Border crackdown to target drug smuggling, drug violence

Federal agents and surveillance equipment will be added to parts of the border with Mexico in an effort to prevent drug violence from spreading into the United States.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Tuesday announced the plan to spend $700 million to curb drug smuggling and the escalating border violence. About $30 million in stimulus money will go to local and state law enforcement agencies along the border, and x-ray equipment will be installed at most points of entry. Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, said the administration is also considering requests by Texas and Arizona to deploy the National Guard.

In Mexico, 6,290 killings were blamed on the drug cartels in 2008. In Ciudad Juarez, directly across the border from El Paso, Texas, more than 1,600 people were killed, while In El Paso, 18 killings were reported.

In Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, 843 people were slain in 2008, more than half during the last three months of the year. In San Diego — with a population about the same as Tijuana — 26 people were killed last year. In Phoenix, Arizona, kidnappings in 2008 rose to an all-time high of 364.

The administration said its effort includes doubling border enforcement security teams that combine local, state, and federal officers; and adding 16 new Drug Enforcement Administration positions in the southwestern region to complement the 1,000 agents already working there.

Results of workplace raids show more employment for legal workers, increased wages

Though religious and pro-immigration leaders are urging the Obama administration to end workplace immigration raids, a study by the Center for Immigration Studies demonstrates the raids’ positive results.

In late 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel raided six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, Colorado, and Utah. Workers in the industry had seen a dramatic decline in wages over the previous 30 years, with the average wages of meatpackers in 2007 45 percent lower than those in 1980, adjusted for inflation. Work throughout the industry, and at the six Swift plants, is characterized by difficult and dangerous conditions. It is estimated that 23 percent of Swift’s production workers at the time of the raids were illegal immigrants. The study showed:

• All plants resumed production the same day as the raised, and returned to production within five moths, showing that they could operate at full capacity without the presence of illegal workers.


• After the raids, the number of native-born workers increased significantly. Swift also recruited a large number of refugees who are legal immigrants.


• Wages and bonuses rose an average of 8 percent with the departure of illegal immigrants.


• In addition to pay increases, Swift paid bonuses to new employees, and to current employees who recruited others. It also advertised heavily, paid relocation expenses, and provided daily transportation from distant population centers.


• Many members of the communities were enthusiastically supportive of the raids; others were sharply critical.

Anti-illegal Hispanic woman on the ballot in April 7 Chicago Congressional race

Rosanna Pulido, a native Chicagoan, founder and current director of the Illinois Minuteman Project, is the Republican candidate in Illinois’ April 7 special congressional election. She is also the Illinois Spokesperson for "You Don't Speak For Me"- a campaign of American Hispanics speaking out against illegal immigration.

On March 3, she won the Republican nomination in the state’s Fifth District, and will be on the ballot to fill Rahm Emanuel’s vacant seat. A businesswoman and an advocate for senior citizens, she produced and hosted Caregivers Radio, a program dedicated to the concerns and needs of senior citizens and their families.

She is also a staunch advocate for veterans and for those who serve in law enforcement. She has worked extensively with sheriffs across the country in addressing the many problems created by illegal immigration, and has been endorsed by "America's toughest Sheriff," Arizona’s Joe Arpaio.

Ms. Pulido places the survival of the U.S. above the nebulous "rights" of people who are in this country illegally. About the race, she has said “One of my opponents is Mike Quigley who voted to make Cook County the first Sanctuary County in the Nation. He is very proud of thumbing his nose at Federal law and making his own laws. I am sure he is counting on the illegal alien vote to help him win this Congressional seat.

“The same goes for the two other top Democrats. They are sold out to their special interest groups, which happen to be the Open Borders Lobby. Sara Feinholtz and John Fritchey both ushered in in-state tuition for illegal aliens, they both voted to accept the Matricula Consular which is an invalid form of ID. They both voted to intimidate Employers in Illinois from using E-Verify, a tool that helps businesses identify potential employees that are legally authorized to work in the United States,” she concluded.

Overwhelming majority of U.S. voters support troops on the border to fight drug violence

U.S. voters want the military to be used along the border with Mexico to protect American citizens from drug-related violence. President Obama has expressed concern about the rise of drug violence in Mexico and is reportedly considering sending the National Guard to the border.

