...A recently unearthed U.S. Justice Department memo says state and local cops can make arrests after traffic stops if they find civil immigration violations, such as someone overstaying a visa.

No specific federal authority is needed for local officers to make such arrests, according to the 2002 memo, which came to light in a recent court case....

The Associated Press reported Thursday the 2002 memo was issued by then-Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft and his staff. It overturned a 1996 letter from Justice Department lawyers that said state and local police could enforce only criminal immigration violations, such as sneaking across a border.

The memo came to light recently when a coalition of civil rights and immigrants' rights groups sued the Justice Department to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request....

The El Paso County sheriff quickly earned federal immigration officials' attention by warning that he'd start driving undocumented immigrants [criminal illegal aliens] from his jail to the Mexican border rather than continue to pay for their upkeep, and release some to the streets....

After nearly two years of study and the formation of a special task force, a proposed Fort Collins ordinance that bars discrimination based on immigration status still faces an uphill battle....

Councilman Kurt Kastein balked at the ordinance's first clause, a provision stating that the city strives to provide equal services "to all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity or immigration status."

"We are not striving to provide equal services to all people in our city if you include folks who are here illegally," he said.

Mayor Doug Hutchinson said public interest in the measure has been high - and overwhelmingly negative....

...The hot topic was illegal immigration—particularly across the Mexican-American border—and eight protestors holding signs outside the library signaled potential controversy ahead....

Fort Collins resident Glen Colton moderated the evening’s event, which was organized by himself, five other local activists and the Lakewood-based Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform (CAIR). CAIR Director Fred Elbel also spoke at the August 22 meeting....

CAIR members organized the meeting, “because it’s time to start talking about immigration, as a community and as a nation. The purpose of the meeting was to get people out, educate them and let them hear this side of the argument. We don’t believe that our side of the argument has been heard,” Colton says, adding that a primary goal is to see immigration slowed to about 200,000 entries per year. Current estimates put the number of Mexican immigrants into the United States at about 800,000 to 1 million each year....

Closer to home, the Human Rights Protection Ordinance came under fire at the meeting. Scheduled for presentation to city council on September 6, the ordinance would prevent city employees and police from asking an individual’s immigration status under most circumstances....

Read more of the article.

This nation is lost and our citizenship is totally devalued....

We're in deep trouble. Our government "of, by, and for the people," is no longer responding because the elites are running the show, and their multiple armies of pawns (perhaps terrorists) has arrived and gained power. It's been planned to go down this way for a long time and they're winning . . . and will win unless we get some moxy and fight back. There's evil afoot here and we shouldn't let it prevail. Vote them out, file impeachment petitions, and sound whatever alarms can be sounded . . .

The Democrats love the destruction of this nation and the Republicans have done nothing to slow it down.... September 11th was an overt attack on American citizens, but what's been happening behind the scenes, in political war rooms, in secret meetings between organizations out to destroy us, and on our borders has been equally dangerous. The worst thing we can do is nothing because it's the same as surrendering to evil.

Imagine that you came home tomorrow and found a stranger living in your home. Would you pay $148 to have him removed, or would you instead just legally adopt him and give him the run of the place to save the $148? The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C., thinks the “practical” thing to do would be adopt the “undocumented family member” that broke into your home.

At least, that is what I can extrapolate from the report they released last week purporting to document the true cost of deporting –rather than amnestying-- the 10 million illegal aliens that have smuggled themselves into our homeland over the past two decades. According to the study, which was dutifully reported by the Washington Post and others, it would cost the Federal Government $41 billion per year over the next five years to take the “draconian” step of actually enforcing our immigration laws.

...the 10 million criminal aliens in this country have $50 billion worth of assets subject to seizure. If taken over the five year period covered by the report from the fine folks at the Center for American Progress, this would mean that deporting illegal aliens would earn the United States a profit of $9 billion per year. And that’s enough to fund Medicare for almost two whole weeks—for those worried about Medicare funding.

Read more of the article.

The United States has formally requested the extradition of accused Denver cop-killer Raul Gomez-Garcia....

Detectives Donald Young and John Bishop were shot while working off-duty security at a baptism party on May 8. Bishop, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest, was wounded but survived. Young died at the hospital....

Few monolingual Spanish-apeaking people attended the recent series of meeting organized by the Denver Public Library (DPL) to explain the new plan to expand services in Spanish. The lack of support could mean changes in the plan, and perhaps even its cancellation....

"I am truly sorry that, in sipte of our best efforts, so few Latinos came to our mettings," said Agnes Talamantez Carroll, an independent consulting helping DPL to promote the new plan...

Gaylon Dahn, the former president of Education Management Services of Denver, Colorado, has been sentenced to 48 months in prison for his role in a scheme that encouraged foreign nationals to acquire fraudulent student visas, the Department of Justice and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced today....

Dahn pleaded guilty on Jan. 6, 2005 to two counts of encouraging between 25 and 99 foreign students to reside in the United States, knowing that the presence of those students in the United States would be illegal. Dahn admitted that he took money from Middle Eastern students to register them at Mountain State University in Beckley, West Virginia. Dahn and unidentified associates then sold to the students school credits the students needed to maintain their F-1 student visas, even though they did little or no course work....

Using the Clinton playbook for enacting NAFTA in '93, the White House is twisting arms and buying votes to win passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

And the seductive song the White House is singing sounds familiar. It is the NAFTA theme song. CAFTA will ease the social pressures that have produced waves of illegal aliens. CAFTA will increase U.S. exports. CAFTA will not cost U.S. jobs. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me....

In 1993, Republicans, by four to one, signed on to NAFTA. They believed the promises that our $5 billion trade surplus with Mexico would grow and illegal immigration would diminish. They were deceived. The NAFTA skeptics were proven right. The U.S. trade surplus with Mexico vanished overnight. Last year, we ran a $50 billion trade deficit. Since 1993, 15 million illegal aliens have been caught breaking into the United States. Five million made it, and their soaring demands for social services have driven California to bankruptcy. As for Mexico's major exports to us, they appear to be two: narcotics and Mexicans.

With Middle Easterners turning up on the Rio Grande, patriotic Minutemen are patrolling the border because President Bush will not enforce our immigration laws. Who can believe this White House is serious, then, about halting the invasion from the Caribbean and Central America?...

...Henry Kissinger tipped the Trilateralists' hand in 1993 when he wrote that NAFTA was the "architecture of a new international system," a great "step forward toward the new world order."

Today's trade agreements are about reshaping the world to conform to the demands of transnational corporations that have shed their national identities and loyalties and want to shed their U.S. workers....

NAFTA and CAFTA are the shield laws of corporate absconders....

America can yet turn this around, but we are reaching a tipping point – where a sovereign, independent and self-sufficient American republic will cease to be.

Thirty House Republicans can stop this process cold by just saying no to CAFTA. The Business Roundtable will get over it. After all, they have no place else to go.

"Our neighborhood." That’s how President Bush described countries in the region during a March 23 joint press conference with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. They were announcing the creation of their Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America (SPP), which is nothing less than an instrument for merging nations of the Western Hemisphere through trade agreements.

The SPP is intended to set an example for other hemispheric countries, the three leaders explained, and to advance the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), followed by the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)....

