Friday, June 3, 2011

HOUSTON POLICE OFFICER KEVIN WILL MURDERED BY ILLEGAL JOHOAN RODRIQUEZ - WHO WHERE THE OTHER 11 AMERICANS MURDERED BY ILLEGALS THAT DAY?

EVERY DAY THERE ARE 12 AMERICANS MURDERED BY ILLEGALS.
IN CALIFORNIA ALONE THERE HAVE BEEN MORE THAN 2,000 AMERICANS MURDERED BY ILLEGALS THAT FLED BACK OVER THE BORDER TO AVOID PROSECUTION!
WHERE’S THE OUTRAGE? WHERE’S OUR BORDER?


Suspect's immigration status surfaces in HPD officer's death
Federal immigration officials won't confirm, but there's a 'detainer' on his arrest records
By TERRI LANGFORD
Copyright 2011, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
May 30, 2011, 9:39PM

The suspect accused of driving his vehicle through a police barricade and killing a Houston police officer Sunday may be an illegal immigrant, officials say.
Johoan Rodriguez, 26, charged with the intoxicated manslaughter of Houston officer Kevin Will, has a federal immigration detainer placed in his arrest records after investigators found "reason to believe" he was not a citizen.
It's not clear exactly what evidence prompted the detainer, which essentially is a request by immigration agents that law enforcement notify them before releasing an inmate.
Also has drug charge
Typically, a detainer is placed when an individual's fingerprints surface in federal immigration databases. However, fingerprints of lawful immigrants are also kept in the same database.
"No further info can be released at this time," said Carl Rusnok, a Dallas spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Rodriguez remained in the Harris County Jail Monday with no bail set. He is also charged with possession of less than a gram of cocaine and evading arrest. He is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday.
Investigators say Rodriguez flew past flashing lights early Sunday, as he was traveling east on the North Loop when his car struck Will near the Yale exit.
The HPD officer, just two years on the job, was investigating a hit-and-run accident along Loop 610 North when a driver, apparently drunk, ignored the flashing lights of patrol cars and steered his Volkswagen around a makeshift barrier set up to block the freeway.
Rodriguez' vehicle plowed into Will, killing the 38-year-officer at the scene. The officer leaves behind a pregnant wife, Alicia, whom he married last year. He also has two stepchildren: a 10-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Officer saved witness
Just before he died, Will yelled at the witness he was interviewing to "get out of the way," just before the speeding vehicle careened through the police barricade.
"The witness had no time to look around or react, except to leap over the concrete barrier that divides the freeway," Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland said. "He credits Officer Will with giving him the prior warning of getting out of the way. It actually saved his life, or he said, he would have been struck with Officer Will."
Will is the first officer in the department to die in the line of duty in a little more than a year. In May 2010, HPD Officer Eydelmen Mani died after an accident that occurred while chasing a stolen car suspect.
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While King reports 12 Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens, he says 13 are killed by drunk illegal alien drivers – for another annual death toll of 4,745.


More Americans Killed by Illegal Aliens than Iraq War, Study Says
"...if our military can understand that Iraq's security depends in measure on the ability to protect its border against insurgents and terrorists, then why isn't our country similarly protecting our own borders?"

Jim Brown
OneNewsNow.com
February 22, 2007

Illegal aliens are killing more Americans than the Iraq war, says a new report from Family Security Matters that estimates some 2,158 murders are committed every year by illegal aliens in the U.S. The group says that number is more than 15 percent of all the murders reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. and about three times the representation of illegal aliens in the general population.

Mike Cutler, a former senior special agent with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (the former INS), is a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and an advisor to Family Security Matters (FSM). He says the high number of Americans being killed by illegal aliens is just part of the collateral damage that comes with tolerating illegal immigration.

"The military actually called for the BORTAC team, ... the elite unit of the Border Patrol, to be detailed to Iraq to help to secure the Iraqi border," Cutler notes. "Now, if our military can understand that Iraq's security depends in measure on the ability to protect its border against insurgents and terrorists, then why isn't our country similarly protecting our own borders?" he asks.

