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03-31-20088
Drug cartels operate
training camps near Texas border just inside Mexico
05:01 PM CDT on Saturday,
March 29, 2008
By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com
CAMARGO,
Mexico – The ranch near this border community is isolated, desolate and
laced by arroyos – an ideal place, experts say, for training drug cartel
assassins.
Mexican
drug cartels have conducted military-style training camps in at least
six such locations in northern Tamaulipas and Nuevo León states, some
within a few miles of the Texas border, according to U.S. and Mexican
authorities and the printed testimony of five protected witnesses who
were trained in the camps.
Also Online
Cartel training camps copy pattern set by international terrorists
The camps near the
Texas border
and at other locations in Mexico are used to train cartel recruits –
ranging from Mexican army deserters to American teenagers – who then
carry out killings and other cartel assignments on both sides of the
border, authorities say.
"Traffickers go to great lengths to
......................................
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/033008dninttrainingcamps.1836949.html
House panel asks congressional budget
office to score immigration bill
By Fawn Johnson, CongressDaily
The House
Judiciary Committee has asked the Congressional Budget Office to assess
the cost of an immigration enforcement bill sponsored by Rep. Heath
Shuler, D-N.C., which will likely place a hefty pay/go barrier in its
path to the House floor. House Republicans are attempting to force the
bill to the floor through a discharge petition, but they are more than
30 signatures short of the 218 needed. The bill would require at least a
tenfold expansion of a voluntary electronic system by mandating that all
employers verify their employees' work authorization within four years.
Critics of
the voluntary program, called E-verify, say the databases used by the
Homeland Security Department and the Social Security Administration are
rife with errors and predict the system would crash if employers were to
ask for verification for the nation's workforce. "There's no precedent
for building a system this large," said CATO Institute Director of
Immigration Policy Jim Harper, who estimates that such a system would
have to process at least 11,000 employees a day to keep up with new
hires. Shuler's bill would devote new government resources to costly
border patrol activities, including additional personnel and equipment.
Because it contains no revenue-raising provisions such as visa fees, the
money for those expansions would need to come from general funds.
Judiciary
Immigration Subcommittee ranking member Lamar Smith, R-Texas, has signed
the discharge petition on Shuler's bill and said E-verify was a good
idea. He said employers who dislike E-verify are the same ones who
complained about the current system of collecting new hires' documents
that may or may not be valid. E-verify changes that. "No one can say it
doesn't work. ... It really doesn't take very much time," Smith said.
"Here's a chance to do it right, and suddenly, it's inconvenient..."
SSA's lack
of resources and its database errors also has become a major focus for
employers hoping to stop Homeland Security from issuing a rule requiring
them to fire any workers who cannot resolve mismatches between their
names and Social Security numbers. Earlier this week, Homeland Security
re-issued the "no-match" rule that was stayed by a court last fall.
Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., is
hoping the court will continue barring implementation of the new rule,
but an aide said she is prepared to step in with legislation to halt the
rule if the court lifts its injunction.
Full story:
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=39639&dcn=e_gvet
No
Coyote Needed
U.S. Visas Still an Easy Ticket in Developing Countries
By
David Seminara
David Seminara was a tenured member of the
U.S. Foreign Service from 2002-2007. He served as a consular officer in
Skopje, Macedonia, from 2002-2004; Port of Spain, Trinidad, from 2004-5;
and Budapest, Hungary, from 2006-7. He can be reached atreached at
Dave.Seminara@gmail.com
Introduction
Mention the words “illegal immigrant” and most Americans conjure up
images of desperate migrants sneaking across the Mexican border. There
is another side to
America’s immigration problem, however, that most know very little about
— those who come with valid, temporary visas and do not return home.
According to a 2006 Pew Hispanic Center
study,1 nearly half of the 12 million-plus illegal aliens in
America
arrived legally with temporary, non-immigrant visas. The Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that a “substantial” percentage
of America’s illegal population is made up of visa overstays — their
estimates range from 27 to 57 percent.The Government Accountability
Office (GAO) noted in a 2004 report2
on visa overstays that DHS may be significantly underestimating the
magnitude of the visa overstay problem — noting that the DHS study only
quantified the number of visa overstays in the illegal population —
whereas many who overstay visas are later able to legalize their status.
A DHS survey of 1,000 legal permanent residents (green card holders)
revealed that 30 percent had previously been illegal and that 31 percent
of that group had overstayed non-immigrant visas.
These statistics drive home the point that huge numbers of foreign
nationals are succeeding in convincing American consular officers
that they are bona fide tourists, when in fact they are intending
immigrants. Despite the importance of visas to our immigration problem,
all of the major American presidential candidates still frame the
illegal immigration crisis solely in the context of securing the border
with Mexico, and no candidate has mentioned the
need
to tighten our visa regulations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/nyregion/26prints.html
March 26, 2008
10
Prints Are Better Than 2, Homeland Security Says
By
ANTHONY RAMIREZ
Under the
stern gaze of passport officials and the even sterner gaze of television
cameras, the two British citizens, fresh off a morning flight from
London on Tuesday, passed through customs at Kennedy International
Airport separately and came to separate conclusions.
Both pressed
one thumb, then the other fingers on the glowing screen of a small white
box. Then the process was repeated for the other hand.
It was a new
customs requirement, a 21st-century way of recording fingerprints. A
little less than a minute later, both were cleared.
“It was
nice and simple and makes sense to me,” said David Hughes, 45, a
beverage consultant living in
London, “although I think the fingerprint
lady was a little overawed by all the cameras.”
Edward Docx, 35, a London-based novelist
here on book tour, disagreed. “What would
Mark Twain
or
F. Scott Fitzgerald say about this?” he asked. “I would think they would say, ‘No Thanks.’ ”
03-26-2008
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120649157469864165.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
International Law and Order
March 26, 2008 - Page A14
Everyone waxing outraged about the big Medellín decision yesterday is
focusing on the death penalty, but the Supreme Court did something else
entirely: It insulated American law from the international
variety. And this modest and limited ruling should help restore
those two qualities to U.S.
courts, which is no doubt one of the reasons the
Roberts Court's political opponents are so
livid.
. . .
Though the case became a global cause célèbre, its sordid origins trace
to 1993, when José Medellín, a Mexican national, murdered two
Houston
teenagers. He was sentenced to death by a Texas
jury, but his lawyers argued on appeal that he hadn't had access to
Mexico's consulate before he confessed to
his crimes...
03-25-2008
ATTENTION
ACTIVISTS:
Last week we reported that
— The House Mexican American Legislative Caucus is insisting the State
Board of Education include Hispanics in the writing of a new English
language arts and reading curriculum for Texas.
There is a hearing in Austin on
March 26th in which public testimony will be taken. If
anyone is interested in attending, please respond to 214-261-5373. It
will be held in the William B. Travis Bldg at
1:00 p.m.
which is located 3 blocks N. of the Capital between 18th and
19th streets. The problem with this is that the process has
been going on for THREE YEARS and to come in at the last minute and
demand to be apart of it is inappropriate. If you cannot attend, please
contact your State Bd. Of Education member and let them know how you
feel.
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/members.html
This is a paraphrased excerpt from Representative Pete Sessions
Weekly Newsletter , March 17- March 21-
“This Congress I have cosponsored the Secure America with
Verification and Enforcement Act (SAVE Act, H.R. 4088), a bipartisan
enforcement-first immigration reform and border security proposal
introduced by Congressman Heath Shuler (D-NC). With 147 co-sponsors, the
SAVE Act has garnered support from members of both parties and from
regions across our nation.
The highlights are: Border Security- The SAVE Act calls for
strengthening border security by increasing Border Patrol Agents by
8,000 over the next four years: 6400 to the Southern Border and 1600 to
the Northern Border…Worker Verification – H. R. 4088 expands
the E-verify program by requiring all businesses to comply within
four years of the bill’s enactment…..Interior Enforcement –
The legislation increases the number of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents and Criminal Alien Program (CAP) officers,
ultimately facilitating a greater number of deportations. It also
funds additional bed space in detention facilities and identifies the
need to address the inadequate number of federal judges in certain areas
.
http://www.bibdaily.com/
March 21, 2008
Department of Homeland Security’s No-Match Program Shifts Burden to
Nation’s Employers
800,000 Employers to Receive Notices for SSN & I-9 Discrepancies
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080321005234pected
AUSTIN,
Texas--(BUSINESS
WIRE)--Today’s
announcement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) calls for the
nation’s employers to police for undocumented workers and moves
employers to the forefront of the debate on illegal immigration. Under
the new regulations, DHS will use the Social Security Administration’s (SSA)
No-Match Letter program to drive employers to resolve social security
number (SSN) and W-2 discrepancies or face criminal and civil
proceedings.
PREMEDITATED MERGER
Mexican truck drivers take English exam in Spanish
DOT chief's admission to Senate panel
By Jerome R. Corsi - 2008 WorldNetDaily
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=58843
Mexican truck
drivers allowed to travel throughout the
U.S.
under a Bush administration demonstration project may not be proficient
in English, despite
Department of Transportation
assurances to the contrary. A
brochure on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration's website
instructs Mexican truck drivers, "Did you know … You MUST be able to
read and speak English to
drive trucks
in the United States."
Still, at the
Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing Tuesday, Secretary of
Transportation
Mary Peters and DOT Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III reluctantly
admitted under intense questioning from Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.,
that Mexican drivers were being designated at the border as "proficient
in English" even though they could explain
U.S.
traffic signs only in Spanish.
In the tense
hearing, Dorgan accused Peters of being "arrogant" and in reckless
disregard of a congressional vote to stop the Mexican
trucking
demonstration project by taking away funds to continue the project.
Toward the end, the
senator
asked if it were true Mexican truckers could explain
U.S.
traffic signs only in Spanish when given English proficiency tests at
the border.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=58843radicts
administration's assurances
Posted:
March 14, 2008
03-12-2008
Notice of Meeting - Thursday - March 13, 2008 AT 7:00p.m.
Farmers Branch Recreation Center, Pecan Room. 14050 Heartside Place,
Dallas, Texas 75234. Mapsco 13K
Speaker: Nuria T. Prendes, Dallas Field Office Director from ICE.
You won't want to miss this!
* * * *
Please plan on renewing your membership or becoming a CFIR member at
this meeting.
________________________________________
NEWLY INTRODUCED SENATE IMMIGRATION BILLS
http://www.cfirusa.org/federal-legislation.htm
________________________________________
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/214488/ccaa610c20/77000753/ddcf134f09/
Local control is alive and well in Texas.
How to Fight the Trans-Texas Corridor Workshop
Monday, March 17, 2008
Lufkin Pitser Garrison Civic Center
Lufkin, Texas
9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
If you can, please read "The Creation of the Eastern Central Texas
Sub-Regional Planning Commission "- the latest paper by Fred Grant. Very
enlightening - not many know about this.
________________________________________
Illegal immigrants slip as hot voter issue | Chron.com - Houston ...
Once billed as the hot-button issue for the 2008 presidential race,
pollsters and pundits expect illegal immigration to fade from the
spotlight heading into ...
www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5605684.html
03-08-2008
First, Chertoff says
we are building the fence, then the GAO says it is not working and now
Bush says we are "going ahead".
U.S. to start using virtual border fence this year
Officials say glitches with
cameras, sensors have been addressed
09:01 AM CST on Friday,
March 7, 2008 McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration outlined
plans on Thursday to begin operating portions of a high-tech "virtual
fence" along the Southwest border later this year and disputed news
reports that a 28-mile pilot project to test the technology was largely
a failure.
Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas
protested the border fence on Saturday with a sign that read 'Tough
against the wall.' Customs officials say work on the traditional fence
is on pace.
Top officials with U.S.
Customs and Border Protection also said they're on track to complete
hundreds of miles of traditional fencing by the end of the year. But
they acknowledged that disputes with Texas
landowners could endanger their timetable.
CBP, a branch of the
Department of Homeland Security, is charged with overseeing the
construction of 670 miles of pedestrian and vehicle barriers to comply
with a 2-year-old congressional mandate. Congress also has authorized
the virtual fence – an array of sensors, cameras and other high-tech
surveillance – to complement the physical barriers
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-borderfence_07tex.ART.State.Edition1.1c39705.html
Protesters to march against Texas-Mexico border fence
Teachers' 9-day border walk to protest lawsuits, divided communities
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-borderfence_08tex.ART.State.Edition1.4602377.html
12:00 AM CST on
Saturday, March 8, 2008
By
DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News
dsolis@dallasnews.com
Protesters against the
Texas-Mexico border fence will launch a nine-day march at the
Rio Grande today, starting at
Roma,
Texas, and ending in
Brownsville.
The 115-mile march is
organized in part by schoolteachers at U.S.
border schools who say they don't want to see a fence cleave through
entwined communities.
"The wall represents the
militarization of the border, and the border is my home," said John
Moore, an 8th-grade English teacher in Brownsville.
"The border is a region, rather than a line and, culturally, there are
more similarities between Brownsville
and Matamoros, than
Brownsville
and Dallas."
Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas
protested the border fence on Saturday with a sign that read 'Tough
against the wall.' Customs officials say work on the traditional fence
is on pace.
Top officials with U.S.
Customs and Border Protection also said they're on track to complete
hundreds of miles of traditional fencing by the end of the year. But
they acknowledged that disputes with Texas
landowners could endanger their timetable.
CBP, a branch of the
Department of Homeland Security, is charged with overseeing the
construction of 670 miles of pedestrian and vehicle barriers to comply
with a 2-year-old congressional mandate. Congress also has authorized
the virtual fence – an array of sensors, cameras and other high-tech
surveillance – to complement the physical barriers
Texas
Senate Committee Works to Protect Our Border
http://www.texasinsider.org:80/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2868
Between regular
legislative sessions, the Texas Senate works on interim charges that are
as varied as the Texas landscape and as broad in scope.
A Strategy to
Secure Our Borders
http://www.legion.org:80/whatsnew/bulletins
“The American Legion
Policy on Illegal Immigration: A Strategy to Address Illegal Immigration
in the United States” is a must-read for voters and political candidates
alike. The impact illegal immigration has on crime, terrorism,
employment, wages and even public health are all addressed in this
comprehensive booklet. More importantly, The American Legion’s common
sense strategy to deal with this important issue offers not just a look
at the problem but a solution as well.
03-03-2008
GAO:
Border fence schedule snagged Feds report ‘08 construction plans
proving ‘difficult’
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.activism.progressive/browse_thread/thread/7497d1b646bfb13d/0090fbd9ef93753c
By Kevin Sieff/The
Brownsville Herald
2008-02-29 00:15:00
For the first time since the Secure Fence Act was passed in October
2006, the federal government has acknowledged that it might not meet its
objective of building 370 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border
before December 2008.
On Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office released a statement
outlining the challenges the fence’s planners now face. “Customs and
Border Patrol officials reported that meeting deadlines has been
difficult because of various factors including difficulties in acquiring
rights to border lands.” Although the report asserts that construction
is currently proceeding as planned, it acknowledges that “keeping on
schedule will be challenging.”
The GAO also announced that the construction of a virtual fence in
Arizona will be delayed until 2011, three years after its initial
deadline.
Sam Johnson's bill would outsource employee identity checks
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/022908dnbuseverify.1cd9039.html
WASHINGTON
– The
Department of Homeland Security's
role in policing the employment status of American workers would be
sharply reduced under a bill filed Thursday by
Rep. Sam Johnson
of
Plano.
