border

Oregon police were hunting an ex-con Mexican national accused of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old Portland girl while her younger sister slept just a few feet away.

Previously-deported Santiago Martinez-Flores, 48, has a decades old criminal history and already served time for assault, criminal mischief, unauthorized use of a vehicle and failure to perform the duties of a driver. He was deported in March 2001 after a two-year prison sentence but made his way back to the U.S. sometime before the February sexual assault in which he’s suspected, Fox 12 reported.

The girl was sexually assaulted as she slept in her apartment on Feb. 26, according to investigators. But she woke up during the incident and, after the intruder tried to hold her down, the girl was able to break free and run to her parents’ room, officials said.

The girl’s father quickly retrieved a gun and ran to confront the man, who had already escaped. However, the girl was able to describe her attacker and authorities said they found physical evidence linking Martinez-Flores to the crime.

Martinez-Flores may be using the alias “Felipe Coeto” or “Isidro Ramos Flores.”

“It's a terrible thing, and to have somebody take advantage of a child like that I think is one of the worst things that a human being can do,” neighbor Debra Griffith told KATU2. “I hope they put them away for a long, long time.” Read more about Suspect in sex assault of 9-year-old girl had been deported to Mexico

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

Attorney General Jeff Sessions today spoke to Customs and Border Protection personnel at the United States-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona.

In his remarks, the Attorney General announced that he has issued the attached memo to United States Attorneys that mandates the prioritization of criminal immigration enforcement. The memo directs federal prosecutors to focus on particular offenses that, if aggressively charged and prosecuted, can help prevent and deter illegal immigration.

Additionally, the Attorney General revealed that the Department of Justice will add 50 more immigration judges to the bench this year and 75 next year. He also highlighted the Department's plan to streamline its hiring of judges, reflecting the dire need to reduce the backlogs in our immigration courts.

Please find below the full remarks from Attorney General Sessions.

* * *

Remarks Prepared for Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Meeting with Customs and Border Protection Personnel and Immigration Policy Announcement

NOGALES, ARIZONA

Good morning, everyone. Let me start by thanking the brave men and women of Customs and Border Protection, who not only served as our gracious hosts today, but who put themselves in harm’s way each day to secure our borders and protect us.

Here, along our nation’s southwest border, is ground zero in this fight. Here, under the Arizona sun, ranchers work the land to make an honest living, and law-abiding citizens seek to provide for their families.

But it is also here, along this border, that transnational gangs like MS-13 and international cartels flood our country with drugs and leave death and violence in their wake. And it is here that criminal aliens and the coyotes and the document-forgers seek to overthrow our system of lawful immigration.

Let’s stop here for a minute. When we talk about MS-13 and the cartels, what do we mean? We mean criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens and who profit by smuggling poison and other human beings across our borders. Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings.

It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.

In this fight, I am here to tell you, the brave men and women of Customs and Border Protection: we hear you and we have your back. Under the President’s leadership and through his Executive Orders, we will secure this border and bring the full weight of both the immigration courts and federal criminal enforcement to combat this attack on our national security and sovereignty.

The President has made this a priority — and already we are seeing the results. From January to February of this year, illegal crossings dropped by 40 percent, which was unprecedented. Then, last month, we saw a 72 percent drop compared to the month before the President was inaugurated. That’s the lowest monthly figure for at least 17 years.

This is no accident. This is what happens when you have a President who understands the threat, who is not afraid to publically identify the threat and stand up to it, and who makes clear to law enforcement that the leadership of their country finally has their back. Together, we will drastically reduce the danger posed by criminal aliens, gang members and cartel henchmen.

To that end, the President and I want to do our best to arm you, and the prosecutors who partner with you, with more tools in your fight against criminal aliens. So today, I am pleased to stand here with you and announce new guidance regarding our commitment to criminal immigration enforcement. As we speak, I am issuing a document to all federal prosecutors that mandates the prioritization of such enforcement.

