Forgive me if I don't give a rat's hindquarters about the worry, concern, and anxiety caused to illegal immigrants by the fact that ICE is starting to take its mandate to handle immigration matters seriously.

Cook Rosa Maria Salazar's eyes dart anxiously to the door as customers file into the Salvadoran cafe in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles.

"We're terrified. The police could come for us at any time and deport us," she said in Spanish earlier this week as diners fingered maize tortillas stuffed with beans and pork scratchings and chatted softly.

The 55-year-old undocumented worker from Guatemala is among many Hispanics deeply shaken by recent immigration raids at the heart of Latino communities in southern California.

The-seven day Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweep, dubbed "Operation Return to Sender," targeted jails across five counties in the Los Angeles area, where police took 423 of what they called "criminal aliens" into federal custody for deportation, after being held on charges unrelated to their immigration status.

Federal agents from seven teams also fanned out in local communities, where they nabbed 338 undocumented immigrants, more than 150 of whom were classed as "immigration fugitives" -- foreign nationals who ignored final deportation orders.

The raid was the latest in a series of get-tough enforcement measures by ICE in the United States, but the largest action of its kind in California, where more than a third of the population is Hispanic.

"We hadn't seen anything like this here before, and it came as a shock," said Antonio Bernabe, a community worker who runs a day labor program at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

"The police didn't just take people with deportation orders, they took anybody ... guys who were just hanging out in the street and even from a Jack in the Box restaurant ... and now people are afraid to go out," he added.

Fear is precisely what these folks ought to be feeling following the latest round of immigration raids. Indeed, every single border-jumping immigration criminal ought to live in constant terror of deportation. That isn't hatred or bigotry talking -- that is respect for the rule of law.

Indeed, my only objection is that there are at least 12 million more of these folks at large, violating American law with every breath they take on our nation's soil -- and that they are not yet frightened enough to get the hell out of the US in order to re-enter in a legal manner, at which point I will gladly welcome them with open arms.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, Is It Just Me?, Perri Nelson's Website, The Random Yak, Big Dog's Weblog, Right Truth, basil's blog, Stuck On Stupid, The Bullwinkle Blog, Thought Alarm, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Sujet- Celebrities, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, The HILL Chronicles, Woman Honor Thyself, stikNstein... has no mercy, Pirate's Cove, Renaissance Blogger, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, High Desert Wanderer, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 12:56 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 519 words, total size 5 kb.

Call it one more attempt to tighten border security in this age of terrorism -- US citizens returning by air from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean will now need a passport to get back into the country. And starting next January, ANY border crossing will need one -- even just to zip over to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls or go shopping in Juarez or Tijuana. And that requirement applies to children, too -- not just adults.

A United States citizen flying home today from a ski jaunt in Canada, a beach break in Mexico or a honeymoon in Jamaica can flash a driverÂ’s license or a birth certificate at airport customs officials and walk on through.

Tomorrow, those documents will no longer work.

Starting then, United States citizens, including children, returning to this country by air from any country in the Western Hemisphere will have to present a passport.

In another change, citizens of Canada and Bermuda traveling to the United States by air will also have to show passports to enter the country. Previously, they too could use driverÂ’s licenses and birth documents.

* * *

The new measure applies only to air travelers. Officials in the Department of Homeland Security said they expected to roll out the same restrictions for passengers arriving by land and sea by Jan. 1, 2008.

I understand the need for border security, and I support it. Still, I cannot help but wonder about the impact on the tourism industry. And we are still failing to deal with the real border security issue -- the constant flow of border-jumping immigration criminals into this country from Mexico, who simply bypass all border control checkpoints and go to work without documents. I find it rather galling that my government is more interested in making it difficult for me to travel in and out of the country legally than they are to stop the illegal border crossings.

Posted by: Greg at 11:29 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 336 words, total size 2 kb.

From the Border Patrol

The US Customs and Border Protection Office of Congressional Affairs has received several calls asking for more information regarding an incursion by armed individuals last week in Arizona. Below is a summary of the event. Please let me know if you require additional information.

On Wednesday, January 3, 2007, A National Guard Unit manning a observation post near Sasabe, AZ observed several armed men advancing on their location. The men were observed wearing ballistic vests and carrying automatic weapons. The National Guardsmen reported the situation to Border Patrol via handheld radio and satellite phone. One of the subjects approached the observation post and came within 20 yards of the site. Following standard operating procedure, the national Guardsmen slowly retreated to their vehicle and drove approximately 200 yards away from the site. A CBP air asset arrived on scene within minutes and flew over the area assessing the risk. Five Border Patrol ground Agents were on-site within 10 minutes of the initial call. The ground agents and the air asset tracked the subjects back into Mexico. The CBP air asset continued to provide an aerial platform to look for possible threats from the Mexico side of the border. The CBP air asset did not enter Mexican airspace. Nothing was disturbed or taken from the observation post. Contrary to several media reports, the National Guard members were armed at the time of the encounter

Joe Westmoreland
Office of Congressional Affairs
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
202-344-2852

If they are going to retreat, then why do we have the Border Patrol or National Guard there at all?

H/T Lone Star Times

Posted by: Greg at 12:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 286 words, total size 2 kb.

At least in the state of Georgia.

The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld the identity fraud conviction of an illegal immigrant from Mexico who used the name and Social Security number of a Georgia man to get a job at a poultry plant.

In a unanimous decision released Monday, the justices said Georgia's identity theft law is not unconstitutionally vague, nor is it pre-empted by federal law.