"We are now five and a half years, nearly, after 9/11, and yet our borders remain open," the Center for Immigration Studies fellow observes. "We have National Guardsmen assigned on the border, but it turns out they are unarmed," he points out. "Their rules of engagement are very simple: if armed intruders head your way, run in the other direction."

This situation would "almost be comical if it wasn't so tragic," Cutler asserts. "If our borders are wide open, this means that drugs, criminals, and terrorists are entering our country just as easily as the dishwashers," he says.

The report from FSM estimates that the 267,000 illegal aliens currently incarcerated in the nation are responsible for nearly 1,300,000 crimes, ranging from drug arrests to rape and murder. Such statistics, Cutler contends, debunk the claim that illegal immigration is a victimless crime. "Then we even have another problem," he adds, "and that's the Visa Waiver Program."

The federal government's Visa Waiver Program enables nationals of certain countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa. According to the U.S. State Department website, the waiver program was established in 1986 with the objective of "eliminating unnecessary barriers to travel," stimulating America's tourism industry, and allowing the government to focus consular resources in other areas.
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According to a recent study from the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, Hispanics involved in car crashes are two-and-a-half times more likely to be drunk than white drivers and three times more likely to be drunk than black drivers.

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TWELVE AMERICANS MURDERED EACH DAY BY ILLEGALS


By Joseph Farah 2006
WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON – While the military "quagmire" in Iraq was said to tip the scales of power in the U.S. midterm elections, most Americans have no idea more of their fellow citizens – men, women and children – were murdered this year by illegal aliens than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since those military campaigns began. Though no federal statistics are kept on murders or any other crimes committed by illegal aliens, a number of groups have produced estimates based on data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research. Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001. Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq as of last week were reported at 2,863. Total U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan during the five years of the Afghan campaign are currently at 289, according to the Department of Defense. But the carnage wrought by illegal alien murderers represents only a fraction of the pool of blood spilled by American citizens as a result of an open border and un-enforced immigration laws. While King reports 12 Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens, he says 13 are killed by drunk illegal alien drivers – for another annual death toll of 4,745. That's 23,725 since Sept. 11, 2001. While no one – in or out of government – tracks all U.S. accidents caused by illegal aliens, the statistical and anecdotal evidence suggests many of last year's 42,636 road deaths involved illegal aliens. A report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Study found 20 percent of fatal accidents involve at least one driver who lacks a valid license. In California, another study showed that those who have never held a valid license are about five times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident than licensed drivers. Statistically, that makes them an even greater danger on the road than drivers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked – and nearly as dangerous as drunk drivers.
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 8 CHILDREN VICTIMS OF ILLEGAL MEX SEX ABUSE PER DAY 
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King also reports eight American children are victims of sexual abuse by illegal aliens every day – a total of 2,920 annually. Based on a one-year in-depth study, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. She analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants. As the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. increases, so does the number of American victims. According to Edwin Rubenstien, president of ESR Research Economic Consultants, in Indianapolis in 1980, federal and state correctional facilities held fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. But at the end of 2003, approximately 267,000 illegal aliens were incarcerated in all U.S. jails and prisons. While the federal government doesn't track illegal alien murders, illegal alien rapes or illegal alien drunk driving deaths, it has studied illegal aliens incarcerated in U.S. prisons. In April 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a report on a study of 55,322 illegal aliens incarcerated in federal, state, and local facilities during 2003. It found the following: The 55,322 illegal aliens studied represented a total of 459,614 arrests – some eight arrests per illegal alien; Their arrests represented a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses – some 13 offenses per illegal alien; 36 percent had been arrested at least five times before. "While the vast majority of illegal aliens are decent people who work hard and are only trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, (something you or I would probably do if we were in their place), it is also a fact that a disproportionately high percentage of illegal aliens are criminals and sexual predators," states Peter Wagner, author of a new report called "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration." "That is part of the dark side of illegal immigration and when we allow the 'good' in we get the 'bad' along with them. The question is, how much 'bad' is acceptable and at what price?" .............................................


