Iraq cracks down on terrorist imports from Iran and Syria

They closed the borders. Maybe America has something to learn from Iraq... Iraq is closing its borders with Iran and Syria as part of a security crackdown to attempt to rein in violence. The new measures were announced by the Iraqi official in charge of the security plan, Lieutenant-General Abboud Qanbar. "We have decided to close two Syrian and four Iranian border posts for 72 hours," he said. "The Iranian border post of al-Sheeb will reopen partially after one week and fully after 60 days, other border posts will remain closed until further notice." A government official said an announcement would be made when the frontiers had been closed. Iraqis making and executing policies. That's a good sign. There is a lot of border to watch there though. Hopefully they can keep an eye on enough of it to keep Iranian and Syrian influences out of Iraq.

Illiegal immigrants helping build the border fence

Doesn't get much more ironic than that... [ed. note - I actually had this post ready last Friday, just never got around to posting it. My bad...] SAN DIEGO -- A Southern California fence-building company and two executives pleaded guilty Thursday to knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and agreed to pay a combined penalty of $5 million. The executives could also go to prison. The penalty is one of the biggest fines ever imposed in an immigration case, and the case represents a rare instance in which prosecutors brought criminal charges over the hiring of illegal immigrants. Golden State Fence Co. will pay $4.7 million. Mel Kay, 64, the company's founder, chairman and president, will forfeit $200,000, and Michael McLaughlin, 42, a manager in the company's Oceanside office, will pay $100,000. Illegal immigrants building a fence to keep illegal immigrants out of US... I guess you really can hire illegals for any job... literally... any job. What the article doesn't mention is that this is the fourth time this company has been cited for hiring illegal immigrants, so I'm not sure what's worse... that the company had to be fined 4 times or that the government hired them knowing they already been fined 3 other times.

Study says 272,000 illegal immigrants live in San Diego, Imperial, and Riverside counties

That's it? I'd have figured it'd be a lot more than that. NORTH COUNTY -- According to a new study, an estimated 272,000 illegal immigrants are living in San Diego, Imperial and southern Riverside counties, a figure that translates to nearly 7 percent of the region's 4 million residents. While the percentage of illegal immigrants remained in the single digits, their numbers are rising rapidly, according to the study. The number of illegal immigrants living in San Diego and Imperial counties rose 38 percent; in southern Riverside County, the number rose 18 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to the study commissioned by the American Immigration Law Foundation, a nonprofit in Washington that supports legal immigration. Those percentage in population increase sound right, but only 272,000 in those 3 counties? Imperial and Riverside counties are HUGE (over 16,000 square miles of SoCal) and some of the fastest growing areas as far as building expansion. And with San Diego and Imperial counties actually bordering Mexico, 272,000 illegal immigrants must be an extremely conservative estimate. The numbers are based on this study breaking down illegals per Congressional District. The methodology is at the bottom and says that they relied heavily on US Census Bureau stats. So basically it's a huge underestimation.

1.2 million illegal immigrants arrested at the US-Mexico border in 2005

1.2 million... In one year... All this is in a report released by Texas House Representative Michael McCaul, A Line in the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border (via Counterterrorism Blog). FYI, it's a .pdf file so take note... Some of the basic stats outlined in the 40 page report are as follows... During 2005, Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million illegal aliens; of those 165,000 were from countries other than Mexico. Of the non-Mexican aliens, approximately 650 were from special interest countries. Special interest countries are those “designated by the intelligence community as countries that could export individuals that could bring harm to our country in the way of terrorism.” A significant portion of illegal activity at the border relates to illegal drug smuggling. Below is a summary of FY 2005 Federal drug seizures, which shows a total of 1,129,275 pounds of cocaine and 6,866,465 million pounds of Marijuana. Law enforcement officials estimate that at best only 20% of illegal drugs are seized and only 30% of illegal immigrants are caught. But as the Aaron Mannes at Counterterrorism blog points out, some of the most disturbing data in the report is in regards to Venezuela's role in helping the 165,000 "other" illegals... A particularly interesting note was the report's discussion of Venezuela's current policy of freely issuing identity documents. Thousands of cedulas (the Venezuelan equivalent of social security cards) have reportedly been issued to non-Venezuelans - including Cubans, Columbians, Middle Easterners, and Pakistanis. Combined with Hugo's belligerent rhetoric and close relationship with Iran this is extremely worrisome. This issue has been discussed in intel circles for some time. FARC's foreign minister was living openly in Caracas and had even voted in Venezuela's election. In fairness, even for Hugo, directly supporting terror attacks against the U.S. may be a bit much (although maybe not). This is more likely crime plus. That is - corruption and criminal activity - permitted by Hugo's regime as a revenue source with the added bonus of causing trouble for the United States. Whatever Hugo's motives, you can't discount his increased belligerence and how chummy he's been lately with the psycho "death to the Great Satan" crowd. With the friends he keeps and the crap he keeps saying, I don't think we can afford to continue to shrug him off as a South American tin hat dictator. If he's going to give legal Venezuelan documents to anybody, of any race, creed, or country - anybody with a pulse for that matter - we need to stand up and take notice. More than take notice, we need to start to take action. And finishing a wall across the entire length of the southern border would be a great start.