American Patrol
Archives
2001
External links may
expire at any time.
Home Page

Thursday, December 13, 2001

 Los Angeles Daily News
TELLS IT LIKE IT IS

"Our roads are jammed with unlicensed motorists driving uninsured cars. Our public health, education and other services are overburdened with needy people whose needs are so great we can't afford to meet them. Our, poorest workers find their chances at employment compromised by competition willing to work below the minimum wage. Sweatshops and other illegal working conditions are tolerated as if we lived in a Third World country." - DAILY NEWS
EDITORIAL - December 12, 2001
Underground bus line
   "Of course Golden State Transportation, which has been charged with the largest human smuggling racket of its kind, was based in Los Angeles.
   Where else?
   Where else but in L.A. could hundreds of immigrants be bused around like some kind of commodity every day for five years without being noticed?
   "Where else but in L.A. would civil authorities -- the police, the tax collectors, the regulators -- never spot a sham of a corporation, a faux travel company that's actually a West Coast immigrant distribution network?
Los Angeles is the perfect place to stage this sort of an operation, thanks to its combination of unresponsive government agencies and thoughtless immigration policies."
 

Other Features

Vail Daily
Reaching out to Hispanics
In a sting operation, Glenwood police recently arrested a group of people who were charged with selling Colorado drivers' licenses to [illegals], mostly Hispanics. -- Of those arrested, some worked at the Department of Motor Vehicles at a mall in Glenwood Springs, charging as much as $1,500 to provide driver's licenses to people who otherwise didn't have the documentation necessary to get a license. [Illegals] obtaining illegal documents is a problem with a high- priority with Eagle County authorities...		 Associated Press
Hispanics to boycott Nuggets as criticism of Issel continues
Hispanic groups launched a boycott Thursday of the Denver Nuggets, demanding Dan Issel be replaced as coach after he shouted an insensitive ethnic remark and a profanity at a fan in the crowd. -- The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which had distributed Nuggets tickets to some of its member businesses, said more than 100 of the tickets had been returned. -- The chamber said its members would boycott the Nuggets' games until Issel was fired.

San Diego Union-Tribune
Jailed Mideast man accused of violating immigration law
Omer Salmain Saleh Bakarbashat, 28, who has been jailed for almost three months in New York, already faces charges filed last month in New York that he overstayed his student visa and worked illegally at a La Mesa gas station. -- He was charged in San Diego with five felony counts of misuse of immigration documents...		 Newsmax.com
Arrests Enrage Visa Scofflaws
Muslims and self- appointed pro-immigration activists are pitching a fit that the U.S. has dared to arrest people who have violated America's visa laws. -- In San Diego, the Immigration and Naturalization Service picked up 10 suspects Wednesday from eight countries with terrorist links. Only one of the 10 could show he was enrolled, and was released.

Dallas Morning News
Migrant protector new role for Mexico
...Ms. Gutierrez and an estimated 800 other immigrant DeCoster workers may be in line for thousands of dollars each in damages thanks to an unusual and hard- fought discrimination lawsuit spearheaded by the Mexican government. -- The case, started in 1998, isn't over. Key parts have been tossed out, it never reached trial, and the judge recently described it as "a procedural nightmare." The company is now trying to avoid paying a previously negotiated $6 million settlement.		 El Paso Times
Officials: Buses altered routes to aid smugglers
Golden State Transportation, accused Monday of transporting hundreds of [illegals] for profit, used various ways to avoid detection by U.S. immigration officers, authorities said. -- U.S. officials said smugglers waited until just before a bus departed to bring [illegals] to the terminal in El Paso and other cities, then hid the [illegals] in dark areas in and around terminals, and had them board the bus at the last possible moment.

Deseret News
Hispanic leaders to confer on roundup
..."These people are not innocent casualties on the war on terrorism," Warner said. "Yes they may be working, but they have lied. They have come into the country illegally. They have lied on multiple occasions to obtain documents. They have repeatedly violated federal law. -- Yapias said he was upset with state and federal officials for going on national TV and saying Salt Lake had the safest airport in the nation following Tuesday's roundup. "That's just one way of saying Hispanics are not safe to be around," he said. [Discuss]

Denver Post
Coach suspended, fined for remarks
Denver Nuggets coach Dan Issel Wednesday was suspended for four games and fined for a racially explicit insult directed at a Hispanic heckler Tuesday night. -- Both Issel and the Nuggets general manager Kiki Vandeweghe apologized for the incident Wednesday in a press conference at the Pepsi Center, saying they would try to do whatever it takes to "mend the fence." -- The alleged remark: "Hey, go buy another beer. Go drink another beer, you (expletive) Mexican piece of (expletive)." [Discussion forum & poll]		 AZ Republic (Free Registration)
Legislature strikes blow to English- learner funds
An unlikely coalition of Democrats and conservative Republicans teamed up to kill a bill that would have pumped more money into programs for students trying to learn English - pushing Arizona closer to a legal showdown with a federal judge. -- Democrats said the GOP-backed plan didn't spend enough money for "English- learner" students. Some Republicans said they don't want a federal judge forcing them to spend money on a program unless it's needed.

