Free Republic

Contractors completed 15 miles of a new border wall system in the El Centro Sector of Southern California, Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott announced. Border Patrol agents who work in the sector told Breitbart Texas previously completed sectors reduced crime in the area and made it safer to patrol... “Assaults on Border Patrol agents in the area have dropped 65 percent since Trump built it,” Matzke concluded. “Illegal entries in the area are down 75 percent since Trump built it.” The new border wall system previously completed in Calexico, California, was the first section of replacement wall to be completed,...

New reinforced panels are being used to strengthen the border wall in the Calexico area of California. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers, announced a new panel installation on an 11-mile section of wall within the Border Patrol's San Diego sector on Thursday. The new panels will replace the existing secondary barrier with 30-foot tall steel bollards as well as technology improvements, according to the CBP. CBP says the El Centro and San Diego Sectors have been experiencing high levels of illegal-immigrant traffic. They hope this new addition to the wall will...

EL CENTRO, Calif. (KABC) -- A Marine Corps helicopter based in El Centro crashed on a training mission and all four crew members are believed to have died, officials said.

El Centro, California bills itself as one of Southern California’s “most promising new commercial and industrial regions.” But it had a 20.1 percent unemployment rate in April, by far the highest of the 387 U.S. metropolitan areas surveyed by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. That 20.1 percent unemployment rate is more than four times the national unemployment rate of 5.0 percent (seasonally adjusted). The only other metropolitan area to come close to El Centro’s jobless rate was Yuma, Arizona, where the unemployment rate was 18.7 in April. El Centro and Yuma, both near the Mexican border, are located...

Since October 2011, El Centro [CA] Sector Border Patrol agents have arrested 23 criminal sex offenders illegally in the country, according to a press release. All were apprehended near Calexico and are all males with prior felony convictions for sex offenses such as sexual intercourse with a child, rape and sodomy. Many have extensive criminal histories, and all were presented for prosecution on federal immigration charges. Five of those sex offenders, all Mexican nationals, have been convicted and sentenced for illegally entering the United States after being previously removed. They are Filemon Jaimes-Rios who was given six months jail time...

EL CENTRO, Calif. (AP) -- Spinach grower Jack Vessey sees dollar signs as the little green leaves of his winter crop sprout from the rich, desert soil of the Imperial Valley. But this year, he may struggle to break even if consumers remain wary about eating spinach after an E. coli outbreak killed three people and sickened nearly 200 others nationwide. The contamination was traced to the Salinas Valley -- more than 400 miles to the north of Vessey's fields. Even so, it threatens his bottom line as uncertain demand wreaks havoc with his growing schedule. "Right now, we know...

LOS ANGELES — The protests that drew national attention to the future of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants are relaunching even though sweeping reform legislation has stalled on Capitol Hill. Weeks ago organizers picked Monday for dozens of demonstrations nationwide, a signal that what began as a string of disparate events — attracting tens and even hundreds of thousands of people — has become more coordinated. “We don’t have a leader like Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez, but this is now a national immigrant rights movement,” said Joshua Hoyt, director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee...