crime

Morrow County sheriff visits the U.S., Mexico border

With 40 years of law enforcement experience, Morrow County Sheriff Kenneth Matlack has a vested interest in making sure that those who cross the southern border are here to better their lives without breaking the law.

“There are many people who cross over the border and are hardworking people who are trying to make a better life for themselves,” Matlack said. “But there are a lot of criminals who come over here and are still being criminals, and when they’re deported, they’re just coming back over and keep committing crimes.”

Matlack said he has noticed a trend of the same illegal immigrant criminals coming back to the states just a few months after being deported, and he wanted to see for himself how the border could be letting so many people in. So he and five other sheriffs visited the Rio Grande Valley and the Texas State Police Border Patrol.

“(Officers) are doing the absolute best they can with what’s available, but patrols are overwhelmed,” Matlack said.

Matlack was impressed with their security, but border patrol and Texas State Police are too thinned out to properly cover the border, he said. And if an illegal immigrant is caught, they have to put them through a detention center that is also stretched too thin.

At the detention center Matlack visited, the McAllen Border Station would process about 250 immigrants in a day while he was there.

“In the facilities they break them apart into different groups, but they keep the families together,” Matlack said. “It’s similar to a county jail. There’s open spaces, cafeteria and an exercise area, but it’s not really designed to hold that many people.”

Matlack’s trip to the south was funded by the Federation for American Immigration Reform. FAIR is a non-profit organization that seeks to eliminate illegal immigration and increase border security.

“This is the first time we’ve done something like this,” FAIR Press Secretary Anna Giaritelli said. “But it’s something we’ve wanted to do so that people can see for themselves what’s happening.”

When Matlack would sit in on briefings during his visit, he said the primary topic was seeking out and infiltrating the Mexican drug cartels.

“What happens at the border doesn’t stay at the border,” Matlack said. “The drugs that are crossing through there are spreading throughout the states. It’s a fight every day for the patrols to try and track down these cartels.”

Once a person is processed, within 48 hours they’re taken to Health and Human Services shelters and they’ll have their deportation trial. Among those 250 are a mix of people seeking a fresh start or family member already in the U.S., but also criminals and people involved with cartels. The process of finding out who’s who among the crowd is an exhaustive and imprecise process.

“It’s frustrating to see all the drug activity that’s coming from the border because it’s not secure,” Matlack said. “I’m not looking to over-simplify things, but something needs to be done to secure things, and it has to be a permanent fix, not a quick one.” Read more about Morrow County sheriff visits the U.S., Mexico border

Illegal reentry prosecutions increase

WASHINGTON — Although immigrants in the U.S. illegally represent a fraction of Oregon’s population, immigration-related offenses constitute the second-highest category for prosecution in Oregon’s federal courts, trailing only drug crimes in number.

Almost one in six federal prosecutions initiated in Oregon in fiscal year 2014 has been for immigration-related charges, with illegal re-entry by far the most common charge, according to Department of Justice figures collected by the The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Nationwide, immigration-related offenses accounted for more than half of all federal prosecutions initiated in April, the last month TRAC data was available. During that month, the Department of Homeland Security referred to U.S. Attorney’s offices almost twice as many cases resulting in prosecutions as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Defense Department combined.

Illegal re-entry constituted the top criminal offense nationwide, just as it had a year earlier and four years before that, according to TRAC figures.

As the law is written, illegal re-entry applies to anyone who has previously been removed from the United States and returns without advance permission, said David Leopold, a criminal defense attorney from Cleveland who specializes in immigration law and is a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Initially, illegal re-entry was applied mostly to violent offenders who had been deported following a serious crime and then returned to the United States, posing a serious danger to the community, he said. But in recent years, it has been applied more generally, even to people with no criminal histories who often come back because they have family in the U.S., he said.

“(The statute is) very broad, and it’s used very broadly,” he said. “It’s one of the most insidious statutes on the books. We all stand for the rule of law, and want the borders secure. But on the other hand, there’s no common sense to that statute.”

The application of the illegal re-entry law has grown dramatically in recent years. In 1992, 36,564 defendants were sentenced by federal judges, including 670 for illegal re-entry. Two decades later, the number of total defendants had grown to 75,867, and the number for illegal re-entry skyrocketed to 19,463, a 29-fold increase, according to a study published earlier this year by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C.

The increase in unlawful re-entry cases accounted for 48 percent of the overall increase in cases between 1992 and 2012, the report said.

N. David Shamloo, a Portland defense attorney who specializes in immigration cases, has noticed the increase in re-entry prosecutions during his 20-year career.

“What I’m seeing more and more is that the illegal re-entry cases for non-aggravated felons or criminal aliens have gone up,” he said. “(Prosecutors) are no longer distinguishing between an aggravated felon and someone with a minor record.”