So. Florida Sun-Sentinel
U.S. can fight human smuggling
...What the U.S. can do is repeal the Cuban Adjustment Act and prosecute employers who prey on illegal aliens for the cheap labor they provide. That is something the U.S. can do but would be too politically incorrect.

Washington Post
Ford Foundation gives award to Latino migrant leader
Beyond Casa of Maryland, Gustavo Torres is the head of the Maryland Latino Coalition for Justice, a political advocacy group. Earlier this year, the state's House of Delegates passed a bill that would require more language services for non- English speakers in the courts, the group's first major victory. -- Recently, the Ford Foundation selected Torres...		 Chicago Sun Times - John O'Sullivan
Immigration simmering in U.S. pot
Ever since Sept. 11, the immigration issue has been lurking dangerously just beneath the surface of political debate like the title character in "Jaws." As in the movie, the authorities have tried to calm public fears by denying its existence. Both political parties firmly support high levels of unskilled immigration to the point of seeking to grant an amnesty and rights of residence to millions of illegal aliens.

Christian Science Monitor
Unwittingly, California exports gang violence
Six miles northwest of the Las Vegas Strip, the only glitter to be found is from shattered glass. Broken beer bottles speckle the yellowing grass near the Buena Vista Springs Apartments, better known as the Carey Arms housing project. -- But even more than the glints of light, perhaps what most catches the eye is the color many people are wearing: powder blue - the telltale hue of a local street gang.		 The News - Mexico City
Mexican Senate approves investment agreement with Cuba
The [Mexican] Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved a measure intended to make investments between Cuba and Mexico safer and easier. -- --- In addition to protecting Mexican investments, the agreement is a "rejection" of the Helms- Burton Law, the U.S. legislation that sanctions third-country firms that trade with Cuba, Ramirez said. [See American Patrol feature - 4/3/01]

Salt Lake Tribune
Mayor slams arrests of illegal alien airport workers
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson joined members of the Latino community on Wednesday, blasting the mass arrests and firings of low-level airport employees and saying the operation has left a trail of broken families and fear. -- Children were left at the baby-sitter's, not knowing if their parents could come to get them. Scores wondered if they could make next month's rent. Some went into hiding for fear of deportation. -- The majority of those charged were illegal immigrants from Mexico and Latin America who officials said obtained improper security clearances at the airport by lying to their employers. [Discuss]  [Fight back]

Omaha World-Herald
175 pounds of pot found on traffic stop
More than $1,500 and 175 pounds of marijuana was seized during a traffic stop by the Nebraska State Patrol and Omaha Police Department early Wednesday. -- One suspect was from Mexico and also was being detained by the INS. [There is a message board on this site]

Re: When U.S. ranchers go wild
[The column] is a vile attack on the Arizona ranchers, calling them the usual names for protecting their homes and families. What is significant is that it appeared in the campus newspaper of the University of Texas and that the lies it contains are being used as a rallying point for Communist pro- criminal- alien student groups at that school. There has already been some minor violence, which threatens to escalate.

Daily Texan / Neil Davis
When U.S. ranchers go wild
It's open season on immigrants. For some three years now, rogue farmers and ranchers along the Arizona-Mexico border have formally organized themselves into roving death squads. Their purpose: to hunt down persons crossing the border illegally and stop them by whatever means necessary. Rather than being universally dismissed and condemned, their bloodthirsty, xenophobic doctrine is being defended by border residents - and it's spreading.		 San Francisco Chronicle
Update on San Diego student arrests
In the first crackdown on student visa violations since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, federal agents in San Diego arrested 10 foreigners yesterday as part of a national program to track immigrants who do not adhere to the terms of their entry into the United States by not attending school. -- More arrests in San Diego and across the country are imminent, officials said.

Sun-Sentinel Editorial
Rules Reforms Necessary
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the United States has been taking a new look at immigration issues. Such re-examination is absolutely necessary, especially considering that 19 hijackers linked to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks entered the country legally. -- These 19 hijacking suspects -- 15 with Florida connections -- abused the welcome mat extended to them. Loopholes in U.S. visa and immigration rules must be closed to help deter future terrorist attacks.		 Phil Kent / Washington Times
A national security wreck
When South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon recently ordered his state Department of Public Safety to "take whatever steps necessary to ensure that no illegal alien is issued a driver's license," he rightly identified the problem as a national security matter. To be sure, the crisis is real - as many as four of the 19 September 11 terrorists possessed Virginia driver's licenses, enabling them to transact business, open bank accounts and even enter flight schools.

The News - Mexico City
Influx of illegal immigrants declines 31 percent in El Paso
...During the first 10 days of December, authorities made 1,096 arrests, compared with the 1,624 during the same period last year. -- The decline in arrests is due to the economic recession in the United States, worsened by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequently heightened border security, Mosier said. -- But, near the border, Francisco Pellizzari Campagnolo and Leticia Lopez Manzano, missionaries who run shelters for immigrants, agreed immigrants continue trying to cross the U.S. border.

                                          Back One Day | Older Articles | Home Page