Free Republic

At a time when 83% of Americans view government corruption as a very important problem, isn't it time that we stop fostering a culture of corruption by failing to control illegal immigration? Most illegal aliens come from countries where corruption is rampant. In 2008, the average corruption score of the ten countries with the largest number of their citizens residing illegally in the United States was 3.43 out of a possible ten signifying a serious to rampant level of corruption. Corruption is involved in virtually everything illegal aliens do. They either sneak into the United States or lie to consular...

US officials are expected to announce plans that would allow illegal immigrants not considered a threat to be taken out of jails, reports say. The new policy would list immigrants according to the risk they may pose, the Wall Street Journal reports. Detainees who are not criminals could be kept in hotels and nursing homes, according to leaks of the plans. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to give details of the plans later. Her department is hoping to cut the costs of detaining immigrants, which stood at almost $2bn (£1.3bn) in 2008. It says alternatives like the hotels...

They should be prime local real estate -- a line of 16 quaint bungalows in the Rockaways, right on the beach, decorated with sea air and sunshine. Instead, like a growing number of abandoned and foreclosed properties around New York City, they are home to only squatters -- eight Salvadorans who ripped away cheap plywood that sealed the doors and windows and set up camp. The shacks are in bad shape, lacking water, heat and electricity. But the few that are habitable have been turned into adequate shelters, complete with front porches, buckets to collect rainwater, and small courtyard gardens...

The Los Angeles times is reporting that the California state senate has passed a bevy of bills that will increase the cost of doing business. First, they passed a bill, SB 789, to allow the state equivalent of federal “card check,” allowing farmworkers unions to form without a secret ballot. According to the LA Times, “Instead of holding an election with secret ballots, workers could submit cards, signed by a majority of the workers asking for representation, to state labor authorities.” This is bad policy – and more than that, it encourages bullying tactics from union thugs. How many people...

When the woman who calls herself Queen Omega moved into a three-bedroom house here last December, she introduced herself to the neighbors, signed contracts for electricity and water and ordered an Internet connection. What she did not tell anyone was that she had no legal right to be in the home. Ms. Omega, 48, is one of the beneficiaries of the foreclosure crisis. Through a small advocacy group of local volunteers called Take Back the Land, she moved from a friend’s couch into a newly empty house that sold just a few years ago for more than $400,000. Michael Stoops,...

Kids Party in Foreclosed Homes, Leave Wake of VandalismParty-Throwing Minors, Criminals Make Themselves at Home in Vacant Houses By RUSSELL GOLDMAN March 4, 2009 By the time the cops arrived, the house was in total shambles. Windows were smashed, beer cans were strewn across the lawn, light fixtures were pulled out of the ceiling, the drywall was kicked out exposing the studs in the walls, and on nearly every available surface, spray paint indicated what that section of the house was to be used for, from the "liquor wall" to the "sex room." The Ft. Myers, Fla., party ended late...

Some community activists could face criminal charges after breaking into a home in Southeast Baltimore. Police were at the home Thursday night looking for fingerprints and other evidence. The activists who staged the break-in belong to the Association of Community Organizations For Reform Now or ACORN. After snapping a lock with bolt cutters, ACORN member Louis Beverly told supporters "this is our house now." ACORN staged the demonstration to protest the foreclosure crisis sweeping the nation. The home in the 300 block of Ellwood Avenue used to be owned by Donna Hanks. She lost this home in September, after owning...

In tandem with the Bad Borrowers Bailout, Obama's old friends at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are launching a "Home Savers" campaign. As with most of the bully tactics of the radical left-wing group, it ain't gonna be pretty. They are the shock troops on the streets doing the dirty work while the Community Organizer-in-Chief keeps his hands clean. Trumpets ACORN: "On Feb. 19, ACORN members will launch a new tactic in fighting foreclosures: civil disobedience. Participants in the ACORN Home Savers campaign nationwide will simply refuse to move out of foreclosed homes, or in some cases,...

A Fort Worth man will be facing what will no doubt be a series of painful reconstructive surgeries after half of his nose was torn off during a fight with his next-door neighbor. Scott Jackson, 37, says, "I got hit in the face with a beer bottle or something and it cut half my nose off." It happened Wednesday night in a mobile home park off Ohio Gardens Drive just north of Rockwall Golf Course near the Jacksboro Highway. The victim says he was only trying to protect himself and his property when his neighbor and possibly one other man...

Poverty rights activists broke into at least a dozen vacant Minneapolis buildings this week and helped homeless families move in. "This is the modern underground railroad," said Cheri Honkala, National Organizer for the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, the group organizing the "takeovers." This week's actions are part of a growing national movement to illegally open up thousands of vacant, foreclosed homes to provide housing for the growing number of homeless people. Over 3,000 Minneapolis homes went into foreclosure in 2008. Advocates estimate that over 7,000 Minnesotans are homeless. Most Twin Cities' homeless shelters have been filled to capacity...

In a move that provides relief to thousands of renters who face eviction but draws the federal government even deeper into the housing market, the loan giant Fannie Mae said Sunday that it would sign new leases with renters living in foreclosed properties owned by the company. It is the first nationwide effort to provide widespread relief to renters ensnared by the unfolding mortgage crisis, and it will effectively transform Fannie Mae —a government-controlled mortgage finance company — into a national landlord.It may also increase pressure on private lenders to establish similar programs and on lawmakers to pass renter relief....

When Barack Obama assumes office, this is the kind of “community activist” who will be heralded, celebrated, and subsidized. It’s easy to be so charitable with other people’s property: Max Rameau delivers his sales pitch like a pro. “All tile floor!” he says during a recent showing. “And the living room, wow! It has great blinds.” But in nearly every other respect, he is unlike any real estate agent you’ve ever met. He is unshaven, drives a beat-up car and wears grungy cut-off sweat pants. He also breaks into the homes he shows. And his clients don’t have a dime...

Mamyrah Prosper steps gingerly over ankle-high grass strewn with plastic bags and empty soda bottles in the yard of a vacant redbrick house in Miami's Liberty City. She peers through a gap in a boarded-up window. "It looks in good shape," she says. "I mean, the walls aren't falling down. This is definitely one of our stronger options." Prosper means that if the place checks out, she and her colleagues from Take Back the Land, a local group that advocates for affordable housing, will break in, change the locks, paint and clean, innovate a way to connect water and electricity,...

Yitzchak Herskovitz had hoped to have his Jerusalem property freed of Arab squatters by Wednesday, as the court ordered, but the police said they don't have the men for the job. Herskovitz, a septuagenarian formerly of Los Angeles and now of Kiryat Arba in Judea, bought property in southern Jerusalem in 1992. He has never been able to take possession of it, however, because of Arab squatters living there. The police have turned down the most recent court order to evict the Arabs because of riots they expect will result. They promise to carry it out within several weeks -...

Father-of-four finds 12-strong colony of illegal immigrants living in his LOFT By Sophie Borland Last updated at 3:13 AM on 13th June 2008Unexpected: Lee Bradley discovered a colony of illegalimmigrants living in the loft of his new house (file picture)A family moved into their new home only to discover 12 illegal immigrants living in the roof. Lee Bradley was inspecting the loft of his rented terraced house when he made the shock discovery. Under the roof, a colony of Kosovan migrants had knocked down the wall between his house and the two adjoining properties to create living space for several...

A failed businessman who has paid nothing towards a mortgage on his home for more than 15 years, had the debt wiped out by senior judges. Djabar Babai was told he had effectively acquired "squatter's rights" over his £250,000 detached home, as his dispute with his mortgage lender has dragged on for so long. But although the judgment may be good news for the 62-year-old, there were warnings that homeowners who fall behind on payments could face swifter repossession action as a result.

Neighbors discover squatters at vacant homes Poor market leaves many houses empty By JOHN G. EDWARDS REVIEW-JOURNAL A couple, who declined to be identified, with a girl in a highchair, move their belongings out of a house Thursday after being evicted for living in the home illegally. Photo by Jeremy Lyverse/Review-Journal On New Year's Eve, a middle-class neighborhood in southwest Las Vegas discovered new neighbors in foreclosed and formerly vacant homes. James Totland, a nearby resident, said the new residents appeared to be squatters. "It's insane," Totland said. "It's scary really." Real estate saleswoman JoAnn'E Verry and broker Scott Hurlburt...

