US agriculture and immigration tied in a knot
By Christine Stebbins
Reuters

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Agribusiness is warning Americans that the $12 trillion U.S. economy could be forced to go on an expensive diet if immigrant workers are restricted.

Immigrants have flooded into many industries for what President George W. Bush calls "the jobs Americans don't want." Agriculture is a prime area where mostly Mexican immigrants have sent down roots so strong that companies may no longer be able to operate without them.

"To find and deport workers who are in the country right now would throw a wrench into the economy of the United States that would leave people in disbelief," said Dave Ray, spokesman for the American Meat Institute, which represents beef and pork companies.

"What makes food so cheap in the United States is because we do things efficiently and if you wiped out that efficiency by creating an unnecessary labor shortage, it essentially will foist a high food price on to consumers," Ray said.

_____

Border drone crashes near Tubac
The Associated Press

An unmanned aerial drone used to help Border Patrol agents find smugglers and illegal immigrants crossing the border crashed Tuesday in southern Arizona, authorities said.

Operators lost contact with the $6.5 million Predator B drone about 3 a.m. Mountain time. A government helicopter found the crash site about three hours later, said Michael Friel, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington.

Friel said officials didn't know the extent of the damage done to the drone. The cause of the crash also remained under investigation.

_____

Official escapes injury in attack in Mexicali
FROM STAFF AND AP REPORTS

The man who oversees the police forces of Baja California state escaped injury in Mexicali Tuesday when at least 10 assailants fired on and threw grenades at the convoy carrying him.

The attack, plus the killing of a police officer in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, were the latest in a series of incidents that have revealed the depth of violence in parts of Mexico. Investigators say most of the bloodshed is caused by drug gangs who are battling for control of lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.

But Gerardo Carranza, the director of federal Attorney General's office in San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., said attacks against officers in that city are rare, and that organized crime is not a problem as it is in other parts of Mexico.

_____

Heroin, meth seized at San Luis port
FROM STAFF REPORTS

A 30-year-old man from San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., is in custody on suspicion of drug smuggling after a narcotics detection dog sniffed out heroin and methamphetamine in the vehicle he was driving across the border Monday morning.

Four pounds of heroin and 3 pounds of methamphetamine was seized from the vehicle by Customs and Border Protection Officers at the U.S. Port of Entry at San Luis, Ariz., the CBP said in a news release. The street value of the drugs was estimated at $535,000.

The drugs were found in a hidden compartment above the rear tires after Reno, the dog, picked up the scent of narcotics in the 1993 Mazda that the unidentified man was driving.

He was arrested and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for further investigation.

_____

Bush and Senate near illegal-immigrant deal
By Dave Montgomery
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON — President Bush delivered a breakthrough Tuesday in on-again, off-again efforts to push comprehensive immigration legislation through Congress this year, Senate leaders said following a White House meeting with the president.

Bush met with a bipartisan group of more than a dozen senators for an hour and went further than ever before in embracing the core ingredients of a sweeping bill that would grant citizenship to millions of illegal workers, participants said.

With Bush's stance, the senators expressed confidence that the compromise will pass the Senate by the end of May. Hard work lies ahead after that, however, in reconciling the Senate version with a tough border-enforcement-only bill passed in December by the House of Representatives.

In a statement issued after he'd met the senators, Bush said: "I strongly believe that we have a chance to get an immigration bill that is comprehensive in nature to my desk before the end of this year."

_____

An Inside Look

On July 2 Mexican voters will head to the polls to choose a new president. Learn about the three candidates on the ballot and the parties they represent.
Launch »»

_____

Desert booze bashes likely to increase due to curfew
By Daniel Borunda
El Paso Times

Underage drinking parties, such as the desert bonfire last weekend at which a 20-year-old man was shot, could increase in El Paso because access to Juarez bars has been tightened, a local safety advocate cautioned.

"We kind of anticipated with the new (international bridge-area curfew) ordinance that was passed, that it would cause some kids to go to the desert and go to house parties," said Marge Bartoletti, director of Rio Grande Safe Communities Coalition.

