ICE

According to the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) Inmate Population Profile dated August 1, 2012 DOC indicated there were 14,215 prisoners incarcerated in DOC’s 14 prisons (See attachment).

Not included in DOC’s August 1st Inmate Population Profile was DOC data indicating there were 1,240 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) incarcerated in its prison system (See attachment).

All 1,240 criminal aliens incarcerated on August 1st by DOC had United States (U.S.) Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), detainers. The U.S. DHS–ICE is responsible for identifying whether a DOC inmate is a criminal alien or a domestic inmate. If an inmate is identified as being a criminal alien, at U.S. DHS–ICE’s request, the DOC places an “ICE detainer” on the inmate that directs DOC officials to transfer custody to ICE following completion of the inmate’s state sanction.

Criminal aliens made up approximately 8.72% of the DOC August 1st prison population (See table).

Source: Research and Evaluation DOC Unit-ICE inmates lists 01 AUGUST 08rtf – 01 AUGUST 12.rtf and Inmate Population Profile 01 AUGUST 08 – 01 AUGUST 12.

Comparing DOC criminal alien incarceration numbers from August 1, 2008 (1,077 criminal aliens) and August 1, 2012 (1,240 criminal aliens), the DOC prison system incarcerated 163 criminal aliens more than it did on August 1, 2008, a 15.13% increase (See table).
 

An unfortunate fact, the State of Oregon is not fully cooperating with the U.S. DHS–ICE to fight crime committed by criminal aliens who reside in Oregon.

In year 2007, a United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) report titled “Cooperation of SCAAP (State Criminal Alien Assistance Program) Recipients in the Removal of Criminal Aliens from the United States, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General Audit Division, Audit Report 07-07, August 2007, Redacted-Public Version” identified the State of Oregon as having an official “state sanctuary statute,” ORS 181.850 Enforcement of federal immigration laws (See link).

http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/OJP/a0707/final.pdf

The USDOJ, the federal governments top law enforcement agency, identified Oregon as a “sanctuary” for criminal aliens.

An Oregon law, Oregon Revised Statue 181.850 (ORS 181.850), Section (1), prohibits Oregon law enforcement (Oregon State Police (OSP), county sheriffs, city police departments) from asking immigration status of anyone residing in the State of Oregon “for the purpose of detecting or apprehending persons whose only violation of law is that they are persons of foreign citizenship present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.” Under ORS 181.850, Section (2), Oregon law enforcement may exchange information with U.S. DHS–ICE . . . “in order to: Subsection (a), “Verify the immigration status of a person if the person is arrested for any criminal offense;” or, Subsection (b), “Request criminal investigation information with reference to persons named in records of the” U.S. DHS–ICE . . . (See link).

http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/181.html

The State of Oregon should no longer be classified by U.S. federal government law enforcement as having an official “state sanctuary statute” for criminal aliens, nor should Oregon be a sanctuary for criminal aliens to kill, rape, or maim Oregonians.

I ask the Oregon Legislature to please introduce, support, and pass legislation to fight foreign national crime in the next Oregon State Legislature legislative session.
  Read more about 1,240 foreign nationals (criminal aliens) incarcerated in DOC prison system

All summer, citizens have been crying out, 'Why doesn't somebody take this to court!' over Janet Napolitano's Dream amnesty directive.

THIS MORNING, ICE AGENTS DID . . . with the promise of help from NumbersUSA members!

In the last hour, a group of 10 federal immigration-enforcement agents -- including the president of the agents' union -- filed suit against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton.

The suit seeks an injunction against Napolitano's June 15 directive that includes issuing work permits to a whole class of illegal aliens, estimated at 1.7 million, under the age of 31. The 10 agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) section of DHS contend that the directive for the amnesty that DHS began to hand out on Aug. 15 is "unlawful and unconstitutional."

Kris Kobach, the nation's best-known immigration litigator, is leading the agents' legal team.