"We go out to drive the kids to school," he says, "and there's human poop between the cars." There must be many who are as fed up as Kiely, because politicians like Newsom are taking a tough stand. In an election year, you can bet he wouldn't go out on an unpopular limb. Now it will be interesting to see how the Board of Supervisors, traditionally progressive and more pro-homeless people, will react...

Houses abandoned to foreclosure are beginning to breed trouble, adding neighbors to the growing ranks of victims. ... Chris Ragsdale, the Los Angeles Police Department's senior lead officer for Westwood and Bel-Air, recalled one case from the end of that era, when a group of men moved into a foreclosed house in Pacific Palisades. The squatters changed the locks, turned on the electricity and brought in furniture. When the agent trying to sell the place showed up, they maintained that they had a lease. "If you know what you're doing, you can get six months in a place with a...

Escalating tensions in a Wildomar property dispute have spurred a Riverside County official to seek changes to an obscure state law that allows squatters to take land from unsuspecting owners. "If someone is squatting on a piece of your land or someone is in your house, you usually can call the sheriff and the government comes to help you out," Treasurer-Tax Collector Paul McDonnell said. That's not always the case with adverse possession, a law rooted in Anglo-Saxon history that McDonnell said has created "a cottage industry of people who are attempting to capitalize on the weakness of others."

SAN DIEGO -- A Superior Court judge ordered San Diego police to return some property that was seized from the Oceanside home of an anti-illegal immigration activist. Police were told to return to San Diego Minutemen group founder Jeff Schwilk any property that is unrelated to a crime or not part of an investigation into alleged vandalism at three migrant camps in San Diego's McGonigle Canyon. Schwilk's group has pressured authorities to evict the migrant squatters

Dutch squatters facing eviction in anti-liberal backlash Jason Burke in Amsterdam Sunday January 14, 2007 The Observer(UK) Marc steps outside the squat and hunches his shoulders against the rain blasted down the narrow street by the North Sea wind. A group of Russian tourists stops in front of him and the graffiti-daubed front of the five-floor townhouse on Amsterdam's central Spuistraat. The tourists want their photograph taken next to the striking 6ft 6in squatter. 'The house is a monument,' said Marc, 34, a musician and part-time film-maker. But if right-wing politicians have their way, it will not be for much...

SAN DIEGO — For 20 years, many of the illegal immigrants drawn by jobs in tomato fields have worshipped at an outdoor church, a concrete altar in a canyon where they slept under the shelter of plywood and plastic tarps and bathed in a stream. Today, however, McGonigle Canyon is overshadowed by multimillion-dollar homes, and police and landowners want the eyesores gone. The squatters and their tree-covered place of worship, which the Roman Catholic church installed in the 1980s, are being expelled in one of the latest skirmishes in the nation's battle over illegal immigration and homeless squatters' camps. "We're...

(CBS) LOS ANGELES Authorities moved in to evict farmers from the South Central Farm amid the owner's efforts to sell the land. About 50 Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies began removing protesters and farmers at 5 a.m. from the farm at 41st and Alameda Streets, enforcing a court order. Supporters of the 350 farmers who have been tending to the land say that it is the largest urban farm in the country. Several celebrities have spent time at the farm in a show of solidarity with the farmers in recent weeks. Full story: http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_164092146.html

While the immigration demonstrations forced congressional leaders to back away from tough measures cracking down on illegal immigrants, the American public doesn't seem to be so inclined. Pollster John Zogby said that, in a survey he conducted after the protests, 61 percent said they were less sympathetic to the plight of illegal immigrants as a result of the demonstrations, compared to 32 percent who said they were more sympathetic. A Gallup poll this month also showed that more than half of Americans are skeptical about the effectiveness of a wall that some members of Congress want to construct along America's...

