crime

Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a Republican-backed bill that would crack down on so-called sanctuary cities by threatening to withhold funds to local governments that don't cooperate with federal immigration officials. 

  Read more about Senate Dems block anti-sanctuary city bill

Canadian authorities sent out a fugitive alert last year in the hunt for a man suspected of raping a teenage girl in Alberta – apparently unaware that he was already behind bars in a federal prison in Oregon...

Raed Arook's travels in and out of custody – including three illegal entries into the U.S. – is documented in U.S. court papers...

Canadian authorities now want to get the 39-year-old Arook back into custody on their side of the border, and U.S. officials want to comply under a long-standing extradition treaty between the two North American neighbors.

But Arook is contesting Canada's push to extradite him to Alberta, where the Crown Prosecutors Office wants to put him on trial for the alleged sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl in his Edmonton hotel room.

Agents discovered that Arook had first entered the U.S. illegally on April 7, 2007, tripping a Customs and Border Patrol surveillance camera five miles west of the Sweet Grass, Montana...

The U.S. apparently sent Arook back to Canada that June. But a few months later, on Oct. 17, 2007, he was convicted of drug possession in Houston...

U.S. authorities deported Arook to Israel on April 22, 2008.

More than five years later, according to government court papers, a 15-year-old girl in Edmonton, identified as "C.S.," gave authorities an account of her encounter with Arook on Sept. 10, 2013:

The two met outside the Strathcona Hotel, where Arook invited the girl up to his suite to do some methamphetamine. She agreed and entered the hotel lobby with the Israeli....

A desk clerk later told police that hotel workers discovered a fire escape ladder had been pulled down, a common way for hotel guests to sneak people in.

The girl told investigators that she entered the hotel room, where she and Arook and two other males smoked and snorted meth. She recalled waking about 2 p.m. the following day in Arook's bed, both of them naked, and found that she had difficulty walking. She went to Stollery Children's Hospital, where a sexual assault examination showed she had suffered abrasions to her genitalia.

Edmonton police arrested Arook and on Sept. 24, 2013, charged him with sexual assault and sexual interference. Both charges carry maximum sentences of up to 10 years in prison. But a little more than four months later, on Feb. 12, 2014, he posted a $5,000 recognizance bond and was released, according to Canadian authorities.

Arook was supposed to appear for trial last September, but failed to appear at the Court of Queens Bench of Alberta. Canadian authorities issued an arrest warrant the following day. But he was nowhere to be found.

At 12:35 p.m. that very day, a sheriff's deputy in Toole County, Montana, spotted Arook walking south on Interstate 15, about seven miles south of the U.S.-Canada border station at Sweet Grass...

The deputy took Arook to the sheriff's office, where he was questioned by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Arook gave them a phony name...

Arook later gave them his true name, and he was charged in federal court with illegally re-entering the U.S.

Last December, U.S. authorities sentenced Arook to one year and one day behind bars and sent him to the government prison complex in Sheridan, 50 miles from Portland.

Somehow, police and court officials in Canada never got the word.

Early last March, the Edmonton Police Service put out a bulletin that listed Arook as a fugitive....

"Arook's current whereabouts are not known," according to the police bulletin, which urged anyone with information about him to contact police or the Crime Stoppers tip line.

But U.S. authorities knew where he was. Arook was serving the last five months of his prison term in Sheridan. On Aug. 11, he completed his federal time and deputy U.S. Marshals transferred him from the prison to a downtown Portland jail.

Arook is now locked up in the Inverness Jail in Northeast Portland, where he's being held on a provisional arrest warrant out of Canada.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman is scheduled to hold an extradition hearing on Oct. 30.

Gorder filed a provisional arrest warrant in August that seeks to extradite Arook to Canada, rather than deport him to Israel.

Lawyers in the Oregon Federal Public Defender's Office, representing Arook in his fight to avoid extradition, pointed out in a recent court motion that his heritage is Palestinian, religion is Muslim and citizenship is Israeli. Therefore they seek U.S. documents that might indicate Arook would suffer political or religious persecution in Canada.