Starting today, federal prosecutors are now required to consider for prosecution all of the following offenses:

• The transportation or harboring of aliens. As you know too well, this is a booming business down here. No more. We are going to shut down and jail those who have been profiting off this lawlessness — people smuggling gang members across the border, helping convicted criminals re-enter this country and preying on those who don’t know how dangerous the journey can be.
• Further, where an alien has unlawfully entered the country, which is a misdemeanor, that alien will now be charged with a felony if they unlawfully enter or attempt enter a second time and certain aggravating circumstances are present.
• Also, aliens that illegally re-enter the country after prior removal will be referred for felony prosecution — and a priority will be given to such offenses, especially where indicators of gang affiliation, a risk to public safety or criminal history are present.
• Fourth: where possible, prosecutors are directed to charge criminal aliens with document fraud and aggravated identity theft — the latter carrying a two-year mandatory minimum sentence.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly: I have directed that all 94 U.S. Attorneys Offices make the prosecution of assault on a federal law enforcement officer — that’s all of you — a top priority. If someone dares to assault one of our folks in the line of duty, they will do federal time for it.

To ensure that these priorities are implemented, starting today, each U.S. Attorney’s Office, whether on the border or interior, will designate an Assistant United States Attorney as the Border Security Coordinator for their District. It will be this experienced prosecutor’s job to coordinate the criminal immigration enforcement response for their respective offices.

For those that continue to seek improper and illegal entry into this country, be forewarned: This is a new era. This is the Trump era. The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws and the catch and release practices of old are over.

In that vein, I am also pleased to announce a series of reforms regarding immigration judges to reduce the significant backlogs in our immigration courts.

Pursuant to the President’s executive order, we will now be detaining all adults who are apprehended at the border. To support this mission, we have already surged 25 immigration judges to detention centers along the border. I want to thank personally the judges who answered the call to help us with this new initiative.

In addition, we will put 50 more immigration judges on the bench this year and 75 next year. We can no longer afford to wait 18 to 24 months to get these new judges on the bench. So today, I have implemented a new, streamlined hiring plan. It requires just as much vetting as before, but reduces the timeline, reflecting the dire need to reduce the backlogs in our immigration courts.

With the President’s Executive Orders on Border Security, Transnational Criminal Organizations and Public Safety as our guideposts, we will execute a strategy that once again secures the border; apprehends and prosecutes those criminal aliens that threaten our public safety; takes the fight to gangs like MS-13 and Los Zetas; and makes dismantlement and destruction of the cartels a top priority. We will deploy a multifaceted approach in these efforts: we are going to interdict your drugs on the way in, your money on the way out and investigate and prosecute your trafficking networks to the fullest extent of the law.

Why are we doing this? Because it is what the duly enacted laws of the United States require. I took an oath to protect this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. How else can we look the parents and loved ones of Kate Steinle, Grant Ronnebeck and so many others in eye and say we are doing everything possible to prevent such tragedies from ever occurring again?

Let me finish where I started, by thanking you — the brave men and women in uniform who are at the front lines of this fight. I know we ask a tremendous amount from all of you, but know this: we have your back, and will do all we can to empower you and support you in your work.

God bless you and thank you. Read more about Attorney General Jeff Sessions Announces the Department of Justice’s Renewed Commitment to Criminal Immigration Enforcement

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

WASHINGTON (March 7, 2017) – In the third of a series of reports on the placement of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) in communities across the country, the Center for Immigration Studies explores the implications of tens of thousands of UACs being entrusted to illegal immigrant sponsors. These sponsors, of whom more than 80 percent are already defying U.S. law by living in the country illegally, often also fail to comply with their responsibilities as sponsors, and the Obama administration simply ignored this non-compliance and the resulting safety consequences.

According to Joe Kolb, a Center fellow and author of the report, "From FY 2014 – FY 2016, 106,802 UACs were placed in illegal alien households throughout the country as a result of Obama administration policies. Approximately 13,000 of these minors skipped out on their immigration court hearings. This represents 36 percent of the cases completed. Of those whose cases have finished, a mere 25 percent have qualified for permission to stay."

