border

Oregon State Police troopers last week intercepted nearly a quarter-million dollars worth of crystal methamphetamine on its way from Southern California to Washington in two separate vehicle stops on Interstate 5 in Jackson County, authorities said.

The biggest haul came on April 1 when a traffic stop of a northbound vehicle near milepost 35 netted 28 pounds of crystal methamphetamine and the arrest of that vehicle's driver, with a similar stop April 3 near milepost 13 gaining another pound of the illegal drugs, OSP reported.

"It was officers looking past the initial traffic stop and developing some reasonable suspicions that led to consent searches," OSP Sgt. Jim Johnson said.

In the April 1 stop, driver Raymundo Cota Sauceda, 40, of Washington, was pulled over for an unspecified traffic infraction and told police he was en route from Southern California to Seattle, police said. After further investigation a consent search was made and a narcotic canine came to the scene to assist, police said.

The packaged methamphetamine was found in a cardboard box in the vehicle's trunk, and Sauceda was arrested on charges of possession and manufacturing of methamphetamine, police said.

The packaged methamphetamine was found in a cardboard box in the vehicle's trunk, and Sauceda was arrested on charges of possession and manufacturing of methamphetamine, police said.

In the April 3 stop, Martinez Miguel Navarro, 44, was stopped for an unspecified traffic infraction. With his consent, officers searched his vehicle and found about a pound of meth under the front seat, OSP reported.

Methamphetamine has a running street value in Southern Oregon of about $7,000 to $8,000 a pound, but it does fluctuate, Johnson said.

"It's cheaper when you get down to the border and more expensive as you go north," Johnson said.

Navarro was being held Monday in the Jackson County Jail on a fugitive warrant out of Washington and on a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold, jail records state. No jail records were found on Sauceda on Monday.

The investigation was conducted by troopers from the Oregon State Police Highway Interdiction team, Oregon State Police Drug Enforcement Section and agents from Homeland Security. The investigation is ongoing.

"We're hoping that there's possibly more arrests," Johnson said.

  Read more about Two I-5 traffic stops net 29 pounds of meth

Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican known for clashing with the Obama administration on illegal immigration, will speak at a GOP political fundraiser in Eugene next week.

Brewer will be the keynote speaker at the Lane County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner on April 9.

“She is a strong, politically courageous leader and inspiring speaker,” said Cindy Land, Lane County Republican Party chairwoman. “We are excited to hear her uplifting message, as we stand up against one-party rule for better jobs, better educational opportunities and better individual freedom for Oregonians.”

Brewer was Arizona’s governor from 2009 until this January, when the Arizona Constitution’s term limits ended her run.

She became famous four years ago for signing a bill to crack down on illegal immigration in Arizona. The Obama administration opposed the bill.

A year later, Brewer again made headlines after a photo was taken of her pointing a finger at President Obama when she greeted him at the Phoenix airport.

In 2013, the left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, D.C., rated Brewer as one of the worst governors in America, while the conservative Newsmax magazine that same year named Brewer among the 25 most influential women in the GOP.

In an interview, Brewer said she will talk to Lane County Republicans about education, illegal immigration and other issues.

“I’m going to talk about how the federal government has disappointed us on illegal immigration,” she said. “And I’ll talk about what is right with our country, what is wrong with our country, and how we can make it better.”

The Lincoln Day Dinner is the local GOP’s main way to raise money so it can support Republican candidates.

In recent years, the local party has paid Sarah Palin, John Bolton and other well-known Republicans to speak at the event, which typically takes place after February.

Instead, Community Action Network, the political action committee of the conservative-leaning Eugene group Healthy Communities Initiative, brought former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to town as the keynote speaker for its own political fundraiser.

Land, who ran unopposed for the top post in the county GOP party, was elected by GOP central committee members in November.

“Last year, we had some very passionate individuals who had some very strong opinions that caused some confusion in the party,” she said.

“It took a while for it to work its way through the system, and for leadership to listen and be inclusive of everyone in the party. We are a much stronger organization today than we were a year ago.”

Dennis Morgan, executive director of Community Action Network, said he’s glad the local Republican Party will resume hosting the event.