AMERICANS (LEGALS) IN MARYLAND PUSH TO ROLL BACK THE LA RAZA IN-STATE SPECIAL DISCOUNT TO ILLEGALS

FIGHTING THE LA RAZA INVASION – ONE BATTLE AT A TIME! ONE CITY AT AT TIME! ONE JOB AT A TIME! … THE TIME IS NOW TO END BEING MEXICO’S JOBS, WELFARE, FREE BIRTHING, AND JAILS SYSTEM!

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Roll back law granting in-state tuition to illegal immigrants
Maryland can't afford in-state tuition for illegal immigrants
May 31, 2011|By Neil Parrott
"A nation without borders is not a nation. "
— Ronald Reagan
Legal immigration plays a key role in building our nation and deserves our full support. But today we are facing rampant illegal border crossings that have a high cost to our state and nation.
According to a report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, in Maryland alone we are paying $1.4 billion per year for costs associated with illegal aliens, such as K-12 education, health care costs and incarceration. (The total cost for these unreimbursed services is actually $1.6 billion but is reduced because the report accounts for the approximately $200 million that illegal aliens in Maryland pay in taxes through sales taxes and income taxes.)
We need laws to maintain an organized society, and when those laws are just, we need to follow those laws if we are to be successful. When it comes to illegal aliens, our state and our country must enforce the immigration laws and not reward illegal activity.
When considering our existing immigration laws, it is absurd to even think about hard-working Marylanders subsidizing in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens, which the Maryland legislature voted this year to do.
Although the bill passed, I can assure you that there was bipartisan opposition to this bill in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate. The liberal leaders in the Democratic majority applied pressure to get the bill through, but even so, it barely passed. The vote in the House was 74-65, with more than 20 Democrats voting against the legislation.
Not only does this bill further encourage illegal aliens to migrate to Maryland, but we simply cannot afford it. The fiscal note attached to the bill indicated that the costs to the state will reach an additional $4 million annually.
Maryland is planning to raid a variety of special funds just to get through the 2012 fiscal year. This would be like putting your groceries on your credit card each month without a means to pay it back. You couldn't live like that for long, and neither can the state of Maryland.
It doesn't make financial sense to commit ourselves to higher expenses in the future when we can't afford our current expenses.
Maryland should be looking for ways to cut spending, not planning to increase spending on a program designed to give our tax dollars to illegal aliens through subsidized education. In-state tuition is not just a nice benefit; it uses Maryland tax dollars to cover more than half the cost of college tuition.
(Page 2 of 2)
For instance, at Hagerstown Community College, the in-state cost for one year is $2,400, but the actual (out-of-state) cost for the education is $4,944. For the University of Maryland, the in-state cost for one year is $8,416, while others pay $24,831 — a $16,415 subsidy that Maryland taxpayers would pay for an illegal alien who will not be able to legally work in the United States upon graduation.
We are not talking about not allowing illegal aliens to attend Maryland colleges. We are talking about simply not subsidizing their education — something we do not do for foreigners who are here legally or even U.S. citizens from other states.
This bill is bad for Maryland and bad for our country. It circumvents the law and it comes with a price tag we cannot afford. For these reasons and many others, I am teaming up with legislators and citizens just like you to overturn this bad piece of legislation.
The Maryland Constitution provides that if a number of registered voters equivalent to at lest 3 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the last election sign a petition, that the law will not take effect until it is voted on in the next election cycle. The voters of Maryland should have the chance to decide on this legislation. Go to http://www.mdpetitions.com to sign the petition and see how you can help.
Neil Parrott is a Republican representing Washington County in the Maryland House of Delegates. His website is http://www.neilparrottfordelegate.com.
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Posted at 06:13 PM ET, 06/01/2011
Signatures rise on petition to repeal tuition breaks for illegal immigrants
By John Wagner
Organizers of an effort to repeal a Maryland law granting college tuition breaks to illegal immigrants said Wednesday that they have collected 62,496 signatures to force a public vote — a significantly higher number than an estimate provided 24 hours before.
On Tuesday afternoon, leaders of the group MDPetitions.com said they were prepared to turn in more than 40,000 signatures to meet an initial deadline established by law. But the batch they turned into the secretary of state shortly before midnight Wednesday grew considerably, they said.
If all the signatures claimed Wednesday are founded to be valid, the group will have met the threshold for putting the law on hold and calling a statewide referendum on the issue in November 2012.
“We are overwhelmed by support from Marylanders across the state,” said Del.Neil C. Parrott (R-Washington), chairman of the group, which plans to continue collecting signatures for the rest of June.
In past petition drives, a large percentage of signatures have been thrown out because they do not match the names of voters as they appear on the state’s voting rolls.
Opponents of the new law have until June 30 to collect 55,736 valid signatures — or 3 percent of the number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election — required to hold a statewide referendum on the law.
The law, signed this month by Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), would allow students who are illegal immigrants to pay the lower in-state rates at the state’s colleges and universities. To be eligible, students must have attended a Maryland high school for three years, provide proof that their parents are taxpayers and express their intent to become a citizen.
By John Wagner  |  06:13 PM ET, 06/01/2011

