Valley Central

Federal officials confirmed two Mexican military helicopter incursions took place in skies over Starr and Hidalgo County today but are asking the public not to be alarmed.

Local law enforcement officials were put on alert after a Mexican military helicopter was spotted in Alto Bonito and headed east into Hidalgo County.

Sources told Action 4 News tha tthe helicopter flew from Alto Bonito and then over Sullivan City and La Joya around 1 p.m. Thursday.

Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations confirmed that there were two helicopter incursions — one between 9 and 10 am. and then another at 1 p.m. Thursday.

Air and Marine Operations spokesman Juan Muñoz-Torres told Action 4 News that the agency was informed about the incursions by the Mexican government.

Muñoz-Torres said the public should not be alarmed by the incursions.

The Air and Marine Operations spokesman said that a long-standing agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada allows for temporary incursions for medical or law enforcement purposes.

Rio Grande Valley residents have reported at least four Mexican helicopter incursions since March in communities along the border from Brownsville to Zapata.

Alto Bonito is located off U.S. Expressway 83 east of Rio Grande City and about two to three miles north of the Rio Grande river.

Muñoz-Torres said Mexican military helicopter have increased due to the ongoing drug war south of the border.

The Air and Marine Operations spokesman said Mexican military helicopters cross the border for intelligence purposes allowing officials to get another view or perspective of their target area.

“They are not performing operations in the United States,” Muñoz-Torres said.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez told Action 4 News that he doesn’t buy it.

Gonzalez said federal law enforcement officials did not inform local law enforcement officials about the incursions in today’s incident and past incidents.

“They need to provide information to local law enforcement,” Gonzalez said. “When people call us, we can tell them not to be alarmed.”

Sheriff Gonzalez said Zapata residents witnessed a Mexican helicopter fly across Falcon Lake and hovering above a home.

Gonzalez said federal officials never provided an explanation for that incident or others.

Sheriff Gonzalez said he doesn’t believe the Mexican helicopters are crossing to get a different angle or view of the Mexican said.

He said the helicopters in the Zapata incident and others are flying below the radar.

“If that’s the case, they need to flya a little bit higher,” Gonzalez said.

Muñoz-Torres said the agency is looking to improve communications about the incursions through interagency task forces.

He said the Mexican military has a liaison at an Air and Marine Operations facility in California.

“More education is needed,” Muñoz-Torres said.

By Mary Ellen Podmolik

The U.S. Justice Department is taking up the case of Chicago radio personality George Willborn, who allegedly was the victim of racial discrimination because of his family’s failed efforts to buy a home in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development filed a federal housing discrimination complaint earlier this month against Bridgeport homeowners Daniel and Adrienne Sabbia, Prudential Rubloff Properties and real estate agent Jeffrey Lowe. HUD said they violated the Fair Housing Act when the Sabbias backed out of a verbal agreement to sell the $1.799 million home to the Willborns, who are African-American.

The matter could have been handled either as an administrative case by HUD or in the federal court system by the Justice Department. The department will now decide within 30 days  whether to file its own case. If it does, that means the Willborns could be eligible to receive punitive damages as well as compensatory damages from a jury.

NEW YORK (WPIX) —9/11 victims’ families will join with more than three dozen other organizations today to show their support for building an Islamic Center near Ground Zero in an effort to re-frame the debate on the controversial site.

The group September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows,is part of a collection of 40 organizations that calls itself the Religious Freedom Coalition. At noon today, the coalition will gather across from City Hall at the Manhattan Municipal Building to express support in a news conference for building the Islamic Center two-and-a-half blocks north of the World Trade Center site.

It happens the day after hip-hop business mogul Russell Simmons unveiled an artwork in the windows of his apartment that faces Ground Zero. The art piece features a series of religious symbols, beginning with the Muslim crescent and star, that together are meant to spell out the word “co-exist.” The display also reads USA equals free and “It’s the Law.”

Also, Archbishop Timothy Dolan has apparently changed his public stance on the issue, saying Tuesday that he doesn’t have strong feelings whether or not an Islamic Center is located near Ground Zero. In the past, he had called for it to move elsewhere.

Mayor Bloomberg gave another strong endorsement of the Islamic Center project now called Park 51 at a Ramadan meal he hosted at Gracie Mansion Tuesday. In an impassioned speech the Mayor said, “If we say that a mosque and community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, we would compromise our commitment to fighting terror with freedom.”

The mayor went on to suggest that a compromise would not be a victory by any means.

“The question will then become, how big should the ‘no-mosque zone’ around the World Trade Center site be? There is already a mosque four blocks away. Should it too, be moved?” he asked.

ABC15

CARSON CITY, Nev. – The misuse of one little vowel frustrates a lot of Nevadans who get irritated by the mispronunciation of the state’s name – using an “ah” instead of “a.”

Outgoing Assemblyman Harry Mortenson is proposing more tolerance. The Las Vegas Democrat is working on a resolution for the 2011 legislative session to make the “Ne-VAH-da” pronunciation equally acceptable to the one with the short “a.”

