I mean after all, just because they are charged with drug offenses doesn't mean that they shoud be kicked out of the country, does it -- even if they entered illegally?

The Denver district attorney's office under gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter approved plea bargains that prevented the deportation of illegal and legal immigrants charged with drug, assault and other crimes.

The office allowed defendants to plead guilty to trespassing on agricultural land instead of the crimes they actually were accused of 152 times from 1998 through 2004. Other counties - Jefferson, Adams and Arapahoe - had only 75 convictions combined for the crime, according to court records.

Former Denver District Attorney Norm Early, who was Ritter's predecessor, laughed when he heard about the farm charges in urban Denver.

"I reviewed all my case dispositions, and I never remember that coming up," he said.

A review of 15 of the agricultural trespass cases in Denver showed that heroin and cocaine charges, theft of motor vehicles and domestic violence crimes - miles away from any farm or open land - were transformed into agricultural trespass.

"This plea agreement was reached with the the specific purpose of not pleading guilty to an offense that would subject (the defendant) to deportation proceedings," wrote a defense attorney in a motion filed in a Denver court Oct. 11, 2000.

The defendant, Ernesto Leon Reyes, was a resident alien who was initially charged with five drug counts related to his possession and intention to distribute 2,000 grams of methamphetamine.

If convicted of the drug charge, Reyes could have been deported after serving time. Instead, after pleading guilty to the trespass on agricultural land charge, Reyes received probation and stayed in the United States.

Did you folks get that one -- drug dealers remained in this country because the DA's office didn't want to subject them to the "hardship" of going back where they came from. Sounds like prosecutorial malfeasance to me.

And now Bill Ritter and the Democrats want him to be Governor of Colorado.

Vote Republican in Colorado and the rest of the country for every office -- public safety and America's borders depend on it.

Posted by: Greg at 09:51 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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There was clearly no merit to this suit -- the law is clear that illegal immigrant parents of American citizens have no right to stay in this country simply because they managed to breed while breaking this country's laws. And there is no legitimate counstitutional claim here, either.

A federal judge struck a blow Friday to the hopes of an immigration activist who has taken refuge in a Chicago church to avoid deportation, dismissing her lawsuit against the government.

Elvira Arellano, 31, a Mexican national, had hoped that U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve would rule that deporting her would violate the constitutional rights of her 7-year-old son, Saul, an American citizen.

But St. Eve ruled that no one's rights would be violated by deporting Arellano back to Mexico. She did say, however, the child would suffer a hardship.

"The question before the court is whether that hardship is of constitutional magnitude -- under any construction of the alleged facts, it is not," St. Eve said in her order.

St. Eve concluded that the pending removal order does not prevent Saul from exercising his rights of citizenship.

"Saul will not suffer any injury to his constitutional right to remain in the United States," she said.

Indeed, I'm struck by this observation that the Constitution is not violated just because all options available to a person have negative aspects to them.

"In fact, the injury Saul alleges is not the same as the injury his mother will suffer. Her injury is compelled removal; his is the unenviable fork in the road [i.e., whether to uproot or to live apart from his mother] that arises as a result of his mother's compelled removal," the judge said.

Yes, the boy can stay in the United States -- whether under the guardianship of someone designated by his mother or as a ward of the state. Or Saul's mother may elect to take her son back to Mexico, which in no way impairs his citizenship rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The choice is entirely in the hands of Elvira Arellano.

But then again, this all comes down to choices made by the mother.

Arellano was supposed to surrender for deportation to Mexico on Aug. 15.

Instead, she and her son moved into a cramped room in the storefront church sandwiched between a bank and a beauty parlor in Chicago's heavily Puerto Rican Humboldt Park neighborhood.

She has frequently told reporters visiting the church she wants to stay in the United States to provide a better life for herself and her son.

"I'm not going to leave. This is a place where God has put me, this is God's will and I'm going to stay here," Arellano has said.

Arellano first was deported from the United States shortly after illegally crossing the border in 1997, according to immigration enforcement. She says she returned within days, went on to live in Oregon for three years and moved to Chicago in 2000.

She was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare International Airport, where she was employed as a cleaning woman, and subsequently convicted of working under a false Social Security number.

So you see, this woman has broken American law multiple times, twice sneaking into this country like a thief in the night, working illegally in this country and fraudulently using false documentation. Violating her deportation order and hiding out in a church in an attempt to avoid the workings of American law (gee -- where are the church-state separationists on this one?) Oh, yeah -- and choosing to have a child.

The time has come for a SWAT team to enter the church to arrest Elvira Arellano.

Cuff her.

Stuff her.

Send her back.

Oh, yes -- and indict Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church for harboring a fugitive.

And by the way -- this story presents the best available argument for amending the Constituion to do away with birthright citizenship for the children of border-jumping immigration criminals.

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Posted by: Greg at 09:40 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I know of few who advocate sending local police on immigration raids. On the other hand, many of us do insist that police should check the status of those arrested or cited in traffic stops. This is something that is happening more and more often around the country as police treat immigration violations like other illegal activity.

CHARLOTTE -- Police here operated for years under what amounts to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward illegal immigrants.

As elsewhere in the United States, law enforcement officers did not check the immigration status of people they came into contact with, and in the vast majority of cases, a run-in with the law carried little threat of deportation.

But that accommodation for the burgeoning illegal population ended abruptly in April, when the Mecklenburg County sheriff's office began to enforce immigration law, placing more than 100 people a month into deportation proceedings. Some of them had been charged with violent crimes, others with traffic infractions.

The program takes one of the most aggressive stances in the United States toward illegal immigrants, and officials in scores of communities, including Herndon and Loudoun County, have been considering adopting their own version. The House earlier this month was weighing a measure "reaffirming" the authority of local law enforcement agencies to arrest people on suspicion of violating immigration laws.

Some Latino leaders say the program here is contributing to a discriminatory climate in which Hispanic drivers feel as if they are being "hunted" by police. And some law enforcement agencies elsewhere have shied away from enforcing immigration laws, saying that doing so would rupture any trust they have developed in Latino neighborhoods.

But advocates see it as a way to catch illegal immigrants who slip through porous federal enforcement measures and then run afoul of state or local police.

Perhaps the best way of explaining the goal of the program is found here, in the words of an immigration attorney.

"They're putting the pressure on these people. They're scaring them. People say we can't deport 10 million. But you don't have to. If you deport enough of them, others will go back voluntarily because they don't want to live in these conditions."

You deter behavior by giving it a negative consequence. While there will always be some illegal immigrants, we can deter folks from coming and encourage them to leave by making the conditions a bit more inhospitable.

Police check warrants and records. Checking citizenship is one more legitimate inquiry, given the plague of illegals that have come into this country in recent years. LetÂ’s see more of it.

Posted by: Greg at 12:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I wonder -- would the Houston Chronicle come out in favor of allowing bank robbers to keep any interest they earn or investment income derived from the money they stole?? I doubt it -- they would rightly argue that it is a case of permitting criminals to profit from their crime.

Why, then, should they allow border-jumping immigration criminals to profit from their violations of the law by making their children citizens if they are born in this country? Why should we permit "anchor babies"? I see no reason -- but the Houston Chronicle wants to allow lawbreaking foreigners to profit in this way.

They start by arguing against the scenario that has pregnant women coming north to have babies.

The evidence is anecdotal, but plausible. A growing number of undocumented immigrants, border health officials say, are bearing children in U.S. hospitals. The resulting cost is immense. It's believable, because although immigrant women have fewer children than they did 20 years ago, the number of immigrant women in this country is higher.

That's a far different scenario from the more sensational one peddled by some immigration-control activists. Droves of pregnant Latin American women, they suggest, are marching here across desert, mountain and river expressly to bear American children. Their so-called "anchor babies" ostensibly are part of the parents' plans to reduce their chances of deportation from the United States.

The distinction between these two accounts is an important one. In response to the so-called anchor baby trend, some lawmakers are proposing amending the U.S. Constitution to deny the citizenship now conferred on all infants born in the United States.

I'm willing to accept that argument -- though the statistics in some border counties would appear to confirm the thesis dismissed by the Chronicle.

But that does not logically lead to this conclusion.

