Memo - Bill O'Reilly
O'REILLY: In Arizona you have the highest drop out rate in the country, all right? -- You have and educational system in dire trouble. You have about a million arrests on the border, the jails are overflowing. Now, you've got to put the American people ahead of the Mexican people because this is the USA, am I wrong? -- Loud applause, cheers and whistles from audience......
MCCAIN: Well, Bill there's many Hispanic citizens of my state of Arizona who are proud of their culture and their heritage, and I'm not sure they would exactly agree with you.

Alameda Co., CA

Heroin bust nets 10 arrests

In one of Alameda County's largest seizures of black tar heroin -- with a potential street value of nearly $1.4 million -- three brothers and seven others were behind bars Friday for their alleged roles in a drug distribution ring that spread from Mexico to the East Bay, Los Angeles and the Midwest. Thursday's arrests ended a one-year undercover investigation conducted by the task force and the FBI. It began after a tip received by Alameda County Sheriff's Deputy Steve Angeja, a task force member who spearheaded the investigation. Angeja said he was told last May that Felix Reyes, one of the suspected ringleaders, was trafficking large amounts of heroin. Reyes, who lived in a federally subsidized home in San Leandro, subsequently sold 22 ounces of heroin over six months to an undercover drug agent....

Fremont, CA

With an Asian Influx, a Suburb Finds Itself Transformed

The city is a vivid example of a shift in the landscape as Asian immigrants, particularly new arrivals with professional degrees and entrepreneurial ambitions, forsake urban enclaves and move to the suburbs in such numbers that they transform them. The new Fremonters include Silicon Valley engineers, entrepreneurs of every persuasion - from Sikhs owning 7-Eleven stores to Chinese chief executives living in Mediterranean palazzos - as well as Fijian Indians, Filipinos and one of the country's largest concentrations of Afghan refugees. The latest census figures disclose that the Asian population doubled since 1990 in this city of 206,000 people, to 37% from 19%. This website may require registration (free)

Glenn Spencer to the L.A. New Times

Re: The Finger - 'Kenny, do something!'

American Patrol paid the Daily News to run a full-page ad about Villaraigosa. They approved the ad, took our money and cashed the check. (We have run similar ads nineteen in the past seven years). At the last minute, after the Los Angeles Times complained, the Daily News killed the ad. This was such a blatant violation of our rights in the law that we are suing both the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News and we are going to prevail. Why won't a bastion of free expression such as Newtimes report this to its readers? -- Could it be that the Finger hates the truth as much as the L.A. Times? You bet.

San Ysidro, CA

Pickets at border protest loss of homes in Mexico

Americans who lost homes in a Baja California land dispute picketed the U.S.-Mexico border Friday, hoping to give a black eye to Mexican real estate. "We hope to put a seed of doubt in the minds (of Americans) urging them about not investing in any way in any kind of property in Mexico," said Mary Hayes, who now lives in Hemet but had a home in Punta Banda, a seaside community south of Ensenada. "They'll find out as we did: They have no rights," said Hayes, 70, who was holding up one end of a banner larger than herself. Hayes and her son, Brian, aimed the bright-yellow sign at drivers waiting to cross Interstate 5 into Mexico at the San Ysidro border crossing.

Washington

A Defection Highlights GOP's Fragile Coalition

For 35 years, the Republican Party reaped huge gains among Sun Belt whites, evangelicals and social conservatives, enough to put the GOP within reach of becoming the nation's majority party. Now, with unexpected abruptness, this success has begun to impose major costs. The defection of Sen. James M. Jeffords, the Vermont Republican who announced Thursday he was becoming an independent, is the most glaring example of the difficulties facing the Republican Party in its struggle to hold together a fragile coalition under a party leadership dominated by conservative white southern men.

John McCaslin

Island of misfits

With the population of California already at a whopping 34 million and expected to reach 60 million by 2050 -- putting even further strains on the state´s energy, water, traffic and pollution problems -- President Bush is being called upon to enact responsible immigration policy. -- And do so quickly. Before Bangladesh´s prime minister, Sheik Hasina Wajed, gets any more ideas. -- The immigration group Project-USA observes that when asked recently how Bangladesh intends to feed, educate, employ and house its rapidly expanding population, she replied, laughing: "We´ll send them to America."

Ron Unz

The Bilingual Bind

Just a few years ago, congressional Republicans overwhelmingly supported proposals to expel a million or more Hispanic children from American public schools. Now, perhaps in a misguided attempt to expiate that political sin, the Republican- controlled Senate has voted by an overwhelming 2-to-1 margin to quadruple the federal budget for Spanish-only bilingual education programs, largely aimed at those same children. The Republicans, apparently, are now willing to allow immigrant youngsters to remain in school, but are determined to prevent them from learning English, even if that policy requires importing thousands of teachers from Mexico and Spain. [Also see: Glenn Spencer to Unz]

Poughkeepsie, NY

Illegal alien charged with murder

The Town of Beekman man charged with murdering his wife is an undocumented alien from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia with a long list of aliases and a shadowy past, leading authorities to seek help from Interpol and the FBI, officials said Friday. Dutchess County Senior Assistant District Attorney Edward Whitesell said Koba Peradze, 34, has also been charged in connection with an incident last August, when he allegedly held a knife to another woman's throat. Peradze is also wanted on bench warrants out of New York City on a burglary- related charge. Investigators continue to probe his past. ''We're trying to find out as much of his background as we can,'' Whitesell said.