Estimates place Oregon’s population of immigrants here illegally around 160,000 or 170,000, or less than 4.5 percent of the state’s total population.

“Illegal re-entry cases have been prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Oregon for some time,” said Billy Williams, criminal division chief for the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Oregon. “Prosecution of previously deported individuals who have been convicted of criminal offenses for qualifying aggravated felony convictions continues to be a priority in the District of Oregon.”

Many defendants are the children or grandchildren of migrant workers who came to work farms in Oregon and settled down, said Shamloo. The younger generations often grew up and went to school in the U.S., but find themselves deported after a minor brush with the law, he said.

“They’re not what we used to think of as undocumented folks who used to be migrant workers,” Shamloo said. “I see them employed in all walks of life. They’re working everywhere.”

After deportation, most often to Mexico or Central America, they return to America for the same reasons that have driven countless immigrants before them, Shamloo said: safety, family, economic opportunity, and the American way of life.

“These are often heartbreaking cases. The federal crime is simply being here after a deportation,” said Steve Sady, the chief deputy in the Oregon Federal Public Defender’s Office, which handles many illegal re-entry cases. “‘Here’ is often where the person grew up and where the family lives. Sometimes they have lived here since they were small children.”

Allegra McLeod, a law professor at Georgetown University who has written about the convergence of immigration and criminal law, offered two possible explanations for the nationwide increase in illegal re-entry prosecutions.

One reflects “a general societal turn towards addressing an array of social problems in the United States through criminalization and punishment,” she said. It could also be attributable to “the desire, on the part of this administration, to create political space for comprehensive immigration reform by demonstrating a ‘get tough’ approach on enforcement.”

“We are treating as criminal what is effectively a civil regulatory violation,” McLeod said.

Defense attorney Leopold agreed that President Obama wants to appear tough on crime, but questioned the value of creating “an assembly line of felonization” by indiscriminately applying the illegal re-entry law without considering additional factors, such as lack of serious criminal history and family ties in the U.S.

“If we felonize the very people who are going to benefit from immigration reform, we are solidifying a class of people who have strong ties to this country, and will never come back or will be forever undocumented,” he said.

The relative ease of prosecuting illegal re-entry cases makes it tempting to bring as many as possible, since caseload is a consideration when determining budgets, he said.

“The prosecution case is no different than a traffic violation. It’s paperwork,” he said. “U.S. Customs and Border Protection (receives) a huge amount of money, and they’ve got to justify their existence. How do you justify your existence better than (with) statistics?”

Leopold urged U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to offer guidance for what types of illegal re-entry cases justify federal prosecution.

“I have a hard time believing that tax dollars are being well used when a dishwasher, waitress, or construction worker is felonized and removed” from the country, Leopold said. “The quality of these prosecutions — meaning the type of people who are prosecuted — are basically dishwashers.” Read more about Illegal reentry prosecutions increase

Linn County detectives find large marijuana grow

At 10 a.m. on Aug. 12, 2014 Linn County Detectives arrested Louis Alfonso Arellano-Arellano, 47, of Yakima, Wash., while he was tending to a large scale marijuana grow operation, according to a news release from Linn County Sheriff Bruce Riley.

The grow operation was located on private timber land owned by Weyerhaeuser Company Inc. in the Lacomb area.

Detectives determined Arellano-Arellano was living in and tending to the marijuana grow site. This large marijuana growing operation caused damage to the surrounding land and to the local streams by the cutting of small trees and brush, depositing trash, and littering the area with chemicals and irrigation tubing.

Detectives seized 1,874 marijuana plants from three different growing plots. The grow site contained a hybrid marijuana strain. This type of marijuana plant produces a much smaller and thinner plant by maturing at a faster rate, making the growing season much shorter. The estimated value of the marijuana plants if allowed to reach maturity is approximately $1.8 million.

Arellano-Arellano was lodged in the Linn County Jail and was charged with Unlawful Manufacture of Marijuana, Unlawful Possession of Marijuana, Criminal Mischief II, Criminal Trespass II, and Littering in or near waterways.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement determined Arellano-Arellano is in the United States illegally and therefore has placed a hold on him.

  Read more about Linn County detectives find large marijuana grow

'We're getting overrun and the danger is increasing... we need to open our eyes"

The Sheriff leading the investigation into the brutal slaying of a Border Control Agent by two illegal immigrants has revealed local farmers in his county have reported spotting gangs of armed Mexicans 'in military fatigues' marching through their fields.

Sheriff Larry Spence’s department played a key role in catching Ismael Hernandez and Gustavo Tijerina after they allegedly gunned down hero officer Javier Vega Jr. in front of his mother, father, wife and three sons while they were on a family fishing trip.

