Free Republic

With the healthcare battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive -- a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system. Senior White House aides privately have assured Latino activists that the president will back legislation next year to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. In a recent conference call with proponents, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, political director Patrick Gaspard and others delivered the message that the White House was committed to seeing...

The smuggler wasn't difficult to spot. He sat high on a hillside at a place called Cap Rock, large binoculars in hand, watching U.S. Border Patrol agents below as they policed the Mexican border near San Diego. His technique is blatant, but it is the modus operandi used by thousands of smugglers along the nearly 2,000-mile southern U.S. border. They no longer hide.

Border Patrol fears conflict with Mexican military Agent: 'It's like we're having a battle … that no one speaks of' Posted: December 19, 2005 12:42 p.m. Eastern By Jon Dougherty © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Border Patrol agents stationed along the nation's southwestern frontier increasingly are fearful of encountering armed and potentially hostile military units from Mexico. Also, agents say, officers are hamstrung in their response, citing concerns the U.S. government is often too deferential to Mexican authorities. "It's like we're having a battle on the border that no one speaks of," one agent told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin newspaper in...

President George W. Bush on Thursday rejected critics of the Iraq war who demand a U.S. pullout and cast the conflict as necessary to prevent Islamic militants from gaining a foothold for a sweeping empire. "We will never back down, never give in and never accept anything less than complete victory," Bush said in a speech on Washington's war on terrorism. Bush used new and more specific language in characterizing the opponents as part of an Islamic radical movement "with a clear and coherent ideology" and territorial ambitions, rather than dismissing them as the terrorist "evildoers" of his early speeches...