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FROM: Roy Beck, executive director, NumbersUSA
DATE: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday 14aug02
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Dear friends,
Kris Eggle, a U.S. park ranger assisting
a Border Patrol Agent, was shot to
death last Friday in an increasingly lawless,
violent region along the
Mexican border.
The protection of our American quality
of life and American-style wages is
dependent on our uniformed folks on our
borders being able to deter or stop
most from trying to enter this country
illegally. All of us who have toured
our land border regions know how dangerous
this work can be.
Following is a short news story about Kris
Eggle's death and then a poignant
first-person account by John Malone, a
Border Patrol Agent who was on the
scene when Kris Eggle died. You may want
to read this as a sign of respect
to Kris and to all those uniformed men
and women who risk their lives to
protect the quality of our lives.
I encourage you to send this to all you
know to remind them that we leave
these people under-equipped, undermanned
and underfunded while they take
incredible risks on our behalf.
While we constantly berate the INS for
its incompetence and its failure to
respect the law, this email from John
Malone reminds us that we have
wonderful friends on the line in the Border
Patrol and in Interior
Enforcement.
The story and email below don't name Kris
Eggle because his family had not
yet been notified. Retired Border Patrol
Agent David Stoddard who lives near
the Ariz/Mexico border (and who provided
me with a haunting night tour of
that border in the wee hours of Sep 11
last year) has vouched for the
authenticity of message from Malone (who
I don't know).
-- ROY
Tucson Citizen
By Adam Borowitz
Aug. 10, 2002
A park ranger was shot and killed Friday
at the Organ Pipe Cactus National
Monument as he pursued a Mexican national
on the run from Mexico.
The Mexican national also was shot and
killed, but it was unclear who shot
him. The identity of the park ranger was
withheld, pending notification of
relatives.
Officials said the pursuit began east of
Lukeville, a port of entry about 40
miles south of Ajo.
Mexican officials contacted U.S. Customs
on Friday to report that two men
had fled over the border into the park,
said David Hutson, chief of
interpretation and visitor services at
Organ Pipe. Officials did not know
why the men fled Mexico.
The ranger, a law-enforcement officer at
the park, and three U.S. Border
Patrol agents responded as a Border Patrol
helicopter searched for the men,
Hutson said.
The helicopter spotted their vehicle about
a half-mile from the border,
officials said, and agents arrested one
of the men without incident.
Agents in the helicopter spotted the second
man a short time later and
directed the park ranger to him, Hutson
said. The man opened fire on the
ranger when he approached, striking him
below his body armor at least once.
He died en route to a hospital, Hutson
said.
The ranger was one of fewer than a dozen
workers at Organ Pipe. The
tight-knit crew mourned the loss of one
of their own late Friday.
"With a small overall staff, we're all
pretty close here, so you can imagine
what it's like," Hutson said.
Organ Pipe was labeled the most dangerous
in the national park system in a
2001 survey by the Fraternal Order of
Police chapter for park rangers.
Yesterday, a federal officer lost his life
on the border in AZ. I was
working. I heard the radio caller
announcing a "lookout" for a vehicle
loaded with weapons that was going to
be driven across the border. A little
while later, while I was processing some
aliens for "Voluntary Removal", I
heard the Ajo Border Patrol Agent talk
to the National Park Service Ranger
about working some pedestrian activated
sensor traffic several miles north
of the International Border. The
Ajo agent is fairly new. He has been here
less than 2 years. The Park Ranger
became permanent at Organ Pipe National
Monument about 2 years ago. Before
that, he was "seasonal".
Sometime after that, I heard that one of
the helicopter pilots from our
neighboring sector in Yuma (who provide
Ajo agents with more air assistance
than our own sector), involved in some
activity near Lukeville. I began to
realize that the Border Patrol Agent,
the Park Ranger, and the pilot were
all working the vehicle traffic near Lukeville
and not the pedestrian
traffic from the sensor activation's.
It was a little hard to follow, but I
didn't have a good feeling about how it
was going to develop.
As I have told many of you before, the
Ajo station is actually in Why, some
30 miles north of the border. Lukeville
is the Port of Entry (POE) at the
terminus of (AZ) State Route 85 on the
border with Mexico. In this area,
there is a road that parallels the border
"fence" both east and west of the
POE. It is one of the very few dirt
"roads" in the area. The objective of
the alien and dope smugglers is to get
to the highway. Once there, the next
step is to blend in with traffic and avoid
the "temporary" checkpoint set up
5 or so miles south of the station in
Why. As some of you have seen, the
area is sparsely vegetated and consists
of rocky hills and small mountains.
These small mountains and the valleys
and washes cause radio signal strength
to be weak or non-existent in some areas.
Sorry for the digression. As best
I could tell, the situation was getting
distorted. The pilot was trying
to direct the agents to the vehicle and
occupants (at some point it must have
stopped). He identified at least 2
bad guys and that at least one of them
had a "long arm" (rifle). There were
Mexican officials south of the illegal
vehicle. I know this because the
pilot used them as a reference point to
guide the agents. The pilot's radio
transmissions were very distorted with
static and helicopter whine so it was
difficult to understand what he as saying
some times. I don't remember if I
heard any of the agents on the ground
use the radio. I do remember that our
sector dispatch was calling out sensor
activation's (usually normal radio
traffic) and there was some other non-related
radio traffic on the same
frequency. At one point, an agent
not involved in the incident asked for
all radio traffic to cease except for
those involved in the incident. This
started a dialogue between that agent
and the dispatch that lasted a minute
or two.
At some point (around 12:30 PM), I loaded
my illegal aliens for their return
trip south and was starting to leave the
station when I heard the pilot say,
"officer down". I made a conscious
decision to continue what I started in
the vehicle I was in. I figured
it would take too long to unload my aliens,
lock them in a cell, try and find another
"law enforcement" vehicle, and
start south. I drove way faster
than I should have in the vehicle (an
unmarked '97 Ford Van with almost 200,000
miles on it) and with my
passengers. I arrived at the POE
about 20 minutes later and discharged my
passengers and tried to assist.
On the way down, I was passed by at least 5
other BP units running code (lights and
siren). About 5 or 6 miles north
of the POE, I passed the Border Patrol
Agent driving the shot Park Ranger
north to rendezvous with an ambulance.
By then, 5 or 6 law enforcement
vehicles were coming off of the border
road.
I turned around to look for some way to
help. When I arrived at the back of
the POE, I saw the shot Park Ranger's
fellow Ranger, and several other
officers I didn't know, performing lifesaving
measures on the wounded bad
guy. I saw that I was not needed
there and drove north to assist with
traffic control near the air evacuation
site. The first person I saw when I
arrived where the ambulance was stopped
(12 miles north) was the Ajo Border
Patrol Agent who was with the Park Ranger
the whole time. He was positioned
with a Customs Special Agent where he
could direct traffic on the 2 lane
road. The look on his face was pure
emotional anguish. I parked my van and
set out to do what I could.
I could see in the ambulance that at least
2 paramedics (EMT's?) were
working on the Ranger. There was
also someone else inside. There were at
least 2 more BP Agents a few yards north
of the ambulance. I talked to the
BP agent that was with the Park Ranger.
He was distraught. He wanted
reassurance that he had done all that
he could. I listened to him and
reassured him that he did. After
spending some time with him, I walked
towards the ambulance. I shouted
through the open ambulance doors at the
Park Ranger and told him to "hang on".
I didn't want to be a strap hanger;
I just wanted to offer some encouragement.
I went back to the BP Agent and
tried to help.
I don't remember what time I arrived at
the scene of the ambulance. I know
that we radioed to have both north and
southbound traffic stopped. I know
that one agent called our dispatch on
several occasions to ask about the ETA
of the air evac. More than once,
he asked to confirm that there was more
than one helicopter enroute and that they
were going to 2 different
locations. At least one of the calls
was inquiring about the ETA after the
previous ETA had passed. At some
point I noticed that one of the people in
the ambulance was another Park Ranger
that I knew; his name is Bo. Near the
end, he exited the ambulance and walked
away from it and in my general
direction. I walked to him, hugged
him and tried to say something
encouraging. He commented that he
thought it was too late. A little while
later, the helicopter finally landed.
It flew up from the south, the
direction of the POE.
Bo and I walked over to the ambulance so
that we would be ready to help load
up the shot Ranger. We were there
when it was decided that the helicopter
wasn't going to take him. We were
there when the doctor on the other end of
the ambulance frequency called the time
of death (2:40 PM). I watched as
Lonnie (the EMS director and OIC at the
scene) and Bo cried. It seemed like
it was just the three of us. They
both talked to and stroked the dead
Ranger. I put my hand on Bo's back
and held it there until he was through
with his initial moment of grief.
I watched them as they unhooked all of
the IV's and monitors and removed the
pressure suit(?)pants. I saw them
cover him with a blanket.Yesterday, I
saw my first dead person and it was
someone I knew and someone that I worked
with. I didn't stay there much
longer. I took the BP Agent who
was with the shot Ranger back down to the
POE.
When we arrived, we saw that the bad guy
was dead. The dead Ranger's buddy,
who was trying to save the bad guys life,
was sitting with quite a few law
enforcement officers. As I looked
around, I saw Customs and Immigration
Inspectors (who work at the POE), Customs
Special Agents, Border Patrol
Agents, County Deputies, an Air Force
K-9 handler temporarily detailed to
the POE, and a couple of AZ DOT officers
who also work at the POE. It
didn't surprise me. While there
may be some chest thumping and service
rivalry, when one law enforcement officer
needs help out here, there is no
hesitation. We know that sometimes
someone from another agency may be our
only backup because our agency back up
may be 30 miles away.
I want to tell you a little about the dead
Ranger and how I knew him. I
haven't used his name because I don't
know that his parents know yet. I had
the pleasure of meeting them and would
hate to know that they found out by
accidentally receiving this email instead
of the proper way. It will be
difficult enough even then.
I first met the Ranger a few years ago
when he first showed up at Organ Pipe
as a temporary seasonal Ranger.
What I saw then, and what I remember most
about him, was his smile. He always
had one. I don't think that I ever saw
him frown or talk negatively. The
Ranger was young and eager like most new
officers. However, he had been a
seasonal temp for several years before
that in other parks. He wanted to
learn the job, he wanted to learn the
area, and he wanted to catch dope smugglers.
Christmas came about 3 months after he
got here. I remember that 2 other BP
Agents and I were working swing shift
(2PM - 12 AM) Christmas Eve or
Christmas Day near the POE. Sometime
during the shift, he came down and
talked to us for awhile. The Ranger
station and their housing area that he
lived in is about 5 miles north of the
POE. He told us that his family
(Mom, Dad, and sister) was visiting him
and he invited us up for Christmas
dinner. Sometime during the night,
we went up and met his family and ate
dinner. We spent an hour or so visiting.
He embodied the true spirit of
Christmas. While we weren't strangers
we weren't family either. I felt
like family that night. His family
welcomed us and shared their food. I
hope I never forget that.
Over the last year or so, I didn't see
him very much. My assignments had me
working on other things and in other areas
so I wasn't working often in
Park. I would occasionally see him
on or off duty and we would play catch
up. He even joked about the fact
that he had me over for Christmas dinner
and then I hadn't been back. About
2 months ago, I ran into him one day and
we spent a little time exchanging things
that were going on in our lives.
That was the last time I saw him until
today.
I wrote this email for several reasons.
I know it is long. I could
probably spend an hour or so editing it;
but I won't. I wrote from my
perspective; not to talk about me or my
actions but to use what I saw to
describe the people and events.
I wrote it to tell you what happened as I
know it. I wrote it to tell you
how one officer's death affected me. I
wrote it to help me grieve. And,
I wrote it to point out a few things that
are wrong with this job and the approach
that our management and government
officials are taking with the border issues.
A National Park Service Ranger
died assisting a Border Patrol Agent with
his job. We are undermanned, our
technology (communications, vehicles,
weapons, uniforms,etc.) is out dated
and ineffective, our national border policies
are too political, the 9th US
Circuit Court of Appeals is out of touch
with reality, the court dockets are
so full that we can't prosecute those
that need to be, and the smugglers are
getting more aggressive. I have
yet to see the results of the other
shooting incident investigations.
Our management never officially (through
email) notified us of these events.
How are we, the agents, supposed to
learn from these situations? It's
almost as if they didn't occur.
In the 5 years that I have been at this
station, I don't recall a single
incident where a Border Patrol Agent was
shot at until a couple of months
ago. That incident involved the
Mexican military shooting at the vehicle of
a Border patrol Agent who was doing his
job on our side of the border.
Since then, BP Agents were shot at twice
in one week in 2 different
incidents. Up until yesterday, those
shootings took place on the Tohono
O'dham Indian reservation, in some of
our most remote area. Yesterday was
the first incident I recall occurring
near Lukeville. I may have forgotten
one or two incidents because I am getting
"sometimer's disease". The point
I am making is that the trend of shooting
incidents in our area has
increased dramatically.
I did not write this letter to be a chain
mail. However, I hope that you
will pass it on as you see fit.
There are roughly 9,000 Border Patrol
Agents trying to protect our borders from
the illegal entry of aliens,
terrorists, and drugs. We have a
very small voice in Congress and most
people have no clue what we do, or under
what conditions.
Take a moment to pray or offer your thoughts
to the fallen Ranger. While
you're at it, we would appreciate it if
you said one for the rest of us.
Thanks,
John Malone
Border Patrol Agent
Ajo Station, Tucson Sector, Western Region
The man who shot and killed a National
Park Service ranger near Lukeville
and then died in a hail of gunfire from
Mexican authorities was fleeing a
botched execution over an unpaid marijuana
debt, the Sonoran Attorney
General's Office said in a statement Wednesday.
The attack in Mexico included a commando-style
hit squad composed of a
Tijuana soldier, two ex-soldiers from
Sonora and two men identified only by
their nicknames, according to the office
of the attorney general in
Hermosillo, Miguel Angel Cortes Ibarra.
According to the statement, 19-year-old
Mexican military deserter Jesús
Martín Yescas Zazueta, one of the
members of the hit squad, told
investigators the violent, military-style
raid was conducted on a ranch
house at an ejido, or small farm, southwest
of Sonoyta last Thursday.
He told investigators he was promised $15,000
to participate in the attack
and was paid $5,000 in advance.
The target of the execution was not there
when the hit team arrived,
authorities have said. The hit squad then
kidnapped, beat and killed four
men, according to the statement. Their
bodies were found Friday.
Mexican law enforcement authorities have
issued arrest warrants for two
former soldiers identified as Rogelio
Velasquez Jocobi and Carlos Perez
Sanchez. Before leaving the service two
years ago, the men were based at a
military garrison in southern Sonora,
said Sonora's Deputy Attorney General
Carlos Castillo Ortega.
Investigators are also looking for two
other men known only by the
nicknames "El Gringo" and "El Teofilo."
Meanwhile, the Mexican man U.S. authorities
say killed National Park
Service Ranger Kris Eggle was believed
to be Panfilo Murillo Aguila, alias
"El Zarco," a known narcotics trafficker
operating in the Sonoyta area.
Castillo Ortega said it is not clear what,
if any, role Murillo Aguila
played in the botched execution. There
have been conflicting reports about
whether he hired the killers or was their
target.
The fatal shooting of Eggle, a ranger at
Organ Pipe Cactus National
Monument, occurred when Mexican authorities
chased Murillo Aguila across
the border Friday afternoon. After shooting
Eggle, Murillo Aguila was then
shot to death by Mexican authorities firing
from south of the border.
According to the Hermosillo attorney general's statement:
Yescas Zazueta told Mexican investigators
that he deserted his post at the
Mexican army garrison in Tijuana at the
invitation of Velasquez Jocobi and
Perez Sanchez two days before the shootout
that killed Eggle.
The two told Yescas Zazueta the hit had
been ordered because a man,
nicknamed "El Ray," had accepted and then
failed to pay for a load of
marijuana.
The five-man hit squad, composed of Yescas
Zazueta, Velasquez Jocobi, Perez
Sanchez and two other men, wore military
garb and were armed with handguns
and AK-47 rifles. They made a violent
assault at the ranch southwest of
Sonoyta, capturing four men armed with
handguns. But "El Ray" was nowhere
to be found.
Yescas Zazueta said the four men were loaded
into a Jeep Cherokee, "and
there they bound their eyes and tied their
hands and feet and then they
drove them to the outskirts of the city
where they were taken from the
vehicle, beaten and later shot by his
accomplices."
Meanwhile in Tucson, Dionicio Ramirez-Lopez,
who was arrested by U.S.
officials three miles east of Lukeville
where Eggle was killed, appeared at
a detention hearing in federal court Wednesday.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Jason
Hannan waived a preliminary hearing
on charges of illegally importing ammunition
into the United States.
Authorities have said Ramirez-Lopez was
the man who fled across the border
with Murillo Aguila.
Law enforcement officials have indicated
Ramirez-Lopez did not shoot Eggle,
but under federal law prosecutors can
seek murder charges if a person dies
during the commission of a crime.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Chapman said
Ramirez-Lopez played a role in
the firefight that resulted in Eggle's
death.
It was not known what, if any, role Ramirez-Lopez
had in the incident at
the Sonoyta ranch. He was ordered held
without bond for future proceedings
by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco.
On Aug. 12, more than 700 mourners from
across the country gathered to mark
the tragic murder of Kris Eggle -- a 28-year-old
National Park Service
ranger who was gunned down near the U.S.-Mexico
border last week. Not a
single national network or cable news
station mentioned the memorial
service or the outrageous circumstances
of Eggle's death.
The park where Eggle had been stationed
for two years, Organ Pipe Cactus
National Monument in southern Arizona,
is considered the most dangerous
national park system in the nation, according
to a national survey
conducted by the Fraternal Order of Police.
It is a magnet for illegal
aliens and Mexican smugglers; some 200,000
illegal border-crossers and
700,000 pounds of drugs were intercepted
at the park last year.
Eggle's murder is not an isolated incident.
Several wild shootouts in the
Southwest have occurred since April. Our
borders remain out of control --
open channels not only for illegal aliens
and drug smugglers, but
terrorists, too. Invaders are so brazen,
say Border Patrol agents, that
they've cleared their own roads through
Organ Pipe Cactus National
Monument. Calls for increased border patrol
resources, park ranger staffing
and military help have been ignored in
Washington. The Bush administration
remains far more concerned with appeasing
Mexican President Vicente Fox
than with protecting American men and
women at the border.
The Associated Press, August 22, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The fatal shooting of
a park ranger helping to apprehend
two men who had crossed the U.S.-Mexican
border prompted Rep. Tom Tancredo
to seek a congressional hearing into the
homeland
security role of public
land officers.
National Park Service Ranger Kris Eggle,
28, was shot to death Aug. 9 in
the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
while helping to chase two men
suspected by Mexican officials of killing
four men over a drug debt.
One suspect was killed and the other was arrested.
Tancredo, R-Colo., said officers with the
U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau
of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife
Service and the National Park
Service stationed along the border are
being forced to patrol thousands of
acres of the frontier without being given
adequate resources.
"They're not really trained for that,"
Tancredo said. "We need to take a
good look at exactly what their role should
be."
Tancredo asked Rep. George Radanovich,
R-Calif., chairman of the parks
subcommittee, and Rep. Scott McInnis,
R-Colo., chairman of the forests
subcommittee, to hold a hearing on the
issue when Congress returns from its
August recess.
Tancredo, chairman of the Congressional
Immigration Reform Caucus, has
called for a crackdown along the U.S.-Mexican
border, including using
military patrols.
He recently toured both the northern and
southern borders and said
Wednesday that morale is abysmal on both
because Border Patrol agents and
park rangers don't believe they are getting
the support needed to do their
jobs.
Ranger's
border killing prompts call for hearing
The Associated Press, August 22, 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The fatal shooting of
a park ranger helping to apprehend
two men who had crossed the U.S.-Mexican
border prompted Rep. Tom Tancredo
to seek a congressional hearing into the
homeland security role of public
land officers.
National Park Service Ranger Kris Eggle,
28, was shot to death Aug. 9 in
the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
while helping to chase two men
suspected by Mexican officials of killing
four men over a drug debt.
One suspect was killed and the other was arrested.
Tancredo, R-Colo., said officers with the
U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau
of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife
Service and the National Park
Service stationed along the border are
being forced to patrol thousands of
acres of the frontier without being given
adequate resources.
"They're not really trained for that,"
Tancredo said. "We need to take a
good look at exactly what their role should
be."
Tancredo asked Rep. George Radanovich,
R-Calif., chairman of the parks
subcommittee, and Rep. Scott McInnis,
R-Colo., chairman of the forests
subcommittee, to hold a hearing on the
issue when Congress returns from its
August recess.
Tancredo, chairman of the Congressional
Immigration Reform Caucus, has
called for a crackdown along the U.S.-Mexican
border, including using
military patrols.
He recently toured both the northern and
southern borders and said
Wednesday that morale is abysmal on both
because Border Patrol agents and
park rangers don't believe they are getting
the support needed to do their
jobs.
Migrants are passing through northern Sonora
at the same rate this week as
last despite a massive Mexican police
operation targeting people-smugglers
along the border.
The operation began late Friday and involved
about 800 Mexican officers,
almost one-fourth of whom went to Altar,
a city about 120 miles southwest
of Tucson.
Without giving local officials prior notice,
180 officers of the Federal
Preventive Police took up positions in
strategic locations throughout Altar
and searched for people-smuggling suspects
throughout the night, said Mayor
Francisco Garcia Aten.
At the same time, officers were searching
houses and hotels in the nearby
towns of Sonoyta, Caborca and Sasabe,
among others.
The operation lasted all weekend and led
to the arrests of 10 people, said
Nicolas Suarez Valenzuela, a Mexican police
official, in a written statement.
But migrants continue passing through Altar
at the relatively low summer
rates, the mayor said. About 400 are passing
through town per day, Garcia
Aten said.
For more than a year, Altar has been the
principal gateway to the
Arizona-Mexico border for people trying
to enter the United States
illegally. It's the place where most border-crossers
stay and make
arrangements with their smugglers before
walking across the dangerous
deserts between Tucson and Lukeville.
In that desert area, at least 66 people
are known to have died since the
beginning of June, according to an Arizona
Daily Star compilation of
border-death reports.
Suarez Valenzuela called northwestern Sonora
the endpoint of the routes
used by three "macro-organizations" of
people-traffickers targeted in the
investigation.
These traffickers are moving groups of
Central and South Americans, as well
as Mexicans, Suarez Valenzuela said.
One of the organizations targeted by the
raids was the one led by Evodio
Manilla Cabrera, Suarez Cabrera said.
U.S. officials have accused Manilla Cabrera,
alias "El Negro," of being the
ringleader of the group that sent 14 Mexican
border-crossers to their
deaths along the Yuma County-Pima County
line in May 2001.
The Justice Department has asked Mexico
to arrest and extradite Manilla
Cabrera, and that apparently was an objective
of the operation, but Mexican
officers did not find him.
The impact of the lightning raid was not
long-lasting in Sonoyta, either, a
municipal spokesman said.
That city was the point of departure for
the 14 people who died along the
Yuma-Pima line.
It's also the biggest town in the area
where six people were killed in
connection to drug trafficking on Aug.
8 and 9, including National Park
Service ranger Kris Eggle.
After those slayings, the mayor asked for help from state police.
Those police arrived Aug. 12 and began
conducting operations in search of
guns and drugs, city spokesman Miguel
Armenta Ramirez said.
That reduced the level of activity in Sonoyta
even before the Federal
Preventive Police arrived, he said.
The Republican National Committee's mail-order fundraisers often contain a comprehensive multiple-choice survey so that prospective donors can give their opinions on topics of national importance. One issue, however, is conspicuously missing from the list: border security/immigration.
The omission isn't an oversight; it's a deliberate policy. The National Republican Congressional Committee has been advising its candidates not to mention this issue in their speeches or campaign literature.
