Wednesday, July 31, 2002

Reconquistas Rise Up Against American Border Patrol Advocates of the Mexican annexation of "Aztlan" cry racism "Racism has always existed at the border, but that former senior officials are joining in this effort is alarming." Isabel Garcia, Executive Director of Derechos Humanos It's no accident that her logo shows the Southwest being acquired by Mexico. About ABP  Past Features

POLL	Sierra Vista Herald - Scroll down, poll at lower left Do you favor the American Border Patrol concept? Note: Poll was reset (we wonder why?) - Click to see results

Media Watch

Glenn Spencer vs Isabel Garcia on KOLD-TV News Tonight Channel 13 - Tucson - 10 PM Pacific/local (MST) -- KOLD Website

Arizona Daily Star Evening Update [Short-lived link] Isabel Garcia wary of border policing plan Justice Department efforts to enlist local police in enforcing U.S. immigration laws threatens civil liberties on the border and could damage community policing efforts in Hispanic communities, according to local activists and some law enforcement officers. -- The rules, published July 24 in the federal register and scheduled to take effect Aug. 23, authorize the U.S. Attorney General to enter into contingency agreements with state and local authorities for the use of local police in the event the Attorney General declares a "mass influx of aliens," or other immigration emergency. -- Critics, like Isabel Garcia of Derechos Humanos, a Tucson-based human rights group, say the rules are vaguely worded and place too much authority in the hands of the Attorney General. [Also see "Police chief not doing job"]

Laurence Auster, Jr.

Counterrevolution.net The SPLC's lunatic attack on immigration reformers As Robert Locke shows in a long article at Front Page Magazine, the Southern Poverty Law Center headed by Morris Dees has brought PC demonization to new heights of lunacy. A recent document by SPLC, an organization that specializes in the ferreting out of "hate groups," purports to show the "white supremacist" character of the immigration reform movement. Short on facts, long on lies, and containing little more than the same three or four well-known adjectives and nouns used over and over, the article makes such extreme and ridiculous assertions as to cause bursts of therapeutic laughter. Thus Glenn Spencer's grass-roots anti-illegal immigration organization in California, American Patrol, is baldly characterized as a "racist hate group".....

Norman A. Wilcox, Jr.

CNSNews.com Identity Fraud and National Security Much has been made recently of some high profile incidents, or at least accidents, on the part of the INS. With calls for restructuring coming from virtually every corner of Capitol Hill, I was somewhat encouraged by the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to restructure the INS. -- However, it seems that in all the debate and controversy over INS policies and procedures, we may be missing a bigger, more fundamental point, one that poses a most serious threat to our national security, as well as global commerce.

Star-Telegram Agents leaving Border Patrol in droves Low pay, low morale and confusion over who will ultimately be the boss of the U.S. Border Patrol have prompted hundreds of agents to quit. -- Many other agents are pondering career changes if these issues continue to plague the agency, union leaders say. -- "In the southern border, we are trying to hang on to the people we have," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. The union represents some 9,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents and employees.

Houston Chronicle Vietnamese ballots ordered The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered Harris County to begin providing Vietnamese- language ballots and voting material, starting in November. -- Citing the county's growing Vietnamese population and requirements in the federal Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department ordered County Clerk Beverly Kaufman to print ballots in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. [How did these people become citizens if they can't speak enough English to read a simple ballot?]

San Diego Union-Tribune  Suspect in alleged rape attempt jumps bail, may be in Mexico Authorities are looking for an Oceanside man who they say jumped bail on charges of attempted rape in a Solana Beach public restroom. He is facing possible life in prison. -- Ubel Torrez Espinoza failed to show up for a court hearing last week after bailing out July 21 on $75,000 bond, court records indicate. An arrest warrant with $500,000 bail was issued yesterday. -- "He's from Chiapas, and that's where he's fled, according to his relatives," sheriff's detective Dan Laibach said yesterday. "He could still be hiding out here in San Diego." [Mexico won't extradite many suspects]

Miami Herald Hopeful voted while noncitizen Rafael Velasquez, a candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, voted twice in the 1990s, even though he didn't become a U.S. citizen until last year. -- A simple mistake by a new immigrant, Velasquez says. -- A felony, says Florida election law. -- Velasquez, a Democrat, is challenging the Republican incumbent Gustavo Barreiro in House District 107, which includes parts of Miami Beach and Little Havana. -- Velasquez, born in Germany and raised in Peru, says he became a U.S. citizen in May 2001.