Raed Arook was booked into multiple police agencies in Canada and the U.S. after his 2013 arrest in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The 39-year-old Palestinian Muslim, who holds Israeli citizenship, is now fighting extradition to Canada, where he faces rape charges. His lawyers suggest he might be persecuted for his political or religious views.
  Read more about Canada's fugitive turns up in Oregon prison, now faces extradition as suspected child rapist

When politicians talk about “immigration reform” they mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders. The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both parties.

Real immigration reform puts the needs of working people first � nnot wealthy globetrotting donors. We are the only country in the world whose immigration system puts the needs of other nations ahead of our own. That must change. Here are the three core principles of real immigration reform:

1. A nation without borders is not a nation.
There must be a wall across the southern border.

2. A nation without laws is not a nation.
Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.

3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

Make Mexico Pay For The Wall
For many years, Mexico’s leaders have been taking advantage of the United States by using illegal immigration to export the crime and poverty in their own country (as well as in other Latin American countries). They have even published pamphlets on how to illegally immigrate to the United States. The costs for the United States have been extraordinary: U.S. taxpayers have been asked to pick up hundreds of billions in healthcare costs, housing costs, education costs, welfare costs, etc. Indeed, the annual cost of free tax credits alone paid to illegal immigrants quadrupled to $4.2 billion in 2011. The effects on jobseekers have also been disastrous, and black Americans have been particularly harmed.

The impact in terms of crime has been tragic. In recent weeks, the headlines have been covered with cases of criminals who crossed our border illegally only to go on to commit horrific crimes against Americans. Most recently, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, with a long arrest record, is charged with breaking into a 64 year-old women’s home, crushing her skull and eye sockets with a hammer, raping her, and murdering her. The Police Chief in Santa Maria says the “blood trail” leads straight to Washington.

In 2011, the Government Accountability Office found that there were a shocking 3 million arrests attached to the incarcerated alien population, including tens of thousands of violent beatings, rapes and murders.

Meanwhile, Mexico continues to make billions on not only our bad trade deals but also relies heavily on the billions of dollars in remittances sent from illegal immigrants in the United States back to Mexico ($22 billion in 2013 alone).
In short, the Mexican government has taken the United States to the cleaners. They are responsible for this problem, and they must help pay to clean it up.

The cost of building a permanent border wall pales mightily in comparison to what American taxpayers spend every single year on dealing with the fallout of illegal immigration on their communities, schools and unemployment offices.

Mexico must pay for the wall and, until they do, the United States will, among other things: impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards � of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationaals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options]. We will not be taken advantage of anymore.

Defend The Laws And Constitution Of The United States
America will only be great as long as America remains a nation of laws that lives according to the Constitution. No one is above the law. The following steps will return to the American people the safety of their laws, which politicians have stolen from them:

Triple the number of ICE officers. 
As the President of the ICE Officers’ Council explained in Congressional testimony: “Only approximately 5,000 officers and agents within ICE perform the lion’s share of ICE’s immigration mission�Compare that to the Los Angeles Police Department at apprroximately 10,000 officers. Approximately 5,000 officers in ICE cover 50 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, and are attempting to enforce immigration law against 11 million illegal aliens already in the interior of the United States. Since 9-11, the U.S. Border Patrol has tripled in size, while ICE’s immigration enforcement arm, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), has remained at relatively the same size.” This will be funded by accepting the recommendation of the Inspector General for Tax Administration and eliminating tax credit payments to illegal immigrants.

Nationwide e-verify.
This simple measure will protect jobs for unemployed Americans.

Mandatory return of all criminal aliens.
The Obama Administration has released 76,000 aliens from its custody with criminal convictions since 2013 alone. All criminal aliens must be returned to their home countries, a process which can be aided by canceling any visas to foreign countries which will not accept their own criminals, and making it a separate and additional crime to commit an offense while here illegally.

Detention�not catch-and-release.
Illegal aliens apprehended crossing the border must be detained until they are sent home, no more catch-and-release.

Defund sanctuary cities.
Cut-off federal grants to any city which refuses to cooperate with federal law enforcement.