For most Americans, the ideal neighborhood represents home and hearth, welcome and refuge. It’s inhabited by people of similar circumstances and amambitions who live by the same rules. Thus, "neighborhood" is a perplexing metaphor for a group of nations with drastically different cultures, economies, forms of government, and national goals....

Even before NAFTA, Mexico was a captive of drug cartels.... Under NAFTA, the drug trade has flourished....

Mexicans living in the U.S. send money home. In 2004, Mexico’s remittances totaled $16.6 billion, constituting one of that country’s largest sources of income. It’s quite a deal. Mexico exports its people for the U.S. to educate, medicate, and incarcerate while importing U.S. dollars generated by the same people. "Human capital," Vincente Fox calls them....

But what would the CAFTA countries bring to the neighborhood? A study done by the pro-CAFTA Heritage Foundation and cited in testimony before the Congressional Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere April 20, indicates we can expect poverty, drugs, crime, and more illegal immigration....

Who cannot see that the "neighborhood" of today – pre-CAFTA – is in danger of becoming a Third World slum?

Just ten days before the Heritage Foundation presented its study, the New York Times reported on U.S. illegals: "Nationally, 80,000 to 100,000 undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes walk freely on the streets, federal officials said. But the problem appears most acute in Los Angeles County, where 30,000 of the nearly 2 million undocumented immigrants are criminals."

A word of advice to President Bush: When discussing the bankrupt, crime-ridden, gang-controlled countries of the hemisphere, drop the "neighborhood" metaphor; just call it "the hood."

Federal authorities said Wednesday they have disrupted a far-flung counterfeiting ring that makes hard-to-detect forgeries of immigration and identification documents, and they hope to extradite the alleged leader from Mexico.

Authorities said the fake Social Security cards, driver's licenses and other documents are so sophisticated that only a crime lab can distinguish them from the real thing.

An indictment accuses Pedro Castorena-Ibarra of Guadalajara, Mexico, of running a franchise-style operation with cells in more than a dozen cities across the country. Cell leaders pay a "franchise fee" to operate the business...

Ten other people were arrested, and authorities seized document-making equipment in Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois.

Authorities said the indictments, coupled with the seizure of documents and equipment, will hurt the ring but not break it up. They said the organization has bounced back from the convictions of numerous members in the past decade....

Copp said authorities knew of no terrorism connections or violent crimes stemming from the case, but he said the operation produces "breeder documents" that could be used to obtain legitimate government identification papers that would allow terrorists to easily blend into society.

In addition to driver's licenses and Social Security cards, the ring produces vehicle registrations, auto insurance cards, utility bills, resident alien cards and Mexican identification documents, authorities said....

One of the most frequently asked questions I hear is this: Why does the federal government refuse to accept its responsibility to enforce immigration laws and border security?

Now the answer is becoming clear.

And it's not pretty.

The shadow government – the elitists – do indeed have a plan. And it is a plan that does not include any vestige of U.S. sovereignty or constitutional government. It is a plan for merger – a European Union-style government for North America and eventually the rest of the Americas and the world.

It's all spelled out in the latest reports by the Council on Foreign Relations. There's a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."

Though there has been no national debate on merger with the corruption and socialism of our neighbors to the north and south, there is a roadmap. And unless the American people rise up in righteous indignation against this plan, the roadmap to merger will become the inevitable, guiding force in setting U.S. policy....

The CFR's strategy calls specifically for "a more open border for the movement of goods and people." It calls for laying "the groundwork for the freer flow of people within North America."...

By the way, even though you didn't hear any national debate about this plan, your president has already committed you, your children and your grandchildren to this policy...

It is a stunning betrayal of the will of the American people, the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration of Independence and all of our notions of limited government, self-government, freedom, sovereignty, the rule of law and justice.

I don't know how else to say it: It is an open conspiracy to commit treason.

It's time to fight the War of Independence all over again.

With nearly one in four American births now to a foreign-born mother, pressure is growing on health care centers to not only deliver babies, but deliver in more languages than one.

A report issued earlier this month by the Center for Immigration Studies says as of 2002, 23 percent of all births in the U.S. were to immigrant [and illegal alien] mothers. Births to Hispanic mothers accounted for 59 percent of those....

One hospital in Madison, Wis., said requests for interpreters more than doubled, to more than 4,000 requests a year, between 2000 and 2003. In Columbus, Ohio, Children's Hospital in 2002 had almost 8,000 requests for interpreters.

A survey of New Jersey's hospitals shows that in a largely urban state where 11 percent of residents have limited English, just 3 percent of hospitals have a full-time interpreter. Eighty percent of hospitals offer no staff training on working with interpreters, and 31 percent have no multilingual signs.

Cost is a barrier and most hospitals told the New Jersey survey that reimbursement for translation services is needed. A 2002 study by the National Association of Children's Hospitals found interpreting costs at 22 hospitals ranged from $1,800 to $847,000 per year....

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, one of the most outspoken anti-illegal immigration advocates in Congress, on Monday unveiled his plan for a guest worker program tied to getting the southern border under control.

Among other things, the sweeping legislation would eliminate such popular programs as the H-1B visa for foreign professional workers, institute a new single visa for skilled and unskilled workers and give the military authority to stem illegal immigration at the borders.

Tancredo's guest worker program would not become effective until certain enforcement goals were met. Those include finding and deporting 80 percent of visa overstayers within one year of their visas expiring, and deploying 10,000 more border patrol agents.

Under his plan, needed workers could stay in the country for 365 days within a two-year period. They couldn't bring their families with them and could not become permanent residents.

Tancredo's bill doesn't say what should be done about the estimated 10 plus million illegal immigrants now living and working in the U.S....

Tancredo unveiled his measure one day before two Republican senators John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, plan to introduce their comprehensive reform bill. Their measure and one by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz. and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.are likely to form the basis of any Senate reform.

...CAFTA would do more than just phase out tariffs and open new markets ---- a lot more. For example, buried among its nearly 1,000 pages, the agreement contains an expansive definition of "cross-border trade in services." This definition would give people in Central American nations a de facto right to work in the United States. CAFTA is more than a trade agreement about sugar and bananas. It is a thinly disguised immigration accord....

One article of CAFTA reads, "Cross-border trade in services or cross-border supply of services means the supply of a service ... by a national of a party in the territory of another party"... and to guarantee that our domestic laws are "not in themselves a restriction on the supply of the service."

What those provisions mean is that a foreign company would be empowered under CAFTA to challenge the validity of our immigration laws.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has just let the cat out of the bag about what's really behind our trade agreements and security partnerships with the other North American countries. A 59-page CFR document spells out a five-year plan for the "establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security community" with a common "outer security perimeter."...

The CFR's "integrated" strategy calls for "a more open border for the movement of goods and people."...

The CFR document calls for creating a "North American preference" so that employers can recruit low-paid workers from anywhere in North America. No longer will illegal aliens have to be smuggled across the border; employers can openly recruit foreigners willing to work for a fraction of U.S. wages.

Just to make sure that bringing cheap labor from Mexico is an essential part of the plan, the CFR document calls for "a seamless North American market" and for "the extension of full labor mobility to Mexico."...

