El Paso-area Border Patrol agents delayed two busloads of Los Angeles activists for four hours last week as they were taking part in the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride, sponsored by the AFL-CIO and other unions. The two buses were stopped at the Sierra Blanca checkpoint on Interstate 10, about 70 miles southeast of El Paso, and put into administrative detention, where the riders were questioned. No arrests were made. Some of the riders apparently were illegal immigrants, but federal authorities decided to let them go. A total of eighteen buses left cities throughout the United States are expected to converge on the capital for a rally Oct. 1 to demand amnesty and better protection for illegal immigrants.

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Attorney General John Ashcroft has reportedly agreed to declassify information about how often Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act has been used.

The Attorney General’s concession comes three months after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a challenge to the PATRIOT Act targeting a provision that permits the FBI to request court orders requiring the disclosure of information about suspects’ reading habits, Internet surfing, medical histories, business activities and other information and imposes a gag order on those who are forced to give up the records.

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This week U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the 44-month sentence handed down to Rafael Ruiz, a permanent resident alien from the Dominican Republic, by a U.S. District Court for Conspiracy to Commit Sex Trafficking.

Ruiz operated a house of prostitution in Plainfield, N.J., and was involved in a scheme to smuggle female juveniles from Mexico into the United States for the purpose of prostitution. Ruiz is the fourth defendant to be sentenced out of eight defendants prosecuted under the ICE investigation, called "Operation Sonic."

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A senior immigration inspector is in federal custody for allegedly providing his girlfriend and her family with fake passports and is being held without bail after agents found two unregistered submachine guns with silencers stashed in his closet.

Hector Aybar-Mendez was accused of falsifying the passports of his girlfriend, Rocio Ortega, her two children and an adult niece, and giving them fake identification numbers so they could obtain Social Security cards and jobs.

On Wednesday, Aybar-Mendez, an employee assigned to Orlando International Airport, pleaded not guilty in federal court.