Scuffle breaks out at immigration rally Arizona Daily Star Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.10.2006 advertisementA scuffle that broke out after counter-protestors torched a Mexican flag at Armory Park resulted in four or five people being taken into custody by Tucson police. Police initially detained a young Hispanic woman in the wake of the flag burning and were escorting the woman to the Police Department’s downtown headquarters as a group of protestors followed. The confrontation escalated when one man tried to break through a ring of officers surrounding the woman and he and several others were also detained. About 11 people...

An American Indian Speaks Out Against Illegal AliensDr. David A. Yeagley, an American Indian and direct descendant of the Comanche warrior Bad Eagle says it best: America today is making the same mistake we Indians made nearly four centuries ago. America is letting in too many foreigners. And we Indians could end up losing this country all over again. It may come as surprise to many white people who have been brainwashed by the media to see Indians as the ultimate liberals, but there are few groups in America today who take a dimmer view of mass immigration than the...

Americans support building a security fence along the entire 2,000 mile U.S.- Mexican border by a landslide, a new Time magazine poll has found. By a margin of 56 to 40 percent, respondents said they want the wall built from sea to shining sea - not just the 700 miles stipulated in the House plan, a proposal the press calls "draconian." In more evidence that the American people want a tougher crackdown on illegal immigration than anything favored by Congress or the media, 62 percent told Time that they favored using the military to guard the border. Just 35 percent...

Army declares City of Patriarchs a "closed military zone" By Israel Insider staff and partners January 16, 2006 A Jewish girl is taken into custody by security forces. The army declared Hebron, the City of the Jewish Patriarchs, a closed military zone forbidden to non-resident Israelis. Israeli police seized buildings and rooftops in a Jewish settler enclave in the holy city of Hebron on Monday, restoring order after three days of riots sparked by plans to evict Israeli squatters from an abandoned Palestinian market. The closure and scuffles could signal the opening salvo in a battle over the West Bank,...

Last update - 10:51 16/01/2006 Challenge of the Hebron hooligans Yesterday's unrestrained rioting by Hebron settlers provided yet more unneeded proof of a well-known reality: Hebron is outside the control of the government of Israel and the rule of law, and is an enclave of hooliganism that receives protection from the Israel Defense Forces, but is unwilling to obey its orders. As a direct continuation of the rampage that accompanied the police's attempt two weeks ago to issue evacuation orders to settlers living in Hebron's vegetable market - an incident in which officers and soldiers were injured by stones and...

Police in Hevron Break Into Jewish Homes Without Warrants 13:45 Jan 16, '06 / 16 Tevet 5766 (IsraelNN.com) Spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron, Noam Arnon, said Israeli police have been positioned in the community in order to provoke Hebron’s Jewish residents. He said the police have already forced their way into private homes without obtaining warrants, in a way that resembles “the Argentinean police at its best.” Arnon said the current police actions in Hevron are a “deliberate provocation”, going on despite efforts to stop demonstrators against troops' attempts to expel Jews from their homes in the city....

Mofaz Orders Destruction of Three More Communities 11:15 Jan 13, '06 / 13 Tevet 5766 By Ezra HaLevi DM Sha'ul Mofaz has authorized the destruction of three Jewish neighborhoods in the Shomron. There are 7, 380 demolition orders against illegal Arab buildings that remain unexecuted. The threatened communities, called "unauthorized outposts" by the government, are Skully's Farm near Elon Moreh, the Arussi Farm near Har Bracha and Hill 725, near Yitzhar. Mofaz took advantage of the media attention to the alleged uprooting of Arab olive trees to declare that the outposts to be destroyed are close to the sites of...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The only lights Saturday night on Bourbon Street were the flashing blues of police vehicles on patrol, the headlights of rumbling military trucks and an occasional flashlight or cigarette glow among bedraggled holdout residents. "Why does any local stay? Because this is our neighborhood, this is home," said Ride Hamilton, 29. He has turned his French Quarter home into a mini-warehouse of supplies for his neighbors. He said he accumulated the goods during daily "shopping" trips to local stores, "trying to get it before somebody else does. We're relying on ourselves out here." Johnny White's Sports...

