Immigration News

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BROWNSVILLE HERALD EXCLUSIVE: Cingular pulls "La Migra" ringtone


The Brownsville Herald

Cingular Wireless has removed a ringtone listed for sale on its Web site called "La Migra" and apologized for its offensive nature.

In it, a siren is heard, followed by a male voice that says in a southern accent: “Calmate, calmate, this is la migra. Por favor, put the oranges down and step away from the cell phone. I repeat-o, put the oranges down and step away from the telephone-o. I’m deporting you back home-o.”

Walt Sharp, a spokesman for AT&T, part owner of Cingular, would not immediately comment on the product.

“Let me do some inquiring,” he said after listening to it.

Latino issues activists from Brownsville to Washington, D.C. were outraged Tuesday, when they learned Cingular was selling what they considered a racist product.

“It’s horribly offensive and a disgusting thing,” said Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

The ringtone was no longer available at 5:45 p.m.

After learning about the ringtone, Wilkes said he called AT&T Inc., named “America’s Most Admired Telecommunications Company” by Fortune magazine in February, demanding it be taken off the Web site.

Cingular officials seemed to be caught off guard by their own Web site’s content.

Mark Siegel, the company’s spokesman was nearly speechless after listening to the $2.49 ringtone.

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness,” he said.

Like AT&T’s Walt Sharp, Siegel said he needed to do some research on the ringtone before offering comments.

In a later interview Tuesday, Siegel said, “We’re in the process of pulling the ringtone and needless to say, we deeply regret and apologize for it ever being there in the first place. The ringtone is blatantly offensive.”

Siegel said the company is reviewing its process of screening ringtones which are created by “a combination of companies that we work with and in-house (staff). But ultimately, Cingular is accountable for it.”

LULAC’s Brent Wilkes was pleased with the company’s apology and that it removed the product from its Web site, but there were still larger issues, he said.

“I don’t think (bigotry) is an official corporate policy, but there’s a legitimate question about corporate America crossing the line.”

Wilkes thought it was “hippocritical” for Cingular to have a Hispanic public relations department and boast of treating customers with respect, while at the same time selling a ringtone telling an immigrant to “put down the oranges.”

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Immigrant Rights Blocs Push Voter Sign-Ups

 Trying to turn street protests into political power, immigrants rights groups say they are gearing up for a campaign to register 1 million new voters this spring and summer.

The groups, working together as the We Are America Alliance, plan a string of events around the country starting next week, including voter registration drives, citizenship workshops and street rallies.

Organizers also plan to lobby local, state and federal elected officials on immigration issues through phone calls, petitions and faxes. New York's action day will be May 20. A Wednesday news conference was scheduled to outline the local program.

"We need to take the energy and the passion of immigrants and their allies and hold elected officials accountable," said Chris Wood, campaign manager for New American Opportunity Campaign, a leading organizer.

Organizers also are aiming to get hundreds of thousands of people to rally for immigrants rights around the country over Labor Day weekend.

The alliance's members, such as the New York Immigration Coalition and the National Capital Immigration Coalition, have been working for years to reform immigration laws, said Germonique Jones of the Center for Community Change. Most did not support the May 1 work and school boycott and prefer more moderate measures to push for change.

The alliance is being announced this week in cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and Washington, D.C.

The immigrant rights movement has grown enormously in recent months, sparked in part by a proposed federal measure that would make it a felony to be in the country illegally.

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Minutemen spread to the north

John Clark spent thousands of dollars in legal fees and several years trying to get his Chilean girlfriend -- now his wife -- into the United States.

So when he saw the Minuteman Project launched in April 2005 to guard the U.S.-Mexico border, he signed up to stop people from sneaking in.

Just back from a weekend along the California-Mexico border repairing border fence and spotting border crossers, the 36-year-old water quality technician from Napa is forming a Northern California Minuteman chapter.

"This country is the United States," Clark said. "I mean, countries are defined by borders. Every other country in the world defends their borders and has people on their borders and doesn't allow illegal immigration."

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps Inc. is an outgrowth of the original Minuteman Project, a small gathering on the Arizona border in April 2005 that aimed to guard against illegal border crossing, garnering international media attention.

Twenty-three chapters have formed across the country, and last week, Clark secured funding from an anonymous donor in Farmington, N.M., to start one more.

"I believe I'm doing the right thing and I'm a nonviolent person," Clark said, adding that he expects some resistance to the Minutemen in the Bay Area. A quarter of the participants in a recent monthlong Minuteman camp near Boulevard on the California border came from Northern California, and Clark said he knows 15 to 20 people who would join a local group.

Fund raising for the border-control group has risen since large pro-immigrant marches began in March, said Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair, going from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars nationally. When the group secures its tax-exempt status, specific fund-raising numbers will become public.

While the movement has become well known, it has been widely criticized as well.

President Bush warned against vigilantism before the original Minuteman Project began in Arizona last year. The Mexican government decried the effort and immigrant advocates have protested and monitored the presence of the Minutemen along the border.

"They've made their language more moderate to make the tent wider," said Isabel Alegria, communications director for the California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative. "But I have no question in my mind that the origins of the Minutemen are racist and anti-immigrant."