This policy is in spite of the fact that House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO) gave Republicans the opportunity to seize the high ground on this issue when he addressed the radical leftwing Hispanic group, the National Council of La Raza, in Miami on July 22. He announced a Democratic Party plan to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Nothing is more unpopular with the voters than amnesty (which Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) called "sheer lunacy"). If the powers that be in the Republican Party don't realize this, they are out of touch with the grass roots.
The shyness of the Republican Party and the Bush Administration about immigration explains why they manifest a deafening silence about Rep. George Gekas's (R-PA) bill (H.R. 5013) called Securing America's Future through Enforcement Reform (SAFER). It's completely in accord with public opinion polls showing that the big majority of the American people want government to reduce the number of legal immigrants, to stop the irresponsible issuance of visas, to deport illegal aliens, and to use U.S. troops to guard our borders (instead of the borders of Eastern Europe).
Title I, called Securing the Border, would increase the number of INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) investigators and enforcement personnel, lengthen criminal sentences for alien smuggling, beef up the Border Patrol, and use U.S. military troops until the Border Patrol reaches full strength. It would stop granting visas in countries that refuse to cooperate in combating alien smuggling.
Title II, called Screening Aliens Seeking Admission, would tighten up the visa program in order to reduce the risk of aliens using fraudulent passports, require in-person interviews before issuing all visas, and bar any alien who is a member of a terrorist group or supports terrorism. Most people don't understand why this isn't already the law.
Title III, called Tracking Aliens Present in the United States, would establish a comprehensive entry-exit control system with registration and fingerprinting (which INS has promised for years but never implemented). At least 40% of illegal aliens (including several 9/11 terrorists) are visa overstayers.
Title IV, called Removing Alien Terrorists, Criminals, and Human Rights Violators, would authorize INS to deport any alien who was inadmissible in the first place or who we have grounds to believe may be a terrorist. This title would reverse several court decisions that accord unreasonable "rights" to terrorists claiming asylum, and would prevent the courts from releasing criminal aliens into the community.
Title V, called Enhancing Enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act in the Interior, would protect Social Security cards against counterfeiting and fraudulent use. This title would increase the number of INS investigators, as repeatedly requested by INS, and double the number of INS detention beds.
Title VI would eliminate excessive review and dilatory and abusive tactics by aliens in deportation proceedings. It would also exclude aliens who knowingly make a false asylum application.
Title VII would clean up the problem of voting by illegal aliens. It would require verification of citizenship for voters and applicants. Voting by illegal aliens and by persons who don't speak English was a major reason why good Congressmen such as Bob Dornan and Jim Rogan were defeated.
Title VIII, called Reforming Legal Immigration, would repeal the infamous Diversity Immigrant Program which admits 50,000 immigrants a year, mostly from the Third World including countries that sponsor terrorism, and which helped the Fourth of July LAX murderer win U.S. residency. It would reform the abuses in the refugee program and in the extended-family visa program. It would reduce the number of legal immigrants by 20%, which would still leave immigration nearly double the traditional level. INS is unable to cope with its current backlog of five million applications.
Rep. Gekas, chairman of the Immigration
Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, will start hearings on his bill
in September. He should then add one more section to require INS to screen
out aliens with diseases such as West Nile virus, malaria, Chagas disease,
intestinal parasites, and tuberculosis. The BBC reported that the current
epidemic of West Nile virus (a central African disease) was probably brought
to America for the first time three years ago by an imported exotic bird.
The Centers for Disease Control reported that 16,000 foreign birds passed
unscreened for West Nile virus through JFK airport in 1999. Where are the
environmentalists when we need them?
Health Care Costs from Open Borders
The big health-care debate in Congress
this summer was over the wrong issue. Instead of threatening to bankrupt
Medicare by forcing the taxpayers to buy prescription drugs for seniors,
Congress should relieve the taxpayers and paying-patients of the burden
of providing hospital care for illegal aliens.
From Florida to California, illegal aliens show up at hospital emergency rooms and the costs are passed along to paying patients and to local taxpayers. The American Hospital Association estimates that the costs of bad-debt and charity care run into the billions.
A Martin County, Florida, hospital has spent $900,000 (with no end in sight) caring for a Guatemalan illegal who appeared at the emergency room two years ago with a brain injury after an automobile accident. He has no money and no family, but somehow he has a lawyer who has successfully prevented deportation to Guatemala. A Jamaican illegal spent 17 months under care at the same hospital. After he ran up a bill of $500,000, he was finally sent home to Jamaica. St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach treats one or two illegals a week and Delray Medical Center about 75 a month. Hospitals are required to provide care to anyone who shows up with a life-threatening condition.
Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) has persuaded the General Accounting Office to study the financial costs that illegal aliens impose on hospitals. He says "we need to remedy this problem before we can no longer afford to take care of Americans."
Many Arizona hospitals have to treat automobile accident victims of dangerous driving by what are called "people smugglers." Two Tucson hospitals were stuck with treating a half dozen illegal aliens who were injured in a nighttime crash of their car traveling on the highway at 100 miles an hour.
A San Antonio hospital treated victims suffering from dehydration after up to 70 men, women and children were discovered by police in a tractor-trailer rig at a truck stop. Another tractor-trailer rig loaded with 40 illegal aliens, two of them dead from suffocation, was found in July in Dallas.
The Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, California, has been caring for a comatose Mexican illegal ever since he got drunk and was struck by a car in May. He can't pay for the care, of course, but his lawyer is fighting his deportation to a Tijuana hospital.
San Diego hospitals had to face the burden of caring for 31 accident victims (not counting the seven who were killed) when a van carrying illegals from Mexico and Brazil crashed going the wrong way on an interstate at night with its headlights turned off.
Some aliens look upon an automobile accident as their entry ticket into the United States. They get treated at an American hospital and then may be released into no one's custody, and no one has any figures on the numbers.
Last year the taxpayers who finance Medicaid paid the hospital bill for 6,000 illegal aliens to have their babies in Colorado. This totaled $30 million, an average of $5,000 per baby. Those 6,000 births to illegal aliens are 40% of the births Medicaid paid for in Colorado. Those 6,000 babies immediately became U.S. citizens and qualified for all Medicaid services at a cost that is not even tabulated.
To get immediate care, the illegal only has to say she is "undocumented." Pregnant American mothers can't avoid their birth-of-a-baby expenses so easily. Denver Health is asking taxpayers to approve a bond issue to pay for a bigger obstetrics unit. The present unit was built for 1,600 births a year but last year it handled 3,500.
This Colorado information was reported by Al Knight of the Denver Post editorial board. He concluded with a fascinating comment: "There are many groups and interests that for one reason or another don't want this information to be available or to be discussed."
He didn't identify the "groups and interests."
Who they are would be a good question to ask your Member of Congress, along
with why Congress isn't doing its duty to protect Americans from the influx
of illegal aliens.
Diseases Aliens Bring into the U.S.
Scores of Americans have come down with
the disease called West Nile virus, and more than a dozen have already
died. The Louisiana Governor says his state "is an emergency situation."
Carried by mosquitoes, West Nile virus causes flu-like symptoms and a potentially
fatal brain inflammation. There is no cure. Many horses have been infected.
West Nile virus is a disease that comes from central Africa, and it was
unknown in the United States prior to 1999. Now it has been found in at
least 34 states. Even the pro-immigration New York Times reported (8-13-02):
"The wide swath that West Nile has cut in just three years illustrates
how vulnerable the United States is to imported diseases."
The Centers for Disease Control recently announced the deaths of the first American victims of Chagas disease. Chagas disease is caused by a parasite that is spread when a so-called "kissing bug" bites a human and then defecates while it feeds. The feces contain the parasite, which can enter the human either when the bitten person scratches the bite or from eating contaminated uncooked food. Chagas infection can lead to various disorders such as obstruction of the colon or esophagus, and is often fatal if untreated.
The Chagas disease in the United States has been traced to a Central American immigrant. More than 16 million people are infected with the parasite in Central America, and health officials estimate that 100,000 Latin American residents in the United States now carry the parasite.