CAFTA includes over 1,000 pages of international law that will contain some ugly surprises for American labor. One thing conspicuously absent from CAFTA is any mention of embedded visas....

One major question begs to be answered: how could the CAFTA signatories fail to get visa concessions from the United States in such a far-reaching trade agreement?

The answer isn't in what CAFTA explicitly says - it's what it doesn't say! Authors of CAFTA cleverly inserted text that allows an international tribunal to decide if visas are to be issued. Decisions by the tribunals would come after CAFTA is ratified, and more importantly, well after the public's attention has been diverted somewhere else....

Rosemary Jenks wrote the excellent analysis: Will CAFTA Affect Immigration to the United States from Central America?. By taking the time to read it you will learn a lot about the WTO and GATS, and why Modes 3 and 4 of GATS mandate that countries who sign FTAs must allow the free flow of "natural persons" across their borders....

istrict Attorney Scott Storey announced today that the First Judicial District Grand Jury in Jefferson and Gilpin Counties has returned an indictment charging Ricardo Medina, Nancy Rios, and Perla Alvarado with violations of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act, a class 2 felony.

According to the indictment, Medina, DOB: 9-26-73, of Lakewood, is a realtor who conducted his business from offices located in Lakewood, Colorado. Rios, DOB: 11-19-65, of Thornton, and Alvarado, DOB: 9-4-80, are Denver-area loan officers.

The indictment alleges that it was the regular practice of Medina, aided by Rios and Alvarado, to sell single-family homes to persons who, because of their citizenship or financial circumstances, were not qualified for home loans.

According to the indictment, the defendants were able to obtain loans for the unqualified buyers by creating false documents concerning the homebuyer's identity, employment and credit history, and then submitting these false documents to legitimate mortgage lenders.

Transactions in the initial indictment involved loans for 33 homes, totaling 6.5 million dollars....

Unfortunately, the Afghan border is not the only sanctuary where terrorists can lie low to escape justice. Remarkably, criminals and terrorists can now find a form of safe haven within the United States. Some U.S. states and cities are refusing to enforce federal immigration laws and have implemented policies that effectively provide safe haven for illegal aliens. These "cities of sanctuary" do not require, and may actually prohibit, their employees from reporting to federal officials about aliens who may be illegally present in the country.

...creating communities that ignore the laws of the United States has increasingly resulted in an attractive home for all sorts of other people who come to the United States with less pure intentions, including drug and human traffickers, gangs, weapons smugglers and terrorists.

Just a few weeks ago, Denver Detective Donald Young was fatally shot by Raul Garcia-Gomez, an illegal alien from Mexico... Mr. Garcia-Gomez was never questioned about his immigration status because Denver police officers are prohibited from questioning suspects about their immigration status unless they have been arrested for another crime....

Does this really seem reasonable, especially when we know terrorists continue to pursue American targets? The threat to the homeland remains very real. As a result, we must be vigilant, not complicit, in our response to terrorist movement. We must take meaningful action to end so-called "sanctuaries" before they become full-blown safe havens for criminals and terrorists....

It is this reporter's opinion that to be eligible for naturalization, an applicant must be required to read, write and speak basic English. This requirement has more or less fallen by the wayside, yet every poll I have seen reveals that between 80 percent and 90 percent of those polled vote for that requirement.

...S.I. Hayakawa has said, "A common language is the glue that holds a people and a nation together."

Michael Savage, when asked what keeps us united, answered, "Our common English language." And he emphasizes on every program: "Borders, Language, Culture."

Former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm has said: "A nation is much more. It is a state of mind, a shared vision, a recognition that we are all in this together. A nation needs a common language as it needs a common currency."

The scholar Seymour Lipset has said, "The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate point to histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy." As example: Canada, Belgium, Malaysia and Lebanon....

As Gov. Lamm puts it, "The invaders are attempting to turn America into a bilingual, multilingual and bicultural country. We are adding a second underclass – unassimilated, undereducated and antagonistic – to our population."

Lamm cites the ancient Greeks, who believed they belonged to the same race, possessed a common language and literature, worshipped the same gods, yet these bonds were not strong enough to overcome two factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions. Greece fell because it put the emphasis on the "PLURIBUS" instead of the "UNUM."...

President Teddy Roosevelt, in 1915, said it best: "There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities."...

Qui vult decipi, decipiatur – Let him who wishes to be deceived, be deceived....

What is behind the constant stream of statements issued by Mexican officials, especially President Vicente Fox, that are influencing U.S. legislation – national, state, and local? Why does Mexico stridently object to every action by U.S. citizens to protect U.S. borders from illegal entries by undocumented aliens?...

Mexican immigration into the United States is Fox's central concern. Mexico depends on emigration – legal and illegal – to relieve the pressures of over-population, under-education, lack of employment opportunities, and the desire to reclaim lost lands....

A number of Hispanic politicians admit to being members in their youth of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA). Aztlan is the group's name for the U.S. lands they seek to re-colonize. Their goal is to do away with European-American heritage, culture, and language by sheer numbers, and they are succeeding. They support illegal immigration to provide foot soldiers in the battle against the gringos....

Read more of the article.

...The Minuteman Project is a call to bring national awareness to the decades-long careless disregard of effective U.S. immigration law enforcement. It is a reminder to Americans that our nation was founded and governed by the rule of law, not by the whims of mobs of illegal aliens who stream across U.S. borders. The Minutemen and women are willing to sacrifice their time and comforts to do what their government has refused to do: Stop the illegal invasion – the tens of millions of invading illegals.

Imagine our amazement to discover that the ACLU chapter in New Mexico has suspended an entire chapter of the local organization because a member of the board of directors is reported to be leading the state's Minuteman group! The state organization has suspended its Las Cruces chapter after learning that a member of the group's board, Clifford Alford, is heading the formation of a Minuteman group in New Mexico.

The ACLU actually mobilized nationally against the Minuteman Project. The organization stationed its own volunteers on the border in order to watch the border monitors watch the illegal aliens, reporting any civil liberties violations to authorities.

This reporter has had a lifelong battle with the ACLU, which maintains that it is wholly nonpartisan, advertising itself as an objective organization – neither liberal nor conservative, Republican nor Democrat – that is devoted exclusively to protecting the civil liberties of all Americans.

But the facts indicate otherwise.

Roger Baldwin, founder and leading force in the ACLU until his death in 1981, asserted the partisan nature of the ACLU agenda. Said Baldwin, "I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property." And he concluded with "COMMUNISM IS THE GOAL."

Mexican President Vicente Fox has been scolded for declaring that Mexicans do jobs that “even blacks won’t do.” Curiously, nary a whimper is heard when President Bush insults all citizens by referring to “Jobs Americans Won’t Do.”

Before the Civil War, John C. Calhoun’s views on the equality of human beings were nurtured with a mint julep on the veranda of a southern plantation. This leading North Carolina senator, and presidential hopeful, had a splendid panoramic view of the jobs that Americans wouldn’t do. In spirited debates, Senator Calhoun became a voice for the South in perpetuating the institution of slavery....