Spartanburg Herald-Journal Editorial Illegals may get amnesty, teacher booted ...Does this make sense to anyone? -- A woman who came here legally and followed the legal process completely is deported, but criminals should be allowed to stay. -- A trained specialist who is needed by this community and who may not be able to be replaced must go, but illegal immigrants who often pose great costs on society should be allowed to stay. -- Dylgjeri is gone because she obeyed the laws of the United States. -- But the illegal immigrants broke our laws and continue to break them by staying here.

Re: American Border Patrol Glenn, three years ago a FAIR conference in LA, I met Roger Barnett, who told me, to paraphrase: That he'd had it the on-going destruction of his property caused by hordes of illegal immigrants, as well as by the repeated failures of the DOJ/INS/Border Patrol, to stem this relentless flood. Barnett told me that he and his neighbors were fed-up with an unmerciful stealth migration that knocked-down all fences in sight, trampled flowers and shrubs, cluttered neighborhoods with filthy litter, generated mountains of rotting garbage, piles of discarded diapers...

Associated Press Sept. 11 Fake ID Suspect Flees U.S. A man who authorities said sold fake identification to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers apparently left on a flight to Egypt before authorities raided his home and businesses Wednesday, officials said. -- Mohamad El Atriss, an Egyptian immigrant, operated businesses in Paterson and Elizabeth where he sold the IDs, said Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale. -- Authorities raided his home and business Wednesday afternoon and were told Atriss had taken a flight from Newark to Egypt, Speziale said. Authorities were unsure if the flight left Tuesday or Wednesday.

Bob Ray Sanders - Star-Telegram -- (Warning: This one's a doozy]  Undocumented people are part of us No, not ''homeland security.'' Let's talk about the country and its people -- ''all'' its people -- including those who support the nation's economy without getting credit; those who regularly pay into Social Security with no hope of ever collecting from it; and those who exist as shadows in our society. -- We see them. We know them. But we refuse to acknowledge them, except when they make easy political targets or can somehow be used as easy political capital. It has become convenient for most of us to ignore them as we sometimes unconscionably abuse them. -- Yet many would find it unthinkable to admit that our economy has come to depend on them. [Contact the writer]

San Diego Union-Tribune  State fights for U.S. funds Year after year, California lawmakers battled the White House ­ whether the occupant's name was Clinton or Bush ­ for more money to help pay for the cost of jailing criminal immigrants. -- Now, the Bush administration has fueled more controversy among state politicians. It wants to eliminate the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which could result in the loss of more than $200 million to California and its counties. -- "I believe it would be a terrible mistake to eliminate funding," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein...

Press-Enterprise Inland area a Latino growth hub The Latino population in Riverside and San Bernardino counties has been growing at a faster pace than in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City, according to a study released today. The two-county area faces special challenges as one of the "fast-growing Latino hubs" in the United States, according to the report by two think tanks in Washington, D.C., the Pew Hispanic Center and the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. The report studied Latino population trends in metropolitan areas.

Fox News Wanted: Bilingual Poll Workers Activist groups are looking for younger, fresher and more technologically savvy volunteers, especially as counties turn in their punch-card machines for new high-tech voting gadgets. -- Several groups have launched the "Expand Democracy in America" campaign in an effort to reach out to minority groups and expand the number of volunteer workers. -- The groups expect to have 100,000 new workers on board in time for the November election, and are hoping to join forces with the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and the National Council of La Raza to get those groups to recruit members to work at the polls.

LTE - Tucson Citizen (Published) Police chief not doing job Tucson Police Chief Richard Miranda is refusing to assist the Immigration & Naturalization Service in its mission of locating and deporting all illegal aliens, even though U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft has urged all local law enforcement agencies to do just that. Miranda claims to have two reasons for not wanting to enforce our laws: First, if the illegals hear that the cops may turn them over to INS, they will no longer trust them and will stop reporting criminal activity to them. What nonsense! .......