Mortenson says he’s not asking Nevadans to change. He just wants the Spanish pronunciation recognized.

Nevadans have long bristled over the issue. In 1944, Reno newspapers even scolded former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey for his “East Coast” pronunciation during an appearance.

By Patrick G. Lee–Boston.com

More than two dozen cities and towns in Western Massachusetts will be the focus of a major federal initiative being announced today to increase low-income families’ consumption of fruits and vegetables, as part of the nation’s efforts to combat obesity.

The Agriculture Department awarded $20 million to Massachusetts and a Cambridge-based research firm to test whether providing subsidies for buying produce will encourage food stamp recipients in Hampden County communities — including Springfield, Chicopee, and Holyoke — to eat more nutritious meals.

Zeituni Onyango

By Maria Sacchetti– Globe Staff

The immigration judge who granted President Obama’s aunt asylum three months ago based his decision on the fact that an anonymous federal official had disclosed information about her immigration status to the media, a “reckless’’ act that exposed her to heightened threats of persecution in her native Kenya, according to the ruling, obtained yesterday by the Globe.

Although the grant of asylum to Zeituni Onyango in May was made public, the written decision detailing the reason for it was kept under wraps because of federal privacy laws. But the secrecy sparked accusations that she had received favorable treatment.

The decision was released yesterday through the Freedom of Information Act.

Onyango, a 58-year-old resident of Boston public housing, had tried twice to win asylum allowing her to stay in the United States and had been rejected both times. But her third attempt came under different circumstances brought about in part by an anonymous government official, according to the decision.

Immigration Judge Leonard I. Shapiro, who presided over her deportation case in February, said a federal law enforcement official’s public revelations about her confidential case catapulted Onyango into the spotlight in a “highly publicized and highly politicized manner’’ just days before Obama’s historic election in November 2008. The publicity and her status as Obama’s aunt are the crux of his 29-page decision.

Shapiro, a veteran immigration judge and Republican appointee, wrote harshly of the anonymous Bush administration official’s leak to the Associated Press for using confidential information for political purposes and said it was a “clear violation of federal regulations.’’

“Moreover,’’ he wrote, “the disclosure . . . was a reckless and illegal violation of her right to privacy which has exposed her to great risk.’’

The decision cleared the way for the former computer programmer to remain in the United States and one day become a US citizen. Asylum applicants must prove that they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their homelands, and because of that their cases are generally kept confidential. The Globe argued that the widespread attention to the case, plus Onyango’s decision to grant some media interviews, warranted the release of the judge’s decision.

Shapiro’s ruling ignited national debate over whether Onyango had received special treatment because she is the president’s aunt. She is the half-sister of his late father, who was a distant figure in the president’s life before he died in a car crash in 1982. The president met Onyango during a trip to Kenya in 1988 and included her in his 1995 memoir, “Dreams from My Father.’’

The president has said he refused to intervene in the case. Yesterday, a spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. Until 2008, Onyango had lived in near-obscurity in a Boston public housing development, never confiding to neighbors that she was related to the man who would become the first African-American president of the United States.

Onyango came to the United States in 2000 on a “pleasure’’ trip and stayed after her visa expired the next year, according to Shapiro’s ruling. She filed for asylum in December 2002, but was denied and ordered deported. She soon reapplied but was again rejected, in 2004.

Days before the November 2008 election, an anonymous US official confirmed to the Associated Press that Onyango was here illegally because she had lost her asylum claim — a report that injected the volatile immigration debate into the final moments of the presidential election and raised questions about how an illegal immigrant managed to stay in public housing.

In December 2008, Onyango’s lawyers persuaded the immigration court to reconsider her request for asylum. They argued that news of her attempts to gain asylum in the past would render her a “traitor’’ in Kenya and that the media had singled her out as the “illegal immigrant aunt’’ of Obama.

Her lawyers said she also asked to stay because of health problems. Details of these problems were redacted in the report — along with details of her past asylum cases — for privacy reasons, said Cecelia M. Espenoza, the lawyer who released the decision from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which governs the immigration courts within the Department of Justice.

The Department of Homeland Security, which sought her deportation, countered that the Associated Press article did not create a new risk for Onyango because it did not reveal details about her asylum claim and because Onyango and her lawyers had talked to the media. An agency spokesman declined to comment yesterday.

Shapiro agreed with Onyango’s assertion that she had been singled out for publicity and, unlike her relatives in Kenya, would be a “target.’’ He also outlined “serious interethnic conflict’’ that had consumed Kenya in recent years and resulted in hundreds of deaths. She belongs to the minority Luo ethnic group and said that she feared for her life if she had to return to Kenya.

In his ruling, Shapiro said Onyango’s testimony in February was sometimes confusing and inconsistent with what she said during her last quest for asylum six years ago. While Onyango did not prove that she suffered persecution while she lived in Kenya, he said he believed that her fear of future persecution was genuine.

He also acknowledged Onyango’s illegal status but did not hold it against her because there was no evidence that the federal government had ever pursued her deportation.

