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Men claim to be Christians who are persecuted BROWNSVILLE - Three Iraqi men who say they are persecuted Christians and are seeking asylum were sentenced Friday to the maximum six months in prison after being caught sneaking into Texas. Border Patrol agents arrested Ammar Habib Zaya, Aamr Bahnan Boles and Remon Manssor Piuz on April 29 near the Los Indios international bridge near Harlingen, federal court records show. The men, ranging in age from 20 to 25, pleaded guilty Monday to illegal entry, crossing the border from Mexico. Defense attorney Humberto Yzaguirre has said the men were interviewed by federal...

As more non-Mexicans cross border, agency changes release rules PEARSALL, Texas – Except for the 10-foot-high security fence topped with barbed wire and the concrete barriers at the front door, the institutional gray complex in a former farm field along Interstate 35 could pass for a new high school. It's not. To immigration officials, South Texas Detention Center is simply a part of the nation's effort to efficiently detain illegal immigrants pending deportation. To critics, it's a prison by another name and an example of increasing erosion of civil rights for immigrants. At the heart of the debate is the...

EDINBURG - A new program to strengthen border security is changing the face of illegal immigration in the Rio Grande Valley, according to the Border Patrol.

WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to force the Homeland Security Department to end its "catch-and-release" practice for non-Mexican foreigners captured near the U.S. southern border - a policy that has allowed thousands of illegal immigrants to disappear once in the country. Instead of releasing the foreigners and ordering them to appear in court later, as has been the practice, the department would have to detain the illegal immigrants until they could be returned to their home countries. The Judiciary Committee added the detain-and-deport mandate to a sweeping bill to rewrite the nation's immigration laws. Supporters said it...

The Homeland Security Department plans to stop releasing illegal immigrants into the United States by October, a senior official said Friday. Greg Giddens, program manager for the department's Secure Border Initiative, told Government Executive he has been asked to end the "catch and release" practice by then. A lack of detention bed space has forced the department to release non-Mexican illegal immigrants into the country if they do not have felony convictions and do not pose a threat to national security. Although these illegal immigrants are given a notice to appear in court for deportation proceedings, most never show up...

Down on the border By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW ...Mexican human smuggling organizations can charge individuals from Middle Eastern countries $25,000 for safe passage into the United States. And none of these troublemakers are the good guys -- members of al-Qaida, MS-13s, OTMs and SIAs all have shady intent. The threat to our national security and way of life is real and the threat is urgent. It is out there, somewhere in the heartland. What happens at the border never stays at the border. And it may very well be coming to a neighborhood near you...

Down on the border By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, January 29, 2006 If you ever happen to tag along with the Border Patrol after dark along the El Paso County, Texas, line and Mexico, be proficient in acronyms. And bring your night-vision paraphernalia. Because once you are at the border, you are briefed about OTMs, MS-13s and SIAs. And you're warned that no lights are allowed since it sort of draws unwanted attention from the federales, armed men with anger issues.

Border wars: Laughable demands Monday, January 23, 2006 Officials in Mexico and Central America are incensed that the United States would have the temerity to propose tougher border enforcement that includes sending illegals back whence they came. Diplomats are demanding -- demanding, mind you -- that Uncle Sam approve guest-worker programs pronto and legalize undocumented migrants. "Migrants, regardless of their migratory status, should not be treated like criminals," according to a joint statement. But they are criminals when they illegally cross borders and flout U.S. immigration laws. ZIP code where you park at night. Do you currently have auto insurance?...

Photo shows a rescued alien being attended to by rescue personnel. Photo of an alien being assisted by ICE to a helicopter following a boat capsizing. 5 DOMINICANS SENTENCED TO 73 YEARS IN PRISON FOLLOWING AN ICE HUMAN SMUGGLING INVESTIGATION SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that five Dominicans convicted for human smuggling were sentenced here yesterday by a federal judge to 73 years in prison. Leonardo Hilario-Hilario, Kennedi Martinez, Fernando Jose-Milan, Delgadino Peguero and Santiago Rodriguez were indicted on Dec. 8, 2004 for alien smuggling following an ICE investigation that revealed that the men...

ICE ARRESTS 26 FUGITIVE ALIENS IN 5-STATE AREA DURING WEEK-LONG OPERATION CHICAGO-A fugitive from Guatemala who was found in possession of a rifle and a shotgun is one of 26 fugitive aliens arrested following a week-long operation conducted by U.S Immigration and Customs (ICE) officers in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kansas and Missouri. Officers from ICE's Chicago Fugitive Operations Team arrested Angel Castro-Vasquez, 38, at his residence in Carthage, Mo., last Monday. ICE had information that Castro-Vasquez had obtained a hunting license and might be in possession of a firearm. It is a federal crime for an...

