Free Republic

Building a fence along the Mexican border and fighting over proposed immigration restrictions in Fremont are a lot more visible right now than any new paths to citizenship. But that didn’t stop Nebraska advocates of a more welcoming attitude from stepping forward to make their case in Lincoln and Omaha Monday. “I can’t tell you how devastating it is to me to see that fence as an American citizen,” the Rev. Chuck Bentjen said at the Lincoln launch of the National Campaign to Reform Immigration for America. Bentjen, based in Lincoln with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was one...

Local and national business groups are funding a media campaign launched Wednesday in Arizona to convince voters the United States has done enough to secure the border and now needs to legalize the 12 million or more undocumented immigrants and consider allowing more foreigners into this country. The group, Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together, is going to spend “several hundred thousand dollars” on TV advertising in four states. Jim Pignatelli, president and chief executive officer of UniSource Energy Corp., the parent of Tucson Electric Power, said the time has come to move the debate along and find ways to help...

The Mother of All Bailouts has many fathers. As panicked politicians prepare to fork over $1 trillion in taxpayer funding to rescue the financial industry, they've fingered regulation, deregulation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, both Bushes, greedy banks, greedy borrowers, greedy short-sellers and minority home ownership mau-mauers (can't call 'em greedy, that would be racist) for blame. But there's one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: how illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis. It's no coincidence that most of the areas hardest...

A Fairview man admitted in court today that he raped a drunken woman last year after she got off a bus and passed out on the sidewalk.  Martin Cana-Chocoj, 26, said he had several drinks himself but was sober enough to know what he was doing on Sept. 11, 2007, when he carried the 29-year-old woman into a dark alley behind a bank on Fairview Avenue in Fairview.    He said he sexually assaulted her as his friend stood lookout.  Answering questions from defense attorney Jaclyn Medina and Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor David Calviello, Chocoj said the woman did not resist...

EL PASO, Texas — Two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler and trying to cover it up have been denied a request for a new hearing. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans denied the request by Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean on Wednesday. The same court upheld the men's convictions in July. No reason was given for the Wednesday's denial. Ramos and Compean are each serving sentences of more than 10 years for shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in the buttocks while he was fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005....

TIJUANA, Mexico - The towering black gate opens silently to an alley with walls of corrugated metal. Scrawled in large white letters on one wall is: "The End." For those deported from the United States, the words are an unnecessary reminder. Nearly every hour of the day, guards unlock this gate that leads back into Mexico, clicking open the padlocks hung on each side, in each nation.

OTTAWA -- Sen. John McCain traveled to Canada on Friday to offer a vigorous defense of the North American Free Trade Agreement, as his campaign sought to portray rival Sen. Barack Obama as inconsistent on free trade. "For all the successes of NAFTA, we have to defend it without equivocation in political debate because it is critical to the future of so many Canadian and American workers and businesses," McCain told a crowd of several hundred at the Economic Club of Canada. "Demanding unilateral changes and threatening to abrogate an agreement that has increased trade and prosperity is nothing more...

We are all fallen, imperfect beings. The news of the federal indictment of Bernie Kerik is a sad moment, a cautionary tale, and an object lesson. Sad, because Kerik rose from the child of a prostitute to “America’s cop”–and this nation loves such tales of success. Cautionary, because it speaks to the fallibility of anointed heroes and the temptations of power. An object lesson, because it highlights the flaws and vulnerabilities of GOP front-runner Rudy Giuliani’s on the issues of corruption and immigration enforcement. Here’s what I wrote back in December 2004 when Kerik was forced to withdraw from consideration...

You're not going to believe this. Rep. Raul Grijalva has introduced two bills that could be used to create a virtual free passage highway for illegals and drug smugglers as a fast track into the United States. Rep. Grijalva is Chairman of the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee. The first bill is the Tumacacori Highland Wilderness Act of 2007 that creates a new Forest Service Wilderness Area in Arizona on the border with Mexico. This bill, HR 3287, creates a new wilderness area exactly where a major illegal traffic area already exists....

With only a small fraction of the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico complete, California congressman and Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter is warning President Bush the construction mandated by the Secure Fence Act is falling drastically behind schedule. "Unless construction is promptly accelerated," Hunter wrote in a letter to Bush, "deadlines for the completion of fencing will not be met." Hunter's letter was written Monday to be delivered to the White House during the Security and Prosperity Partnership third annual summit that concluded Tuesday in Montebello, Quebec. His criticism that the Bush administration is making no significant progress...