Clark first applied online last year to become a Minuteman but no one called him back. More recently he heard about the plan to build a fence on private property along the border and applied again. He paid $50 for a criminal background check and was vetted by California chapter President Tim Donnelly.

"Basically they are trying to make sure you are not a racist in any way, shape or form," Clark said. While some openly racist groups embraced the idea of a civilian border patrol, volunteers are quick to distance themselves from racist positions.

"The whole Hispanic thing is not what motivates me," said Anna Ford of San Jose, an official Minuteman who spent April packing a pistol and radio, keeping an eye out for people walking across from Mexico into remote Boulevard. "For me, we don't know the nature of the people coming across."

Ford and many Minutemen, including founders Chris Simcox and Jim Gilchrist, say the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon spurred them to do something about border security.

Yet frustrations with illegal immigration and with immigrants in general are major factors in their thinking as well.

"Now, five years after 9/11 we are strip-searching Caucasian grandmothers at the airport and we have a wide-open border," said Donnelly, head of the California Minuteman chapter.

Donnelly, a salesman from Twin Peaks, near Lake Arrowhead, said his work with the Minutemen was motivated by the terrorist attacks, but he also traces it to the arrival of immigrant workers in his town, initially brought in to cut trees.

"All of a sudden our whole community changed," he said.

Clark, who speaks Spanish with his two sons and has traveled extensively in South America, said he finds himself hankering for the "good old days."

"The Day of Non-Inmigrantes, that day you know, what it reminded me of, it reminded me of the good old days," Clark said of the May 1 general strike and boycott in which many Latinos skipped work and shopping in protest. "I went shopping at Safeway and there was three checkers open and there was one person, two people in each line, I just flowed right through there, it was great."

Clark met his wife while traveling in Chile in 1996. They corresponded for a while and then he applied for her to come visit and was denied twice. After several years, he successfully applied for a fiancee visa and the two married before the 90-day limit.

She declined an interview.

Clark said his Minuteman chapter, which he hopes to launch in a month, will recruit for the border effort -- the group plans to build its own fence if the federal government does not send troops to guard the border by Memorial Day. But it also will monitor day labor sites, taking down license plate numbers and posting on the Internet the names of people who use day laborers.

Clark, who likens his activity to the Boston Tea Party, has coined the phrase "no taxation with illegal immigration" to show his opposition to paying for services that undocumented immigrants may utilize.

"It's a message to President Bush that, hey, we're down here doing a job that the U.S. government should be doing."

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Minutemen Aim to Build Ariz. Border Fences

 A civilian border-patrol group said Tuesday that it plans to build two short security fences on a ranch in southern Arizona, the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Chris Simcox, a leader in the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said last month that the group would break ground on the fence unless the White House deployed U.S. troops to the border by May 25 and endorsed more secure fencing.

 "We are not anticipating that the White House will make any effort in the next 2 1/2 weeks as far as putting troops on the border," Minuteman spokeswoman Connie Hair said.

The group initially plans to erect two parallel 15-foot steel-mesh fences, which will be from 50 to 150 feet long. An unpaved road will run between the fences.

Hair declined to reveal the location of the fences out of concern the project could be a target for harassment or retaliation.

Todd Fraser, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman in Washington, said the agency has no position on such fencing.

"If private citizens want to construct something on their property ... who is the Border Patrol to say they can't do it?" Fraser said.

Plans call for the fence to be constructed using an Israeli design.

On the south side facing Mexico, a 6-foot deep trench will keep vehicles from crashing through the fencing. Behind that, coiled and razor-edged barbed wire will be placed in front of a 15-foot steel mesh fence angled outward at the top to make climbing more difficult. The second fence will be built on the other side of the road.

Video cameras will be mounted between the fences and monitored from home computers.

Other Minuteman groups have also undertaken fencing projects.

About 200 Minuteman volunteers began building a 6-foot barbed wire fence last month along a quarter-mile of rugged terrain about 50 miles east of San Diego. It connected to an existing 12-foot high government-built fence.

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Ariz. Posse to Round Up Illegal Immigrants

 GILA BEND, Ariz. (AP) -- Four Mexican men sit in the dirt with their wrists bound, shoulders hunched and eyes lowered to avoid the glare of the rising sun.

The immigrants had been on their way to build a dairy farm in this town about an hour southwest of Phoenix. But after a traffic stop for a faulty brake light, members of a sheriff's task force targeting human and drug smugglers found they were not U.S. citizens. Now they were bound for federal custody.

Beginning Wednesday, more illegal immigrants coming through Maricopa County could meet the same fate as the sheriff's department beefs up its efforts to find illegal immigrants.

A 250-member posse that will operate similarly to the anti-smuggler task force will patrol the area for illegal immigrants who pay smugglers to cross through Arizona, the busiest illegal entry point along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
   
   

The posse will be made up of existing sheriff's deputies and members of the department's 3,000-member posse reserve of trained, unpaid volunteers.

The four illegal immigrants pulled over Monday will be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sent back to Mexico. But those that are captured by the posse may end up in jail, charged under a state law that has been used against more than 100 illegal immigrants in Maricopa County this year.