Some disputed the basis of Shapiro’s decision yesterday, and reiterated calls to release the full case to the public.

“The fact that she is the aunt of the president of the United States does raise questions of whether she received any special treatment,’’ said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

But her Cleveland-based lawyer, Scott Bratton, said Obama had no influence over the case.

Shapiro’s ruling cleared the way for Onyango to apply for a work permit and a green card and to become a US citizen, after a required waiting period. She has settled into a new apartment in public housing in South Boston, Bratton said.

“If people actually got to know her, they would realize she is a really good person with a really good heart that has volunteered in the community,’’ he said.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 (UPI) — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Friday said the just-signed law that shores up the U.S.-Mexican border demonstrates the border is not political.

President Barack Obama signed the Southwest Border Security bill Friday.

Napolitano joined White House press secretary Robert Gibbs during the regular press briefing and told reporters the law not only adds new resources to the border, but also makes permanent many of the resources that have been added to the area in the last 18 months.

“What’s significant about this bill, in addition to its contents, is that it (Congress) passed something with bipartisan support that gives us the resources to continue efforts that were well under way and demonstrates that the border is not and should not be a political issue,” Napolitano said. “It is a matter of national security in which we all, both parties, have a stake.”

Napolitano said the measure adds 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents and provides $68 million for Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry, in addition to 200 special agents, investigators and intelligence analysts for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two more unmanned aircraft systems, $14 million to deploy improved tactical communications technology and $196 million for the Justice Department to add prosecutors, immigration judges and support for detention and incarceration of criminal aliens.

Under questioning by reporters, Napolitano said the bill represents a step toward comprehensive immigration reform.

“The efforts on overall immigration reform are ongoing,” Napolitano said. “But the point I’m making is that you need to multitask. You need to secure the border and have a safe and secure border area, and you need immigration reform.

“That’s what this president has set out to do. That’s what he has asked the Department of Homeland Security to work on. That’s why he has invited Republicans and Republican leadership to the table to say, look, let’s get to the issue of immigration reform.”

LiveLeak

A campaign cameraman said a Kansas City councilman attacked him, but the politician accused in the attack says he doesn’t regret what happened.

The incident took place outside the Clay County Democratic Headquarters on Aug. 7 while US Senate Candidate, Robin Carnahan, was inside speaking. First District Councilman and Kansas City Mayor Pro Tem, Bill Skaggs, lost his cool and used profanity to threaten a cameraman.

“I was walking to a meeting and this guy stuck a camera in my face,” said Skaggs. “And he was obviously out there bullying people around.”

“He has a different definition of ‘all up in his face’ than I think everyone else does,” said Jason Klindt, political strategist with Axiom Strategies.

Klindt said he was surprised by Skaggs’ reaction.

“It is unusual to see someone like Bill Skaggs, who has been a career politician and is the Mayor Pro Tem of KC, to react in such an unusual way,” he said.

But what isn’t unusual: a cameraman at a campaign event. They’re known as trackers, and Klindt said they’re standard practice in order to keep candidates honest.

“You’ve seen political careers end by people with video cameras out there,” said Klindt.

The “Macaca” incident involving then-Virginia Senator George Allen is a good example. In 2006 he was caught on camera using a racial slur and ended up losing his Senate seat.
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Geez, lighten up Francis. Look, Skaggs may be a real dickweed, but in the video he appears to be  just messin’ around.

This all about finding even more ways to subvert the law (what’s left of it) in  favor of the largest group of lying thieving parasitic illegal aliens— Hispanics. 

Miami Herald

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A southern Arizona tribe has become the first to issue identification cards with enhanced federal security features to its members.

The cards will allow members of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe to enter the United States by land or through a sea port of entry. They were developed after more than a year of consultation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The Pascua Yaqui began issuing the cards on a voluntary basis Monday. The tribe’s lands are about 60 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, and many of its 17,000 members have relatives living on both sides of the border.

The cards meet the requirements of what’s known as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative – a post Sept. 11, 2001 effort to strengthen U.S. border security. The cards have radio frequency identification technology and allow for the electronic verification of tribal membership, identity and U.S. citizenship.

“This program strengthens an already great relationship with DHS keeping our nation’s security at mind,” tribal Chairman Peter Yucupicio said in a news release. “The Pascua Yaqui Tribe hopes that such a program will enhance the facilitation of ceremonial, family and business travel for our Yaqui members.”

The National Congress of American Indians has said it’s hopeful the use of the secured cards could be expanded to allow tribal members to travel abroad. The comment came as the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team fought to travel to a world championship tournament in England earlier this month on passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy of tribes.

The State Department initially refused to accept the passports because they lacked security features but eventually gave the team a one-time waiver. British officials did not recognize the Iroquois passports as a valid travel document. U.S. Homeland Security officials have said the enhanced tribal identification cards cannot be used in lieu of a federal passport.

Several other tribes, including the Tohono O’odham of Arizona and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, already have or are working toward formal agreements for the development of the IDs.