The slogan, “Jobs Americans won’t do,” has now emerged as the presidential mantra for importing more foreign labor. The leader of the free world offers an assurance that Americans have graduated to a better life....

In fact, Americans do these jobs. Americans do these jobs with pride. Americans have thrived on these jobs over the centuries. The Americans doing these jobs don’t look any different. They wear the face of America. They do not shrink from work. Americans just resist enslaved wages and indecent working conditions. The soul of America is still found in our commitment to a work ethic. A presidential slogan to the contrary offends the soul of America.

If we hope to restore dignity to labor, then we need to honor it with a living wage....

In a long awaited move, the Senate late Thursday night barely approved implementing legislation for the Central America ­ Dominican Republic ­ United States Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). CAFTA's approval was assured in the Senate, so this is no surprise. What is a surprise is that it was approved with the least number of votes for a trade bill in recent history. While CAFTA squeaked by with a 54-45 vote, past Senate "yes" votes on trade agreements include 83 for China PNTR, 76 for the WTO, 80 for the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement, 64 for Fast Track in 2002, and 61 for NAFTA. The biggest upset was Hillary Clinton, who voted against CAFTA ­ a surprise to many who projected that her national aspirations would portend a Yes vote, and whose husband shepherded NAFTA through the Congress 11 years ago.

Usually, trade votes are taken up in the House before the Senate. However, because the Bush Administration still does not have the votes in the House ­ even well over a year after CAFTA was signed on May 28th, 2004 ­ the Administration is attempting to contrive an artificial sense of 'momentum' by having the Senate vote on it first. At last count, over 166 Representatives had publicly stated their opposition to CAFTA, while a mere 65 had publicly stated their approval. The House Ways and Means Committee passed implementing legislation out of committee this Wednesday, setting a 15-legislative day clock ticking for the Bush Administration to make a last-ditch attempt to shore up Representatives' votes for the massively unpopular treaty. The Congress returns from a July 4th recess on July 11th, so the vote must come this July.

With approval ratings at an all-time low, support for the war plummeting, and efforts to privatize social security going nowhere, the Bush Administration appears to be opening up the pork barrel bank in a desperate attempt to pass something, even if it destroys American jobs and our environment....

This week, studies came to light that were commissioned by the US Department of Labor and carried out by the International Labor Rights Fund (www.laborrights.org). The studies showed that the 5 Central American countries violate basic ILO standards in at least 20 different ways, including violations of freedom to organize and freedom of assembly, forced overtime, lack of payment of minimum wage, and others. Although funded by US taxpayers, the studies were censored by the Bush Administration for almost a year...

Read more of the article.

...LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): CAFTA is much more than a trade agreement. If it passes, it would become the highest law of the land, determining rules from health care, to zoning, to immigration....

LORI WALLACH, PUBLIC CITIZEN: Any violation of 1,000 pages of international law imposed on us is taken to an international tribunal, not U.S. courts, where if the U.S. does not conform its law, we face perpetual trade sanctions. It's a huge attack on our sovereignty and our democracy....

Any company wishing to come into the United States, and either start a business or complete a contract, can bring their employees in from the country of origin. Even if our visa system is -- or even if our visa quota is full....

DOBBS: Well, it seems Vice President Dick Cheney isn't aware of those back-door immigration provisions in the CAFTA agreement.

The Labor Department worked for more than a year to maintain secrecy for studies that were critical of working conditions in Central America, the region the Bush administration wants in a new trade pact.

The contractor hired by the department in 2002 to conduct the studies has become a major opponent of the administration's proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA.

The government-paid studies concluded that countries proposed for free-trade status have poor working environments and fail to protect workers' rights. The department dismissed the conclusions as inaccurate and biased, according to government and contractor documents reviewed by The Associated Press....

The contractor is the International Labor Rights Fund....

Behind the scenes, the Labor Department began as early as spring 2004 to block public release of the country-by-country reports.

The department instructed its contractor to remove the reports from its Web site, ordered it to retrieve paper copies before they became public, banned release of new information from the reports, and even told the contractor it could not discuss the studies with outsiders.

The department has now worked out a deal with the contractor to make the reports public, provided there is no mention of the federal agency or government funding....

TORONTO Jun 28, 2005 — The United States, Canada and Mexico pledged Monday to shore up security by integrating their terrorist watchlists and beefing up joint protection of borders and bridges.

At the same time, they promised to expand what is already the world's largest trading partnership by developing a single program to facilitate the free flow of people and goods across their shared borders....

...For the first time in 13 years, Lawline9, a free information hotline offered by 9News every Wednesday, is getting backlash for scheduling immigration law as its focus this week....

The lawyers who staff Lawline9 are volunteers through the Colorado Bar Association and the American Immigration Attorneys Association....

...This doubt is particularly disturbing in today's America that has been a target of million man invasion of foreign (mostly, Mexican) have-nots, often referred to as "migrants," who due to their sheer numbers and exorbitant fertility rates may soon gain enough political clout to force use of eminent domain as a vehicle of involuntary transfer of property from wealthy Americans to the "migrating" hordes (in order to "improve their lives," as they say)....

If the border and the immigration laws are not fully enforced, the only way for Americans to survive the mass invasion of poor but prolific "migrants," a hostile take-over if you will, and to keep their "wealth" intact, would be to abandon birth control altogether, like so many "migrants" do, and enter a spiral of exponential population growth. This would resemble the nuclear weapon race that characterized the by-gone Cold War era - a strategy that once was deemed losing for all parties involved in the race....

...Consider the issue of anchor babies and what, if anything, should be done about them. Anchor babies, for those not yet familiar with the term, is the description given to babies of illegal immigrants who are delivered in the United States. These babies, under current interpretation of U.S. law, automatically become U.S. citizens and most qualify immediately for a variety of benefits, including Medicaid. Over time, they can open the door to citizenship to other family members.

Last week, there was a flurry of national news stories announcing the current estimate that 300,000 such babies are born each year in this country....

There is a special intensity in this discussion in some states - including California, Texas and Florida - with high anchor baby populations. But the issue is also being noticed in places like Georgia, where the number of anchor babies doubled from 5,133 in 2000 to 11,180 in 2002. Several years ago in Colorado, the number of such births was estimated at more than 6,000.

A measure pending in Congress would change the Constitution to deny citizenship rights to babies born to illegal immigrants. The proposed amendment is currently given little or no chance of passage but it certainly helps to focus attention on the nature of the problem....

A Denver talk show host recently announced confidently that the current policy on anchor babies could never be changed in this country. But then, a few years ago, no one in Ireland thought that the country's constitution could be amended, either.

One in every 11 people born in Mexico is now living in the United States, according to a a study of immigration trends by the Pew Hispanic Center (search). That's 10.5 million Mexicans, more than half of whom are here illegally.

“The situation is simply out of control,” said immigration activist Ira Mehlman, of the Federation for Immigration Reform.

Over the past 10 years illegal immigration has surpassed legal immigration into the United States, and there's no end in sight. By many estimates the number of Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, could double in the next 15 years.