The law made human smuggling a state crime in Arizona - it was already a federal crime - allowing local law enforcement agencies to arrest suspected smugglers. It was meant to crack down on smugglers, but under a disputed interpretation, County Attorney Andrew Thomas argues the law can be applied to the smuggled immigrants themselves.

Thomas maintains illegal immigrants who pay smugglers to enter the United States are committing conspiracy to smuggle and can therefore be prosecuted under the state law.

The sheriff's office began arresting illegal immigrants under that interpretation in March, and with the new posse, will continue doing so by patrolling desert areas and main roadways in the southwestern part of the county.

"I'm going to catch as many as I can and throw them in my jail," said Sheriff Joe Arpaio. "And the jails are not that nice."

It remains to be seen whether a judge will uphold the smuggling law as applicable to illegal immigrants. Lawyers for some arrested illegal immigrants have filed motions to have the charges dismissed.

A Los Angeles attorney brought into the case by the Mexican Consul General's Office in Phoenix filed another motion claiming Thomas and Arpaio are violating state and federal law and are using the conspiracy charges to control illegal immigration, which is the federal government's job.

Arpaio said the motions don't worry him.

"I get sued when I go to the toilet. You think I'm worried about it?" he said. "If they think I'm going to slow down because of these threats, I've got news for them - I'm not going to slow down. I'll do more of it."

Alfredo Gutierrez, a Hispanic activist and former Democratic state senator, called Thomas' interpretation of the law and Arpaio's use of it "political pranks."

"Every act like this contributes to the angst and anger and desperation in our community," Gutierrez said.

Elias Bermudez, president of the pro-immigrant group Inmigrantes Sin Fronteras, or Immigrants Without Borders, questions the legality of the immigration posse itself.

"It is racial profiling," he said. "They don't follow guys that are blond and blue-eyed."

Bermudez said Arpaio is "a good criminal sheriff, but he needs to go out there and find criminals. He wants to go after the poor, undocumented immigrant who is hungry and thirsty in the desert. That is totally inhumane."

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Hispanics account for half of U.S. population growth between 2004 and 2005

 Hispanics continue to be the country's fastest-growing minority, accounting for almost half of the national population growth between 2004 and 2005, census figures released today show.

The boom is part of profound demographic changes in the United States, where one-third of residents now identify themselves as minorities. The minority population reached 98 million in 2005, or 33 percent of the country's 296.4 million inhabitants.

 Hispanics numbered 42.7 million, the census data show. From 2004 and 2005, their numbers grew by 3.3 percent, a spike fueled by 800,000 births and 500,000 new Hispanic immigrants. Blacks represent the second largest minority group, at 39.7 million, followed by Asians, with 14.4 million, according to the census report.

In South Florida, grass-roots leaders hope to parlay their growing numbers into votes in the November election, and they emphasize how a growing but diverse political and economic force is little understood.

"We keep thinking of Hispanics as a monolith, but the variety and differences among Hispanic cultures is quite tremendous," said Josie Bacallao, president of the Hollywood-based Hispanic Unity of Florida.

The agency, which provides social services to Hispanics throughout Broward County, received 400 calls or visits in February, the latest month for which information is available. Many who seek help at Bacallao's facility are Colombian or Venezuelan immigrants uprooted by civil unrest in their countries

They have sharply different needs than Hispanics in the largely Cuban-American population of Miami-Dade County and the growing, Mexican day laborer community of Palm Beach County, Bacallao said.

"There are over 20 nationalities represented among Hispanics," she said. "To clump them all together would be like clumping every English speaker together."

Growth in South Florida in recent years has reflected the Hispanic boom nationally.

In 2004, there were 369,467 Hispanics in Broward County, up from 272,652 in 2000. In Palm Beach County, the number of Hispanics increased from 140,675 to 192,272 over the same period.

Business owners in Palm Beach County say they've observed the emergence of a Hispanic business community where one did not exist before. Increasingly, restaurants, shops and professional offices are catering to the growing numbers of white-collar Hispanics moving into affluent neighborhoods in western areas, said Silvia Garcia, president of the Palms West Chamber of Commerce.

"The population's growth up here is amazing. I used to have to travel to Miami if I wanted Hispanic culture. It's here now," said Garcia, a Wellington resident who lives in the community of Olympia. She is a fan of the 2-year-old Cuban restaurant Don Ramon in Wellington.

"You see not only restaurants, but people at all professional levels including doctors and attorneys," Garcia said. "Hispanics have established a presence here."

On the political front, Hispanics have made their numbers felt in the immigration reform battle as protesters clogged streets and walked off jobs. Local advocates say the population growth won't necessarily translate into votes that could tip the scales in favor of Hispanics on immigration and other issues. The mix of illegal immigrants unable to vote and legal immigrants who are unfamiliar with the civic process poses a challenge, said Alvaro Fernandez, who runs the Florida office of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. "It's a constant battle," Fernandez said.

The group hopes to achieve a high voter turnout for the November mid-term and gubernatorial elections. More than 60 percent of all registered Latino voters in Florida turned out for the 2004 presidential election, he said.

Diversity can make it difficult to achieve common political goals, Fernandez said. As the Hispanic population grows, he and others say, so does the need to understand divisions and nuances. "Dominicans don't see things the way Puerto Ricans do. When you talk about Latinos, you have a bunch of different countries involved and each group has its own thing going."