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HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING TO THE POLS THAT SOLD OUT AMERICANS FOR “CHEAP” MEXICAN LABOR IN FLORIDA:
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/06/florida-immigration-bills-failure.html

CRACK DOWN ILLEGAL LABORERS - 89% NOT AUTHORIZED TO WORK U.S. - SEVERAL ARE CRIMINALS


Immigration: 89% of workers at Wildcat Dairy not authorized to work in United States
By Michael Roberts
published: Wed., Jun. 1 2011 @ 11:34AM


There's no shortage of irony in news about a large immigration-related bust at Morgan County's Wildcat Dairy A whopping 89 percent of staffers there were not authorized to work in the U.S. -- but only the employees have been charged with a crime, while the business owner is being credited with aiding law enforcement.
According to the Morgan County Sheriff's Office, a "routine inspection" of the dairy, located at 24268 Morgan County Road 21, by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security turned up twenty workers suspected of using forged social security and alien-registration cards to get a job. All twenty have now been indicted on charges that include criminal impersonation.
Today, DHS agents, joined by members of the sheriff's office and the Fort Morgan Police Department, began making arrests. At this point, eleven people have been busted on outstanding warrants, with a twelfth earning a set of handcuffs due to an auto theft warrant out of California.
Here's the list of eleven primary arrestees:
1. Fausto Palma, (dob 01/30/1990) Fort Morgan, Colorado, arrested at 431 Euclid, Criminal Impersonation, Possession of Forged Instruments. No Bond.
2. Patrida Javier Lievanos, (dob 08/28/1972) Brush Colorado, arrested at Wildcat Dairy, Criminal Impersonation, Possession of Forged Instruments. No Bond.
3. Fidel Zavala-Ramirez, (dob 03/23/1960) Fort Morgan, Colorado, arrested at Wildcat Dairy, Criminal Impersonation, Possession of Forged Instruments. No Bond.
4. Ramon Gutierrez, (dob 10/17/1979) Fort Morgan, Colorado, arrested at Wildcat Dairy, Criminal Impersonation, possession of Forged Instruments. No Bond.
5. Martin Gutierrez, (dob 08/03/1967) Fort Morgan, Colorado, arrested at Wildcat Dairy, Criminal Impersonation, Possession of Forged Instruments. No Bond.
6. Dulio Vallecillo, (dob 04/12/1987), Fort Morgan, Colorado, arrested at Wildcat Dairy, Criminal Impersonation, Possession of Forged Instruments. No Bond.
7. Aguirre Guillermo, (dob 09/03/1983), Fort Morgan, Colorado, arrested at 118 Pine Log Lane Village, Criminal impersonation, Possession of Forged instruments. No Bond.
8. Freddy Rodriguez, (dob 06/14/1982), Fort Morgan, Colorado, arrested at 431 Euclid Street, Criminal Impersonation, Possession of Forged Instruments. No Bond.
9. Ramon Hernandez, (dob 08/08/1990), Fort Morgan, Colorado, Arrested at Wildcat Dairy, Criminal Impersonation. No Bond.
10. Edmundo Faudoa, (dob 11/10/1974), Fort Morgan, Colorado, arrested at Wildcat Dairy, Criminal Impersonation. No Bond.
11. Omar Gonzalez, (dob 01/15/1976), Log Lane Village, arrested at Wildcat Dairy, Criminal Impersonation. No Bond.
As for the business in question, the MCSO press release notes that "the management of Wildcat Dairy cooperated with the arrest operations"...
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THE SAVAGE MEXICAN – THEIR CULTURE OF RACISM, LOOTING AND VIOLENCE… AND OBAMA WANTS TO HAND THEM LA RAZA AMNESTY!
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THE SAVAGE MEXICAN:

At a party on Oct. 16 in Evans, Casey Korgan, 20, was celebrating with friends when an uninvited guest, Roque Colin-Tapia, 19, a known gang member, challenged him to an arm-wrestling match.

The confrontation between the two became heated, and a fight continued outside. Colin-Tapia immediately left the scene, and Casey Korgan was dead in the street, stabbed several times.

Colin-Tapia lived in Gill at the time, but apparently never went back home after the stabbing. Carol Korgan believes he escaped to Mexico.

Evans Police Sgt. Jason Phipps said there’s a good chance she’s right.

“We believe he was probably undocumented,” Phipps said. “We haven’t been able to prove that yet, but it appears that way.”
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Suspected killer in Evans on America’s Most Wanted website

May, 5 2011
By Mike Peters
mpeters@greeleytribune.com
It’s been about six months now since Carol Korgan lost her son at that party in Evans. She confronts that reality every day.

“You know when you are getting ready to leave the house,” Carol Korgan said, “and you stand there for a minute, thinking you are forgetting or missing something. That’s the way I am every day. There always seems to be something missing in my life.”

That “something missing” is Carol Korgan’s son, Casey.

Police have been looking for the gang member who allegedly stabbed her son over an arm-wrestling contest. And now, after months of work by family and friends, the search for her son’s killer has intensified.

This past week, the suspect in Casey Korgan’s death was added to the America’s Most Wanted website. Carol Korgan hopes there could be a break in the case.

At a party on Oct. 16 in Evans, Casey Korgan, 20, was celebrating with friends when an uninvited guest, Roque Colin-Tapia, 19, a known gang member, challenged him to an arm-wrestling match.

The confrontation between the two became heated, and a fight continued outside. Colin-Tapia immediately left the scene, and Casey Korgan was dead in the street, stabbed several times.

Colin-Tapia lived in Gill at the time, but apparently never went back home after the stabbing. Carol Korgan believes he escaped to Mexico.

Evans Police Sgt. Jason Phipps said there’s a good chance she’s right.

“We believe he was probably undocumented,” Phipps said. “We haven’t been able to prove that yet, but it appears that way.”

Colin-Tapia, also known as “Lil Dreamer,” is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds. He was a known gang member who had been arrested in 2010 on drunken-driving charges, then later that same year was listed as a “fugitive of justice” for not appearing in court on the DUI charge.

In the months since her son was stabbed, Carol Korgan has been trying to get the news out about the man suspected of killing him.

“Our family and friends started calling America’s Most Wanted, and writing them letters. Then, this past week, they finally put his name and photo on their website.”

Colin-Tapia also was recently listed as one of “Colorado’s 25 Most Wanted Fugitives.