“It’s great they got it organized and they could put it on,” he said.

For Brewer’s speech, Republicans hope to sell 300 tickets, most for $100 apiece.

Land said the agreement with Brewer’s speaking engagement firm prevents her from disclosing Brewer’s speaking fee. Read more about Ex-Arizona governor to address GOP

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say that refusal by jails to cooperate with so-called “detainers” is resulting in unauthorized immigrants with violent criminal pasts – including alleged rapists, child abusers and drug traffickers – being released in New Mexico before federal authorities can take them into custody.

But the counties being asked to hold those individuals are pushing back, citing lawsuits and costs, among other objections.

Nearly every New Mexico county detention center, along with hundreds of other jurisdictions around the country, have in most circumstances stopped honoring ICE’s 48-hour “detainer” – a request to hold arrested persons whom the agency suspects are in the country illegally.

The detainers have become a flashpoint in the debate over how local law enforcement should aid federal immigration authorities and reveal a strain in that relationship after years of closer ties.

ICE provided the Journal with a half-dozen sample cases from 2014 “in which dangerous criminal aliens were released from New Mexico jails since they failed to honor ICE detainers.” Among them were:

- A 30-year-old Mexican male charged with two counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, released in December.

- A 28-year-old Mexican female charged with intentional child abuse resulting in great bodily harm, released in July.

- A 39-year-old Mexican male charged with two counts of trafficking a controlled substance, three counts of child abuse, receiving or transferring of stolen motor vehicles, tampering with evidence and possessing drug paraphernalia, released in March last year.

ICE did not say whether those individuals were convicted on those charges before their release.

But New Mexico counties say ICE has no business asking them to hold people without charge – especially since counties, including Doña Ana and San Juan, are increasingly facing litigation for doing so. U.S. District Court last month said the federal government must be a party to a lawsuit by three unauthorized immigrants who claim San Juan County wrongly detained them under an ICE hold.

Counties say ICE should be held to the standards of other federal law enforcement agencies and charge people with an immigration crime, seek a warrant for their arrest or arrest them upon their release.

“County jails can’t hold a person unless they are criminally charged,” said Matt Elwell, director of the Luna County Detention Center, which stopped honoring ICE detainers three years ago. “That is the difference between a detainer and charge. A detainer says ‘just hold this person,’ and legally we can’t. If (ICE agents) have enough time to put a detainer, I say why don’t you just charge them with a criminal act?”

Counties in a bind

Here’s how the detainer has historically been used: Police arrest someone on a criminal charge such as domestic violence or a serious traffic violation. While the person awaits a chance to post bond or complete a sentence, and ICE suspects he has also violated immigration laws, ICE places a detainer, asking the jail to hold him 48 hours to give ICE a chance to assume custody – on the county’s dime and without filing an additional immigration charge.

Counties say those requests put them in a bind.

The New Mexico Association of Counties reports that at least 24 of 28 county detention centers statewide no longer honor the detainer. ICE confirmed that “most of the jurisdictions in New Mexico do not honor ICE detainers.”

San Juan County Detention Center Administrator Thomas Havel, who is named in the lawsuit, offers this message to ICE: “Don’t put us in peril, give us a bona fide charge and we’ll hold an individual. That’s all it takes.”

Additionally, when a hold is in place, ICE doesn’t foot the bill, the county does. In Doña Ana County, that amounts to $62 a day. In Santa Fe, it’s $85 a day.

“I feel very confident in saying that the vast majority of law enforcement agencies would see the need and the benefit to cooperate with ICE,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors tougher immigration controls. “They don’t feel ICE has been abusing its authority. But the problem now is the threat of litigation.”

Detainers denied

ICE issued 600 detainers in New Mexico in fiscal year 2014 but said it does not routinely track the number of detainers that aren’t honored. However, The Associated Press reported that in the first eight months of 2014, localities nationwide declined 8,800 of the roughly 105,000 detainer requests filed by immigration officers.

“The release of serious criminal offenders to the community, rather than to ICE custody for removal, undermines ICE’s ability to protect public safety and impedes ICE from enforcing the nation’s immigration laws,” ICE said in a statement.