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Officials disclaim Bulletin 'tipping' report

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is refuting a Daily Bulletin report that the U.S. Border Patrol provided information to the Mexican government about the whereabouts of civilian border watch groups.

 "Today's report by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, `U.S. tipping Mexico to Minuteman patrols,' is inaccurate," read the statement issued Tuesday evening. "Border Patrol does not report activity by civilian, non-law enforcement groups to the government of Mexico."

Kristi Clemens, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection, would not elaborate on the agency's statement other than to say the U.S. gives information to Mexican officials under the rules of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, which provides foreign nationals being detained by a government the right to consular access.

"This is the same agreement that protects United States citizens when they travel to foreign countries," according to the statement.

An August 2005 document, "Third Report on the Activities of Vigilantes" -- posted on Mexico's Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site -- suggests U.S. officials were giving out more details than required by the Vienna Convention. Part of that information was the location of U.S. citizens participating in volunteer border patrols.

The Daily Bulletin reported on the contents of that document and two others on the Mexican Web site in a story published in Tuesday's editions.

Mexican consulates also went beyond the boundaries of the Vienna Convention, asking U.S. Border Patrol officials to provide them with information on "vigilantes" operating along the U.S. border, according to the August 2005 document.

Some of the information cited in the Mexican document originally was given only to U.S. Border Patrol and law enforcement officials, border watch organizers said.

"Nobody but law enforcement and Border Patrol knew where we were at," said Andy Ramirez, chairman of the Chino-based nonprofit group Friends of the Border Patrol. "So how is our base address on a Mexican government document dated last August? Nobody, not even media, had this information."

Ramirez said he revealed the location of his base camp only to local and federal officials. The Mexican document gives the exact location of his group's site, which was on private property near San Diego.

According to Ramirez, the group had no encounters at that site with undocumented migrants, which would have been the only cause for that information to be revealed under the Vienna Convention.

On Monday, Mario Martinez, a U.S. Customs and Border spokesman, told the Daily Bulletin that when illegal immigrants are apprehended in the U.S., they have the right, under the Convention, to be represented by their country's consulate office and to information regarding their apprehension.

Information contained in a Border Patrol agent's field report, which is filed when a person is caught, would reveal the location of the detainee and therefore the area where the volunteer group is operating, Martinez said.

Martinez did not deny that information on the border volunteers was being shared with the Mexican government. He added that the group's whereabouts also were identified by numerous media outlets.

However, the Mexican report also contains specific information on civilian groups operating much farther inside the United States.

For example, the document notes that 50 Minuteman volunteers work in Chicago, focusing mainly on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

Minuteman volunteers said specific information -- such as the number of volunteers and their plans -- could have been provided only by law enforcement officials at that time. The document credits the various Mexican consul general offices in the U.S. with providing the information to the Mexican Foreign Secretary for the reports.

"How did they know the number of volunteers in Chicago? And why should the Mexican government care?" asked Connie Hair, spokeswoman for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps in Washington, D.C.

The three reports on the Mexican Web site documented the activities of the civilian groups based on concerns the Mexican government had about volunteer patrols on the border in 2005, said Rafael Laveaga, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C.

"The Border Patrol does not report activity of the Minutemen to the Mexican consulate," Laveaga said. "But it's all a matter of perception. If a migrant requests to have counsel, which is their right under the Vienna Convention, then the information is provided to the counsel."

Throughout the Mexican government's reports on "vigilantes," it is noted that Mexican consulates in the U.S. contacted Border Patrol officials seeking U.S. cooperation in reporting instances of civilians monitoring the border. Among such requests:

The Mexican consul in Presidio, Texas, asked the Marfa Sector's Border Patrol chief to alert them if the U.S. detected any volunteer activity.

In Phoenix, consulate officials asked the Border Patrol to notify them if civilian groups apprehended any undocumented migrants so consulate representatives could interview them.

In San Diego, the document referred to a meeting with Border Patrol Chief Darryl Griffen stating that "Mr. Griffen reiterated to the undersecretary his promise to notify the General Consul right away when the vigilantes detain or participate in the detention of any undocumented migrant."

"It appears the border reports are the tip of the iceberg," said Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which began patrolling the border last April.

Such requests from Mexico, and U.S. officials acquiescing to them, are not new, say Border Patrol agents.

Scott James, a former Tucson agent, resigned after eight years of service in February, citing a lack of support for agents by the Department of Homeland Security.

He said that U.S. Border Patrol officials provided office space inside their headquarters to Mexican consulate officials, allowed the consulate to dictate the agents' activities, and gave the consulate information on ongoing investigations.

Such courtesies were not extended to consulate offices of other countries, James said.

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Dobbs to President Bush: Do you take us for fools?
CNN anchor says administration following 'absurd' policies on border security, illegals

Outspoken CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is thrashing President Bush and senators for continuing to follow what he calls "absurd policies on both issues of border security and illegal immigration," and asks the rhetorical question, "How dumb do you all think we are?"

The scathing remarks come amid this week's report that U.S. officials are tipping of the Mexican government as to the positions of the Minutemen, private American citizens looking to stop the ongoing invasion of illegal aliens across the border.