Enhanced penalties for overstaying a visa.
Millions of people come to the United States on temporary visas but refuse to leave, without consequence. This is a threat to national security. Individuals who refuse to leave at the time their visa expires should be subject to criminal penalties; this will also help give local jurisdictions the power to hold visa overstays until federal authorities arrive. Completion of a visa tracking system � required by law but blocked by loobbyists � will be necessary as well.

Cooperate with local gang task forces.
ICE officers should accompany local police departments conducting raids of violent street gangs like MS-13 and the 18th street gang, which have terrorized the country. All illegal aliens in gangs should be apprehended and deported. Again, quoting Chris Crane: “ICE Officers and Agents are forced to apply the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Directive, not to children in schools, but to adult inmates in jails. If an illegal-alien inmate simply claims eligibility, ICE is forced to release the alien back into the community. This includes serious criminals who have committed felonies, who have assaulted officers, and who prey on children�ICE officers should be required to place detainers on everyy illegal alien they encounter in jails and prisons, since these aliens not only violated immigration laws, but then went on to engage in activities that led to their arrest by police; ICE officers should be required to issue Notices to Appear to all illegal aliens with criminal convictions, DUI convictions, or a gang affiliation; ICE should be working with any state or local drug or gang task force that asks for such assistance.”

End birthright citizenship.
This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration. By a 2:1 margin, voters say it’s the wrong policy, including Harry Reid who said “no sane country” would give automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.

Put American Workers First
Decades of disastrous trade deals and immigration policies have destroyed our middle class. Today, nearly 40% of black teenagers are unemployed. Nearly 30% of Hispanic teenagers are unemployed. For black Americans without high school diplomas, the bottom has fallen out: more than 70% were employed in 1960, compared to less than 40% in 2000. Across the economy, the percentage of adults in the labor force has collapsed to a level not experienced in generations. As CBS news wrote in a piece entitled “America’s incredible shrinking middle class”: “If the middle-class is the economic backbone of America, then the country is developing osteoporosis.”

The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult for poor and working class Americans – including immigrants themselves and their children � to earn aa middle class wage. Nearly half of all immigrants and their US-born children currently live in or near poverty, including more than 60 percent of Hispanic immigrants.

Every year, we voluntarily admit another 2 million new immigrants, guest workers, refugees, and dependents, growing our existing all-time historic record population of 42 million immigrants. We need to control the admission of new low-earning workers in order to: help wages grow, get teenagers back to work, aid minorities’ rise into the middle class, help schools and communities falling behind, and to ensure our immigrant members of the national family become part of the American dream.

Additionally, we need to stop giving legal immigrant visas to people bent on causing us harm. From the 9/11 hijackers, to the Boston Bombers, and many others, our immigration system is being used to attack us. The President of the immigration caseworkers union declared in a statement on ISIS: “We've become the visa clearinghouse for the world.”
Here are some additional specific policy proposals for long-term reform:

Increase prevailing wage for H-1Bs.
We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.

Requirement to hire American workers first.
Too many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement. In the year 2015, with 92 million Americans outside the workforce and incomes collapsing, we need to companies to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed. Petitions for workers should be mailed to the unemployment office, not USCIS.

End welfare abuse.
Applicants for entry to the United States should be required to certify that they can pay for their own housing, healthcare and other needs before coming to the U.S.

Jobs program for inner city youth.
The J-1 visa jobs program for foreign youth will be terminated and replaced with a resume bank for inner city youth provided to all corporate subscribers to the J-1 visa program.

Refugee program for American children.
Increase standards for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to crack down on abuses. Use the monies saved on expensive refugee programs to help place American children without parents in safer homes and communities, and to improve community safety in high crime neighborhoods in the United States.

Immigration moderation.
Before any new green cards are issued to foreign workers abroad, there will be a pause where employers will have to hire from the domestic pool of unemployed immigrant and native workers. This will help reverse women's plummeting workplace participation rate, grow wages, and allow record immigration levels to subside to more moderate historical averages.
  Read more about Immigration Reform That Will Make America Great Again

A California toddler fighting for her life Thursday after a brutal beating at the hands of an illegal immigrant with a long criminal record is the latest case to rile California sheriffs and police against a U.S. immigration policy they say is forcing them to release dangerous criminals out on the street.