Since their capture,Fox News reported that the suspects are both Mexican nationals who were in the U.S. illegally and have been deported SIX times between them....

Speaking to MailOnline from his office in Raymondville, Sheriff Spence said that while the current political focus at the border had been on the humanitarian crisis posed by tens of thousands of undocumented children arriving alone in the US, an increasing 'criminal element' was being ignored.

Read the full article - which includes more details and several photos. Read more about 'We're getting overrun and the danger is increasing... we need to open our eyes"

OFIR President to address Salem 9-12 group

Alert date: 
August 5, 2014
Alert body: 

From the Salem 9-12 meeting announcement:

With the recent crisis on the border, with thousands of unaccompanied minors coming over in floods, with our government turning a blind eye and literally hiding their actions from public scrutiny, it's more important than ever for us to not turn a blind eye ourselves. We need to be aware of how Illegal Immigration is being addressed here in Oregon.

Salem 912 Project
Friday August 8 - 6:30 pm
Scottish Rite Center
4090 Commercial St SE
Salem, Oregon

Our guest speaker will be Cynthia Kendoll, from Oregonians for Immigration Reform. She will speak to us about the upcoming Ballot Measure 88 - Protect Oregon Driver Licenses referendum, as well as the recent nation-wide invasions and what we can do here in Oregon. If we don't stand up here, we might as well sit and turn that blind eye.

Cynthia Kendoll is President of Oregonians for Immigration Reform (OFIR), Authorized Agent and Statewide Campaign manager for the Protect Oregon Driver Licenses (PODL) citizen's veto referendum and an Advisory Board member of Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform (CAIRCO).

Ongoing efforts to stay up-to-date with what's happening regarding immigration issues takes Cynthia to our southern border for the third time this September to attend National Sheriffs Border School and often to Washington DC to lobby Congress and meet with National immigration group leaders. In October, she will be a keynote speaker at a conference in DC.

For the past 14 months, Cynthia spearheaded the efforts to overturn SB 833 - the bill granting state issued ID - in the form of driver cards - to illegal aliens. Running a successful citizens veto referendum and now working toward the upcoming election campaign fills all of Cynthia's time.

Cynthia Kendoll

Authorized Agent and Statewide Campaign Manager - Protect Oregon Driver Licenses http :// www.protectoregondl.org/

President - Oregonians for Immigration Reform http://www.oregonir.org/

Advisory Board - Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform - http://www.cairco.org/

Transport of nearly $1 million worth of meth lands Canby man 17+ years in prison

Omar Martinez Rodriguez showed such little sophistication in drug trafficking that he stuffed 22 pounds of methamphetamine worth close to $1 million into two coolers for the road trip from California to Oregon, his lawyers said.

...Martinez Rodriguez was just a bit player – a courier, not a kingpin.

...sentencing him to more than 17 years in prison. The federal judge said he believed Martinez Rodriguez was planning to sell the meth – some 40,000 doses worth, according to prosecutors.

"You didn't have a chance to capitalize on it, and that's the only thing that saved you from being even more involved as a distributor," Jones said in U.S. District Court in Portland. He noted Martinez Rodriguez' previous assault convictions as well as the undocumented immigrant's illegal re-entry to the United States just months before his September 2013 arrest. "It sounds like you didn't learn anything from going to prison," he said.

Martinez Rodriguez must also serve five years of supervised release, and if he is deported must first get approval from governmental agencies before he may return to the United States.

Martinez Rodriguez was targeted in an investigation, and an informant made arrangements to buy meth from him, according to the government's sentencing memorandum. Authorities learned that his phone was in California, and they began following him after he entered Oregon.

Police conducted a traffic stop around Salem and found the drugs in the coolers ...

  Read more about Transport of nearly $1 million worth of meth lands Canby man 17+ years in prison

Bring your American flag - bring your patriotism and join the protest

Alert date: 
July 19, 2014
Alert body: 

Join us Saturday 11am - 4pm on the Center St. bridge overpass in Salem to protest the lack of enforcement of our immigration laws.

Bring something to drink, wear sunscreen and a hat!  Signs will be available if you need one.

Be respectful AT ALL TIMES!  Obey all laws and do not interfere with traffic.

More information.
 

Released Alien from Border Crisis Arrested for Alleged Murder, Kidnapping in Texas

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

Man with memorable tattoo gets 3 years for sex crime

A former Irrigon man who evaded justice for 12 years is going to prison for three years for a sex crime.

Court records show Martin Estrada, also known as Juan Manuel Virelas-Martinez, pleaded guilty June 19 to one count of second-degree sodomy.

