July 20, 2010 by
Printed by News Paper El Diario de Juarez (Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua) 7/19/10
MEXICO’S HIGH RANKING OFFICIAL VIRTUALLY TELLS THE WORLD THAT IT CANNOT WIN THE WAR ON DRUGS AND TURNS HIS HOPES ON THE UNITED STATES TO CURB OUR HUNGER FOR DRUGS. ALL THIS IN THE WAKE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA TELLING ARIZONA SENATOR KYL THAT HE COULD SECURE THE BORDER BUT WON’T BECAUSE IF HE DOES “YOU GUYS [REPUBLICANS] WON’T CONSIDER AMNESTY IF I DO”. SECURING THE BORDER HAS TO BE THE FIRST STEP TO IMMIGRATION REFORM OR THE MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS WILL BE COMING OVER IN RECORD NUMBERS THE MINUTE AMNESTY IS EVEN HINTED. IT’S TIME FOR WASHINGTON TO STOP PLAYING POLITICS WITH AMERICAN CITIZEN’S LIVES AT STAKE. (POSTED BY GARY MEINERT)
Geneva, Switzerland – The President of the Mexican Senate, Carlos Navarrete, confirmed today that his country cannot stop drugs exiting into the United States and the problem needs to be confronted jointly with the United States.
“Mexico needs to quickly make a crucial decision to suspend the bloody confrontations that are happening now and to initiate a bi-lateral agreement with the United States in which the United States completely assumes its responsibilities,” (in the war on drugs), Navarrete said before the Third World Conference of the Heads of Parliaments that commenced on Monday in Geneva.
“Mexico confronts a serious situation like no other in history since the 1910 Mexican Revolution. In just the last three and a half years we have had 25,000 people killed in the struggle against narcotrafficking,” explained Navarrete.
The violence brought by the drug cartels has unleashed a battle for control of the drug routes into the United States that has left 7,000 dead just in 2010, and since 2006, has risen to 24,800 dead despite the deployment of more than 50,000 members of the military in the federal operation against narcotics traffickers.
“It is a struggle that has exhausted the Government and the Armed Forces but has shown no reduction of the consumption of drugs or the availability of drugs to the North American society,” stated Navarrete.
“It is a problem that must be addressed in unison between the United States and Mexico and the drug producing countries. We do not have the means of resolving this problem. The incremental increase in violence weighs heavily upon our nation,” said Navarrete.
WASHINGTON (July 15, 2010) –
Drugs, Guns, and 850 Illegal Aliens” is the Center for Immigration Studies’ second web-based film on the impact of illegal alien activity in Arizona. The Center’s first video on the subject, “Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border: Coyotes, Bears, and Trails,” has received over 52,000 views to date. This new 10-minute mini-documentary raises the bar, featuring footage of both illegal-alien entry as well as gun- and drug-smuggling. At minimum, the inescapable conclusion is that hidden cameras reveal a reality that illegal-alien activity is escalating.
The hidden camera footage, acquired from a variety of sources, indicates that there is an unfortunate lack of federal law enforcement presence on Arizona’s federal land on the border in Nogales, in the Coronado National Forest (15 miles inside the border), and the Casa Grande Sector (80 miles inside the border). Also significant to the story are responses received as part of Freedom of Information Act requests made by Janice Kephart, the Center’s Director of National Security Studies, in August 2009. Featured in the film is a 2004 federal government PowerPoint showing the near-complete devastation of a borderland national park due to illegal-alien activity, highlighting the disconnect between the situation on the ground in Arizona and Washington rhetoric.
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Mexican Cartels Demand Payment For Churches To Operate
July 16, 2010 by borderissuesmex
Printed in Cambio de Michoacán News paper(Morelia, Michoacán)
Morelia – The President of the National Fraternity of Evangelical and Christian Churches, Arturo Farela, revealed that various community churches in the State of Michoacán have been threatened by criminal organizations and must pay for the right to operate.