Eighty-two percent (82%) of voters are concerned that Mexican drug violence will spill over into the United States, including 50% who are very concerned, a sizable jump in this concern also over the past two months.

Ninety percent (90%) of GOP voters say the military should be used to protect U.S. citizens if the violence crosses into this country, compared to 72% of Democrats and 76% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties.

Yet the majority of GOP voters (53%) remain more concerned about illegal immigration than growing drug violence. Sixty-three percent (63%) of Democrats, on the other hand, are more concerned about drug-related violence.

Even without the higher level of concern about drug-related violence, 74% of voters said in early December that the federal government is not doing enough to secure the country’s borders. Homeland Security has announced that it is using money from the new economic stimulus plan to continue work on the border fence.

Wal-Mart to go Hispanic in the U.S.

You may be a loyal Wal-Mart shopper, but is Wal-Mart loyal to you?

Wal-Mart will open the first of a series of Hispanic-focused supermarkets this summer in Arizona and Texas. The first stores, named Supermercado de Walmart, will open in Phoenix and Houston in remodelled locations previously occupied by two of the company’s Neighborhood Market stores.

Wal-Mart said the stores are in 'strongly Hispanic neighbourhoods' and will feature a 'new lay-out, signing and product assortment designed to make them even more relevant to local Hispanic customers'. The staff will be bilingual. The company’s Sam’s Club warehouse store also plans to open a 143,000 sq ft Hispanic-focused store called Más Club in Houston.

Several leading regional US supermarket chains already operate Hispanic store brands, including Publix in Florida, which operates three Publix Sabor markets, and HEB in Texas, which opened a Mi Tienda store in Houston in 2006. The markets include elements such as cafés serving Latino pastries and coffee, and full service meat and fish counters.

Eduardo Castro-Wright, the head of Wal-Mart’s US stores since 2005, raised the idea of turning the Neighbourhood Market into a Hispanic-style bodega concept several years ago. Castro-Wright was previously head of Wal-Mart’s Mexican subsidiary, whose store network ranges from large US-style Supercenters to small local bodegas, an upmarket supermarket chain and two restaurant chains.

Mexicans officials, journalists seek asylum in US, even in a cell

Drug-related violence in Mexico has become so overwhelming that some police officers and journalists would rather sit in a cell at a US immigration detention center. The alternative includes being caught in the crossfire between rival gangs in Mexico.

The situation in Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, can be described by police officer Salvador Hernandez Arvizu, who was sequestered in a U.S. Immigration holding cell.

After his name was blacklisted by drugs gangs, he was hit by two bullets a year ago while walking with his family in a downtown area. He was rushed to a medical centre 'guarded by dozens of armed agents', but his fear of further violence was greater than the pain he was suffering. In less than a month, he had left his hospital bed and crossed the border to El Paso, where he applied to US immigration authorities for political asylum and was promptly placed in a holding cell.

Jorge Luis Aguirre, a Mexican journalist, soon found himself in the same predicament. An anonymous phone call forced him into exile in El Paso. The call came as he was driving to the funeral of a journalist from El Diario de Juarez newspaper, who had been shot dead.

The 51-year-old journalist, together with his wife and three adult children, currently lives in El Paso on a temporary one-year visa that had been previously granted so he could report on both sides of the border.

Whatever the inconvenience, Aguirre says sitting in jail would be a better option than a return to Mexico. 'Of course I would prefer seven months in jail because it's a matter of life and death,” he said.

E-Verify wins six-month extension for now

The omnibus spending bill signed into law by President Obama on Wednesday reauthorizes E-Verify through the end of September, the end of the federal fiscal year. The omnibus spending package was approved by the Senate on Tuesday.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., had offered an amendment to extend authorization for the E-Verify program for five years, but that proposal was tabled in the Senate with a vote of 50-47.

E-Verify allows employers to quickly to check the citizenship status of employees and potential employees, without charge. Said one human resources officer, “I hope they keep it. By using E-Verify, it saves us a lot of trouble down the road.”

While those in favor of immigration enforcement have been pushing to make E-verify mandatory, some Democrats, as well as immigration supporters, oppose the program and would like to see it scrapped. As the number of queries to E-Verify continues to grow by leaps and bounds through the spring and summer months, Congress will have to tackle the question again in September.