View the three UAC reports:

• Immigration Impunity: http://cis.org/Immigration-Impunity
• Implementation of a Law to Protect Trafficking Victims Has Become a Public Safety Issue: http://cis.org/Law-to-Protect-Trafficking-Victims-Has-Become-a-Public-Safety-Issue
• Brentwood, N.Y., Consumed by MS-13 Crime Wave: http://cis.org/GangCrime

Thirty days after placement, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) calls each household to ensure the child is safe and still residing with the sponsor, attending school, and is aware of court dates. But "only nine percent of parental sponsors, 15-18 percent of non-parental sponsors, and less than half of the youths have been reached in these calls." The lowest rates of participation in the follow up phone calls were the family friend or distant relative sponsors. "For those who aren't reached, there is no further action by ORR and for those who decline to participate there is no penalty or enforcement attached to non-compliance."

Jessica Vaughan, the Center's Director of Policy Studies, stated, "The Obama administration policies on the surge of youth and family arrivals from Central America has been a failure, not only for communities where they have settled but often for the kids too, as many have fallen prey to abuse, exploitation, and conscription into gangs. The Obama administration's overriding goal was to releasing the kids from custody, leaving schools, police, and immigration courts to deal with the problem. The solution has to be to deal with the cases at the border, and to hold family members who have broken our laws responsible for their choices."

Contact: Marguerite Telford
202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org Read more about Immigration Impunity

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

Residents living in the Eugene area said Wednesday that they are nervous after Tuesday’s announcement that federal immigration authorities will begin aggressively locating, arresting and deporting people who are in the country illegally, regardless of whether they’re otherwise law-abiding.

Rose Richeson, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement public affairs officer for the Pacific Northwest, said Wednesday that ICE agents no longer will make deportation exceptions for any “class or category of removable aliens.”

“All of those in violation of immigration law may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and — if found removable by final order — removed from the United States,” Richeson said.

A final order is a final judgement made by a judge.

The memorandum, Richeson said, makes it clear that ICE will prioritize the deportation of illegal immigrants who have been convicted of a crime. Richeson also said that, in compliance with the Tuesday memos, ICE would conduct “targeted enforcement operations and allocate resources to work in jurisdictions with violent crime tied to gang activities.”

Documents released Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security outlined what policies and practices the Trump administration intends to implement in the coming months to combat illegal immigration.

The practices include enlisting local police officers to enforce immigration laws; establishing new detention facilities; publicizing crimes by undocumented immigrants; stripping such immigrants of privacy protections; discouraging asylum seekers; and immediately hiring at least 5,000 border patrol agents as well as 10,000 new ICE agents. The Trump administration has not announced how those new hires will be funded.

One of the memorandums directs the appropriate agencies to begin planning, designing, constructing and maintaining a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, complete with lighting, technology and sensors.

Despite Trump’s detailed implementation plans laid out Tuesday, local and state law enforcement officials said Wednesday that they had no intention of acting as ICE agents.

“The federal government has no authority to tell us to enforce immigration laws,” Oregon State Police Capt. Bill Fugate said. “In general, we can’t just enforce federal laws; we enforce state laws. We won’t be delegating our resources to enforcing immigration laws.”

Fugate pointed to a 2013 state law that prevents local and state law enforcement from using state money to locate people living in Oregon who are not U.S. citizens.

ORS 181.850 states: “No law enforcement agency of the State of Oregon or of any political subdivision of the state shall use agency moneys, equipment or personnel 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.”

Eugene Police Chief Pete Kerns echoed Fugate’s comments and cited the same law.

Earlier this month, Gov. Kate Brown signed an executive order of her own designed to bolster protections in Oregon against deportation and discrimination of people who immigrated to the country without authorization.

Brown’s executive order bans state agencies from helping federal immigration officials find or arrest illegal immigrants. That would expand Ore­gon’s 1987 “sanctuary state” law, which already prevents any state or local law enforcement agency from doing so. The order also would explicitly prohibit state agencies from discriminating against illegal immigrants, unless existing state or federal law requires them to do so.

Brown’s executive order would apply to agencies such as the Department of Human Services, which administers Ore­gon’s safety net social service programs, as well as the Department of Education and the Department of Transportation.

Brown said at the time that she was concerned about news reports of plainclothes federal immigration officers making arrests and appearing to monitor people at the Multnomah County courthouse in Portland.