He said says that this is a delicate situation they must get through, not only in Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and Michoacán but in other states as well. There have been threats from different people claiming to be members of organized crime. The churches are told they must pay weekly fees according to the number of members, or the number of seats available or else there will be kidnappings or assassinations of the member or of the member’s family.
The most recent incidents occurred in Michoacán, Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua City and some in the northern regions of Tamaulipas.
On several occasions, Pastors have told these unidentified persons that Christian Evangelical Churches don’t have the money the persons believe the churches to have but they (the unidentified people) may come and take the tithes and offerings that they do get. The ones threatening the churches must understand that the churches don’t charge for baptisms nor for any church functions or celebrations, and that these denominations administer to the members free of charge.
Printed in El Mundo News Paper (San Salvador, El Salvador) 7/12/10
A Salvadorian was detained yesterday when he was caught guiding a group of 10 Africans on the Pan American Highway near the town of Verapaz.
David Reyes Larios, 35, was charged with the crime of Human Trafficking.
The National Civil Police confirmed that Reyes Larios was apprehended at a police checkpoint.
The Africans were traveling in a microbus. Among them were four from Somalia, five from Eritrea and one from Nigeria. The Police said all of them presented personal identification.
Police Investigators determined that Reyes is part of an international human trafficking operation.
SPECIAL NOTE: THE AFRICAN’S DESTINATION WAS THE UNITED STATES.
IN SEARCH OF A PEACEFUL HOME
Printed in Correo News Paper (Leon, Guanajuato) 7-12-10
Porvenir, Chihuahua – It has been 100 years since the Revolution expelled many Mexicans and now thousands flee the narcotraffickers. A house with blue walls, but no roof, welcomes whoever arrives at Porvenir, Chihuahua (The Mexican State Across the border from El Paso, Texas) . Until recently, the house was occupied but now looks like a blacksmith’s shop, only with doors and windows.
This isn’t the only building like this one. In this town in the Juarez Valley, burned homes predominate. Residents left their furniture, clothing and their history. They left out of fear. Those that remain seldom leave their homes. For them, the town has changed to a place of sadness and desolation. One gazes at Porvenir with trembling.
The burned homes form a stark image. They stand silent. The people were displaced by violence–that violence employed by narcotraffickers. It has changed the face of many regions.
People and entire families have been kidnapped and extorted. Confrontations between cartels and protective forces have caught society in a cross-fire in zones controlled by criminals.
In the area of Ciudad Juarez and the entire Juarez Valley, there is talk of more or less 100,000 displaced persons, according to Defender of Human Rights-Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson.
Statistics of the El Paso, Texas, Police Department, indicate that around 30,000 Mexicans have crossed the border into the United States in the last few years because of the violence.
The Juarez Valley, a rural area east of Ciudad Juarez, is one of the areas where displacement due to violence is most evident. In 2007 there were nearly 22,000 residents. Now there are few.
Rodolfo Rubio Salas, Investigator from the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, says, “It is very difficult to say. We have found many abandoned homes. In some villages, 40% to 50% of the people have gone.”
Felix Velez Fernandez, of the National Population Council (Conapo), says there has not been a massive displacement caused by narcotraffick. He said, “I don’t believe the number of displaced persons is significant.”
This is not the first time Mexicans have been displaced because of a war. One can imagine what is happening now in the Juarez Valley, also has been seen in many communities across the country; for example, 100 years ago in the Revolution that left empty houses, burned homes and abandoned fields.
But this is not a revolution that expels people. It is criminal organizations that have provoked the exodus.
