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‘It Works’: Yuma’s Fence, Manpower Make Border Nearly Impenetrable

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When Americans think of a secure border, whether they know it or not, they see Yuma, Ariz., and the 20-foot high steel curtain separating it from Mexico.

Beyond the imposing wall is 75 yards of flat, sandy, no man’s land, monitored by cameras and sensors and agents in SUVs. If an illegal immigrant successfully runs that gauntlet, they face another tightly woven steel fence and a third cyclone fence topped by barbed wire . . .

It wasn’t always this way. In 2005, Yuma was chaos. Pushed out of San Diego by Operation Gatekeeper in the late 1990s, drug and human smugglers targeted San Luis, a sleepy little border town just over the California state line south of Yuma.

That year, illegal immigrants overwhelmed Yuma. Border agents made on average 800 arrests a day, and watched hundreds of suspects run away. Stolen vehicles laden with drugs raced over the border at high speeds unhindered and unmolested. An estimated eight trucks a day sped out of Mexico onto Interstate 8 and disappeared into the American heartland, stuffed with immigrants or drugs . . .

Video of the Yuma chaos made its way to Washington, where then-President George Bush pledged to fix it. In 2006, Congress passed the Secure Fence Act. Three years later every mile of Yuma’s border with Mexico contained a fence or vehicle barrier. (Read more from “‘It Works’: Yuma’s Fence, Manpower Make Border Nearly Impenetrable” HERE)

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Arizona Defends Denying Driver’s Licenses to ‘Dreamers,’ Judge Suggests it’s “Racism”

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Arizona’s legal team came to Pasadena on Thursday to defend the state’s refusal to issue driver’s licenses to so-called Dreamers, and found that one member of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was in no mood for legal maneuvering.

Under court order, Arizona began issuing licenses and ID cards in February for the estimated 22,000 immigrants covered by the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA. President Obama’s program gives Dreamers, the young immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally before their 16th birthday and who meet other requirements, a reprieve from deportation and the ability to receive work permits. . .

Pregerson asked why Arizona continued to try to deny benefits to Dreamers. “Does it come down to racism? Does it come down to discrimination against these people? What else does it come down to?” he asked.

[Since Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty in 2012,] states have steadily dropped their objections to giving licenses to Dreamers. The penultimate holdout, Nebraska, ended its objections in May. Only Arizona continues to fight.

“The state wants to enjoy a prerogative it simply does not have,” Dreamer Coalition attorney Karen Tumlin told the three judges. “This case is about discrimination, pure and simple.” (Read more from “Arizona Defends Denying Driver’s Licenses to ‘Dreamers,’ Faces Skeptical Judge” HERE)

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Arizona Slashes Welfare Lifetime Limit from 24 Months to 1 Year [+video]

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The Arizona Legislature has slashed the lifetime limit for welfare benefits from 24 months to 12 months, the shortest time frame in the U.S.

The Associated Press reported:

As a result, the Arizona Department of Economic Security will drop at least 1,600 families – including more than 2,700 children – from the state’s federally funded welfare program on July 1, 2016.

The cuts of at least $4 million reflect a prevailing mood among the lawmakers in control in Arizona that welfare, Medicaid and other public assistance programs are crutches that keep the poor from getting back on their feet and achieving their potential.

Arizona state Sen. Kelli Ward, a co-sponsor of the bill, was on “Fox and Friends” to explain the decision. She said that it wasn’t a popular move, but it was a necessary one. (Read more from “Arizona Slashes Welfare Lifetime Limit from 24 Months to 1 Year” HERE)

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Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Faces Ridiculous Contempt Hearing in Phoenix [+video]

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Photo Credit: LA Times

Photo Credit: LA Times

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio cut a wide swath even beyond his Arizona world where he was very big political fish. He became the voice for a type of tough justice that harkened back to the Wild West, when the lawman’s word was absolute and few worried about the rights of prisoners or immigrants.

On Tuesday, Arpaio faced what may be his most demanding and dangerous opponent: U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow, who will decide whether the man who has called himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” should be held in contempt for deliberately ignoring court orders in a long-running civil rights case.

“He has been trying to get out of this desperately,” Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, the first of what is expected to be four days of hearings in Phoenix. “He has been hiding behind the badge, and that’s why it is very, very important to have a public trial.”

Arpaio has refused to comment on the current proceeding that could result in a fine and perhaps a criminal case down the road. The sheriff is on the witness list of about two dozen people, though he is not expected to testify until later in the week.

