Free Republic

Increasing Coordination Between Mexican Drug Cartels, Human Smuggling Networks, and U.S.-Based Gangs Federal, State, and local law enforcement officials are witnessing a growing nexus between the Mexican drug cartels, illegal alien smuggling rings, and U.S. based gangs.The human smuggling networks that operate along the Southwest border cannot move their human cargo through drug cartel controlled corridors without paying a fee. The typical Mexican illegal alien now pays approximately $1,200 to $2,500. For aliens from countries other than Mexico this price is often considerably higher, and may even be more alluring for the cartels. Foreign nationals are often charged an exorbitantly...

Security: After letting Mexico's president trash Arizona's immigration law and his immigration enforcement chief say he won't enforce it, the president wants to send a token National Guard contingent to the border. There's something disingenuous about the president's plan to deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the Arizona border to help the Border Patrol catch illegal aliens. His director of immigration and customs enforcement, John Morton, has said he might not enforce immigration crimes reported by Arizona officials, though the state's new law merely copies federal law. Morton is director of ICE, not chief justice of the Supreme Court. He...

Immigration: An Arizona official asks a good question: If California wants to boycott Arizona over the way it enforces federal law, what about the electricity California gets from there? The problem with righteous indignation is that when others call you on it and tell you to put your money where your mouth is, it can cause an embarrassing leak in your hot air balloon. Gary Pierce, a commissioner on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission, has done just that, calling the bluff of the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Pierce wrote Villaraigosa a letter saying in essence that...

Illegal Immigration: Los Angeles' city council votes to boycott Arizona for its enforcement of existing federal law. No word yet on how China's human rights violations will be treated. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. The next time the Lakers play Los Suns in Phoenix, traveling fans are advised to bring their own snacks. The L.A. City Council voted 13-1 on Wednesday to economically boycott the state of Arizona for daring to protect its borders against the crime, violence and illegal immigration that recently took the life of an Arizona rancher and has made Phoenix the kidnapping capital of...

Illegal Immigration: An Arizona rancher is murdered while patrolling his ranch. A gaping hole in the border fence and footsteps back to Mexico tell the tale. When will we put the National Guard back on the border? Robert N. Krentz Jr., 58, scion of one of the best-known and oldest ranching families in southeast Arizona, was found shot to death March 27 on his vast, remote ranch after radioing to his brother that he was checking out someone he believed to be an illegal immigrant. Krentz was found slumped over his ATV on his 35,000-acre ranch about 35 miles northeast...

Immigration: Arizona moves to protect its citizens from a raging border war, and the administration and its activist supporters cry racism. Why is antelope protection more important than protecting American lives?

Obama amputates our nuclear arms By: Charles Krauthammer ...snippet...Under President Obama’s new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” explained Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker...

SNIPPET: "Somalis with ties to a terrorist organization are believed to be plotting to illegally enter the United States after being mistakenly released from custody in Mexico, a confidential federal law enforcement report said." SNIPPET: "Included in the group is Mohamed Osman Noor, 35, of Somalia, who U.S. officials suspect has strong ties to Al-Shabaab Mujahideen, an Islamist insurgency group in the ongoing war in Somalia with ties to al Qaeda. The report was written by an intelligence official with the Laredo Sector Border Intelligence Center, a joint federal task force under the Department of Homeland Security that operates on...

Note: The following text is a quote: Secretary Napolitano Announces Full Deployment of Radiation Scanning Technology to the Northern Border Ahead of Schedule Release Date: November 5, 2009 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano today announced the final deployment of non-intrusive scanning equipment to detect radiation emanating from materials used in nuclear devices at all Northern border land ports of entry—a major security milestone completed two months ahead of schedule that reflects Secretary Napolitano’s ongoing commitment to strong, layered security at the U.S.-Canada border. “Securing our Northern border while facilitating...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Gunmen with automatic weapons burst into a Mexican strip club on the U.S. border, opened fire on patrons and killed six people including an American soldier, the army said on Wednesday. The hooded gunmen stormed into the bar in Ciudad Juarez as strippers were dancing for customers, sought out the six men and shot them each several times. A 26-year-old off-duty U.S. soldier who had crossed over from El Paso, Texas, was among the dead, army spokesman Enrique Torres said. "It appears drugs were being sold at the place," Torres said of the strip joint....