Lou Dobb's show on June 9, 2005, was an eye popper and even Lou couldn't contain his shock:

Lou Dobbs, CNN Anchor: Good evening, everybody. Tonight, an astonishing proposal to expand our borders to incorporate Mexico and Canada and simultaneously further diminish U.S. sovereignty. Have our political elites gone mad? We'll have a special report. ... Now, incredibly, a panel sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations wants the United States to focus not on the defense of our own borders, but rather create what effectively would be a common border that includes Mexico and Canada."

Christine Romans, CNN Correspondent (voice-over): On Capitol Hill, testimony calling for Americans to start thinking like citizens of North America and treat the U.S., Mexico and Canada like one big country.

For constitutionalists like myself, this is treason talk and Lou Dobbs should be thanked by the American people for exposing this evil plan. The fact that it is even being discussed in the U.S. Congress is putrid. The Council on Foreign Relations is an organization whose mission is to redefine American policy and slide this republic into a one-world government – a nightmare beyond what most Americans can't even imagine. Rear Adm. Chester Ward was a member of the CFR for 16 years and later warned the American people as to the true intentions of this treasonous operation:

Georgia chicken farmers are trying to sell poultry in Central America under a 160% import tariff, while Central American farmers sell their chicken in America tariff-free. Any five-year old will tell you that’s cheating. So what are we going to do about it?

The global trade crowd says we ought to reward these “competitors” by offering them the chance to cheat us on textiles and sugar, by approving the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. In return, they agree to stop cheating us on chickens after another 18 years during which they put our poultry industry out-of-business. Amnesty for trade cheats, just like the same crowd’s proposals on amnesty for illegal aliens....

The undeniable end result is a net loss of dollars and jobs to Americans. A few people gained; the majority lost.

NAFTA alone is bad enough, but the globalists have piled one bad trade deal on top of the next ever since. Congress approved U.S. membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, and the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act and the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act in 2000....

Every new trade deal we pass sacrifices another U.S. industry, and more U.S. jobs, to satisfy the globalists, who care nothing for the economic well-being of America or any other nation, as long as they make their percentage off these bad deals....

It’s time for smart and fair U.S. trade policies. A pre-requisite for any such policies is that they benefit the vast majority of Americans, at the unfair expense of no one.

CAFTA fails that test on all counts. And if it passes, just remember – you’re next.

GLENWOOD SPRINGS - A ranch hand working in the country illegally is suspected of fatally shooting a Qwest executive May 14 and then fleeing to Mexico, Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario said Thursday.

Vallario said he doesn't believe the ranch hand knew he was shooting at Jeff Garrett, who was turkey hunting and heavily camouflaged, but the man apparently realized he had done so and fled the same morning.

The sheriff refused to name the suspect or his hometown in Mexico....

U.S. Rep. Candice Miller wants to see the U.S. Constitution changed.

Earlier this week, the Harrison Township Republican introduced an amendment to the Constitution that would permit only legal residents of the United States to be counted when it comes time for Congressional districts to be reallocated.

Miller's proposal would change one word, "persons" to "citizens."

"It's an issue of fairness," Miller said. "Right now, the Census counts all people in the country, and that number is used for determining the Congressional districts. That includes people who are here in the country illegally.

"I think it's an outrage that illegal aliens get the same representation as legal citizens on the floor of the House of Representatives."...

One in every 11 people born in Mexico and still alive is a U.S. resident, and about half of these immigrants crossed the border illegally, according to a comprehensive report released Tuesday....

"This is costing us billions in health care, the criminal justice system and education," said Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, who advocates a more stringent employment-verification system. "You can't run and stick your head in the sand."...

Read more of the article.

Imagine this: your state government puts a transportation corridor in your neighborhood. It’s nearly a quarter-mile wide. It will serve vehicles and trains and incorporate oil, gas, electric and water lines. Try to fight it and you’ll not only face the combined might of your local, state, and federal governments, but foreign interests as well. The internationalization of U.S. roads has begun.

We’re not just talking about isolated instances of privately-built toll roads with foreign management, as we’ve seen in Southern California. We’re talking about networks of toll roads that may be built by foreign builders, managed by foreign operators, function primarily to accommodate foreign goods, and connect U.S. roads to similar networks in Canada, Mexico and, later, Central and South America.

Interstate 69, for example, is a planned 1600 mile national highway connecting Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. Eight states are involved in the project: Once completed, I-69 will extend from Port Huron, Michigan to the Texas/Mexico border.

In Texas, I-69 will be part of the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) project – a 4000 mile network of existing and new toll roads – which will create the largest private highway system in America. Interstate 35, also called the Oklahoma to Mexico/Gulf Coast element, will be developed as part of the TTC.

Plans call for the TTC to be 1200 feet wide with 10 vehicle lanes (three passenger vehicle lanes in each direction), truck lanes (two in each direction), six rail lines (three in each direction), two tracks for high-speed passenger rail, two for commuter rail and two for freight. The corridor will include a 200 feet right-of-way for oil, gas, electric and water lines....

Without any substantive discussion or debate and without public comment, the Commission approved it, a plan projected to cost up to $185 billion and take up to 50 years to build....

The trade agreements that have already transformed America’s culture and economy; will now slice up America’s heartland – at U.S. taxpayers’ expense – decimating farmland, small communities and, of course, property rights. Our shredded borders will open fully to trucks, busses, and people from all points north and south, the trucks delivering products and services once produced in the U.S.A. by Americans.

President Bush is demanding Congressional approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Many legislators – even those who express outrage over present border problems -- have already caved. Call your Congressman toll free at 1(877)762-8762. Demand a No! vote on CAFTA.

Foreign-born criminals who are supposed to be a prime target for federal immigration agents are instead slipping through the deportation net, an examination of Denver jail and Colorado court records shows.

The Rocky Mountain News looked at the records of inmates in the Denver County Jail May 17.

On that day, a Tuesday, federal immigration agents had ordered 35 of the inmates held for possible deportation, but there were no deportation holds on at least 94 other foreign-born inmates being held for major felonies.

Agents had placed detainers on two inmates listed on the roster as accused of murder and three being held for sexual assault. That meant they'd be turned over to immigration for deportation hearings in a federal immigration court after they were released or served their time on any criminal convictions.

But many foreign-born inmates had no deportation detainers, including at least three being held on murder charges, four on sexual assault charges, five on charges of sexual assault on a child, and dozens more charged in major crimes including assault, kidnapping and drug trafficking....

Most Americans think of Mexicans as short and dark, despite the fact that Mexican President Vicente Fox is tall and white.... Americans see hordes of swarthy, illiterate workers, yet American media flaunts a “white,” professional Mexican, as president. The reality is the white upperclass really does rule Mexico. Their chauvinism – and the lack of patriotism shown by most of the Mexican population – has helped create America’s illegal immigration problem.

The rulers of Mexico have always been Spanish, or what we might call, Castilian. They are indeed Caucasian, but they are very few in number. Today they make up less than 10 percent of the total population of over 106 million people. The indigenous groups (Mexican Indians) total about 30 percent of the population, and the predominant group, the famous “mestizos” (mixed Indio-Caucasian), comprise about 60 percent....

