It seems that American pedophiles are traveling to Mexico in search of victims.

On a sweltering afternoon in this glitzy tourist resort, Alex Fernandez laughed and joked with a group of his fellow homeless teenagers until the subject of prostitution came up. Then his smile disappeared, and the face of the skinny 14-year-old turned to a cold, unblinking stare as he described how grown men, sometimes Mexicans and sometimes foreign tourists, regularly take him to hotels and pay to have sex with him.

"Yes, they buy me. The business gets me food. It gets me clothes," said Fernandez, sitting in the shade of a basketball stand to escape the blazing sun. "No one else helps me. What do you want me to do?"

Despite a concerted effort to crack down on pedophiles in both Mexico and the United States, child prostitution continues unabated in Mexican tourist resorts such as Acapulco and Cancun as well as border cities such as Ciudad Juarez. Investigators estimate the number of Mexican children who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation — including prostitution, pornography and human trafficking — has increased to 20,000 from 16,000 in the past five years. Many of those who pay for sex with the boys and girls are American, Canadian and European tourists.

What's more, this child sex trade is also being brought north. We've had several arrests here in Texas in recent weeks related to children being smuggled from Mexico to become prostitutes.

Posted by: Greg at 01:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sorry, Mr. Khan, but you are simply too soft on illegal immigration for my taste.

About 40 protesters, including Republican City Councilman M.J. Khan, appeared in front of City Hall on Tuesday to oppose a resolution that would require Houston police to enforce immigration law.

City Councilman Mark Ellis has introduced the resolution, which is not expected to get support from a council majority. Critics led by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now gathered for a protest before the second public hearing on the proposal.

Khan made it clear he strongly opposes illegal immigration. But he said it is the responsibility of specially trained federal officials to check for valid visas and passports.

Asking Houston Police Department officers to enforce immigration law would invite racial profiling, Khan said.

"Chances are, someone with broken English who looks like me is going to get detained," said Khan, a native of Pakistan and a naturalized U.S. citizen.

City offices are officially nonpartisan, but Khan is widely known to be one of the council's eight Republicans. Ellis has said Khan and Shelley Sekula-Gibbs are the only Republicans who haven't supported his proposal.

Yeah, you are right – it is likely that folks who look like you with poor language skills are going to be detained. Unfortunately, such individuals are more likely to be in this country illegally. But the measure in question is not going to require HPD to go around conducting immigration raids – it will simply be a citizenship check in conjunction with other law enforcement contacts, doing away with the de facto sanctuary policy that has been in effect for years in Houston. It is much more probable that someone who looks like you – broken English or not – will not ever be asked about their citizenship at all.

Oh, and Shelley – don’t expect me to be offering you any support when you seek higher office after the end of your term-limited service on City Council unless you get behind this proposal NOW.

Posted by: Greg at 02:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sorry, Mr. Khan, but you are simply too soft on illegal immigration for my taste.

About 40 protesters, including Republican City Councilman M.J. Khan, appeared in front of City Hall on Tuesday to oppose a resolution that would require Houston police to enforce immigration law.

City Councilman Mark Ellis has introduced the resolution, which is not expected to get support from a council majority. Critics led by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now gathered for a protest before the second public hearing on the proposal.

Khan made it clear he strongly opposes illegal immigration. But he said it is the responsibility of specially trained federal officials to check for valid visas and passports.

Asking Houston Police Department officers to enforce immigration law would invite racial profiling, Khan said.

"Chances are, someone with broken English who looks like me is going to get detained," said Khan, a native of Pakistan and a naturalized U.S. citizen.

City offices are officially nonpartisan, but Khan is widely known to be one of the council's eight Republicans. Ellis has said Khan and Shelley Sekula-Gibbs are the only Republicans who haven't supported his proposal.

Yeah, you are right – it is likely that folks who look like you with poor language skills are going to be detained. Unfortunately, such individuals are more likely to be in this country illegally. But the measure in question is not going to require HPD to go around conducting immigration raids – it will simply be a citizenship check in conjunction with other law enforcement contacts, doing away with the de facto sanctuary policy that has been in effect for years in Houston. It is much more probable that someone who looks like you – broken English or not – will not ever be asked about their citizenship at all.

Oh, and Shelley – don’t expect me to be offering you any support when you seek higher office after the end of your term-limited service on City Council unless you get behind this proposal NOW.

Posted by: Greg at 02:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yes, most are here to work and get ahead – fulfilling the American Dream. But the failure of government to effectively deal with border security issues allows for an influx of criminals who are neither tracked nor traced – and who are allowed to prey on citizens again and again.

Take this case.

The average North Carolina resident probably assumes that local, state and federal governments are better coordinated to fight terrorism today than they were before the Sept. 11 attacks four years ago.

But the case of Gilberto Cruz Hernandez -- illegal Mexican immigrant accused in a series of rapes -- suggests otherwise.