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8 Out of 10 Illegals Apprehended in 2010 Never Prosecuted
http://www.alipac.us/article-6162-thread-1-0.html



Eight Out of Ten Illegal Aliens Apprehended in 2010 Never Prosecuted, Says Border Congressman

Thursday, March 17, 2011
By
Edwin Mora

Washington (CNSNews.com) – An illegal alien apprehended by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency during the last fiscal year had an estimated 84 percent chance of never being prosecuted, according to figures compiled by the office of Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas).
Culberson submitted the figures for the record during a hearing Wednesday of the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security.

Of 447,731 illegal aliens apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol during fiscal year 2010 (which ended last September), only 73,263 (16.4 percent) were prosecuted, according to the submitted data. That means that 374,468 illegal aliens that were taken into custody (83.6 percent) were never prosecuted

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ON THE GROWIN POWER OF “LA RAZA” FASCISM FOR MEX SUPREMACY

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MEXICO DOES NOT WANT THEIR CRIMINALS BACK.


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206 Most wanted criminals in Los Angeles. Out of 206 criminals--183 are hispanic---171 of those are wanted for Murder.

Why do Americans still protect the illegals??

http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_11255121?appSession=934140935651450&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=&cpipage=1&CPISortType=&CPIorderBy=

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TEN MOST WANTED CRIMINALS IN CALIFORNIA ARE MEXICANS!
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http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53103 Did you know illegals kill 12 Americans a day?
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1738432/posts FBI Crime Statistics - Crimes committed by illegals.

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Obama Administration Caught Arming Mexican Illegal Alien Rebels

DISCUSS THIS NATIONAL PRESS RELEASE WITH OUR ONLINE ACTIVISTS AT...http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1205835.html#1205835

BACKGROUND ARTICLES ON OPERATION GUN RUNNER AND FAST AND FURIOUS...
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-230424.html

Update and Release on NC Victory against bogus Mexican ID for illegals
ALIPAC Responds to NC Legislator's Personal Attacks
http://www.alipac.us/article6196.html

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Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform
www.CAIRCO.org


Florida immigration bill's failure angers tea-party backers

Wrong Direction: Unemployment Rate Up, Job Creation Down | CNSnews.com WE JUST NEED TO GIVE EVEN MORE JOBS TO EVEN MORE ILLEGALS!

Wrong Direction: Unemployment Rate Up, Job Creation Down CNSnews.com


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“We could cut unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs taken by illegal workers,” said Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, co-chairman of the Reclaim American Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the American people on immigration. The president should support policies that help citizens and legal immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than fail to enforce immigration laws.”
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“Obama’s rejection of any serious jobs program is part of a conscious class war policy. Two years after the financial crisis and the multi-trillion dollar bailout of the banks, the administration is spearheading a campaign by corporations to sharply increase the exploitation of the working class, using the “new normal” of mass unemployment to force workers to accept lower wages, longer hours, and more brutal working conditions.” WSWS.ORG

31% Expect Unemployment Rate To Be Even Higher A Year From Now - AND HOW MANY ILLEGALS WILL CLIMB OUR BORDERS & JOBS DURING THAT YEAR???

Forecast: On again, off again economy could last for years | McClatchy

Forecast: On again, off again economy could last for years McClatchy

EVEN AS THE NATION FACES A DECADE OF DEPRESSION... OBAMA AND HIS CORRUPT LA RAZA DEMS ARE WORKING TO GIVE WHAT JOBS THERE ARE TO ILLEGALS. KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED IS WHAT MAKES THEIR WALL ST. PAYMASTERS HAPPY AND GENEROUS $$$$$

DESPITE THE STAGGERING UNEMPLOYMENT, THE AMERICAN WORKER WILL STILL GET THE TAX BILL TO SUPPORT MEXICO'S WELFARE SYSTEM IN OUR NATION.

CALIFORNIA ALONE PUTS OUT $20 BILLION PER YEAR IN SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS, AND HAS THE GREATEST CONCENTRATION OF MEXICAN GANGS OUTSIDE OF MEXICO!

