Sgt. David Azuelo stepped gingerly over the specks of blood on the floor, took note of the bullet hole through the bedroom skylight, raised an eyebrow at the lack of furniture in the ranch-style house and turned to his squad of detectives investigating one of the latest home invasions in this Arizona city. ...more

March 23, 2009

The U.S. Border Patrol on Monday ordered an investigation of allegations by agents in Southern California that they were given arrest quotas and threatened with punishment if they failed to meet them. ...more

February 2, 2009

The Border Patrol has finished installing razor-sharp barbed wire atop a 5-mile stretch of fence on the Mexican border, an addition critics call heavy-handed and an eyesore. ...more

November 20, 2008

"Should I stay or should I go." To quote the band "The Clash," illegal immigrants to Avon Park and its environs must be asking just that question. If they stay here, they risk arrest, deportation, exploitation or worse. If they go back to Mexico, they risk greater poverty, starvation, exploitation even murder by corrupt thugs, drug dealers and cops. Nice choice, eh? I recently witnessed a demonstration against illegal immigration at the intersection of US 27 and SR 64 in Avon Park. Truck drivers were honking their air horns presumably in support of the demonstrators who proudly waved American flags next to a pickup truck with a sign against illegal immigration and for drilling domestic oil. In attendance was the former mayor of Avon Park, a huge enemy of illegal immigration. I don't know him, never met him, but I've heard him speak. Nice to know paranoia is alive and well in America. ...more

September 8, 2008

Law enforcement officers wanted: must work graveyard shifts alone in remote towns along the Mexican border, put in long hours and perform well in triple-digit temperatures. ...more

August 31, 2008

"The Cold War is over," Condi Rice said last week. ...more

August 27, 2008

The thousands of National Guard troops sent to reinforce the U.S.-Mexican border two years ago have almost completely withdrawn, despite pleas from border-state governors once skeptical of using soldiers to catch illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. ...more

June 21, 2008

AVON PARK — The city whose council considered and then rejected a city bill that would have made English its official language will host a state convention Saturday for an activist group known for protesting against illegal immigration, and sometimes illegal immigrants. The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps will gather at the Jacaranda Hotel for what its state director Bill Landes called a "training session." "It's not an open meeting," he said. He estimated 15 to 20 Minutemen members from throughout the state to attend the convention, including Chris Simcox, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps' cofounder. The convention begins at 1 p.m. He expected a few protesters might show up but hoped the members wouldn't be too uncomfortable. ...more

June 17, 2008

This military base in the far West Texas desert stood as the last Army post in America where if you were old enough to fight and die for your country, you were old enough to drink a beer. ...more

May 30, 2008

The Rev. Howard Douglas Porter says he tried to brake before his truck plunged into an irrigation ditch, and that he made a desperate effort to save his elderly passenger from drowning in the mire. ...more

May 30, 2008