330 HONDURANS DEPORTED FROM EL PASO LAST WEEK The new Southwest Border Initiative aims to quickly return illegal aliens to their home countries ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers here last week deported 330 illegal aliens from Honduras under a new program called the Secure Border Initiative (SBI). ICE officers in Albuquerque coordinated deporting 110 Hondurans each day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last week. The Secure Border Initiative is a two-month-old program recently announced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. One aspect of SBI allows ICE to quickly remove “other than Mexican” (OTM) illegal...

PRESIDIO COUNTY – Seven Guatemalan nationals were stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents on Wednesday, and each given summons to appear before a Federal Immigration Court in El Paso, date to be determined. Four of the nationals were in Presidio, three were in Marfa, said Marfa Border Patrol Sector Public Affairs Officer Bill Brooks. “In accordance to U.S. law, we had to release them on their own recognizance,” Brooks said. “If they were criminals, we would have kept them.” Unlike Mexican nationals, the Guatemalans are considered OTM’s, or Other than Mexicans according to U.S. Immigration laws. With a...

Effects of Hurricane Stan driving people out of their country — Undocumented immigrants from El Salvador have been coming to the Rio Grande Valley in increasing numbers in the past two months, a trend now on par with national trends, making Salvadorians the No. 1 other than Mexican (OTM) group in the country. As of Friday 3,119 Salvadorian immigrants had been detained in the Rio Grande Valley sector in the 2006 fiscal year, comprising more than half — 54.4 percent — of the nationwide detentions of 5,730. For the past year, Brazilians had been the top OTM group in the...

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) let slip a bombshell disclosure at a news conference today to announce a bill targeting states that allow illegal aliens to get drivers licenses. During the Q&A with reporters, Myrick gave as a reason for proposing the bill the recent capture of three al Qaeda terrorists at the U.S.-Mexico border. A check of Google News turned up no references to this incident, yet Myrick stated this was a 'given fact.' No reporter asked her about this revelation, but it was noted at the end of a Charlotte Observer article by Tim Funk. Two Representatives from North...

GUATEMALAN MAN ARRESTED IN D.C. MURDER-FOR-HIRE PLOT -- Defendant is Scheduled to Appear in Federal Court Tomorrow -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – Kenneth L. Wainstein, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, and Allan J. Doody, Special Agent-in-Charge for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), today announced that a suspect in a murder-for-hire plot on a local jail inmate has been arrested and is scheduled to appear in federal court tomorrow for a preliminary hearing in the District of Columbia. ICE agents arrested Victor Moscoso Espana, a 20-year-old citizen of Guatemala, in Maryland on Saturday night after receiving information that...

Alexander Enrique Hernandez arrived in San Angelo this week with a phone number and a court date he probably will not keep. The 20-year-old El Salvador native slipped across the U.S.-Mexican border near Eagle Pass on Monday. Almost immediately, an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol arrested him, just another face among the 150 illegal aliens caught each day by the department's Del Rio sector. Instead of processing him on the border, however, agents shipped him to San Angelo, served him paperwork telling him to be in a federal immigration court next month, and dropped him off at the Concho...

Man is 41st member of gang caught in Border Patrol sector this fiscal year MISSION TEXAS — U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol agents arrested another Mara Salvatrucha gang member south of Mission this week, bringing the annual total of apprehensions of "Maras" in the Rio Grande Valley Sector to 41. Roy Cervantes, a local spokesman for the agency, said agents were working the area near Stewart Road and Military Highway when they spotted a group of seven men who appeared to be undocumented immigrants. One 21-year-old man had several tattoos, Cervantes said, "indicating he was involved" in the...

The rough, dusty roads are traversed by women with veils. Nearby in the state's capital, the original inhabitants are building a mosque. "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger," chant a group of children. A scene straight out of the Middle East, Asia or Africa? No, it's in the second largest Roman Catholic country in Latin America: Mexico, in its turbulent southern state of Chiapas. ... "Among the Indian people there is a deep-seated religious identity, marked by syncretism, and a longing for hope in the different manifestations of the sacred," he added. The teachings of...

Immigration Reform Act of '05: A great start! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: July 25, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com "I oppose amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the automatic path to citizenship. Granting amnesty encourages violation of our laws and perpetuates illegal immigration. America is a welcoming country, but citizenship must not be the automatic reward for violating the laws of America." – President G.W. Bush, Jan. 7, 2004 Illegal immigration across the U.S. southern border is out of control – no surprise there. U.S. intelligence now informs us that terrorist organizations have used the lax U.S.-Mexico border security to smuggle...

Those coming from Brazil, Central America, and 'countries of concern' could hit 150,000 this year. HOUSTON - After decades of attempting to dam the flow of Mexican immigrants crossing into the United States illegally, federal agents say a new crisis is emerging along the southern border and they are helpless to stop it. Non-Mexicans are spilling over the border in record numbers - some from countries with terrorist ties - and most are set free soon after being captured. Already this year, the number of non-Mexican apprehensions has far outpaced last year's total in just eight months. And while they...