Free Republic

Since giving up his leadership post in March, former state Sen. President Kevin de León has been allowed to keep at least one perk — an armed driver and car at his beck and call. All on the state’s dime.

“At a time when President Trump and the federal government are waging a war on our immigrant communities, New York stands firm in our belief that our diversity is our greatest strength. While President Trump engages in politics that rip children out of the arms of their mothers and tries to ramp up the deportation of New Yorkers to advance his political agenda of hate and division, we will protect our immigrant communities,” Cuomo said, according to ABC News. Said ex-criminals have allegedly led crime-free lives over the last seven years, at a minimum, which was the base requirement of...

(Reuters) - A federal judge said on Friday the U.S. government had made “very promising” progress toward reuniting some 2,500 immigrant children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration. {snip} Nearly 850 parents had been interviewed and cleared for reunification as of Thursday and another 229 parents had been deemed ineligible because of criminal records, or because they “waived” reunification or for other reasons, the report said. The rest are pending review. More than 850 parents are facing final deportation orders, government lawyers told the court on Friday.

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent U.S. President Donald Trump a letter calling for a swift conclusion to NAFTA negotiations and pledging his wish to reset relations between the two countries, Mexican officials said on Sunday. Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent U.S. President Donald Trump a letter urging a swift end to NAFTA negotiations and suggesting the leaders could work well together due to their shared anti-establishment style, Mexican officials said on Sunday. The letter was delivered during a recent meeting in Mexico with senior U.S. officials, and details were disclosed once Trump had received it, said...

President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Sunday released a seven-page letter he sent to U.S. President Donald Trump detailing how he plans to improve Mexico's economy and security when he takes office in December so that Mexicans do not feel the need to migrate. "There will be many changes," he promised in the letter. "And in this new atmosphere of progress with well-being, I'm sure we can reach agreements to confront together the migration phenomenon as well as the problem of border insecurity." Lopez Obrador also suggested the two countries draft a development plan backed by public funds and invite...

Florida Congressman Carlos Curbelo is getting ready to introduce a bill repealing the gas tax in exchange for a carbon tax. It seems rather odd the Miami Republican wants to chart this path, especially after the House GOP overwhelmingly denounced the notion of a carbon tax last week, but Curbelo isn’t backing down from his proposal. He told Miami Herald his proposal is just a “first step” in the discussion. When you ask this question in a vacuum, is any tax detrimental to economic growth? It’s usually going to be yes…But when you put it in context and you...

Immigrant families detained in an Oregon prison for illegal entry by the Department of Homeland Security have been given meals that violate their religious beliefs while enduring brutal conditions, according to a court filing. The Associated Press reports that William Teesdale, the chief investigator for the federal public defender’s office in Oregon, wrote in a court filing Friday that more than 100 detainees at a federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon, are subject to strip searches in front of other inmates, overcrowded cells, and poor heating with little clothing to wear. Some of the detainees are from India, Nepal, Guatemala, Mexico...

To their credit, the WaPo’s editors begin by admitting that we do, in fact, have a refugee crisis on our hands. They go one step further, admitting that the Obama administration was “flummoxed” by the unending flow of families and unaccompanied children trying to flee Central and South America and enter the United States, particularly in 2014. But they are dismissive of the one solution being put forward by the Trump administration which might actually make a difference. We’ve had a “safe third country” agreement with Canada since 2004. Under that plan, migrants are to apply for asylum in the...

The Trump administration this week cheered a new House bill to spend $5 billion on a Southern border wall, but its passage is highly unlikely because Senate Republicans are already prepared to cut that number by more than two-thirds. The fiscal year 2019 House Homeland Security Appropriations spending bill would give a major boost to border wall funding. Beyond the billions of dollars in funding for 200 miles of "new physical barrier construction" along the U.S.-Mexico border, it would also provide funding for improvements aimed at achieving “100 percent scanning” of the border within five years. The measure will soon...

Full title: ICE Just Arrested Dozens of Illegal Aliens in a Sanctuary City, the Majority Have Serious Criminal Records Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency many Democrats want to abolish, recently conducted a raid in Newark, New Jersey and arrested dozens of illegal aliens. The overwhelming majority have serious criminal records. ICE targeted Illegal aliens who had been incarcerated in the Middlesex County Jail and released into the community by local law enforcement without notice to federal immigration officials. The aliens arrested had ICE detainers that were not honored. Newark is a "sanctuary city." "Of those arrested, 16 subjects had...

