US citizenship and naturalization of offspring: Department of State Passport Bulletin 96-18

Summary
United States Department of State Passport Bulletin 96-18. This bulletin confirms that the Department of State holds a different interpretation than the Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding Derivative Citizenship. Derivative Citizenship refers to U.S. citizenship that a child may derive after birth through the naturalization of a [...]

Federal/State/Local Immigration Law Enforcement Partnerships

ICE Announces Standardized 287(g) Agreements With 67 State and Local Law Enforcement Partners
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has just announced that it will continue with its partnership agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies which tasks these agencies with helping to enforce federal immigration [...]

Private company plans illegal-immigrant prison in Adelanto

ADELANTO • A private prison operator has plans to build a 2,200-bed detention center that holds illegal immigrants on 51 acres near two other local prisons.
The Adelanto City Council will decide on Wednesday whether to approve the GEO Group Inc.’s development plan and conditional use permit to construct a new [...]

ICE performs undercover operations with help from satellite tracking devices

[ Note: The firm mentioned, Eastcor Engineering, is listed with the phone number (410) 820-5521.  This number is also listed to David Jackson, Jen McMaster and George Vojtech, all at the same address. ]
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit of the Department of Homeland Security is planning to [...]

Report: Top anti-drug official was ’secret ally of drug lords’

DEA says key ICE official sold info about informants, ran Panamanian cocaine to Spain via US ports
Richard Padilla Cramer, a 26-year veteran anti-drug official, is behind bars, arrested after officials accused him of directing a massive cocaine shipment to Spain via the United States, and selling important information in law [...]

DHS Directives on Border Searches of Electronic Media

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano recently announced two new directives aimed at improving oversight for searches of computers and electronic decides at U.S. entry ports. This is viewed as an important move to support DHS efforts to “combat transnational crime and terrorism while protecting [...]

ICE: Teams Will Arrest Non-fugitive Illegals

SAN DIEGO — The chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says agents searching for people who ignore deportation orders will continue to arrest others in the country illegally who happen to be around when they show up.
John Morton spoke to reporters Wednesday in San Diego about ICE’s fugitive operations [...]

Sheriff Arpaio Slapped With Another Civil Rights Lawsuit Over Arrests

The man who boasts he is “America’s Toughest Sheriff” — and who is being investigated by the Department of Justice for civil rights violations — this week added another lawsuit to thousands already pending against him.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona are suing Joe Arpaio, the [...]

DHS Admits It Failed to Disclose 11 More Deaths at Immigration Facilities

In response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revealed yesterday that the government had failed to disclose 11 more deaths in immigration detention facilities.
In April, DHS officials released what they called a comprehensive list of all deaths [...]

ICE Announces Major Immigration Detention Reforms

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has just announced a Major Overhaul to the immigration detention system in the United States. This announcement comes in the wake of intense criticism over the past months and years over immigration detention practices in the U.S. and amidst hopes that the new [...]

Report Finds ICE Home Raids Violate the Constitution

Constitution on ICE: A Report on Immigration Home Raid Operations
The Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic has just released this report which cites widespread constitutional violations from immigration home raids conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent years. “This report is the first public effort to compile and [...]

Racist Web Posts Traced to Homeland Security

After federal border agents detained several Mexican immigrants in western New York in June, an article about the incident in a local newspaper drew an onslaught of vitriolic postings on its Web site. Some were racist. Others attacked farmers in the region, an apple-growing area east of Rochester, accusing them [...]

San Bernardino County broadens inmate screening for deportation

Two flat-screen televisions loom large in a small booking office at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.
Federally trained San Bernardino County sheriff’s employees use the screens to patch into other jails, some nearly 100 miles away, to identify inmates eligible for deportation.
For the past seven months, the Sheriff’s [...]

Independent Report Criticizes ICE Workplace Raids

Raids on Workers: Destroying Our Rights: A Comprehensive Analysis and Investigation of ICE Raids and Their Ramifications
This report from the National Commission on ICE Misconduct and Violations of 4th Amendment Rights investigates recent ICE workplace raids in the United States. “On December 12, 2006, the Bush administration conducted [...]

Mexican NGOs, Brigadier General, Unite in Letter Against Plan Mexico

May 7, 2009
Yesterday, 72 Mexican civil society organizations and a Brigadier General of the Mexican Army sent the following letter to US Congress demanding that all military aid to Mexico be immediately halted. The letter comes as the US House of Representative is considering more than doubling 2009 funding for the war [...]

Spying on anti-war protestors: US Army Concept of Operations for Police Intelligence Operations, 4 Mar 2009

Download document here.

Get Them While They’re Young

A new generation of thugs is being trained for post-9/11 law enforcement. From the New York Times:

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and [...]

Ending the Drug War Would End the Violence

The news media are rife with stories about Mexican drug cartels operating throughout the United States and drug-related violence threatening U.S. cities near the border. Americans are becoming reluctant to cross into Mexican towns for fear of getting caught in the crossfire.
Do we need another reason to end the [...]

