Free Republic

Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Sam Brownback said yesterday he no longer supports the immigration overhaul bill that he helped pass in the Senate. "I would not vote for the same bill," Mr. Brownback told reporters yesterday morning, saying that after the bill passed the Senate he had a chance to study its effects and decided it led to too much immigration. It's a major reversal for a man who is listed as one of seven original sponsors of the bill, along with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, who spearheaded the bill... He said...

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...

SAN DIEGO -- More than one-third of 18,000 people arrested in a nearly yearlong federal crackdown on illegal immigrants were not the people authorities targeted, according to government figures. The so-called "collateral arrests" involved people picked up by immigration agents while seeking fugitives such as drug smugglers, thieves, drunken drivers and others who flouted deportation orders. When tracking down fugitives, authorities visit a suspect's last known address and often find other immigrants, who are then asked to prove they are legally entitled to live in the United States. Supporters of such tactics say the government is just doing its job...

Organizers expect several thousand people at an immigrant rights rally on Saturday, saying many illegal immigrants are angry about a White House plan that would grant them work visas but require them to return home and pay hefty fines to become legal U.S. residents. Immigrant rights advocates say many of the area's illegal immigrants feel betrayed by President Bush, who they had long considered an ally. "People are really upset," said Juan Jose Gutierrez, president of Los Angeles-based Latino Movement USA, one of several organizers of Saturday's rally. "For years, the president spoke in no uncertain terms about supporting immigration...

Family shares dream Scholarship to help students study veterinary science By John Finnerty The Daily Item March 31, 2007 MILTON — Carly Snyder had hoped to pursue a career in animal sciences, but abandoned that dream because she was daunted by the years of higher education required, her mother Alice Snyder said Friday. The 20-year-old Milton woman was an animal lover who had an Appaloosa horse named Tizzy when she was younger. And had owned both a chocolate Labrador retriever and a Rottweiler. Now, almost two years after Ms. Snyder was slain in her home by an illegal alien who...

Velazquez-Nava, 24, had a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit when the crash occurred early Wednesday on Pacific Coast Highway, police said. He is a native of Mexico who federal authorities said was in the U.S. illegally. The crash killed Clark, the director of "A Christmas Story" and the "Porky's" movies, and his son Ariel, 22. Velazquez-Nava suffered minor injuries in the accident.

A Mexican national accused of causing the crash that killed ”A Christmas Story” director Bob Clark and his son will face deportation proceedings once the charges against him are resolved, officials said Thursday. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement put an immigration hold Wednesday on Hector Velazquez-Nava, a 24-year-old illegal immigrant living in Los Angeles, said agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice. The action means Velazquez-Nava will be turned over to federal immigration officials and placed in deportation proceedings once his local case is completed. He was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol and gross vehicular manslaughter, and was...

An illegal alien suspected of causing a traffic accident and killing movie director Bob Clark, whose "A Christmas Story" has come alongside "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Miracle on 34th Street" as a perennial holiday must-watch, has been placed under an immigration hold by federal authorities. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency placed the hold on Hector Velazquez-Nava, 24, a Mexican national who was living in Los Angeles as an illegal immigrant, according to a report from Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee.Agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the hold means Valezquez-Nava, when his Los Angeles court proceedings are...

White House officials have been visiting quietly on Capitol Hill in recent weeks to try to hammer out a compromise on immigration reform that can earn the support of the majority of Republican senators. The White House stepped into the debate earlier this month when negotiations between Sens. John McCain and Edward Kennedy, longtime immigration leaders, collapsed; the two senators were trying to draft a new immigration-reform bill that would be used to kick off debate on the issue this year. ...The White House yesterday floated a PowerPoint presentation, obtained by U.S. News, that shows the outlines of the plan...

On Oct. 1, 2005, illegal alien Francisco Segovia was employed as a traveling repairman for a New York-based video game machine vendor when his job required him to drive to Pennsylvania. Because of his actions during a stop in Northeast Philadelphia, he’ll be staying in Pennsylvania a lot longer whether he likes it or not. Then he’ll probably be sent back to his native Ecuador, according to a city prosecutor. Segovia, 33, was sentenced last Thursday to six to 12 years in state prison for raping a local hitchhiker in his service van after spotting the 20-year-old woman walking along...