Now, Presidente Vicente Fox, son of a wealthy Irishman (who was living in Guanajuato) has shown “exemplary” (should we say, typical?) concern for the Mexicans: he’s pushing them all out of the country, just as fast as they can cross the borders. He offers them nothing within Mexico, but instead claims they have a right to be American. A real patriot he is, Presidente Fox, for all nations concerned....

“There are basically five families that rule Mexico,” she [my landlord] told me once. “They build a wall around themselves, become richer and richer, and they don’t give a ____ about anyone else. They just don’t care. They don’t care about poor people.”

And it seems the Mexican immigrants don’t care anything about Mexico, either. And they don’t care about the United States....

But if there is resentment in them, it should be toward Mexico, not the United States. Mexican leadership has always robbed the natives of their land. That’s what the Mexican Revolution of 1910 was all about ­ the recovery of the land by the people. Given the realities of today, I’d say there’s a need for the Mexican people to focus on Mexico, if they have any national pride at all. The claim to own the American southwest is a pathetic piece of Communist propaganda, and makes absolute fools out of those who buy into it....

I say, where is Emiliano Zapata when you need him? Where is Poncho Villa? Where are the leaders of the people, who will defend them against the careless, endless abuses of the generales in ciudad Mexico?

On May 12, 2005, a bipartisan group of open-borders Senators and Representatives announced to the world that they had found the legislative solution to America’s immigration problems. By redefining ordinary words in extraordinary ways, by using multitudes of studies to disguise an alarming lack of substance, and by pretending that more words lead to higher quality, these five men would turn this nation into the society of Haves and Have-Nots of which they – along with their big business/immigration lawyer/ethnic advocacy cronies – have always dreamed. They would dupe American workers into welcoming their foreign replacements. It had, after all, been done before, albeit on a much smaller scale and with significantly more honesty, under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

And so three Republicans from Arizona—Sen. John McCain, Rep. Jim Kolbe, and Rep. Jeff Flake—and two Democrats—Sen. Ted Kennedy (Mass.) and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (Ill.)—introduced the “Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act” to great fanfare. As almost always happens with such grand schemes, however, someone goofed and released an 11-page description of what is actually in the bills (or, at least most of what is in it). The visions of five-cent burgers and half-dollar Happy Meals began to fade almost immediately. Not even the Senate would have the stomach to pass this employers’ extravaganza....

Wayne Allard doesn't hesitate to criticize the proposed legislation [the McCain-Kennedy bill].

In fact, Allard, Colorado's second-term Republican, said the legislation would make Colorado more dangerous for his constituents. He said illegal immigrants bring prostitution and drug trafficking with them....

"The more illegal immigration you have, the more crime you have," Allard said. "I think that just makes common sense. When they come illegally, they are criminals."...

"I think it's a terrible proposal," District Attorney Ken Buck said. "It reminds me of the 1986 immigration reform bill that was just an amnesty with a lot of extra promises, and the promises were never fulfilled. Now we have the problems we have."...

"I don't plan on supporting it because it grants amnesty and worse yet, once you're in, you can buy your way in," Allard said....

I received an email recently from a 55-year-old, unemployed American who had been to 14 States looking for work. He couldn’t find any, he said, because “I am not a Mexican.”

Despite a desire to work, he could not compete with the cheap wages Mexican illegals will take. They do so because wages in Mexico continue to leave a vast portion of that nation’s population in poverty, forced to live on $3 to $4 dollars per person a day.

According to data from the CIA, 40% of the Mexican population lives below the poverty line. The current population is estimated to be 106,202,900 people and the labor force is estimated to be 34.73 million. Despite being rich in natural resources, the Mexican economy is highly dependent on the US economy. We buy 84% of all Mexican exports, compared to Canada that buys a mere 1.8%. “Per capita income is one-fourth that of the US; income distribution remains highly unequal.” That’s a diplomatic way of saying a handful of Mexican elites own most of everything.

There are a lot of reasons advanced to explain why the Bush administration will do nothing to stop the flow of illegals across our southern border, the vast bulk of whom are Mexicans, but the one I had not heard until I received the email was that Mexico would collapse without the money sent back by the Mexicans, legal and illegal, among us. When you look at the economic data, it is the one explanation that begins to make sense.

Ignoring the financial and social impact that millions of illegal Mexican workers are having on America may well be the US government’s way of avoiding a tsunami of even more Mexicans crossing over in the wake of an economic disaster, the collapse of the Mexican economy....

WESTMINSTER - A group of people meeting to discuss illegal immigration Sunday claim they were kicked out of both a restaurant and a city park because employees or patrons didn't like their stand on the issue.

"It baffles me," said Michael Corbin, host of a radio talk show, A Closer Look, on KHNC-AM (1360), who had organized the meeting.

"I can be a little more understanding about what happened in the restaurant if those people in the kitchen were concerned about what we were talking about. But there were few people in the park, and they could not hear us or interact with us. I don't know why we were thrown out of the park."...

Corbin said he estimated about 50 people had gathered at Jackson's All-American Sports Grill, 10710 Westminster Blvd., at 2 p.m. for a meeting in a reserved room toward the back of the restaurant. Corbin said he invited Terry Graham, a Boulder resident, to speak at the gathering. Corbin characterized the group as primarily conservative and in favor of strict immigration controls.

In the evening of March 7, 2004, Rene Analco-Tlatenco was speeding through Evans, Colo. He drove through a stop sign and plowed into a car containing six people who had been shopping at Wal-Mart. One of them, a 56-year-old grandmother, Gloria Mercado, died. Analco-Tlatenco pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide on April 25, 2005, and will be sentenced later this year. He faces a prison term of between 12 and 22 years.

It would be bad enough if the story stopped there. Tragically, Rene Analco-Tlatenco was arrested twice for drunk driving before that fateful March evening. He pleaded guilty to the first DUI charge in 2001, was placed on probation and ordered to do community service. He was arrested again for driving drunk on Oct. 13, 2003. While he was out on bond and before he could be sentenced, he killed Gloria Mercado. Analco-Tlatenco was ultimately sentenced for his second DUI on Jan. 7, 2005....

The question Analco-Tlatenco's case raises is obvious: Why was he here in March 2004? The federal government had two opportunities to deport him before Mercado was killed....

It used to be that once the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was notified an illegal immigrant was in jail, that person would be picked up and deported. As recently as 1999, 377 illegal immigrants were gathered up from the Weld County Jail and returned to their countries of origin. These numbers have fallen drastically over time. Last year, a mere 16 were removed from the Weld County Jail. The disparity, rest assured, is not due to an extraordinary reduction in the number of arrests of illegal immigrants by local law enforcement agencies....

Deporting illegal immigrants who have been arrested for committing crimes in this country is part of the process of national self-defense. We have a duty to prevent future crime by deporting criminal illegal immigrants who might victimize in the future if allowed to remain today. We failed to fulfill our duty to Gloria Mercado.

CAFTA would build on the three-nation North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by expanding the trade bloc to include Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. Congressional ratification of CAFTA is coveted by the White House, its political allies in Central America, and politically connected corporate interests who stand to profit from outsourcing production to low-wage nations in the region. It is stoutly opposed by U.S. agricultural and textile producers, who are reeling from the economic impact of NAFTA and are understandably worried that CAFTA would trigger another flood of imports and another hemorrhage of industrial jobs. Most importantly, since the agreement would further undermine our nation's ability to control its economic destiny, it has prompted opposition from Americans who seek to preserve our national independence....