PM orders Gaza closed to Israelis until end of pullout By Amos Harel and Nir Hasson, Haaretz Correspondents In a step seen as a watershed moment in his disengagement plan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Wednesday morning ordered the Gaza Strip closed to Israeli visitors, declaring it a closed military area in order to blunt plans by anti-pullout activists to flood the Strip with protesters. The order effectively closes the Strip to non-resident Istraelis until the end of the disengagement, as opposed to a temporary closure imposed two weeks ago to allow Israeli security forces to evacuate a hotel where anti-pullout...

A police sketch of a stocky man has become an unwelcome part of daily life here for scores of immigrant day laborers who live in the canyons. Look," said one Oaxacan immigrant. "This guy messed it up for all of us. We're all really angry at him." He pulled a copy of the sketch from his pocket, unfolded it and pointed to a husky Latino man, about 5 feet 6, in his early to mid-30s, with cropped hair, who is wanted for possible rape. Police say they believe the man in the picture, possibly a day laborer (Illegal), sexually assaulted...

After routing the opposition at the polls last year, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez has signalled an escalation of his offensive against the country's elites with a "war" on latifundio, big rural estates that he blames for rural poverty. This is a mistake. Land reform is likely to weaken the farm sector. It has regularly failed Latin America in the past and is especially pointless in Venezuela, where nine out of 10 people live in urban areas. Land reform that gives the government the ability to expropriate land that is idle or unproductive or where owners are unable to prove legal...

I have been arranging my extensive CD collection which lead me to play some of those long forgotten CD. This afternoon it was Mendelssohn "Reformation" Symphony. This might not be the best symphony of this rather underrated composer. The 5th popularity has suffered from being a "heftier" work, more intellectual, less crafted and vital than the "Italian". As if trying to encompass the reformation movement in music were possible. Still, the last movement opening is one of the most stirring moments of the repertoire, and a powerful musical image of the liberation of the spirit, no matter what religious connotation...

The war to the death against big estates decreed by President Chávez in the Poliedro put paid to the illusions held by many who still believed that the government was going to act rationally and within the confines of the law. ... This Commission will have a “constitutional mandate” to incorporate the land it considers “idle, abandoned or underused” into “the productive process of the country,” according to the Decree on the Reorganization of the Ownership and Use of Land Suitable for Agricultural Use. The land so considered will be handed over to groups of the population and organized communities...

These past days have been rich in demonstrations that the Venezuelan state is sinking fast into some type of tribal units ruled by weapons. Sunday's papers reflected the marvelous contradictions in which we live, making Gabriel Garcia Marquez an illuminated amateur. I wanted to start with the latest on the seizure of El Charcote, that X-thousand acres ranch in Cojedes part of a group of ranches owned by British interests. I use the X as a number since the true extent of the land owned, and by whom, has become the mystery du jour. And the source of quite a...

Land interventions in Cojedes State will continue next Wednesday. In this way, the decree issued by Cojedes Governor Johnny Yánez Rangel with regard to 16 estates will be enforced. Following the effective intervention of El Charcote farm last Saturday, regional authorities plan to seize several properties of the Boulton family in Cojedes, such as Gavinero, Yaguara, San José and La Flecha. Rafael Alemán, the Cojedes State Secretary-General, said under this schedule of interventions, Paraima and Piñero -both properties of the Branger family- will be intervened next January 13th and 14th, respectively.

The Government of Cojedes state took over as proimised the British owned cattle ranch Hato El Charcote. The Goveror stil claims they are respecing private property, but "it is not absolute" whatever that means. You can read more about it here, here and here. The people at the bottom are not part of the intervention, they are the invaders of the ranch, who are protesting because the Government apparently is not going to give them the intervened land, but it will be handed over to 28 cooperatives of farmers.

08.01.05 | Various sources report that El Charcote ranch, owned by British Vestey group, was seized this morning by Venezuelan authorities and the army. This is the first illegal seizure that the Chavez regime conducts against private property owned by foreign groups. With this precedent, will anyone be intrepid enough to invest in Venezuela?