More bilingual deputies in Riverside County, fewer in San Bernardino County

The percentage of sworn deputies who are bilingual has climbed in Riverside County and dropped slightly in San Bernardino County compared to six years ago, according to data from the sheriff’s departments.
In 2003, 1.5 percent of deputies in the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department were bilingual. Today that number is 12.5 [...]

This is a hate-free city: Minutemen founder persona non grata

Monday, April 20 2009 CLAREMONT, California– Despite the right wing’s efforts at deception and obfuscation, pro-immigrant, pro-human rights, anti-racist, and community activists organized strong opposition to the arrival of anti-immigrant extremist Jim Gilchrist to our neighborhood.
A group called the Mountain View Republican Club invited Gilchrist to speak at an [...]

GAO Report on DEA’s Post-9/11 Drug Control Responsibilities

Drug Control: Better Coordination With the Department of Homeland Security and an Updated Accountability Framework Can Further Enhance DEA’s Efforts to Meet Post-9/11 Responsibilities
“Given the global context of the war on drugs-coupled with growing recognition since September 11, 2001 (9/11), of the nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism-the mission [...]

ICE Raids and Police Brutality Teach-In

L.A. County Network Against Police Murder and AbuseICE Raids and Police Brutality Teach-In
• PEOPLE OF COLOR HAVE BEEN BATTLING POLICE BRUTALITY FOR YEARS
• NOW THE POLICE ARE WORKING TO DEPORT PEOPLE AND TEAR APART FAMILIES
• COME LEARN ABOUT THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN ICE AGENTS AND LOCAL POLICE
MONDAY, APRIL 20TH
6:30 PM
AFIBA CENTER
5730 S. CRENSHAW
LOS ANGELES, CA
FOR [...]

DHS Releases New Immigration Statistics for 2008

Naturalizations in the United States: 2008
U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2008
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics has just released these two statistical reports which provide information on U.S. legal permanent residents and naturalizations for the year 2008. These reports are part of an ongoing [...]

DEA’s Operation Xcellerator is Another Justice Department Dog and Pony Show

Despite the  “Largest and Hardest Hitting Operation to Ever Target” the Sinaloa Cartel, the DEA is Merely Treading Water in the War on Drugs
On February 25, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) held a press conference celebrating the culmination of Operation Xcellerator, which it says resulted in the arrests [...]

Thousands march against Arpaio in Phoenix

Thousands of opponents of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s illegal-immigration policies held their “March to Stop the Hate” in downtown Phoenix on Saturday..
As of 1:30 p.m., the speeches were still being made at the march’s destination, the federal building. According to initial reports, the march was peaceful, with no major incidents as [...]

Finally, the Law Goes After Joe Arpaio — the Most Abusive Sheriff In America

WASHINGTON – House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), and Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) called on Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate allegations of misconduct [...]

Hey Kids, Wanna Play Security Checkpoint: The Terrifying Marketing Of Police State Normalacy To Children

When I flew home from Washington, DC after a business trip last week, the TSA agent asked to test my laptop.  I politely asked what they were testing for.  It was just routine she told me.  And she’s right, it has become routine, a much too routine standard operating procedure [...]

Former Border Patrol agent describes ‘quota pressure’

MURRIETA, Calif. — A former Border Patrol officer said Thursday that constant demands to meet monthly arrest quotas led agents in the Inland Empire to cruise streets, bus stops and even medical clinics looking for illegal immigrants.
“We had to make eight apprehensions a day and if we didn’t meet that goal [...]

I am a Terrorist

See also:
Domestic Militarization Comes to San Bernardino County
Patriot Act – The War on Civil Liberties
The Second Amendment Versus The Police State?
Veterans for Peace (VFP) Opposes Combat Brigade’s Permanent U.S. Assignment
Assignment America: Keep juries dumb
Excellent Article on the Corrupt Prison-Industrial Complex
Court Rules Patriot Act’s “National Security Letter” Gag Provisions Unconstitutional
SoCal [...]

Freedom of the press as a foreign concept

Yes, we reporters might get stuck covering the late shift or — egad! — a parade. When disaster strikes or a source calls back on deadline, the nights can be long. Newspaper layoffs and hard economic times can cast a pall over just about everything we do.

But those concerns seem a [...]

Prohibition and the Rise of Crime

On January 17, 1920, The 18th Amendment went into effect and what is known as Prohibition became reality. What did not become reality were the predictions of the benefits it would have vis-a-vis Organized Crime.

March base Predator unit to train next generation of pilots

The 163rd Air National Guard at March Air Reserve Base is beginning a new mission.
After two years of being the only National Guard unit to fly unmanned Predator drones in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will begin training the next crop of Predator pilots. The goal is to increase the military’s capacity for [...]