On his third try at illegal immigration, the 24-year-old Hernandez hit the jackpot in the Piedmont Triad, settling with unnerving ease into the mundane fabric of everyday life.

He landed a job at a Greensboro printing company and earned $44,000 a year.

Last year, the same federal government that twice deported him put its financial might behind a $123,000 Federal Housing Administration loan that allowed him to buy a brand-new house in Winston-Salem.

Although he was ticketed 11 times for speeding and other driving infractions by the Highway Patrol and police in High Point and Winston-Salem, none of the traffic stops resulted in his detention as an illegal immigrant, a prior deportee or a potential threat to public safety.

That's true even though at least one of his stops in High Point occurred after police officers suspected they'd interrupted a crime in progress when Hernandez pulled out of a closed car sales lot one night in December 2000.

Neighbors in two cities say he didn't arouse their suspicions. Officials at the company that sold him a home in Winston-Salem say it wasn't their job to check his immigration status.

His employer says Hernandez's documentation checked out "absolutely fine," although -- in hindsight -- some might have been forged.

Oh, yeah – the cops missed one other thing.

Police now contend that Hernandez's seemingly nondescript facade hid a night burglar, a masked man with a Spanish accent who terrorized women in Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem in a series of eight sexual assaults between May 2004 and Feb. 22, 2005.

Today, Hernandez is in the Forsyth County jail awaiting trial in Forsyth and Guilford counties. Federal immigration authorities also have issued a detainer on him, meaning they want to deport him again once he is either acquitted of the state charges or is convicted and serves prison time.

So only now, after ignoring his immigration crimes and aiding him in setting up a new life, the government wants to deport this sex predator.

The only thing is, what will keep him from returning to the country for a fourth time?

Posted by: Greg at 12:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yes, most are here to work and get ahead – fulfilling the American Dream. But the failure of government to effectively deal with border security issues allows for an influx of criminals who are neither tracked nor traced – and who are allowed to prey on citizens again and again.

Take this case.

The average North Carolina resident probably assumes that local, state and federal governments are better coordinated to fight terrorism today than they were before the Sept. 11 attacks four years ago.

But the case of Gilberto Cruz Hernandez -- illegal Mexican immigrant accused in a series of rapes -- suggests otherwise.

On his third try at illegal immigration, the 24-year-old Hernandez hit the jackpot in the Piedmont Triad, settling with unnerving ease into the mundane fabric of everyday life.

He landed a job at a Greensboro printing company and earned $44,000 a year.

Last year, the same federal government that twice deported him put its financial might behind a $123,000 Federal Housing Administration loan that allowed him to buy a brand-new house in Winston-Salem.

Although he was ticketed 11 times for speeding and other driving infractions by the Highway Patrol and police in High Point and Winston-Salem, none of the traffic stops resulted in his detention as an illegal immigrant, a prior deportee or a potential threat to public safety.

That's true even though at least one of his stops in High Point occurred after police officers suspected they'd interrupted a crime in progress when Hernandez pulled out of a closed car sales lot one night in December 2000.

Neighbors in two cities say he didn't arouse their suspicions. Officials at the company that sold him a home in Winston-Salem say it wasn't their job to check his immigration status.

His employer says Hernandez's documentation checked out "absolutely fine," although -- in hindsight -- some might have been forged.

Oh, yeah – the cops missed one other thing.

Police now contend that Hernandez's seemingly nondescript facade hid a night burglar, a masked man with a Spanish accent who terrorized women in Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem in a series of eight sexual assaults between May 2004 and Feb. 22, 2005.

Today, Hernandez is in the Forsyth County jail awaiting trial in Forsyth and Guilford counties. Federal immigration authorities also have issued a detainer on him, meaning they want to deport him again once he is either acquitted of the state charges or is convicted and serves prison time.

So only now, after ignoring his immigration crimes and aiding him in setting up a new life, the government wants to deport this sex predator.

The only thing is, what will keep him from returning to the country for a fourth time?

Posted by: Greg at 12:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I live in Harris County, Texas, just outside of Houston. I work for a local school district, and pay property and sales taxes. I also pay a fair amount of cash each month for my district's healt insurance.

Imagine my anger when I came across this bit of information in a Houston Chronicle article on the difficulties faced by illegal immigrants who are in this country in violation of our laws. Look at the medical benefits they get!

For herself, Francisco, Ivonne and Gabriela, the family relies on the Harris County Hospital District's Gold Card for medical needs.

For every office visit they pay $5 and every emergency room visit $25.

It takes them awhile to get an appointment, but they are nevertheless grateful to at least have that.

It costs my wife and I $25 to see our general practitioner, and $45 to see a specialist. It costs us 30% of the ER charges if there is an emergency. And I have to wait for appointments, too. I'm willing to suspect that they pay less for prescriptions than we do, too.

Now tell me, is there somethign wrong with me for being outraged by the fact that a family of border-jumping immigration criminals has better and cheaper health care than I do -- especially since I pay for both mine and theirs?

Posted by: Greg at 01:10 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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