Foreign Nationals

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of foreign nationals held in U.S. prisons could win a new right to challenge their convictions if the Supreme Court rules in their favor in a pair of cases that won a review yesterday. The two cases, to be heard in March, are the latest to test whether international treaties can carry weight in the U.S. criminal courts. The justices agreed to hear the appeal of a Mexican citizen who was convicted of the attempted murder of a police officer in Oregon and the appeal of a Honduran national who says he was wrongfully convicted of murdering a man in Virginia.

Maryland has already issued driver's licenses to thousands of illegal immigrants, and Maryland Democrats want to continue this practice. But Maryland passed a law in 2009 to conform to the requirements of the Federal Real ID Act which disqualifies the use of licenses from states issuing them to illegal immigrants as proof of identity. The 2009 law discontinued the issuing of new drivers licenses to illegal immigrants and also prohibits license renewals to those who can't provide proof of legal residency after June 30, 2015.

For three days straight, Sister Agnes Oman tried to get through to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration phone line to make driver's license appointments for her immigrant clients. She would begin at 8:27 a.m., just before the appointment line opens at 8:30 a.m. And she kept calling. One recent Wednesday, she dialed 60 times. Always busy. Thursday, 220 times. Nothing. And Friday, she called 120 times. No answer. "I'm starting to get frustrated," said Oman, associate director for the Hispanic ministry of the Diocese of Wilmington, which serves the Eastern Shore.

Like her classmates at the U.S. Naval Academy, Midshipman 1st Class Dagmara Broniatowska learned how to salute, ran the endurance course and memorized the body of American military information, history and quotations known as the Rates. In her "four years by the bay," as midshipmen sometimes describe their time at the academy, she has studied oceanography, Russian and Arabic, competed with the varsity offshore sailing team and trained aboard a Navy destroyer. She expects to graduate with her classmates next spring.

Like her classmates at the U.S. Naval Academy, Midshipman 1st Class Dagmara Broniatowska learned how to salute, ran the endurance course and memorized the body of American military information, history and quotations known as the Rates. In her "four years by the bay," as midshipmen sometimes describe their time at the academy, she has studied oceanography, Russian and Arabic, competed with the varsity offshore sailing team and trained aboard a Navy destroyer. She expects to graduate with her classmates next spring.

It's about time one of the states acted to bring attention to the complete failure of the federal government to secure our borders. I just wish that Maryland and a dozen other states would pass similar laws to convince the Washington politicians that the folks are serious. Instead we get a dose of indignant cries for "respect," even though the foreign nationals who cross over our virtually unprotected borders show no respect for the citizens of our country. In Arizona there are about a half-million foreign nationals and 5 million U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.

LONDON -- The world has become more dangerous, and governments more repressive, since the effort to fight terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks, the rights group Amnesty International said yesterday. Releasing its annual report, the group singled out the United States with particular contempt, condemning its detention of 600 foreign nationals at Guantanamo Bay as a "human rights scandal" and calling on the government to release or charge those held there. "What would have been unacceptable on Sept.

UNITED NATIONS -- The day after the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution placing an air embargo on Iraq, confusion reigned over whether the sanctions applied to passengers or just to cargo flights.Secretary of State James A. Baker III said he was unwilling to call passenger flights a violation of the newly adopted sanctions.But the State Department said that "while the resolution does not in and of itself prohibit passenger flights, it has requirements and raises issues which need to be addressed."

Maryland has already issued driver's licenses to thousands of illegal immigrants, and Maryland Democrats want to continue this practice. But Maryland passed a law in 2009 to conform to the requirements of the Federal Real ID Act which disqualifies the use of licenses from states issuing them to illegal immigrants as proof of identity. The 2009 law discontinued the issuing of new drivers licenses to illegal immigrants and also prohibits license renewals to those who can't provide proof of legal residency after June 30, 2015.

WASHINGTON -- In apparent defiance of international sanctions against Iraq, a number of Europeans portrayed as hostages in Baghdad actually are technicians working voluntarily to keep the country's weapons facilities and other key industries operating, American investigators now suspect.Although the number of foreign nationals involved is believed to be small, investigators said they are helping to maintain key facilities, including Iraq's main chemical weapons plant. Some are Germans who appear to be moving in and out of Iraq freely through Jordan.