Venezuelan government officials escorted by around 200 troops and police arrived at a cattle ranch run by a British-owned company today and to assess whether some lands may be turned over to poor farmers as part of an agrarian reform effort. Poor farmers handed over a proposal through which they could make use of the lands on El Charcote Ranch, owned by a subsidiary of British-owned beef producer Vestey Group Ltd. Representatives of El Charcote said they were negotiating the matter and handed over documents which they claimed show rightful ownership. Cojedes state governor Johnny Yanez Rangel, addressing supporters who...

Venezuelan authorities backed by troops are on Saturday expected to seize a 32,000-acre ranch owned by Lord Vestey, an English aristocrat and meat tycoon. The move, the first in what is likely to be a number of Zimbabwe-style expropriations of big estates, appears to signal a renewed radicalisation in the leftwing government of President Hugo Chávez. Lord Vestey, known as “Spam” to friends because his family's wealth comes from the meat trade, is one of Britain's richest men and a close friend of Prince Charles. With interests that have ranged from overseas cattle ranches to a chain of butchers' shops,...

A cattle ranch that Venezuela’s government has targeted for expropriation under a land reform programme. Agroflora, a Vestey Venezuelan subsidiary, said it can prove rightful ownership of the El Charcote ranch in western Venezuela. Under a Land Law enacted by President Hugo Chavez in 2001, the government can seize land if it deems property is not being used productively for agriculture or was obtained illegally. Eliezer Otaiza, director of the National Land Institute, said the ranch sits on land previously owned by the government and Vestey has failed to prove it legally acquired all the land.

To call Lev Rozin's back yard an urban paradise might be an exaggeration. But with its swimming pool, fig tree, ginger plants and rose bushes, it's a pleasant refuge. Some days, there's nothing finer than to kick back, watch Lord Axel, the Great Dane, frolic on the grass and listen to the wind in the power lines. Rozin's playground is CenterPoint Energy's right of way, and for years the relationship between the utility and Rozin's neighborhood has been congenial. With the company's permission, at least 22 residents on Twin Hills in southwest Houston extended their back yards onto the utility's...

A grade II listed house in London is to be handed over to three squatters who have lived in it for more than 30 years. Their claim to take over the freehold of 49 Calthorpe Street, Clerkenwell, will not be contested by Labour-controlled Camden council. The "Calthorpe Street Three" - Agoshaman Ceribel, 71, Umiak Mahoupe, 50, and a friend known as Anne - will become the legal owners of the five-bedroom house. It is worth, according to Camden's valuers, between £425,000 and £475,000, despite being in "fair to poor condition". They claim the property was left in poor repair by...

Tree squatters in Memorial Park 07/07/2003 From 11 News Staff Reports HOUSTON -- Two activitists from California have set up shop in some 110-foot pine trees in Houston's Memorial Park. They've been sitting near the top of the trees since Saturday night. They hung a huge banner to draw attention to their cause. The protesters say they'll stay in the Memorial Park trees as long as necessary. Two protesters set up shop in some 110-foot pine trees in Memorial Park. The tree squatters are here to protest logging practices by Maxxam Corporation which has its headquarters in Houston. The protesters...

IDF stops Israelis en route to help with Palestinian harvest By Haaretz Service IDF troops on Saturday afternoon prevented a convoy of Israeli members of the Ta'ayush Arab Jewish partnership from traveling to the West Bank to help Palestinians with their harvest, Israel Radio reported. The Israelis were stopped en route to an area south of the Hebron Hills following threats from settlers living in the vicinity. As a result, the harvest did not take place. Authors David Grossman and Meir Shalev, who joined the activists, told Army Radio that they had made arrangements in advance with the IDF top...

Settlers regroup to fight road map Matthew Gutman May. 30, 2003 No political body is more painfully aware of the historical nature of the cabinet's endorsement of the road map on Sunday and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "occupation" speech on Monday than the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip. It intends to launch a protest campaign consisting of a massive rally on Wednesday, as well as various demonstrations on roads and intersections in the coming week, in an effort to forestall the political process and grid-lock the government into submission. Its leaders sat behind...