Last month, the El Paso City Council established 7 p.m. special curfew zones near the Downtown international bridges for people younger than 17 in an effort to try to keep juveniles out of Juarez nightclubs.

But tracking underage parties on this side of the border could get more difficult since the El Paso police group that targeted such gatherings is no longer in place. It was disbanded in 2004 after a state grant that funded the operation expired.

Police said such duties are now left to patrol officers.

This is a problem in many border cities. -mm

_____

Woman arrested is one of 'America's Most Wanted'
By Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

Among 16 undocumented immigrants stopped Monday near the Zaragoza Bridge was one of "America's Most Wanted," a woman sought in Illinois for allegedly being part of a lottery scam that targeted elderly Latinos.

The case was featured last month on a segment of the popular Fox television show.

Maria Gomez, 49, is "one of three suspected con artists who tricked the elderly into giving them money to cash fake lottery tickets in Illinois," Border Patrol officials said in a written release.

Gomez has an active warrant for her arrest on charges of theft by deception over $10,000 by the Wheaton, Ill., police, officials said.

Border Patrol officials said Gomez had been arrested in a similar scam in Hialeah, Fla.

_____

Assailants kill policeman in one Mexican border city, attack official in another
By Jorge Vargas
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico – Assailants shot and killed a police officer in the violent border city of Nuevo Laredo while gunmen in the border city of Mexicali ambushed a convoy carrying a top security official, police said Tuesday.

Jesus Cruz was on patrol with his partner when he was attacked by several gunmen who fired at him with assault rifles, said state police detective Oscar Sepulveda.

Cruz is the second police officer to have been killed within seven days and the 90th homicide victim so far this year in Nuevo Laredo, a city of 330,000 over the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas.

_____

Hispanic Attorney Says Using Term Illegal Alien Racial Slur
By Sher Zieve

Appearing on KLIF Radio’s Gregg Knapp show, attorney Domingo Garcia said that using the terms illegal alien or illegal immigrant is a “racial slur”. Garcia said that those who use it, in reference to Hispanics, are racist.

Knapp advised Garcia that using the term “illegal aliens” or “illegal immigrants” is an accurate term applied to [their] legal vs. illegal status in the country and a true depiction of the fact that they are illegal. Garcia said: “Using words like illegal alien is like calling people derogatory names…like calling people nigger!”

_____

McCain-Kennedy: American 'coyotes'
Posted: April 26, 2006
By Craig R. Smith
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Living in Phoenix, Ariz., makes me acutely aware of the ongoing impact illegal immigration has on our state and country. On a daily basis the evening news is packed with drug busts, car chases or Border Patrol dealing with lawbreakers.

We have the underworld of the "coyotes" (pronounced kai-o-tay) to thank for this problem. And now two new coyotes have entered the business.

If Congress goes along with the "amnesty" bill currently masquerading as the McCain-Kennedy bill, the biggest coyotes will be McCain and Kennedy.

They propose to have all illegal immigrants currently living in the United States pay a fine. What's the difference between this and illegals paying the coyotes?

Illegals save up thousands of dollars and pay a coyote to pack them like sardines into pickup trucks (which have been stolen in the United States) to make the voyage across the desert. With talk of the amnesty soon to be offered in America, illegals are saving their money, walking across the desert on their own with every intention to pay the coyotes who can give them a "pathway" to citizenship – the new coyotes that is.

_____

Immigration Official: U.S. Can't Handle Amnesty

A former official of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) now under fire from his agency for whistleblowing, says that current plans to create programs that would lead to amnesty for the estimated 11 million illegal aliens now in the U.S. would impose an impossible burden on immigration agency and increase the threat of terrorism.

Michael Maxwell told Lou Dobbs on his show Tuesday night that ICE would be overwhelmed if those the millions of illegals were to be included in any kind of amnesty program and that it would create a golden opportunity for terrorists to infiltrate the nation. He quoted ICE's top official, Julie Meyers, as saying that terrorists are already using illegal immigration to enter the United States.

"[Given]the current immigration system and the workload that we have now we have now, I would be concerned that we would be putting another 10, 15 or 29 million people into the pipeline," Maxwell told Dobbs.