ICE declined to describe its current policy for taking custody of unauthorized immigrants in New Mexico, saying it “does not discuss specific operating methods.”

‘Constitutional’ issues

Jurisdictions across the country increasingly began to deny ICE detainers thanks to a U.S. Court of Appeals decision a year ago ruling that detainers are nonbinding requests and do not carry the force of a criminal charge or warrant.

Vicki Gaubeca, director of the ACLU’s Regional Center for Border Rights in Las Cruces, said ICE detainers “raise serious constitutional problems.”

“No right is more firmly ingrained in our Constitution … than the right not to be left in jail indefinitely without charges filed or an opportunity to post bail,” she said. “States and municipalities would open themselves to liability if they treated ICE detainers as if they were sentences imposed by a court.”

New Mexico counties have been faced with tort claims for wrongful detention.

Doña Ana County was one of the last New Mexico counties to stop honoring the detainers, ending the practice last May. The county got tangled in litigation when two Mexican women sued after the jail prohibited them from posting bond and imprisoned them for two months on the basis of a 48-hour ICE hold.

The women, sisters Hortencia and Maria Acahua Zepahua, had been living in New Mexico for 12 years and had applied for legal residency.

“We are under more scrutiny than ICE would be,” said Chris Barela, director of the Doña Ana County Detention Center. “There was a time when we used to ask the citizenship. That is no longer allowed.”

New priorities

Cooperation between local and federal law enforcement on immigration issues in recent years had been dictated by the Secure Communities program, under which detainers were issued until U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson discontinued Secure Communities in a Nov. 20 memo to ICE.

“The goal of Secure Communities was to more effectively identify and facilitate the removal of criminal aliens in the custody of state and local law enforcement agencies,” Johnson said in the memo. “But the reality is the program has attracted a great deal of criticism, is widely misunderstood and is embroiled in litigation; its very name has become a symbol for general hostility toward the enforcement of our immigration laws.”

Johnson instructed ICE to replace requests for detention with requests for notification. Rather than ask a county jail to hold individuals beyond their release date, Johnson told ICE to ask local law enforcement to inform the agency of a pending release.

DHS spokeswoman Marsha Catron said a transition is underway to replace Secure Communities with the “Priority Enforcement Program,” which reflects the administration’s focus on targeting unauthorized immigrants who are also convicted criminals.

“ICE will now only seek transfer under PEP of an individual in state or local law enforcement custody if that individual has a conviction for a criminal offense, is suspected of terrorism or espionage, or otherwise poses a danger to national security,” Catron said in a statement.

New reality

New Mexico counties describe varying degrees of communication with ICE, from solid working relationships to minimal interaction. Several detention centers said they provide ICE with a daily roster of inmates so that the agency can run the names and determine whether to bring immigration charges.

Elwell in Luna County described a good relationship with local ICE agents. On the other end of the spectrum, Barela said Doña Ana doesn’t communicate with ICE at all – not even emailing a daily roster – to protect itself from liability. ICE agents drop by “every couple of days” in person to review the list, he

“We don’t send them anything anymore,” he said.

Mark Caldwell, warden of the Santa Fe Adult Detention Facility, said, “Once the detainers were not honored, we really haven’t been in communication.”
  Read more about Detentions put counties, ICE at odds

WASHINGTON – Local law enforcement must be involved in securing “the rural parts of the Southwest border,” which is still dangerously insecure, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels told a Senate panel Tuesday....

“I want to be crystal clear: The border is not secure,” said Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent who was testifying on behalf of the National Border Patrol Council.

Cabrera said some people don’t realize the extent of border issues because the Department of Homeland Security uses data that inaccurately shows that border patrol agents are “75 percent effective in apprehending illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.”

A more realistic metric is somewhere between 35 – 40 percent – and that percentage is even lower when dealing with experienced criminals in the drug cartels, he said.

Dannels said trafficking of drugs and people has “diminished the quality of life” for residents of Cochise County and placed “unbearable strain” on the county’s budget and resources.

Dannels laid the problem squarely at the feet of federal officials, whose changes to border priorities in the 1990s forced illegal activity into the rural areas along the border.