Without congressional extension, E-Verify could shut down this week

As it begins to become a standard hiring practice for legitimate employers, E-Verify, the free, online program run by the Department of Homeland Security, will shut down thus week unless it is reauthorized by Congress. The program enables employers to quickly and simply check that new hires are indeed eligible to work in the United States.

New data from the Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services shows that online employer queries to the system are already approaching 3 million in 2009, nearly half the total 6.6 million queries in 2008. The total for 2008 was more than double the use of the system in 2007. If the usage for 2009 continues at the same rate, the number of employer queries for this year will be 442% greater than in 2007.

In 2008, about one of eight new hires nationwide was checked through E-Verify. If the projected growth rate continues, one-quarter to one-third of all new hires will be verified by the E-Verify system, putting it well on the way to becoming a standard hiring practice for all legitimate employers.

Increased employer satisfaction with E-Verify – demonstrated by the steady increases in employer sign-ups and queries with E-Verify – indicates that E-Verify is one of the most successful programs initiated by the government.

Iowa’s Rep. King critical of nearly $1 million earmark in omnibus bill for LaRaza

Iowa Congressman Steve King has blasted a $950,000 earmark for a racist Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the omnibus spending bill that passed the U.S. House Wednesday. Senate Republicans blocked the $410 billion measure Thursday night, forcing Congressional Democrats to prepare a stopgap budget resolution to keep the federal government from shutting down.

King called the National Council of La Raza a 'pro-amnesty organization' and said 'the last thing Congress should be doing is handing out cash to apologists for immigration law breakers. American taxpayers do not support La Raza’s agenda or its position in support of amnesty for illegal aliens.'

La Raza has been a focal point of conservative criticism over the years, ranging from claims that it encourages illegal immigration to the United States to accusations that it is exclusionary in its approach to civil rights.

King is not alone in his criticism of certain earmarks in the omnibus bill. Many conservative lawmakers called on President Barack Obama to demand the extra spending be eliminated from the bill, but Democrats were quick to point out Republicans have requested their fair share of earmarks, too.

Struggle continues to retain E-Verify program

While immigration advocates and groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce work to kill the E-Verify program, the Department of Homeland Security and its Citizenship & Immigration Services have introduced a new E-Verify program that will help make sure that foreign-born citizens eligible to work in the U.S. will not be denied a job because of mismatches.

E-Verify checks employee Social Security numbers against a database to determine whether new hires have proper documentation to work in the United States.

Critics of the program claimed that foreign-born citizens were more likely to receive mismatches, or Tentative Non-confirmations (TNC), when applying for jobs as opposed to U.S.-born citizens.

Though it is funded through the federal fiscal year, which expires September 30, the authorization for E-Verify is scheduled to expire March 6. The House has voted to approve a spending bill which extends the program's authorization by six months. The president's budget proposal sets aside $110 million to expand the program, and in an accompanying statement, the White House said that E-Verify “helps U.S. employers comply with immigration law and ensures that U.S. jobs are available to U.S. citizens and those authorized to work in the United States."

Officials say Homeland Security’s new E-Verify program is already reducing the number of mismatches among foreign-born citizens since it was implemented last month.

Illegal alien to be charged in Washington killing of Chandra Levy

Federal prosecutors have obtained an arrest warrant for an imprisoned illegal alien from El Salvador who they believe was the killer of Federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy in May 2001.

The illegal, Ingmar Guandique, is already serving time at a federal prison in Adelanto, California for assaulting two joggers in Rock Creek Park, where Levy was murdered. He is now charged with murdering 24-year-old Levy and faces a conviction that will keep him in prison for another 60 years.

Jeffrey Taylor, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said he believes the illegal killed Levy while she was jogging. Her remains were found in May 2002, a year after she went missing.

Officials revealed that a witness saw and ran from Guandique at the Rock Creek Park on the day Levy went missing. Another witness saw him with a swelled lip and scratches on his face on that same day.

Levy's death became much publicized as then Republican Congressman Gary Condit of California, with whom she had an affair, was questioned about the slaying. He was never named a suspect in the murder.

Illegal aliens may receive mortgage relief under Obama program

As many as one million illegal immigrant households in the United States could receive home mortgage relief under President Obama's $275 billion mortgage relief plan.

'There is no legal prohibition against illegal immigrants owning homes,' said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies '...In most cases mortgage lenders will accept a taxpayer ID or a Matricula Consular card issued by a Mexican Consulate office as identification to illegal immigrants from Mexico.'