Dallas Morning News (Free Reg.) Illegals found packed into trailer Another tractor-trailer rig filled with undocumented immigrants has turned up - this time on the eastern fringe of San Antonio. -- San Antonio police went to the Petro truck stop on Interstate 10 about 1 a.m. Wednesday after a witness reported hearing screams and shouts coming from inside the trailer. -- Police Sgt. Fred Balmos said hat officers opened the trailer and found from 30 to 70 people inside -- men, women and children. All bolted from the trailer and scattered except for two men left behind who suffered from dehydration.

So. Florida Sun-Sentinel  200 Haitians in Miami rally for equal treatment A passing cabby pumped his fist and another motorist honked rhythmically as a sudden burst of music roused 200 protesters denouncing the government's treatment of Haitian asylum seekers Tuesday evening. -- "Tell them we're still here and we're advancing!" a Haitian Creole roots recording blared, spilling across Biscayne Boulevard toward the Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters on the other side.

KCBS-TV News Property Tax Proposal On Ballot The L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 Tuesday to put a proposal to hike property taxes on the Nov. 5 ballot, hoping that an increase will generate $175 million for emergency rooms and other vital health services. -- Putting the measure on the ballot was "one of the boldest moves that this board has ever made," Supervisor Gloria Molina said. "We're just taking a chance that there are going to be voters out there who are going to understand and respect these issues."

L.A Times (Free Registration)   On Their Own and Uninsured At a time when the soft economy has forced many more people to buy health insurance on their own, insurers are imposing steep premium increases on individual policyholders and are making it harder for new applicants to qualify for coverage, according to insurance brokers and consumers. -- The number of uninsured nationally is rising, by an estimated 2 million in the last two years, and the rising premiums are putting increasing financial strain on consumers.

N.Y. Times (Free Registration) Latino Population Growth Is Widespread, Study Says The Hispanic population has spread out across the nation faster and farther than any previous wave of immigrants, with the movement of Latinos from immigrant gateways into the heartland and suburbs possibly exceeding that of European immigrants in the early 20th century and of African-Americans moving from the Deep South in the period before World War II, according to a study released today.

Washington Post Update on huge fraud case The Arlington lawyer accused last week of immigration fraud in Virginia by filing false documents is being investigated for submitting thousands of similar forms in other states, a federal prosecutor said yesterday during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. -- "There are thousands of other applications filed by [Samuel G.] Kooritzky in other states that we are pursuing," including Pennsylvania, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Morton told a magistrate.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution Agents spread thin on Canada border Washington --- Vast stretches of the nation's northern border are guarded just as thinly as before last year's terrorist attack, a study concludes. -- The U.S. Border Patrol has added just 22 agents to the 331 already posted along the 5,525 miles of mostly wilderness that separates the United States and Canada, according to the INS. -- The result is that each agent has 16 miles of border to deal with, according to the study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

L.A Times (Free Registration)  Latinos Finding New Home in Suburbs, Study Shows The rapid growth of the nation's Latino population is causing the most change in suburbs far away from the traditional immigrant gateways of Southern California, Texas, New York and Miami, a new study of census data indicates. -- The Los Angeles area continues to receive the largest number of Latino immigrants in the country. But the growth rate of the Latino population here now lags that of many other cities. In fact, the growth rate for the region's Latino population was lower in the 1990s than in the 1980s, according to the study.

Associated Press Fox gets invitation to Bush's Texas ranch President Vicente Fox is the latest world leader to win an invitation to U.S. President George W. Bush's Texas ranch. -- The two presidents will meet on Bush's 1,600-acre spread in Crawford, Texas, on Aug. 26, officials from both countries said Tuesday. -- Fox will make the visit as part of a three-day swing through the major hubs - Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio - of the state that shares a 1,951-mile border with Mexico. -- "He and President Fox have a very close friendship and relationship...."

CNN 2,127 arrests on Mexican border A U.S. Marshals Service operation led to the arrest of 2,127 suspected drug traffickers along the U.S.-Mexico border since March, the agency announced Tuesday. -- The United States and Mexico worked together to target "major narcotics criminals who had substantial resources to fund new identities and frequent movements," the Marshals Service announced Tuesday. -- "The sheer number of violent fugitives taken off the street makes this a successful operation," Ben Reyna, director of the Marshals Service, said in a written statement.