“I am not proud to say that today we are a product of the federal government’s plan,” Dannels said.

Dannels said that fear is rampant along the border – with many of his constituents afraid to leave their homes.

“It’s just a horrible way to live when we live in the United States,” he said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said at the hearing that the border can be secured through proper use of assets, strategies and technology.

“Those who say, well you just can’t do it – they obviously are incorrect because every nation has the obligation to have a safe and secure border,” McCain said....

“Those that choose to live on our border should deserve the same freedom and liberty as those that live here in D.C., Iowa and beyond,” Dannels said.
  Read more about Arizona residents, officials tell senators Southwest border ‘is not secure’

Federal immigration officers released another 30,000 immigrants with criminal records last year, following the 36,000 it released in 2013, the government announced Wednesday — though it promised to take steps to cut down on the problem.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that handles detention and removal of illegal immigrants, said it will no longer allow overcrowding to be the main reason a dangerous illegal immigrant is released, and will require a top supervisor to approve the cases of any serious criminals that officers want to release.

Overall, ICE released 30,558 criminal aliens in fiscal 2014...

ICE said it lad little discretion over most of the criminals it released. The agency said under a previous court decision, immigrants whose home countries won’t take them back cannot be held indefinitely, so they have to be released after a period of time.

Republicans in Congress have proposed rewriting the law to allow for longer detention of serious criminals, and have called on the Obama administration to use existing powers to deny visas to leaders of countries that refuse to take their citizens back.

But the administration has declined to take those steps....

ICE didn’t release a breakdown of criminal offenses of the new 30,000 on Wednesday, but among the 36,000 released in 2013 were 193 homicide convictions, 426 sexual assault convictions, 303 kidnapping convictions and 16,070 convictions for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol...

Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which exposed the first batch of 36,000 releases, said Wednesday that giving supervisors more review of each case isn’t a solution — it’s the root of the problem....

She said having more supervision of those released is a good step, but said it’s even more cost-effective to use expedited removal to kick criminals out of the country faster, She said ICE’s own analysis has found that using alternatives to detention, such as electronic monitoring or a phone-in system, turns out to be expensive because it results in drawn-out cases, and more fugitives who abscond.
  Read more about DHS released another 30,000 criminal aliens onto streets

The pilot project launched last Sunday in the consulates in Portland, Oregon, Brownsville and McAllen seeks to help authorities determine if unaccompanied migrant children need to reunite with their families or if it is necessary to request asylum in the United States.

Mexico's government will start applying a new protocol in May to help Mexican migrant children.

The pilot project launched last Sunday in the consulates in Portland, Oregon, Brownsville and McAllen seeks to help authorities determine if unaccompanied migrant children need to reunite with their families or if it is necessary to request asylum in the United States.

"This is unprecedented, because before children were asked about their health, if they suffered human rights violations or if they had complaints about their deportation proceedings, but the new protocol is focused on understanding their family situation and circumstances to migrate," said Reyna Torres, director of Protection of Mexicans Abroad.

The protocol, created with the help of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), includes images so that children can identify their migration route or the type of officer that arrested them.

The information obtained will be included in a database that will be shared with the National Immigration Institute (INM) and the System for the Integral Development of Families (DIF). Read more about Mexico to launch new protocol to help unaccompanied migrant children

RIO GRANDE VALLEY - The Border Patrol is reporting a severe spike in sex offenders sneaking into the U.S.

According to the feds, illegal immigrant sex offenders have been caught in every corner of the Rio Grande Valley.

Border Patrol agents are running into more sex offenders this year than last year.

Within the last five months, 144 apprehended.

During the same time last year, 93 sex offenders were caught trying to fly under the radar.

In December, a woman from El Salvador was picked up, who was convicted of child sex assault back in 2009. It reportedly happened in Dallas County.

Later that month, three Mexican nationals were caught near Harlingen.

In February, seven sex offenders were rounded up near McAllen, Harlingen, Falfurrias and Kingsville.

Less than a week later, another two Mexican nationals were caught. Two days ago, two Guatemalan men were arrested.

The sex offenders go to great lengths to avoid capture. Agents said they often travel through South Texas brush and try to blend in with large groups of illegal immigrants.