Chris Crane, president of the ICE Agents' Union, AGFE Council #119, is the public spokesman for the plaintiffs.

NumbersUSA, the nation's largest pro-enforcement grassroots organization, is underwriting the suit, based on the expectation of raising the necessary funds from our 1.3 million on-line activists. Read more about Federal immigration agents just now filed a suit against Janet Napolitano's DREAM amnesty

A Metolius man was arrested after police allegedly found him to be in possession of one ounce of methamphetamine, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said.

Juan Miranda-Medina, 32, was arrested in the parking lot of Erickson’s Thriftway in Madras on July 27 on suspicion of possession and delivery of meth. Miranda-Medina was taken to the Jefferson County jail, where he is also being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for illegal re-entry into the United States.

  Read more about Metolius man faces charges

The 13th defendant in the sprawling “Icebreaker 2” investigation was sentenced Wednesday morning in Linn County Circuit Court.

Gilberto Garcia-Camacho [also known as Marco Hernandez-Vargas], 25, of Linn County pleaded guilty to racketeering and faces nearly three years in prison, with credit for time served and the possibility of earning time off for good behavior.

Authorities have said that in Icebreaker 2, a drug trafficking network distributed as much as 4 pounds of methamphetamine and 2 pounds of heroin throughout the Willamette Valley in any given week.

Police raids happened in the case on March 13 after a nine-month investigation.

Garcia-Camacho [aka Hernandez-Vargas] came in at the tail end of the criminal enterprise, and purchased large quantities of drugs, said defense attorney Paul Ferder of Salem.

Ferder added that Garcia-Camacho [aka Hernandez-Vargas] knew very few people involved in the larger criminal organization.

“He’s aware that at the conclusion of his sentence, he will be deported,” Ferder said.

Garcia-Camacho [aka Hernandez-Vargas], a Mexican citizen, was polite but declined much comment at Wednesday’s hearing.

“Whatever you decide,” he told Judge Daniel Murphy through a Spanish interpreter.

According to the charge, Garcia-Camacho [aka Hernandez-Vargas] conspired and endeavored to associate with an enterprise that distributed methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin.

Daniel Wendel, assistant attorney general, represented the prosecution. The case is being handled by the Oregon Department of Justice and the Benton County District Attorney’s Office. Most of the suspects were from Benton County.

Christian Stringer, Benton County chief deputy district attorney, said eight people in Benton County and four in Marion County already had been sentenced in the investigation.

Six court cases remain in Benton County, and five of those suspects remain in custody. A sixth, James Knox, was released after posting $100,000 on $1 million bail.

The investigation is continuing, and more people could be arrested, Stringer said.

  Read more about 'Icebreaker 2' suspect sentenced

On July 29, 2012, a special kind of bus tour across the American Southwest departed from Phoenix, Arizona. The passengers aren’t going to be relaxing in luxury resort spas or sightseeing majestic landmarks in the desert. There are no rock stars on board, at least, not in the way we’re used to thinking.

The people riding on this bus have embarked on a precarious mission to show Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, along with the United States federal government, that they will no longer live in the shadows. They want to let them know that they are no longer afraid, and that they have begun organizing to take a public stand for the rights of undocumented people in the U.S.

Four days earlier, on July 25, a group of protestors gathered outside the U.S. District Court, where Sheriff Arpaio was testifying in a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund on behalf of all Arizona residents (documented and undocumented alike) who have been victims of racial profiling. Arpaio’s own words were used against him during the trial, and he spent six hours responding to racist comments he made in media interviews.

The protestors that Tuesday included four undocumented individuals – Miguel Guerra, Natally Cruz, Leticia Ramirez, and Isela Meraz – who were arrested outside the courthouse for blocking an intersection and had immigration holds placed on them in jail. Everyone but Guerra has been released.

Leticia Ramirez came to the United States with her parents when she was nine years old, and she has been living on this side of the border for eighteen years. Her children were born in Arizona. She does what she can to help others, including volunteering at a neighborhood food program where children get the breakfast and lunch they need every day.