A coherent immigration system would effectively police the borders, while creating sane laws for visiting or guest workers. Part of that law should include required payment into a bare-bones insurance pool. Obviously, such insurance would include prenatal and delivery care.

The way to ease the financial anchor around border hospitals' necks is not to kill the hopes of children starting life there. Stripping these infants of their chance to strive, invest and sacrifice on behalf of the land where they're born could cost this society infinitely more than the price of a hospital stay.

Except, of course, that granting citiZenship to such children encourages illegal immigrants to stay, to return after deportation, and allws for eventual line-jumping privileges as family members of US citizens when teh children are older. Let's not give any benefit to those who break our nation's laws by their mere presence int he country -- let's clarify the Constitution to make it crystal clear that the Fourteenth Amendment does not (and, if one considers the legislative history, was never meant to apply) to the children of those who are in the US in violation of our laws.

Posted by: Greg at 10:23 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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LetÂ’s ignore the impact on wages and crime statistics. LetÂ’s just look at the impact at local hospitals.

Rising numbers of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America are streaming into Texas to give birth, straining hospitals and costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, health officials say.

Doctors and health officials say they are overwhelmed by both the new arrivals and those immigrant mothers who already are in the state. Even Houston's feeling the pinch. An estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of the 10,587 births at Ben Taub General Hospital and Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital last year were to undocumented immigrants, administrators say.

Also feeling the strain is Starr County, an already poor South Texas county that has the region's only taxpayer-supported hospital district.

Immigrants "want a U.S.-born baby" and know that emergency room staffers don't collect any money up front, said Dr. Mario Rodriguez, an obstetrician in Starr County.

"The word is out: Come to Starr County and get delivered for free. Why pay $1,000 in Mexico when you can get it for free?" Rodriguez said.

''When we are separated only by the distance of the river, it's easy to do," Starr County hospital administrator Thalia Muñoz said. "It's gotten worse, and it's because the economy in Mexico is not good and because we provide all these benefits."

Yep – you and I, dear taxpayers, are providing “free delivery” for Mexican children who then have all the rights of American citizenship because of their parents’ wrong-doing. And all while we are expected to pay our own medical bills.

What does it cost?

Starr County Memorial Hospital had $3.6 million in uncollected medical bills in 2005, up from $1.5 million in 2002. The total when fiscal 2006 ends on Sept. 30 is expected to hit $3.9 million, chief financial officer Rafael Olivarez said. Unpaid bills for the past five years will reach nearly $13 million, he said.

To make up for the shortfall, Starr County's hospital district is proposing a 25 percent tax hike.

Already, the U.S. government is pitching in, setting aside $1 billion in Medicaid funds to pay for emergency care received by undocumented migrants over the next four years.

But Olivarez said getting the reimbursements isn't easy. Federal officials ''told us at a meeting they would pay us about 20 cents on the dollar," he said. "But it's better than nothing."

And here in Houston, the cost is staggering.

In all, 57,072 patients visited the district's hospitals, clinics and health centers last year, and nearly a fifth were undocumented, Rasp said. The cost of their treatment was $97.3 million, up from $55 million in 2002.

One county spending nearly $100,000,000 care for criminal aliens who violate our laws by their very presence.

It is time to stop.

Ask their status. Refuse them all but life-saving medical care.

Round ‘em up.

Ship ‘em back.

Rawhide!

Posted by: Greg at 10:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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UPDATE: I seem to have used a certain term in this post, a term that I have always understood as referring to immigration status, but which i am now informed is racially/ethnically insensitive. I apologize. I won't change the word on my site, though, because I do not go back and hide my mistakes or bury evidence of my own errors.

After all, they are all just here looking for a better life and honest work. They certainly don't contribute to the crime problem.

Yeah, right.

I'd suggest you ask Officer Rodney Johnson, a 12 year veteran of the Houston police Department. Unfortunately, you can't.

A simple traffic stop — as routine for Rodney Johnson as putting on his uniform or waving to the residents of the southside neighborhoods he often patrolled — turned suddenly tragic Thursday evening when the veteran Houston police officer was shot and killed as he sat in the front seat of his patrol car near Hobby Airport.

When other officers arrived minutes later at the scene in the 9300 block of Randolph, a handcuffed man remained in the back seat of the squad car along with a pistol thought to have been used in the shooting.

