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Bush orders clampdown on flights to US The US administration is pressing the 27 governments of the European Union to sign up for a range of new security measures for transatlantic travel, including allowing armed guards on all flights from Europe to America by US airlines. The demand to put armed air marshals on to the flights is part of a travel clampdown by the Bush administration that officials in Brussels described as "blackmail" and "troublesome", and could see west Europeans and Britons required to have US visas if their governments balk at Washington's requirements. According to a US document being circulated for signature in European capitals, EU states would also need to supply personal data on all air passengers overflying but not landing in the US in order to gain or retain visa-free travel to America, senior EU officials said. And within months the US department of homeland security is to impose a new permit system for Europeans flying to the US, compelling all travellers to apply online for permission to enter the country before booking or buying a ticket, a procedure that will take several days. The data from the US's new electronic transport authorisation system is to be combined with extensive personal passenger details already being provided by EU countries to the US for the "profiling" of potential terrorists and assessment of other security risks. Washington is also asking European airlines to provide personal data on non-travellers - for example family members - who are allowed beyond departure barriers to help elderly, young or ill passengers to board aircraft flying to America, a demand the airlines reject as "absurd"....
Illegals Begin Leaving Arizona as New Law Approaches For the first time, Mexican officials in Arizona admit there is hard evidence illegal immigrants are preparing to leave the state because a new employer sanctions law is making it difficult, if not impossible, for them to keep a job. Illegal immigrants are flooding the Mexican consulate in Phoenix for documents that will allow them to return to Mexico to enroll their children in school, the consul to Arizona, Carlos Flores Vizcarra, told FOX News. They are also requesting a document called "menaje de casa," which allows illegal immigrant families living in the U.S. to cross into Mexico without paying a tax on their furniture and personal belongings. Vizcarra said 94 families asked the embassy for students transfer documents last month, compared to only three last year. He said several thousand immigrants asked for the tax document. In a separate interview, Edmundo Hidalgo of the non-profit immigrant support group Chicanos Por La Causa, said 30,000 illegal immigrants said in a survey last week that they planned to leave Arizona sometime before March 1, when the state’s tough new employer sanctions law goes into effect. Under the law, employers can lose their business licenses if they hire undocumented workers. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has set up a hotline for citizens to report on employers who hire illegals. He has said enforcement will begin when the law goes into effect. Many deputies have also been given arrest authority by Customs and Border Protection to enforce federal immigration law. So in the course of a traffic stop, illegal immigrants without a driver's license could ultimately face deportation....
Cheney gets tough on gun-rights case Vice President Dick Cheney took the unusual step Friday of joining with lawmakers in signing a Supreme Court brief that goes further in support of gun rights than the one submitted by the Bush administration. The filings were made in a case that challenges the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. It was scheduled to be argued on March 18. Both briefs argue that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. However, the administration contends that too categorical a ruling could threaten other federal gun restrictions and wants the justices to send the case back to lower courts without deciding whether the handgun ban should fall. Cheney joined more than 300 senators and representatives, led by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who want the court to rule that Washington's ban is unconstitutional. "The vice president believes strongly in Second Amendment rights," Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said. Seventeen Democratic lawmakers and District of Columbia Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton urged the court to uphold the ban. Lawyers with long experience at the court could not recall another case in which a vice president took a position different from that of his own administration....Cheney should have used his influence within the Administration to have the Solicitor General withdraw his brief. This looks like a ploy to me.
Facing backlog, Feds ease path to green card In a major policy shift aimed at reducing a ballooning immigration backlog, the Department of Homeland Security is preparing to grant permanent residency to tens of thousands of applicants before the FBI completes a required background check. Those eligible are immigrants whose fingerprints have cleared the FBI database of criminal convictions and arrests but whose names have not yet cleared the FBI's criminal or intelligence files after six months of waiting. The immigrants who are granted permanent status, more commonly known as getting their green cards, will be expected eventually to clear the FBI's name check. If they don't, their legal status will be revoked and they'll be deported. The decision to issue green cards demonstrates how federal agencies are struggling to keep up with surging immigration applications while applying stringent post-Sept. 11 background checks. About 150,000 green card and naturalization applicants have been delayed by the FBI name check, with 30,000 held up more than three years....
Woman takes plea deal in lousy lawn case When 70-year-old Betty Perry was accused of neglecting her lawn, she became defiant. Perry was arrested, handcuffed and briefly jailed in July for declining a ticket for failing to water her lawn. She agreed on Friday to resolve her case by pleading guilty to a disorderly conduct charge and paying a $100 fine. She also faces six months of probation. Perry was scheduled to go to trial Monday on a more serious charge of resisting arrest for refusing to give her name, accept a citation or allow herself to be handcuffed on her front steps. "She ends up with a sentence that is very minimal and shouldn't intrude terribly on her day-to-day life," prosecutor Andrew Peterson said. "For our part, it accomplishes what we set out to accomplish from the very beginning." Peterson said he was planning to drop the lawn neglect charge anyway because Perry has started taking care of her lawn. But it was important for the city to get a conviction for Perry's "dangerous and violent" actions following an officer's attempt to cite her, he said....God bless them older folks who still have enough American in them to be defiant and defend their property rights.