Poison Produce

Melons Blamed in Second Death

State and federal health officials are blaming a second California death on contaminated cantaloupe as they struggle to identify the source of a salmonella outbreak. But their search faces tremendous odds, health officials acknowledge -- and critics say the outbreak illustrates a flawed system that leaves consumers unprotected against contaminated produce. The latest in a series of such cases became public last week when the California Department of Health Services linked 20 illnesses statewide and the death of an elderly Riverside woman to contaminated cantaloupes. [Buried deep down in this L.A. Times article is the source of this deadly produce: Mexico].

Washington

Funding cut for jailing border crooks?

Arizona and at least two dozen other states might lose millions of dollars under a Bush administration proposal to slash funding for a program that reimburses local governments for part of the cost of jailing criminal illegal immigrants. The administration wants to cut funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program from $573 million a year to $265 million. The proposal is sparking an outcry in Congress among Democrats and some Republicans. "Controlling our borders is a federal responsibility," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. "States are being stuck with a substantially disproportionate share of the bill to process criminal aliens through the justice system."

More Mexican Gov't Meddling

Mexicans want Pima Co. prosecutor tossed off case against BP agent

The Mexican government has requested the Pima County Attorney's Office remove prosecutor Ken Peasley from the probe into the shooting of Mexican citizen Roberto Chavez Resendiz by a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Mexico cited an alleged conflict of interest. The county attorney's office has agreed to reopen the case. Peasley declined to file criminal charges in the March 5 shooting of the [illegal alien]. Border Patrol agent Marco Antonio Rivera was identified as firing at the immigrant. He said his weapon discharged accidentally as he was arresting Chavez Resendiz.

Education

Latino enrollment surges for UC's incoming class

The University of California will enroll a greater proportion of Latinos in its freshman class systemwide this year than it did during 1997 -- the last year that race was considered in admissions. The university's ban on affirmative action went into effect in 1998. According to numbers released yesterday, 4,184 Latinos have accepted admission to UC's eight undergraduate campuses this year, making them 13.5 percent of the 31,018 freshmen who will start in the fall. In 1997, Latinos were 13.1 percent of the incoming class.

Balkanization

Dwindling diversity in Denver

A Rocky Mountain News analysis of ethnic enrollment and school choice data found that DPS today has fewer Anglos than ever, and many of them are using open enrollment to cluster in schools where they remain the largest ethnic group. Black students also are clustering at a few neighborhood and charter schools. At the same time, the number of Hispanic students is increasing rapidly. Many are moving into historically Anglo or black schools, making those schools more diverse. But at predominantly Hispanic schools, diversity is vanishing in the post-busing era. -- Anglo enrollment has continued to decline, dropping 10% since 1996, while the school district's overall enrollment has grown 7%.

Springfield, MO

Ozarks trying to come to grips with service needs of a new population

Dick Davis has lived in Noel, a McDonald County town near the Missouri- Oklahoma border, all his life. For most of that time, the town has housed mainly "white, Caucasian" folks, he said. But in the past three years, the Noel Elementary School principal has watched the town's population shift with the influx of a large number of Hispanics relocating from other countries or other states. "Now, our elementary school population is 50% or greater Hispanic," he said. Fueled by the growth of jobs sought by Hispanic laborers, many settle in this and other southwest Missouri towns where there are jobs and a good quality of life for families.

Central Falls, RI

Patrick Kennedy meets with local leaders on immigrant issues

There's no reason why immigrant workers shouldn't have the same rights as other workers, minority- community activists say. -- "It's time to begin to work in unity for justice," Kennedy told representatives from minority community agencies across the state. -- Kennedy hosted a discussion at Progreso Latino Friday to enlighten those minority activists to issues affecting the community that could come before Congress. Reps from the International Institute of Rhode Island, the Urban League of R.I., the Mexican Association and the state Coalition for Immigrants and Refugees swarmed Kennedy with concerns they had regarding immigrants who are not documented, but working here....

"If the Border Patrol finds you, try again."

Groups Urge Change in Border Policy

As doctors said that the condition of the 12 Mexican immigrants who survived furnace-like conditions in the desert near here was improving, a number of immigrant rights groups said today that the death of 14 other illegal border crossers had caused them to consider stronger challenges to what they call hostile U.S. border policy. A vigil was held last night in Tucson for the hundreds of people who have died in that region after illegally entering the U.S. in search of better- paying jobs. Some groups in southeastern Arizona have said they are expanding a program to place water stations at remote locations frequented by [illegals]. This website may require registration (free)

El Paso

Border Patrol seizure of 9 shelter residents raises search issues

Border Patrol agents recently entered a Downtown homeless shelter at night and apprehended nine people suspected of being undocumented immigrants, the shelter's director said. -- "This has never happened before in my seven years here," said Ray Tullius, director of the shelter. The action spurred concerns among social services organizations that Border Patrol raids of the past were back. Luis Barker, chief of the El Paso sector of the Border Patrol, said he didn't hear about the apprehensions at the shelter until Tuesday. "We're checking into it to find out whether the agents followed guidelines and procedures," Barker said. "If we need to make any adjustments, we will make them.

Yuma, AZ

Feds Want to Abet Illegal Aliens

Because of the deaths of 14 illegal aliens this week in the Arizona desert, U.S. and Mexican officials were scheduled to meet next month to discuss ways to make it safer for criminals to enter the United States. The Mexican Embassy in Washington said Friday that delegations from both nations would meet in San Antonio, Texas, June 6-8 as part of a high-level working group established earlier by President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox. "We are committed to ensuring a safe and orderly border, and both governments reaffirm their commitment to spare no effort in combating the trafficking of migrants along the border," the embassy said in a statement. "These deaths highlight the pressing need for our governments to continue their work to reach new agreements on migration and border safety."