Mr. Johnson's bill calls for some of the work to be outsourced to
contractors --a new cottage industry of people who would check the
identities of workers to prevent identity theft.
Feb 27, 2008 - Bill Action
Introduced: H.Con.Res. 304: Expressing the sense of Congress that
allowing motor carriers domiciled in Mexico...
Rep. John Barrow [D-GA] introduced H.Con.Res. 304: Expressing the sense
of Congress that allowing motor carriers domiciled in Mexico to operate
in the United States without adequate regulation jeopardizes the safety
and security of United States citizens, and for other purposes.
9/11 Redux:
'Thousands of
Aliens' in
U.S. Flight
Schools
Illegally
Former FAA Inspector: TSA's Enforcement of Post-9/11 Laws 'Basically
Nonexistent'
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4353991&page=1
Foreign Diplomatic Offensive
on Behalf of Illegal Aliens
About to Start!
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL
OFFICERS
Visit our website:
http://www.nafbpo.org
Sign up for our report at
m3report@yahoo.com
Foreign News
Report
The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO)
extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and
Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis. You
are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit
NAFBPO as being the provider.
Prensa Libre
( Guatemala City , Guatemala ) 2/27/08
"The government of Guatemala 's president Alvaro Colom announced today
that it will carry out a diplomatic offensive in the United States in
favor of the thousands of Guatemalan migrants who live in that country."
The Minister of Foreign Relations, Haroldo Rodas, told reporters today
that the offensive will begin with a visit to Washington set for April
28 when the president will meet his U.S. counterpart, George W. Bush.
"We are going to work not only with the present government but also with
the Democrat and Republican candidates who are seeking power."
Rosa said they will also seek to meet
with Congressional representatives to discuss the need to give impulse
to an integral reform (legality) which
will benefit the immigrants of this country. According to the
Ministry of Foreign Relations 1.2 million Guatemalans live in this
country, 60% of them undocumented. As part of the offensive the
Guatemalan government is working closely with Mexico , Honduras and El
Sakvador.
----------------------
El Heraldo
( Tegucigalpa , Honduras ) 2/27/08
Action: Tell your Congressman/presidential candidate:
No dice.
From: Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA
Date: Thursday 28 FEB08 5:30 p.m. EST
We are
getting a lot of feedback that Democratic leaders in the House are
getting discouraged by the huge outpouring of public disapproval of news
that Speak Pelosi is considering a 5-year amnesty for most illegal
aliens, plus huge increases in foreign worker visas. Also, Rep. Heath
Shuler (D-N.C.) is standing firm in the face of tremendous pressures
from within his Party to make compromises.
We now
have 48 House Democrats standing against Pelosi and her open-borders
wing of the Democratic Party -- 48 Democrats signed on to Shuler's SAVE
Act (H.R. 4088) that would have three layers of employment verification
that would effectively drive most illegal aliens out of American jobs.
But at
the moment of greatest opportunity, it is the REPUBLICAN leaders in the
House who are holding things up.
If they
would get behind a Discharge Petition (that would force a vote on H.R.
4088 on the House floor), there now appear enough Democrats to get the
218 required signatures. In other words, the minority Party could force
a vote. Please call your congressman
But the
Republican House leaders are dragging their feet. Already 90 House
Republicans have signed H.R. 4088, led by Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.),
the chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
Friends,
this is not the time to let up. Rep. Shuler believes he has a chance to
pass this great enforcement bill to truly reduce the illegal population
in our communities.
Now,
let's push the SAVE Act to a vote. It is enforcement-only. It will
immediately open up hundreds of thousands of jobs to American citizens
and legal immigrants who already are here.
You know
how wonderful have been the results of state laws passed in
Oklahoma, Georgia and
Arizona. The SAVE Act essentially does what those state laws do, except
on a national level.
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