About a million illegal immigrant households acquired U.S. mortgages through the beginning of 2007, before the housing bubble burst, Camarota said.

Chad Buchanan, a manager at SaveMyHomeUSA – a group that assists homeowners facing foreclosure, and which is working with the Obama administration – said that illegal immigrants who own a home 'could certainly apply under our program.'

'We don't target or go after illegal immigrant customers,' he said. 'But if an illegal immigrant owns a home legally, we could try to help them under our program.'

Gun dealer faces charges of arming Mexican drug cartel

Eight Mexican agents died last spring after moving in on a safe house full of drug dealers. The agents were not prepared for the fire power that greeted them. An assault rifle police recovered was traced back across the border to a Phoenix gun store called X-Caliber Guns. Its owner, George Iknadosian, goes on trial this week on charges he sold hundreds of weapons to smugglers, knowing they would be sent to a drug cartel in Mexico.

Guns help fuel ongoing cartel warfare in which more than 6,000 Mexicans died in 2008. Drug gangs seek out guns in the United States because gun-control laws are far tougher in Mexico. Mexican civilians must get approval from the military to buy guns and cannot own large-caliber rifles or high-powered pistols, which are considered military weapons.

Gun laws in the United States allow the sale of multiple military-style rifles to American citizens without reporting the sales to the government. There are more than 6,600 licensed dealers in the U.S. along the Mexican border, many operating out of their houses.

Smugglers routinely enlist Americans with clean criminal records to buy two or three rifles at a time, often from different shops, then transport them across the border in cars and trucks. Mexican authorities say they seized 20,000 weapons from drug gangs in 2008, most of them bought in the United States.

U.S. officials estimate 90 percent of the weapons recovered in Mexico come from dealers north of the border. Iknadosian is accused of being one of those dealers. Officials say in two years, he sold more than 700 weapons of the kind currently sought by drug dealers in Mexico. At least 600 of those weapons, they say, were smuggled to Mexico.

ICE agent removed illegal alien during church service

On a Sunday morning in October, in a church sanctuary in Texas, an off-duty immigration agent tapped Jose Juan Hernandez on the shoulder and asked him to step outside. Hernandez, a 31-year-old illegal alien from Mexico who has already been deported three times, followed the agent and was promptly detained on suspicion of illegal re-entry after deportation.

Hernandez was detained and arrested October 26, pleaded guilty to the re-entry charge in February and is scheduled for sentencing in April. He remains in federal detention.

Yet his attorney, Rick Soliz, said he plans to file a complaint against the ICE agent in connection with the arrest. “I wonder what the agent was thinking, if he was thinking at all,” Soliz said. “How do you decide to do that in the middle of a religious service?”

ICE has defended the agent’s actions as fulfilling his “sworn duty to enforce the nation’s laws.” The agency has guidelines related to arrests “in sensitive community locations” which allow agents to make arrests at churches in specific circumstances.

Hernandez is expected to again be deported after he serves his sentence. Court records show he was convicted of a felony drug charge and deported in 2000. He was deported again in 2001. He was convicted for DWI in January 2004, and in October of that year, he was convicted of driving without a valid license. He was deported for a third time in 2004, according to ICE records.

Hernandez has been in the U.S. illegally since age 6.

Mexican protestors prefer drug cartels to army

Hundreds of Mexicans blocked bridges to the United States in three border cities- Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa. The demonstrators said they want the Mexican army to leave their area and to stop trying to quell drug violence.

Demonstrators, mostly women and children, blocked the bridge leading from Ciudad Juarez to downtown El Paso, Texas. They shouted "Soldiers, get out!" as they stood in front of about 20 troops in green army pickup trucks.

The demonstrations displayed discontent against the government's role in an anti-drug crackdown staarted two years ago by Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Calderon deployed soldiers across the country to fight the drug cartels While 
Calderon's offensive was initially popular, drug violence has only surged since then, with drug gangs beheading rivals and attacking police.

More than 6,000 people were killed in drug violence in 2008. Border towns have been transformed by the crackdown, with soldiers in ski masks regularly rumbling down the streets in large convoys.

The same day the protest occurred in Ciudad Juarez, three police officers were shot to death by unidentified assailants on a street near the U.S. consulate. Another officer was wounded.