The high court found that Nohe Gomes Hernandez ``misappropriated the Social Security number of Jason Smith,'' and that he ``then used this misappropriated number to obtain a Social Security card and a California driver's license in Smith's name'' so he could get a job at a northeast Georgia poultry plant.

Hernandez was sentenced in April to two years in prison after a jury found him guilty of violating the ID theft law.

Hernandez' attorney had argued that Hernandez' actions were not covered by the state law, which was created to keep people from stealing others' personal information and using it to pillage bank accounts or run up credit card bills. The defense contended that Hernandez did not take any money or resources from Smith.

Authorities learned about the case when the real Jason Smith, from Danielsville, Ga., applied for a $600 tax refund, but the Internal Revenue Service said he owed $12,000 in back taxes.

When Smith inquired further, he found that the IRS had him working two jobs, including the Harrison Poultry plant, where he never worked.

More states need to adopt laws modeled on the Georgia statute and begin using it to prosecute the border-jumping immigration criminals in our midst. Hopefully Texas will be one of them.

Posted by: Greg at 10:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 292 words, total size 2 kb.

No, that isn’t my practice when I go fishing – that is the nature of US policy towards illegal immigration according to a new study.

Illegal immigrants who were caught but released in the United States may have been re-arrested as many as six times, Justice Department data released Monday indicates.

The findings by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine are based on a sampling of 100 illegal immigrants arrested by local and state authorities in 2004, the latest complete data available. They show that 73 of the 100 immigrants were arrested, collectively, 429 times — ranging from traffic tickets to weapons and drug charges.

Fine's office said its audit could not conclude precisely how many of the 262,105 illegal immigrants charged with criminal histories that year had been re-arrested. "But if this data is indicative of the full population of 262,105 criminal histories, the rate at which released criminal aliens are re-arrested is extremely high," the audit noted.

Before we do any sort of amnesty, we clearly need to step up the enforcement end of things so that we don’t have releases of individuals with a half-dozen criminal violations.

But then again, maybe I’m wrong – perhaps we need these hard-working criminals to commit the crimes that Americans won’t commit.

Posted by: Greg at 10:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 219 words, total size 2 kb.

No, that isn’t my practice when I go fishing – that is the nature of US policy towards illegal immigration according to a new study.

Illegal immigrants who were caught but released in the United States may have been re-arrested as many as six times, Justice Department data released Monday indicates.

The findings by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine are based on a sampling of 100 illegal immigrants arrested by local and state authorities in 2004, the latest complete data available. They show that 73 of the 100 immigrants were arrested, collectively, 429 times — ranging from traffic tickets to weapons and drug charges.

Fine's office said its audit could not conclude precisely how many of the 262,105 illegal immigrants charged with criminal histories that year had been re-arrested. "But if this data is indicative of the full population of 262,105 criminal histories, the rate at which released criminal aliens are re-arrested is extremely high," the audit noted.

Before we do any sort of amnesty, we clearly need to step up the enforcement end of things so that we donÂ’t have releases of individuals with a half-dozen criminal violations.

But then again, maybe I’m wrong – perhaps we need these hard-working criminals to commit the crimes that Americans won’t commit.

Posted by: Greg at 10:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 226 words, total size 2 kb.

First it was maps and a survival guide -- now it seems that some Mexican authorities are going to provide GPS services to border jumping immigration criminals as they seek to break into the United States in violation of American sovereignty.

Two state government institutions are studying the possibility of giving Mexican migrants GPS locators that could be used to call the U.S. Border Patrol for help.

The locators would be given to migrants who are thinking of crossing the border, and would give U.S. Border Patrol agents the location of those in trouble. The U.S. government has yet to sign off on the project, which is still in the planning stages.

Hundreds of Mexicans are killed each year trying to sneak illegally into the United States. Many are lost or succumb to heat exhaustion in the desert, while others are killed trying to swim across the Rio Grande or hide in vehicles.

Supporters of the initiative argue that it could save hundreds of lives. Among those looking at the possibility is Jesus Torreblanca, who works for Puebla state's Commission for the Attention of Migrants.

"This won't guarantee that they won't be detained by the Border Patrol or face deportation, and it won't keep them from facing risks in the desert," he said today. "It is simply an effort at rescuing people while they are still alive."

He denied that the locators would encourage illegal migration.

"Our main purpose is to show people the enormous dangers they risk in crossing rivers, canals and deserts ... but the phenomenon of immigration is something that can't be stopped overnight," he said.

Mexico's Monterrey Tech University is developing the locators, which would be cheap and easy to carry and activate. They would be handed out for free to migrants.

Torreblanca said the locators might be ready by March.

It was unclear whether the U.S. government would approve such a project. In the past, similar campaigns to help migrants in distress have been criticized by U.S. anti-immigration groups as condoning illegal migration.

"The U.S. government has every right to protect its borders anyway it sees necessary," Torreblanca said. "The only thing that we ask is that they respect human rights."

And all we ask is that you folks in Mexican government respect American sovereignty -- and that you begin by acting to stop the incursions by your citizens into the United States, rather than helping them.

Posted by: Greg at 11:36 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 416 words, total size 3 kb.

Not that we need a fence, a wall, or the full militarization of our nation's southern border or any such thing. After all, it isn't like we take such matters seriously in this country.!

A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.

The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.

The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.

The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.

Not, of course, that the US government would have done a damn thing if the gunmen had decided to stay. After all, they were just here to violate borders Americans are unwilling to violate.

Posted by: Greg at 04:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 201 words, total size 1 kb.