Border Patrol agents are using sophisticated software that search criminal databases worldwide. They have strengthened their biometric technology, which scans fingerprints, scans retinas, and has facial recognition.

Agents cannot say why more sex offenders are attempting to cross. They often try to travel to the U.S. to avoid legal repercussions for the crimes they committed in their home countries.

The Border Patrol is also tracking an uptick in rescues. They are seeing a spike in both search and rescues on the Rio Grande and deaths. Read more about Border Patrol: Increase in Sex Offenders Crossing the Border

Mexico’s warring drug cartels helped orchestrate the massive influx of unaccompanied alien children that streamed through the Rio Grande Valley last summer, according to a leaked report from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

...the children did not enter the country entirely “unaccompanied.” How, when, and where the alien children crossed into the United States appears to have been determined by transnational criminal organizations who exercise control over much of the southern border, according to the leaked report first obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

... the cartels were making strategic decisions at the border in response to the actions of former Governor Rick Perry. When Perry deployed the National Guard to the border in the middle of the crisis in late-July of 2014, the cartels immediately responded....

The Obama administration immediately began taking credit for this development the very next month. U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner Gil Kerlikowske celebrated the news of fewer unaccompanied alien children crossing the southern border as directly attributable to President Obama...

But the leaked report demonstrates that it was Perry who played the biggest role in stemming the tide of illegal immigrant children flowing into the U.S., not the Obama administration. In response to Perry’s efforts to secure the border, the cartels stepped up their surveillance and scouting activities to uncover vulnerabilities in the system....

Despite the elaborate gang activities detailed in the report, the Obama administration continues to describe the southern border as becoming more secure each and every day. Soon after the massive influx tapered off last year, Kerlikowske said, “Our border has been and remains more secure than it has been in decades.” But the leaked report shows the spurious nature of the Obama administration’s claim.

The increasing number of “special interest aliens,” those from countries that are known terrorist hotbeds, poses a “significant threat to homeland security,” according to the report. “The number of CBP encounters with SIAs in Texas sectors increased 15 percent during the first nine months of 2014 compared to the same time period in 2013,” the report finds. “Over the past few years, these have included SIAs from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Turkey.”

Between November 2013 and July 2014, approximately 143 individuals on terrorist watch-lists successfully crossed the southern border into the U.S. before encountering law enforcement or immigration-enforcement officers.

One of these special interest aliens was a member of al-Shabaab, the Islamic terrorist group. The Somali man was encountered at the southern border in Hidalgo, Texas in June 2014....

The full extent to which the drug cartels and special interest aliens have overrun Texas’ border remains unclear....

“Two months from now, if [another surge of immigrants] occurs, well then we’ve lost that edge, but right now I think we have it,” Martinez says. “We need to learn their pattern so you can get the right staff in there to intercept that. … Either we’re looking at theirs or they’re looking at ours.” The edge the U.S. maintains comes at a steep cost. The report says the state of Texas spent more than $100 million to regain control of the border, but that “ample and compelling evidence” suggests the Texas-Mexico border is still not secure. It is unclear if Texas has the wherewithal to keep the border in check this summer, when more illegal immigrants are expected to arrive. Read more about Mexican Drug Cartels Caused the Border Crisis

Following paragraphs are from the article.

“…When the issue of immigration comes up most people purely focus on the lack of integrity to the border that is supposed to separate the United States from America. Clearly that border lacks integrity and represents little more than a speed bump to smugglers who transport illegal aliens and contraband including record quantities of dangerous drugs such as heroin and cocaine into the United States.

“However, there are many more components to the immigration system including systems by which aliens are granted visas to enter the United States and various immigration benefits such as conferring employment authorization to aliens in the United States and also include the adjudication process by which aliens are granted lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship.

“All of these systems of the immigration system lack integrity. …”

Michael Cutler is a retired Senior Special Agent of the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) whose career spanned some 30 years. He hosts his radio show, “The Michael Cutler Hour,” on Friday evenings on BlogTalk Radio.

  Read more about Congressional oversight on immigration is actually Congressional overlook;