July 12, 2010 by borderissuesmex
Hondurans resume tough trip toward the US
Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico – With fear and uncertainty, a little more than 800 migrants board the train to continue their trip to the US. They have been delayed by the torrential rains in the area that have suspended operations of the rail lines. To avoid the abuses and humiliations against such migrants, their trip has been monitored by a group of agencies that includes the Salvadoran Consulate, who will observe their trip up to the state line of Oaxaca. Before leaving Chiapas, the governor ordered water, food and medicine for the stranded travelers. Central Americans’ trip through Mexico is fraught with dangers of kidnappings, robberies, beatings and other abuses, noted a local priest in charge of their temporary shelter.
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Zeta Cartel Assassin Apprehended in Mexico
July 9, 2010 by borderissuesmex
El Universal (Mexico City)
Hector Raul Luna Luna, aka “El Tory,” has been arrested by Mexican officials. This thug, head of the “Zetas” in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, has admitted to the grenade attack against the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey and also to a variety of assassinations and attacks against the military and police in the state of Nuevo Leon. At the time of his capture, along with an accomplice, Luna had a Barrett rifle, a grenade launcher, a pistol known as “cop killer,” two hand grenades, ammo, more than 30 cell phones, plus 20 kilos of weed and “diverse doses of cocaine.” After his capture, his allies attempted to rescue him by blocking streets and shooting at police.
Mexico Gets Serious About Human Smuggling
July 9, 2010 by borderissuesmex
7/2/10
Mexico City – Mexico will begin to impose greater prison terms and fines for human traffickers. Federal officials announced that human trafficking will now carry penalties of 8 to 16 years in prison and fines of minimum 15,000 days’ salary. Up to now, the penalties were 6 to 12 years and 10,000 days’ salary. The new minimum fine translates to some $64,000. The penalties increase by 50% if it involves trafficking minors. The modifications in the law also now permits the authorities to instigate their own investigations. Previously, it required a citizen report of trafficking. Most of the human trafficking encountered in Mexico are those being transported through the country to enter the US. This not only includes foreigners, but Mexican citizens as well. [Ed. note: The "daily wage" fines are apparently based on Mexico's minimum daily wage.]
THE NEWS Miercoles, 7 de Julio de 2010
Demonstrators rally for immigration reform in front of Capitol Hill in March. Arizona’s SB 1070 law is set to take effect July 29.
MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s government on Tuesday said it approved of the Obama administration’s decision to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of an Arizona law cracking down on illegal immigration.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision complements the on-going actions against the SB 1070 law, the Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretariat (SRE) said in a press release Tuesday.
A group of civil organizations appealed the Arizona law on June 22, an initiative backed by the Mexican government as Amicus Curiae.
The SRE acknowledged the sovereign right of all countries to adopt their own laws and policies and to implement them in their territory. “However, when a legislation like the SB 1070 law can potentially affect the human and civil rights of thousands of Mexicans, the Mexican government’s duty is to protect the rights and dignity of its fellow-citizens,” the SRE said, adding that it would follow up on the case regularly.
The U.S. Justice Department’s appeal against the Arizona law, to take effect July 29, set the stage for a clash between the federal government and the state over the nation’s toughest immigration crackdown.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix argues that Arizona’s law requiring state and local police to question and possibly arrest illegal immigrants during the enforcement of other laws such as traffic violations usurps federal authority.
“In our constitutional system, the federal government has pre-eminent authority to regulate immigration matters,” the lawsuit says. “This authority derives from the United States Constitution and numerous acts of Congress.”
Chihuahua state police said.
Police arrived to the Los Almendros subdivision about 6 a.m. to respond to the murder. They have not identified the man who appears to be between 35 and 40 years old. Police reported threatening messages were written on the man’s chest and back.
In total, eight people were killed in Juárez on Sunday, when thousands headed to the polls to elect the mayor and Chihuahua governor. Four have been killed today, state police said.
Among the murders, a man found close to midnight Sunday appeared to have been tortured.
Police said the unidentified man was pierced from his mouth to his genitals with an iron rod. The body of the man between 30 and 35 was also half-burned.
A message to gang members was also left at the scene.
Adriana Gómez Licón may be reached at agomez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6129.
