Mark Johnson, The Charlotte Observer

RALEIGH - North Carolina's community college system has ordered the state's 58 campuses to admit illegal immigrants, overturning a policy of letting the heavily enrolled schools set their own rules for handling undocumented applicants.

David Sullivan, the system's top lawyer, dispatched a memo this month telling the community colleges that state regulations require the schools to admit illegal immigrants who meet the schools' basic requirements of being either a high school graduate or an adult in need of skills training.

"That's just wrong," said Sen. Richard Stevens, a Cary Republican and co-chairman of the higher education committee. "I can't believe North Carolina taxpayers would be asked to pay for the education of people who are in this state illegally."

Rep. Winkie Wilkins, a Democrat from Person County who is the head of the House committee on community colleges, said he was "blindsided" by the news.

Why have a border at all? Or states?

I would hate to suggest something like.....the state legislature passing a law enforcing financial aid in terms of loans, grants and scholarships be available to ONLY legal residents.

GET THIS:

The state's community colleges focus on training and retraining the work force, usually through skills and trade education. Melinda Wiggins is executive director of Student Action with Farmworkers, which helps children of migrant agriculture laborers get into high school and college. She said barring illegal immigrants from community colleges penalizes youths who were brought to the United States as children.

"North Carolina is their home. It's where they've been raised and lived," Wiggins said. "By denying them an education, we're really creating an underclass of folks here in the state who cannot contribute to society."

They are illegal aliens, dear, and simply have not immigrated. They belong back wherever they came from. Not here. They are the living result of insecure borders, and a broken system.

State public schools must accept children of illegal immigrants under federal regulations. The University of North Carolina system admits undocumented applicants, but a bill to provide in-state tuition to some was quickly shot down in 2005.

Robert Luebke, an education policy analyst with the conservative Civitas Institute in Raleigh, said the new community college directive orders the schools to ignore the fact that the prospective students are breaking the law.

"These students cannot legally work in North Carolina," Luebke said in a prepared statement. "Subsidizing the education of students who can only work using a forged or stolen Social Security card is absurd."

Sen. Fred Smith and Salisbury lawyer Bill Graham, both Republican candidates for governor, said they oppose admitting illegal immigrants.

"People can't pick and choose which laws they're going to follow," Smith said, "and which laws they're not going to follow."

Mike Taylor, president of Stanly Community College, said out-of-state tuition effectively excludes illegal immigrants because many cannot afford it.

"We're put between a rock and a hard place on this," Taylor said. "These same people we can't admit without paying out-of-state tuition can graduate as valedictorian from any high school in Stanly County."

The FBI is investigating an alleged human smuggling operation based in Chaparral, N.M., that agents say is bringing "Iraqis and other Middle Eastern" individuals across the Rio Grande from Mexico.

The Blotter:

An FBI intelligence report distributed by the Washington, D.C. Joint Terrorism Task Force, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, says the illegal ring has been bringing Iraqis across the border illegally for more than a year.

Border Patrol officials in the area said they were unaware of the specifics of the FBI's report, and federal prosecutors in New Mexico told ABCNews.com they had no current cases involving the illegal smuggling of Iraqis.

The FBI report, issued last week, says the smuggling organization "used to smuggle Mexicans, but decided to smuggle Iraqi or other Middle Eastern individuals because it was more lucrative." Each individual would be charged a fee of $20,000 to $25,000, according to the report.

WHERE'S THE GODDAMN WALL?

WHERE is the  increased physical security?

Will you be blaming each other? 

STRATFOR : About

400,000

Mexican police officers are under investigation by the Attorney General's Office for corruption and suspected links to organized crime, La Jornada reported June 26, citing government sources.

Most of the officers are from Nuevo Leon, Sonora, Baja California, Guerrero, Michoacan and Mexico City

Let's say this slowly, you will see it again...

A secure border must be the first part of immigration reform that makes sense. The american people agree overwhelmingly that a secure border is COMPULSORY, regardless of their attitude about illegal or legal immigation.

If the government will not enforce border security, all kinds of chaos will ensue.

Jail the employers, and THIS won't happen.

Gunmen kill two migrants on U.S.-Mexico border

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen fired on a truck packed with suspected illegal immigrants in southern Arizona early on Friday, killing two people and wounding a third, police said. The gunmen killed a man and a woman traveling in a pickup truck near Green Valley, some 30 miles south of Tucson, Pima County Sheriff's Department said. Spokeswoman Dawn Barkman said the dead were believed to be Mexican immigrants traveling with three family groups from the poor southern Mexican state of Chiapas. Barkman said two children were among at least 14 people packed into the extended-cab pickup truck.

Federal officials fanned out across Southern California over the past week in one of the biggest sweeps of its kind, arresting 761 illegal immigrants ranging from murder suspects to visa violators.

yeah but....this wasn't a a general screening for crimaliens....

The operation targets those illegal immigrants who go into hiding after skipping their deportation proceedings and criminals who have re-entered the United States after being previously deported for crimes committed in this country.

Officials estimate 600,000 illegal immigrants who have ignored deportation orders are still at large, Kice said.

The Associated Press rode along for the first day of sweeps in Orange County last week. Immigration officers gathered at 4 a.m. in a chilly parking lot for a pep talk, then fanned out to houses in Anaheim and Santa Ana.

At the first stop, an apartment complex, a half-dozen agents arrested a 29-year-old illegal immigrant wanted for a driving-under-the-influence conviction. Kice said that man is now helping them find his brother, a registered sex offender.

At the second stop, the agents were looking for a convicted rapist and immigration fugitive. Instead, they arrested six men who could not provide legal papers -- and later learned that all six were illegal and four had criminal records.

The rapist they sought had moved out the week before, Kice said.