Snow will take testimony and will have to decide whether Arpaio and four top aides should be held in contempt for violating the judge’s order barring sheriff’s department policy on immigration patrols that were designed to enforce tough restrictions on anyone in the country illegally. (Read more from “Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Faces Contempt Hearing in Phoenix” HERE)

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Arizona Sheriff Calls Out Obama, Insists Our Borders are Not “More Secure Than Ever”

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Photo Credit: Western Journalism By Heather Laskin. For all of President Obama’s talk of the border being safer than ever, Pinal County, Ariz., Sheriff Paul Babeu provided some evidence to the contrary when he spoke before the House Judiciary Committee on the issue of illegal immigration Tuesday.

Babeu, America’s 2011 “Sheriff of the Year” and an Iraq War veteran, testified before the committee that between 88,000 and 123,000 illegal aliens are apprehended at the Tucson Sector, one of nine border-patrol zones along the U.S.-Mexico border, each year. The Tucson Sector covers most of the state of Arizona from the New Mexico state line to the Yuma County line — a total of 262 border miles.

Between 17 and 30 percent of those apprehended have a criminal record in the U.S. “This clearly shows that the border is not more secure than ever,” Babeu said.

He also detailed how 30 to 50 illegal alien criminals are released into Pinal County every day. “These are the people that everybody, including the president, said are the bad actors,” he said. Many of those released have criminal records that include rape, manslaughter, child molestation, financial crimes, armed robbery, and assault against law enforcement.

Babeu said he has asked the federal government for more information regarding those individuals and their criminal histories, but the government refuses to give it to him. “I, as the sheriff, who swore an oath to protect the people of my county, should have a right to that information,” Babeu declared.

He stressed to committee members that the situation is so lawless in some areas of Pinal County — the number one pass through county in America for drug and human smuggling — that it often feels like a war-zone on American soil. (Read more about what Arizona sheriff said HERE)

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Two US Veterans Disappear in Mexico

By KRGV. The family of two missing veterans in Matamoros is desperate for any word of their safety.

Ernesto and Jesus Garcia were reported missing in Mexico after they did not return home on Monday. The brothers from Brownsville were visiting their grandmother.

Family said they were staying in the south-west side of the city, about 20 minutes south of Brownsville.

The family said this was a trip the brothers made often. Every few months, they would visit their family in Matamoros and check-in on their grandmother.

This trip was different because the two decided to drive home to the U.S. in the middle of the night. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Measles Outbreak Growing in Arizona

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By Connie Cone Sexton and Paulina Pineda. Two more cases of measles were confirmed in Arizona on Tuesday, and public health officials have warned that hundreds more people in the state may have been exposed this month.

Both of the cases confirmed Tuesday — a man in Pinal County and a woman in Phoenix — were linked to a family of four whose measles cases were confirmed last week following travel to Disneyland in California.

The outbreak of measles has reached “a critical point,” according to Will Humble, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services. The outbreak has the potential to be far worse than the state’s last measles outbreak in 2008, he said. (Read more about the measles outbreak HERE)

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Chicago Announces First Case of Measles

By Warner Todd Huston. As an outbreak of measles linked to several California Disney theme parks mounts, other states are also seeing measles appear. This week, for instance, a suburb of Chicago has announced its first case of the year.

Illinois Public Health Director Nirav Shah reported that the case was identified earlier this month and marks only the tenth case of measles in the last five years.

“This case in Illinois is a reminder of the importance of immunizations,” Shah said. “Immunizations are vital to protect not only each child, but the community as a whole.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Teacher Raped Student Until She Became Pregnant, Used Metal Ruler to Attempt Abortion

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Photo Credit: LifeNews

Photo Credit: LifeNews

In a shocking case out of Arizona, a student has filed a lawsuit against a teacher who she alleges raped her until she became pregnant and then attempted to cause an abortion when he learned she was pregnant by repeatedly inserting a metal ruler into her vagina.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of Jane Doe and her parents was filed November 20 in Maricopa County Court against Horizon Community Learning Center, a charter school, and teach former teacher, David Depuydt. In the suit, Doe claims that, when she was 16, Depuydt was named her supervisor for a community service project she was required to perform. The lawsuit claims Depuydt repeatedly sexually assaulted and raped Doe both in a school bathroom as well as his classroom.