"President Bush continues to push his guest-worker program and amnesty for anywhere between 11 million and 20 million illegal aliens, and he insists still that nothing less than what he calls comprehensive immigration reform is acceptable," says Dobbs.

"And the lies keep coming from both political parties. This president is not enforcing the immigration laws enacted by Congress, and this Congress is failing in its duty of oversight to demand that those laws be followed. Only a fool, Mr. President, Sen. Kennedy, Sen. McCain, would believe you when you speak of new legislation. You don't enforce the laws now. Would you do so if the law were more to your liking? Would you secure our borders and ports? Would you halt illegal immigration? Those are rhetorical questions, only, I assure you. The answers are obvious; obvious because of your conduct."

Addressing the president, Dobbs says up to 3 million illegal aliens continue to cross our border with Mexico each year, with enforcement against illegal employers of illegal aliens in this country all but nonexistent.

"How do you explain that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have all but ended their investigations and inspections of employers that hire illegal aliens? Again, only a rhetorical question, because we all know the answer," Dobbs said.

The CNN anchor goes on to state the "official record," noting only 318 employers out of five and a half million in the U.S. have been fined for hiring illegals since 2001. In 2004, only three employers were fined.

"That is a dismal record, Mr. President, as dismal as the fact that the number of ICE agents assigned to enforce immigration laws in the workplace has declined from only 240 back in 1999 to now less than 100," Dobbs said.

He lays blame for the lack of border security and illegal immigration squarely on the shoulders of "two political parties that are beholden to corporate America, the largest employers of illegal aliens, and the leadership of both parties that are selling out American citizens in search of cheap labor and political advantage. How dumb do you all think we are? Again, that's only a rhetorical question."

Dobbs says he'll suggest on his television show in the coming days that "the leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties begin to take some notice of our laws and our expectations that those laws be enforced," as well as reminding them they represent all U.S. citizens, and not just corporate America and special interests.

Dobbs has been making headlines in recent weeks, coming under fire by groups not opposed to illegal immigration.

As WND reported, hosts on a leftist radio station in Los Angeles have sponsored a contest that will reward the first illegal alien who names his or her new baby after Dobbs.

Meanwhile, an "Ax AOL" campaign was organized last month by defenders of illegal aliens to target Dobbs.

"Why AOL?" asks one of the promoters of the campaign rhetorically. "Lou Dobbs is the number one money maker for CNN so he is not going anywhere as long as he makes money for CNN and right now he is making a ton of money for CNN bashing 'illegal immigration.' CNN is owned by Time Warner and Time Warner also owns AOL, which is being extensively promoted to increase its value as witnessed last week by selling 5 percent of AOL stock to Google. This 5 percent cost Google $1 billion setting a benchmark value for AOL stock. The Google-AOL deal gives AOL a valuation of $20 billion. Billionaire Time Warner shareholder Carl Icahn who controls 3 percent of Time Warner shares has been organizing a proxy battle for control of Time Warner wants to sell AOL."

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Mexicans paid $ 1.8 b in bribes: study

Reuters

Mexico City, May 10: Six years after Mexicans kicked out a government seen as corrupt, public graft is still widespread, and people paid an estimated $ 1.8 billion to traffic cops, city hall clerks, garbage collectors and other officials last year, according to a study.

Mexicans paid bribes — known in Mexico as ‘mordidas’ or ‘little bites’ — 10 per cent of the time they dealt with government officials last year, according to a study by the Mexican Chapter of Transparency International.

This included run-ins with police, applying for permits and even having mail delivered, and the group estimated Mexicans paid out about $ 1.8 billion last year.

When Mr Vicente Fox became the President of Mexico in 2000, he ended 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which critics say was riddled with nepotism, theft and other abuses of power. Mexicans had expected Mr Fox’s administration to bring a reduction in public corruption.

The rate last year compared to bribery 9 per cent of the time in a 2003 study and 11 per cent in 2001, Transparency Mexico head, Mr Federico Reyes told reporters. No figures were collected before then.

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Minutemen hit D.C.
Rally at Capitol to end cross-country caravan

Members of the Minuteman Project will stage a rally at the U.S. Capitol today to celebrate the end of a cross-country caravan meant to protest the flow of illegal aliens across the border.

"This is a Trojan horse – a covert invasion," Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, said of illegal immigration.

The caravan began in Los Angeles May 3, and participants have been holding rallies in several states along the way. The caravan's "official pace car" is a 1970 Mercury Cougar dubbed "The Spirit Of Allegiance."

The final rally is scheduled for 11 a.m. today at the park on the Senate side of the Capitol.

Prominent national speakers at the kick-off rally in L.A. included WND columnist Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, the founder and president of BOND – the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, and social activist Ted Hayes.

Addressing the rally, Peterson commented, "Illegal immigration is having a devastating effect on the black community. African Americans are being put out of jobs and out of homes."

A rally also occurred May 6 in Crawford, Texas, home to President Bush's ranch.

"We are doing what the original Minutemen would have wanted us to do," Gilchrist told WND. "We are bringing the message to Washington."

According to its website, the Minuteman Project hopes to "bring national awareness to the decades-long careless disregard of effective U.S. immigration law enforcement."

A recent poll indicates concern about illegal immigration is now the No. 2 issue among Americans, next to the war in Iraq.