It's about time one of the states acted to bring attention to the complete failure of the federal government to secure our borders. I just wish that Maryland and a dozen other states would pass similar laws to convince the Washington politicians that the folks are serious. Instead we get a dose of indignant cries for "respect," even though the foreign nationals who cross over our virtually unprotected borders show no respect for the citizens of our country. In Arizona there are about a half-million foreign nationals and 5 million U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.

For three days straight, Sister Agnes Oman tried to get through to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration phone line to make driver's license appointments for her immigrant clients. She would begin at 8:27 a.m., just before the appointment line opens at 8:30 a.m. And she kept calling. One recent Wednesday, she dialed 60 times. Always busy. Thursday, 220 times. Nothing. And Friday, she called 120 times. No answer. "I'm starting to get frustrated," said Oman, associate director for the Hispanic ministry of the Diocese of Wilmington, which serves the Eastern Shore.

WASHINGTON -- Thousands of foreign nationals held in U.S. prisons could win a new right to challenge their convictions if the Supreme Court rules in their favor in a pair of cases that won a review yesterday. The two cases, to be heard in March, are the latest to test whether international treaties can carry weight in the U.S. criminal courts. The justices agreed to hear the appeal of a Mexican citizen who was convicted of the attempted murder of a police officer in Oregon and the appeal of a Honduran national who says he was wrongfully convicted of murdering a man in Virginia.

CHICAGO - No one really wants to fault Tony Blair as he strives to address the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism. After one round of deadly bombings and a second round of attempted ones just two weeks apart, everyone knows that his fears are not exactly a hallucination. In this case, most people in the United States as well as Britain would prefer the prime minister went too far rather than not far enough. In a recent statement, he praised his people's "tolerance and good nature" but said they feel "a determination that this very tolerance and good nature should not be abused by a small but fanatical minority."

Federal agents in Maryland have arrested and are holding for deportation more than two dozen illegal immigrants and green-card holders who have criminal sex offense records, officials with the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency announced yesterday. The sweep, which occurred over the past 10 days, is part of the agency's Operation Predator, a nationwide effort to crack down on non-citizen sex offenders, child sex tourists, child pornographers and others.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - After struggling for most of the day, Takahiro Omori changed his lure and changed his life yesterday by becoming the first foreign national to win the Bassmaster Classic. A resident of Emory, Texas, who was born in Tokyo, Omori caught a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 39 pounds, 2 ounces to win the Classic on Lake Wylie and the $200,000 first prize. Aaron Martens of Castaic, Calif., was second (36-6) and won $50,000. Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Mich., the 2001 Classic champion, was third at 35-11.

More than 60 foreign nationals who fled Kuwait last weekend in search of security on American soil refused an offer yesterday by the federal government to be sheltered at a resettlement agency in Carroll County.The foreigners -- mostly Middle Easterners -- arrived at Baltimore-Washington International Airport last weekend with no money, no place to live and no relatives to turn to for help in this country.They have spent the week at the airport's Sheraton Hotel, paid for with money that was lent to them by the federal government.

CHICAGO - No one really wants to fault Tony Blair as he strives to address the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism. After one round of deadly bombings and a second round of attempted ones just two weeks apart, everyone knows that his fears are not exactly a hallucination. In this case, most people in the United States as well as Britain would prefer the prime minister went too far rather than not far enough. In a recent statement, he praised his people's "tolerance and good nature" but said they feel "a determination that this very tolerance and good nature should not be abused by a small but fanatical minority."

From the oval-shaped windows of an airplane, Maryland looked enough like Belize that for a moment, teenagers Andrea and Javier Bosch forgot about the lush landscape and glittering beaches of their Central American homeland. "As we arrived it was like `Wow,'" Javier Bosch said. "It's very green here, and coming from Belize, that's what we are used to." Beginning today, however, the 19-year-old twins will realize how different their lives will be at their home for the next four years: the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

The Supreme Court delivered a strong check to the president's wartime powers yesterday, ruling in two closely watched cases that U.S. citizens and foreign nationals imprisoned as suspected terrorists can challenge their detention in American courts. "We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority opinion in one case. The Constitution, she said, "most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake."