Patrol agents seize half-ton of pot near Felicity, Calif.
FROM STAFF REPORTS

El Centro sector U.S. Border Patrol agents seized more than a half ton of marijuana Saturday near the Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 8 near Felicity, Calif. The 1,042 pounds of drugs have a street value of $833,760, according to a Border Patrol release.

At 1:30 p.m., a Border Patrol agent at the checkpoint saw an Imperial County Sheriff’s deputy stop a white 1993 Ford truck just east of the checkpoint. The agent went to assist and had a drug-sniffing dog inspect the vehicle, the release said.

The dog alerted to the vehicle and investigation revealed 76 bundles of marijuana hidden in a false compartment in the cargo area of the truck, the release said.

A 32-year-old male U.S. citizen was the truck's driver. The driver, vehicle and marijuana were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

© Copyright, YumaSun.com

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Blacks sour on illegal immigrants
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a columnist for blacknews.com, an author and political analyst and an obvious liberal, but it is still an interesting turn of events -mm

Near the close of a recent spirited community forum in south Los Angeles on black and Latino relations, a young black man in the audience stood up and proudly, even defiantly, shouted that he was a member of the Minuteman Project. This is the fringe group that has waged a noisy, gun-toting, headline-grabbing campaign to shut down the U.S. border to illegal immigrants. GOP conservatives and immigration reformers denounce the group's borderline racist rants.

The rhetoric of the anti-immigration group didn't seem to faze the young man or many of the other black people in the audience who nodded in agreement as he launched into a finger-pointing tirade against illegal immigrants who he claimed stole jobs from black workers. He punctuated his harangue by loudly announcing that he had taken part in a Minuteman border patrol back in April.

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Border Task Force Seizes Improvised Explosive Devices, Weapons Caches
Jim Kouri

Federal agents assigned to the Department of Homeland Security’s Border Enforcement Security Task Force or BEST, in Laredo, Texas, have seized materials for 33 Improvised Explosive Devices, grenade components, large quantities of assault weapons, rifles, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, bulletproof vests, police scanners, narcotics and cash.

On January 27, 2006, BEST task force officers from the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Laredo Police Department executed a search warrant at a location in Laredo. The search revealed two completed Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and materials for making approximately 33 more IEDs.

Agents also discovered 300 primers, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, 5 grenade shells, 9 pipes with end caps, 26 grenade triggers (14 with fuses and primers attached), 31 grenade spoons, 40 grenade pins, 19 black powder casings, as well as 65 firearm magazines, a silencer, and other firearms components.

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Arizona politicians want police in immigration fight

PHOENIX (AP) - Lawmakers are considering an aggressive approach for trying to lessen Arizona's role as the busiest gateway for sneaking into the country: devoting squads of the state police to catch illegal immigrants who slip past federal border agents.

Over the years, many officials have resisted suggestions for local and state police agencies to confront illegal immigration, long considered the sole province of the federal government. But the notion is gaining political traction as the public's frustration with the state's porous border with Mexico grows.

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Texas officials facing fight on two fronts Border watchers want issues heard
Sara A. Carter, Staff Writer

San Bernardino County Sun SIERRA BLANCA, Texas - Sheriff Arvin West sat behind his desk, winced and realized he was in one of the biggest battles of his life. He is heading to Washington next week to testify before the Subcommittee on Homeland Security far from his home on the Texas plains - far from the cotton fields, Rio Grande Valley and the small town that he holds dear.

West, sheriff of Hudspeth County, is considered a giant in his neck of the woods, and he'll need all his strength to battle the international incident that has landed at his front door.

"It's a two-way battle we're fighting between the drug wars, which includes Mexico's corruption," West said Saturday from the sheriff's office. "And we're also fighting the American government to get them to listen to us.

What used to be generations of American families living peacefully with their southern neighbors, mainly migrant farm workers crossing the desolate frontier, has now become a portal for drug cartels, human smuggling and international gang members who have discovered the United States' most vulnerable doorway.

Next week, members of the Texas Sheriffs Border Coalition will also be facing what they describe as Washington's apathy.

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Illegals taking advantage of Tennessee's lax system

A couple of years ago in this space, we warned against a bill then pending before the Tennessee legislature that sought to allow illegal immigrants to obtain state driver's certificates.

Sponsors argued at the time that illegals were going to drive regardless, and that it was better to allow them to take a driver's test and receive a certificate of driving so they at least would be familiar with the rules of the road.

We argued the bill would encourage illegal immigration, fraud and other abuses. And that is exactly what has happened.

According to recent media reports, federal officials have uncovered sophisticated black-market shuttles carrying South American and Central American illegals from as far away as New Jersey to Tennessee licensing centers where they have obtained driving licenses and driving certificates on the strength of fake claims of residency.

There's no way to know how many illegals have abused the system in this way, but it's a matter of record that the state of Tennessee has issued more than 51,000 driving certificates since the state legislature approved them in 2004.

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Home-buying program has cash, controversy

Undocumented residents being recruited for loans
By Janine Zúñiga
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

A major U.S. bank has funded its first home loans to undocumented Mexican immigrants in San Diego County in a move that targets a lucrative, wide-open market while providing new grist for the debate over illegal immigration.

The local program, which uses tax identification numbers instead of Social Security numbers, is similar to programs run by small lenders – and two state agencies – around the country that have distributed millions of dollars to undocumented immigrants over the past few years.

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Many reasons Mexicans abroad didn't register to vote
By David Gaddis Smith
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Many voters in Mexico are apathetic, so it is no surprise that many Mexicans living outside the country also are apathetic about elections, a Mexican scholar said last week, suggesting that is why only about 50,000 of the millions of Mexicans living abroad registered to vote by mail by last month's deadline.

Mexicans “also distrust the Mexican postal system,” Raul Rodríguez of CETYS university in Tijuana said at a Trans-Border Institute forum at the University of San Diego.

Absentee votes are not going to make much of a difference in Mexico's July 2 presidential election, said Todd Eisenstadt, a political scientist at American University. The vote of Mexicans living outside the country this year “will probably be a dress rehearsal for the vote abroad in 2012,” he said.

Mexico's federal Electoral Institute came under harsh criticism for all the rules and regulations it established for the vote. The forum participants said the barriers discouraged registration.