These people, these criminals and violent felons are HERE because my daughter can sneak over the american borders doing the crab walk and wearing a megaphone a singing the Marseillaise while in a fire engine red pair of Dr. Denton's.

Why has this govt chosen to leave the american border, and the american people vulnerable?

Amid protests and a flurry of last-minute efforts by congressmen, two border patrol agents are scheduled today to begin long prison sentences for shooting and wounding a Mexican drug smuggler who was granted full immunity to testify against them.

"This is the worst betrayal of American defenders I have ever seen," Rohrabacher (congresssman R-CA) said of the president. "It's shameful this was done by someone who is in the Republican Party. He obviously thinks more about his agreements with Mexico than the lives of American people and backing up his defenders."

The California lawmaker, who has helped lead efforts to obtain a pardon, charged the Bush administration has been playing a "cruel game." Initially, he said, officials insisted the agents could not be pardoned because they had not filled out the proper paperwork. But Rohrabacher told WND the White House did not explain to the public that the agents were being required – without justification, he contended – to first admit guilt.

TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing 1,500 agents, argued failure to report the discharge of a firearm is an administrative offense that, at the most, merits a five-day suspension.

"How that translates into 11- and 12-year prison terms is beyond me," he told WND. "They fired at someone they believed had a weapon. He resisted their commands, assaulted one of the officers and then wheeled around and pointed something at them. Logic would say it would be a weapon.

"After all the Monday-morning quarterbacking, I would have to come to the same conclusion," Bonner said. "He's a drug smuggler, for God's sake."

The Department of Homeland Security sent an investigator to Mexico to offer the smuggler, Aldrete-Davila, full immunity in exchange for his testimony against the agents. Now, Aldrete-Davila is suing the U.S. Border Patrol for $5 million for allegedly violating his civil rights.

GUARDSMEN OVERRUN AT THE BORDER

A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.

The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.

The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.

WTF?

Elvis Soto's variety store used to make money. But few customers have been walking through his door lately, and his merchandise _ calling cards, cell phones, car stereos, clothing _ is collecting dust on the shelves.

With bills mounting, Soto might have to take another job to stay afloat financially, and may even close the store.

On Wednesday, a tough, first-of-its-kind law targeting illegal immigrants goes into effect in this small hillside city in northeastern Pennsylvania. But the evidence suggests many Hispanics _ illegal or otherwise _ have already left.

That, in turn, has hobbled the city's Hispanic business district, where some shops have closed and others are struggling to stay open.

"Before, it was a nice place," said Soto, 27, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic a decade ago. "Now, we have a war against us. I am legal but I feel the pressure also."

The ordinance, approved by City Council in September, imposes fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and denies business permits to companies that give them jobs. The law empowers the city to investigate written complaints about a person's immigration status, using a federal database.

Mayor Lou Barletta, chief proponent of the new law, contends illegal immigrants have brought drugs, crime and gangs, overwhelming police and municipal budgets. He announced the crackdown in June, a month after two illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic were charged in a fatal shooting.

If the problem is so large that businesses must close in Pennsylvania, it is our PERSONAL responsibility to make sure that BOTH border security, and sensible immigration policies are the result here.

We START with border security. Note that this law does NOTHING to the criminals who are here illegally, it PROPERLY targets americans who violate the laws for profit.

Smugglers seen getting 'sophisticated, organized'

Law-enforcement authorities along the U.S.-Mexico border are outgunned and outmanned by drug smugglers armed with automatic weapons, grenade launchers, bazookas, improvised explosive devices and state-of-the-art communications and tracking systems, a congressional report said yesterday. "While the United States has taken positive steps to secure its borders, much more is needed to combat an increasingly powerful, sophisticated, organized and violent criminal network, which seeks to move illegal contraband ... into our country for profit," said the House Homeland Security management, integration and oversight subcommittee report. The 39-page report said drug-trafficking organizations and alien-smuggling networks are "proliferating and strengthening their control" of key corridors along the nation's Southwest; that Mexican drug cartels wield "substantial control" over the U.S.-Mexico border; and that criminal organizations and networks are "highly sophisticated and organized." It also found that drug-trafficking cartels, alien-smuggling networks and U.S.-based street gangs, including MS-13, are increasingly coordinating with one another to achieve their objectives, and that federal, state and local law-enforcement report "new and ever-increasing levels of ruthlessness and violence" associated with the gangs. The report echoes complaints from the Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition, which repeatedly has said the federal government's inability to secure the Southwest border has resulted in a dramatic rise in violence against U.S. authorities and made it easier for terrorists to enter the country. Texas' Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. told Congress in March the cartels "have the money, equipment and stamina" to bring increased violence to the border, much of it aimed at law-enforcement authorities.

And.....the plan is.....???????????????????????

This....gentleman, Mr. Juan Leonardo Quintero, an illegal immigrant, was deported from the USA in 2004 for "indecency with a child".

He came back.

Across the border.

ILLEGALLY

In Houston, he shot and killed a Houston Police officer, during a routine traffic stop, when it resulted in his arrest for coming back.

The police officer was married with 5 children.

I dont care if you believe the USA should have easy or difficult immigration policies...

There is no excuse for virtually non existant border security. NONE

George, we're voting in 6 weeks.

Are you feeling us?

From Statfor:

Last week, the U.S. State Department released the 2005 edition of its annual "Country Reports on Terrorism" document, and the chapter dealing with the Western Hemisphere provides some interesting insights when the entry on Canada is compared to that for Mexico. For example, the report states: "Terrorists have capitalized on liberal Canadian immigration and asylum policies to enjoy safe haven, raise funds, arrange logistical support, and plan terrorist attacks." There is nothing even vaguely resembling such an indictment in the section on Mexico, which notes: "The Mexican government worked closely with the United States on all aspects of counterterrorism security and prevention."