“Life in Arizona has gotten complicated since they passed their anti-immigrant laws,” says Ramirez, who worries daily about her husband while he’s at work. “Now we can’t go out of the house or enjoy time with our children. We’re afraid to leave because of the police who harass us. Because they want to arrest us.”

Miguel Guerra, who has been here for fourteen years and has a wife and three children, works in construction and has been a volunteer with the Puente Human Rights Movement since shortly after the passage of SB1070.

Guerra says, “We want President Obama to see that we are no longer afraid and that that we are demanding that he take action to solve our community’s problems.”

Natally Cruz, who has been in the United States for sixteen years, also volunteers for Puente; she has a seven-year-old son. Isela Meraz came here with her parents at the age of eight and has lived in Phoenix for twenty-one years. She has participated in hunger strikes and has organized art shows for 3^rd Space’s Queer Cultura.

These four protestors, along with many other undocumented residents, have made their lives in the United States. For them it’s not a viable option to return to Mexico. They’ve planted solid roots in Phoenix, where they work hard and contribute to the community in any way they can.

Ramirez, Cruz, and Meraz, who were released the day after they were arrested, have been riding on the UndocuBus, along with Carlos Garcia, an organizer with the “Arrest Arpaio Not the People” campaign and with Puente Arizona. So far, they have been through New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas.

UndocuBus will be in Austin on Friday, August 3, at noon at the Travis County Sherriff’s office. The gathering includes the support of Austin Immigrants Rights Coalition, the University Leadership Initiative, Grassroots Leadership, Proyecto Defensa Laboral and other immigrant advocates in Austin. Undocumented riders will come out publicly, support local people to build barrio defense, and perform peaceful civil disobedience.

After leaving Austin, they will continue through Texas to Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. The tour will end in North Carolina at the Democratic National Convention (September 3-6, 2012), where the party that promises reform but has so far produced record deportations, will decide whether to include or exclude the undocumented leaders who have put themselves at great legal risk.

Would you put yourself at risk by riding on UndocuBus if you were undocumented? Do you think these protestors are doing the right thing?

  Read more about UndocuBus Comes to Austin: No Papers, No Fear – Ride for Justice

The case against a Salem man accused of delivering heroin to a 21-year-old Keizer woman that resulted in her death has moved from county court to federal court.

Christopher Wood, 19, is alleged to have given heroin to Laurin Ann Putnam on April 16, according to court records.

Wood faces the new charge of distribution of heroin resulting in a death, which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison and up to a $10 million fine. The law, known as the Len Bias law, was passed in 1988 after the cocaine overdose and death of basketball player Len Bias.

Wood joins six others who face federal charges in connection with the case.

Court documents detail how investigators with the Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as other agencies around the state, learned of each level in the drug trade and eventually arrested what appears to be the highest level of dealer in the drug organization, Sergio Quezada-Lopez.

Lopez, 33, was distributing heroin and cocaine to customers in Oregon and Washington on a regular basis in an operation that “likely yielded a yearly gross profit of over one hundred thousand dollars,” according to court records.

In the 96 hours after Putnam’s death, investigators made arrests and conducted searches in Washington, Multnomah and Marion counties as well as Vancouver, Wash., and seized more than four pounds of heroin, an undisclosed amount of methamphetamine and cocaine, two guns and more that $20,000 in cash, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Law enforcement also arrested Braulio Acosta Mendoza, 34, Jose Romo Gonzalez, 22, Jose Aldan Soto, 30, and Julian Hernandez Castillo, 31, for conspiracy that resulted in death. All five men are residents of Mexico, the attorney’s office said, and are being held with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers.

Similar to Wood, Joseph Rubino, 20, of Salem was charged in Marion County court before that case was dismissed and he was indicted on federal charges.

