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BORDER NEWS
Four Chinese nationals were sentenced in federal court in San Diego for their roles in a large scale smuggling scheme in which 150 people were found aboard a boat in international waters off Baja California.  They received sentences between three and six years, based on the evidence of individual involvement in the scheme.  The case was unusual because rather than negotiate with Mexico to take custody of the boat, which was discovered in international waters off the Mexican coast, US officials brought it to the US to try the smugglers.  The passengers are still in the US, pending asylum hearings.
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A few months ago the news media was filled with stories of the hostage crisis at a Louisiana prison where Cuban detainees had taken the warden and several deputies hostage to protest their situation.  The crisis was resolved with the surprise agreement to deport the detainees to Cuba.  While on board the plane to return, one of the men was removed and delivered to local law enforcement officials.  He has since been sentenced to 40 years for the attempted murder of a police officer, and 15 years for cocaine possession, and he still faces charges relating to the prison uprising.  Ironically, his mother was instrumental in resolving the crisis by convincing the detainees that the promise of deportation to Cuba was genuine. 
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The US Department of Justice has initiated denaturalization proceedings against Fedir Kwoczak, claiming that he has a participant in Nazi war crimes.  It is assumed that if Kwoczak is stripped of his citizenship he will then be placed in removal proceedings.  According to the Justice Department, Kwoczak lied on his immigrant visa application in 1949, claiming to have been a laborer during the war, when in fact he was a member of the SS and a guard in death and labor camps in Poland.  Since 1979, when it was founded, the Office of Special Investigations has stripped 63 alleged Nazi of their citizenship and deported 52.
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Three men are facing life in prison after entering guilty pleas to charges of smuggling dozens of people across the California-Mexico border.  The incident, which occurred last April, left five people dead.  According to survivors, the men led them on the three day walk during which they encountered a snowstorm for which they were unprepared.  The men will be sentenced in April.
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A woman with ties to the political establishment of Thailand has been sentenced to eight years and one month in prison for harboring undocumented immigrants, forcing them into involuntary servitude, and fraudulently using their signatures to make credit card purchases.  She has also been ordered to make restitution to the bank that was defrauded in the credit card scheme, more than ,000.
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The leader of a counterfeit document ring has been sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison.  According to the government, fraudulent documents created by the ring were found in 32 states and the Virgin Islands.  Government agents also seized 2.1 million documents from a storage facility in the largest such seizure ever.