"As it flows north from Mexico into California’s Imperial Valley, the New River not only brings with it more than 20 million gallons of raw sewage daily, but also a human cargo of illegal immigrants that may be drenched in bacteria and pollutants that cause communicable diseases. Public health officials along the border worry about this toxic, infested river and the people who use it as a route into the United States," MSNBC reports.

"After four years as chief information officer at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Scott Hastings will soon be overseeing technology development for one of the Homeland Security Department’s largest programs," the Federal Times reports. "In November, Hastings will become chief information officer of U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US VISIT), a new $7 billion program to track the comings and goings of 279 million foreign visitors each year." [FAIR Comment: the story should say 279 million crossings, not visitors. Lobbyists against sensible visa regulations often use the innumerate figure to bolster their arguments against visa rules.]

"The venue is an Asian trade meeting, but when Mexican President Vicente Fox and President Bush meet Monday in Bangkok, Thailand, the issue will be immigration reform," Knight-Ridder reported. "On the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, Fox once again will press Bush for steps to make life easier for the millions of Mexicans who live in the United States illegally. But with the U.S. presidential election campaign in full swing, Bush is likely to be a tough sell in the wake of a California recall election that suggests that even many Latino voters took a dim view of deposed Gov. Gray Davis' efforts on behalf of undocumented residents."

"In a move that has raised the eyebrows of U.S. investigators, Saudi Arabia has doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide lawyers and cover bail for Saudis detained or questioned in the United States during the crackdown on terrorism," the AP reported. "John Pistole, assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, told a Senate hearing recently that the bureau has raised concerns with the Saudi government that paying legal bills and bond for Saudis being questioned in the terror probe could influence their testimony."

"A grass-roots campaign is setting its sights on overturning a new law that grants drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, hoping to tap voter anger over the bill Gov. Gray Davis signed in the weeks before he was recalled," the AP reports.

"A secretive group of tightly connected Muslim charities, think tanks and businesses based in Northern Virginia were used to funnel millions of dollars to terrorists and launder millions more, according to court records unsealed yesterday," the Washington Post reported. "The affidavit alleges leaders of the Safa Group knowingly supported the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), both designated terrorist entities by the United States in 1995. Senior investigators said leaders of the Safa Group also put millions of dollars into banks and companies that financed Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization."

In a letter to the Washington Times, FAIR executive director Dan Stein points out the illegal and unconstitutional reasons used by Maryland's attorney general to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. "Mr. Curran says that because immigration status is not mentioned in the MarylandTransportation Code, the state is not precluded from issuing licenses to illegal aliens. …The Maryland Constitution expressly recognizes the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution and federal law. Every time [the DMV] issues a license to an illegal alien, [it] denies U.S. citizens the equal protection of the law, unconstitutionally regulates immigration and usurps the federal power to regulate interstate commerce and conduct foreign affairs."