Gilchrist, who is being talked about as a 2008 presidential candidate, believes that by Election Day in November, "voters will show conclusively that illegal entry by foreigners on U.S. soil and the issue of 'guest worker amnesty' is at least as important to the American people as the war in Iraq."

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Bush to Speak About Immigration on Monday

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush plans to address the nation Monday night on the immigration debate, trying to build momentum for legislation that could provide millions of illegal immigrants a chance to become American citizens.

The White House said it was seeking time from television networks for the president's remarks at 8 p.m. EST. Bush is to speak from the Oval Office and his address is expected to run less than 20 minutes.

"This is crunch time," Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary said Friday at his first off-camera, or informal, briefing.

On Thursday, Senate leaders reached a deal to revive a broad immigration bill that had appeared doomed just several weeks ago.

Key to the agreement is who will be negotiating a compromise with the House, which last December passed an enforcement-only bill that would subject the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States to felony charges as well as deportation.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the Senate will send 14 Republicans and 12 Democrats to negotiate with the House, with seven of the Republicans and five Democrats coming from the Judiciary Committee. The remaining seven Republicans will be chosen by Frist and remaining seven Democrats chosen by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

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Sheriffs: Don't make us immigration cops
Rancher says securing border everyone's job



Ron White sees two kinds of illegal immigrants on his ranch south of town.
There are the dozens each day who simply pass through. They are a nuisance.
But others, White says, are a threat - like the group that tried to order him off his horse, or the smugglers who cut his fences every full moon.
The distinction between trespassers and violent criminals is critical to Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who says he doesn't have the manpower to enforce federal immigration law while also solving murders and investigating robberies along the border.
The robberies are committed largely by bandits preying on people walking north to find work.
Dupnik says he will turn down any extra money to fight border crime if it requires him to become an immigration cop. His concerns are echoed by southern Arizona's other sheriffs, and by a coalition of 25 border sheriffs from Texas to California, as Congress considers measures that could shift more immigration-enforcement responsibilities to local lawmen.
"We are literally overwhelmed trying to provide service to the people of Pima County," Dupnik said.
In one week in April, agents in the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson sector made more than 12,000 apprehensions. That's six times Dupnik's entire jail capacity. Most are quickly returned to Mexico.
The people headed north to find jobs draw predators: thugs who rob them, beat them up or worse.
White, who owns a 2,000-acre spread about 10 miles south of Tucson, questions whether any sheriff would really turn down federal money.
Of immigration enforcement, he said, "I don't believe it's a federal responsibility; it's a responsibility of every agency in the country."
White, 60, who has been confronted by large groups of immigrants, is convinced people are smuggling drugs across his land and has started wearing a pistol on his hip and carrying a rifle in a saddle scabbard when he rides his ranch, repairing the eight miles of fence cut at least monthly by someone he suspects is a drug smuggler.
White feels no animosity for most of those who enter the United States looking for work, though they litter his ranch with discarded clothing, backpacks and empty water jugs.
White moved to the ranch about 10 years ago.
"When I moved out here we'd get five to 10 (immigrants) a month," White said. "When they started talking about amnesty prior to the 2004 election it jumped to 50 to 100 a day."
Now, White said, "My wife and my grandchildren can't even leave the house and go out for a walk in the country and I can't even ride the fence line on my ranch without an arsenal."
White said he started packing weapons after being confronted several times by large groups over the past two years, and that some of them tried to order him off his horse. He refused, and rode away.
Before that, "I never carried a gun in my life," he said.
"I've never hurt anybody in my life, but, my God, we're scared to death."
White said every month, about the time of a full moon, someone leads a string of pack horses across his land, cutting fences on the north and south sides of the ranch.
White said he suspects the trespasser is a drug smuggler and that the cut fences cost him $15,000 to $20,000 a year in lost cattle.
White said he feels badly for the struggling migrants, some of whom have been victimized by border criminals.
"I've talked to some of them. They say they've been robbed by other illegals," White said.
"That's our responsibility, that's our problem," Dupnik said of such violent crimes. But that violence is compounded by the failure to secure the border in the first place, he said.
"They attack and rob and assault and murder them along the border," Dupnik said.
"I feel sorry for people who come over here to get a job and send money home so their families can survive."
Dupnik said he has no philosophical problem with arresting people for crossing the border illegally.
Dupnik's budget this year is $95 million and he estimated $11.4 million of that will be eaten up by border crimes, including the $3.5 million cost of housing them at the Pima County Jail, which is part of the Sheriff's Department.
The average daily jail population last year was 1,874 prisoners, some 200 of whom were from Mexico, said Corrections Lt. Michael Schlueter.
In Yuma County, Sheriff Ralph Ogden cited an increase in robberies of illegal immigrants.
In 2004 there were 10 robberies with 25 victims, in 2005 eight robberies with 56 victims and by March 13 there were nine robberies with 128 victims, said Yuma sheriff's Capt. Eben Bratcher.
Bratcher estimated Yuma County has three to four border-related homicides a year.
Despite the border crime problems, Ogden said he also would turn down federal money if it obligated him to enforce immigration laws.
"We're not prepared to become border patrolmen, nor do we want to," Ogden said.
In Cochise County, "drug smuggling is a big concern," said Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for Sheriff Larry Dever.
"You have that propensity for someone to become violent to protect that cargo," Capas said.
Dever said, "I'm not interested in becoming an immigration officer, but I am interested in securing the peace of the neighborhood."
Santa Cruz County's border crime problem runs more to trespassing, littering and burglaries for food and clothing, said Sheriff Tony Estrada.
Most illegal immigrants there want to get north without attracting attention, he said.
Farther away from the border, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio launched a posse yesterday to fight illegal immigration.
Under a state anti-smuggling law, people in the country illegally can be charged with smuggling themselves in, the county attorney there has ruled.
"I'm not going to turn these people over to federal authorities so they can have a free ride back to Mexico," said Arpaio. "I'll give them a free ride to the county jail."
However, Francisco Lara, a 28-year-old illegal immigrant arrested by Arpaio's deputies this week, was apparently quickly handed off to the feds.
"We come here to work," Lara told The Associated Press in Spanish as he sat by the side of the road waiting for federal authorities to take him away. "We're not criminals."