“Depuydt utilized his inherent authority, trust and position as a teacher and community service project supervisor to target Jane Doe based on her gender and subject her to multiple instances of illegal sexual harassment and discrimination,” the lawsuit states.

When Doe informed Depuydt she was pregnant, Doe says in the lawsuit that “for the purpose of performing an abortion, defendant Depuydt repeatedly inserted a metal ruler into Jane Doe until she began to bleed profusely.”

According to the lawsuit, Doe suffered such emotional distress after what happened that she attempted suicide.

Read more from this story HERE.

Arizona Voters Approve Proposition to Reject Federal Acts

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11042014_election-arizona-122[Tuesday], voters in Arizona approved a ballot measure that follows James Madison’s advice to stop federal overreach. With 80% reporting, the tally held steady and increasing at 51-49%.

Approved was Proposition 122, a state constitutional amendment that enshrines the anti-commandeering doctrine in the state constitution. The language amends the state constitution to give Arizona the ability to “exercise its sovereign authority to restrict the actions of its personnel and the use of its financial resources to purposes that are consistent with the Constitution.”

This language is consistent with the advice of James Madison, who wrote in Federalist #46:

Should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter. [emphasis added]

The amendment language mirrors the well-established legal doctrine of anti-commandeering. The Supreme Court has consistently held that the federal government cannot force states to help implement or enforce and federal act or program.It rests primarily on four SCOTUS cases – Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), New York v. US (1992), Printz v. US (1997) and National Federation of Businesses v. Sebelius (2012).

Read more from this story HERE.

Arizona Lawmaker Aims to Send Border-Crossing Children Home Faster

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Photo Credit: Will Seberger / ZumaPress / Newscom By Josh Siegel.

Legislation proposed by an Arizona congressman would give federal officials authority to quickly screen and deport unaccompanied children from Central America who have crossed the Mexican border into the United States.

The bill from Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., would change a provision in a 2008 human-trafficking law that requires U.S. Border Patrol agents to turn over the children to the federal Department of Health and Human Services and guarantees those minors hearings in immigration court — a process that can take years.

Salmon, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, is part of a group assembled by Speaker John Boehner to address the border crisis.

“This is an issue he has been working to address for awhile,” said Tristan Daedalus, Salmon’s communications director, adding:

Basically, the crux of the bill is a small legal change that would give CBP [Customs and Border Patrol] agents the authority to immediately repatriate them back to their countries.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: CBS 8Third group of migrants sent to San Diego

By Gene Kang, Shannon Handy and CNS.

Another group of undocumented Central American migrants arrived Monday in San Diego, continuing a process that has prompted intense opposition as well as widespread compassion for the plight of the exiles.

The group of about 140 immigrants, who entered the United States illegally in Texas, were flown into Lindbergh Field late this morning and then bused to a U.S. Border Patrol facility in San Ysidro for processing.

On Tuesday, an initial group of the same size arrived in San Diego and were driven to Murrieta, where crowds of angry protesters blocked their entrance to a USBP facility, prompting authorities to take them instead to San Ysidro.

The departure of the migrants from the Riverside area marked a victory for the roughly two dozen protesters who had gathered to decry the foreigners’ arrival there, many waving flags and others carrying signs reading “Stop Illegal Immigration” and “Return to Sender.”

Protesters have continued gathering at the Border Patrol facility in Murrieta. Some clashed with police on Friday while waiting to see if more migrants would be arriving.

San Diego, California News Station – KFMB Channel 8 – cbs8.com

Read more from this story HERE.

1K Immigrant Children to Be Sent to Arizona Over Weekend

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Photo Credit: AP / Rick ScuteriHundreds of unaccompanied minors who entered the United States illegally through Texas are being shipped to Nogales, Ariz., creating a problem there so serious the federal government is sending relief supplies and asking the state for vaccines, an aide to Gov. Jan Brewer said Friday.

Andrew Wilder, the governor’s communications chief, said federal officials told Brewer’s office they were moving 432 children into Arizona late Friday, with another 367 expected today and an identical number the following day. And that said Wilder, is apparently just the beginning.

“More unaccompanied minors will continue to Arizona,” he said.

Wilder said they are being taken to a detention center in on West La Quinta Road in Nogales for at least preliminary processing. He said state officials were told they would stay there for about three days before being shipped out to detention facilities in San Antonio, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, or Ventura, California.

That center in Nogales was recently opened to handle the large influx after being closed for several years. It has no indoor plumbing.

Read more from this story HERE.