Increased numbers of Latinos and illegal aliens sentenced in federal courts

Criminals being sentenced in federal courts are increasingly Latino. In 2007, Latinos accounted for 40% of all federal offenders, more than three times their portion (13%) of the total U.S. adult population. At 40%, the Latino number of all sentenced offenders was up 175% from their 23% in 1991.

By 2007, immigration offenses made up nearly one-quarter (24%) of all federal convictions. They were just 7% in 1991. Hispanics made up 80% of those sentenced for immigration offenses in 2007, due to the sharp growth in illegal immigration and increased enforcement of immigration laws.

Demonstrating the sharp growth in illegal immigration, by 2007, Latinos without U.S. citizenship represented 29% of all federal offenders. Of all Latino offenders, 72% were illegal aliens, up from 61% in 1991. Far fewer illegal aliens sentenced were white offenders (8%) or black offenders (6%).

Fully 75% of Latino offenders sentenced for immigration crimes in 2007 were convicted of entering the U.S. unlawfully or residing in the country without authorization.

Hispanics who were convicted of any federal offense were more likely than non-Hispanics to be sentenced to prison. But among all federal offenders sentenced to prison, Hispanics were also more likely than blacks or whites to receive a shorter prison term. The statistics were included in the report "A Rising Share: Hispanics and Federal Crime," published by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Haiti blocks deportations from U.S.

U.S. immigration authorities have ordered 30,000 Haitians to leave the country, but officials in Haiti are refusing to issue the travel documents needed for the deportations. They say the Caribbean nation needs time to recover from last year's devastating hurricanes and cannot handle the return of its citizens.

The action has clogged U.S. immigration detention centers. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency says about 600 Haitian deportees are in detention centers and another 240 are under house arrest.

The U.S. government halted deportations to Haiti for three months last year, starting in September, after back-to-back storms killed nearly 500 people and left tens of thousands homeless.

Soon after resuming flights in December, the administration of then President George W. Bush denied Haiti's request for temporary protected status. The designation would have allowed Haitians living in the United States illegally to stay and work temporarily.

Did you enjoy the Mexican candy?

Saturday was Valentine's Day, celebrated with flowers and candy, but increasingly, that candy is coming from Mexico. From jellied hearts to Hershey's chocolates, Mexico's candy exports to the United States have more than doubled since 2002 as manufacturers chase cheap labor and sugar south of the border.

The latest arrival is Hershey, which is building a 1,500-employee factory in Monterrey, Mexico. Since 2007, the company has closed or shrunk factories in Oakdale, Calif.; Reading, Pa.; San Francisco and other sites.

Hershey’s is following Brach's Confections, famous for caramels, and Ferrera Pan Candy, maker of Red Hots and Jaw Breakers. In January, Swiss chocolate giant Barry Callebaut opened a plant in Monterrey to produce about 100,000 tons of chocolate and cocoa a year for Hershey and other food makers. Mars Inc.'s Mexican branch produces Snickers and Milky Ways at a chocolate factory opened in 2007 in the northern city of Montemorelos, Mexico.

"All these companies want to make it cheap overseas somewhere, then bring it back and sell it to our people who don't have any jobs to buy it," said Dennis Bomberger, business manager of Chocolate Workers Local 464 in Hershey, Pa.

Even Mexican officials say they are unhappy, noting that chocolate factories are buying most of their cacao, the raw ingredient of cocoa and chocolate, at cheaper prices from Africa and Brazil, not Mexico.

Brach's Confections Inc. closed its Chicago factory in 2003 and moved to Linares, Mexico. Bobs Candies of Albany, Ga., a leader in the candy-cane business, moved its production to Reynosa, Mexico in 2005. In crime-ridden Juarez, Mexico, Sunrise Confections opened a plant in 2001 to make candies for U.S. grocery-store brands. For Valentine's Day, it churns out jellied hearts and cinnamon hearts.

E-Verify requirement stripped from stimulus package

A requirement that employers who get money federal stimulus money must first ue the federal E-Verify program to vet employees has been stripped from the final version of the $787 billion stimulus package. The move is a victory for those who called the E-Verify requirement unnecessary. Also cut from the final conference report was a provision to extend the E-Verify program beyond March 6, when it is set to expire.

The elimination of E-Verify from the stimulus bill is a major disappointment for those concerned about preventing illegal aliens from benefiting from stimulus programs. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), said dropping the verification requirement was a mistake, both from a policy and a political sense.