Credit to El Paso Times, El Paso, Texas for this story.
July 6, 2010 by borderissuesmex
You may not see or hear about this on the network news outlets concerning this huge win for AZ law enforcement!
The Phoenix Police Department initiated an investigation of a cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana Trafficking Organization, believed to be operating in the Phoenix Metropolitan area and adjacent states. As the investigation progressed, an organization was identified (Beltran-Morales) that specialized in transportation of both illegal drugs and undocumented aliens. This transportation organization utilized the desert area between Interstate 8 and the Mexican border, east of the Lukeville Port of Entry to smuggle illegal drugs and undocumented aliens into the United States.
Once the transportation group was identified, the Phoenix Police Department partnered with the United States Department of Homeland Security – ICE Investigations Division, United States Border Patrol, Department Public Safety and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to conduct investigative and enforcement efforts in targeted areas between Phoenix and the U.S. / Mexican border.
Investigators determined that transportation occurred in two stages. The first stage utilized undocumented aliens to cross illegal drug loads into the United States and back-pack the loads, ranging between forty (40) and seventy (70) pounds per person, across the desert over several days to a mid point in Pinal County, just south of Interstate 8. On the average they would send two groups of back- packers every other day.
When drug loads arrived in the area south of Interstate 8, the loads were stashed by the back-packers, who utilized both radios and cellular phones to contact a load coordinator and arrange for pick-up. Load coordinators deployed scouts in the area surrounding Interstate 8 to identify and avoid law enforcement officers and arranged for supplies including food and water as well as radios and batteries to be dropped off to the back-packers and scouts while they remained hidden in the desert.
During stage two, when load coordinators determined it was safe to do so, vehicles were dispatched to specific mile post markers along Interstate 8. Drug loads were transferred by the back-packers into vehicles and then driven from the desert up to the Phoenix area where they were transferred to customers and accumulated at “stash houses” prior to being distributed locally and to points outside Arizona.
The back-packers and scouts were also transported to Phoenix where they were paid and provided several days lodging prior to being transported back to Mexico. The transportation organization staggered groups of back-packers, each comprised of 5-8 undocumented aliens with a load capacity of approximately 200 to 500 pounds per group, with multiple groups deployed at any given time providing a continuous supply chain between the border and the desert area south of Interstate 8. Investigators determined this transportation organization provided service to multiple Drug Trafficking Organizations based in Mexico and assisted with moving both illegal drugs into the United States as well as drug proceeds back to Mexico. In addition to bringing the drugs in to the United States some of the back-packers carried assault weapons back across the desert to Mexico to be used by the Drug Cartel.
The movement of each drug load from Mexico to Phoenix involved no less than 100 people from the Mexican border to a stash house in Phoenix. It was necessary to meet an organized criminal operation of this magnitude with at least an equal response from law enforcement, evidenced by the multiple agency coordinated effort, which contributed greatly to the dismantling of this DTO.
Investigative / Enforcement Efforts
Total Recap
Search Warrants: 27
Traffic Stops / Interdictions / Knock and Talks: 13
Arrests / Indicted: 36
Marijuana: 3453 lbs
Cocaine: 4 ½ Kilos
Methamphetamine: 8 lbs
Cash: $326,828.00
Vehicles: 21
Guns: 26
As Arizona immigration law looms, local
tensions mount
With the controversial law poised to take effect,
residents and l aw enforcement officials struggle
to make sense of the situation in the town of Benson,
Ariz.
BENSON, ARIZ. -- Paul Moncada , the silver-haired
police chief of this highwa y town , spent a recent
morning anxiously checking th e T V f or news
about Arizona's controversial new immigration
law, set to take effect in a matter of days.
He sifted through stacks of state training materials,
which still left him with lots of questions. And he
worried about the frustrated people in town who
might sue him for not enforcing the new law well
enough, the frustrated people in town who might
accuse him of racial profiling and the thousands
who cross the blazing desert around here and
whose lives he is also duty-bound to protect.
