Bush orders contractors to check legal status of employees

The Associated Press

Published: 06.09.2008

WASHINGTON - President Bush has signed an executive order requiring contractors and others who do business with the federal government to make sure their employees can legally work in the U.S.

Bush signed the order Friday and the White House announced it Monday.

The federal government has had some embarrassing moments when illegal workers have been discovered to be working for contractors they've hired, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a news conference. For that reason it's trying to get its own house in order, Chertoff said.

"The federal government should lead by example and not merely by exhortation," he said.

The order says federal departments and agencies must require contractors to use an electronic system to verify that the workers are eligible to work in the U.S.

Calderon’s Latest U.S. Visit: More Macho Mexican Meddling

Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall

Mexican president Felipe Calderon has just returned from a trip to the U.S.

Wait a minute! Didn’t Calderon visit the U.S. just two months ago?

Yes, he certainly did. I reported on his February hobnobbing with the American ruling class in this article and this blog entry.

If you keep up with Mexican news, you also know that it’s not like Calderon has nothing to do in Mexico. There’s an ongoing political crisis over the desperately-needed reform of Mexico’s state oil monopoly PEMEX. In fact, filibustering opposition politicians have seized the podiums in both federal legislative chambers, forcing other legislators to meet elsewhere.

But apparently Calderon felt his trip to the U.S. was so important that he had to leave Mexico. After all, he attended the fourth annual summit of the nation-merging SPP, the Security and Prosperity Partnership, which is not popular with everybody in Mexico either.

Of course, this year the SPP summit was not officially an SPP summit. It’s been renamed the "North American Leaders’ Summit". President Bush, President Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper converged in New Orleans earlier this week, Monday-Tuesday April 21-22nd.

On the agenda for Bush and Calderon: the re-opening of the New Orleans Mexican Consulate, which had been closed in 2002 for budgetary reasons. It’s now being re-opened due to the growth in the Mexican population there since Hurricane Katrina. i.e. because they are displacing African Americans from construction jobs.

Mexico could save a lot of money by shutting down a lot of consulates. But that’s not in the cards. Consulates are, after all, centers of pro-illegal agitation. Mexican diplomats are never reprimanded by U.S. officials for their political meddling, although it certainly doesn’t fall under the rubric of legitimate diplomatic activity.

In his remarks at the re-opening, with President Bush standing right there, Calderon actually said that, with the consulate back in operation,

"…we can guarantee that Mexicans who live and work in Louisiana and Mississippi have the support of the government of Mexico. My commitment is that wherever there is a Mexican, there also is the backing of the government of Mexico.”

Call renewed for pardons for border agents

'Once again, I am challenging President Bush to do what is right'
Posted: April 18, 2008 8:50 pm Eastern
WorldNetDaily

Mychal Massie, the chief of the nonprofit and nonpartisan Project 21 and a columnist for WND, is renewing his call to President Bush to pardon two former U.S. Border Patrol agents who were convicted and jailed for shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler.

The call from Massie, whose Project 21 has been a leading voice of the African-American community for nearly two decades, follows a guilty plea from Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, the smuggler in the case involving agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos.

Aldrete-Davila pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court in El Paso, Texas, to drug smuggling and is to be sentenced in July.

Compean and Ramos are serving prison terms for shooting at the smuggler while he was running back to Mexico in 2005, Massie's statement noted. Aldrete-Davila conspired to smuggle marijuana into the U.S. twice after he was granted immunity to testify against the agents.

"It is time to prove that he [Bush] places the welfare of American communities and those men and women who risk their lives to protect them over the welfare of lying illicit drug smugglers," Massie said. "Pardon Ramos and Compean now, Mr. President!"

'Virtual Fence' Along Border To Be Delayed

U.S. Retooling High-Tech Barrier After 28-Mile Pilot Project Fails

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 28, 2008; A01

The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear, federal officials said yesterday.

Technical problems discovered in a 28-mile pilot project south of Tucson prompted the change in plans, Department of Homeland Security officials and congressional auditors told a House subcommittee.

Though the department took over that initial stretch Friday from Boeing, authorities confirmed that Project 28, the initial deployment of the Secure Border Initiative network, did not work as planned or meet the needs of the U.S. Border Patrol.

The announcement marked a major setback for what President Bush in May 2006 called "the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history." The virtual fence was to be a key component of his proposed overhaul of U.S. immigration policies, which died last year in the Senate.

Mexican prez: Closing border a 'mistake'

But Bush administration believes Calderon making good efforts toward security
Posted: February 25, 2008 10:45 pm Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

The White House believes the president of Mexico is "making very good efforts in trying to help secure the border," even though Felipe Calderon has described the two nations' economies as "complementary" and has warned anyone believing closing the border between the two will solve the "lack of competitiveness" in the U.S. is "making a very, very big mistake."