"As a policy matter, when you are spending hundreds of billions on job creation, it should be for Americans and legal immigrants, and not illegal aliens," he said.

According to the DHS's own estimates,about 96% of employees are authorized for work within 24 hours, while about 4% receive initial mismatches. Less than one-half of a percent of those mismatches are later confirmed to be authorized to work, meaning the system is generally reliable in spotting mismatches.

Sen. Jeff Sessions had attempted to add E-Verify back into the bill, citing studies that said several hundred thousand stimulus jobs will go to illegal aliens without the requirement. Sessions urged a floor vote, saying that E-Verify would more than likely pass a vote in the Senate.

“The purpose of the bill is to put Americans back to work. It is common sense to include a simple requirement that the people hired to fill stimulus-created jobs be lawful American residents,” Sessions said.

Group of representatives seek to halt border fence construction

Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva, along and seven other Democratic members of the House have asked President Obama to halt the construction of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, until an evaluation of border security operations being conducted by the new administration is concluded.

'We strongly believe the Bush Administration's approach of constructing a fence along much of the Southwest border was ill-conceived as it was void of any meaningful input from the local communities or the Border Patrol Sector Chiefs who are most familiar with the challenges of securing our border," said the representatives' letter to Obama.

During the Bush administration, hundreds of millions of dollars were paid to private contractors to bring the total miles of border fences and vehicle barriers to 600 miles, up from 145 miles in September 2006. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff used a waiver granted to him in the Real ID Act of 2005 on four occasions during his tenure to bypass environmental law and move forward with the fencing project, angering many environmentalists and border residents.

The group's letter criticizes the use of that waiver and violations of the National Historic Preservation Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, citing the destruction of 69 Tohono O'odham graves south of Tucson in 2007.

The seven other Democratic members of the House of Representatives who signed the letter along with Grijalva include five from Texas and two from California: Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas; Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas; Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas; Ciro D. Rodriguez, D-Texas; Henry Cuellar, D-Texas; Bob Filner, D-Calif.; and Susan Davis, D-Calif.

16 illegal aliens sue Arizona rancher over their ‘civil rights’

Roger Barnett has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his land in Arizona. He is now being sued by 16 Mexicans who accuse him of conspiring to violate their “civil rights” when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

In 1998, Barnett began rounding up illegal immigrants and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home. Federal and county law enforcement officials acknowledge his ranch, near Douglas, Ariz., is 'the avenue of choice' for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.

The 16 illegals have sued Barnet for $32 million in actual and punitive damages. Also named are Barnett's wife, Barbara, his brother, Donald, and Larry Dever, the sheriff in Cochise County, Ariz., where the Barnetts live.

The immigrants are represented at trial by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which charged that Sheriff Dever did nothing to prevent Barnett from holding their clients at gunpoint.

U.S. District Judge John Roll has already rejected a motion to have the charges dropped, ruling there was sufficient evidence to present the matter to a jury. Barnett's attorney, David Hardy, has argued that illegal immigrants did not have the same rights as U.S. citizens.

'This is my land. I’m the victim here,' Barnett says. 'When someone’s home and loved ones are in jeopardy and the government seemingly can’t do anything about it, I feel justified in taking matters into my own hands. And I always watch my back.'

Los Angeles City Council approves $12.85 million payout to demonstrators

Two hundred demonstrators, most of them illegal aliens, sued the city of Los Angeles after a May Day 2007 melee in which Los Angeles police fired about 12 dozen rubber bullets into the crowd. Now the demonstrators will receive $12.85 million under a settlement approved by the Los Angeles City Council.

The clash between police officers, demonstrators and journalists resulted in more than 300 claims and lawsuits. After reviewing the incident for more than a year, Los Angeles Police Department brass recommended that four officers be fired for their actions that day. In addition, the city's "Board of Rights" also recommended that three officers receive official reprimands; five officers receive three-day suspensions; two officers receive a five-day suspension; and one officer receive a 10-day suspension.

The melee began when 20 to 30 people in the crowd of demonstrators threw rocks and bottles at the police officers. The officers responded by firing rubber bullets into the crowd.

The ‘official’ report released by the LAPD several months after the incident blamed the LAPD, saying that a lack of planning, training and orderly supervision hampered the officers and led to the fracas.