Filed under: Baghdad, Blackwater, Border Patrol, Burson-Marsteller, Dictatorship, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, Hillary Clinton, ICE, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Iraq, iraq deaths, John Edwards, kentucky, Louisiana, mercenaries, militarization, nation building, Neolibs, new orleans, New World Order, occupation, phillip morris, Police State, Posse Comitatus, Propaganda, Troops, War On Terror | Tags: lexington police department
Blackwater training U.S. local police a new trend
Jim Kouri
Examiner.com
August 4, 2009
There are many police and law enforcement officials who are concerned with the growing trend of using military-experienced mercenaries to train and work with local police officers in the United States, but there are many who believe the events of September 11, 2001 dictate the need for this new paradigm.
For example, Kentucky’s Lexington Police Department contracted Blackwater Security International to provide what’s described as homeland security training. Meanwhile that city’s Mayor Jim Newberry and its chief of police Anthony Beatty refused free training provided by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal program that prepares police officers to enforce immigration and border security as part of their duties.
Lexington is on the nation’s list of so-called Sanctuary Cities in which police officers are prohibited from working with ICE or Border Patrol agents in the United States. Critics are angry over the use of local tax dollars to hire Blackwater personnel to train the police.
But Lexington isn’t the only city using hired guns to help local police officers. In New Orleans, heavily armed operatives from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of that beleaguered city.
Some of the mercenaries were reportedly “deputized” by the Louisiana governor and were issued gold Louisiana State law enforcement badges to wear on their chests and Blackwater photo identification
cards to be worn on their arms.
Filed under: Border Patrol, California, Child Abuse, Congress, CPS, DHS, Homeland Security, House, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Iowa, LA, Los Angeles, mexican truckers, Mexico, Oppression, Police State, prison industrial complex, Senate, sexual abuse | Tags: deportation, human trafficking, mexican border, migrant affairs commission
Homeland Security Deports 90,000 Children Without Parents
Latina Lista
August 15, 2008
It goes without saying that the saddest element in the current enforcement of immigration laws is the apprehension, deportation or abandonment of children.
Stories surface every day of parents who were apprehended and fearing the same for their children, say nothing about their children at home. They hope a relative or neighbor will eventually realize their children are alone and will take care of them until they can be reunited.
A Mexican state policeman asks the names of two children who were deported from the United States to Nogales, Sonora.
(Source: La Jornada)
According to a new report released this week in Mexico City by the Population, Border and Migrant Affairs Commission, for every three adults deported from the United States there is one child abandoned and left behind.
But what is even more shocking and deserves further scrutiny from Congress and the American people is the documentation in the report that cites how in the first 7 months of the year the United States has deported 90,000 children to Mexico — children without their parents and who are alone.
The U.S. government has elected to disregard the safety and welfare of these children in the name of immigration enforcement.
The Mexican report revealed that 15 percent or 13,500 of these children, of all ages under 17, find themselves “parked” at the border. With no family and no way to take care of themselves. Some are either taken in by social service and religious agencies or are forced to live on the streets begging and trying with all their might to get back into the United States, or worse, are victimized by human traffickers who sexually exploit them.
The report further revealed that these child deportations are having a huge impact on those sectors of the country experiencing high migration and the Mexican government reveals it’s ill-equipped to keep up with the growing number of children dumped by the U.S. government.
The report’s authors are calling on the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. government to honor children’s rights and to repatriate the children versus deporting them. With repatriation, the children are not left abandoned but are returned into the custody of those responsible to take care of them.
Deportations merely drop them off without ensuring their safety.
LA OKs Grants For Mexican Truckers
http://www.landlinemag.c../081508_LA_LongBeach.htm
Filed under: amnesty, Arizona, Border Patrol, DHS, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, mexican army, Mexico, Military, war on drugs
Border Patrol Held At Gunpoint By Mexican Military
Washington Times
August 6, 2008
A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.
Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.
It was unclear what the soldiers were doing in the United States, but U.S. law enforcement authorities have long said that current and former Mexican military personnel have been hired to protect drug and migrant smugglers.
“Unfortunately, this sort of behavior by Mexican military personnel has been going on for years,” union Local 2544 of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) said on its Web page. “They are never held accountable, and the United States government will undoubtedly brush this off as another case of ’Oh well, they didn’t know they were in the United States.’
“It is fortunate that this incident didn’t end in a very ugly gunfight,” said the local’s posting.
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=10268
Border Agents Spread Unevenly On Border
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/..lt=AvumgrjP4nSvNDwQDhhe.uRH2ocA
Filed under: 2-party system, 2008 Election, amnesty, Amnesty Bill, Arizona, Border Patrol, CFR, code pink, DHS, George Bush, Globalism, heckled, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, John McCain, left right paradigm, Mexico, neocons, Neolibs, Protest, Ted Kennedy, war on drugs
McCain Admits Supporting Illegal Immigration Bill
Code Pink Interrupts John McCain
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/..cord-to-woo-hispanics/
’McCain is mentally unstable and out of control’ : Arizona Republicans
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070305/blumenthal
McCain: It doesn’t matter that I don’t know cost of gas
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_It_doesnt_matter_that_I_0629.html
Fmr. Bush aide takes over McCain campaign
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0..oday_operation.html
Filed under: amnesty, Arizona, army, Atzlan, Border Patrol, cocaine, Credit Crisis, death squads, DEBT, DHS, Dollar, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, George Bush, Great Depression, Greenback, heroin, Homeland Security, housing market, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Inflation, los zetas, marine, mexican army, Mexico, Military, national guard, neocons, real estate, Texas, Troops, US Economy, war on drugs | Tags: tijuana
Mexican Army Carrying Out Assassinations In U.S.?
KFYI
June 26, 2008
The suspects may have been hired by drug cartels to perform home invasions and assassinations in the U.S.
Police reports show that three men arrested in a Phoenix home invasion and homicide Monday may have been active members of the Mexican Army.
While on the J.D. Hayworth show, Phoenix Law Enforcement Association President Mark Spencer said that the men involved were hired by drug cartels to perform home invasions and assassinations.
The Monday morning incident at 8329 W. Cypress St. resulted in the death of the homeowner. Between 50 and 100 rounds were fired at the house.
Spencer said a police officer told him that one of the men captured said they were completely prepared to ambush Phoenix police, but ran out of ammunition.
He added that all were all dressed in military tactical gear and were armed with AR-15 assault rifles. Three other men involved in the invasion escaped.
National Guard on U.S-Mexico border will end mid-July
LA Times
June 23, 2008
An upcoming deadline of July 15, when the remaining National Guard personnel on the U.S- Mexico border are due to be withdrawn, has raised fears that without them the increased drug violence in the border area could spill into the United States.
“When the Guard was posted along the frontier in 2006 to help the strapped Border Patrol, critics warned that sending soldiers would be an insult to Mexico and that innocents could get shot by troops trained for combat, not law enforcement.”
“Now those worries have given way to fears that without the Guard’s help, a bloody drug cartel war on the Mexican side will spill into the U.S. and overwhelm the Border Patrol.” Dallas Morning News
Meanwhile, conflict between Mexico’s drug cartels and law enforcement agencies continues. The Associated Press is reporting that Mexican soldiers captured at least 10 suspected members of a Tijuana-based drug cartel in a raid on a child’s baptism party in the border city.
Texas Real Estate Slump Lets Mexicans Take It Back
Bloomberg
June 25, 2008
A rising peso and an economy growing faster than the U.S. have given some Mexicans the buying power to take advantage of the housing slump in Texas, which became part of the U.S. under an 1848 treaty that ended a three-year war between the two countries.
The peso has gained 3.2 percent against the dollar since the beginning of the year. The economy, which rose 2.6 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, is expected to grow 2.6 percent this year, according to a central bank survey of 31 economists in May. The U.S. economy is forecast to grow 1.4 percent in 2008, according to a Bloomberg survey of 57 economists.
Marco Ramirez of McAllen, Texas, is among those trying to sell foreclosed Texas homes to Mexicans. Ramirez’s company, called Now! Co., has bought 32 Texas properties and has options on 88 more. His best prospects are Mexican buyers, especially in Monterrey, 150 miles from the Texas border, he said.
`Great Time to Buy’
“Many of these people have children who are studying in the U.S.,’’ Ramirez said. “They’ve been renting or leasing and now it’s a great time to buy.’’
Mexico is better known for providing the U.S. with cheap labor than investment. The U.S. is home to an estimated 12 million Mexican-born residents, about half of them living there illegally, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.
Sales of existing U.S. homes in April fell 18 percent to an annual pace of 4.89 million from 5.93 million a year ago as banks shied away from making new loans, according to the National Association of Realtors in Washington.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewF..0806/INT20080625c.html
Bush Signs Citizenship Bill For Soldiers
http://www.baltimoresun.com/new..7jun27,0,3711849,print.story
Filed under: amnesty, Arizona, Atzlan, Border Patrol, brainwashing, California, Canada, colorado, Conditioning, DHS, Globalism, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, job market, job outsourcing, La Raza, mexican flag, Mexican Trucks, Mexico, new mexico, ohio, Propaganda, Psyops, public relations, subliminal, subliminal messages, Texas, utah | Tags: la-z-boy, whirlpool
Absolut Promotes Mexico Take Over Of U.S.
LA Times
April 4, 2008
The latest advertising campaign in Mexico from Swedish vodka maker Absolut promises to push all the right buttons south of the U.S. border, but it could ruffle a few feathers in El Norte.
The billboard and press campaign, created by advertising agency Teran\TBWA and now running in Mexico, is a colorful map depicting what the Americas might look like in an “Absolut” — i.e., perfect — world.
The U.S.-Mexico border lies where it was before the Mexican-American war of 1848 when California, as we now know it, was Mexican territory and known as Alta California.
Following the war, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo saw the Mexican territories of Alta California and Santa Fé de Nuevo México ceded to the United States to become modern-day California, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona. (Texas actually split from Mexico several years earlier to form a breakaway republic, and was voluntarily annexed by the United States in 1846.)
The campaign taps into the national pride of Mexicans, according to Favio Ucedo, creative director of leading Latino advertising agency Grupo Gallegos in the U.S.
Ucedo, who is from Argentina, said: “Mexicans talk about how the Americans stole their land, so this is their way of reclaiming it. It’s very relevant and the Mexicans will love the idea.”
But he said that were the campaign to run in the United States, it might fall flat.
“Many people aren’t going to understand it here. Americans in the East and the North or in the center of the county — I don’t know if they know much about the history.
“Probably Americans in Texas and California understand perfectly and I don’t know how they’d take it.”
Meanwhile, the campaign has been circulating on the blogs and generating strong responses from people north of the border.
“I find this ad deeply offensive, and needlessly divisive. I will now make a point of drinking other brands. And ’vodka and tonic’ is my drink,” said one visitor, called New Yorker, on MexicoReporter.com.
Reader Paul Green goes into a discussion on the blog Gateway Pundit of whether the U.S. territories ever belonged to Mexico in the first place, and the News12 Long island site invited people to boycott Absolut, with one user, called LivingSmall, writing: “If you drink Absolut vodka, you can voice your approval or disapproval of this advertising campaign with your purchases. I know I will be switching to Grey Goose or Stoli and will never have another bottle of Absolut in my house.
“Hey Absolut … that’s my form of social commentary.”
La-Z-Boy, Whirlpool Moving Jobs To Mexico
Chattanoogan
April 4, 2008
La-Z-Boy and Whirlpool are moving jobs to new plants in Mexico, bringing job losses to hundreds of workers in Dayton and Cleveland.
La-Z-Boy employees in Dayton were told today that the cutting and sewing operation is being moved to Mexico.
Kathy Liebmann, La-Z-Boy spokesperson, said the Dayton facility has over 2,000 employees, but she did not have a breakdown on those in cutting and sewing. A La-Z-Boy employee said it was around 750.
Ms. Liebmann said La-Z-Boy is closing a plant at Tremonton, Utah, but will keep its other plants open, including the one at Dayton. She said the 400 production jobs at the Utah plant will be spread over the other five plants.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN0447467120080405
DHS Waives Laws To Finish Border Fence
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080402/a_border02.art.htm
Center For Inquiry Promotes Global Citizenship
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/newsroom/global_citizenship/
Vet Convicted For Tearing Down Mexico Flag
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=8000
Filed under: Border Patrol, cocaine, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, Felipe Calderon, George Bush, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, los zetas, Mexico, Military, war on drugs | Tags: Loma Bonita, tijuana
Mexico Death Rate From Drug Cartels Rise
Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post
March 16, 2008
The killers prowled through Loma Bonita in the pre-dawn chill.
In silence, they navigated a labyrinth of wood shacks at the crest of a dirt lane in the blighted Tijuana neighborhood, police say. They were looking for Margarito Saldaña, an easygoing 43-year-old district police commander. They found a house full of sleeping people.
Neighbors quivered at the crack of AK-47 assault rifles blasting inside Saldaña’s tiny home. Rafael García, an unemployed laborer who lives nearby, recalled thinking it was “a fireworks show,” then sliding under his bed in fear.
In murdering not only Saldaña, but also his wife, Sandra, and their 12-year-old daughter, Valeria, the Loma Bonita killers violated a rarely broken rule of Mexico’s drug cartel underworld: Family should remain free from harm. The slayings capped five harrowing hours during which the assassins methodically hunted down and murdered two other police officers and mistakenly killed a 3-year-old boy and his mother.
The brutality of what unfolded here in the overnight hours of Jan. 14 and early Jan. 15 is a grim hallmark of a crisis that has cast a pall over the United States’ southern neighbor. Events in three border cities over the past three months illustrate the military and financial power of Mexico’s cartels and the extent of their reach into a society shaken by fear.
More than 20,000 Mexican troops and federal police are engaged in a multi-front war with the private armies of rival drug lords, a conflict that is being waged most fiercely along the 2,000-mile length of the U.S.-Mexico border. The proximity of the violence has drawn in the Bush administration, which has proposed a $500 million annual aid package to help President Felipe Calderon combat what a Government Accountability Office report estimates is Mexico’s $23 billion a year drug trade.
A total of more than 4,800 Mexicans were slain in 2006 and 2007, making the murder rate in each of those years twice that of 2005. Law enforcement officials and journalists, politicians and peasants have been gunned down in the wave of violence, which includes mass executions, such as the killings of five people whose bodies were found on a ranch outside Tijuana this month.
Like the increasing number of Mexicans heading over the border in fear, the violence itself is spilling into the United States, where a Border Patrol agent was recently killed while trying to stop suspected traffickers.
Drawing on firepower, savage intimidation and cash, the cartels have come to control key parts of the border, securing smuggling routes for 90 percent of the cocaine flowing into the United States, according to the State Department. At the same time, Mexican soldiers roam streets in armored personnel carriers, attack helicopters patrol the skies, and boats ply the coastal waters.
“The situation is deteriorating,” Victor Clark, a Tijuana human rights activist and drug expert, said in an interview. “Drug traffickers are waging a terror campaign. The security of the nation is at stake.”
Mexico Government and Military Aiding Drug Cartels
http://infowars.net/articles/march2008/060308mexicans.htm
Gang Members Get Trained in the Army
http://www.washingtonpost.com/w..031501013.html?hpid=artslot
Filed under: Alex Jones, Border Patrol, Censorship, cocaine, DHS, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, heroin, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Los Zeta, Media, Mexico, Pentagon, war on drugs | Tags: media blackout, nuevo laredo, Rio Grande, Sara A. Carter
Award Winning Reporter Details U.S. Media Blackout On Mexican Military Incursions
Washington Times investigator exposes mayhem on the southern border
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
March 6, 2008
An award winning reporter has detailed an ongoing media blackout concerning a major issue of national security on the southern border.
Sara A. Carter, National Security and Pentagon reporter for the Washington Times, spoke to the Alex Jones show today regarding consistent incursions into the U.S. by armed Mexican troops aiding illegal smugglers.
Ms. Carter has won several national prestigious awards for her coverage of border issues north and south, including the 2006 Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration, presented annually by the Center for Immigration Studies.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t realize how serious the situation is on the southern border.” Ms. Carter said. “Even to the extent when sometimes some of our own government officials choose to ignore it, even though they know it’s going on.”
“This is a very serious national security issue in many respects and it deals with an array from smuggling humans, to smuggling narcotics, and the whole mix up is that there’s many people within the Mexican government and military that have already been bought and sold out to the drug cartels.”
“It’s very difficult to distinguish between those that are really trying to do the job, and those that are sell outs to the drug cartels. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I’ve been down in many of the same border cities, I’ve spent an enormous amount of time in Mexico working with intelligence officials and others, and I have many Mexican sources who had said ‘please get the truth out’.” Ms. Carter continued.
Ms. Carter pointed out that although such activity has been ongoing for years, there has essentially been a news blackout in America.
“It is a huge story. It is bigger than most of us even know, and people are afraid of covering the story. We hear reports but we don’t see in depth detail.” Carter said.
Filed under: Airport Security, Border Patrol, DHS, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, FBI, George Bush, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Mexico, Real ID
Sabotaging Border Security From Within
William F. Jasper
JBS
February 29, 2008
The Bush administration is planning to waive security checks for tens of thousands of new immigrants, a move raising concerns about national security.
Follow this link to the original source: “U.S. to Skirt Green-Card Check“
While the Bush administration continues to insist that American citizens must accept increased inconveniences at airports and more privacy intrusions under the Real I.D. Act, it is waiving security checks for tens of thousands of new immigrants, including many who are being hired as Border Patrol officers.
“Facing a rapidly growing backlog of immigration cases, the Bush administration will grant permanent residency to tens of thousands of legal U.S. immigrants without first completing required background checks against the FBI’s investigative files,” the Washington Post reported on February 12. The change, it said, applies to about 47,000 permanent residency, or green-card, applicants whose FBI checks have been pending for more than six months.
Christopher S. Bentley, a spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told the Post the decision “just seems like a very logical way to get people who deserve benefits in a very fair and timely manner without compromising national security or the integrity of the immigration system.” Mr. Bentley did not explain how the administration can speed the process along by dispensing with the security checks ‘without compromising national security or the integrity of the immigration system.”
Even more disturbing is information that the administration is using the same “wave them through” policy when it comes to applicants for the Border Patrol, including applicants who are “former” members of violent Mexican gangs and Mexican drug cartels. “A lot of [Border Patrol] agents are very upset by the big influx of Mexican gang-bangers” into the service, a recently retired BP agent told me. “This is insane, and is being done under the excuse of increasing the number of ‘native Mexican speakers'” in the Border Patrol.
According to the former agent, the admitted gang members are merely asked to promise that they have broken with their gangs and then are being allowed to continue the application process. “Some of our [Border Patrol] background investigators have brought up serious security concerns about many of these guys, things that in the past would have weeded bad guys out. But the investigators get over-ruled by higher-ups in the administration. This will be disastrous if it is allowed to continue.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/443474.html
Despite Fences Immigrants Still Broach Border
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080303/us_nm/usa_border_dc&printer=1
Filed under: 4th amendment, al-qaeda, Arizona, Border Patrol, Canada, Checkpoints, Control Grid, DHS, DNA Database, enemy combatant, Fascism, FBI, florida, free speech, hate speech, Homeland Security, Internet 2, internet police, Mike Chitwood, Nazi, Police State, RIAA, US Constitution
Florida Cops Use Serial Killer as Excuse to DNA Swab Drivers
Local6
February 7, 2008
Police officers in Daytona Beach are swabbing the mouths of persons of interests during traffic stops with special DNA kits in the hunt for an elusive serial killer, sources close to the investigation told Local 6.
A profiler said the serial killer is likely clean cut and probably has a wife or girlfriend.
And, the Daytona Beach police Chief, Mike Chitwood, said detectives have the killer’s DNA.
“Genetically, we know who he is,” Chitwood said. “We have DNA evidence from the murder scenes — so, we got that. That is never going to go away. And, sooner or later, we will match the DNA to the physical person and bring closure to everything that is going on.”
Agents are using the DNA kits to collect as much DNA as possible during traffic stops and special operations in hopes on making a match.
Local 6 showed agents stopping a person of interest from Canada, who gave his DNA to officers on the street using the DNA kit.
The DNA kits are also being used in prostitution stings in the area.
Chitwood said over time, modern technology will lead to the killer.
“I can tell you that we are working really, really hard,” Chitwood said. “I can tell you that there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes.”
Checkpoint USA: Documenting Police State Power
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKDdH8xtpN4
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/..06.BCHATE06/TPStory/National
Filed under: 2008 Election, amnesty, Border Patrol, CNN, columbia, Draft, Economy, GOP, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Iraq, John Edwards, john roberts, marine, Military, moneybomb, nation building, NATO, North American Union, occupation, Ron Paul, ron paul blimp, Russia, Troops, UN, US Economy, veterans
Soldier Quits Military To Join The Ron Paul Revolution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyxhD20IRjs
CNN’s John Roberts interviews Ron Paul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNT9RnvrJxc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNT9RnvrJxc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T6CeqdSrO4
http://media.www.dukech..ards.For.Prez-3158342.shtml
Ron Paul: Government Must ‘Preserve Liberty’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5WFUpYOZQI
Billionaire To Back Paul – Everything Changes
http://ets.osu.edu/january16th.htm
Ron Paul MLK “Money Bomb” is Coming Up Monday, January 21
http://www.gambling911.com/Ron-Paul-011808.html
Ron Paul Blimp on WIStv in Columbia
http://youtube.com/watch?v=agJt6d7Op8I
Filed under: Arizona, Border Patrol, Drivers License, George Bush, Homeland Security, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Mexico, national guard, North American Union, war on drugs
Cartels outrun, outgun the law at Ariz. border
Fed report details thriving business behind violent international industry
Sean Holstege
The Arizona Republic
October 3, 2007
MARANA ARIZONA – Maj. George Harris watches from a front-row seat the increasingly sophisticated world of Mexican drug cartels as he skims his National Guard helicopter 200 feet above the southern Arizona desert.
Harris commands an aviation unit for Operation Jump Start, a two-year mission that sent National Guard troops to help secure the U.S-Mexican border. Although stopping illegal immigration grabs most of the public attention, slowing the flow of illicit drugs is a critical part of the job.
Hovering above the Tohono-O’odham Reservation recently, Harris pointed to a volcanic hill riddled with campsites where cartel “spotters” take up key lookout positions to alert smugglers of nearby patrols.
Such hideouts dot just about every hill Harris scouts in the 90 miles between Marana and Why in Pima County. There are more than 100 well-armed Mexican spotters operating in Arizona at any time, Harris and federal agents estimate.
The camps show how pervasive the Mexican drug-smuggling operation has become and why congressional investigators said last week that cartels “operate with relative impunity along the U.S. border.”
Mexican smuggling rings, now allied with Colombian cartels, outspend, outgun and frequently outmaneuver government agents from both sides of the border because of enormous revenues and cunning operations.
The drug war is a mismatch in both countries. At best, government statistics show, one load in 10 is seized at the border, where Arizona has become the busiest marijuana-smuggling route.
Billion-dollar business
The Government Accountability Office estimated last week that Mexican cartels earned $8 billion to $23 billion from U.S. drug sales in 2005. The drug syndicate runs street distribution gangs in “almost every region of the United States,” investigators reported.
The U.S. government estimates that 90 percent of Colombian cocaine entering the United States comes through Mexico. That’s up from five years ago, when two-thirds crossed the Mexico border.
With $23 billion in earnings, the Mexican cartels would be nearly the size of Arizona’s two biggest companies combined: Avnet and Phelps Dodge. They would rank 97th on the Fortune 500 list, four spots below the Coca-Cola Co.
The money allows cartels to buy equipment, expertise and weapons; bribe police; or hire well-trained army deserters. The Mexican government fired or suspended nearly 1,900 federal employees last year on corruption allegations.
“The only thing that holds the cartels back is their imagination,” said Ramona Sanchez, special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Phoenix.
‘Like a military operation’
In recent years, officials have arrested drug smugglers in Arizona carrying shoulder-fired rocket launchers. They routinely find assault rifles.
“It’s like a military operation,” said William Newel, head of the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “If they can lay down suppressing fire to let smugglers get away with their loads, they’ll do it. So they want high-capacity, high-power weapons.”
Smugglers used such weapons five years ago to gun down Kris Eggle, a park ranger at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and a friend of Harris, the helicopter pilot.
“It’s always the good guys that get it,” Harris said as he flew through a park canyon crisscrossed with smugglers’ tracks.
There are so many tracks in the park that Harris won’t let his family visit.
Technology, expertise
The cartels’ money also buys technology as well as expertise.
When the National Guard built steel vehicle barriers on the Tohono-O’odham Reservation, smugglers engineered a ramp to drive over them.
The Guard finished a triple fence at San Luis early this year, and once-rampant illegal immigration there almost halted. But last month, work crews discovered a tunnel 30 feet deep that ran under the fence foundations and the water system. Authorities found 45 drug-smuggling tunnels, some with lights and air-supply systems, under the border from 2000 to 2006. The rate is escalating.
Spotters can camp out for weeks in one spot, with smugglers replenishing their provisions. The spotters use GPS equipment, encrypted satellite radios and night-vision goggles to keep smuggling routes open.
The canyons north of Menagers Lake are a popular spot. As Harris flew over the area, he called it the “worst place on the whole border, a nasty little joint,” because of all the smuggling violence. Just across the barrier at the border, the driver of a blue four-wheel-drive vehicle watched Harris’ helicopter glide by and then disappeared in a cloud of dust.
Flying north, Harris encountered a dozen abandoned smuggling trucks in the first three miles. National Guard troops familiar with the region say there are hundreds of abandoned trucks.
Harris’ Task Force Raven has seized 108 trucks in the act of smuggling since July 2006.
Drug war marches on
The U.S. government has spent $397 million since 2000, helping Mexico fight its drug war. The money has gone toward DEA offices, law-enforcement training, border-security grants and helicopters.
“Smugglers hate helicopters,” Harris said.
Cartel spotters are invisible from the desert floor. But from the air, their hideouts are betrayed by arranged rock walls and cut brush used for camouflage. As a National Guard officer, Harris does not have the authority to arrest smugglers, so he catalogs the hideouts and tells the Border Patrol.
“I try and get up in the hills and harass the scouts as often as possible,” Harris said. “It takes away the smugglers’ eyes.”
FLASHBACK: The Secret Border Wars
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2005/140805borderwars.htm
Illegal Immigrants Issued ID Cards
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20071004/1a_bottomstrip04.art.htm
What is the ‘North American Union’?
Filed under: Border Patrol, George Bush, Homeland Security, Immigration, lou dobbs, Mexico, national guard, North American Union
Lou Dobbs: No Hope for Secure Borders Under Bush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTnxGGCvrQU
What is the ‘North American Union’?
Filed under: 5th Amendment, Amero, amnesty, Border Patrol, Canada, CFR, Communism, Dick Cheney, Economy, european union, Federal Reserve, FTAA, global government, Globalism, Greenback, Immigration, Jose Compean, NAFTA Superhighway, New World Order, North American Union, Robert Pastor, rockefeller, SPP, UN
A Case for Repealing NAFTA and Blocking the NAU
A merger of the United States, Mexico, and Canada enabled through NAFTA and called the North American Union is arguably the greatest current threat to our freedoms under the U.S. Constitution. This video presents many of the reasons why the American people must take action. (2007, 36 min.)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5336528565623360235&hl=en
What is the ‘North American Union’?
Filed under: Border Patrol, George Bush, Homeland Security, Immigration, Social Security
Top GOP Leader: Bush Employs Thousands Of Undocumented Workers
Bush hit over jobs for illegal workers
Washington Times
August 23, 2007
By Stephen Dinan – If President Bush is serious about getting tough on U.S. employers who hire illegal aliens, he can start with his own administration, which employs thousands of unauthorized workers, says the top Republican on the House immigration subcommittee.
A 2006 audit showed federal, state and local governments are among the biggest employers of the half-million persons in the U.S. illegally using “non-work” Social Security numbers — numbers issued legally, but with specific instructions that the holders are not authorized to work in the U.S.
“Let’s clean up our own house, let’s especially clean up the federal employment of all those working for the federal government,” said Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee.
The Social Security Administration used to, but no longer does, issue non-work numbers to legal aliens who were not authorized to work but needed a number to obtain a federal or state benefit or service. Still, hundreds of thousands of those immigrants used the numbers to get a job.
According to the 2006 audit by the Social Security inspector general, 17 of the 100 worst employers using employees with non-work numbers were government agencies: seven federal agencies, seven state agencies and three local governments. That means the government knows who those employees are, but usually does not go after them.
Earlier this month, Homeland Security and Commerce departments announced a new crackdown on illegal entry that includes stricter enforcement against employers. The departments said they will encourage businesses to use E-Verify to check employees’ Social Security numbers, and said the federal government will write new rules requiring all private contractors and vendors that do business with it to use E-Verify.
Under current law, neither business nor federal agencies are required to use E-Verify, formerly known as the Basic Pilot Program.
Mr. King said the administration shouldn’t wait for new rules to begin checking federal employees against the non-work list.
“There’s a lot more they can do, but the federal government’s at least got to run their non-work Social Security numbers against their own employee database, and then they’ve got to require states to do that, and local governments to do that,” he said.
The problem is broader than just federal hiring. The latest figures from the Social Security Administration, reported in March, found 521,426 non-work Social Security numbers had earnings credited to them for work done in 2005 and credited during calendar year 2006.
Social Security provides a list of those numbers to Homeland Security every year, but the department has been reluctant to use them for enforcement, arguing to Congress in testimony last year it would take a significant amount of resources and could distract from national security priorities. Homeland Security also says a high percentage of the non-work numbers turn out to be clerical errors or workers who later obtained authorization.
The inspector general says those cases do occur, but more often than not — about 60 percent of the time — the employees are in fact not authorized to work in the U.S. The audit said for government agencies, the percentage is slightly lower: 44 percent of the government workers identified in their sample were unauthorized for employment in the U.S. The inspector general did not name the 100 worst employers on its list.
The inspector general said as long as workers are using invalid numbers, homeland security is threatened, and said telling employers directly about employees using invalid numbers could help stem the flow of illegal workers.
In a sample of 275 individuals using non-work numbers, the inspector general found two were found to have warrants for deportation already lodged against them. The inspector general said it forwarded that information to Homeland Security for action.
Meanwhile, Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and presidential hopeful, says Mr. Bush is falling behind on construction of the U.S.-Mexico border fence that he signed into law last year.
In a letter to the president, Mr. Hunter said just 17.9 miles of the new double-tier fencing has been constructed as of Aug. 10 — putting the administration off the pace he said it needs to build 392 miles by May 30. All told, he said the fence is supposed to reach 854 miles which, because of the region’s geography, will seal off about 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Washington Times reported earlier this month the U.S. Border Patrol sent out a memo calling for agents to volunteer to help build fencing because they are going to fall short of their goal.
Scott Stanzel, a spokesman for the White House, said they are trying to secure the border by adding Border Patrol agents and vehicle barriers. He said there are 100 miles of fencing on the border, and they want a total of 145 miles by September, though those figures include single-tier fencing and fencing that was built in prior years.
noworldsystem.com 