She acknowledged that she hasn’t heard of any state agency receiving requests from federal immigration officers for state assistance in implementing deportation efforts. Brown said her order primarily is a preventive measure.

“I want our agencies to understand that folks will not be targeted based on their immigration status,” she said.

Brown’s office did not return calls Wednesday seeking comment about stepped-up border security, immigration enforcement and deportations.

Deportations have taken place across the nation for years, including during the Obama administration, when 2.4 million people were deported from fiscal year 2009 to 2014, including a record 435,000 in 2013, according to DHS data.

The population of unauthorized immigrants living in Oregon is unclear. Census data indicate that about 130,000 undocumented residents lived in Oregon in 2014, according to the most recent Pew Research Center data.

Advocates of a new state law dubbed by supporters as “Cover All Kids,” which would extend government-funded health insurance in Ore­gon to many unauthorized immigrant children, estimate that about 17,900 unauthorized immigrants younger than age 19 live in the state.

But Lane County immigrant rights advocates and organizations said Wednesday that the Trump administration is using fear and intimidation tactics in its fight against illegal immigration.

David Sáez, executive director of Centro Latino Americano, said Wednesday that those tactics are working. Centro Latino Americano is a bilingual, multicultural agency that serves Latino families in Lane County.

Sáez said fear among some undocumented members of the community, as well as family members of those populations, grows with each new memorandum or executive order issued by the Trump administration or the president himself.

“There are people who are keeping their children home from school and who aren’t going to work because they’re scared,” Sáez said. “Being a safe community is critical. … We need to make sure our schools, our city, our county and our state are creating safe environments that allow people to go to work, to school, to get their groceries without feeling afraid.”

The new enforcement policies put into practice language that Trump used on the campaign trail, vastly expanding the definition of “criminal aliens” and warning that such unauthorized immigrants “routinely victimize Americans,” disregard the “rule of law and pose a threat” to people across the United States.

Despite those assertions in the new documents, research based on census data shows that there are lower levels of crime among immigrants than among native-born Americans.

Sáez alleges that much of the language presented in orders and memorandums from the Trump administration directly contradict the U.S. Constitution, which in a way can protect those who are prepared.

“How these documents were worded and how they square with the Constitution and the rights people have regardless of their status,” Sáez said. “A lot of what’s in those memos is contradictory to the law of the land, and I’m hopeful that we can challenge them.”

To prepare for the situation some Ore­gonians could face, Sáez said he and his colleagues at Centro Latino Americano have been holding workshops to provide guidance for immigrants in case ICE agents knock at their door.

“We’re helping families put together emergency preparedness kits so that if there’s a family member deported or detained, that there’s a plan of what will happen to kids and other family members,” he said.

Examples of those preparations included making extra car and house keys, gathering important documents and informing families of their rights.

Juan Carlos Valle, vice president and council treasurer of the League of United Latin American Citizens in Lane County, said Wednesday that LULAC also will be helping families prepare for what could happen.

“This is what’s left for us to do,” Valle said. “We need to inform our families of their rights and tell them not to get in trouble, because at this point they’ll (federal immigration agents) use any excuse to arrest them. We have to be the ones taking this step. They have to know we have their backs and we’ll speak up. This is my responsibility.”

Email Alisha at alisha.roemeling@register guard.com .

TIPS FOR THOSE WORRIED ABOUT DEPORTATION

Don’t open the door, but be calm. You have rights.

Ask what they are there for, and ask for an interpreter if you need one.

If they ask to enter, ask if they have a warrant signed by a judge; if so, ask to see it through a window or slipped under the door.

If they do not have a warrant signed by a judge, you may refuse to let them in. Ask them to leave any information at your door.

If they force their way in, don’t resist. Tell everyone in the residence to remain silent.

If you are arrested, remain silent and do not sign anything until you speak to a lawyer.

Follow driving laws and maintain a good criminal record. Younger generations should stay busy and in school, be respectful and avoid friends who might get in trouble.

— Source: Juan Carlos Valle of the League of United
Latin American Citizens in Lane County via the ACLU Read more about Undocumented immigrants living locally face fears of deportation