Mexican Drug Cartels - HOW THEY TRANSFER OUR ECONOMY BACK TO NARCOMEX

New, svelte cross-border tool for money launderers - prepaid plastic in your pocket

By Associated Press, Published: May 22

BOGOTA, Colombia — Forget bulk cash. Heavy and hard to hide, it’s simply not the most convenient cross-border conveyance for a 21st-century money launderer.
A safer and increasingly attractive alternative for today’s criminal is electronic cash loaded on what are called stored-value or prepaid cards. Getting them doesn’t require a bank account, and many types can be used anonymously.
U.S. crimefighters consider the cards a burgeoning threat that regulators haven’t adequately addressed.
In the past year, said John Tobon, a senior U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, the cards have become the preferred means of paying couriers who transport illicit drugs across the U.S.
No one knows how big a role the cards play in moving the more than $20 billion in drug earnings that U.S. authorities estimate crosses from the U.S. to Mexico annually. Yet while anyone crossing that border with $10,000 or more in cash must declare it, prepaid cards are legally exempt.
“Law enforcement loses lives all over the world trying to keep (major criminals) unbanked, and these prepaid cards are offering them a great alternative to sneak into our financial system,” said Tobon.
It was bank and wire-transfer records that enabled law enforcement to identify the 9/11 hijackers and their overseas cells. “Had the 9/11 terrorists used prepaid (stored-value) cards to cover their expenses, none of these financial footprints would have been available,” a U.S. Treasury Department report observed.
Visually, the cards are barely distinguishable from credit or debit cards and the most versatile let users reload them remotely without having to reveal their identity, using cash, moneygrams, PayPal and other online payment services.
Some cards can process tens of thousands of dollars a month. Just load them up in Connecticut or Texas with, say, the proceeds of cocaine sales and collect the cash in local currency from an ATM in Medellin, Colombia or elsewhere in Latin America.
“I’m not so sure we have a sophisticated understanding of how to deal with this,” said Richard Stana, who oversaw a report on prepaid access for the General Accounting Office, the U.S. Congress’ research arm. “It’s just a whole new way of doing business.”
In one of the first cases to clue law enforcement to the threat, a Dallas-based company called Virtual Money Inc. provided the cards to crews who helped Colombian drug traffickers move at least $7 million to Medellin during three months in 2006, prosecutors say.
The money moved digitally, as most legitimate capital travels these days, but bypassed bank accounts, making its digital footprint harder to detect. Virtual Money allegedly violated U.S. banking law by not reporting transfers of above $10,000 or other activity suggesting illegal money movement.
David Zapp, a New York attorney for a defendant sentenced to 45 months in prison in the case, said his client was a small player in a scheme in which cards he was aware of had relatively low load limits of $1,000.
The trick was volume — and the ability to replenish the cards.
Some launderers probably had 400-500 cards, he said. “Sometimes they would sell the card or sometimes they would rent the card or sometimes they would use the card for their own clientele.”
Law enforcement officials won’t discuss the case because Virtual Money’s president, Robert Hodgins, remains a fugitive. In 2008 the government seized his suburban Oklahoma City home, more than $250,000, and two cars.
Investigators said they were able to get an informant inside Virtual Money. Generally, cases tend to be difficult to build because money movements must be linked to a crime.
State and local police in the U.S. are only just waking up to the cards, so ICE created an explanatory pamphlet it is distributing far beyond Customs and Border Patrol agents.
“We’re involved in a case much larger than Virtual Money,” said Paul Campo, chief of the DEA’s financial crimes unit. It is in the U.S. southwest, he said, adding that the DEA also has active cases in New England and the state of Georgia.
While offering more options to money launderers, prepaid cards also are changing the way ordinary law-abiding citizens and businesses and even governments handle money. Wal-Mart uses them to distribute payrolls, and U.S. government agencies to deliver benefits such as food assistance. Migrant workers use them to send money home.
In the U.S. alone, an estimated $107 billion moved on branded prepaid cards last year, according to Aite Group, a financial research firm. Globally, the Boston Consulting Group forecasts, transactions with reloadable prepaid cards will reach $840 billion a year by 2017.
The cards offer flexibility, privacy and a shield against ID theft. Cheaper varieties are sold at pharmacies, mall kiosks and check-cashing storefronts.