Francisco Javier Chavez, the live-in boyfriend of the unidentified two-year-old's mother, is out on bail after being charged in the late July attack, which left the San Luis Obispo County girl with two broken arms, a broken femur, a compressed spine, a urinary tract infection and a fever of 107 degrees. Chavez's criminal record includes assault and drug convictions and arrests for violent acts including kidnapping, car jacking and cruelty to a child.

A disgusted San Luis Obispo Sheriff Ian Parkinson told FoxNews.com Chavez should have been locked away or deported long before he had the chance to inflict "horrific injuries" on the little girl, but said conflicting federal policies leave his department handcuffed. Instead, Chavez is now free, awaiting a court date for which he may not even show up.

"The law actually does not give us the right to place an ICE hold, unless there is a warrant for them. That is why we are united in California and asking that this be fixed and changed, because at end of the day, we are the ones who have to let them out the door.”

- San Luis Obispo Sheriff Ian Parkinson

“The truth is, if we had any legal right to hold him, we would, because of the concern that, not being a U.S. citizen, he will bail out and flee the country and flee prosecution,” said Parkinson, who suspects Chavez may have already fled the county.

The issue, says Parkinson and dozens of other sheriffs and police chiefs across California and Arizona, is that, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement routinely asks departments to hold prisoners like Chavez until they can take custody of them for deportation, the local law enforcement officials believe doing so will expose them to lawsuits. They cite court cases including the March, 2014, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruling in Galrza v. Szalczyk that held states and localities are not required to imprison people based on ICE "detainer" requests, and that states and localities may be held liable if they participate in wrongful immigration detentions.

“I am not aware of any County in California that is honoring detainers, simply because we can’t,” Parkinson said. “We have to follow the law or the threat of violating the law ourselves,” Parkinson said, citing a Court decision issued approximately one year ago. “The law actually does not give us the right to place an ICE hold, unless there is a warrant for them. That is why we (local law enforcement) are united in California and asking that this be fixed and changed, because at end of the day, we are the ones who have to let them out the door.”

The Arizona Sheriffs’ Association agrees, noting every day ICE asks local sheriffs to ‘detain’ an inmate, yet don’t provide “rational, legal authority to do so,” putting sheriffs at enormous risk for legal liability. When the local authorities let an illegal immigrant criminal free on bail, they do so reluctantly - and they blame ICE.

ICE maintains there is no requirement that it obtain a judicial warrant to compel law enforcement agencies to hold suspects and that a detainer is sufficient. A spokesperson for ICE said the agency continues to work “cooperatively” with local law enforcement partners and is implementing a new plan, the Priority Enforcement Program – PEP, to place the focus on criminals and individuals who threaten the public safety and ensure they are not released from prisons or jails before they can be taken into ICE custody.

Martin Mayer, legal counsel to sheriffs and chiefs of police in 70 law enforcement agencies throughout California for the last 25 years, and general counsel to the California State Sheriffs’ Association, told FoxNews.com the U.S. Department of Justice, the California Office of the Attorney General, and ICE all take the position that the detainer is only a request and the law does not give sheriffs authorization to hold illegal immigrant suspects ordered released by a judge. 

If ICE agents are present when suspects are ordered released, and if they have the legal basis to take custody of them, they can, but local law enforcement does not have the authority to hold them in the absence of ICE, the California Sheriffs Association recently said in letter to Congress.

The American Civil Liberties Union's California chapter has been vocal in pressuring city police chiefs to honor the court rulings that said ICE detainers are mere requests, not mandates, and that honoring them would violate suspects' Constitutional rights.

“This (ACLU) letter to the cities states that ‘Your police department should immediately cease complying with immigration detainers, or else risk legal liability for detaining individuals in violation of the Fourth Amendment,’” Mayer said.

The ACLU did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

A string of murders across the country by criminal aliens has spotlighted the conflict between ICE and local law enforcement, and in recent days, caught the attention of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. After one of the cases, the July 24 murder of Marilyn Pharis, a 64-year-old Air Force veteran, Santa Maria Police Chief Ralph Martin blamed the state and federal governments for a convoluted policy that leaves local law enforcement holding the bag.

“I am not remiss to say that from Washington D.C. to Sacramento, there is a blood trail to Marilyn Pharis’ bedroom,” Martin said.
  Read more about Police chiefs, sheriffs blast ICE over policy they say frees violent illegal immigrants

A 45-year-old man remains held at the Washington County Jail on first degree burglary charges after a standoff with Beaverton police Thursday afternoon.

Authorities received a call just before noon...

Police say Wilfredo Peraza-Domenech was the only person inside the [vacant] home when officers arrived. Peraza-Domenech was taken into custody at 4:23 p.m.
 

NOTE: Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Hold. Read more about Burglar found in vacant home arrested by SWAT team, police say

MEXICO CITY — In a scheme befitting a crime novel, Mexico's most powerful drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, escaped from a maximum security prison...

The elaborate, ventilated escape hatch built allegedly without the detection of authorities allowed Guzman to do what Mexican officials promised would never happen after his recapture last year — slip out of one of the country's most secure penitentiaries for the second time.

Eighteen employees from various part of the Altiplano prison 55 miles west of Mexico City have been taken in for questioning, Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido said in a news conference without answering questions.

A manhunt began immediately...

Associated Press journalists near Altiplano saw the roads were being heavily patrolled by Federal Police with numerous checkpoints and a Blackhawk helicopter flying overhead. Flights were also suspended at Toluca airport near the penitentiary in the State of Mexico, and civil aviation hangars were being searched.

Guzman was last seen about 9 p.m. Saturday in the shower area of his cell...   Upon checking his cell, authorities found it empty and a 20-by-20-inch hole near the shower.

Guzman's escape is an embarrassment to the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto...

Guzman faces multiple federal drug trafficking indictments in the U.S. as well as Mexico and was on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's most-wanted list.

After Guzman was arrested on Feb. 22, 2014, the U.S. said it would file an extradition request, though it's unclear if that happened.

The Mexican government at the time vehemently denied the need to extradite Guzman, even as many expressed fears he would escape as he did in 2001 while serving a 20-year sentence in the country's other top-security prison, Puente Grande, in the western state of Jalisco.

Former Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam told the AP earlier this year that the U.S. would get Guzman in "about 300 or 400 years" after he served time for all his crimes in Mexico. Murillo Karam said sending Guzman to the U.S. would save Mexico a lot of money, but keeping him was a question of national sovereignty.

He dismissed concerns that Guzman could escape a second time. That risk "does not exist," Murillo Karam said.

It was difficult to believe that such an elaborate structure could have been built without the detection of authorities. According to Rubido, the tunnel terminated in a house under construction in a neighborhood near the prison....

Guzman is known for the elaborate tunnels his cartel has built underneath the Mexico-U.S. border...

He was first caught by authorities in Guatemala in 1993, extradited and sentenced to 20 years in prison on drug-trafficking charges. Many accounts say he escaped in a laundry cart...

Guzman was finally recaptured in February 2014...

During his first stint as a fugitive, Guzman transformed himself from a middling Mexican capo into arguably the most powerful drug trafficker in the world. His fortune grew to be estimated at more than $1 billion...

Guzman has long been known for his ability to pay off local residents and authorities, who would tip him off to operations launched for his capture. He finally was tracked down to a modest beachside high-rise in the Pacific Coast resort city of Mazatlan, where he had been hiding with his wife and twin daughters. He was taken in the early morning without a shot fired.

But before they reached him, security forces went on a several-day chase through Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state. They found houses where Guzman supposedly had been staying with steel-enforced doors and the same kind of lighted, ventilated tunnels that allowed him to escape from a bathroom to an outside drainage ditch.