Mexican President Calderon recently spent nearly a week in the United States lobbying for his nation's interests. According to a recent Bloomberg report, Calderon said the number of people abandoning his nation and moving into the United States as illegal aliens soon will be reduced by new job creation in Mexico and economic growth there.

"It's possible to transform Mexico from a nation that loses its best people to migration into a nation capable of generating opportunity for Mexicans on their own soil,'' he told an audience at Harvard.

"We are neighbors, we are friends and we must be allies," he said. "Whoever is the next president of the United States, this country can count on Mexico to deal in that direction."

Bush's Mexican truck babe to be 'Hasta la bye-bye'?

Transportation secretary 'breaking law' by allowing foreign vehicles
Posted: February 06, 2008 9:36 pm Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
WorldNetDaily

Teamsters are launching a nationwide campaign to fire U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters for what they say is her "unlawful decision" to keep the American border open to Mexican trucks.

As WND reported, the Bush administration has decided to ignore a provision passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush as part of the 2008 omnibus spending bill that was intended to remove funding from the 2008 DOT appropriations bill for the Mexican truck demonstration project.

"It's a disgrace that Mary Peters is still in office," said Teamsters General President James Hoffa in a news release today. "She has broken the law and defied the will of the American people by exposing them to dangerous trucks from Mexico."

The Teamsters have created FireMaryPeters.com, a website complete with downloadable "Fire Mary Peters" windshield signs, recommended actions and an e-mail component urging citizens to ask their elected representatives to find Mary Peters in contempt of Congress.

The Teamsters have mailed a "Fire Mary Peters" bumper sticker to thousands of union members and supporters.

Bush defies law; Mexico trucks still roll in U.S.

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is going ahead with a controversial pilot program giving Mexican trucks greater access to U.S. highways despite a new law by Congress against it.

The decision to proceed with the four-month-old program, which allows participating Mexican trucking companies to send loads throughout the United States, comes despite language in a recently signed spending bill aimed at blocking it.

The Department of Transportation is taking advantage of a loophole in the new law, which prohibits the government from spending money to "establish" the program. The government says the new rules don't apply since the current program started in September.

Mexican trucks to keep rolling in U.S.

Administration's move angers foes in Congress

By David Washburn

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

December 27, 2007

The Bush administration will continue to operate a controversial, cross-border trucking program despite language in the $555 billion appropriations bill signed by President Bush yesterday aimed at eliminating the program's funding.

The administration's move, while not unexpected, sparked outrage from Democratic and Republican members of Congress who have fought to kill the three-month-old pilot program, which allows long-haul Mexican trucks to travel throughout the United States.

“The administration seems to believe that the law doesn't apply to them,” Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., the author of the appropriations bill amendment that sought to cut funding for the program, said in a statement.

Dorgan and other opponents of the program say the amendment's language is unambiguous, and that the administration's action will be challenged in Congress and the courts.

Dorgan, more than 100 other members of Congress and several interest groups, such as the Teamsters union and independent truck drivers, contend that the program lacks sufficient safeguards to ensure that Mexican trucks meet the same standards as American trucks.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, has said the program demonstrates a “complete disregard” for the safety of U.S. motorists and the security threat posed by Mexican truckers.

Moonshiner, thieves, drug dealers get help

But Ramos, Compean abandoned in Bush pardons

Posted: December 13, 2007 1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Carjackers, drug dealers, thieves and a moonshiner have been granted pardons this year by President Bush, but not Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were convicted of firing their guns at a fleeing drug smuggler while they were protecting the integrity of the U.S. border with Mexico.

However, Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., says he is confident his resolution asking President Bush to commute the agents' sentences will pass easily with strong bipartisan support.

Delahunt told WND he plans to deliver to the White House a letter before Christmas, expressing his confidence his House Concurrent Resolution 267 will be approved when Congress reconvenes in January.

"In the letter we are going to express our hope the president will act immediately, not waiting for the House to pass the resolution," Delahunt said.

Bush, Chertoff take look at Predator B Drone at airport

FROM STAFF REPORTS

April 9, 2007 - 9:16AM

Bush and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff viewed the Predator B Drone at the Yuma International Airport after arrival this morning. Terry Ketron/The Sun

President George W. Bush viewed an unmanned aerial vehicle used for border surveillance minutes after he arrived in Yuma today.

Bush and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff viewed the Predator B Drone at the Yuma International Airport after arrival.

Air Force One landed around 7:59 a.m. at the Yuma International Airport in front of roughly 300 spectators, including four protesters, along 32nd Street.