"There's pressure from all sides, and I understand all the sides," said Moncada, 56, who grew up here and has served on the force 34 years. "I'm just telling my officers: Do your job. It's nerve-racking."
A federal judge has scheduled a hearing Thursday on an Obama administration lawsuit, one of three challenging the Arizona law, which requires officers to check the immigration status of people they arrest or cite for any violation if they have "reasonable suspicion" the person is in the United States illegally. The law has renewed the contentious national debate over immigration reform, sparked huge protests in Tucson and Phoenix and spawned the possibility of similar laws in other states.
Its effects have been somewhat quieter, if no less divisive, in Benson, a town of about 5,000 people, a third of Hispanic descent, about an hour's drive from the Mexican border. It is a tourist stopover and mostly working-class community of flat-roofed adobe homes, pebbly RV parks and more upscale enclaves such as San Pedro Ranches on the edges of town. And as elsewhere, the debate here has mingled with an already trying situation. The troubled economy forced the state to clip Benson's budget, and unemployment, foreclosures and minor crime linked mostly to drug addicts has cast some gloom upon the city motto, "Hang out in Benson!"
Some residents have come to associate a general sense of decline with illegal immigration, which is visible here in the desert litter of backpacks and water jugs, and in the crammed-full vans that drivers sometimes ditch along the highways, sending passengers fleeing. In that context, the new law has inspired feelings from profound unease to a kind of righteous victory, which often sort along ethnic lines.
A sense of fear
"Amen" is what Danna Judd said when Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law in April.
She and her husband, Bevin, a UPS salesman, moved from Tucson to a new house on 22 acres in San Pedro Ranches three years ago, but their rural-lifestyle fantasy was quickly spoiled. They found stashes of clothes when they were out for desert walks. They found a smuggler's van abandoned in their gravel driveway. More recently, they arrived home with their two kids from an evening baseball game to a scene of floodlights and U.S. Border Patrol agents scrambling across their property.
"My neighbor called and said they were chasing around 20 people," Bevin Judd said. They ushered the kids to bed, turned on all the lights and locked the doors.
Like many who grew up in Benson, Bevin Judd remembers giving bread and water to Mexican farmworkers who crossed through town when he was a kid. He remembers leaving doors unlocked, keys in the car. "But now it almost seems like there's a criminal element to it," he said. The sense that crime has increased with illegal immigration isn't supported by either local or statewide crime statistics, although that is difficult for some around here to believe.
"It makes you afraid," said Danna Judd, a deputy city clerk. "You don't know who is out there. Are they drug smugglers? Do they have guns?"
To the Judds' relief, the one person who definitely does have guns is their neighbor Bob Dekoschak, 62, who was cleaning out his horse barn in the late afternoon. The wind blew the chimes. His wife, Elise, arrived home from work, and they sat under ceiling fans in their library packed with James Michener novels and books on Latin American culture.
By Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill
Army News Service
Posted Jul 22, 2010 @ 10:36 AM
Washington, D.C. —
Up to 1,200 National Guard troops will deploy to the Southwest border with
Mexico Aug. 1, the chief of the National Guard Bureau said in a joint
announcement with Obama administration officials at the Pentagon.
“We’re very pleased to be in support of our interagency partners,”
said Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley. The 1,200 troops will support Border
Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities in
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
“We’ll make sure that all our Soldiers and Airmen are well-qualified,
well-integrated and well-briefed on the mission,” McKinley said.
“We are pleased because along the Southwest border we have had an
integration effort of counter-narcotics for over two decades, with 300
of our National Guard men and women already working with our interagency
partners,” he said, referring to the National Guard’s Counterdrug Program.
The National Guard Counterdrug Program supports local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, community-based organizations and combatant commanders in the fight against illicit drugs and transnational threats to the homeland, Guard officials said.
