Border Patrol

One Border Patrol agent is dead and his partner left hospitalized in serious condition in the Big Bend Sector of Texas. The FBI is leading the investigation while Border Patrol Special Operations agents and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations aircrews are currently searching the area for possible attackers.

  Read more about Border Patrol Agent Killed, Another in Serious Condition in Texas

In September 2014, Gilberto Velasquez, a 38-year-old house painter from El Salvador, received life-changing news: The U.S. government had decided to shelve its deportation action against him.

The move was part of a policy change initiated by then-President Barack Obama in 2011 to pull back from deporting immigrants who had formed deep ties in the United States and whom the government considered no threat to public safety...

Last month, things changed again for the painter, who has lived in the United States illegally since 2005 and has a U.S.-born child. He received news that the government wanted to put his deportation case back on the court calendar...

The Trump administration has moved to reopen the cases of hundreds of illegal immigrants...

Trump signaled in January that he planned to dramatically widen the net of illegal immigrants targeted for deportation, but his administration has not publicized its efforts to reopen immigration cases.

It represents one of the first concrete examples of the crackdown promised by Trump and is likely to stir fears among tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who thought they were safe from deportation.

While cases were reopened during the Obama administration as well, it was generally only if an immigrant had committed a serious crime, immigration attorneys say. The Trump administration has sharply increased the number of cases it is asking the courts to reopen, and its targets appear to include at least some people who have not committed any crimes since their cases were closed.

Between March 1 and May 31, prosecutors moved to reopen 1,329 cases, according to a Reuters' analysis of data from the Executive Office of Immigration Review, or EOIR. The Obama administration filed 430 similar motions during the same period in 2016.

Jennifer Elzea, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed the agency was now filing motions with immigration courts to reopen cases where illegal immigrants had "since been arrested for or convicted of a crime."

It is not possible to tell from the EOIR data how many of the cases the Trump administration is seeking to reopen involve immigrants who committed crimes after their cases were closed.

Attorneys interviewed by Reuters say indeed some of the cases being reopened are because immigrants were arrested for serious crimes, but they are also seeing cases involving people who haven't committed crimes or who were cited for minor violations, like traffic tickets.

"This is a sea change, said attorney David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association...

Elzea said the agency reviews cases, "to see if the basis for prosecutorial discretion is still appropriate."

POLICY SHIFTS

After Obama announced his shift toward targeting illegal immigrants who had committed serious crimes, prosecutors embraced their new discretion to close cases.

Between January 2012 and Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the government shelved some 81,000 cases...

Trump signed an executive order overturning the Obama-era policy on Jan. 25. Under the new guidelines, while criminals remain the highest priority for deportation, anyone in the country illegally is a potential target...

In Velasquez's case, for example, he was cited for driving without a license in Tennessee, where illegal immigrants cannot get licenses, he said.

"I respect the law and just dedicate myself to my work," he said. "I don't understand why this is happening."

Motions to reopen closed cases have been filed in 32 states, with the highest numbers in California, Florida and Virginia...

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Reade Levinson in New York; Additional reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington; Editing by Sue Horton and Ross Colvin) Read more about Trump targets illegal immigrants who were given reprieves from deportation by Obama

SAN DIEGO — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the San Ysidro port of entry yesterday took an undocumented man into custody, who was wanted for sexual assault of a minor and burglary, as he was attempting to enter into Mexico.

On Wednesday, April 26, Santiago Flores-Martinez, a 48-year-old undocumented Mexican citizen, was attempting to enter Mexico when he was stopped by the port’s Anti-Terrorism Contraband Enforcement Team (A-TCET) who was conducting southbound inspections of travelers.

A CBP officer conducted a query to get biometric information on the man via the “Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System” (IAFIS). CBP officers confirmed Flores-Martinez was an exact match to active National Crime Information Center (NCIC) arrest warrants out of Clackamas County, Oregon, on charges of sexual assault of a minor and first degree burglary stipulating no bail.

“CBP officers routinely encounter and stop dangerous fugitives, attempting to depart the United States,” said Pete Flores, director of field operations for CBP in San Diego. “Working with our law enforcement partners is not only critical but necessary in order to ensure justice is served.”

After the warrants were confirmed, CBP officers turned over custody of Flores-Martinez to the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS). He will be extradited to Oregon to face charges.

CBP officers put an immigration detainer on Flores so that after the judicial process he will be returned to DHS custody.

Criminal charges are merely allegations. Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law.

For more information about this case, please click on link to read a news release from the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office: http://www.clackamas.us/sheriff/pressreleases/2017-03-01-CCSOPR-SexAssaultSuspectSketch.html

For statistics on more of our apprehensions, please visit our CBP Enforcement Statistics webpage.

