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Wednesday was the annual Second Amendment March in Lansing. Gun enthusiasts took to the Capitol for speeches and mass open-carrying of firearms.

According to the marchs website, they met for a, peaceful gathering to demonstrate the political strength of Michigans legal gun owners and Second Amendment advocates.

Dean Greenblatt is an attorney in Bloomfield Township. He represents Michigan Open Carry in several pending court cases.

Its just to get the message out that people are interested in securing their rights and letting other people know theyre here, theyre not going away, and theyre not going to be quiet, he said.

The Michigan legislature is currently pondering legislation that would allow for concealed pistol carry without a license. There are also plans for legislation to make registering firearms optional in the state.

Gun control advocates say increased regulations would reduce gun violence.

But Second Amendment enthusiasts like Kimberly Moshier from Oxford, say there are misconceptions about gun owners.

We do it because its our right and we want to protect ourselves and the ones we love, she said. And thats what it boils down to. Not everybody with a guns a bad guy.

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Second Amendment advocates flock to State Capitol | Michigan Radio - Michigan Radio

posted at 5:21 pm on April 28, 2017 by John Sexton

Today, President Trump became the first president since Ronald Reagan to speak to the National Rifle Association. His message was simple: The Obama era is over and gun owners now have a true friend in the White House. From NBC News:

The eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end, Trump told the members of the National Rifle Association, assuring them that they now have a true friend and champion in the White House.

I will never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, Trump said. Never ever.

After a minutes long rehash of his election victory, Trump said, You came through for me and I am going to come through for you. No longer will the government be trying to undermine your rights and freedoms as Americans, Trump said.

As you may know, the Obama administration was actually a tremendous boon to the gun industry. President Obama was called the Gun-salesman-in-chief by some. From Forbes:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for firearms manufacturers, reported that the total economic impact of the firearms and ammunition industry in the U.S. increased from $19.1 billion in 2008 to $49.3 billion in 2015. The NSSF also reported that, in that same time period, the total number of full-time jobs related to gun making in the U.S. rose from about 166,000 to almost 288,000.

That growth was based partly on concern that the Obama administration would restrict Second Amendment rights. But now that there is a true friend of the NRA in the Oval Office, gun sales (based on FBI background checks) appear to be slumping.

In addition to his discussion of the Second Amendment and gun rights, President Trump also renewed his promise to build a wall on the border with Mexico. We will build the wall no matter how low this number gets or how high this gets, Trump said. He was apparently referring to polling which shows the wall is not especially popular. Trump had requested initial funding for the wall in a bill to keep the government running past today but Democrats labeled it a poison pill and demanded the funding be dropped.

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Trump: 'eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms' is over An error occurred. - Hot Air

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The year 2016 has seen a new record in Italian immigration, with over 172,000 mostly African migrants arriving over the first eleven months of the year. Of these, the largest number (21 percent) are from Nigeria, lured into making the dangerous journey by a vigorous promotion campaign promising benefits and opportunities, as well as a free shuttle service provided by the Italian Coast Guard and a number of NGOs.

While most of the African migrants arriving in Italy are young men, a much higher percentage of the Nigerians are women. Currently, one out of every two prostitutes in Italy is Nigerian.

Arinze Orakwe, an official of the Nigerian anti-trafficking organization NAPTIP, fighting against the traffickers is an uphill battle, in part because of public opinion and propaganda about life in Europe. Everyone thinks that the streets of Europe are paved with gold, he said.

The human traffickers organizing the exodus from Africa into Italy include bands of Nigerian mafia gangs who force unsuspecting migrants into working for them as street beggars or prostitutes once they arrive in Italy.

One 24-year-old Nigerian woman named Gloria Erobaga recounted the harrowing experience of forced prostitution on Italian streets, after she had been promised honest work by the mafia traffickers who arranged her passage to Italy.

They would continually check up on us to collect our money and they killed the girls who didnt pay, she said. I know of Nigerian women in Italy who were killed, cut up and thrown into black garbage bags, like trash, she added.

According to reports in the Italian media, Nigerian traffickers are exploiting Europes migrant crisis to take girls to Libya and then across the Mediterranean into Italy. In the past two years more than 12,000 girls and young women have arrived in Italysix times as many as in the preceding two years. Of these, four out of five have wound up in prostitution.

Before organizing their journey through Libyan contacts, traffickers have the girls sign a contract to finance their trip, imposing debts of up to $30,000, which can only be paid back after years of working.

Many of the young women are taken to a priest of Voodoo, who conducts rituals called juju that supposedly bind them spiritually to their traffickers and insure the payment of the debt. These rites instill terror in their victims, convinced that they or their loved ones could fall ill or die if they were to disobey the traffickers, go to the police or fail to pay their debts.

Once in Italy, the women are placed together in common dwellings and given a madam to coordinate their work as prostitutes.

Fabio Sorgoni, an official with a charity that helps prostitutes in Italy, said Italian men are attracted by the youth and low price of the women and often dont realize they are sex slaves.

Appealing to men who pay Nigerians for sex, Sorgoni said: If you go to a prostitute, try to understand if they are a minor and whether they are doing this work of their own free will.

Meanwhile, African immigrants continue to stream into Italy by the hundreds and thousands every day. They are usually picked up several miles off the coast of Libya by waiting rescue vessels of the Italian Coast Guard or a number of organizations that assist migrants, who then take them across the Strait of Sicily to Italian ports.

What many well-meaning NGOs and pro-immigration groups dont realize, is that by assisting migrants in their passage from North Africa to Italy, they are also abetting organized crime and condemning thousands of women to forced prostitution.

Anna, a woman forced into prostitution after being told by traffickers she would pick fruit in Italy, wishes she had never made it here.

My message to girls back in Nigeria is, Dont come, she said.

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Italy Migrant Crisis: Nigerian Women Forced into ...

More than 40,000 people have made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean from Africa and the Middle East, largely landing in either Greece or Italy, already this year, while 1,089 have died trying. Auditors concluded that the EU must do more to quickly process and care for those that do survive the journey.

Since May 2015, the EU has implemented a so-called hotspot approach to help countries on the frontline of the refugee and migrant crisis cope with the extraordinary numbers of people arriving on their shores.

This saw centres set up to quickly register and move on migrants from the main points of arrival and over 1.5bn in EU funding pledged to Greece and Italy, although less than half of this has been delivered so far.

But auditors found that, despite considerable EU support, it took too long for the centres to be set up, and they remain unable to either handle or properly care for the number of people arriving at them.

They identified issues of overcrowding, a failure to provide basic necessities like water and an inability to care for high numbers of children arriving alone

Hans Gustaf Wessberg, one of the two members of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report, said the issue needed to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

At the time of the audit in July 2016, auditors found the hotspots in Italy could accommodate 1,600 people, which auditors said was clearly not enough to cover arrivals of 2,000 or more per day.

Italian authorities have conceded that, for the first seven months of 2016, some 70% of migrants arrived in Italy outside of the hotspot facilities. Two more centres, and a separate strategy in line with the hotspot approach but not requiring physical facilities, have been planned but are yet to be put in place.

Meanwhile in Greece, since March last year, an agreement between the EU and Turkey has meant migrants can no longer leave the Greek islands to lodge their asylum applications. This must instead be done at the hotspot centres, where previously migrants would spend only a few days.

Now migrants typically stay at the hotspot centres for months. Auditors said centres are seriously overcrowded as a result: all five hotspots can accommodate a total of 7,450 people, but the migrant population on the countrys islands had hit 16,250 by early November last year.

Auditors also noted that NGOs and others had criticised the quality of food and lack of blankets, medical care and water. Privacy, they continued, was also in short supply, with no separate areas for men, women, families or minors.

As of September 2016, around 2,500 children were living alone on Greeces islands, with none being cared for in accordance with international standards, auditors added.

Many unaccompanied minors have been held for long periods at the hotspots in inappropriate conditions, despite the law requiring they be prioritised, the report noted.

European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said the EUs executive pointed out that the report also highlighted that the hotspot approach had helped improve the management of migration flows in very challenging and constantly changing circumstances.

But, she continued, the commission also welcomes its conclusion that there is still more to be done something the commission itself has been stressing for some time.

She said the commission stands ready to provide additional support to Greece and Italy, which are ultimately responsible for their own border control and asylum processing, in line with the reports recommendations.

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Auditors highlight failings of EU response to migration crisis - Public Finance International

Friends and family of an undocumented woman arrested Monday during a cocaine bust at her home say she is not linked to any illicit activity regarding the operation and are demanding she not be deported.

Dozens of people gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday to express support for 54-year-old Teresa Vidal-Jaime, whose husband Hugo Rueda was being investigated by undercover Border Patrol agents on suspicion of drug smuggling.

The investigation led to an apartment complex where officers discovered 33 pounds of cocaine inside the husbands vehicle. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Vidal-Jaime then granted consent to conduct a search inside the apartment, resulting in the discovery of approximately $600,000 and about one ounce of crystal methamphetamine.

TEXAS, CALIFORNIA TAKE VERY DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO 'SANCTUARY CITY' DEBATE

Supporters for Vidal-Jaime, who is being held in Chula Vista for deportation proceedings, say the woman has been wrongly implicated in a criminal investigation and argue that otherwise she would not have let officers in the apartment.

Tuesdays protest was organized by Claudia Rueda, a daughter of the couple who is an immigration activist.

Despite being told she would not be detained as long she cooperated, my mother was apprehended during an illegally conducted raid at my apartment,she said in a statement to Los Angeles Times.

I know my mother is innocent, and both [the Sheriffs Department and Border Patrol] know that, which is why they were supposed to let her go.

VOLUNTEERS ACCOMPANY US IMMIGRANTS TO COURT TO ALLAY FEARS

According to the Times, the woman entered the U.S. in 2001.

Her mother didnt have anything to do with this, said Marcela Hernandez, one of the organizers, to the Times. [She] didnt know anything about anything in the apartment. She let them in.

Originally posted here:
Illegal immigrant denies any ties with husband's alleged drug-smuggling ring - Fox News