One could, I suppose, regard this as one of those unforeseen incremental consequences that happens in the darkest shadows of society. But that doesn't extend to Newark's official status as an illegal-immigrant "sanctuary city." Like Los Angeles, New York and untold others, Newark has formally erased the distinction between U.S. citizens and the armies of the undocumented. This is the active collusion by multiple cities and states in the subversion of U.S. sovereignty. In Newark, N.J., it means an illegal-immigrant child rapist is free to murder on a Saturday night. In Somerville, Mass., it means two deaf girls are raped...

Border Patrol agents have directed my attention to a letter their union, the National Border Patrol Council, sent to the City of Newark: August 10th 2007 Dear City of Newark If your city officials had reported Mr. Carranza as an illegal alien to DHS while he was in your jail for raping children, the three young people murdered by Mr. Carranza would be alive. Other sanctuary cities pay heed, because it is only a matter of time until it happens to someone in your town. Jose Carranza, Illegal Alien Mass Murderer Several promising lives snuffed out in an instant by...

Mexican and U.S. customs officials signed an agreement Monday aimed at fighting contraband and terrorism while streamlining trade across the border. The agreement sets up four working groups to encourage cooperation between agencies on both sides of the border, which sees more than $320 billion in trade cross each year, said Mexico Customs Administrator Juan Jose Bravo. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Ralph Basham said the agreement represents a mutual desire of the United States and Mexico to protect their people and economies. Basham said the relationship with Mexico is crucial to the U.S. customs and border patrol agency's...

It is among the odder ironies of modern political life that the Fourth of July, a holiday set aside to celebrate American exceptionalism, has become an occasion to proclaim multicultural pieties. For a vivid demonstration of this tendency, look no further than the habit of our high-minded commentators to lecture every Independence Day that “we are a nation of immigrants.” In in its most extreme incarnation, this claim holds not only that America has been “a nation of immigrants from its very inception” – an observation equal parts true and misleading – but that any reflection on the American character...

Democrats won both houses of Congress in the 2006 elections in part by arguing that Republicans were incompetent to govern. On immigration, they enjoyed a comparatively united party and cooperation from a Republican White House. More than any other factor, heat from the right killed the bill. But voters elect congressional majorities to solve problems, and Democratic incumbents can expect to pay some price every time they fail. But that fallout almost certainly will pale alongside the damage to future Republican presidential candidates. Hispanics represent the fastest-growing chunk of the U.S. electorate. Their choices help drive the rising swing states...

As Mark Twain might say, reports of the Immigration Bill's death have been highly exaggerated. The bill might have been killed for the second time, but today's Wall Street Journal reports that at least three key parts of it may still have life (one of which, the Dream Act, I've previously written about). Yes, it's like Freddy Kruger. The bill never completely dies. These, too, must be killed: It ain't over 'til it's over.

RUSH: 46 to 53, and it is over. We have some audio sound bites from the debate that happened on the floor of the Senate this morning. It's truly astounding, and I want to you hear these sound bites. Here's what's going to happen next. Just a little prediction here, and I told you, we went out on a limb yesterday and predicted to you this thing would go down in flames. There were 18, as I counted, 18 switch votes, and, by the way, I want to tell you one thing, everybody is going to try to portray this...

Everyone—from President Bush to his critics to Ted Kennedy—is dead set against "amnesty," and yet the word overshadows all else in the immigration debate. Despite its proponents' claims to the contrary, amnesty is the cornerstone of the Senate's immigration bill. Indeed, this legislation, with its many provisions, guarantees one thing only: that a population of individuals defined solely on the basis of their illegal status will receive legal status and a privileged path to permanent residency and citizenship. Everything else in the bill—border security, worker verification, the temporary worker plan, a new merit-based immigration system—would be contingent on future political...

The path has been cleared for the state of Texas to begin building the new Trans-Texas Corridor, a project that is designed to be four football fields wide, along Interstate 35 from Mexico to the Oklahoma border, according to a new report from WND columnist Jerome Corsi, the author of "The Late Great USA." Perry's latest veto was of a plan to add a number of requirements to the Texas eminent-domain procedures, under which governments can grab and use private property. But, Corsi reported, Steven Anderson of the Institute for Justice's Castle Coalition, objected. He said Perry's action "left every...

We're in the middle of a domestic immigration war, and it's a classic. The blind are leading the blind. The selectively deaf are leading the selectively deaf. Their enemy is the electorate. They march onto the Washington congressional battlefield with the banner of their leader, George W. Bush, flapping in the wind. The coat of arms is golden yellow, emblazoned with a cross on the shield, supported by two bold figures – a fruitcake and a skunk – all on a field of mockingbirds.Golden yellow is for cowardice in the face of pressure groups – everything from big business and...

Now, he's really gone too far. Republican Party Chairman and Florida U.S. Senator Mel Martinez needs to get out of politics before he single-handedly (well, actually with the help of President George W. Bush and other Senators like Jon Kyl) destroys the Republican Party forever. Today's Wall Street Journal Washington Wire reports that--despite the GOP's jilted lover stalking of the Hispanic vote (including such tactics as the Illegal Alien Amnesty Bill)--more Hispanics than ever identify themselves as Democrats rather than Republicans. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll finds that they identify 51% to 21% as Democrats to Republicans. But, instead...

President Bush insists if we just shut up, blindly listen to him and support his so-called "comprehensive immigration reform plan," we can solve the problem "once and for all." I have a better idea. Since Bush has, for nearly seven years, deliberately, consciously and overtly refused to uphold his sworn constitutional duty to execute and administer the duly enacted border and immigration laws already on the books, he should be disqualified from participating in any further negotiations regarding new border and immigration laws. Doesn't that make sense? Why would we turn to a scofflaw president, one who, out of some...

I don't know whether this sham of an immigration bill is dead or just resting "in the shadows" like a fine upstanding member of the Vampiric-American community About five years or so back, I started making references in columns to "fine upstanding members of the Undocumented-American community." But from the lame Steyn joke of yesteryear to the reality of tomorrow is a mere hop and a skip. A few days ago, Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, declared: "This week we will vote on cloture and final passage of a comprehensive bill that will strengthen border security, bring the 12...

To observe the sentimental fantasy and ruthless political calculation that fuels the Bush administration's immigration plans, one need only turn to Michael Gerson’s most recent Washington Post column. Former Bush speechwriter Gerson was a powerful voice in the White House, especially on the matter of injecting faith into policymaking; his May 25 column provides a window into how the administration deals with facts. Gerson accuses opponents of the Senate’s recent amnesty proposal of a nativist fear of illegal immigrants. Such a fear, he argues, will hurt the Republican party’s electoral chances and miss an opportunity to make the country even...

The immigration reform bill recently announced in the U.S. Senate should be titled the Act to Destroy the Republican Party because it pits President George W. Bush against the majority of the Republican Party that elected him. When Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., appeared as the centerpiece of the photo-op announcing it, that told the grass roots all they needed to know about the politics of the deal trumpeted as bipartisan. The Bush administration has been tone deaf about how offensive some find the words "comprehensive" and "compromise." The American people want border security that they can see with their own...

don't ever remember presidential candidates jumping out of the box so early before a presidential election year. I guess a war has a way of doing that to American politics, especially a war as complicated and difficult as the war in Iraq. So let's pretend that it's 2008 and the Democrats have settled on their ticket and the Republicans are ready to roll with theirs.

Friday, Feb. 2, 2007 12:11 a.m. ESTPapers Reveal Plans for 'North American Union' A government watchdog is calling for more transparency in talks between U.S., Canadian and Mexican officials who are discussing a "vision of North America" that some critics worry are the first step toward a North American Union. Judicial Watch this week released documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request that include U.S. officials' notes from the North American Forum, a September 2006 meeting with Canadian and Mexican officials that explored ways to create "genuine partnerships." That meeting followed the March 2005 creation of the...

There was someone in the gallery during President George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech that he would not dare publicly recognize. Even though he knew she was there, I’m confident he never even bothered to look up at Gallery 5, Row B, Seat 9, because sitting in that seat was Monica Ramos, the wife of imprisoned former Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos. She was the invited guest of Republican California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

WASHINGTON — Counting on the support of the new Democratic majority in Congress, Democratic lawmakers and their Republican allies are working on measures that would place millions of illegal immigrants on a more direct path to citizenship than would a bill the Senate passed in the spring.

In an interview with CNBC, a vice president for a prominent London investment firm yesterday urged a move away from the dollar to the "amero," a coming North American currency, he said, that "will have a big impact on everybody's life, in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico." Steve Previs, a vice president at Jefferies International Ltd., explained the Amero "is the proposed new currency for the North American Community which is being developed right now between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico." The aim, he said, according to a transcript provided by CNBC to WND, is to make a "borderless community,...

