The Obama administration, rather than dealing with the root cause of the violence along the Mexican border, has decided to adopt a policy to deal with the symptoms. The problem is that this policy will neither alleviate the symptoms nor come close to treating the problem. WASHINGTON – The Obama administration promised Tuesday to help [...]

From a NYT story about new banking regulations attached to the bailout funds (and the desire for some of these banks to now return the money): The list of demands keeps getting longer. Financial institutions that are getting government bailout funds have been told to put off evictions and modify mortgages for distressed homeowners. They [...]

Many people have worried about the threat that China and India post to America by moving towards first-world economic powers. After all, they have, between the two of them, somewhere in the realm of 2.5B people, and if the same proportion of their students become engineers and scientists as we see here, they will be [...]

For those of you who believe that Libertarians focus too much on the War on (Some) Drugs, perhaps it’s time to pay attention to the escalating violence in Mexico which is spilling over into the U.S. PHOENIX (Reuters) – Hit men dressed in fake police tactical gear burst into a home in Phoenix, rake it [...]

Here are a few choice comments in response to a recent post where I argued that Ramos and Compean should not receive presidential pardons. I was aware that this was a very unpopular position to take (even among libertarians) but I was stunned and disturbed by the tone of some of the comments. I’ll let [...]

Well, maybe I should say he partially caved. With less than 24 hours left in his presidency, Bush decided to commute Ramos and Compean’s sentences rather than granting full pardons. The Associated Press reports that the president chose to commute their sentences because he agreed with the court’s finding that the men broke the law [...]

As the Bush era comes to a close, the list of last minute pardon requests are growing. Perhaps the loudest demand for pardon comes (mostly) from Conservatives who are angry that President Bush has not acted to pardon two Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. Those who demand the pardon claim that [...]

Reality TV junkie? Also a State-worshipper? Then you’re in luck! Every day the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security patrol more than 100,000 miles of America’s borders. This territory includes airports, seaports, land borders, international mail centers, the open seas, mountains, deserts and even cyberspace. Now viewers will get an unprecedented look [...]

The City Club of Cleveland extended an invitation to the top six presidential candidates*. Of the six candidates, Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, and independent candidate Ralph Nader participated; Democrat Barack Obama, Republican John McCain, and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney were no-shows. Unlike the debates we have already seen [...]

Our government sure has a strange take on drugs. If you want to take them to get high, or to improve sports performance, or to dull the pain of debilitating diseases, you deserve to be put in jail. But if they’re trying to make someone malleable and complacent, such as schoolchildren, drugs are great! And, [...]

“I think we should welcome all peaceful people to our country. They get to the pursue the ‘American Dream’ and we get to benefit from all the wonderful things that immigrants bring to our country—like good old fashioned soccer. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.” – Drew Carey Drew Carey tackles immigration in [...]

The San Jose Mercury News reports on a study of California’s immigrant, including illegal immigrant, population: Countering widespread belief, a new report shows California’s foreign-born population – including illegal immigrants – makes up only a sliver of the state’s population of inmates. The report by the Public Policy Institute of California, released Monday, also suggests [...]

The Independent Institute’s Robert Higgs has a great essay out on the debate over illegal immigration as it applies to the welfare state: Anti-immigrationists often say that the Mexicans come here only to go on welfare. Aside from this declaration’s manifest misrepresentation of the truth, one wonders why the obvious remedy for this alleged problem [...]

The Washington Post has a detailed article this morning about the government’s efforts to steal private property to build a fence along the Mexican border: EL CALABOZ, Tex. — In the 240 years since the Spanish Crown granted Eloisa Tamez’s colonial ancestors title to this flat, grassy expanse along the Rio Grande’s northern bank, her [...]

Apparently, the right to privacy no longer exist for anyone crossing the border as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has claimed that they have a right to search, without warrant or probable cause, anyone who comes into this country, including citizens.  Amir Khan says he becomes frustrated and humiliated every time he enters the [...]

There’s a very good post up over at Cato@Liberty on the debate that erupted between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over whether states should be permitted to give driver’s licenses to people who are in the country illegally. As the post’s author notes, the right answer to the question has little to do with immigration: [...]

The brainiacs who’ve made air travel almost as fun as a 10-hour Coca-Cola enema have unveiled their new master plan for creating an efficient security system…federally mandated drivers licenses for everybody under the age of 50, which all states will be forced to comply with by 2011, whether they’re capable or doing so or not, [...]

It seems that the push for a fence on the southern border of the United States is about to become a really big theft: The government is readying 102 court cases against landowners in Arizona, California and Texas for blocking efforts to select sites for a fence along the Mexican border, a Department of Homeland [...]

In the fourth part of their web-only interview, ABC’s John Stossel and Congressman Ron Paul talk about illegal immigration: Paul, R-Texas, strongly opposes granting “amnesty” to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States today. So I asked him what he’d do with all those immigrants. Would he try to arrest all of [...]

The New York Times had an editorial this morning about the real problem with immigration in this country. The fact that many people who want to become Americans are forced to suffer with long delays before getting naturalized and residence visas. The agency, Citizenship and Immigration Services, is telling legal immigrants that applications for citizenship [...]