Free Republic

NOGALES, Ariz., June 29 — A smuggling tunnel freshly excavated under the border with Mexico was sealed Friday after a joint raid by United States and Mexican authorities. Two houses formed the ends of a smuggling tunnel that was raided Friday. The house in the foreground is in Nogales, Ariz., and the house on the Mexican side is on the other side of the fence. The cramped and wandering tunnel, which connected two homes on opposite sides of the border had no ventilation, but it was outfitted with lights and at least one drainage pump, officials from Immigration and Customs...

Every day, smugglers guide hundreds of undocumented immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border. Coyotes are now charging more than ever for the trip. However, it's not just the price that's gone up — so has the risk of losing your life. Freeways and back roads are the battlefields. "They will shoot, attempt to stop a vehicle," said Alonzo Peña, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are armed bandits who stake out these areas, smuggling routes that lead from the border to cities like Tucson, Ariz. "They don't want to take the risk of smuggling the load themselves," Peña said. The load...

HEREFORD — The local civilian anti-illegal immigration group American Border Patrol has expanded its operations to a 100-acre ranch here that fronts both Mexico and the San Pedro River. The group says it will use the property as a base to continue demonstrating how inexpensive technology can help secure the border. During a Friday night fund-raising barbecue for Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, ABP founder Glenn Spencer showed off the ranch’s six-camera surveillance system to a crowd of approximately 150 people. As Spencer displayed a split screen projection of the views from four of the cameras, Mike King, ABP’s technical...

BISBEE — After nearly two years of declining numbers, illegal border-crossings took a sudden jump last month in Cochise County, law enforcement officials say. Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, said agents at the Naco, Douglas and Willcox stations apprehended just over 13,000 illegal immigrants last month, a 30 percent increase over March 2006. Prior to the spike, Border Patrol apprehensions in the county had been down 13 percent since the current fiscal year began on Oct. 1. That decline followed a 45 percent drop during the previous year. Sgt. Taron Maddux, spokesman for the Bisbee...

In the largest cash seizure in Mexican history, authorities confiscated $206 million in U.S. currency from a band of methamphetamine producers headquartered in a ritzy neighborhood here, officials said today. Two of the seven people arrested at the home were Chinese, and authorities said the bust hinted at the vast scope of an illegal drug trade that links Mexico to Asia. ... Mexican drug trafficking organizations have become increasing important in the wholesale and retail trade in methamphetamines in the United States because American authorities have placed tougher controls on the sale of the chemicals used to produce the highly...

Last Friday, in an article titled “Smugglers Raise Stakes in Fight Over Border Rule,” Jerry Seper of The Washington Times reported a phenomenon that has been well known to U.S. citizens who live on the Mexican border. To state it succinctly, towns that are on smuggling routes are under siege by heavily armed drug and human smugglers. These criminals have no respect for our laws and no fear of our police, Border Patrol or National Guard. Recently they confronted National Guard troops who were stationed along the border in accordance with the much ballyhooed field operation known as "Operation Jumpstart."...

Smugglers push Yemen migrants into sea and leave 107 to drown · Dhow crew forces boatload out to rescue colleagues· Deaths highlight risks of crossing from Somalia Xan Rice, East Africa correspondent Saturday February 17, 2007 The Guardian (UK) To the dozens of African migrants drowning in the Gulf of Aden after their boat capsized, the approaching dhow must have seemed like a lifeline. It was - but not for them. Instead, the crew of the second boat ordered their own human cargo into the shark-infested waters and plucked only their smuggler colleagues out of the sea before heading back...

CAMP KOREAN VILLAGE, Iraq (Feb. 14, 2007) -- While the rest of the battalion is miles away, Marines from C Company are working a “smugglers town” in western Iraq. As a whole, Marines from the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion are stretched throughout the Al Anbar Province. Some conduct security operations in cities like Rawah and Anah, 150 miles northwest of Baghdad, while Company C assists the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Rutbah, a city of roughly 30,000 about 50 miles east of the Jordanian border. While most of the area consists of flat...

TUCSON, Ariz. - Unknown assailants threw rocks at a National Guard border observation post in southern Arizona, breaking two windows on a Guard vehicle, but no one was injured, a Border Patrol spokesman said Tuesday. Border Patrol agents searched for the rock-throwers following Sunday night's incident but only found their tracks, which led into Mexico, said Sean King, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which covers most of the Arizona-Mexico border. The Arizona National Guard will assign an officer to investigate what happened as it does with any incident in which its soldiers faced potential danger, said Maj....

SAN DIEGO - Toughened U.S. border enforcement has prompted substantially more illegal immigrants to hire smugglers to help them cross over from Mexico — and competition among sophisticated criminal networks for customers has spawned violence and sometimes death. The evidence is abundant in border boomtowns, where human traffickers rustle together flocks of immigrants for the journey north. Further evidence comes from tens of thousands of interviews of illegal border crossers in surveys by a Mexican government-funded research institution, which were analyzed by The Associated Press. "What was once a discretionary expense has now become a necessity," said Jorge Santibanez, who...