We all knew this feigned outrage over separating families had nothing to do with separating families, but with ensuring a steady flow of poor and dangerous elements into our country to be released into our communities and never heard from again. Now we have the proof. After the Trump administration marshalled all its security resources away from our border priorities in order to reunite the families, district Judge Dana Sabraw has now placed a halt on their deportations, even as unified family units... Sabraw, a George W. Bush appointee, is the same judge who legislated from the bench that the...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Monday that Mexico had been more successful than Russia in influencing U.S. elections by "packing" the American electorate with its own people. Carlson said Russia has, in fact, sought to meddle in U.S. affairs. But other countries, like Mexico, had been more successful in doing so, he said. "I don't think Russia is our close friend or anything like that," Carlson said. "I think of course they try to interfere in our affairs. They have for a long time. Many countries do. Some more successfully than Russia, like Mexico, which is routinely interfering in...

Just how laughably pathetic do the leftwing Democrats who loudly introduced a bill to abolish ICE appear after they now have to backtrack in embarrassment to oppose it since Republicans agreed to bring it to the floor of the House for a vote? So pathetic that even the leftist website Vox is mocking the Democrats for putting themselves in such a bind as to look completely foolish.  This mockery of the 'Abolish ICE' Democrats by Ella Nilson and Tara Golshan appears in the July 13 Vox as Democrats aren’t ready to actually vote for an “Abolish ICE” bill. The subtitle summarizes...

A man on the run was identified Monday evening by authorities as being responsible for a week-long crime spree that includes a shooting, a home invasion and that has so far left three people fatally shot in the Houston area. That suspect is Jose Gilberto Rodriguez, 46, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said at a press conference. He is a 5'7", 135 lb. Hispanic man who should be considered "armed and dangerous," Acevedo said. At the press conference,Gonzalez was asked if Rodriguez is now considered a serial killer. He said yes.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he would cancel the planned purchase of eight military helicopters from the United States as part of cost-cutting measures.Lopez Obrador, who handily won this month’s presidential election on pledges to fight corruption and cut government waste, said there had been plans to pay 26 billion pesos ($1.36 billion) for the helicopters to be used by Mexico’s navy. “This purchase is going to be canceled because we can not make this expenditure,” Lopez Obrador told reporters on Wednesday after meeting with incoming legislators from his MORENA party. Lopez Obrador is...

There will be no more internal spying on opposition politicians, incoming president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Saturday, recalling that he was tailed for years by federally-employed spies. There will be no more Center for Investigation and National Security (Cisen) either, following its dissolution as part of the new government’s austerity measures. The newly-appointed public security secretary, Alfonso Durazo Montaño, announced the move on Saturday. “Cisen disappears because it has been discredited due to the political use that was made of it,” Durazo said. The incoming secretary said a new organization, the National Intelligence Agency, will replace it. López...

OWENS CROSS ROADS, Ala. - An Alabama 13-year-old found dead in a wooded area last month was beheaded after she saw two men stab her grandmother to death, an investigator testified Thursday. The grisly details of Mariah Lopez’s slaying came out during the preliminary hearing of Yoni Martinez Aguilar, AL.com reported. Aguilar, 26, and Israel Gonzalez Palomino, 34, are each charged with two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Lopez and her 49-year-old grandmother and legal guardian, Oralia Mendoza. Palomino is also charged with possession of methamphetamine. Members of the middle schooler’s family wept as Investigator Stacy Rutherford...

The man arrested and accused of using a chainsaw to attack his wife had been removed from the U.S. 11 times since 2005, immigration officials confirmed Friday. Alejandro Alvarez Villegas, 32, was arrested in Chula Vista, California on allegations he tried to kill his wife with a chainsaw in front of their three children at the couple's home in Whittier. "Department of Homeland Security databases indicate Mr. Alvarez-Villegas is a serial immigration violator who has been removed from the United States 11 times since 2005," a spokesperson for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said. ... Alvarez was found...

KERN COUNTY, Calif. – A convicted child molester was killed by another inmate less than a week after arriving at a California prison, officials said. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said it received Agustin Duran at the Wasco State Prison, about 30 miles northwest of Bakersfield, on July 2. The 66-year-old was sentenced to serve 55 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole after being convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old in Los Angeles County, according to the agency. On July 7, at around 7:20 p.m., 19-year-old Andres...

Actual title: Democratic Congressmen Accuse Paul Ryan Of Political Stunt For Calling For Vote On THEIR ‘Abolish ICE’ Bill — Say They’ll Vote No Three Democratic congressmen declared on Thursday that they will vote “no” on their own legislation if House Speaker Paul Ryan puts their bill on the floor. Reps. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Adriano Espaillat of New York introduced the Establishing a Humane Immigration Enforcement Act earlier Thursday, which would abolish ICE within one year of enactment, and also assemble a commission tasked with setting up a new immigration enforcement agency. .... The...