...Why CAFTA Must Be Defeated

* Taken together, the six CAFTA nations have a minuscule consumer economy — but represent a huge pool of low-wage labor. Thus the only export encouraged by CAFTA would be U.S. manufacturing jobs.

* CAFTA is a critical steppingstone toward creation of a 34-nation Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an embryonic regional government modeled after the socialistic European Union.

* Under CAFTA, barriers to agricultural imports from our "trading partners" would be removed immediately, while barriers to U.S. exports wouldn't be lifted for anywhere from 10-20 years — thereby crippling U.S. agricultural producers. And this precedent would almost certainly be followed in the FTAA.

* Promoters of CAFTA clearly perceive the pact to be a form of foreign aid to "emerging democracies" in Central America — tacitly recognizing that it wouldn't result in genuine free trade, but rather a huge transfer of wealth from the U.S. to the region.

In its March 22 ruling in the case of Muehler v. Mena, the Supreme Court removed barriers that prevent local law enforcement officers from questioning the immigration status of individuals they suspect to be in the United States illegally....

Calling a decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals “faulty,” the Supreme Court held that “mere police questioning [regarding one’s immigration status] does not constitute a seizure.” The Court continued its landmark ruling on this issue by stating that “the officers did not need reasonable suspicion to ask Mena for her name, date of birth, or immigration status.”...

Congress expressly intended for local law enforcement to act in cases in which officers have reason to believe that an individual is in the country illegally, even though immigration law enforcement is not their primary responsibility. In 1996, Congress passed and President Clinton signed legislation that protects individual officers who act to enforce federal immigration laws, even if their departments have non-cooperation policies.

...The Colorado Department of Education has posted a 56-page, Spanish-language Survival Guide For Recent Arrivals to Colorado.

The short title is "Enterese!" or "Inform Yourself."

Funded by the notorious open-borders profiteers at First Data/Western Union Foundation, this slick guide (copyright 2003) predictably features an introduction celebrating its publication by Denver’s Mexican Consul General, Leticia Calzada....

Enterese was published only in Spanish. I have translated into English these excerpts: "Private organizations such as clinics (medical) or schools by policy do not ask about the immigration status of persons who attend. They do not report them to immigration authorities either."...

A renewed focus on immigration reform after the election by the Bush administration is making some Border Patrol agents nervous.

They are worried that misinformation about an "amnesty" program will trickle down to prospective immigrants by word-of-mouth, resulting in a surge in illegal immigration similar to the one noted last spring, after President Bush announced plans for a foreign guest-worker program in January....

Year-to-date apprehensions for fiscal year 2005, which began Oct. 1, are up 15 percent over the previous year.

Apprehensions were also up in the months after Bush's announcement of the guest-worker proposal in January. During the six-month period that ended March 31, apprehensions jumped 25 percent over the previous year....

Border Patrol union leaders expect to see further increases as well.

Regulations implemented this month along America's busiest southern border crossing would force Border Patrol agents to free captured illegal aliens even if they're known to be guilty of terrorist activity.

...some Coloradans are endorsing a newly passed Arizona effort - Proposition 200 [ www.YesOnProp200.com ] - to prohibit illegal immigrants [illegal aliens] from receiving most state and local government services.

The Colorado Trust noted that Colorado's immigrant population increased 160 percent in the past decade and now accounts for 8.6 percent of the state's local population. It is funding a $6.4 million initiative to help immigrants in Pueblo and nine other counties.

But that thinking does not resonate well with William Herron of Evergreen, who is chairman of Defend Colorado Now [ www.DefendColoradoNow.com ], a group that wants to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving such state benefits as Medicaid and in-state college tuition. Herron plans to track lawmakers who support the proposal, and if the Legislature does not act, Herron promises a proposal on the 2006 Colorado ballot.

Reacting to The Colorado Trust's effort, Herron said such efforts disturb him when they use the word "community" to mean a "mixture of legal and illegal" immigrants where lines are blurred and there's talk of providing them with taxpayer-provided services....

"I believe that anyone that we bring into this country legally, we should embrace. It's not to our benefit to do bad things to people that we bring in legally. Illegally is an entirely different matter. It gets into the area of "are we a nation of laws?"...

Herron, some of his close friends and two staffers are preparing to lobby legislators to support the measure next year. He said legislators who don't will be targeted to be voted out of office in 2006....

Proposition 200 requires people to produce proof of immigration status when obtaining certain government services and will punish government workers for failing to report illegal immigrants who try to get aid....

With the election just over, the Bush administration is resuming immigration talks with Mexico. President Bush would make a costly mistake if he believes that his re-election means strong support for his de facto amnesty proposal. Further, if passed, his plan would seriously exacerbate major problems of concern to Americans....

The president should learn a lesson from former Gov. Gray Davis, who signed legislation giving driver's licenses and in-state tuition to illegal immigrants in the hope of boosting his popularity. Last year, the Democratic governor lost his job to Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who pledged during the recall campaign to repeal the driver's license law.

Caving in to the cheap labor lobby and Mexico's pressure is politically and economically unwise....

U.S. citizens who go to the polls Nov. 2 to decide local, state and national elections are likely to get more help from noncitizens [illegal aliens] this year than ever before.

Beyond requiring applicants to sign a pledge on voter-registration forms affirming that they are U.S. citizens, there is no way to prevent the nation's estimated 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens from casting ballots in November, area elections officials said.

Locally, only Virginia requires voters to provide their Social Security numbers, but the state does not require voters to show their Social Security cards....

Eagle County, which relies heavily on Spanish-speaking workers at its resorts, will offer Spanish ballots this fall for the first time.

County Clerk Teak Simonton said 25 percent of the county's population is of Hispanic descent...

Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Crowley, Denver, Otero, Rio Grande, and Saguache counties already print ballots in Spanish. La Plata and Montezuma counties provide ballots in Navajo and Ute.

A 1975 amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires counties to publish ballots in another language when the population of a "language minority" reaches 5 percent or 10,000 residents....

The First Data Western Union Foundation (FDWU) announced last week a new program to provide educational and financial assistance to Mexican mothers living alone in the state of Oaxaca.

FDWU was created three years ago "to give back to the community," said FDWU President Luella Chavez D'Angelo, "...This time, we will also help women in Oaxaca."

FDWU will send $250,000 to Fundacion AYU, a Mexican nonprofit organization, to provide assistance to women living alone because their husbands are working in the United States....

According to D'Angelo, the money sent to Mexico will not diminish the contributions to nonprofits in the United States. For example, FDWU will still contribute to the research programs of LARASA (Latin American Research and Service Agency)....

Mexicans will seek all kinds of excuses to justify why are they illegally pouring into the U.S. in hundreds of thousands a year through America's porous border.