Hundreds of people have been arrested in Texas and around the country what officials say is the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel in the U.S WASHINGTON (October 22, 2009)—U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls the arrests of more than 300 people in a series of drug raids in Texas and across the country the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel operating here. Holder said at a news conference Thursday that the arrests over the past two days were aimed at the U.S. operations of the La Familia cartel. Click here to find out more! Holder...

So will it spill further into Texas? Absolutely, says the drug smuggler. "It will in the future. It will escalate, escalate and continue to escalate," he said. What does he think about us reporting from Juarez? "You might as well write your last will and testament," he said. "There is no guarantee you're coming back."

When Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderon, ordered 2,500 troops and federal agents into border city Ciudad Juarez 17 months ago to tamp down drug violence, the monthly murder rate ran at an average of 66. In retrospect, those were the days of peace and calm.Ciudad Juarez has become the most active front in simultaneous and increasingly bloody wars. One is between drug cartels fighting each other for access to the U.S. market. Another is between drug traffickers and Mexican authorities charged with imposing law and order. They have been singularly unsuccessful.Despite a vastly increased military presence (now about 7,000, plus 2,500...

Note: The following text is a quote: Obama Administration Announces National Strategy to Reduce Drug Trafficking and Flow of Bulk Cash and Weapons Across Southwest Border Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Department of Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Director of National Drug Control Policy Gil Kerlikowske released President Obama’s strategy to stem the flow of illegal drugs and their illicit proceeds across the Southwest border and reduce associated crime and violence in the region. The National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy directs federal agencies to increase coordination and information sharing with state and local law enforcement agencies, intensifies national...

Officials confirm the body of a U.S. Marshal's deputy has been found in a Mexican canal, KVIA-ABC reported. U.S. Deputy Marshal Gerald Payan said the victim is Vincent Paul Bustamente, a U.S. Marshal's deputy assigned to the El Paso office. Payan said the office is working with the FBI and local Mexican authorities to investigate. Chihuahua state police say Bustamente's decomposing body with a circular wound to the back of the head was found at approximately 9 a.m. in a Juarez canal. Jeff Carter, spokesman for the U.S. Marshal's office, told KVIA that Bustamente was on administrative leave prior to...

Homeland Safety: Terrorists and other criminals crossing into America are at least as threatening as our economic woes. If we can spend a trillion on stimulus, we shouldn't skimp on fixing the border.In an age of terrorism, America's borders should be (in effect, if not in physical appearance) impenetrable walls. Not a single person should be able to enter U.S. territory without the government knowing exactly who he or she is, and having given express permission for such entry. Establishing that kind of foolproof system over an area spanning nearly 2,000 miles should have been one of our chief national...

Over 40 Murders Reported this Week CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - New details on a deadly discovery across the border from El Paso. This morning police in Ciudad Juarez say at least 12 masked gun men opened fire inside an upscale seafood restaurant and killed at least eight people. The attack comes a day after seven men were found executed in a school soccer field in an upper class neighborhood in Juarez. In all, 40 murders were reported over the holiday week along the border near El Paso. Police say the men were armed with AK-47 and fired off more than...

Nearly 300 people have been killed since late-September – many mutilated, tortured and beheaded in gruesome terror tactics copied from Iraq's brutal conflict. In the past week alone, there has been an attack in a nightclub popular with students that left five young people dead or dying; a hit squad stormed a private hospital and killed a patient who was being treated for gunshot wounds; and armed men opened fire on a car parked outside a popular US-owned discount warehouse, killing a woman and seriously injuring a man. Mexico's drug war death tally of more than 4,000 this year –...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican soldiers looking for drug traffickers found $6 million in cash inside a truck near the U.S. border and arrested five men at the scene, the army said on Friday. Army drug squads in the northern state of Tamaulipas, a smuggling hot spot over the border from Texas, found the U.S. currency stuffed into eight suitcases as they inspected a tractor trailer and smaller truck parked along a highway. They also found four pistols, the army said in a statement. Army and federal police units deployed in President Felipe Calderon's 15-month-old crackdown on drug cartels are...