WASHINGTON – While the military "quagmire" in Iraq was said to tip the scales of power in the U.S. midterm elections, most Americans have no idea more of their fellow citizens – men, women and children – were murdered this year by illegal aliens than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since those military campaigns began. Though no federal statistics are kept on murders or any other crimes committed by illegal aliens, a number of groups have produced estimates based on data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research. Twelve Americans are murdered every...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Vicente Fox retires in November with his dream shattered of a U.S. immigration overhaul that would allow millions more Mexicans to work legally north of the border. Fox was once warmly described by President Bush as an "amigo," and his main foreign-policy objective was persuading U.S. lawmakers to soften immigration laws.

The Republicans running the House may not be as smart as they think they are. They may have misread the public mood, which prompted them to press GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert to put off immigration negotiations with the Senate until September. They also may have misread some in their very own party. A poll being released today by the conservative Manhattan Institute and conducted by the Republican Tarrance Group shows most of the 800 likely GOP voters questioned want a solution now, even one that deals with the 12 million illegal immigrants here. Some of those surveyed even will accept...

Add this to the list of things that have gone right lately for President Bush: Americans appear to be drawing closer to his view on the immigration debate. But that hasn't alleviated the squeeze on Republican candidates in the fall elections. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that the party's conservative electoral base remains at odds with broader public opinion on the issue, including sentiment of the nation's swelling Latino population.

I guess it's time to restate the obvious. President Bush still doesn't get it. Or worse, he gets it and continues to deliberately deceive the American people. We do not need nor desire a "comprehensive immigration reform plan" – at least as he envisions it. Bush is trying to extort the American people by promising to protect the border with still inadequate measures only if we accept the illegal presence of 15 million aliens already here and many, many millions more in the future. The American people must continue to reject this shakedown. We cannot be held hostage by Bush's...

I've almost written more on the issue of illegal aliens and border insecurity than I can bear. But President Bush's deceptive con game needs to be addressed. So here is my point-by-point rebuttal to his speech last night: Bush: "We must begin by recognizing the problems with our immigration system. For decades, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders. As a result, many who want to work in our economy have been able to sneak across our border and millions have stayed." Farah: Why has it taken you nearly six years in office and the...

President Bush accuses those of us who want to secure America's borders and fully enforce our immigration laws of lacking "compassion." Huh. Well, I have yet to hear an ounce of compassion from President Bush for America's countless casualties of lax immigration enforcement. Where's the sympathy for innocent, law-abiding citizens who have lost their lives at the hands of illegal aliens and their open-borders enablers? Nope, we haven't heard a word about the victims as the White House pours on its unadulterated pro-illegal alien rhetoric and "undocumented workers do the jobs Americans won't do" propaganda – all in support of...

We had a President in the 1990s who didn't always mean what he said and didn't always say what he meant. Once he even questioned the meaning of the word "is." Now we have another President who tells us he opposes "amnesty," but his definition of that term has little to do with what it says in the dictionary. Just for the record – and to spare you the time of looking it up – Webster's New World defines amnesty as follows: 1. a pardon, especially for political offenses against a government; 2. a deliberate overlooking, as of an offense;...

Thank heaven for the massive marches across the country by those favoring illegal immigrants. These marches revealed the ugly truth behind the fog of pious words and clever political spin from the media and from both Democrats and Republicans in Washington. "Guest workers"? Did any of the strident speakers, with their in-your-face bombast in Spanish, sound like guests? Did they sound like people who wanted to become Americans? Were they even asking for amnesty? They didn't sound like they were asking for anything. They sounded like they were telling. Demanding. Threatening. Somebody must have told them that their Mexican flags...

It’s been a giddy few days for criminal aliens, their allied politicians and media. The people who we’re told are hard-working, but poor, somehow found the time to pour into the streets of our major cities and demand the right (?) to come here illegally and have citizenship bestowed upon them, after they’ve symbolically wiped their feet on the flag and the laws of our land. But before demonstrators hit the pavement, the Left’s propaganda machine was hard at work. The New York Times, which could easily be mistaken for the newsletter of the National Council of La Raza, was...

Activists who are organizing mass marches and demonstrations in cities across America may well be congratulating themselves on the huge numbers of people they can get to turn out to protest efforts in Congress to reduce illegal immigration. No doubt that will impress many in the media and intimidate many politicians. But how these marches will be seen by millions of other Americans is another question entirely. The Mexican flags and the strident assertions of a right to violate American laws are a danger signal to this society, as they would be to any society. The releasing of children from...