Just after 5 p.m., Johnson had stopped a pickup with two people inside. It was unclear why he detained or handcuffed the driver, though an officer familiar with the incident said he had no identification on him. At least one female passenger left, possibly with Johnson's permission, but Police Chief Harold Hurtt said he thought officers had found the woman and were bringing her to headquarters for questioning.

A source familiar with the scene said Johnson was shot four times through the plastic shield separating the front and rear seats. Johnson managed to push his emergency button before collapsing. The 12-year veteran of the department was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A tragedy, beyond all question. Houston mourns for a hero who died in a senseless shooting.

But why the shooting over the traffic stop? Because the shooter was going to face deportation -- again.

[Homicide Capt. Dale] Brown said the suspect did not tell investigators why he fired.

"Nothing definitive ... ," Brown said. "My personal belief is that he was upset about being arrested rather than being written a ticket. And I believe he was upset, because he knew he was going to be discovered as a deported alien, and that he was going to spend several years in a federal prison before being deported."

[Juan Leonardo] Quintero was deported as an illegal felon in 1999, following a charge of indecency with a child, Brown said.

Court records show Quintero was given deferred adjudication in that case. Brown said Quintero's previous criminal record included an arrest for driving while intoxicated, for driving with a suspended license and for failing to stop and give information after an automobile accident.

I guess he hoped that he could get away and avoid being sent back where he came from -- twice -- in violation of American laws. After all, what is the blood of a single American cop when compared to the right of a wetback child molester to stay in the US in violation of American laws?

Houston's ineffective and incompetent Chief of Police, Harold Hurtt, blames the feds for the shooting, and feels that the murder of one of his officers is no reason for Houston cops to start helping to enforce our nation's immigration laws, even though the first thing every wetback does upon entering the United States is to break the law.

After a capital-murder charge was filed against an illegal immigrant in connection with the death of Officer Rodney Johnson, Chief Harold Hurtt firmly defended the Houston Police Department's policy of not enforcing immigration laws.

"If the government would fulfill their responsibility of protecting the border," he told reporters Friday afternoon, "we probably would not be standing here today."

* * *

Hurtt called a provision sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, that would cut federal funding to police departments that did not enforce immigration laws "misguided and wrong" and said the measure would detract officers from dealing with more serious crimes.

I'll agree that the federal government needs to do more, but banning the enforcement of immigration violations by HPD is no more sensible than banning the arrest of those sought for other federal crimes.

I support the Culberson bill.

I support closing the border and fencing it off to keep these immigration criminals out of my country.

And I support the state of Texas quickly sending Juan Leonardo Quintero to Hell, where he belongs -- and billing Mexico for all expenses incurred in trying, housing, and executing him.

And to those of you offended by my use of the word "wetback", might I suggest that you can go set up the "Welcome Home" party for Quintero in his future infernal abode. a murdering, child-molesting border-jumping sumbag like him deserves no respect from any American.

Posted by: Greg at 02:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This is outrageous.

Some parents in Freeport were livid after they said a Velasco Elementary School assembly last week included a requirement that children say the pledge of allegiance to the Mexican flag.

One mother, who has a daughter enrolled at the school, told KTRH News she couldn’t believe a school assembly would include children holding small Mexican flags and reciting a pledge in Spanish. “Where is the sensitivity to the men and women who have fought and died for this country?” the mother asked.

Several parents have complained to the Brazosport Independent School District administration, school officials confirmed, but claims that students were required to recite a pledge to the Mexican flag were simply false, a school spokesman said.

Brazosport District Spokesman Stuart Dornburg said, “A group of parents, who are volunteers, did get up on stage and recite the pledge to the Mexican flag … the students did not recite the pledge.”

If you are so enamored of Mexico, it isnÂ’t all that far. And please make it a one-way trip.

Posted by: Greg at 11:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Even the paper from San Antonio, with its surfeit of illegal immigrants, is willing and able to see why we need something more done to secure the border against border-jumping immigration criminals.

Imagine the folly of passing a law without the mechanism or the will to enforce it. Imagine if there were no penalties, no fines or jail sentences, for crimes like robbery.

People might get the notion that, despite the official ban, it was all right to steal.

This analogy applies to illegal immigration.

In 1986, President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, granting amnesty to almost 3 million people who were in this country illegally.

The legislation, while showing compassion to the immigrants already here, was not intended to create an open border, and to balance the amnesty, lawmakers included several provisions to strengthen the enforcement of immigration laws:

Sanctions for employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants.

Increased border controls.

Programs to verify the immigration status of workers applying for welfare benefits.

Except for sporadic raids of employers who hired illegal immigrants, however, little changed. The immigrants lived in the shadows, but the lack of enforcement emboldened the workers and their employers. And, as a result, the illegal immigration population has swelled to 12 million.

Either we control our borders, or those illegally crossing our borders control us. We must have an immigration bill this year, with sanctions against both employers and border-jumpers.

Posted by: Greg at 10:10 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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And its a damn site better than anything being done by leaders on the state and national level -- especially since Congress has abandoned the issue for this year.

Texas should deploy 10,000 state National Guard troops to the border and issue special worker cards for immigrants, gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman said Wednesday as part of his "Keep It Simple, Stupid Politician" plan.

* * *

Friedman said Texas should immediately deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to the border to reinforce several hundred who are there now.

"We've been waiting for 153 years for Washington to help us with the border. They're not going to do it," he said.

Friedman said he would require immigrants to buy "taxpayer I.D. cards" that would allow them to work legally in Texas, and proposed fines of up to $50,000 against employers who hire illegal immigrants without the card.

Now I don't know that Texas can issue its own immigration documents, but we at least have someone proposing a common sense plan.

For that matter, I suspect Kinky has scored points with some Houstonians with frank words about our other immigration problem -- Katrina evacuees whose presence has lowered our quality of life.

In a Houston campaign appearance, the maverick independent also expressed a dim view of Hurricane Katrina evacuees still in town.

"The musicians and artists have mostly moved back to New Orleans now," he said, according to KHOU (Channel 11). "The crackheads and the thugs have decided to stay here. They want to stay here. I think they got their hustle on, and we need to get ours."

He wants the state to give Houston $100 million for more police officers to deal with a spike in street crime related to the evacuees.

And yes, he does generalize a bit too broadly. But given the spike in crime associated with the low-lifes shipped here from New Orleans, the failure of many of the evacuees to take any part in supporting themselves, and the constant whining for hand-outs from those peole (we've got kids still using their evacuee status as an excuse for not bringing pens and paper to school -- a year after the storm), many Houstonians are ready to load them back onto the buses and send them back across the Louisiana state line.

Posted by: Greg at 10:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After all, if the House and/or Senate go Democrat this year, we will never get an amnesty-free border bill passed and signed.

A final decision on what do about immigration policy awaits a meeting this week of senior Republicans. But key lawmakers and aides who set the Congressional agenda say they now believe it would be politically risky to try to advance an immigration measure that would showcase party divisions and need to be completed in the 19 days Congress is scheduled to meet before breaking for the election.

President Bush had made comprehensive changes in immigration laws a priority, even making the issue the subject of a prime-time address, but House Republicans have been determined not to move ahead with any legislation that could be construed as amnesty for anyone who entered the country illegally. They held hearings around the country in recent weeks to contrast their enforcement-only bill with a Senate measure that could lead to citizenship for some.

“I don’t see how you bridge that divide between us and the Senate,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. “I don’t see it happening. I really don’t.”

Democrats say they are not surprised by the immigration impasse and believe some Republicans would prefer to keep the issue alive to stir conservative voters rather than reach a legislative solution.

This will not please the GOP base -- no matter how good the legislation the GOP leadership is preparing to deal with is.

With Congress reconvening Tuesday after an August break, Republicans in the House and Senate say they will focus on Pentagon and domestic security spending bills, port security legislation and measures that would authorize the administrationÂ’s terror surveillance program and create military tribunals to try terror suspects.

All of that is important -- and all of it should have been dealt with sooner. And the failure to deal with immigration issues because of divisions within the Congress simply means that an issue that resonates with many voters across the political spectrum will never pass in this Congress.

Posted by: Greg at 10:07 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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