Even with his 2014 capture, Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel empire continues to stretch throughout North America and reaches as far away as Europe and Australia....

Altiplano, which is considered the main and most secure of Mexico's federal prisons, also houses Zetas drug cartel leader Miguel Angel Trevino, and Edgar Valdes Villarreal, known as "La Barbie," of the Beltran Leyva cartel.

An interconnected tunnel in the city's drainage system that infamous drug boss Joaquin Guzman Loera, "El Chapo" used to evade authorities, is shown, in Culiacan, Mexico, Sunday Feb. 23, 2014. A day after troops narrowly missed infamous Guzman in Culiacan, one of his top aides was arrested. Officials said he told investigators that he picked up Guzman from a drainage pipe and helped him flee to Mazatlan but a wiretap being monitored by ICE agents in southern Arizona provided the final clue that led to the arrest of one of the world's most wanted men.
  Read more about Drug lord 'El Chapo' Guzman escapes from Mexican prison

It turns out that everything we've heard about the evils of states and localities defying federal law is wrong.

So long as a jurisdiction is sticking its thumb in the eye of the federal government on behalf of illegal immigrants who have been arrested and jailed, defiance of federal authority is progressive and commendable.

Through the years, the left has created dozens upon dozens of so-called sanctuary cities...

Sanctuary cities have gotten renewed attention in the wake of a horrific murder in San Francisco, a case amplified by the bullhorn of Donald Trump. Kathryn Steinle, 32, was shot and killed by an illegal immigrant...

This wasn't an isolated misjudgment. San Francisco has long been a sanctuary city...

The immigration debate is famously fraught. Maybe we can't agree on building a fence. Maybe we can't agree on a pathway to citizenship. But surely we can agree that illegal aliens who have landed in jail should be deported?

Apparently not. We have a "broken system," as the supporters of amnesty always like to say, in part because they took a sledgehammer to the system.

Surely we can agree that illegal aliens who have landed in jail should be deported? Apparently not...

The number of sanctuary cities has been increasing during the Obama years. The administration has thrown the book at states that have dared to aid in the enforcement of federal immigration law, but hasn't moved against jurisdictions acting at cross-purposes to the law. Indeed, it has eased the way for them.

It reinterpreted, with no legal justification, a federal regulation in order to make detainers voluntary. It kneecapped the successful Secure Communities program...

The myth is that President Barack Obama is the "deporter in chief." In reality, his alleged spike in deportations is the artifact of an accounting gimmick (counting the arrest and removal of border-crossers as deportations). Obama has gutted interior enforcement. The former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said recently, "If you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero."

What to do about sanctuary cities? It is already against federal law for jurisdictions to forbid their officials from sharing immigration information with the federal government. Congress should tighten up the law by making it clear again that detainers are mandatory and withholding certain federal funds from jurisdictions that still won't comply.

Of course, it would take a different president to sign such a bill, one who cares about the laws he is pledged to enforce and who doesn't seek a sanctuary nation.

Rich Lowry can be reached at comments.lowry@nationalreview.com
  Read more about The immigration secessionists: Rich Lowry

A crackdown on document fraud has sent the number of driver's licenses issued to illegal aliens in New Mexico plunging by 70 percent, while revealing that the state likely issued tens of thousands of bogus licenses after becoming the first state to adopt the controversial policy a dozen years ago.

Last year, New Mexico issued 4,577 licenses to foreign nationals, down sharply from the 2010 high of about 15,000. ...the huge drop came as soon as new procedures were implemented to identify fraudulent documents that had been submitted to obtain licenses.

“While this is encouraging news, Gov. Martinez still sides with an overwhelming majority of New Mexicans who believe we must repeal the dangerous law of giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, which has turned our state into a magnet for criminal activity,” said Mike Lonergan, spokesman for the governor.

New Mexico became the first of 10 states to issue driver's licenses to illegal aliens in 2003, under then-Gov. Bill Richardson, who claimed it would cut down on uninsured drivers in the state. But while the policy's effect on public safety has been inconclusive, critics say it launched a cottage industry for criminals to sell fraudulent documents.