The Wall Street Journal is typical when it comes to the sob story coverage of illegal aliens by the Mainstream Media. For a newspaper that claims to know so much about what is the best immigration policy for America, the Journal betrays itself as completely clueless on the issue. The pro-"guest workers" paper is so much a hostage of big business looking for cheap labor that its editorial writers apparently missed the memo: There isn't an INS anymore and hasn't been for years. In an editorial on Friday's Taste Page, the Journal emphatically stated its opposition to House language in...

The reaction to my idea for "A Day Without Americans" has been overwhelmingly positive and strong. I have a feeling, based on my own sense of outrage among dedicated, hard-working, loyal, taxpaying, honest U.S. citizens, that most Americans are fed up with illegal aliens – and their new inclination to demonstrate a sense of entitlement is only making matters worse. It's one thing to sneak into this country in search of a better way of life. It's one thing to take up permanent residency and start dropping anchor babies. It's one thing to take advantage of America's education system, its...

Everybody is surprised by the size of the recent demonstrations against legislation to do something about illegal immigration in this country. Why should we be surprised that rallies in Chicago and L.A. are drawing 500,000 people? There are at least 12 million illegal aliens in this country – 12 million illegal invaders, lawbreakers, people who broke into our country, defied the rules about legal entry, many of them taking up permanent residency and taking full advantage of free services designed for taxpaying citizens. Is it a surprise to Americans that there are at least 12 million illegal aliens? Is it...

Demonstrators march in Los Angeles, California, to protest proposed illegal immigration legislation. Half a million protesters paralyzed downtown Los Angeles, demanding amnesty for undocumented immigrants and rejection of a proposed law that would drastically tighten US immigration rules. Members of the Brotherhood of Undocumented Idiots chanted "GIVE US FREE MEDICAL AND DENTAL!" while playing bongos on Adams Blvd. Holding tightly to her anchor babies, an unidentified undocumented immigrant explains that she appreciates the free breakfast and lunch program in the Los Angeles Unified School System and is trading in her foodstamps for lotto tickets. Jesus "Chewy" Sanchez leads the...

INVASION USA Tancredo wins round 1 to build Mexico fence House passes new border controls, with eye on deportations next year -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: December 17, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Rep. Tom Tancredo WASHINGTON – It was a victory the once-obscure Colorado congressman savored yesterday. When the House of Representatives passed a tough new border control bill last night, Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo was all smiles. He led an often-lonely and sometimes seemingly hopeless fight not only against Democratic opponents but against his own party and his own president. "Today, the House of Representatives passed a bill which...

There are innumerable reasons to want our border secure. We know our infrastructure is being ravaged--emergency rooms overwhelmed, hospitals closing, our highways jammed, school rooms overcrowded, tax revenue lost, it goes on and on. When illegal immigrants are discussed in the media, the picture painted is of a hard working family man or woman, the sort of person President Bush refers to when he pitches his "guest worker" program. "Hard working people who want a better way of life," is how he casts them. While many fit that bill, the dirty little secret is the fact that illegal aliens are...

Pat Buchanan, former communications director to President Ronald Reagan, former presidential candidate and WND commentator, has come to the conclusion that a courageous Republican legislator should move a bill for impeachment of President Bush. I reluctantly agree – and for the same reasons. President Bush has had nearly six years in office to honor his oath of office and enforce immigration laws in this country. He has not only failed, he has intentionally neglected this sworn duty, instead claiming he prefers to promote a vague immigration "reform" plan that involved a "guest worker" program that has served as an encouragement...

"We conservatives believe government has one legitimate function — public safety. Protecting the border is public safety." The border police force also would enforce ignored laws that ostensibly forbid the hiring of illegal immigrants. For farm labor, Haynes supports a temporary guest worker program. "People coming into this country now are exploited at every level," he says. "They're exploited by traffickers, they're exploited by a large chunk of employers, they're victims of crime they can't report because they're afraid of being caught." Haynes is under no illusion that the Legislature will pass his measure. So he's aiming for a ballot...

It's bad enough Washington has denied Border Patrol agents the funds, manpower and tools they need to do their jobs effectively and safely. What's worse are the messages they are sending the loyal, brave, front-line defenders of this country: Don't do your job! In case you haven't heard, Border Patrol agents in the Arizona area guarded by the civilian Minuteman organization were told not to make too many arrests in the aftermath of volunteer, month-long effort to hold back the floodtide of invaders coming from Mexico on a daily basis. The message was clear to the rank-and-file Border Patrol agents...