Washington, Sep 6 - Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 1030.    Let me just note that platitudes are not enough. When it really counts, the Border Patrol does need our support, and that includes building a fence, which some people who perhaps would be happy to sing the praises of the Border Patrol are not willing to help them with something that they consider to be essential to securing their job.    Tonight, we are commending the service of 12,000 men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol. They are, in fact, performing an invaluable...

<p>FORT MYERS, Fla. — A missing month-old boy kidnapped at knifepoint was taken as payment because his parents failed to pay human smugglers, police said Saturday.</p> <p>' parents were brought into the United States illegally from Brazil, but failed to pay the smugglers' entire fee, Police Chief Hilton Daniels said.</p>

— Two of five men accused of smuggling undocumented immigrants on a luxury boat from Port Isabel to Corpus Christi earlier this year were sentenced to prison Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Hilda Tagle sentenced Mack Daniel Bryant, owner of charter boat company Breakaway Cruises, to 2½ years in federal prison for conspiracy to transport and harbor certain aliens in the United States. Tagle also sentenced Norman Michael Walker, a captain for Breakaway Cruises, to one year in federal prison on the same charge. Tagle said she wanted to send a strong message to anyone attempting to smuggle undocumented immigrants. She...

Department of Homeland Security officials told four House members last month that two Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a drug smuggler admitted to supervisors that they were "out to shoot Mexicans" the day of the shooting, but have yet to provide proof the agents made such statements. In an effort to convince four concerned congressman that the El Paso, Texas ,trial, conviction and sentencing of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were warranted, representatives of the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General met privately with the congressmen to assure them of Ramos' and Compean's guilt. The agents...

EL PASO, Texas - One man and two women on the jury that convicted two former El Paso area Border Patrol agents of shooting a drug smuggler in the buttocks last year said they were misled into agreeing with a guilty verdict, according to a motion filed Tuesday. Mary Stillinger, the lawyer for one of the agents, Ignacio Ramos, thought the jurors' statements should be grounds for setting the verdict aside and having a new trial for Ramos and fellow agent Jose Alonso Compean. The men are scheduled for sentencing Thursday and face a 10-year mandatory sentence that legal experts...

Law-enforcement authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border are outgunned and outmanned by drug smugglers armed with automatic weapons, grenade launchers, bazookas, improvised explosive devices and state-of-the-art communications and tracking systems, a congressional report said yesterday. "While the United States has taken positive steps to secure its borders, much more is needed to combat an increasingly powerful, sophisticated, organized and violent criminal network, which seeks to move illegal contraband ... into our country for profit," said the House Homeland Security management, integration and oversight subcommittee report.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's attorney general said the arrest a group of corrupt cops along the border with California is imminent. Daniel Cabeza de Vaca told a Mexico City news conference today the cops protected a Tijuana cartel, the Arellano Felix gang, which smuggled tons of pot, cocaine and meth into the United States. Two were already arrested Saturday and charged with taking bribes to protect the gang. The attorney general said they worked at the Rosarito police department just over the border from San Diego border. The two are accused of decapitating three of their fellow officers. The news...

NAPLES, Italy, Aug. 27, 2006 – U.S. Navy frigate USS Boone intercepted a drug-smuggling speedboat Aug. 24 while enroute from Algeria to Spain during a patrol of the Mediterranean Sea south of the Spanish coastline. According to U.S. Navy 6th Fleet officials, the crew abandoned its cargo—five packages of marijuana weighing 90 kilograms--when the USS Boone was sighted and entered Algerian territorial water. The Boone’s crew confiscated the marijuana. A few hours later, near the same location, the USS Boone encountered two small rubber boats in apparent distress, officials said. The ship approached the boats and found 26 people on...

American universities rank among the best in the world, but they also boast another, more dubious distinction: They are home to some of the world’s most radical academics. Last month, one of these select individuals, UC Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, brought his hate-filled show to two extremist Islamic Centers in South Florida. Both of these institutions are in the process of building large-scale mosques in their respective cities. And, given that their guest had previously called for attacks on the United States, the question naturally arose: Were these institutions looking to make friends in the community or to start a holy war?Past...

BALTIMORE - Jurors on Tuesday convicted two men of murdering three young relatives whose bodies were nearly decapitated. Policarpio Espinoza, 24, and Adan Canela, 19, were found guilty of slashing the children's throats. Espinoza was the uncle of 9-year-old Ricardo Espinoza Jr., 8-year-old Lucero Espinoza and their 10-year-old male cousin, Alexis Espejo Quezada. Canela was a cousin of the victims. Canela and Espinoza's first trial in 2005 ended in a hung jury. The reading of Canela's verdict initially was interrupted when the jury appeared confused about what they had agreed upon. As the forewoman began reading the verdict, several jurors...