[Soldier4Christ]

Phoenix-Area Posse Nets Just 1 Arrest

AVONDALE, Ariz. - Following a week of tough talk, a 250-member sheriff's posse that was assembled to catch illegal immigrants made just one arrest in its first desert search early Thursday.

The posse — made up of Maricopa County sheriff's deputies and trained volunteers — launched night patrols Wednesday in the desert and along major roads southwest of Phoenix.

Deputies attempted to pull over a pickup truck about 12:45 a.m. Thursday, but the truck took off in the desert and its 15 to 20 occupants scattered. Only one person was tracked down, despite night-vision equipment, spotlights and a helicopter.

"It just makes me angry," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. "People say these are helpless people coming into the United States just to work, and yet when they see law enforcement, they run. If they were trying to obey the law, why are they running?"

Arpaio speculated that the night was slow because potential border crossers have heard about that the county is cracking down. He said the operation will continue.

Arpaio's posse is looking to arrest illegal immigrants under a new state law that allows local law enforcement to arrest and charge immigrant-smugglers with felonies. Sheriff's officials already have arrested 147 illegal immigrants and smugglers under the law.

A human-rights group is challenging County Attorney Andrew Thomas' contention that the law applies to illegal immigrants as well as immigrant smugglers.

[Soldier4Christ]

BREAKING: 3rd restaurant owner arrested on immigration charges; restaurant in Missouri also raided



CEDAR FALLS --- A rental agreement and a car crash spiraled into an immigration investigation that led to a raid at Cedar Falls restaurant last month.

This according to court records unsealed today as federal charges were filed against Julio Zapala-Urbina, the third co-owner of Julio's Mexican Restaurant and Cantina.

Zapala, who owns 50 percent of the business and is its president and chairman, was charged with harboring and engaging in a practice of employing illegal aliens in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.

He was arrested Wednesday night and appeared in a federal court in Kansas City, Mo., today, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Deegan in Cedar Rapids.

Agents with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement searched Julio's in Cedar Falls April 27, and co-owners Martha Lopez-Angel and Juan Manuel Lopez-Angel were arrested on immigration charges a week later.

Then on Wednesday, ICE officers raided another restaurant owned by Zapala, this one in St. Joseph, Mo., and found nine undocumented aliens. Zapala also owns a restaurant in Maryville, Mo.

Authorities seized $17,000 in cash during the Cedar Falls search and froze the restaurant's bank account, records state.

After the Cedar Falls raid, Zapala moved staff from his St. Joseph operation to keep the Cedar Falls restaurant running, records state.

"Businesses who knowingly employ illegal aliens are on notice that they will be criminally prosecuted," said Pete Baird, assistant special agent-in-charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Kansas City.

"Using ICE's unique immigration and customs law enforcement authorities, we'll also make every effort to seize all assets that may be associated with the illegal activity," he said.

Julio's Mexican Restaurant and Cantina opened in the former Camp David steak house building in February.

Records show investigators became suspicious in March when Julio's employee Guadalupe Mendoza-Nava applied to live at Country Terrace Mobile Home Village in Cedar Falls. Mendoza listed his place of employment, but the Social Security number he used on the application was discovered to be invalid during a credit check.

Then on April 10, ICE agents detained two unnamed Julio's employees after they were involved in a traffic accident in Benton County.

Both said they were from Mexico and entered the United States illegally. They also said they weren't asked to show proof they were authorized to work in American and didn't complete any paperwork when they were hired. They said they were paid in cash.

Later in April, source working with ICE authorities approached co-owner Juan Lopez at Julio's, and Lopez told him could earn $580 in cash a week as a dishwasher.

Lopez also told the source he didn't need a Social Security Card or a Permanent Resident Alien Card to get the job and that he may be able to talk with other employees about obtaining bogus documents, records state.

The following day, the source worked a full day without showing any documentation and without filling out any paperwork,

The restaurant was raided April 27, and 12 workers were taken into custody.

Four days later --- on May 1 --- immigration agents returned and detained another undocumented Julio's employee, who is identified in records only as Subject No. 7. He said Zapala told him to travel to Iowa to help reopen the Cedar Falls restaurant after the raid, records state.

