Free Republic

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Tuesday urged Congress to adopt a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration laws and challenged critics to offer a better alternative. The Arizona senator criticized his leading rivals, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, when a reporter asked about their opposition to a Senate compromise brokered earlier this month. "Anyone who says we shouldn't pass this legislation, I would ask for their proposal," McCain said. "I have not heard their recommendation." McCain said the U.S. cannot afford to continue allowing an estimated 12 million people to live in...

Drug War: Mexico's battle against drug traffickers is getting dicier by the day. Officials there have asked for U.S. aid, and we should give it to them. But they must be serious about victory. Late last year, Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderon, made an impressive start by tackling drug traffickers as soon as he was sworn in. His boldness was a direct response to Mexican voters, who told IBD on election day that nothing mattered to them more. It wasn't hard to see why. Like a rat infestation, Mexican drug dealers had grown strong in an earlier atmosphere of ineffectual...

With the resignation of Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman, President Bush intends to fill the post with Florida's Mel Martinez, a Hispanic who led the battle in the U.S. Senate for amnesty for illegal aliens. "Martinez is going to lead the fight for amnesty that Bush could not win when Republicans controlled the Congress," one angry RNC member told The Washington Times' Ralph Hallow. Unable to extract an amnesty bill from Denny Hastert and Co. in the House like the McCain-Kennedy bill he supports, Bush is looking to cut a deal with San Francisco Nancy. -snip-

[...] The study [by the National Venture Capital Association trade group], which is set to be hand-delivered to members of Congress this morning , marks the group's first attempt to quantify the contribution of immigrant executives and engineers. It comes at a time when start-ups are clamoring to hire more talented employees from overseas and to boost the cap on the H-1B visas used by companies to hire foreign-born professionals, often from US college campuses. [...] Mark Heesen , president of the venture group, said it launched the study last winter to gain ammunition in its lobbying for immigration reform....

Cornyn: 700 miles of border fence won't happen Senator says plan isn't practical, doesn't have the necessary funds. By Eunice Moscoso WASHINGTON BUREAU Wednesday, October 04, 2006 WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and key liaison to the White House on immigration, said Tuesday that 700 miles of fencing approved by Congress for the United States' southern border will probably not be built because of a lack of money and other practical considerations. "It's one thing to authorize. It's another thing to actually appropriate the money and do it," he said.Cornyn predicted that some fencing would be built...

One City Council member’s idea to limit illegal immigrants in Farmers Branch has prompted a plan by opponents to promote and sell homes in the city to Hispanics - including illegal immigrants. A group of Hispanic and civil rights groups Monday announced Compre Farmers Branch, a consortium of real estate agents, lending institutions and others aimed at helping Hispanics buy homes in Farmers Branch. They’re hoping Hispanics will buy all 157 homes they say are on the market in that city - including the home of City Council member Tim O’Hare. Mr. O’Hare has come under fire by the groups...

Just when it looked like the Senate Republicans had finally gotten the message that the American people in general, and their own supporters in particular, are outraged over amnesty for illegal aliens, some Republican Senators have come up with yet another disguise for amnesty -- and gotten bipartisan support, including Ted Kennedy and John McCain.Under this new plan, its advocates claim, illegal immigrants would "have to leave the country" and re-apply to come back in legally and get on a path toward citizenship. It sounds good but on closer examination it turns out to be a fraud.How long would the...

LOS ANGELES - Former President Bill Clinton praised President Bush on Saturday for supporting reforms that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to seek citizenship but said the debate in Congress is being fomented by Republicans who want to divide America. "I'm proud of him for doing it and I thanked him for doing it," he said of Bush during a "Cafe con Clinton" breakfast speech to the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights advocacy group. Clinton said Bush's roots in Texas — which has one of the nation's largest Hispanic...

Prominent Conservatives and Civic Leaders Urge President Bush and Congress to Back Enforcement First on Immigration Leading conservatives and civic leaders have signed an “open letter” on immigration declaring that “border and interior enforcement must be funded, operational, implemented, and proven successful — and only then can we debate the status of current illegal immigrants, or the need for new guest worker programs.” The signers include William Bennett, Robert Bork, William F Buckley, Ward Connerly, Newt Gingrich, David Horowitz, David Keene, John Leo, Herbert London, Rich Lowry, Daniel Pipes, Phyllis Schlafly, and Thomas Sowell among others. Hudson Senior Fellow John...

SACRAMENTO Democratic lawmakers have given up an attempt to add health care for hundreds of thousands of children, including illegal immigrants, to the state budget bill, removing one obstacle to agreement on the spending plan. But the move still leaves a rift between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers in his own party over children's health care that could further delay a budget. Republican legislators have opposed both the Democrats' health care plan and a more modest proposal by Schwarzenegger to reimburse counties $23 million for 87,000 kids they now cover. The fight over the broader expansion which could cost $300...

