Border Patrol

TUCSON, Ariz. — U.S. Border Patrol officials said Wednesday that agents discovered a garage-sized hole through a steel fence that divides the United States and Mexico just east of Nogales, Arizona.

The announcement was the second one this week about problems with the border fence...

"Smugglers often attempt to cut border fences; dig under them; climb over them; and even throw things over the fence," Border Patrol spokeswoman Nicole Ballistrea said...

.... smugglers have no shortage of creative ways to try to bypass the law and sneak drugs into the U.S....

Just last month, agents in Arizona spotted a truck made to look like it belonged to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a federal agency. The decals on the truck turned out to be fake. But the 3,200 pounds (1,451 kilograms) of marijuana in it were real.

  Read more about Smugglers cut hole through one part of the fence, while rains knock down another section

The tens of thousands unaccompanied immigrant children who have been caught this year at the border are being bused and flown to facilities across the country where they will be housed and cared for in make-shift camps until they are released to family. As a result, many officials in northern states are taking a sudden interest in this crisis and are demanding to know what is being done to deter future waves of children from coming to America illegally.

Last week six sheriffs from across the country were given the opportunity to take a ride on two of the Texas Highway Patrol speed and gun boats that have been patrolling the Rio Grande south of Mission since this crisis began.

Susan Tully, as the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s (FAIR’s) National Field director, helped organize the tour. Tully said FAIR is a nonprofit public policy organization out of Washington, D.C., that has been in place 35 years. Supporters of FAIR believe immigration policies should benefit America and Americans first and foremost, she said.

“What we’re doing down here in the Rio Grande Valley is all about public education of our law enforcement officials so that they can see exactly what is going on along the border,” Tully said. “The true story is not being told by most of the media so we felt it was important for these sheriffs to see the situation down here first-hand.”

She said sheriffs were strategically picked from across the country so they can in turn go back and share what they learned with their colleagues.

While public education was one of the objectives of the northern sheriffs’ visit to the Valley last week, Tully said FAIR’s ultimate goal is to change the nation’s current immigration laws.

“One of the reasons we came down here was to talk to the people who are having to deal with this crisis on a daily basis,” said Tully. “Without fai,l they all agree that the first thing we need to do is to change the 2008 law that requires them to treat minors from other countries differently than they do those from Mexico. That we need to change that legislation because between that and the (Obama) administration granting DACA (deferred action for childhood arrivals) telling children and young people that if they show up here we’re going to legalize them somehow is a perfect storm for what’s going on down here.”

The six sheriffs that toured the Rio Grande on the Texas Highway Department boats last week were Lewis Evangelidis (Worchester County, Massachusetts), Charles Jenkins (Fredericks County, Maryland), Sam Page (Rockingham County, North Carolina), Tony Childress (Livingston County, Illinois), Ken Matlack (Morrow County, Oregon) and Thomas Hodgson (Bristol County, Massachusetts).

As the six sheriffs stood on the boat dock at Anzalduas Park shortly after their ride-along with state troopers, Hodgson said the group met with Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra as well as Border Patrol personnel.

“Seeing as how a number of us are having to deal with individuals who are being sent from here to our home states, we need to know what kind of problems they’re dealing with along the border because with the movement of these individuals all over the country we’re all becoming border states,” Hodgson said.

“We’re going to be mobilizing sheriffs across this country to demand that Congress, as well as the president, act to secure these borders once and for all. We’ve been asking for it for decades and while a lot of people are referring to this as a humanitarian crisis, those of us who have our boots on the ground and have been working to get our federal government to secure our border over these years see it as a leadership crisis. Therein lays our problem.”

According to Customs and Border Protection reports, CBP has apprehended 57,525 unaccompanied alien children along the Southwest Border between October 2013 and June 2014 -- a 106 percent increase over the same period a year ago. During the same period CBP also apprehended 55,420 family units crossing the border illegally -- a 493 percent increase over last year.

In the Rio Grande Sector there have been 42,164 unaccompanied alien children and 42,358 family unit apprehensions since last October. These represent increases of 189 percent and over 500 percent, respectively.

Other than Mexican apprehensions reported from October through June were 154,606 for the Rio Grande Sector and 202,951 for the Southwest Border. Read more about Northern sheriffs get close-up look at border crisis

Oregonians for Immigration Reform is participating in a nationwide protest against the border immigration surge in five different locations July 18 and 19.

Jim Ludwick of Oregonians for Immigration Reform wrote in a press release that the objective is to alert citizens of the dangers of uncontrolled illegal immigration occurring at the Mexican-American border.

The protest will be held in Salem at 11 a.m. until 4 p.m., July 19 on the overpass at Interstate 5 and Center Street NE.

Protests will also be held at the following places and times:

Portland, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m., July 18 at the Mexican Consulate, 1305 SW 12th Ave

Eugene, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m., July 19 at the I-5 overpass at Harlow Road

Albany, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., July 19 at the overpass at 5 FWY and Santiam Highway

Bend, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m., July 18 at the Empire Boulevard and Highway 97 overpass

  Read more about Oregonians for Immigration Reform to protest this weekend

LUBBOCK, Texas—An illegal immigrant who was released by U.S. authorities with a Notice to Appear has been arrested for the alleged murder of a woman and kidnapping of children on U.S. soil. The alleged crimes occurred after the man was released.