For statistics on criminal aliens apprehended, please visit our Criminal Alien Statistics webpage.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws. Read more about CBP Officers Catch Man Wanted for Sexual Assault of a Minor and Burglary as he Headed to Mexico

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deported a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) illegal alien two months ago—believed to be the first enforcement action taken against a recipient of President Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty program. DHS has confirmed that in February it returned Juan Manual Montes, a 23-year old illegal alien DACA recipient, to his home country of Mexico in February after catching him climbing over the border fence in Calexico, California. (Washington Examiner, Apr. 19, 2017) In a Spanish-language interview while detained, Montes admitted under oath to the Border Patrol to illegally entering the country. (Id.)

Montes’s decision to leave the U.S., allegedly to visit a girlfriend, violated the terms of DACA. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the DHS component that administers the unlawful program, DACA may only leave the country if granted advance parole. (USCIS DACA Guidelines) Advance parole is an administratively created tool that allows an illegal alien to leave the U.S. with a promise of being “paroled” back into the country upon return. (See FAIR Legislative Update, July 26, 2016) USCIS guidelines are clear that leaving without advance parole will nullify DACA status. “If you travel outside the United State on or after August 15, 2012, without first receiving advance parole, your departure automatically terminates your deferred action under DACA.” (USCIS DACA Guidelines)(emphasis added) According to DHS, “Mr. Montes lost his DACA status when he left the United States without advance parole on an unknown date prior to his arrest by the U.S. Border Patrol on Feb. 19, 2017.” (Washington Examiner, Apr. 19, 2017)

While amnesty advocates predictably cry foul, details are emerging that cast doubt on Montes’s eligibility for DACA in the first place. When President Obama unlawfully created DACA in 2012, one of the criteria for the amnesty program was having “continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007.” (USCIS DACA Guidelines) Montes claims to have been living in the U.S. unlawfully since the age of nine (approximately 2003), which, if true, would satisfy that prong of DACA eligibility. (Washington Examiner, Apr. 19, 2017) However, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) refute that claim, saying they encountered Montes in 2010 when he illegally crossed the border. (Washington Examiner, Apr. 19, 2017) Rather than face detention and removal proceedings before an immigration judge, Montes opted to be promptly returned to Mexico through a process called expedited removal. (Id.) The Obama administration’s approval of Montes’s DACA initial application and then renewal despite his being ineligible is further proof that USCIS blindly approved nearly every application without properly examining each case, as they claimed they did.

Even though DACA are not an enforcement priority of the Trump administration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the removal on Montes. During a Fox News interview with Jenna Lee, Sessions reiterated that “Everybody in the country illegally is subject to being deported, so people come here and they stay here a few years and somehow they think they are not subject to being deported – well, they are.” (Fox News, Apr. 19, 2017) Read more about DACA Deported After Breaking Immigration Laws Again

Two leading advocates for reforming illegal and legal immigration enforcement were appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as senior advisors for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Jon Feere, the former legal analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, and Julie Kirchner, the previous executive director for the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), have both been appointed to senior positions.

Feere, who work with the Trump campaign and transition team on immigration policy, will serve as the senior adviser to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency Director Thomas Homan.

Kirchner, a campaign alum as well, will serve as the senior adviser to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan.

Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian told Breitbart Texas that the Trump Administration appointed a person who “knows the ins and outs” of immigration when they chose Feere to serve.

“ICE needs somebody like Jon because he’s worked on immigration policy for many years,” Krikorian said. “After eight years of Obama, there were civil servants and people at ICE who weren’t as quite up to date on immigration enforcement.”

FAIR spokesperson Ira Mehlman told Breitbart Texas that Kirchner’s appointment is welcome news.

“They’re both people with long experience and deep knowledge and they’re highly qualified for their positions,” Mehlman said.

Both the Center for Immigration Studies and FAIR have long been advocates for increased border security, a wall, reforming foreign guest worker visas and lower levels of legal immigration to help American wages to rise.

The appointments have come with the usual media backlash that the Trump Administration has grown accustomed to.

CNN, for instance, has written that Feere and Kirchner’s appointments have “alarmed” the open borders lobby. The network propped up opposition to the appointments through the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, with Director Heidi Beirich claiming that that the Center for Immigration Studies and FAIR publish “racist” and “xenophobic” reports.

Krikorian, though, said the open borders lobby is only outraged because they know how effective both nominees could be.

“This isn’t a complaint about qualification,” Krikorian told Breitbart Texas. “Jon and these others know what they’re doing and that’s what the anti-borders groups are afraid of.”

John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. Read more about Immigration Hawks Ascend to Senior DHS Positions

EXCLUSIVE –  The cartel member suspected of shooting and killing Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in 2010 with a gun supplied by the U.S. government was arrested in Mexico Wednesday, senior law enforcement, Border Patrol, and congressional sources told Fox News. 

The suspect, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes, was apprehended by a joint U.S.-Mexico law enforcement task force that included the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals and the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC).

A $250,000 reward had been sought for information leading to the arrest of Osorio-Arellanes, who was captured at a ranch on the border of the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua. U.S. authorities have said they will seek his extradition.

Terry was killed on Dec. 14, 2010 in a gunfight between Border Patrol agents and members of a five-man cartel "rip crew," which regularly patrolled the desert along the U.S.-Mexico border looking for drug dealers to rob. 

The agent's death exposed Operation Fast and Furious, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) operation in which the federal government allowed criminals to buy guns in Phoenix-area shops with the intention of tracking them once they made their way into Mexico. But the agency lost track of more than 1,400 of the 2,000 guns they allowed smugglers to buy. Two of those guns were found at the scene of Terry's killing. 

The operation set off a political firestorm, and then-Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress after he refused to divulge documents for a congressional investigation.

Four members of the "rip crew" already been sentenced to jail time in the U.S. Manual Osorio-Arellanes was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in February 2014. 

In October 2015, Ivan Soto-Barraza and Jesus Sanchez-Meza were convicted by a federal jury of nine different charges, including first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery. 

Rosario Rafael Burboa-Alvarez, accused of assembling the "rip crew," was sentenced to 27 years in prison after striking a plea agreement with prosecutors.

The last remaining member of the "rip crew," Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, is believed to still be at large. Read more about Fast and Furious scandal: Suspected triggerman in border agent's murder arrested

SAN DIEGO (AP) — One potential bidder on President Donald Trump's border wall with Mexico wanted to know if authorities would rush to help if workers came under "hostile attack."...

A U.S. official with knowledge of the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details haven't been made public said four to 10 bidders are expected to be chosen to build prototypes.

They will be constructed on a roughly quarter-mile (400-meter) strip of federally owned land in San Diego ...

The process for bids and prototypes are preliminary steps for a project that will face deep resistance in Congress and beyond....

The Border Patrol and local police would establish a buffer zone around the construction site if necessary, the U.S. official said....

Enrique Morones, executive director of Border Angels, said his group plans to protest.

"There will be a lot of different activity — protests, prayer vigils — on both sides of the wall," said Morones, whose immigrant advocacy group is based in San Diego. "We pray and hope that they're peaceful."

Michael Evangelista-Ysasaga, chief executive of The Penna Group LLC, a general contractor in Fort Worth, Texas, said he has received about a dozen death threats since publicly expressing interest in bidding...

Evangelista-Ysasaga said he bid in part because he wants broad immigration reform. Securing the border, he said, is a prerequisite for granting a path to citizenship to millions in the U.S. illegally....

Building a wall on the Mexican border was a cornerstone of Trump's presidential campaign and a flashpoint for his detractors. The multibillion-dollar project along the 2,000-mile border has many outspoken critics, including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico, which said last week that Mexican companies expressing interest were betraying their country.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that it would pick multiple contractors to build prototypes...

The winning bidders must submit a security plan with details including "'fall back positions, evacuation routines and methods, muster area, medical staff members/availability, number of security personnel, qualifications, years of experience, etc. in the event of a hostile attack," according to the solicitation. A chain-link fence with barbed wire around the construction site is required. The agency said it won't provide security.

Bidders are also asked to demonstrate experience "executing high-profile, high-visibility and politically contentious" projects.

The agency, responding to questions from companies on a website for government contractors, said the Border Patrol would respond as needed if there is a hostile attack, but companies were responsible for security. The government won't allow waivers from state gun laws or indemnify companies whose workers use deadly force.

The website for contractors lists more than 200 companies that signed up for email notifications on the design contract...

Ronald Colburn, Border Patrol deputy chief when hundreds of miles of fences were built under President George W. Bush's administration, said companies should plan on training workers to know when to seek cover and stay put and when to retreat.

"Most of those organizations are probably fairly accustomed to that," said Colburn, who retired in 2009. "Some of them may be learning for the first time, that kind of risk at the borders." Read more about Border wall contractors brace for hostile environment

The government flagged more than 1.6 million foreign visitors for overstaying their visas from 2013 to 2015, but deportation agents said they fell too low on President Obama’s list of priorities to bother targeting for removal, according to a watchdog report released Monday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the deportation agency, concluded that it would cost too much to pursue the overstays...

Overstays pose an increasingly prominent problem in illegal immigration, with estimates saying that as the border has become more secure, migrants are attempting to enter by getting legal passes and refusing to leave when their time is up.

Some estimates say more than 40 percent of illegal immigrants each year arrived legally but overstayed.