Morrow County District Attorney Justin Nelson said Oregon State Police investigated Estrada in August 2002 for sex crimes in Irrigon. Police found Estrada received oral sex from a girl who passed herself off as 15 when she was a 13-year-old runaway living with him in his trailer. Detectives interviewed Estrada and arrested him Aug. 29, 2002.

But Estrada was able to take off before facing trial.

Then in May, state police arrested a man for a drug-related charge. The man used the name Juan Manuel Virelas-Martinez. Umatilla County Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Fox, who handles inmate information at the Pendleton jail, noticed Martinez’s fingerprints matched Estrada’s.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had a warrant for Virelas-Martinez. While jail staff processed the warrant and found more information for ICE, they also found state and federal identification information that linked Virelas-Martinez to a Martin Estrada.

Virelas-Martinez also sported a large tattoo below his chest that displays his home state Michoachan in Mexico and two scantily clad women on either side of his belly. Old police photos of Estrada show the same tattoo.

While Fox nailed down the identity of the sex-crimes defendant, his victim remained unknown. Nelson said his staff found the young woman living in Houston, Texas. His office spoke with her once, he said, but then all communication stopped.

Nelson said the case against Estrada was on the verge of dismissal when Harris County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Texas found the victim again. The office assigned an investigator to the case who talked to the woman and promised to protect her if she had to testify.

Nelson said that set the stage for a plea deal with Estrada, who after doing his time faces deportation.

Martin Estrada’s tattoo matches the tattoo of Virelas-Martinez. Police believe they are the same man.

  Read more about Man with memorable tattoo gets 3 years for sex crime

This Is a ‘Cheat Sheet’ Found at the Border to Coach Illegals on How to Stay in the U.S.

U.S. law enforcement officials have been finding “cheat sheets” along the border used by illegal immigrants to try to stay in the United States and not get deported after they’ve been caught.

The notes, believed to be supplied by human trafficking groups, give pointers in Spanish on what immigrants should say when confronted by border authorities.

One federal law enforcement official dubbed them “illegal alien cheat sheets.”

A copy of one sheet obtained by TheBlaze lists a series of questions that U.S. authorities will consider in granting someone an immigration hearing.

“It’s proof they are told what to say,” a Department of Homeland Security official told TheBlaze. Often times, the sheets get “destroyed or thrown away before illegal aliens are apprehended.”

An illegal alien cheat sheet found on one of the illegal immigrants crossing the southern border into the United States. The sheets have been found on numerous illegal aliens. According to federal law enforcement officials the human trafficking organizations, who are making huge profits from the surge of illegal traffic from Central America, are supplying the cheat sheets to those who pay them to cross.  Photo/TheBlaze.

A “cheat sheet” discovered near the U.S.-Mexico border. (Photo obtained by TheBlaze)

The sheet obtained by TheBlaze has handwritten notes about the appropriate “yes” or “no” answers to the questions, along with some jotted personal notes on what to say to U.S. authorities. They include, “Who did you live with?” and the answer, “My aunt, but she crossed the border.”

Another handwritten question is, “Where does your father live?” The answer underneath reads, “I don’t know him or even his name.”

Border Patrol agents in McAllen, Texas, have said most of the illegal immigrants they encounter have the same “rehearsed” answers about having “credible fear” in fleeing their countries so they will not be returned.

Among the printed statements in Spanish on the sheet are:

• Why did you abandon your country?

• Because of poverty and misery.

• You’re in fear of your government and afraid to live in your country.

• You’re afraid of extortion from Maras [MS-13 gang].

• Do you have family in the United States?

• Is this the first time you’ve come into this country?

• Did you swim across the river?

• Somebody told you that if you brought a minor child into the United States you can stay.

More than 52,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America have illegally crossed into the United States over the past eight months, mainly through the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas. Many of the families arriving from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatamala believe they will not be returned home if they have young children with them, authorities say.

Federal law enforcement officials told TheBlaze the sheets are prepared by human traffickers whose job it is to ensure passage of the illegals into the U.S. The cost of traveling from Central America to the United States can vary from $5,000 to $8,000, according to recently arrived immigrants and law enforcement officials who spoke to TheBlaze. Many who cross the border use the “credible fear” claim, saying they are afraid to return home, and knowing that they will obtain a notice to appear in immigration court to appeal to stay in the country.

“It’s proof they are told what to say.”

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Because of the overcrowded conditions at border facilities, many families are released at their own recognizance and subsequently fail to report to their hearings.

“Several years ago, we would hold illegal aliens until their court date,” the DHS official said. “We didn’t have this huge crisis when they knew they couldn’t get away and were being held. Now we let everyone go because we have no space — the administration also makes it impossible to do our job and deport them.” Read more about This Is a ‘Cheat Sheet’ Found at the Border to Coach Illegals on How to Stay in the U.S.

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