“The National Guard is there to support the efforts of law enforcement, not to have a direct law enforcement role,” said Alan Bersin, commissioner of customs and border protection. “The National Guard has done that extremely well in the past, and we trust they’ll do so again on this occasion.”
The cost of the deployment is to be split equally between the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
The largest number of troops, 524, is slated to deploy in Arizona. Meanwhile, an estimated 250 will deploy in Texas, 224 in California and 72 in New Mexico. Additional troops from these states will also serve in command and control or support positions.
The deployment is expected to peak in October and in June, 2011, when the Border Patrol anticipates hiring an additional 1,000 agents.
The majority of the Guard members will support the Border Patrol with entry identification teams and support ICE with criminal investigative analysts, defense officials said.
The criminal investigative analysts will assist ICE agents in reducing the flow of illegal bulk currency and weapons from the United States to Mexico.
The National Guard members are expected to be volunteers and McKinley said no overseas deployments are affected.
Copyright 2010 The Fort Leavenworth Lamp. Some rights reserved
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By JULIA PRESTON
Published: January 14, 2011
The Department of Homeland Security on Friday canceled a project
to build a technology-based “virtual fence” across the Southwest
border, saying that the effort — on which $1 billion has already been
spent — was ineffective and too costly.
Enlarge This Image
John Moore/Getty Images
Richard Funke, a United States Border Patrol agent, inspects the
junction of the new and old border fence near Nogales, Ariz.
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Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, said she had
decided to end the five-year-old project, known as SBI-Net, because it
“does not meet current standards for viability and cost effectiveness.” In a statement, Ms. Napolitano said border agents would instead use less expensive technology that is already part of their surveillance equipment, tailoring it to the specific terrain where they will be scouting for illegal border crossers and drug traffickers.
Ms. Napolitano’s decision brought a long-expected close to a project carried out by the Boeing Corporation under a contract first signed in 2005 under President George W. Bush, which had been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Originally estimated to cost more than $7 billion to cover the 2,000-mile length of the border, it was the subject of more than a dozen scathing reports by the Government Accountability Office.
In a pilot program in Arizona, it cost about $1 billion to build the system across 53 miles of the state’s border. Officials said the new approach, using mobile surveillance systems and unmanned drones already in the Border Patrol’s arsenal, would cost less than $750 million to cover the remaining 323 miles of Arizona’s border.
Ms. Napolitano suspended financing for the project in March and ordered a review, which was just completed.
But officials moved slowly to cancel the project because it had been ensnared in the contentious debate over border security. Many Republican lawmakers have accused the Obama administration of being lax on enforcement, and they have said they would not consider an overhaul of immigration laws that President Obama supports until the border is tighter.
Anticipating criticism, homeland security officials released documents on Friday showing big increases in the Border Patrol — to 20,500 today from 10,000 in 2004 — and other border agents, and a steep decline in the number of immigrants detained at the border, indicating fewer illegal crossings. About 463,000 illegal crossers were detained last year, compared with 724,000 in 2008, according to the figures.
Ms. Napolitano said she had concluded that the original concept of the project, to develop a single technology that could be used across the entire border, was not viable. Boeing had built a complex system of sensors, radars and cameras mounted on towers that was supposed to lead border agents to the exact location of illegal crossers. But the system functioned inconsistently in the rough terrain along much of the border.
“There is no one-size-fits-all solution to meet our border technology needs,” Ms. Napolitano said.
The announcement came in advance of the expiration of the Boeing contract next Tuesday, a homeland security official said.
In a statement, Boeing noted that officials said they would continue to use equipment it had designed. “We appreciate that they recognize the value of the integrated fixed towers Boeing has built, tested and delivered so far,” the company said.
Representative Peter T. King, the New York Republican who is the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, criticized the administration for being slow to end the program. “I continue to have very serious concerns about the Obama administration’s lack of urgency to secure the border,” he said.