Immigration officials are supposed to screen out immigrants who are carrying diseases, but of course there is no health screening for illegal aliens, who are coming into our country by the hundreds of thousands every year.
Tuberculosis, which had been on the way to eradication in the United States, is now rising rapidly because of immigration. In California, the state health department reports that 75% of all TB patients were born outside the United States.
When are the American people going to wake up to the diseases, followed by the costs to our health care system, that result from the massive numbers of aliens coming into the United States at the present time, especially from Third World countries?
Instead of dealing with these existing health-care burdens, some members of Congress are trying to hit the taxpayers with even more costs for illegal aliens. They are trying to make illegal aliens eligible for in-state tuition rates at publicly funded colleges and universities.
Texas, California and New York are already
subsidizing these aliens who have broken our laws while discriminating
against students in lawful, taxpaying families from the other 49 states.
A student from Arizona, for example, pays four times as much to attend
the University of California as an illegal alien.
Another Immigration Loophole: 245(i)
Legal aliens are an even bigger problem
than illegals because INS can't cope with the dramatic increase in numbers
or do adequate screening out of terrorists and diseases. All 19 hijackers
on 9/11 entered the United States legally on government-issued visas, several
of whom illegally overstayed their allotted time.
Now we hear there is another way aliens are able to remain in our country. They sneak over our borders illegally, or illegally overstay their visas, and then become legal by exploiting a now-expired loophole known as 245(i), the section in a 1994 federal law that allows an illegal alien to apply for a green card, stay permanently in the United States, and subsequently apply for citizenship.
This amnesty loophole allowed aliens who broke our laws to pay a $1,000 fine and go to the head of the line in front of prospective immigrants who complied with our laws. U.S. law states that aliens must apply in their own countries to get permission to immigrate to the United States.
A million of these loophole aliens have become legal residents since the law was passed. In 2000, these loophole aliens were 28.3% of new legal residents, in 1999 they were 25.4%, and in 1998 they were 29.4%.
Loophole 245(i) expired in April 2001, but the open-borders lobby led by Senator Ted Kennedy has been hard at work to get it renewed. With the active support of the Bush Administration plus scheduling chicanery by the House leadership, renewal passed the House by one vote on March 12.
The 245(i) amnesty is being aggressively promoted by powerful politicians of both parties, including Congressman Dick Gephardt and Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), plus powerful newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal. On May 14, President George W. Bush said, "I wanted a temporary extension of 245(i). . . . I intend to work with Congress to see if we can't get that done here pretty quick."
The open-borders lobby is trying to claim that 245(i) is not amnesty, but the writer Michelle Malkin emphatically proved this claim false. If 245(i) is reinstated, illegal aliens would be allowed to pay a $1000 fee and immediately apply for legal permanent residency. The fine print on the INS website reveals that 245(i) amnesty would include the following types of people: (1) those who illegally overstayed their visas such as 3 of the 9/11 hijackers, (2) those who entered the U.S. illegally such as the New York subway bombing conspirators, (3) those who worked in the U.S. illegally, such as several of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, (4) those who failed to maintain their lawful visa status such as two of the 9/11 hijackers, (5) those who entered under the Visa Waiver Pilot Program, such as the shoe-bomber and the alleged 20th 9/11 hijacker, and (6) those who entered illegally as foreign crewmen such as the fugitive Pakistanis who jumped ship in Norfolk this spring and then disappeared.
The definition of amnesty is a general pardon for offenses against the government, and the purpose of the 245(i) loophole is to pardon illegal aliens for their offense in violating our immigration laws and to allow them to benefit by that violation. Section 245(i) is not designed to address the problems of aliens whose cases have been snarled in the INS bureaucracy. They are taken care of by Section 245(a).
Amnesty of any kind including 245(i) is
not only unfair; it is a very dangerous idea. Tell your Congressman that
all amnesty should be rejected.
Mexico Encourages Illegal Entry
Article IV, Section 4 of the United States
Constitution states that the Federal Government "shall protect each of
[the states] against invasion." What is our government doing about the
invasion that is taking place over our southern border?
Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) says that, since 1996, there have been 118 incursions onto American soil -- 61 of them by Mexican military and 57 by Mexican police. In 90% of the cases, the incursions appeared intentional, and 60% of the time the Mexicans were armed. These Mexican army troops and police officers may have been escorting illegal drugs across the border, and they may have been escorting illegal aliens.
In an incident on May 17, one of our Border agents was patrolling when he saw three Mexican soldiers in a military vehicle in Arizona five miles north of our southern border. The rear car window of the U.S. agent was shattered by a gunshot fired from the direction of the Mexicans. In another Arizona incident on August 9, U.S. Ranger Kris Eggle was shot to death by a Mexican drug smuggler.
Are we going to put up with this? Foreign troops crossing our border and shooting at Americans would normally be considered an act of war. Bill O'Reilly is correct in saying that we should use U.S. troops on the border to intercept illegal aliens and illegal drugs.
Those who naively think that Mexico's president Vicente Fox is our friend should read a speech he delivered in Madrid, Spain on May 16. Fox used typical globalist lingo about "a new International System" and about putting "human rights, democracy, gender, and the environment" "above national sovereignty." When he says "above national sovereignty," that just another way of promoting his open-borders policies.
Vicente Fox went on to demand "the regularization of the migratory situation of our [4 million] fellow Mexicans in the United States." In other words, Fox is demanding amnesty for the Mexicans he has encouraged to enter the United States illegally. The Mexican-born population in the United States has grown from 800,000 in 1970 to nearly 9 million today.
Rep. Tancredo reminds us also about the
big increase in OTMs (Other Than Mexicans), especially Middle Eastern and
Chinese men crossing our southern border.
Enemies Exploit Loopholes
The U.S. immigration system is so full
of loopholes and so weak on enforcement that it offers little or no protection
against militants and terrorists. Illegals are constantly using a wide
variety of legal and illegal methods to enter and remain in our country,
such as sneaking across our borders, stowing away on ships, using false
passports, making fraudulent marriages, falsely claiming refugee status,
paying bribes to get visas, and arriving as tourists and students and then
just staying when our government fails to track their whereabouts.
When the INS mailed to a Florida flight school approvals of student visas for hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, six months after they died in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, President Bush said he was angry. The inspector general of the Justice Department reported in May that at least two of the hijackers should have been denied visas because they were on a watch list of suspected terrorists.
INS's response to this embarrassment was to reassign several mid-level INS bureaucrats, leaving the open-borders senior officials in tighter control than ever. This gives new meaning to the cliché about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. INS chief James Ziglar, a Bush appointee, has no will to tackle the illegal-alien scandal. He told a Tucson audience that "it's not practical or reasonable to think that you're going to be able to round them all up and send them home." He is a libertarian who believes in open borders. Ziglar announced he will be leaving INS, but not until the end of the year.
President Bush said in his State of the Union Address: "Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning." Why hasn't anybody been fired for letting some of these characters into the United States, and then for failing to track them?
Why is there no effort in Washington to make our borders secure and to close the loopholes? According to Rep. Tom Tancredo, there are several reasons: the Democrats think the Mexicans will vote Democratic, and the establishment and multinational Republicans want the cheap labor of both immigrants and illegals.
The watchword of the Bush Administration's
education reform is accountability. To receive federal funds, everyone
in education must be accountable: teachers, students and schools. But whatever
happened to accountability when it comes to border security and the admission
of aliens to the United States?
Danger
funnels northward
Flow of drugs, people places lives
at risk
By Mitch Tobin
The Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), September
8, 2002
http://www.azstarnet.com/border/20908PERILOUSPUBLICLANDS.html
Caught between the world's rich and poor,
Arizona's parks, forests and
wildlife refuges along its porous border
with Mexico have become America's
dangerous doormats.
The unrelenting flow of drug smugglers
and people looking for work is
jeopardizing the lives of recreational
visitors and federal workers,
according to land managers from Ajo to
New Mexico who say they are woefully
understaffed.
As detailed in tomorrow's Arizona Daily
Star, the traffic is also
inflicting lasting damage on a fragile
environment, as border crossers and
their pursuers blaze new roads and disrupt
habitat for endangered species.
The illegal entrants - funneled to remote
areas by the Border Patrol's
heightened enforcement in cities - are
also suspected of starting eight
wildfires in Southern Arizona in 2002
that burned 68,413 acres and cost
taxpayers $5.1 million.
Last month's shooting death of Kris Eggle,
a 28-year-old ranger at Organ
Pipe Cactus National Monument, was just
the latest and most tragic sign of
how Southern Arizona's vast public lands
have become casualties in the
cat-and-mouse game between law enforcement
and illegal entrants.
As painful as it was, Eggle's death surprised
few fellow rangers or
public-lands employees in Southern Arizona.
In fact, many say it's
remarkable more workers or visitors haven't
been killed in a drug-infested
region where a flimsy wire fence - or
nothing at all - separates the First
and Third Worlds.
Visitors oblivious
The shady picnic grounds at Madera Canyon,
a world-renowned birding spot
east of Green Valley, might not seem like
a hot spot for narco-trafficking.
But the ranger in charge of the area says
smugglers actually prefer to do
business there when it's crowded so they
blend in with legal visitors.
"It's a bad thought, but one of these days
one of our employees or visitors
will come upon a trigger-happy 16-year-old
sitting on a drug load, and
things will not go well," said Keith Graves
of the Coronado National
Forest's Nogales district, which has only
one law enforcement officer to
patrol 350,000 acres.
Site 10 in the Roundup picnic area at the
head of Madera Canyon has been a
particularly attractive spot for transferring
bales of marijuana, forest
officials say. Nearby, a typical bust
on June 15 netted 130 pounds of pot
and three smugglers who'd backpacked along
the Arizona Trail and through
the Mount Wrightson wilderness area.
"Marijuana is the drug of choice to come
across public lands because it's
big, bulky, stinky and it doesn't go through
the ports well," said Greg
Lelo, the forest's patrol captain.
The Coronado has seen an exponential increase
in marijuana trafficking,
with seizures soaring from 607 pounds
in 1996 to 8,388 pounds in 2001. In
the same period, dope seizures in national
parks on the Arizona-Mexico
border jumped from 3,448 to 23,535 pounds.
Lelo recounts times when agents on stakeouts
watched nervously as birders
and hikers passed right by drug stashes
or drop-off points for smugglers.
"Sometimes people are just oblivious to
the danger they're dealing with,"
said Lelo, whose vehicle has been rammed
at 45 mph by fleeing drug traffickers.
Armed narcotics smugglers are considered
far more dangerous than the poor
workers coming across the border, though
officials say the two groups
sometimes mix together.
Besides Madera, smugglers of both drugs
and people frequent other popular
recreation sites on the Coronado, including
Parker Canyon Lake and Ramsey
and Carr canyons. The forest has boosted
patrols in those areas to minimize
conflicts - one reason Madera visitors
now pay $5 is to support hiring of a
new law enforcement officer.
But authorities acknowledge that crackdowns
usually just push the problem
to their neighbor's property. It's like
"squeezing a balloon," they say -
clamp down on one section and it pops
out somewhere else.
While the public's encounters with armed
smugglers are said to be rare,
officials acknowledge many incidents and
close calls go unreported. One
attack that did make news was the armed
carjacking and robbery in August
2001 of two women in Carr Canyon, near
a popular recreation area in the
Huachuca Mountains and along a popular
route for smuggling.
Public land officials stress city streets
are probably still more
dangerous, but they're urging borderland
recreationists to be cautious.
Lands understaffed
The perilous situation prompted a recent
study for the House Appropriations
Committee to conclude, "certain federal
lands in southeast Arizona can no
longer be used safely by the public or
federal employees due to the
significance of smuggling undocumented
aliens and controlled substances
into the United States."
The report reveals chilling episodes that
would give pause to anyone who
recreates or works on the region's public
lands:
* Smugglers are "using hunting season as
a cover to try to get drugs across
the border," also disguising themselves
as backpackers to blend in.
* At San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge,
smugglers went to an
officer's home in the dead of night and
threatened to harm the officer and
his family if he didn't return a load
of marijuana seized earlier in the day.
* At Coronado National Memorial, smugglers
use a steep ridge overlooking
the headquarters to spy on rangers. Among
them are "heavily armed scouts
who are equipped with automatic assault
weapons, encrypted radios, night
vision optics and possibly thermal imaging
devices." Scouts have come
within 50 yards of rangers' houses "under
cover of darkness while utilizing
sophisticated, military-style camouflage
techniques."
* People-smuggling through the Tucson-area
Saguaro National Park, some 60
miles north of the border, leads to "a
variety of dangerous and volatile
situations, including high-speed pursuits,
vehicle bailouts, resisting
arrest and suspect confrontations that
escalate officer safety concerns."
The influx of border crossers has prompted
some increases in law
enforcement on Arizona's public lands.
But by virtually all accounts the
mobilization has been grossly inadequate.
Taxpayers stand to foot the bill to further
step up the policing. In their
report to Congress, federal agencies in
southeast Arizona said they need 93
more employees - about half in law enforcement
- and $62.9 million over the
next five years to repair damage and protect
workers, visitors and property.
In grainy videos made by U.S. agents with
night vision technology, the
border crossers glow green and really
do look like "illegal aliens." At
times, the camera catches so many people
it looks like a wildfire is burning.
Dan Wirth of the Federal Law Enforcement
Officers Association shows those
images in a PowerPoint presentation on
the border that begins not in
cactus-studded desert, but at Ground Zero
in lower Manhattan. This, he
says, is really a homeland security issue.
In one video, a long line of smugglers
glows in the night, lugging big
backpacks.
"Which backpack," he asks, "has the biological
precursor or weapon of mass
destruction?"
Organ Pipe on front lines
Organ Pipe, which has about 30 miles of
the border, is particularly
vulnerable since Mexico's Highway 2 runs
right along the park's boundary.
In 2001 alone, Organ Pipe officials found
150 abandoned vehicles on their
property, engaged in 30 high-speed pursuits,
seized six tons of pot and
figured at least 21 border crossers died
in the park or after crossing it.
Just four days before he was killed, Eggle
sent a memo that was distributed
throughout the nation in the park service's
"morning report." It told how
rangers tracked three drug smugglers for
seven miles and, with help from
helicopters, seized a quarter-ton of dope.
In the creosote flats where Eggle died,
several gaps in the border fence
have fresh car tracks leading north into
the park from a village of
cinderblock hovels with outhouses.
Rangers who've come to Organ Pipe after
Eggle's death say they're amazed by
the Wild West conditions.
"I'm more paranoid here than I am in the
city," said Julie Horne, a
Yosemite ranger who graduated from law
enforcement training with Eggle.
It's still unclear whether Eggle's death
will scare legal visitors away
from Organ Pipe - named "most dangerous
national park" two years in a row
by a rangers' advocacy group. In recent
years, visitation has varied widely
and mostly depended on the wildflower
season, park Superintendent Bill
Wellman said.
Many illegal visitors to Organ Pipe are
greeted by signs in Spanish warning
of the dangerous heat and lack of water
for the next 30 miles.
"It does very little to discourage people
who've already traveled 1,000
miles and spent their life savings to
get here - they're committed," said
Dale Thompson, Organ Pipe's chief ranger.
Thompson, like most of Southern Arizona's
public lands officials, thinks
there's no way to stop people from coming.
"The problem is never going to go away
as long as America creates a demand
for narcotics," said Thompson, who said
blame for Eggle's death "falls back
on the casual user of marijuana in this
country . . . they had their finger
right on the trigger with that gunman."
Authorities say Eggle's killer drove through
Organ Pipe's border fence as
he fled Mexican police investigating a
drug-related quadruple homicide. He
was then killed in a hail of bullets fired
by Mexican officers standing on
their side of the border.
Bigger policies at stake
To some, the mounting violence and resource
damage means the United States
should redouble its efforts to secure
its borders in a post-Sept. 11 world,
possibly using the military.
To others, Eggle's death and smugglers'
ecological impact are further proof
the war on drugs and current border policies
are counterproductive.
Thompson, whose job is to protect one of
America's natural gems, simply
says, "I can't solve this problem," and
advises "the generals need to get
their heads together."
From the generals down to the privates,
the consensus is that Arizona's
public lands are paying a price because
the Border Patrol increased its
presence in places like Nogales and Douglas,
where residents were overrun
by border crossers in the 1990s.
Lights, roads and tall fences that agents
put there have dramatically cut
property crime and boosted property values
in those cities, said Border
Patrol spokesman Ryan Scudder.
Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., who requested
the congressional study of border
crossers' impacts, said more sensors,
overflights and agents could curb
threats to public lands. But, he said,
since "all you do is shift the
problem to another location," the United
States should adopt a guest worker
program to legalize more immigration.
"If you want to see the number of water
jugs abandoned in the desert go
down, let them come in through the gate
at Nogales with a visa and contract
to work in hand, then let them get on
the bus to Omaha, Cleveland or North
Carolina," Kolbe said.
Such a plan has people like Cruz Diaz in
mind. The 30-year-old from
Michoacan, Mexico, is typical of the people
trying to cross the area around
Organ Pipe. Diaz said there are jobs in
his hometown, but they pay too
little, so he's come north.
Last year Diaz tried to enter the United
States near Naco, but said
stepped-up enforcement by the Border Patrol
made it too difficult. So in
recent weeks he's tried twice to cross
south of Ajo, neither time successfully.
"We knew there would be lots of immigration
officers and it would be very
hot," he said last week after being caught.
"But if there's work here, it's
worth it."
After the Border Patrol recorded digital
images of his face and
fingerprints, Cruz was put on a van and
sent back to the border at
Lukeville, where he walked into Mexico
through a revolving metal door.
Border War:
Mexican police join drug lords (Part 3 of 5)
by Jerry Seper, The Washington Times,
September 25, 2002
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020925-11624656.htm
SONOYTA, Mexico — This
isolated area of the
U.S.-Mexico border, a 100-mile-wide stretch
of wild desert
between the Organ Pipe Cactus National
Monument and
Coronado National Forest, has become one
of America's
newest drug corridors.
Mexican drug lords,
backed by corrupt Mexican military officers
and police officials, will move tons of
marijuana, cocaine and heroin
this year over rugged desert trails to
accomplices in Phoenix and
Tucson for shipment to willing buyers
throughout the United States.
Most of the smuggling
routes pass through the Tohono O'odham
Nation, a sprawling Indian reservation,
where undermanned
and outgunned tribal police will confiscate
more than 100,000
pounds of illicit drugs this year, about
300 pounds a day.
"They keep us running
like you can't believe," said
Detective Sgt. David Cray, who heads the
Tohono Police
Department's anti-drug unit. "They have
two-way radios,
night-vision gear, body armor and carry
automatic weapons."
"They've put people
on the hills to act as lookouts and use
portable solar panels to power their communications
equipment," he said. "They have powerful
four-wheel-drive
vehicles and are under orders not to stop
— to shoot their
way through if they have to."
The smugglers, according
to U.S. law-enforcement
authorities, often are protected by heavily
armed Mexican
military troops and police, who have been
paid handsomely
to escort the drug traffickers and their
illicit shipments across
the border and into the United States.
The drug lords are expected
to spend more than $500
million this year in bribes and payoffs
to a cadre of Mexican
military generals and police officials
to ensure that the illicit
drugs reach their destination, the authorities
said.
Mexican smugglers will
account for 80 percent of the
cocaine and nearly half the heroin that
reaches the streets of
America this year.
Law-enforcement authorities
all along the U.S.-Mexico
border are concerned about the involvement
of Mexican
military troops and police in the alien-
and drug-smuggling
business. Several officials said in interviews
that many
Mexican police agencies along the border
have been "totally
corrupted" by drug smugglers and that
the corruption
included a number of key Mexican generals
and other
commanders.
Violence along the border,
fueled by the drug trade, has
spiraled out of control, the officials
said.
Corruption among Mexican
police is so extensive, they
said, that some U.S. law-enforcement agencies
refuse to
work with their Mexican counterparts.
Mexican police
officials have been tied not only to alien
and drug smuggling,
but also to numerous incidents of extortion,
bribery, robbery,
assault and kidnapping along the border.
Border Patrol agents
in Douglas, Ariz., were pulled from
their duty stations after police in Aqua
Prieta, Mexico, tipped
U.S. authorities of a pending drug shipment.
Supervisors
were fearful of putting their agents in
the middle of a shootout
between rival drug gangs, each supported
by competing
Aqua Prieta police.
About two dozen incursions
by the Mexican military have
been documented this year, some of which
resulted in
unprovoked shootings, including one recent
incident involving
a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Several law-enforcement
authorities along the border questioned
why the Bush
administration has not made an issue of
Mexican troops
crossing into the United States.
"I'm not sure what other
country allows foreign military
troops such willy-nilly access," said
one veteran Border
Patrol agent, speaking on the condition
of anonymity. "I've
seen them come across the border, heavily
armed and
equipped, and I often wonder why we're
not doing anything
about it."
The Mexican military
deployments have occurred all along
the 1,940-mile U.S.-Mexico border, from
Texas, where
Border Patrol agents in El Paso were fired
on in March 2000
by people in two Mexican army Humvees,
to California,
where 10 Mexican soldiers shot at a Border
Patrol helicopter
in October 2000.
Many of the incursions
have occurred near this Mexican
town, where drug trafficking by Mexican
smugglers has
reached new levels.
"There's no doubt Mexican
military units along the border
are being controlled by the drug cartels,
and not by Mexico
City," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado
Republican, who
recently returned from a tour of the Southwest
border. "The
military units operate freely, with little
or no direction, and
several of them have made numerous incursions
into the
United States."
"Mexican President Vicente
Fox may be trying to take
control of his military, but there is
a major disconnect
between him and them — particularly among
the units along
the U.S.-Mexico border," he said.
Mr. Tancredo, head of
the 65-member Congressional
Immigration Reform Caucus, said the amount
of drug
trafficking in the remote regions of the
Southwest desert has
become so intense that armed confrontations
are a constant
threat.
He said the trafficking
has been tied to Mexican drug
cartels, and the shipments often are protected
— sometimes
even delivered — by Mexican military units.
"There isn't a soul
down there on that border, either the
Tohono O'odham police or the Border Patrol,
who do not
believe that is exactly what the Mexican
military is doing," he
said. "U.S. law-enforcement personnel
actually have watched
the Mexican military unload drugs from
their Humvees to
awaiting vehicles for transport into the
United States."
Military incursions into America
Over the past five years,
U.S. authorities have
documented 118 incursions by the Mexican
military. It is not
known how many times Mexican military
units have crossed
undetected into the United States.
"I am amazed our government
is not up in arms about this,
but I am not surprised," Mr. Tancredo
said. "While we have
the resources to actually take control
of our borders,
including a combination of the U.S. military
and the Border
Patrol, we lack the political will."
"Instead, we continue
to send young men and women in
harm's way, to be shot at and, perhaps,
killed. We're asking
them to fight a war against an invasion
of illegal immigrants
and drugs, but we fail to give them the
support they need to
win that war."
The most recent documented
Mexican military incursion
occurred on May 17, when a Border Patrol
agent was fired
on by three Mexican soldiers in a military
Humvee near what
is known as the San Miguel gate on the
Tohono reservation,
about 30 miles northwest of Nogales, Ariz.
The gunfire,
which erupted shortly after 8:30 p.m.,
shattered the rear
window of the U.S. agent's four-wheel-drive
vehicle.
The unnamed agent, after
spotting the soldiers, had sought
to avoid a confrontation and, according
to U.S. authorities,
had turned his clearly marked, green-and-white
Border
Patrol vehicle away from the Humvee when
it was hit by
gunfire. The Mexican soldiers were armed
with assault rifles.
One bullet was deflected
by the vehicle's prisoner
partition, located directly behind the
agent's seat. It then
knocked out the right rear window. The
agent involved has
been on the job for about a year, authorities
said.
Earlier that day and
in the same area, Border Patrol
agents had confiscated 2,200 pounds of
drugs from a vehicle
that had crossed into the United States,
although a second
vehicle had escaped back into Mexico.
Edward Tuffly, president
of the National Border Patrol
Council Local 2544, asked in a message
posted online to
union members why the U.S. government
was slow to
acknowledge the incident. "The politicians
will run like hell to
avoid 'offending' anyone," he wrote.
Local 2544 represents
Border Patrol agents in the Tucson
sector. The National Border Patrol Council
represents more
than 8,000 nonsupervisory Border Patrol
agents.
The U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service, which
oversees the Border Patrol, is investigating
the May incident.
The INS has asked the Mexican government
also to
investigate the shooting.
In August, U.S. National
Park Service ranger Chris Eggle,
28, was killed on the Organ Pipe Cactus
National Monument
while trying to apprehend two men fleeing
Mexican law
enforcement, who had crossed the border
into the United
States. One of the men shot Mr. Eggle
just below his
bulletproof vest.
U.S. authorities have
since identified the suspected
assailant as Panfilo Murillo Aguila, a
Mexican national known
as "El Zarco," a known drug smuggler in
the Sonoyta area.
Arrest warrants also have been issued
in the case for two
former Mexican soldiers identified as
Rogelio Velasquez
Jocobi and Carlos Perez Sanchez.
Helping the drug trade
Questions concerning
the Mexican military's involvement
in the drug trade, however, are long-standing.
In 1998, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
reported an extensive connection between
drug traffickers in
Mexico and senior members of the Mexican
army. The DEA
said at the time that it avoided cooperating
with Mexican
army officers for fear that intelligence
would be passed on to
drug smugglers.
Former DEA Administrator Donnie Marshall
told a House
subcommittee in 1999 that drug traffickers
"have long had the
ability to corrupt public officials and
institutions throughout the
world," noting that the Mexican military
was not exempt.
At the time, Mexican
military officers assigned to an elite
anti-drug smuggling group had been arrested
in Mexico City
on charges of drug trafficking and alien
smuggling. Among
those arrested were several captains and
majors, all of whom
had been assigned to the Mexican Attorney
General's Office
as anti-narcotics agents.
Since Mr. Fox's 2000
election there has been an increase
in the number of arrests of Mexican government
and military
officials, along with the creation of
a federal
drug-enforcement unit that has seized
tons of narcotics and
made numerous arrests.
Mexican authorities
also have been more willing to work
with their U.S. counterparts, and a number
of the leaders and
top lieutenants from all four of Mexico's
major drug cartels
have been arrested.
The Mexican government
has denied that any part of its
military is working with the drug cartels,
saying in a recent
statement that military units along the
border are working the
same areas as the U.S. Border Patrol in
fighting the illegal
transport of drugs and people into this
country.
The statement said that
sometimes the troops "get lost in
those areas," noting that there is "no
clear
marking for the
border" in many regions. Mexican Defense
Department
officials have declined to say how many
soldiers are patrolling
the U.S.-Mexico border or to comment on
the incursions.
Many U.S. law-enforcement
authorities doubt the
contention that the units were lost.
"Some of these 'lost'
units are carrying drugs, and we've
seen them before," said a second veteran
Border Patrol
agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
"Besides, if
they are lost, why are they shooting at
us instead of asking for
directions?"
The politics of immigration
The White House opposes
the stationing of U.S. troops
on the Mexican border for "cultural and
historical reasons."
President Bush, former
governor of Texas, has sought to
appeal to Hispanic voters through such
initiatives as
promoting a Western Hemispheric free trade
zone, giving
amnesty to 4 million to 7 million illegal
immigrants in the
United States and allowing immigrants
visas that would be
renewable each year as long as they hold
jobs.
"Some look south and
see problems," Mr. Bush said in a
speech last year to State Department employees.
"Not me. I
look south and see opportunities."
But Mr. Tancredo said
he wants "an explanation of these
'cultural and historical' reasons why
we can't protect our
nation's borders." He said it was "time"
for the U.S.
government to order troops to the border
to assist in
controlling illegal immigration and drug
smuggling, both of
which he described as "national security
concerns."
Earlier this year, some
House Republicans called on Mr.
Bush to station military forces along
the Southwest border,
citing a need to stop the persistent flow
of illegal immigrants
and to combat drug smugglers, who have
taken over several
areas of the lengthy border.
The lawmakers said the
number of violent encounters
along the border, including incursions
involving the Mexican
military, was increasing, "creating a
need for immediate action
on the part of our government."
"We are extremely concerned
about the porousness of
both our northern and southern borders,"
said Rep. Jim
Ramstad, Minnesota Republican, who joined
in the call for
stationing troops. "It is particularly
disturbing that Canada and
Mexico are still not adequately screening
immigrant and cargo
traffic in and out of their countries."
The Bush administration
has placed 1,100 National
Guardsmen on the borders with Canada and
Mexico after the
September 11 terrorist attacks, but those
deployments ended
in summer.
Meanwhile, officials
at the Border Patrol's Tucson sector
office, which is responsible for 261 miles
of international
border, continue to negotiate with the
Mexican military about
the problems of drug trafficking, alien
smuggling and
incursions.
"We have attempted to
maintain an active dialogue with a
number of the generals in the Mexican
army," said Carlos X.
Carrillo, assistant sector chief. "There
is no question that
when there is an incident, it is of grave
concern to us."
"The safety of our agents
and the possible violation of
U.S. law concerns us deeply."
Assistant Chief Carrillo
also said Tucson sector
supervisors have a "strong liaison" with
Mexico and have
been "very active" in reaching out to
their Mexican
law-enforcement counterparts. He said
sector officials have
"actively sought an open line of communication
in an effort to
reduce the potential of these kinds of
incidents."
But despite the continuing
dialogue, there has been no
decrease in the amount of drugs coming
out of Mexico into
the United States. Additionally, the number
of illegal aliens
crossing annually though the Tucson sector
has skyrocketed.
"Things have improved,"
said a top U.S. law-enforcement
official. "But corruption is so deeply
entrenched in Mexico, it
will take years to identify and remove
those who are still
involved. Many Mexican military officers
operate with total
autonomy, particularly in faraway places
like the border."
"The drug smugglers
have a ton of money to persuade
them to the dark side."
At the Tohono O'odham
Nation, which shares 76 miles of
international border with Mexico, the
reservation's
75-member police department will spend
more than $3
million this year on all border-related
issues, including the
towing of up to 40 cars a day abandoned
by alien smugglers
and drug smugglers.
"The problems of illegal
aliens and drug smuggling impacts
significantly on the level of service
we can provide to our own
community," said acting Assistant Police
Chief Joseph
Delgado. "The Border Patrol has pushed
the illegal
immigrants out of the cities and towns
and to our reservation,
where we do not have the manpower to deal
with the crunch.
The community is upset that we can't focus
on them."
Chief Delgado noted
that because of the flood of
immigrants and drug smugglers, the reservation
has become a
violent place for the 13,000 people who
call the Tohono
O'odham nation home. He said alien smugglers
and drug
smugglers refuse to stop for police and
often race their
four-wheel-drive vehicles over the reservation's
many dirt
roads at speeds of up to 100 miles per
hour.
"Our children are out
in the community, and every day
they have to face these ruthless people,"
he said. "It is very
frustrating that we have had to divert
our attention and our
resources to focus not on our own community
but to deal
with this rising immigration and drug
problem."
"We're literally the
front line of defense for the United
States, and we are doing the best we can,"
he said. "But I
assure you, it's going to get worse before
it gets better.""
3 border
agents shot at in 2 weeks
By Tim Steller
The Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), October
5, 2002
http://www.azstarnet.com/border/21005PATROLSHOOTINGS2fpmb.html
Three U.S. Border Patrol agents have reported
being shot at in separate
incidents west of Tucson since Sept. 23.
Only once did an agent return fire, agency
spokesman Ryan Scudder said. No
agents were injured, and it was unclear
whether anyone was struck by the
agent's gunfire.
In the first incident, about 2 a.m. on
Sept. 23, an agent was driving west
along the border, about a mile east of
San Miguel Gate, wh