They will claim that American Southwest is their "historic land", although when Mexicans signed in 1848 a treaty with the U.S. in which they ceded their claims to these territories, out of est. 4,000,000 people (mostly, North American Indians) living in there, only est. 4,000 residents in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico were Spanish speakers, and a vast majority of them Spaniards and not Mexicans. (The highest published claim I saw was "no more than about 7,500 Spanish speakers" in California itself - see [1] - out of a total of about 300,000 California residents.) Compare this to Mexico's population of about 7,500,000 at that time to conclude that less than one in thousand Mexicans lived in the American Southwest at the time when the treaty was signed.

They will claim that they have rights to American territories because they are indigenous people here, kins of North American Indians and California Indians, although the main premise of this kinship is Christopher Columbus's famous mistake: when he discovered America in 1492, he thought that he landed in India and named all the people that lived there "Indians". If this kinship by name ("Indians") were a valid argument, it would give Mexicans territorial rights against India because of their Indian descend....

We need to recognize that the root cause of the Mexican mass "migration" to the U.S. is not their "reclaiming" of the land lost but their rapid population growth that largely exceeds that nation's ability to feed, educate, and house its population. Recognizing this gives us a valuable hint what should we do in order to bringing that "migration" to a complete halt. Rather than accepting millions of "migrants" who further perpetuate the explosive population growth, this time in the U.S., we should fully enforce the American border and make it clear to Mexican authorities that we will not accept any surplus of their population anymore. Rather then importing Mexican "temporary" workers or otherwise stimulating growth of Mexican economy, the aid that quickly translates into more population growth and, eventually, more "migration" to the U.S., we should concentrate our efforts on stabilization of the Mexican population and throw in no money there until such a stabilization has been accomplished....

As the world's reserves of oil and gas run out over the coming decades, the birth-rates of societies are likely to fall considerably, a US scientist says.

According to some estimates, the global population may rise from its current 6.3bn [billion] today to almost 9bn by 2050.

But Virginia Abernethy told a Seattle meeting that the loss of fossil fuels would hit world economies very hard.

"Economic hardship discourages people from marrying young and from having closely spaced children," she said.

The anthropologist and professor emerita of psychiatry from Vanderbilt University was speaking here in Washington State at the annual gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"The availability of energy has been a major factor in population growth," said Professor Abernethy.

"In the modern context, energy use per capita affects economic activity. So a prolonged decline in energy use per capita will tend to depress the economy which, in turn, will cause a decline in the fertility rate." ...

Listen to audio statement by Dr. Abernethy.

... if you outright admit your affinity for the unique American culture and your fear that unduly relaxed immigration policies (coupled with inattention to assimilation) might dilute it, you are sure to brand yourself as a full-blown racist.

America is the one place where it is taboo to be proud of your culture, which is ironic given America's record as the freest, most prosperous and most benevolent society in world history.

But we are not supposed to be patriotic, if patriotism means honoring and preferring our culture and way of life above others in the world. The theology of multiculturalism requires that you renounce allegiance to any particular culture as superior to any other. All cultures are supposed to be equally respected. The Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem are out. The United Nations, the World Court and oppressive global climate initiatives are in.

But beneath the slick packaging of "multiculturalism" and "diversity" we find that what they really stand for is the denunciation of Western civilization and America. All civilizations are equally wonderful in the world cultural mosaic -- except those arising out of Western civilization, especially America....

...Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Samuel Bodman said at a May 17 conference at which a new study on remittances was released. "Since 1995, annual remittances from the United States have nearly doubled"....

The study, based on a survey of 3,800 Latin American immigrants living in the United States conducted by Bendixen & Associates, found that legal and illegal immigrants send a combined $30 billion annually to their home countries. Mexico alone receives $13.3 billion a year.

The largest amount in remittances ($9.6 billion) comes out of California. That is followed by New York ($3.6 billion), Texas ($3.2 billion) and Florida ($2.5 billion). The study says of those surveyed 24% were Latin American-born U.S. citizens, 39% were legal residents, and 32% were "undocumented" [illegal] aliens. It estimated that 16.7 million people of Latin American origin now live in the United States. Sixty-one per cent of those surveyed said they send money overseas at least once a month. The typical individual transaction ranges from $150 to $250....

In fact, Georgetown Prof. Manuel Orozco reported in a presentation to the Inter-American Development Bank on Sep. 17, 2002, that Haiti depends on remittances for 24.5% of its GDP, El Salvador for 17%, Nicaragua for 22%, Jamaica for 15%, the Dominican Republic for 10%, and Mexico for 1.7%. Since $30 billion out of Latin America's total remittance receipts of $38 billion come from the United States, these countries are heavily dependent on immigrants [illegal aliens] to America....

[Also see FAIR news release $30 Billion in Remittances Sent Home by Immigrants - Only a Small Piece of the Cost of Mass Immigration, May 17, 2004: "According to a new survey by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Mexican and Latin American immigrants living in the U.S. send $30 billion a year in remittances back to their native countries."]

Two decades' growth in the supply of immigrant workers cost native-born American men an average $1,700 in annual wages by the year 2000, a top economist has concluded.

Hispanic and black Americans were hurt most by the influx of foreign-born workers, says a report by Harvard University's George Borjas, considered a leading authority on the impact of immigration....

"What past immigration has done -- and what the temporary worker program will continue to do on a potentially larger scale -- is to depress wages and increase profits of the firms that employ the immigrants," Borjas said. "The reduction in earnings occurs regardless of whether the immigrants are legal or illegal, permanent or temporary. It is the presence of additional workers that reduces wages, not their legal status."

In the past 40 years, the United States registered a total of 900 cases of the feared Biblical disease--leprosy. Virtually unknown to Americans in the last century, leprosy exceeded 7,000 new cases brought in on the backs of newcomers since 1997. Most of the people infected in America are immigrants from leprosy hot spots in Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean and India.

"And those are the ones we know about," Dr. William Levis, attending physician at Bellevue Hospital's Hansen's Disease Clinic. "There are probably many, many more."...

"Tuberculosis is back, and thanks to globalization, immigration and slipshod treatment, it's deadlier than ever. It kills 2 million people a year."...

Dr. Lee Reichman, executive director of New Jersey's Medical Schools National Tuberculosis Center, said, "We sit on the edge of potential catastrophe. Government won't take this problem seriously, doctors don't treat it, and the public thinks TB isn't sexy enough to merit attention. As it spreads, it will get our attention. Unfortunately, the new strains are resistant to all known antibiotics. It'll take at least seven years to develop new drugs."

DENVER -- The family of a 32-year-old hit-and-run victim is angry after they found out that the man accused in the killing is a person who should have never been driving, or even been in the country....

Goodman was riding his motorcycle through a Thornton, Colo., intersection the night of July 1, 2004 when he was struck by a Ford Explorer. The truck never stopped, sailing through 88th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. Goodman died near the curb where he was thrown by the impact....

Thornton investigators spent months tracking down the suspect and finally arrested 33-year-old Roberto Martinez-Ruiz. His photo has not released pending witness identification.

But 7NEWS Investigators have found that since 1996, Martinez-Ruiz used six different aliases, had arrests for driving under the influence, failure to appear in court, probation violation, careless driving, driving with a revoked license, and hit and run. He has spent time in jail and in 2000, his license was revoked for five years.

"How could he possibly escape justice this many times and put out on the street where he was able to kill Justin? I mean, we were outraged," Vizzi said....