The man, Pedro Alberto Monterroso-Navas, entered the U.S. illegally with children and turned himself in to U.S. Border Patrol agents. He was processed and released, as are all illegal immigrants who come as unaccompanied minors or incomplete family units from Central America. The alien is from Honduras.

The arrest was first reported by the Associated Press (AP), but Breitbart Texas has exclusively confirmed that the man was part of the Obama Administration’s catch and release policy for family groups from Central America.

A U.S. Border Patrol source who spoke with Breitbart Texas on the condition of anonymity provided Breitbart Texas with the alien registration number for the man, and the event number for the man’s apprehension. He was processed in the McAllen station of the U.S. Border Patrol. The alien’s registration number is 202027386. The event number for his apprehension is MCS14061487. The “MCS” designates the McAllen station, the “1406” designates that the man was apprehended in June of 2014. A separate Border Patrol source confirmed that the man was apprehended on June 26, 2014 with two children he claimed were his own. He told U.S. authorities he had family in Metairie, Louisiana.

The AP identified the illegal alien as a “suburban New Orleans man” who faces a second-degree murder charge after his girlfriend was found bludgeoned to death in a bathtub in Louisiana. The man was arrested in a Katy, Texas trailer park with three children. It is unclear if they are his or if they are the same children he used to get U.S. authorities to release him with a Notice to Appear.

The AP did not inform their readers that the man was an illegal alien.

Follow Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby on Twitter: @brandondarby.

A typo regarding dates has been corrected in this article. Read more about Released Alien from Border Crisis Arrested for Alleged Murder, Kidnapping in Texas

Earlier this week, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina held a joint press conference to formally announce a new program that will allow Guatemalan citizens to legally travel through Mexico in their effort to enter the United States illegally. Guatemala is one of three sending countries accounting for most of the illegal aliens coming across the U.S.-Mexico border during the ongoing surge. The agreement grants Guatemalans 72 hours of legal status while they make their journey to the U.S.

The "Southern Border Program to Improve Passage" will increase the number of border checkpoints along the Mexico-Guatemala border, provide medical care, and offer Guatemalans a Regional Visitor's Card. The card grants Guatemalans enough time to make the trek to Mexico's northern border.

The program will also offer protection and financial assistance for unaccompanied minors who attempt to make the journey.

For more information, see the Examiner and El Universal.

  Read more about Mexico & Guatemala announce agreement to make illegal passage to U.S. easier

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — United Nations officials are pushing for many of the Central Americans fleeing to the U.S. to be treated as refugees displaced by armed conflict, a designation meant to increase pressure on the United States and Mexico to accept tens of thousands of people currently ineligible for asylum.

Officials with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees say they hope to see a regional agreement on that status Thursday when migration and interior department representatives from the U.S., Mexico, and Central America meet in Nicaragua. The group will discuss updating a 30-year-old declaration regarding the obligations nations have to aid refugees.

While such a resolution would lack any legal weight in the United States,...

  Read more about UN pushes for Central American migrants to be called refugees, increasing pressure on US

MEXICALI, Mexico — A U.S. effort to discourage immigrants' repeated attempts to enter the country illegally by dropping them back in Mexico hundreds of miles away from where they were caught has been sharply scaled back after producing relatively modest gains.

U.S. authorities insist the Alien Transfer Exit Program has contributed to overall achievements in border security and say the cutbacks reflected a need to shift resources to deal with Central Americans pouring into Texas....

  Read more about US border enforcement effort sputters as many migrants cross again, funding diminishes

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The U.S. Border Patrol said Thursday it has stopped transporting Central American children and families to San Diego after they are arrested in South Texas, halting the short-lived experiment that sparked a backlash in one city when protesters blocked a road and forced the rerouting of busloads of immigrants.

The Border Patrol has reduced its backlog of families being held in Texas' Rio Grande Valley and has improved processing there, agency spokesman Paul Carr said.

He denied that protests earlier this month outside the Border Patrol station in Murrieta, California, influenced the decision.

The government chartered three flights to San Diego since July 1, with each carrying about 140 Central American adults and their young children. They had been scheduled to arrive every three days until a flight set for Thursday was scrapped.

Flights to San Diego may resume but there are no plans to do so, Carr said.

"There is no turn-on date," he said.

The flights have been a rallying cry for anti-illegal immigration activists because families are typically released as they await hearings in immigration court.

Before the latest surge of Central Americans to this country, there was only one family detention center in the county, designed for 85 people in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Last month, the government opened a center in Artesia, New Mexico, designed to hold as many as 700 people.

The Border Patrol flew a large number of families from Texas to Tucson, Arizona, in late May, drawing criticism from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer when U.S immigration and Customs and Enforcement dropped them off at bus stations. ICE takes custody of the families after they are processed by the Border Patrol.

Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for ICE in San Diego, declined to say how many families were released after being flown to San Diego.

Flights also began last week from Texas, to Yuma, Arizona, with immigrants then bused to El Centro, California, for processing.

Jackie Wasiluk, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol's parent agency, declined to comment on the status of any flights due to security considerations.

"Our foremost priority is the safety of the (Department of Homeland Security) personnel who are conducting these transfers and the welfare of those who have been entrusted to their custody," Wasiluk said. Read more about Border Patrol halts immigrant flights to San Diego