While new border crossers were a priority for the Obama administration, overstays were not.

....ERO officials said that in most cases, overstay lead referrals do not have criminal convictions required to classify the referrals as DHS’ enforcement priority.”

But the department is still struggling to figure out how to expand those pilot programs to airports nationwide, and it lacks plans to cover the land ports of entry, where millions of visitors arrive by car or on foot each day.

A biometric entry-exit system has been required by law for years but has been difficult to build.

Homeland Security collects information on arrivals at airports when they go for passport and customs checks but says there aren’t the same kinds of facilities available to track departures. Land ports of entry are even tougher, with visitors arriving in cars and on foot, without any of the infrastructure that accompanies airports or seaports.

Homeland Security has tried a pilot program at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport using facial recognition software...

President Trump last month issued an executive order demanding that the process be sped up....

Current law also requires an annual report on overstays, but for years the department refused...

Last year, the administration released a partial report covering business and tourist visitors, calculating that about 1 percent of those who came to the U.S. overstayed. That worked out to more than 480,000 people in 2015 alone, the report said.

That figure didn’t include arrivals by land, nor did it include critical categories for overstays, such as student visas.

Homeland Security had promised a more complete report this year and told the GAO it would be released by the end of this month.

According to GAO data, Homeland Security flagged more than 2.7 million leads of potential visa overstays from 2013 to 2015...

Another 155,000 cases were still open, while 27,000 were sent to ICE’s special Homeland Security Investigations unit to be probed as public safety or national security threats.

More than 5,000 of those were put in deportation proceedings, while 369 were arrested on criminal charges, resulting in 300 convictions. All told, less than half a percent were subjected to punishments because of their overstay status.

The remaining 1.6 million that were flagged were sent to deportation officers at ERO, but none of them was ousted because of their overstay status.

Meanwhile, on the border, illegal immigration appeared to drop in January, compared with December, according to the latest numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The numbers are still high compared with past years — indeed, it’s the worst January in records dating back to 2012.

But total apprehensions of migrants trying to sneak across the border fell on a month-to-month basis by 27 percent, to 31,575. The number of inadmissible migrants who showed up at the southwest’s ports of entry fell 28 percent, to 10,899.

Apprehensions are deemed an indicator of the overall flow: The more people caught, the more are believed to be getting through.... Read more about Deportation agency ignored 1.6 million visa overstays under Obama

WASHINGTON — President Trump moved aggressively to tighten the nation’s immigration policies Wednesday, signing executive actions to jumpstart construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall and block federal grants from immigrant-protecting “sanctuary cities.”

“We’ve been talking about this right from the beginning,” Trump said during a brief signing ceremony at the Department of Homeland Security.

...Trump cast his actions as fulfillment of his campaign pledge to enact hard-line immigration measures, including construction of a wall paid for by Mexico.

While Trump has repeatedly said the border structure will be a wall, his spokesman Sean Spicer said more generally Wednesday the president was ordering construction of a “large physical barrier.”

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has insisted his country will not pay for a wall, is to meet with Trump at the White House next week.

The orders Trump signed Wednesday also increase the number of border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to be hired. And the president ordered the end of what Republicans have labeled a catch-and-release system at the border...

Later in the week, Trump is expected to sign orders restricting the flow of refugees into the United States...

Trump campaigned on pledges to tighten U.S. immigration policies, including strengthening border security and stemming the flow of refugees. His call for a border wall was among his most popular proposals with supporters, who often broke out in chants of “build that wall” during rallies.

In response to terrorism concerns, Trump controversially called for halting entry to the U.S. from Muslim countries. He later turned to a focus on “extreme vetting” for those coming from countries with terrorism ties.

To build the wall, the president may rely on a 2006 law that authorized several hundred miles of fencing along the 2,000-mile frontier. That bill led to the construction of about 700 miles of various kinds of fencing designed to block both vehicles and pedestrians.

The Secure Fence Act was signed by then-President George W. Bush, and the majority of that fencing in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California was built before he left office. The last remnants were completed after President Obama took office in 2009.

The Trump administration also must adhere to a decades-old border treaty with Mexico...

Trump’s order to crack down on sanctuary cities — locales that don’t cooperate with immigration authorities — could cost individual jurisdictions millions of dollars....

It appeared as though the refugee restrictions were still being finalized. ...

There is also likely to be an exception for those fleeing religious persecution if their religion is a minority in their country. That exception could cover Christians fleeing Muslim-majority nations.

As president, Trump can use an executive order to halt refugee processing. Bush used that same power in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Refugee security vetting was reviewed and the process was restarted several months later.

———

Zoll reported from New York. AP writer Alicia Caldwell in Washington contributed to this report. Read more about President Trump moves to build border wall, block funding to ‘sanctuary cities’