Last year, federal officials broke up a five-year operation -- which extended from New Mexico to New York -- that saw illegal immigrants from Georgia paying as much as $2,000 to obtain documents to secure a New Mexico driver’s license.

Related Image

A high-profile case in 2012 saw five Albuquerque residents federally indicted in a multi-state license distribution scheme...

"New Mexico's driver's license policy has once again attracted criminal elements to our state in pursuit of a government-issued identification card," Martinez said at the time. "Our current system jeopardizes the safety and security of all New Mexicans and it is abundantly clear that the only way to solve this problem is to repeal the law that gives driver's licenses to illegal immigrants."

... Republican State Rep. Bill Rehm, a retired county sheriff's officer, said more than 100,000 driver’s licenses have been issued to illegal immigrants, but only about 17,000 have filed a state income tax.

“These people enter the country illegally, then obtain a driver’s license through fraud and lies,” Rehm said. “We sparked a whole criminal industry by allowing this.”

Rehm is among a large number of opponents who have been unable to get the law repealed, despite Martinez's support. The critics say the policy has penalized legal residents of the state, because of a 2005  federal law aimed at preventing terrorists from getting fraudulent IDs. Because the federal REAL ID Act sets forth standards stricter than New Mexico's for federal recognition of identification documents, the Department of Homeland Security will not recognize licenses from states including New Mexico as ID for getting on a plane or entering federal buildings, for example...

Vivian Juarez, director of the Mexican Consulate in Albuquerque, declined to comment on the drop in licenses issued to Mexican nationals in New Mexico.

Joseph J. Kolb is a freelance journalist based in New Mexico.

  Read more about Fraud crackdown sends illegal immigrant licenses plummeting in NM

Portland labor activist Juan Francisco Aguirre-Velasquez asked a federal judge Monday to dismiss charges that he illegally re-entered the United States after he was convicted of drug delivery charges and deported in 1999.

Aguirre-Velasquez, who twice escaped the brutal regime of his native El Salvador, claimed in court papers that the immigration judge who handled his 1999 deportation proceedings violated his due process by failing to correctly explain the range of options available to him.

"Only because (Immigration Judge Michael) Bennett incorrectly informed Mr. Aguirre-Velasquez that he would be detained indefinitely if his request for suspension of deportation was granted, did Mr. Aguirre-Velasquez withdraw his request for relief and acquiesce to be removed (from the U.S)," his lawyer, Ellen C. Pitcher, wrote in court papers.

"Because there is no other basis for the prosecution," Pitcher wrote, "the indictment must be dismissed."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory R. Nyhus, representing federal immigration officials, disagreed with Pitcher's argument. In legal papers, he asked Senior District Judge Robert E. Jones to deny Pitcher's motion.

"Simply put," Nyhus wrote, "as an aggravated felon, the defendant was not entitled to the relief requested and had no other plausible method of relief available to him. Therefore, his removal would still have occurred even if the immigration judge had provided correct information."

Jones took the matter under advisement and is expected to file a written opinion.

Aguirre-Velasquez, who received three years of probation on the drug charges, faced new travails last summer, after he was stopped for drunken driving. He blew .12 on the blood-alcohol test, higher than the legal limit in Oregon of .08.

He took refuge last September in Augustana Lutheran Church in Northeast Portland, where congregants took him in as part of the sanctuary movement. Later that month, a federal grand jury indicted him for illegally re-entering the U.S. after his deportation.

The sanctuary movement protects immigrants such as Aguirre-Velasquez, who made a name for himself standing up for oppressed workers after facing the horrors of war as a youth in El Salvador...

The nation's sanctuary movement came under criticism after Francisco Sanchez, a 45-year-old repeat drug offender from Mexico, was arrested in San Francisco following last Wednesday's shooting death of Kathryn Steinle.

News accounts suggested that Sanchez, deported five times, came to the city because of its status as a sanctuary, opening criticism of the movement by the U.S. immigration officials and others.
  Read more about Portland labor activist Francisco Aguirre-Velasquez wants U.S. immigration charge dismissed