An October report by the 34-nation FATF, the Financial Action Task Force that sets global anti-money laundering standards, cites just a half dozen laundering cases involving prepaid cards in their short history — each involving from $200,000 to $5 million and most in the U.S. Yet Tobon says they have in the past year or so become the preferred method for paying smugglers to move drugs across the U.S.
“Their payment is being given to them on these cards,” said Tobon, who runs ICE’s illicit finance and crime proceeds department.
In Colombia, the financial investigations agency chief says he fears drug traffickers are repatriating huge sums from Europe and Asia with high-limit prepaid cards obtained there.
“You enter (Colombia) carrying five cards in your pocket and that’s a quarter million dollars,” said Luis Suarez. “And of course they can be reloaded remotely.”
There are technical differences between stored-value and prepaid cards: The former have a chip that contains the sum they hold, the latter use a magnetic stripe for verification and store the sum on a central computer.
But more important is the cards’ versatility.
The most flexible are those, typically branded by Mastercard or VISA, that can be used on ATM networks, online and in stores. There are also varieties that can only be used at specific retail outlets and are not reloadable.
Some can be used anywhere credit or debit cards are accepted but not at ATMs; these made up the majority of 280 cards seized last year in three unrelated traffic stops in New Mexico, ICE said. Some had been issued by Wal-Mart.
The Treasury wants to require any business selling cards that can be used internationally to keep customer identity records and report suspicious transactions. That would affect more than 43,000 U.S. sellers including mom-and-pop groceries and stores such as Wal-Mart.
The prepaid card industry is balking, saying such rules would hike administrative costs that would eventually land on consumers.
The proposed Treasury rules would not, however, make it mandatory to declare cards loaded with more than $10,000 at border crossings, an idea advocated by law enforcement agencies and Sens. Diane Feinstein of California and Charles Grassley of Iowa of the Senate Caucus on International Drug Control.
To do so would require installing card-swiping machines at international airports, where cardholders could be submitted to spot checks.
The threat of plastic money-laundering is hardly limited to the U.S.
Industry regulation and enforcement can be very lax abroad, depending on the country.
“It’s just the Wild West, pretty much you can do what you want to do,” said Campo of the DEA. A big concern is high-load, anonymous cards being offered for sale over the Internet.
The “GMT Offshore Prepaid Mastercard,” claiming an annual load limit of $240,000, includes “no link to your name or bank account,” according to its website. It says the card costs $500 plus subsequent transaction fees and is “issued by an offshore bank and administered in Panama.”
Efforts to reach the advertiser were unsuccessful. Phone messages left at a Los Angeles number were not returned.
“If I wanted to I could just take a million dollars in cash in Dubai, walk into the bank and deposit it ... load the card and move the money from Dubai to wherever I want to,” said Campo.
At the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, Saif Hadef al-Shamsi said prospective prepaid cardholders must present “reliable proof of identity” such as a passport copy or national ID card in person. But there is no limit to the number of prepaid cards an individual can obtain and banks are not required to report customers with multiple cards, the official added.
In a 2008 FATF-sponsored review, the UAE was found wanting in regulations that would ensure customers were not using false identities to obtain prepaid cards.
Dubai has already been the stage for an episode of prepaid card abuse. They were used by suspected Israeli agents to cover their tracks when they assassinated a commander of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Persian Gulf state last year.
Around the world, prepaid cards are hardly the only newfangled gift to the criminal mind. Internet-only payment services are on the rise while mobile phones are already in wide use electronic wallets in the Philippines, large parts of Africa and elsewhere.
The rules proposed by FinCen, the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, would create a new category called “prepaid access” that includes such methods. As always, the regulators are a few steps behind the criminals.
The trail left by the hit team in Dubai highlights the challenges of preventing sophisticated abuse. The card was issued by Iowa-based MetaBank, which said it did its due diligence but was dealing with customers who used fraudulent passports.
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