In 2011, there were 143 heroin-related deaths, a 59 percent increase from the previous year, according to the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office.

U.S. attorney Amanda Marshall said in a release that “heroin has saturated our state,” and that “this has to stop.”
  Read more about Man faces new charge in heroin death

The National Border Patrol Council Local 2544 in Tucson, Ariz., is just a little angry. Local 2544, which is the largest Border Patrol union local with over 3,300 dues-paying members, tags itself as "the real border security experts". What are they angry about? Apparently, the current administration's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) senior officials have created what agents call "virtual brainwashing videos". Their website states that Border Patrol agents have been forced to take a virtual learning course on "active shooters" where the bottom line is that if they encounter an active shooter, as in Fort Hood, the Giffords shooting, or Columbine, they — as law enforcement officers — are to "run away" and "hide".

The site goes on, "If we are cornered by such a shooter we are to (only as a last resort) become 'aggressive' and 'throw things' at him or her." As if the Border Patrol is not law enforcement, they are then advised to "call law enforcement and wait for their arrival …. Multiple quizzes throughout the course and a final test ensure repeatedly that we know that we only have three options … 1. Run away; 2. Hide; and 3. Only put up a fight as a last resort by acting aggressively and throwing things at the shooter. Not one mention anywhere of 'if you are carrying a gun and you have the opportunity take the shooter out'."

The union local's website statement ends like this:

It is always comforting to know that for those of us who carry a weapon when we are off-duty, if we should encounter such a situation, stop a shooter and save countless lives, we can look forward to being disciplined or fired by the Border Patrol because we should have run away to hide and then maybe thrown objects at the killer instead of taking action and stopping him with a firearm. ...

Welcome to the New Patrol.

With these complaints public, DHS is now trying to reverse itself and says it will "revise and clarify this training" shortly. Local 2544 put up a statement saying they "look forward to seeing the new training".

I spoke at length to a long-time, well-respected senior member of the border enforcement community yesterday and he rolled his eyes when I mentioned the video. All immigration law enforcement has been required to watch the video, he said. He described the idea that law enforcement officers are not to do their job in clear and dangerous situations as "simply ridiculous and insulting".

This verification of the Tucson local's commentary from a senior official whom I trust made me wonder about the competency and true intent of DHS officials — who, to date, have been nothing short of brazen in rolling back immigration enforcement across the board. This training is being forced on law enforcement officers without caveats or exceptions to the "active shooter" rule in either the literature or virtual learning videos. What conclusion is any reasonable immigration law enforcement officer supposed to draw other than "hide" or "throw things" in such a situation? If a choice is made to stop a shooting rampage, the outcome could be a serious reprimand, even if lives are saved.

Does the Obama administration not mind a scenario where chaos multiplies because they do not want guns used? Can they not see the possibility of another Fort Hood massacre? This is the same administration that actively supported "Fast and Furious", a gun-walking operation that resulted in hundreds killed in Mexico and at least one border agent in the United States. The hypocrisy is blatant. Nothing new, I know. Yet it remains hard to sit by and watch hard-working immigration law enforcement officers demeaned and repeatedly told not to perform their sworn duties. Read more about Border Patrol Training Videos Say to "Hide", "Run Away" in Active Shooter Situations

The Medford Area Drug and Gang Enforcement team said it seized more than $22,000 in cash Tuesday that is believed to be proceeds from drug sales.

MADGE Lt. Brett Johnson said the cash was intercepted on a bus traveling south to California.

The case came together through a tip. MADGE assisted Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Department of Homeland Security investigators, Johnson said.  "We don't often get the money as it's heading south," he said.

Investigators contacted Marisol Resendiz-Pineda, 27, on the bus and found her in possession of $22,136 in cash.

Resendiz-Pineda, of Panorama, Calif., was arrested on a money laundering charge and was lodged in the Jackson County Jail without bail.

In addition, ICE charged her with suspicion of being in the country illegally. Read more about Police arrest woman who was carrying cash