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Archive for the 'Immigration' Category

May 7th, 2010

Summary: Alleged links between Faisal Shahzad’s Times Square bombing attempt and the Taliban are adding to perceptions of Pakistan as a global exporter of terror and increasing pressure on its military to crack down on extremists along the Afghanistan border. The Pakistani Taliban — Tehrik-e-Taliban — was hellbent on revenge inside America after a U.S. Predator drone attack killed its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in August 2009 and the more recent strikes that nearly killed Baitullah’s successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, in January 2010. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 7, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that a spate of bombings in Iraq raised concern that militants were regrouping after suffering sharp setbacks in fighting during the previous two years, 2007-2008.


May 3rd, 2010

Summary: U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents arrested Faisal Shahzad, 30, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, in connection with the failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square as he tried to leave the country on an Emirates airlines flight to Dubai at New York’s JFK airport, May 3, 2010 at 11:45 p.m. ET. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 3, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that the sheer weight and volume of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s assault on reason may have reached critical mass, crossing the tipping point beyond which Minnesota media could no longer tune out Bachmann’s insanity or avert their gaze from “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in embarrassed silence.


May 2nd, 2010

Summary: Police investigating a failed car bomb left in Times Square have videotape of a possible suspect shedding clothing in an alley and putting it in a bag. The surveillance video shows a white man in his 40s taking off one shirt, revealing another underneath. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 2, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that an attacker wearing an Iraqi army uniform shot dead two U.S. soldiers outside the volatile northern city of Mosul, Iraq; provided an update of key facts, figures, and statistics on Iraq since the war began in March 2003; and reported the latest security incidents in Iraq.


May 1st, 2010

Summary: Police found an apparent car bomb in a parked sport utility vehicle in New York City’s Times Square, then evacuated buildings and cleared streets of thousands of tourists. Reuters quoted a New York Fire Department official as saying the vehicle was found to contain explosives, gasoline, propane tanks, and burned wires. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 1, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that three U.S. troops had been killed in fighting west of Baghdad, pushing the U.S. toll for April to 18 — double the number killed in March — and making April the deadliest month thus far in 2009 for American forces in Iraq.


Apr 23rd, 2010

Summary: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ignored criticism from President Barack Obama and signed into law a bill supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation’s busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 23, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that suicide bombers struck a humanitarian aid distribution point and a crowded restaurant in separate attacks in Iraq, killing at least 78 people.


Jan 15th, 2010

Summary: The Obama administration will allow Haitians who were in the United States illegally prior to the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake to remain in the country for 18 months under temporary protected status. Some critics oppose temporary protected status because of its potential to turn into a de facto backdoor to amnesty. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 15, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that British foreign secretary David Miliband said the phrase “war on terror” — though capturing the urgency of the situation immediately following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — is ultimately “misleading and mistaken,” because it gives the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.


Dec 12th, 2009

Summary: A spike in terrorism cases involving U.S. citizens is challenging long-held assumptions that Muslims in Europe are more susceptible to radicalization than their better-assimilated counterparts in the United States. According to several U.S. and international terrorism analysts, immigration trends, the global spread of a militant Islamism, and controversial actions by the United States and its allies since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks increase the chances that U.S. Muslims could carry out a domestic attack. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 12, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee found that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials share much of the blame for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He also reported that a suicide bomber struck a crowded restaurant near the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk where Kurdish officials were meeting with Arab tribal leaders, killing at least 55 people and wounding about 120 in the deadliest attack in Iraq in nearly six months.


Nov 5th, 2009

Summary: Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, due for deployment to Iraq, went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and wounding 30. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 5, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Afghan president Hamid Karzai congratulated Barack Obama on his election as president of the United States and called on him to halt civilian casualties after U.S. warplanes bombed a wedding party — killing 37, mostly children — saying airstrikes cannot win the fight against terrorism.


Apr 16th, 2009

Summary: A Homeland Security Department intelligence estimate warns that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country’s first black president to recruit members and incite violence. Aubrey Immelman announces pro-life public lecture by Stephanie Gray of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn.


Apr 15th, 2009

Summary: Drug cartel gun battles that leave dead bodies yards from American soil have turned Mexico’s bloodstained northern border into a major foreign policy challenge for President Barack Obama.