This wasn't Subject No. 7's first brush with authorities. He had been arrested by ICE agents in February in St. Joseph and placed on supervised release.

At the time, he had been working for Julio's in Missouri and told his manager about the arrest. He was allowed to return to work after showing a card that gives no official employment authorization, records state.

The Wednesday raid at Julio's in St. Joseph found nine undocumented workers who were taken into custody. Other than the nine, only Zapala, his girlfriend and another person were working at the business, records state.

The raids were part of the Department of Homeland Security's Secure Border Initiative.

Under SBI, Homeland Security seeks to gain operational control of the borders while re-engineering the detention and removal system to ensure that illegal aliens are removed from the country quickly and efficiently.

SBI also involves strong interior enforcement efforts, including enhanced worksite enforcement investigations and intensified efforts to track down and remove illegal aliens inside this country.

[Soldier4Christ]

Pentagon Looks At Putting National Guard On The Border

The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to grant Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, the authority to assign National Guard troops to patrol the Southern Border. The vote was 252 - 171 in favor of authorization.

    Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, asked officials this week to come up with options for the use of military resources and troops — particularly the National Guard — along the border with Mexico, according to defense officials familiar with the discussions. The officials, who requested anonymity because the matter has not been made public, said there are no details yet on a defense strategy.

    The request comes as some Southern lawmakers met this week with White House strategist Karl Rove for a discussion that included making greater use of National Guard troops to shore up border control. Congress is poised to pass legislation this month that would call for additional border security, a new guest worker program and provisions opening the way to eventual citizenship for many of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.

Lefties all seem to think that this authorization is akin to the end of life on this planet as we know it. What do you think the primary mission of the Army was in the beginning? To secure us from invasion that’s what. And what do you call an unauthorized influx of 11 million people crossing our southern border? An invasion is what I would call it..

    “The Texas delegation is very concerned about the border and are pushing urgency,” said Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who joined other Texas Republicans in a meeting with Rove this week. He said Rove was “very forthright” about border projects that Homeland Security is starting up, its current projects and what the needs are.

    Rep. Ken Marchant, R-Texas, who also attended the meeting, said the lawmakers left “very encouraged.”

    Currently, the military plays a very limited role along the borders, but some armed forces have been used in the past to help battle drug traffickers. National Guard units, meanwhile, have been used at time by Southern and Western governors to provide assistance at border crossings.

    Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said the military help “is basically what she has been asking for,” spokeswoman Jeanine L’Ecuyer said. Napolitano has been asking the Pentagon to send more National Guard troops — but not regular military — to confront illegal immigration from Mexico. About 170 National Guard troops are helping in such efforts in the state now.

    Defense officials said they have been asked to map out what military resources could be made available if needed — including options for using the National Guard under either state or federal control. The strategy would also explore the legal guidelines for use of the military on domestic soil, the officials said.

The hoopla over the use of military forces on domestic soil is a bunch of crap. Here’s the thing, we can no longer accept unregulated violations of our southern border. This is both an immigration issue and a matter of national security. In a post 9/11 world, national security issues trump all other concerns. At the present time, under the present conditions, a terrorist can enter any number of countries in South or Central America and enter via our porous, largely unchecked southern border.

What would happen if a terrorist entered with a dirty bomb, made his way to Los Angeles and set it off? Millions of Americans would be contaminated without knowing and die of radiation sickness. LA would become a virtual wasteland. This is the problem of a reactionary policy as opposed to a pro-active policy.

    Under the Civil War-era Posse Comitatus Act, federal troops are prohibited from performing law enforcement actions, such as making arrests, seizing property or searching people. In extreme cases, however, the president can invoke the Insurrection Act, also from the Civil War, which allows him to use active-duty or National Guard troops for law enforcement. SOURCE

I consider the wholesale invasion of the United States by Mexico an insurrection. The President should authorize not only the National Guard, but Reserve and Active Component units of the US Army, Airforce, Navy, and Marine Corps as well as the Coast Guard to increase patrols already being done and supplement the border patrol.

Members of our armed forces should be deputized under the Insurrection Act as emergency Border Patrol Agents which would authorize them to arrest and detain these foreign invaders until they can be herded back into their own country like cattle. They walked in, they can walk out like in a cattle drive. Perhaps the long walks in the desert would be enough to dissuade them from attempting crossing again in the future.

Patrols by our military along the border should continue until the Great Wall of the United States is built and armed observation stations can be established. Permanent military guards should then man those stations and the Border Patrol would be free to patrol along the wall.

The wall should be built at least 50 meters north of the actual border to allow the Border Patrol to patrol in front of the wall. Perhaps a “fence” could be erected on the actual border to create a “no man’s land” patrol area.

But before we can get to that point we need to at least slow the “bleeding” so to speak. All this talk about pathways to legalization are all moot unless we can slow or stop the “bleeding”. If we keep bringing in illegals, pathways to legalization will just encourage more illegals to cross the border. We already know that they are crafty enough to obtain forged documents so that they can work, so what is to prevent them from finding ways to forge the documentation to prove that they have been here longer than they have just to obtain the status required to qualify for these disguised amnesty programs.

But I applaud the House for their insight into this problem. I just hope that the Pentagon can see the necessity for this program to go forward.