that the Mexican government hopes the US president-elect changes his position on the construction of the border fence. She pointed out that Calderon’s government will continue to raise the issue, respectfully...

President Bush has extended an invitation to his successor, Barack Obama, to go to the White House and begin discussing the transition from one administration to the other. For his part, Obama already has begun building his transition team, which apparently will include Dr. Juliet V. Garcia, president of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.... ... the president should pay attention to the clear message voters gave on Tuesday - that they want something different - and at least consider Obama's ideas and proposals in whatever decisions he makes for the remainder of his term. Bush...

DALLAS — A fence along the U.S.-Mexico border would trample on human rights and its construction should be halted, a group from the University of Texas will contend during the first international hearing on the issue Wednesday. Several students and faculty will present their concerns during the hearing in Washington before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is part of the Organization of American States. The university group wants the commission to recommend stopping the construction of 670 miles of barriers that were approved by Congress in an effort to stem illegal immigration and drug smuggling. "I think this...

In Mexico, the world's second-biggest Catholic country, an unofficial cult of death is winning followers, from influential politicians and police officers to drug pushers and violent criminals. On a sidewalk in Mexico City's lawless Tepito district, gangsters and ordinary housewives rub shoulders as they pay homage before a shrine to Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, leaving offerings of colored candles, cigarettes and alcohol. A statue of the unorthodox saint cuts a ghoulish figure as a life-size skeleton in a glittering robe, a tiara atop her long-haired wig and bony fingers laden with gold rings and money offerings in many currencies....

It is interesting to note the wording about the issue of national security and immigration in the Republican Party platform for this election cycle. By adding a misbegotten phase to the end of some pseudo reassuring sentences, the Republicans have sent an alarm through a group of hold outs that they may have been hoping to win to their side. What did the Republican platform committee intend as the exact meaning of the fragment that was tucked at the end of one of a sentence; “except as provided by federal law”? The complete sentence appears to be strong and nationalist:...

Remember the hot immigration debate? The topic won't be headlining either presidential convention this year — and the border security issue barely drew a crowd Monday to a daylong anti-illegal immigration rally in Denver aimed at keeping immigration before politicians this fall. A rally by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps featuring Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr drew just a few dozen people...

<p>MISSION, TX -- The Bush administration's recently proposed changes to rules involving endangered species could lead to projects like the fence being built along the U.S.-Mexico border that could threaten endangered wildlife, the Sierra Club warned Friday.</p> <p>"We're talking about animals already pushed to the brink of extinction," Liz Walsh, chairwoman of the group's endangered species committee, said at a news conference near a border fence construction site.</p>

MASSIVE Anti-Illegal Immigration Rally at the Democrat Convention! August 25th! We've got some BIG NEWS for you -- the all-star lineup of speakers at the Rally Against Illegal Immigration just got even BETTER! We've just confirmed that Ambassador Alan Keyes, Congressman Bob Barr, and Reverend Chuck Baldwin -- all of them running for U.S. President -- PLUS anti-amnesty hero Rep. Tom Tancredo, will ALL be speaking at the day-long rally, right near the Democratic National Convention! You DO NOT want to miss this event!!!

Speaking at a high school in New Mexico, Barack Obama was asked about immigration and, according to a liveblog of the event, said: "We are a nation of immigrants," Obama answers. "The only people can say that they aren't immigrants are the people sitting right here," the Presidential candidate says and points to the tribal leaders. "There are some families who have been here for 4 or 500 years. They didn't cross the border, the border crossed them." While he's correct to a point, those comments are also straight out of Reconquista 101. An analysis of his comments is at...

The designation this summer of $465 million in U.S. aid to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America — along with the valuable cross-border dialogue that helped bring about this Merida Initiative — is a step in the right direction....But given the urgency of the problems we face, this step is disappointingly small...The Merida Initiative is stingy by any standard but especially by U.S. standardsFighting drug traffickers is not only a Latin American responsibility, it is also an American responsibility...Like all developed nations, the U.S. must confront the fact that no country can be safe while poverty, illiteracy, violence,...

For years, Juan Hernandez was a familiar sight at Joe T. Garcia’s — strolling among diners and singing as a local troubadour. His work there led to singing at weddings and recording albums in Spanish and English. He earned enough money to pay for graduate school and learned lessons that would help him through the years, said his father, Francisco Hernandez Sr. "His years as a troubadour gave him so much time working with people," he said. "He learned to win the appreciation of people." That may have helped, as Juan Hernandez — a lightning rod because of his passionate...

Finally some justice, now our two border agents need to be released. Smuggler shot by agents gets 9½ years in prison Mexican national sentenced for part in later incidents By ALICIA A. CALDWELL Associated Press Aug. 6, 2008, 11:55PM Complete coverage of immigration issues EL PASO — An admitted drug smuggler shot by a pair of former U.S. Border Patrol agents was sentenced to nearly a decade in federal prison Wednesday.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez joined local and state Republican political leaders in Ontario on Friday as part of an effort to build support among Latinos for Sen. John McCain's presidential bid. In his speech to about 100 people at Ontario's Doubletree Hotel, Gutierrez focused on broad economic issues and McCain's experiences as a prisoner of war and in Congress to make the case for why McCain is a better choice for president than Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. Gutierrez did not stick to Latino-specific themes but talked instead about McCain's proposals on taxes, trade and energy. He said McCain, R-Ariz.,...

<p>SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — Immigrant-advocacy group Casa de Maryland on Monday received a $1.5 million donation from Citgo Petroleum Corp., a subsidiary of Venezuela's national oil company that is controlled by President Hugo Chavez.</p> <p>The funds will be used to strengthen Casa's $4.4 million social-service, small-business and vocational-training programs... Kim Propeack, advocacy director for the Montgomery County-based organization, said it's the largest corporate gift Casa has received. "Like many nonprofits, Casa has been trying to grow its corporate investment," she said. "Citgo is very committed to ensuring that the profits they earn through their business are shared by low-income people...." A Monday news conference to announce the donation was postponed because of a personal emergency of Citgo President Alejandro Granado, who was to attend with the Venezuelan ambassador. Ms. Propeack said the contribution would still be finalized Monday.</p>