More Americans killed by illegal aliens than Iraq war, study says Jim Brown February 22, 2007 Illegal aliens are killing more Americans than the Iraq war, says a new report from Family Security Matters that estimates some 2,158 murders are committed every year by illegal aliens in the U.S. The group says that number is more than 15 percent of all the murders reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. and about three times the representation of illegal aliens in the general population. Mike Cutler, a former senior special agent with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service...

FSM Contributing Editor Michael Cutler asks the incredible question: Who is a bigger threat to our border security, armed thugs or overzealous U.S. Attorneys who prosecute our own law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents?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...

Gustavo Ponce loved burgers from McDonald's. He idolized Brazilian soccer player Ronaldo. The teenager from Costa Mesa would spend hours on the phone with his girlfriend. The 16-year-old student at Estancia High School wasn't the best student, but he never missed his summertime English as a second language classes. He loved his life in Orange County, a place he had called home since he was 12. Like a lot of teens – even with the best intentions – he wasn't entirely truthful when dealing with his employer and confronting authority. Some would call it impulsiveness. Or naiveté. Or dishonesty. His...

LOS ANGELES -- An immigration group agreed to postpone a downtown rally until April 7 to avert a potential confrontation with police, officials said. Before the agreement, Latino Movement USA had wanted to hold its rally this Saturday. But the Police Commission denied a permit because it had already given its OK to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to hold the downtown Golden Dragon Parade. Some activists said their free speech rights were being violated and threatened to go ahead with the rally without a permit. Police warned they would arrest people if a large crowd gathered without city permission....

Bank of America is feeling the heat as a result of the massive fallout on the part of law abidding American customers of their new illegal alien credit card program/scam. This morning, (Thursday February 22, 2007) Fox News ran a lengthy news spot citing damage control that Bank of America put out for mass consumption basically saying: "You know that Illegal Alien" credit card program/deal we've got going? Well, it ain't what it is. Who are you going to believe; us or your lying eyes." The letter was all: "We are performing a legal service and are not breaking any...

SAN LUIS RÍO COLORADO, Mexico: All along the U.S.-Mexican border, there are signs that the measures that the U.S. Border Patrol and other agencies have taken over the past year, from erecting new barriers to posting 6,000 National Guardsmen as armed sentinels, are beginning to slow the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. For 10 years, Eduardo Valenzuela has been crossing the Mexican border near Yuma, Arizona, illegally, trekking over desert scrub and hopping on a freight train to get to his job with a construction company in Phoenix, Arizona. But on a recent afternoon, Valenzuela and four...

Two Border Patrol agents who testified against two co-workers convicted of shooting a drug smuggler will be fired for changing their stories about events surrounding the shooting, according to documents obtained by The Sun's sister newspaper, the Ontario-based Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Sources inside the Border Patrol also say Oscar Juarez, a third agent who testified against Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, resigned from the agency last month shortly before he was to be fired. All three agents gave sworn testimony against Ramos and Compean for the U.S. Attorney's Office, which successfully prosecuted the shooting case...

McALLEN — Now that the Democrats control both houses of Congress, it’s time for them to listen to the people who elected them and enact immigration reform, the organizer of an immigration activist group said Friday. Migrant March II, a caravan that departed San Diego on Feb. 2, arrived in Mission on Thursday and stopped for breakfast with local immigrant and anti-racism groups in McAllen on Friday morning. Last year’s Migrant March covered more terrain, said organizer Enrique Morones, also the founder of the pro-immigrant group Border Angels, because it was about sparking discussion and encouraging people to demonstrate. This...

Western Iowa Congressman Steve King hosted a conversation about illegal immigration this (Monday) morning in Des Moines. King, a Republican from Kiron, brought in the father of a 9/11 victim who's pushing the federal government to crack down on illegal immigration as well as a couple of congressmen who focus on the issue. "We need a national debate on immigration and this is the place to set the groundwork for it here in Iowa and that's what we're attempting to do here today," King told reporters. Iowa's role as the state that hosts the first test of the next presidential...