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata sounded downright gloomy today as he discussed the fate of four bond issues on the November ballot. Speaking at a Sacramento Press Club lunch, Perata called the defeat of six local transportation bonds and the statewide library bond in this month's primary election "sobering." Other factors working against the bonds, according to Perata: continuing problems in launching stem cell research bonds approved by voters in 2004 and a cluttered November ballot full of spending measures, including a proposal to up cigarette taxes and one on oil. Frustrated voters may just say "no." Perata was...

The House and Senate will soon start hammering out the stark differences between their immigration reform proposals. The Senate bill would put undocumented workers in the United States on a path toward citizenship. But the House version, firmly supported by the Republican leadership, omits such a plan, which many in the GOP call "amnesty." It stresses enforcement. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, introduced the original House bill. As Judiciary Committee chair, he is expected to be the House's lead negotiator on the immigration bill. He spoke with U.S. News about how this is going to be a difficult bargaining...

Mexican authorities have arrested the leader of a wide-reaching organization that allegedly made and distributed forged immigration and identification documents in numerous U.S. cities, U.S. officials said Monday. Pedro Castorena, 42, was arrested Saturday in the western city of Guadalajara while carrying two counterfeit Mexican identification documents that bore his photograph but an assumed name, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, said in a statement. Castorena's arrest "deals a serious blow to one of the largest fraudulent document organizations in the United States," said Julie Myers, the Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs...

Mexican drug cartels operating in cities in the U.S. are buying up legitimate businesses to launder money and using some of the proceeds to win local mayoral and city council seats for politicians who can shape the policies and personnel decisions of their police forces, according to Rep. Tom Tancredo "The Tijuana-based Felix drug cartel and the Juarez-based Fuentes cartel began buying legitimate business in small towns in Los Angeles County in the early 1990s," "They purchased restaurants, used-car lots, auto-body shops and other small businesses. One of their purposes was to use these businesses for money-laundering operations. Once established...

BOYE, Mexico -- Clementina Arellano grew up with her six brothers in a shack in this dusty Mexican hamlet. Now 42, she's raising her sons in a spacious, 10-room mansion with Roman-style pillars at the doorway and a garden full of flowers and singing birds. How did she transform her fortunes so dramatically? By waiting tables and sweating in a furniture factory for about 10 years in Hickory, N.C., and sending home up to $500 a month. A couple of doors down, Berta Olgin, lives under a leaky roof, with skinny sheep gnawing at sparse patches of grass in her...

"ORGAN PIPE CACTUS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Ariz. - Drug smugglers fleeing Mexican police crossed into this desert park and fatally shot a ranger four years ago, prompting That steel-and-concrete wall stops most cars from speeding in from Mexico. But drug and human traffickers have switched to rural entryways into Arizona. Thousands of people now cross on foot. They leave piles of trash, build fires, damage the park's famous cacti and create countless trails through the fragile desert vegetation." "Park workers spend most of their time backing up Border Patrol officers and dealing with border issues. " "But superintendents say the costs...

by Mark Finkelstein June 18, 2006 Cue the violins. AP has produced a two-hanky tear-jerker on illegals afraid of being deported. The headline sets the tone: 'Immigration sweep brings fear to community'. Other mournful morsels from the article by AP writer Elliot Spagat: "Fewer parents are walking their children to school in this border city's Linda Vista neighborhood." "A sense of unease has spread in this community of weather-worn homes." [Nice touch with 'weather-worn'!] "People rarely leave their houses now to go shopping," Osorio, 37, said as she clutched a bottle of laundry detergent in a barren courtyard. 'They walk...

As we all know there is a green card, which confers resident alien status, making the holder employable, without any time limit. It is silent on citizenship, so a sizeable number, though not all, of green card holders have gotten in line for citizenship. What if there were a Red Card, a high tech card that has a randomly assigned character ID number including letters to minimize the chances of falsification, has the holder's photo and personal data displayed, and accesses a federal database that contains his fingerprints and maybe later a retina scan. Illegals who have been in the...

Minutemen Condemn Congressman Pence's Amnesty Proposal Sierra Times PHOENIX, AZ (June 15, 2006) – Chris Simcox, President of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (“MCDC”), released the following statement in response to the reported “endorsement” by the Minutemen of Rep. Mike Pence’s so-called “compromise” amnesty proposal: “The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps in no way, shape, manner or form endorses Rep. Mike Pence’s current amnesty proposal in the U.S. House of Representatives. “The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and its leadership represent the U.S. citizen volunteers who from their first operations in Tombstone AZ five long years ago, have stood vigilant mission after...

At $6.5 million per year, a Medicaid program that pays for prenatal care for immigrant women is costing the state more than five times what officials predicted two years ago. The unexpected higher cost stems from Medicaid officials underestimating the number of women who would qualify and failing to factor in the cost of prescription drugs and hospital stays after deliveries. "I can't imagine the department missing the target so far on cost," said state Rep. Jay Bradford, D-White Hall. "And I'll have to follow up with them on that as chairman" of the Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee....