Associated Press
September 23, 2014
by Astrid Galvan
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- A southern Arizona city that spent days cleaning storm-related debris - including parts of trees - from Mexico that knocked down an international border fence is asking the federal government to cover costs.
Nogales Mayor Arturo Garino said the city council has directed its attorneys to work with the federal government in an attempt to regain what it spent cleaning up large tree trunks and branches that made their way from a canyon in Sonora, Mexico, through the border fence and into two trailer home parks and businesses in the Arizona city in late July.
Garino says it was the government's responsibility to open flood gates attached to the tall, steel fence that would have prevented so much debris from making it into the city.
"As a city, you know, we want to make sure that this doesn't happen again. The cause of this was the fence. We have to have some system there that's operational and it's functional," Garino said.
Garino said he couldn't provide an estimate for the cost of the cleanup effort. However, the Nogales International reports that city officials have estimated $23,000 in costs.
Meanwhile, the fence, just west of the Mariposa Port of Entry, remains down because of continuing rainfall, Border Patrol spokeswoman Nicole Ballistrea said. The soil needs to be completely dry before the fence can go back up, she said. The fence stood between 18 and 26 feet high, extended at least 7 feet underground and was reinforced with rebar. The debris knocked down about 60 feet worth of fencing.
"The late hour and sudden onslaught of the storm did not leave adequate lead time for agents to safely release the gates," Ballistrea said. "We'll continue with the repairs once the saturation level has (dropped)."
The storm in Nogales, Sonora, began the weekend of July 25 but largely avoided the American side of the border. Still, debris from a canyon about a mile south of Nogales, Arizona, traveled up to the border and became trapped at the fence. Enough debris piled up that it knocked the fence over. In came tree stumps, pieces of wood, and about three feet of water that flooded businesses on Western Avenue in Nogales and two trailer home parks.
"I remember helping one group pull out a tree that was 12-feet-long, 16 inches in diameter, underneath the trailer," Garino said.
It took the city, county and volunteers three days to clean up the mess.
"That's why we're trying to address the federal government, because if you look at it you would see that if the gates would have opened it would have been a casual flow. The amount of water that fell wasn't enough for it to cause a flood," Garino said.
http://www.azfamily.com/news/Downed-border-fence-caused-city-damage--276870361.html
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Friday, September 5, 2014
One month later: gap still in U.S. Mexico border fence from monsoon
Tucson News Now
August 27, 2014
by Maria Hechanova
NOGALES, AZ (Tucson News Now) - There is still a big gap in the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Nogales, Arizona just west of the Mariposa Port of Entry.
It has been one month since the monsoon dumped a lot of rain in a small area in a short amount of time. The large amount of rushing water crossed the border and drained from Mexico into the U.S. in this area taking the fence down with it.
Tucson Sector U.S. Border Patrol agents say the reason for the delay is because contractors are waiting to fix the fence when the ground is less saturated.
The estimated repair date is still to be determined, though contractors have already assessed the damage and determined how the repairs need to be made.
Weather-related border fence damage does not happen often. According to officials, the last time something like this took place was back in 2011 in Lukeville, in western Pima County.
Right now, agents are continuing to monitor the section of missing fence in Nogales on the ground and with cameras to make sure there is not a security threat or breach. Though according to one BP agent on the scene there have been people trying to cross over into the U.S. via the hole, on foot.
According to agents, it is an already highly visible spot and no extra resources are necessary to keep it safe. Agents already assigned to the area are just keeping a closer eye on it.
The fence, which agents say can range from 18 to 26 feet tall in the area is made of steel, rebar, and concrete and is set deep in the ground. They say it would not make any sense to put the fence up now, because the foundation would not set correctly or hold up well in the next storm.
It is unclear if any modifications will be made to the original design to make the fence stronger or prevent an event like this from happening again. There is also no word yet on how much the repairs will cost.
http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/26381929/one-month-later-gap-still-in-us-mexico-border-fence-from-monsoon
August 27, 2014
by Maria Hechanova
NOGALES, AZ (Tucson News Now) - There is still a big gap in the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Nogales, Arizona just west of the Mariposa Port of Entry.
It has been one month since the monsoon dumped a lot of rain in a small area in a short amount of time. The large amount of rushing water crossed the border and drained from Mexico into the U.S. in this area taking the fence down with it.
Tucson Sector U.S. Border Patrol agents say the reason for the delay is because contractors are waiting to fix the fence when the ground is less saturated.
The estimated repair date is still to be determined, though contractors have already assessed the damage and determined how the repairs need to be made.
Weather-related border fence damage does not happen often. According to officials, the last time something like this took place was back in 2011 in Lukeville, in western Pima County.
Right now, agents are continuing to monitor the section of missing fence in Nogales on the ground and with cameras to make sure there is not a security threat or breach. Though according to one BP agent on the scene there have been people trying to cross over into the U.S. via the hole, on foot.
According to agents, it is an already highly visible spot and no extra resources are necessary to keep it safe. Agents already assigned to the area are just keeping a closer eye on it.
The fence, which agents say can range from 18 to 26 feet tall in the area is made of steel, rebar, and concrete and is set deep in the ground. They say it would not make any sense to put the fence up now, because the foundation would not set correctly or hold up well in the next storm.
It is unclear if any modifications will be made to the original design to make the fence stronger or prevent an event like this from happening again. There is also no word yet on how much the repairs will cost.
http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/26381929/one-month-later-gap-still-in-us-mexico-border-fence-from-monsoon
Monday, July 28, 2014
Vehicle-sized gap cut in border fence
Nogales International
July 28, 2014
by Curt Prendergast
While Mother Nature was tearing a hole in the border fence west of Nogales, human hands were at work on the other side of town cutting a gap in the barrier the size of a garage door.
Someone cut through eight poles in the border fence approximately 1-1/4 miles east of downtown Nogales, apparently using a precision tool to slice through the six-inch steel tubes filled with concrete and a strand of rebar.
The cuts were made at the bases of the poles and about 10 feet above the ground, creating a gap that appeared large enough to drive a medium-sized vehicle through.
The cuts were discovered on Saturday, according to Border Patrol spokeswoman Nicole Ballistrea, the same day monsoon runoff and debris toppled a section of the border fence west of the Mariposa Port of Entry.
By Monday morning, contractors were using blowtorches and metal clamps to repair the fence. This reporter saw agents in vehicles making their usual patrols along the access road next to the border fence, but there appeared to be no special contingent designated to protect the breach.
No tools were found at the site and the Border Patrol does not yet know who cut the fence, Ballistrea said.
Smugglers often attempt to cut border fences, as well as dig under them and climb over them, she wrote in an emailed statement.
“As the Tucson Sector continues to improve deterrence efforts along the border, smuggling organizations are finding it more difficult to move their illicit goods into the interior of the United States,” she wrote.
“Fencing infrastructure gives Border Patrol agents the time they need to stop illegal cross-border activity,” she wrote.
A contractor with Granite Construction, the company that built the fence in 2011, estimated at the time that someone would need about 15 minutes to cut through the steel tubes. By that math, if the person who cut the fence on Saturday were acting alone, the 16 total cuts would have taken about four hours to complete.
One of the selling points of the fence, which covers 2.8 miles of border and cost a reported $11.8 million to build, was that it would be more difficult to cut through than the landing-mat barrier it replaced.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/vehicle-sized-gap-cut-in-border-fence/article_7fa4d496-16a1-11e4-9b19-001a4bcf887a.html
July 28, 2014
by Curt Prendergast
While Mother Nature was tearing a hole in the border fence west of Nogales, human hands were at work on the other side of town cutting a gap in the barrier the size of a garage door.
Someone cut through eight poles in the border fence approximately 1-1/4 miles east of downtown Nogales, apparently using a precision tool to slice through the six-inch steel tubes filled with concrete and a strand of rebar.
The cuts were made at the bases of the poles and about 10 feet above the ground, creating a gap that appeared large enough to drive a medium-sized vehicle through.
The cuts were discovered on Saturday, according to Border Patrol spokeswoman Nicole Ballistrea, the same day monsoon runoff and debris toppled a section of the border fence west of the Mariposa Port of Entry.
By Monday morning, contractors were using blowtorches and metal clamps to repair the fence. This reporter saw agents in vehicles making their usual patrols along the access road next to the border fence, but there appeared to be no special contingent designated to protect the breach.
No tools were found at the site and the Border Patrol does not yet know who cut the fence, Ballistrea said.
Smugglers often attempt to cut border fences, as well as dig under them and climb over them, she wrote in an emailed statement.
“As the Tucson Sector continues to improve deterrence efforts along the border, smuggling organizations are finding it more difficult to move their illicit goods into the interior of the United States,” she wrote.
“Fencing infrastructure gives Border Patrol agents the time they need to stop illegal cross-border activity,” she wrote.
A contractor with Granite Construction, the company that built the fence in 2011, estimated at the time that someone would need about 15 minutes to cut through the steel tubes. By that math, if the person who cut the fence on Saturday were acting alone, the 16 total cuts would have taken about four hours to complete.
One of the selling points of the fence, which covers 2.8 miles of border and cost a reported $11.8 million to build, was that it would be more difficult to cut through than the landing-mat barrier it replaced.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/vehicle-sized-gap-cut-in-border-fence/article_7fa4d496-16a1-11e4-9b19-001a4bcf887a.html
Rainstorm runoff topples border fence, floods Western Avenue
Nogales International
July 27, 2014
by Jonathan Clark and Manuel C. Coppola
Runoff from a monsoon downpour toppled a section of border fence west of the Mariposa Port of Entry overnight Saturday, sending a torrent of debris-filled floodwater down Ephraim Canyon and into yards and homes along Western Avenue.
Leyva Bridge on Western Avenue, just east of the intersection with Interstate 19, was a particular trouble spot. Tree branches, logs and other detritus clogged two culverts under the bridge, and the muddy floodwaters surged out of the wash and into surrounding properties, including that of Raul Origel, immediately south of the bridge.
Origel’s front yard was covered Sunday morning with mud and stones that had been used to line the nearby wash. The water also entered his elevated trailer, reaching a foot in depth and destroying furniture, he said. He does not have flood insurance.
Standing next to a Ford Taurus embedded in the mud – one of five vehicles he owns that were damaged by the flood – Origel complained that the authorities don’t keep the wash clean, which allows for the culverts to clog during heavy runoff.
“There has to be someone, either at the city or county, to take responsibility,” he said.
The downpour began at around 11:30 p.m. Saturday night and was accompanied by intense thunder and lightning. As runoff surged south through the border fence – a structure comprised of interconnected metal tubes with 4-inch gaps that allow water to pass through – debris apparently accumulated behind it, blocking flow creating enough pressure to eventually topple an approximately 60-foot length of the barrier.
From there, the water surged through a pair of culverts and into Ephraim Canyon, combining with more runoff and debris until the wash met Western Avenue at Leyva Bridge.
The segment of border fence that collapsed was built above an existing arroyo, with large gates at its bottom that were meant to be opened to relieve pressure from flooding. The gates did not appear to have been opened. A Border Patrol spokeswoman reached Sunday was not immediately able to provide information on the mishap.
No injuries from the flooding were reported, but a family of five had to be rescued from their car near Leyva Bridge, said Nogales Fire Chief Hector Robles.
When an engine was unable to make it to the car on Western Avenue, NFD sent its Ladder One truck up Interstate 19 to reach the scene from the west. Firefighters then used the bucket at the end of the 101-foot ladder to rescue the family, Robles said.
The Southern Arizona Chapter of the American Red Cross said it is assisting 10 people – a family of seven plus an elderly couple and a single elderly person – whose homes were affected by the flooding in Nogales.
"We are providing temporary lodging, food and clothing and will have the families contact us tomorrow to see what other assistance can be made available to them," the organization said in a statement.
A woman at a property on the south side of the bend at Leyva Bridge said her aunt and uncle were evacuated from their home after floodwaters inside the residence reached the level of their midsections.
The woman, who did not wish to be named, allowed the NI access to her relatives’ mud-filled home on Sunday. Ruined furniture was strewn about the interior, including a refrigerator that had toppled over, and marks on the wall suggested the water had reached approximately 3 feet in depth.
Her aunt and uncle do not have flood insurance, the woman said.
Next door at the Cypress Trailer Park, residents were clearing away mud on Sunday morning and crossing their fingers that once-submerged cars would eventually start.
Three vehicles that had been parked outside Alma Alcaraz’s trailer were flooded and non-functioning, but the interior of her home, where she and four family members waited out the storm, remained dry.
“We stayed because we didn’t have any way to leave," Alcaraz said. “We were really nervous because we could feel the trailer moving.”
Those inside the trailer included two children, ages 5 and 7, she said.
Nancy Rodriguez, who rents a trailer at the park, said that once the rain started, she began taking regular peeks out her window at the wash. Once she saw the water breach the banks, she went to her car and tried to leave, but got stuck instead. So she drove it to higher ground at the park and waited out the storm in her trailer.
“It was very scary. I thought it was a dream or something,” she said.
The water never got into Rodriguez's home, but it left piles of debris underneath and a large log in her front lawn.
“I want the city to do something, because this happens every four years or two years,” Rodriguez said. “Every time it rains, this happens.”
She soon had a chance to deliver her complaints directly to Mayor Arturo Garino when he and Councilman Jose “Joe” Diaz arrived at the trailer park to assess the damage.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” Garino said. “I look at this, and just by the flow and the way the debris is leaning against the guardrails, it looks like the water was trying to get back into the channels. So I think the street was the channel – that’s the problem.
“The Leyva Bridge has to be addressed,” as does a bridge farther downstream near the Circle K, he said. “We need to be able to channelize the water and keep it inside. This is too much.”
Garino said he would put the issue on the agenda for the Aug. 6 city council meeting, and noted that the county government would need to participate in a solution, since it governs the county flood control district, of which Nogales is a part.
Reached by telephone, Deputy City Manager John E. Kissinger said Western Avenue was the only area in the city affected by overnight flooding, and acknowledged that the problem resulted from clogs at Leyva Bridge.
“We have reached out to the IBWC (International Boundary and Water Commission) and have assessed all the major washes in the area and any critical infrastructure that could affect the IOI (international sewage line) and found no problems,” Kissinger said.
Asked if the Santa Cruz County Flood Control District can do anything to prevent this type of problem on Western Avenue in the future, he said, “Other than clearing out the wash on this side I don’t suspect that there’s not much more you can do. I believe that that most of that debris came from Mexico. I’ve been out there hundreds of times and from the border to the hospital you do not see this type of debris – huge tree trunks, pallets, car doors, plastic bottles.
“It is typical of the first flooding or microburst episode to see these things accumulate," he said. "We don’t anticipate a repeat of flooding to this magnitude (this year) because the wash has essentially been flushed of the type of debris that has been accumulating throughout the year and that would cause the water to jump its banks.”
The flood control district developed a $3-million project to construct a detention or retention pond in the Ephraim Canyon area, but it has yet to come to fruition. Garino lamented the absence of a retention pond, saying: “The water flow was just a direct water flow. There was nothing really to hold the water back and let it come slowly.”
Local officials also need to seek support from Nogales, Sonora, since Ephraim Canyon originates on that side of the border, Garino said.
As for the now-wide-open gap in the border fence, Nicole Ballistrea, spokeswoman for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said the agency has procedures for maintaining security during temporary breaches, such as a tunnel or busted fence.
"For any type of breach, or breach with the fence, we do have crews that go out there and repair those," she said. "And we also have agents that work that area to monitor. And we also have cameras that will help us observe that area."
Ballistrea said she would follow up on questions about the extent of the damage and timetable for repair on Monday.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/monsoon-runoff-topples-border-fence-floods-western-avenue/article_6b02dd90-15dd-11e4-991e-001a4bcf887a.html
July 27, 2014
by Jonathan Clark and Manuel C. Coppola
Runoff from a monsoon downpour toppled a section of border fence west of the Mariposa Port of Entry overnight Saturday, sending a torrent of debris-filled floodwater down Ephraim Canyon and into yards and homes along Western Avenue.
Leyva Bridge on Western Avenue, just east of the intersection with Interstate 19, was a particular trouble spot. Tree branches, logs and other detritus clogged two culverts under the bridge, and the muddy floodwaters surged out of the wash and into surrounding properties, including that of Raul Origel, immediately south of the bridge.
Origel’s front yard was covered Sunday morning with mud and stones that had been used to line the nearby wash. The water also entered his elevated trailer, reaching a foot in depth and destroying furniture, he said. He does not have flood insurance.
Standing next to a Ford Taurus embedded in the mud – one of five vehicles he owns that were damaged by the flood – Origel complained that the authorities don’t keep the wash clean, which allows for the culverts to clog during heavy runoff.
“There has to be someone, either at the city or county, to take responsibility,” he said.
The downpour began at around 11:30 p.m. Saturday night and was accompanied by intense thunder and lightning. As runoff surged south through the border fence – a structure comprised of interconnected metal tubes with 4-inch gaps that allow water to pass through – debris apparently accumulated behind it, blocking flow creating enough pressure to eventually topple an approximately 60-foot length of the barrier.
From there, the water surged through a pair of culverts and into Ephraim Canyon, combining with more runoff and debris until the wash met Western Avenue at Leyva Bridge.
The segment of border fence that collapsed was built above an existing arroyo, with large gates at its bottom that were meant to be opened to relieve pressure from flooding. The gates did not appear to have been opened. A Border Patrol spokeswoman reached Sunday was not immediately able to provide information on the mishap.
No injuries from the flooding were reported, but a family of five had to be rescued from their car near Leyva Bridge, said Nogales Fire Chief Hector Robles.
When an engine was unable to make it to the car on Western Avenue, NFD sent its Ladder One truck up Interstate 19 to reach the scene from the west. Firefighters then used the bucket at the end of the 101-foot ladder to rescue the family, Robles said.
The Southern Arizona Chapter of the American Red Cross said it is assisting 10 people – a family of seven plus an elderly couple and a single elderly person – whose homes were affected by the flooding in Nogales.
"We are providing temporary lodging, food and clothing and will have the families contact us tomorrow to see what other assistance can be made available to them," the organization said in a statement.
A woman at a property on the south side of the bend at Leyva Bridge said her aunt and uncle were evacuated from their home after floodwaters inside the residence reached the level of their midsections.
The woman, who did not wish to be named, allowed the NI access to her relatives’ mud-filled home on Sunday. Ruined furniture was strewn about the interior, including a refrigerator that had toppled over, and marks on the wall suggested the water had reached approximately 3 feet in depth.
Her aunt and uncle do not have flood insurance, the woman said.
Next door at the Cypress Trailer Park, residents were clearing away mud on Sunday morning and crossing their fingers that once-submerged cars would eventually start.
Three vehicles that had been parked outside Alma Alcaraz’s trailer were flooded and non-functioning, but the interior of her home, where she and four family members waited out the storm, remained dry.
“We stayed because we didn’t have any way to leave," Alcaraz said. “We were really nervous because we could feel the trailer moving.”
Those inside the trailer included two children, ages 5 and 7, she said.
Nancy Rodriguez, who rents a trailer at the park, said that once the rain started, she began taking regular peeks out her window at the wash. Once she saw the water breach the banks, she went to her car and tried to leave, but got stuck instead. So she drove it to higher ground at the park and waited out the storm in her trailer.
“It was very scary. I thought it was a dream or something,” she said.
The water never got into Rodriguez's home, but it left piles of debris underneath and a large log in her front lawn.
“I want the city to do something, because this happens every four years or two years,” Rodriguez said. “Every time it rains, this happens.”
She soon had a chance to deliver her complaints directly to Mayor Arturo Garino when he and Councilman Jose “Joe” Diaz arrived at the trailer park to assess the damage.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” Garino said. “I look at this, and just by the flow and the way the debris is leaning against the guardrails, it looks like the water was trying to get back into the channels. So I think the street was the channel – that’s the problem.
“The Leyva Bridge has to be addressed,” as does a bridge farther downstream near the Circle K, he said. “We need to be able to channelize the water and keep it inside. This is too much.”
Garino said he would put the issue on the agenda for the Aug. 6 city council meeting, and noted that the county government would need to participate in a solution, since it governs the county flood control district, of which Nogales is a part.
Reached by telephone, Deputy City Manager John E. Kissinger said Western Avenue was the only area in the city affected by overnight flooding, and acknowledged that the problem resulted from clogs at Leyva Bridge.
“We have reached out to the IBWC (International Boundary and Water Commission) and have assessed all the major washes in the area and any critical infrastructure that could affect the IOI (international sewage line) and found no problems,” Kissinger said.
Asked if the Santa Cruz County Flood Control District can do anything to prevent this type of problem on Western Avenue in the future, he said, “Other than clearing out the wash on this side I don’t suspect that there’s not much more you can do. I believe that that most of that debris came from Mexico. I’ve been out there hundreds of times and from the border to the hospital you do not see this type of debris – huge tree trunks, pallets, car doors, plastic bottles.
“It is typical of the first flooding or microburst episode to see these things accumulate," he said. "We don’t anticipate a repeat of flooding to this magnitude (this year) because the wash has essentially been flushed of the type of debris that has been accumulating throughout the year and that would cause the water to jump its banks.”
The flood control district developed a $3-million project to construct a detention or retention pond in the Ephraim Canyon area, but it has yet to come to fruition. Garino lamented the absence of a retention pond, saying: “The water flow was just a direct water flow. There was nothing really to hold the water back and let it come slowly.”
Local officials also need to seek support from Nogales, Sonora, since Ephraim Canyon originates on that side of the border, Garino said.
As for the now-wide-open gap in the border fence, Nicole Ballistrea, spokeswoman for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said the agency has procedures for maintaining security during temporary breaches, such as a tunnel or busted fence.
"For any type of breach, or breach with the fence, we do have crews that go out there and repair those," she said. "And we also have agents that work that area to monitor. And we also have cameras that will help us observe that area."
Ballistrea said she would follow up on questions about the extent of the damage and timetable for repair on Monday.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/monsoon-runoff-topples-border-fence-floods-western-avenue/article_6b02dd90-15dd-11e4-991e-001a4bcf887a.html
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Dying to flee Mexico for America: Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigrants
The Independant
July 27, 2014
by Tim Walker
On Wednesday morning, Mike Wilson crossed into Mexico to refill the water container at the station he maintains a few yards south of the border, and which has likely saved the lives of migrants who can drink before reaching the US. Some 20 gallons had gone since he last visited a month ago. Sometimes, he says, he finds the 50-gallon barrel bone dry. Wilson, who is 65, belongs to a small but passionate community of activists trying to reduce the number of migrant deaths in a state not known for its sympathy to their plight.
"Arizona has a reputation as an anti-immigrant state," says Todd Miller, author of the book Border Patrol Nation. "But there are many people throughout southern Arizona who organise not only to oppose anti-immigrant laws, but also to go into the desert and provide humanitarian aid... Mike is doing important and wonderful work."
Mr Wilson and his partner Susan have also offered food and temporary shelter to some of the more than 52,000 migrant children who have crossed into the US since October 2013, most of them fleeing violence in Central America. On Friday, Mr Obama met with the leaders of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and urged them to work with the US to help stem the flow of migrants, stating that many of those who have crossed the border will not be able to stay – with only the potential for some "narrow" circumstances for humanitarian or refugee status.
Mr Wilson, though he lives on the outskirts of Tucson, is a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation, a Native American community of 25,000 on a reservation the size of Connecticut, sliced in half by a 75-mile stretch of the US-Mexico border. The Tohono O'odham (meaning "Desert People") have been on this land for thousands of years and, even after the border was drawn in 1854, could pass back and forth unimpeded, often via the San Miguel gate.
After 9/11, however, crossing anywhere but at official checkpoints became illegal. Those Tohono O'odham who lacked the correct paperwork were trapped on the Mexican side. Meanwhile, the Nation found itself at the frontline of a broader border crisis. As the US increased security in the urban areas where they had traditionally crossed, economic migrants from Central America moved to more isolated routes, such as the Sonoran Desert.
By the mid-2000s, tribal officials estimated that as many as 1,500 undocumented migrants per day crossed the border through the reservation. Having survived the treacherous journey through Mexico, many were killed instead by the desert. Since 2001, the Pima County medical examiner in Tucson has received an average of 164 bodies of border-crossers per year. Around half those deaths occurred in the Tohono O'odham Nation, making it the deadliest migrant trail in the US.
Humanitarian groups sprang up to combat the problem, including the NGO Humane Borders, which maps migrant fatalities to identify the most deadly areas of the desert, and then deposits water, food and medical supplies in those spots. The group's executive director, Juanita Molina, says Humane Borders drops up to 1,200 gallons of water per week during July, the most lethal month of the year. "Many Border Patrol officers and people in the community see us not as preventing deaths, but as aiding and abetting," she says.
To Mr Wilson's dismay, the Tohono O'odham Nation sided against the migrants. "They borrowed whole cloth the Department of Homeland Security's narrative, which describes undocumented migrants as potential terrorists," he says. The Nation's leaders even passed a resolution banning outside humanitarian groups from putting out water on the reservation – so Mr Wilson decided to do it himself. "I'm a one-man organisation, by design," he explains. "I have working relationships with other groups from the social justice community. But when I put out water, I do it as a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation."
Mr Wilson's first career was in the US Special Forces, and in 1988 he was posted to El Salvador during its civil war. "We were supposedly advisers, but our mission soon changed," he recalls. "We were to prevent as much as possible the human rights abuses by the military against the civilian population … after my experience in El Salvador, I really asked myself what side of the table of justice I wanted to sit on."
During the US-sponsored Central American civil wars of the 1980s, Tucson was the centre of the Sanctuary movement, a campaign offering safe haven to refugees. That dormant humanitarian infrastructure provided a foundation for more recent human rights efforts.
2002, Mr Wilson, by then a Presbyterian lay pastor, set up five water stations – one on the far side at the San Miguel gate, and four spread across the US side of the reservation, which he named St Matthew, St Mark, St Luke and St John. He was forced to replenish the water every couple of weeks. "I could barely keep up with the demand."
That was until Tohono O'odham Police confiscated four of the stations, leaving him with just the one on the Mexican side of the border fence. No one from the Nation's executive was available to talk to The Independent on Sunday, but Mr Wilson suspects the reservation's leadership stymied his efforts because it relies on federal funding for infrastructure, education and housing. "The federal appropriations are buying silence from tribal members," he says.
Since June, Mr Wilson has offered shelter to more than 50 women and children. Their latest undocumented visitors were a Salvadoran woman, her 13-year-old daughter and two toddler sons, who crossed the border last Sunday on their way to the woman's mother, who has lived in Maryland for 25 years. Wilson doesn't like to pry into his guests' pasts, but he can make educated guesses. “The mother probably fled to the US as a political refugee during the Sanctuary movement,” he says. “I didn’t tell the woman that I’d been in El Salvador. It might open old wounds.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dying-to-flee-mexico-for-america-arizonas-crackdown-on-illegal-immigrants-9630863.html
July 27, 2014
by Tim Walker
On Wednesday morning, Mike Wilson crossed into Mexico to refill the water container at the station he maintains a few yards south of the border, and which has likely saved the lives of migrants who can drink before reaching the US. Some 20 gallons had gone since he last visited a month ago. Sometimes, he says, he finds the 50-gallon barrel bone dry. Wilson, who is 65, belongs to a small but passionate community of activists trying to reduce the number of migrant deaths in a state not known for its sympathy to their plight.
"Arizona has a reputation as an anti-immigrant state," says Todd Miller, author of the book Border Patrol Nation. "But there are many people throughout southern Arizona who organise not only to oppose anti-immigrant laws, but also to go into the desert and provide humanitarian aid... Mike is doing important and wonderful work."
Mr Wilson and his partner Susan have also offered food and temporary shelter to some of the more than 52,000 migrant children who have crossed into the US since October 2013, most of them fleeing violence in Central America. On Friday, Mr Obama met with the leaders of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and urged them to work with the US to help stem the flow of migrants, stating that many of those who have crossed the border will not be able to stay – with only the potential for some "narrow" circumstances for humanitarian or refugee status.
Mr Wilson, though he lives on the outskirts of Tucson, is a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation, a Native American community of 25,000 on a reservation the size of Connecticut, sliced in half by a 75-mile stretch of the US-Mexico border. The Tohono O'odham (meaning "Desert People") have been on this land for thousands of years and, even after the border was drawn in 1854, could pass back and forth unimpeded, often via the San Miguel gate.
After 9/11, however, crossing anywhere but at official checkpoints became illegal. Those Tohono O'odham who lacked the correct paperwork were trapped on the Mexican side. Meanwhile, the Nation found itself at the frontline of a broader border crisis. As the US increased security in the urban areas where they had traditionally crossed, economic migrants from Central America moved to more isolated routes, such as the Sonoran Desert.
By the mid-2000s, tribal officials estimated that as many as 1,500 undocumented migrants per day crossed the border through the reservation. Having survived the treacherous journey through Mexico, many were killed instead by the desert. Since 2001, the Pima County medical examiner in Tucson has received an average of 164 bodies of border-crossers per year. Around half those deaths occurred in the Tohono O'odham Nation, making it the deadliest migrant trail in the US.
Humanitarian groups sprang up to combat the problem, including the NGO Humane Borders, which maps migrant fatalities to identify the most deadly areas of the desert, and then deposits water, food and medical supplies in those spots. The group's executive director, Juanita Molina, says Humane Borders drops up to 1,200 gallons of water per week during July, the most lethal month of the year. "Many Border Patrol officers and people in the community see us not as preventing deaths, but as aiding and abetting," she says.
To Mr Wilson's dismay, the Tohono O'odham Nation sided against the migrants. "They borrowed whole cloth the Department of Homeland Security's narrative, which describes undocumented migrants as potential terrorists," he says. The Nation's leaders even passed a resolution banning outside humanitarian groups from putting out water on the reservation – so Mr Wilson decided to do it himself. "I'm a one-man organisation, by design," he explains. "I have working relationships with other groups from the social justice community. But when I put out water, I do it as a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation."
Mr Wilson's first career was in the US Special Forces, and in 1988 he was posted to El Salvador during its civil war. "We were supposedly advisers, but our mission soon changed," he recalls. "We were to prevent as much as possible the human rights abuses by the military against the civilian population … after my experience in El Salvador, I really asked myself what side of the table of justice I wanted to sit on."
During the US-sponsored Central American civil wars of the 1980s, Tucson was the centre of the Sanctuary movement, a campaign offering safe haven to refugees. That dormant humanitarian infrastructure provided a foundation for more recent human rights efforts.
2002, Mr Wilson, by then a Presbyterian lay pastor, set up five water stations – one on the far side at the San Miguel gate, and four spread across the US side of the reservation, which he named St Matthew, St Mark, St Luke and St John. He was forced to replenish the water every couple of weeks. "I could barely keep up with the demand."
That was until Tohono O'odham Police confiscated four of the stations, leaving him with just the one on the Mexican side of the border fence. No one from the Nation's executive was available to talk to The Independent on Sunday, but Mr Wilson suspects the reservation's leadership stymied his efforts because it relies on federal funding for infrastructure, education and housing. "The federal appropriations are buying silence from tribal members," he says.
Since June, Mr Wilson has offered shelter to more than 50 women and children. Their latest undocumented visitors were a Salvadoran woman, her 13-year-old daughter and two toddler sons, who crossed the border last Sunday on their way to the woman's mother, who has lived in Maryland for 25 years. Wilson doesn't like to pry into his guests' pasts, but he can make educated guesses. “The mother probably fled to the US as a political refugee during the Sanctuary movement,” he says. “I didn’t tell the woman that I’d been in El Salvador. It might open old wounds.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dying-to-flee-mexico-for-america-arizonas-crackdown-on-illegal-immigrants-9630863.html
Thursday, May 8, 2014
New Tucson center aims to ID migrants who die on trek north
Los Angeles Times
May 4, 2014
by Cindy Carcamo
Every year thousands of migrants cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally into Arizona. Some make it to their destination. Others get picked up by authorities.
Hundreds more perish in the Sonoran desert. Some bodies are never identified and families of the missing can languish for years without word of their loved ones.
A new Tucson-based organization is hoping to change that.
On Saturday, the Colibri Center for Human Rights officially launched, hoping to address what its organizers call a “very serious human rights crisis on the border.” The center, which is supported by the Ford Foundation and others, is an expansion of an earlier effort known as the Missing Migrant Project.
That project had already collected, organized and centralized information for what is regarded as the most comprehensive database in the nation on missing and unidentified migrants.
Since 2006, the group has made 100 matches in collaboration with the Pima County Medical Examiner’s office.
Colibri, headed by executive director Robin Reineke, still helps people find their loved ones and track information on the dead and missing, but now also aims to educate people on the high number of deaths and disappearances along the southern border through research and storytelling.
For example, families of the missing will be able to post testimonials, detailing their struggle on the organization’s website. There’s also a section that shows the personal items carried by more than 2,400 migrants who died in the last 14 years during their attempt to cross the US-Mexico border.
Since 2006, about 2,000 people have filed missing person reports for those who have disappeared crossing the southern border. Most were last known to have passed through the Arizona corridor.
“The way we approach the project is the way a forensic scientists have approached mass disasters,” Reineke said. “There is a high number of missing individuals and high number of unidentified individuals. We do everything we can … and try to make a match.”
In Arizona alone, there are at least 900 unidentified remains, according to Pima County Medical Examiner data. Most of the migrants are from Mexico or Central America.
Although illegal immigration along the southern border has decreased in the last couple of years, deaths along the border are still numerous. About 165 people die every year crossing illegally into Arizona.
In places like Brooks County, Texas, deaths have drastically increased in the last couple of years, Reineke said. Colibri is also collaborating with officials there to help them with the issue.
The launch of the new organization coincided with the Tucson premiere of “Who is Dayani Cristal?” The film, a documentary about the journey to identify a man who crossed the border illegally into Arizona from Mexico, features the Pima County Office, Reineke and the work that eventually developed into Colibri.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ff-arizona-immigration-migrant-database-20140503-story.html
May 4, 2014
by Cindy Carcamo
Every year thousands of migrants cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally into Arizona. Some make it to their destination. Others get picked up by authorities.
Hundreds more perish in the Sonoran desert. Some bodies are never identified and families of the missing can languish for years without word of their loved ones.
A new Tucson-based organization is hoping to change that.
On Saturday, the Colibri Center for Human Rights officially launched, hoping to address what its organizers call a “very serious human rights crisis on the border.” The center, which is supported by the Ford Foundation and others, is an expansion of an earlier effort known as the Missing Migrant Project.
That project had already collected, organized and centralized information for what is regarded as the most comprehensive database in the nation on missing and unidentified migrants.
Since 2006, the group has made 100 matches in collaboration with the Pima County Medical Examiner’s office.
For example, families of the missing will be able to post testimonials, detailing their struggle on the organization’s website. There’s also a section that shows the personal items carried by more than 2,400 migrants who died in the last 14 years during their attempt to cross the US-Mexico border.
Since 2006, about 2,000 people have filed missing person reports for those who have disappeared crossing the southern border. Most were last known to have passed through the Arizona corridor.
“The way we approach the project is the way a forensic scientists have approached mass disasters,” Reineke said. “There is a high number of missing individuals and high number of unidentified individuals. We do everything we can … and try to make a match.”
In Arizona alone, there are at least 900 unidentified remains, according to Pima County Medical Examiner data. Most of the migrants are from Mexico or Central America.
Although illegal immigration along the southern border has decreased in the last couple of years, deaths along the border are still numerous. About 165 people die every year crossing illegally into Arizona.
In places like Brooks County, Texas, deaths have drastically increased in the last couple of years, Reineke said. Colibri is also collaborating with officials there to help them with the issue.
The launch of the new organization coincided with the Tucson premiere of “Who is Dayani Cristal?” The film, a documentary about the journey to identify a man who crossed the border illegally into Arizona from Mexico, features the Pima County Office, Reineke and the work that eventually developed into Colibri.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ff-arizona-immigration-migrant-database-20140503-story.html
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Border fence mural finds new home, caring touch
Nogales International
April 22, 2014
by Curt Pendergast
Traffic along a major thoroughfare in Nogales, Sonora slowed to a crawl on Saturday morning as nearly 30 painters spilled out into the street.
Passersby craned their necks to see the volunteer painters touch up a mural that recently found a new home on the Buenos Aires avenue after being rescued from the U.S.-Mexico landing mat border fence when it was dismantled in 2011.
The 60-foot-long mural, titled “Vida y Suenos de la Canada Perla,” or “Life and Dreams of the Perla Ravine,” and commonly referred to as “El Mural de Taniperla” is made out of 34 panels depicting the lives and dreams of Tzetzal Indians living in the town of Ricardo Flores Magon, a Zapatista revolutionary community in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas that struggled for more autonomy from the Mexican government during the 1990s.
“It’s rescuing history,” said Luis Diego Taddei, a member of Taller Yonke, or Junk Studio, who helped lead Saturday’s effort. “The images, together with the material, have an important story for the city and for the country.”
The mural was painted on the border fence in downtown Nogales in 2005 as a sign of solidarity with the residents of Ricardo Flores Magon, who painted the mural on the side of a community center in 1998.
The Mexican Army destroyed the mural the day after it was painted. The mural on the border fence lasted much longer, staying on the fence for about six years until a new barrier was built.
After the original mural in Chiapas was destroyed, the mural took on a life of its own and other replicas were created in San Francisco, Ciudad Juarez, and Barcelona, as well as in Argentina and Brazil.
In 2011, when news of the fence dismantling in Nogales spread, members of Taller Yonke worked with the Sierra Club, Border Patrol, and Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-Tucson) to preserve the 34 panels containing the mural.
After three years in storage, the mural was bolted to the wall by the Buenos Aires thoroughfare about a mile south of the border.
Organizers chose the location so the mural would be seen by a large number of people, including people passing through Nogales on their to and from the United States. “We wanted it to be visible to all the people who pass through here,” Taddei said.
Ongoing process
The artists made a call for help from the public in February and Saturday’s effort was the first step in a weeks-long process of reviving the mural.
Among those to answer the call was Marta Dicochea-Morackis, sister of Alberto Morackis, one of the artists who painted the mural in 2005.
Morackis, who died in December 2008 from pneumonia, two days shy of his 50th birthday, founded Taller Yonke with his creative partner Guadalupe Serrano. In addition to conducting workshops and teaching art, Morackis participated in several urban art projects in Nogales, Sonora, including murals and sculptures mounted on or next to the old landing-mat border fence.
“It’s lovely,” Dicochea-Morackis said of the mural. “We need more murals in this city. Especially the children, they should paint, do more art.”
Among the painters was her granddaughter Itzel Vizcarra, 10, a Nogales, Sonora resident who likes to paint butterflies.
Although she didn’t get the chance to paint butterflies on Saturday, she did get to work with green, her favorite color, as she touched up the grass in the mural that surrounded images of community gatherings and armed resistance.
While Taller Yonke led the effort on Saturday, the impetus for reviving the mural came from a group of young people in Nogales, Sonora called the Flores Magon Collective, according to Taddei.
For more information on the mural and Taller Yonke, visit the group’s Facebook page. To learn more about the original mural, visit elmuromagico.org.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/border-fence-mural-finds-new-home-caring-touch/article_c838b664-ca34-11e3-82c0-001a4bcf887a.html
April 22, 2014
by Curt Pendergast
Traffic along a major thoroughfare in Nogales, Sonora slowed to a crawl on Saturday morning as nearly 30 painters spilled out into the street.
Passersby craned their necks to see the volunteer painters touch up a mural that recently found a new home on the Buenos Aires avenue after being rescued from the U.S.-Mexico landing mat border fence when it was dismantled in 2011.
The 60-foot-long mural, titled “Vida y Suenos de la Canada Perla,” or “Life and Dreams of the Perla Ravine,” and commonly referred to as “El Mural de Taniperla” is made out of 34 panels depicting the lives and dreams of Tzetzal Indians living in the town of Ricardo Flores Magon, a Zapatista revolutionary community in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas that struggled for more autonomy from the Mexican government during the 1990s.
“It’s rescuing history,” said Luis Diego Taddei, a member of Taller Yonke, or Junk Studio, who helped lead Saturday’s effort. “The images, together with the material, have an important story for the city and for the country.”
The mural was painted on the border fence in downtown Nogales in 2005 as a sign of solidarity with the residents of Ricardo Flores Magon, who painted the mural on the side of a community center in 1998.
The Mexican Army destroyed the mural the day after it was painted. The mural on the border fence lasted much longer, staying on the fence for about six years until a new barrier was built.
After the original mural in Chiapas was destroyed, the mural took on a life of its own and other replicas were created in San Francisco, Ciudad Juarez, and Barcelona, as well as in Argentina and Brazil.
In 2011, when news of the fence dismantling in Nogales spread, members of Taller Yonke worked with the Sierra Club, Border Patrol, and Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-Tucson) to preserve the 34 panels containing the mural.
After three years in storage, the mural was bolted to the wall by the Buenos Aires thoroughfare about a mile south of the border.
Organizers chose the location so the mural would be seen by a large number of people, including people passing through Nogales on their to and from the United States. “We wanted it to be visible to all the people who pass through here,” Taddei said.
Ongoing process
The artists made a call for help from the public in February and Saturday’s effort was the first step in a weeks-long process of reviving the mural.
Among those to answer the call was Marta Dicochea-Morackis, sister of Alberto Morackis, one of the artists who painted the mural in 2005.
Morackis, who died in December 2008 from pneumonia, two days shy of his 50th birthday, founded Taller Yonke with his creative partner Guadalupe Serrano. In addition to conducting workshops and teaching art, Morackis participated in several urban art projects in Nogales, Sonora, including murals and sculptures mounted on or next to the old landing-mat border fence.
“It’s lovely,” Dicochea-Morackis said of the mural. “We need more murals in this city. Especially the children, they should paint, do more art.”
Among the painters was her granddaughter Itzel Vizcarra, 10, a Nogales, Sonora resident who likes to paint butterflies.
Although she didn’t get the chance to paint butterflies on Saturday, she did get to work with green, her favorite color, as she touched up the grass in the mural that surrounded images of community gatherings and armed resistance.
While Taller Yonke led the effort on Saturday, the impetus for reviving the mural came from a group of young people in Nogales, Sonora called the Flores Magon Collective, according to Taddei.
For more information on the mural and Taller Yonke, visit the group’s Facebook page. To learn more about the original mural, visit elmuromagico.org.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/border-fence-mural-finds-new-home-caring-touch/article_c838b664-ca34-11e3-82c0-001a4bcf887a.html
Friday, April 11, 2014
Emergency calls in cross-border shooting released
KVOA News 4 Tucson
March 14, 2014
by Lupita Murillo and Michel Marizco
NOGALES - The family of a Mexican teen shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents after he allegedly threw rocks at agents over the Nogales border wall in October 2012 released the audio recordings of three phone calls made to Mexico's emergency phone system the night of the shooting.
The recordings illustrate a frantic series of events that led to the death of José Antonio Elena Rodriguez, 16, that night. The FBI, which is investigating the shooting death, has declined comment citing the ongoing investigation.
The agency typically does not discuss open investigations and has given no details of the case. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Internal Affairs responded to the shooting incident that October 10 night, but has also declined to comment.
Isidro Alvarado is a Mexican security guard who says he was walking about 20 feet behind José Antonio when two people ran past him. That's when the shots rang out. He ran from the incident and called Mexico's 0-6-0, modeled on the 9-1-1 system in the U.S.
"They are shooting with a firearm. It appears to be an agent of the Border Patrol," he told the dispatcher. "Send patrols urgently. Urgently!"
Interviewed last Sunday in Nogales, Sonora, Alvarado said he saw the hands of two people reach through the bars that separate the two countries and open fire. "Two hands. The shots entered from two places," he said.
Alvarado and José Antonio's mother, Araceli Rodriguez, say U.S. investigators interviewed them at the Dennis DeConcini port of entry last summer.
In another call to 0-6-0 that night, a Border Patrol agent called in to report that someone may be hurt on Mexico's side of the border.
"I'm calling to report there were gunshots along the border line in Whiskey Number 3 and apparently there is someone hurt on the Mexican side," the agent told the dispatcher.
Whiskey Number 3 is a law enforcement designation for a graph of the area shared by law enforcement on both sides of the border. The shooting occurred about four blocks west from the DeConcini port of entry.
"About how many people are in the area?" the dispatcher asked him.
"On the Mexican side, I couldn't tell you. On our side, there are about five," the agent said.
"Are you alright?" the dispatcher asked the agent.
"Yes."
"Listen, and what were they doing? Were they damaging the border wall or something?" the dispatcher asked.
"They were throwing rocks."
"About how many shots did they fire?" she asked.
"How many shots were fired, do we know" the agent asked someone in English.
"Right now, I couldn't tell you," he tells the dispatcher.
"But there were various?" the dispatcher asked him.
"Yes."
Luis Parra is a lawyer in Arizona representing the dead teen's family.
"That recording is a valuable piece of information," he said. "It's basically a call, from witnesses, civilian witnesses, and it's also a call from the Border Patrol themselves recognizing that there were five officers at the scene and there were various bullets fired that evening."
José Antonio's family has said the dead teenager was not involved in the rock-throwing against the agents.
The incident began about 11:15 p.m. Border Patrol agents and Nogales, Ariz., police responded to a 9-1-1 call of suspicious men wearing camouflage pants and sweatshirts on International Street.
According to a Nogales Police Department report obtained by the News 4 Tucson Investigators, Officer Quinardo Garcia spotted two men matching the description and carrying bundles of marijuana strapped to their bodies.
They jumped the border wall and ran toward a residential area. Garcia chased the two men and called for backup, yelling at the men to stop. He lost sight of the two men and a Border Patrol agent joined him in the search.
At that point, Garcia wrote in his report, he heard fellow Nogales police officer John Zuniga alert that there were rocks being thrown over the border wall.
"Shortly after, I heard a loud noise, which I identified immediately as a gunshot, and following after, several more gunshots," he wrote in his report.
Officer Zuniga initially believed the gunshots may have come from Mexico. Garcia emerged from the area and met with Zuniga and Border Patrol agents "where I learned that a male subject that [sic] had been throwing rocks at agents from Mexico. The male subject had been shot by one of the U.S. Border Patrol agents," he wrote.
Garcia also noted that there were many medium sized rocks scattered around where the agents and officers had parked their vehicles.
An autopsy conducted by investigators in Nogales, Sonora, determined José Antonio was shot 11 times, mostly in the back, the shoulder blades and the back of the neck and head.
The case is one of at least 8 cases since 2010 where Border Patrol agents shot and killed someone the agency alleged was throwing rocks at agents. Many of those cases remain under investigation. Last week, Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher, under pressure from Congress and critics, released the Border Patrol's Use of Force policy and made public a directive to agents.
"Agents shall not discharge firearms in response to thrown or hurled projectiles unless the agent has a reasonable belief, based on the totality of circumstances, to include the nature and size of the projectiles, that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious injury," he wrote in the directive.
Art del Cueto, president of the Border Patrol's Tucson union, Local 2544, called that directive vague. "We never pull our guns unless we are in danger, anyway," he said after the directive was released. "What are agents supposed to do? Retreat? That's not an option."
Araceli Rodriguez, José Antonio's mother, says Fisher's directive has changed nothing.
"It's the same as it's ever been. It simply reminded agents of what they are supposed to be doing in the first place," Rodriguez said.
http://www.kvoa.com/news/emergency-calls-in-cross-border-shooting-released/
March 14, 2014
by Lupita Murillo and Michel Marizco
NOGALES - The family of a Mexican teen shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents after he allegedly threw rocks at agents over the Nogales border wall in October 2012 released the audio recordings of three phone calls made to Mexico's emergency phone system the night of the shooting.
The recordings illustrate a frantic series of events that led to the death of José Antonio Elena Rodriguez, 16, that night. The FBI, which is investigating the shooting death, has declined comment citing the ongoing investigation.
The agency typically does not discuss open investigations and has given no details of the case. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Internal Affairs responded to the shooting incident that October 10 night, but has also declined to comment.
Isidro Alvarado is a Mexican security guard who says he was walking about 20 feet behind José Antonio when two people ran past him. That's when the shots rang out. He ran from the incident and called Mexico's 0-6-0, modeled on the 9-1-1 system in the U.S.
"They are shooting with a firearm. It appears to be an agent of the Border Patrol," he told the dispatcher. "Send patrols urgently. Urgently!"
Interviewed last Sunday in Nogales, Sonora, Alvarado said he saw the hands of two people reach through the bars that separate the two countries and open fire. "Two hands. The shots entered from two places," he said.
Alvarado and José Antonio's mother, Araceli Rodriguez, say U.S. investigators interviewed them at the Dennis DeConcini port of entry last summer.
In another call to 0-6-0 that night, a Border Patrol agent called in to report that someone may be hurt on Mexico's side of the border.
"I'm calling to report there were gunshots along the border line in Whiskey Number 3 and apparently there is someone hurt on the Mexican side," the agent told the dispatcher.
Whiskey Number 3 is a law enforcement designation for a graph of the area shared by law enforcement on both sides of the border. The shooting occurred about four blocks west from the DeConcini port of entry.
"About how many people are in the area?" the dispatcher asked him.
"On the Mexican side, I couldn't tell you. On our side, there are about five," the agent said.
"Are you alright?" the dispatcher asked the agent.
"Yes."
"Listen, and what were they doing? Were they damaging the border wall or something?" the dispatcher asked.
"They were throwing rocks."
"About how many shots did they fire?" she asked.
"How many shots were fired, do we know" the agent asked someone in English.
"Right now, I couldn't tell you," he tells the dispatcher.
"But there were various?" the dispatcher asked him.
"Yes."
Luis Parra is a lawyer in Arizona representing the dead teen's family.
"That recording is a valuable piece of information," he said. "It's basically a call, from witnesses, civilian witnesses, and it's also a call from the Border Patrol themselves recognizing that there were five officers at the scene and there were various bullets fired that evening."
José Antonio's family has said the dead teenager was not involved in the rock-throwing against the agents.
The incident began about 11:15 p.m. Border Patrol agents and Nogales, Ariz., police responded to a 9-1-1 call of suspicious men wearing camouflage pants and sweatshirts on International Street.
According to a Nogales Police Department report obtained by the News 4 Tucson Investigators, Officer Quinardo Garcia spotted two men matching the description and carrying bundles of marijuana strapped to their bodies.
They jumped the border wall and ran toward a residential area. Garcia chased the two men and called for backup, yelling at the men to stop. He lost sight of the two men and a Border Patrol agent joined him in the search.
At that point, Garcia wrote in his report, he heard fellow Nogales police officer John Zuniga alert that there were rocks being thrown over the border wall.
"Shortly after, I heard a loud noise, which I identified immediately as a gunshot, and following after, several more gunshots," he wrote in his report.
Officer Zuniga initially believed the gunshots may have come from Mexico. Garcia emerged from the area and met with Zuniga and Border Patrol agents "where I learned that a male subject that [sic] had been throwing rocks at agents from Mexico. The male subject had been shot by one of the U.S. Border Patrol agents," he wrote.
Garcia also noted that there were many medium sized rocks scattered around where the agents and officers had parked their vehicles.
An autopsy conducted by investigators in Nogales, Sonora, determined José Antonio was shot 11 times, mostly in the back, the shoulder blades and the back of the neck and head.
The case is one of at least 8 cases since 2010 where Border Patrol agents shot and killed someone the agency alleged was throwing rocks at agents. Many of those cases remain under investigation. Last week, Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher, under pressure from Congress and critics, released the Border Patrol's Use of Force policy and made public a directive to agents.
"Agents shall not discharge firearms in response to thrown or hurled projectiles unless the agent has a reasonable belief, based on the totality of circumstances, to include the nature and size of the projectiles, that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious injury," he wrote in the directive.
Art del Cueto, president of the Border Patrol's Tucson union, Local 2544, called that directive vague. "We never pull our guns unless we are in danger, anyway," he said after the directive was released. "What are agents supposed to do? Retreat? That's not an option."
Araceli Rodriguez, José Antonio's mother, says Fisher's directive has changed nothing.
"It's the same as it's ever been. It simply reminded agents of what they are supposed to be doing in the first place," Rodriguez said.
http://www.kvoa.com/news/emergency-calls-in-cross-border-shooting-released/
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Migrant dies after falling from border fence
Nogales International
April 2, 2014
by Jonathan Clark
A 41-year-old man from El Salvador died this week after falling from the border fence in Nogales.
According to a statement from the U.S. Border Patrol, agents responded at approximately 5 a.m. on Sunday to a suspect attempting to illegally enter the United States.
“The subject, a Salvadoran male, attempted to return to Mexico and fell off the international boundary fence,” the statement said. “Medical services were rendered to the subject, who subsequently passed away from his injuries."
In an emailed statement, Gerry Castro, EMS division chief at the Nogales Fire Department, said paramedics arrived at the dead end of Short Street and found the man unconscious, approximately 18 feet from the fence on a surface described as “cement/rocky ground.” Border Patrol agents said he had been there approximately 15 minutes.
The man was suffering “obvious trauma to head and face and blood was present to those areas,” Castro said, adding that “some deformity” was noted on the victim’s right hand.
After starting CPR, the NPD crew took the victim to Holy Cross Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.
José Joaquín Chacón, the Salvadoran consul in Arizona, said an autopsy performed in Pima County showed that the man died of head trauma.
“Surely, the young man lost his balance and ended up hitting his head on the ground,” he said.
Another Salvadoran who was with the victim at the time was subsequently picked up by the Border Patrol, Chacón said, and he was allowed to interview the witness on Monday. The man confirmed that the two migrants had arrived at the border together, and that his companion had fallen while trying to climb the fence.
“It wasn’t, for example, an unfortunate case in which a Border Patrol agent was involved in firing a gun, or that there was an injury from a firearm or anything like that,” Chacón said. “There’s nothing like that.”
Consular officials have located the victim’s sister in California and a brother in El Salvador, but since the family members haven’t yet made a positive ID from the autopsy records, Chacón said, the consulate can’t release the man’s name.
However, he did say the man was from the coastal state, or “departamento,” of Usulatan, and consular records show that he had twice been deported from the United States.
“It’s one more tragedy in that the youth and people from our countries, in search of the American Dream, come and often find death,” he said.
Mass held nearby
The man fell from the fence a few hundred feet from the spot where Catholic bishops from across the county held a mass Tuesday to remember deceased migrants and call for Congress to enact immigration reform.
Chacón noted the coincidence.
“Yesterday, they were celebrating a mass precisely for the people who have died, and this Salvadoran died, by chance, on Sunday,” he said.
In 2011, the Border Patrol replaced the 10-foot-high landing mat fence that ran through Nogales with a stronger barrier measuring up to 30 feet tall. Since then, emergency personnel from the Nogales Fire Department have treated a number of fence-jumpers for broken ankles, legs and hips. In February 2012, a 44-year-old man from Oaxaca, Mexico died after falling from the fence on the west side of town and suffering head and neck injuries.
Last year, Border Patrol officials in Nogales floated the idea of hanging razor wire on the U.S. side of the fence, approximately 10 feet above ground, in hopes that it would discourage jumpers. However, the plan was scuttled after it was met with outcry in the community.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/migrant-dies-after-falling-from-border-fence/article_4f091ae6-bac0-11e3-a192-0019bb2963f4.html#.Uz3d0_nTzeU.email
April 2, 2014
by Jonathan Clark
A 41-year-old man from El Salvador died this week after falling from the border fence in Nogales.
According to a statement from the U.S. Border Patrol, agents responded at approximately 5 a.m. on Sunday to a suspect attempting to illegally enter the United States.
“The subject, a Salvadoran male, attempted to return to Mexico and fell off the international boundary fence,” the statement said. “Medical services were rendered to the subject, who subsequently passed away from his injuries."
In an emailed statement, Gerry Castro, EMS division chief at the Nogales Fire Department, said paramedics arrived at the dead end of Short Street and found the man unconscious, approximately 18 feet from the fence on a surface described as “cement/rocky ground.” Border Patrol agents said he had been there approximately 15 minutes.
The man was suffering “obvious trauma to head and face and blood was present to those areas,” Castro said, adding that “some deformity” was noted on the victim’s right hand.
After starting CPR, the NPD crew took the victim to Holy Cross Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.
José Joaquín Chacón, the Salvadoran consul in Arizona, said an autopsy performed in Pima County showed that the man died of head trauma.
“Surely, the young man lost his balance and ended up hitting his head on the ground,” he said.
Another Salvadoran who was with the victim at the time was subsequently picked up by the Border Patrol, Chacón said, and he was allowed to interview the witness on Monday. The man confirmed that the two migrants had arrived at the border together, and that his companion had fallen while trying to climb the fence.
“It wasn’t, for example, an unfortunate case in which a Border Patrol agent was involved in firing a gun, or that there was an injury from a firearm or anything like that,” Chacón said. “There’s nothing like that.”
Consular officials have located the victim’s sister in California and a brother in El Salvador, but since the family members haven’t yet made a positive ID from the autopsy records, Chacón said, the consulate can’t release the man’s name.
However, he did say the man was from the coastal state, or “departamento,” of Usulatan, and consular records show that he had twice been deported from the United States.
“It’s one more tragedy in that the youth and people from our countries, in search of the American Dream, come and often find death,” he said.
Mass held nearby
The man fell from the fence a few hundred feet from the spot where Catholic bishops from across the county held a mass Tuesday to remember deceased migrants and call for Congress to enact immigration reform.
Chacón noted the coincidence.
“Yesterday, they were celebrating a mass precisely for the people who have died, and this Salvadoran died, by chance, on Sunday,” he said.
In 2011, the Border Patrol replaced the 10-foot-high landing mat fence that ran through Nogales with a stronger barrier measuring up to 30 feet tall. Since then, emergency personnel from the Nogales Fire Department have treated a number of fence-jumpers for broken ankles, legs and hips. In February 2012, a 44-year-old man from Oaxaca, Mexico died after falling from the fence on the west side of town and suffering head and neck injuries.
Last year, Border Patrol officials in Nogales floated the idea of hanging razor wire on the U.S. side of the fence, approximately 10 feet above ground, in hopes that it would discourage jumpers. However, the plan was scuttled after it was met with outcry in the community.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/migrant-dies-after-falling-from-border-fence/article_4f091ae6-bac0-11e3-a192-0019bb2963f4.html#.Uz3d0_nTzeU.email
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
At Nogales' steel border fence, bishops celebrate Mass for both sides
Los Angeles Times
April 1, 2014
by Cindy Carcamo
NOGALES, Ariz.—It had been years since Maria Miranda of Tucson attended Catholic Mass with her son Jorge Lopez.
At one point Lopez even forgot he was on the Mexican side. He forgot about his banishment from the U.S. He forgot about how immigration officials, he says, denied him an extension to his green card and finally caught up with him at work three years ago and deported him.
Lopez was one of an estimated 300 people who gathered at the border fence in Nogales to attend a transnational Mass led by Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston and bishops from across the West and Southwest, including Eusebio Elizondo, auxiliary bishop of Seattle; Gerald F. Kicanas, bishop of Tucson; Mark Seitz, bishop of El Paso; and Oscar Cantu, bishop of Las Cruces, N.M.
The Mass to celebrate the lives of those who have died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is an attempt by the Catholic Church to call on President Obama to use his executive powers to limit deportations of people who are in the country illegally.
The move comes at a time when an immigration overhaul is at a standstill and thousands of people have died while crossing the Sonoran desert in Arizona.
The border fence, the backdrop for the outdoor Mass, became the center of attention when O'Malley and the bishops gave Communion to people gathered on the Mexican side, as hands reached through the gaps in the steel slats.
In the last few years, the Catholic Church has become increasingly vocal about immigrant rights — preaching from the pulpit about immigration reform as an "ethical and moral imperative."
Late last month, Bishop Elizondo, who also is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, wrote to Department of Homeland Security officials asking them to limit deportations.
O’Malley, who took a weeklong tour of the southern Arizona border with several bishops from the Southwest, said he was inspired and emboldened by Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa, Italy, last year to pray for people who died trying to migrate to Europe by boat.
During Tuesday's Mass, O’Malley and the bishops laid a wreath at the border wall in Nogales and called for Catholics to remember those who have died.
"We know the border is lined with unmarked graves," O'Malley said. "They call them illegal aliens. We are here to say they are not forgotten. They are our neighbors. Our brothers. Our sisters. … You cannot love God without loving your neighbor."
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-bishops-arizona-immigration-reform-20140401,0,4292997.story#axzz2xn3LcHrz
April 1, 2014
by Cindy Carcamo
NOGALES, Ariz.—It had been years since Maria Miranda of Tucson attended Catholic Mass with her son Jorge Lopez.
Tuesday they finally did. But they were separated by the U.S.-Mexico border fence in southern Arizona.
"I'm just a couple of bars, a couple steps away from her," the 35-year-old said he told himself.
"There's a fence but it's the same ground."
"I'm just a couple of bars, a couple steps away from her," the 35-year-old said he told himself.
"There's a fence but it's the same ground."
At one point Lopez even forgot he was on the Mexican side. He forgot about his banishment from the U.S. He forgot about how immigration officials, he says, denied him an extension to his green card and finally caught up with him at work three years ago and deported him.
Lopez was one of an estimated 300 people who gathered at the border fence in Nogales to attend a transnational Mass led by Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston and bishops from across the West and Southwest, including Eusebio Elizondo, auxiliary bishop of Seattle; Gerald F. Kicanas, bishop of Tucson; Mark Seitz, bishop of El Paso; and Oscar Cantu, bishop of Las Cruces, N.M.
The Mass to celebrate the lives of those who have died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is an attempt by the Catholic Church to call on President Obama to use his executive powers to limit deportations of people who are in the country illegally.
The move comes at a time when an immigration overhaul is at a standstill and thousands of people have died while crossing the Sonoran desert in Arizona.
The border fence, the backdrop for the outdoor Mass, became the center of attention when O'Malley and the bishops gave Communion to people gathered on the Mexican side, as hands reached through the gaps in the steel slats.
In the last few years, the Catholic Church has become increasingly vocal about immigrant rights — preaching from the pulpit about immigration reform as an "ethical and moral imperative."
Late last month, Bishop Elizondo, who also is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration, wrote to Department of Homeland Security officials asking them to limit deportations.
O’Malley, who took a weeklong tour of the southern Arizona border with several bishops from the Southwest, said he was inspired and emboldened by Pope Francis, who visited Lampedusa, Italy, last year to pray for people who died trying to migrate to Europe by boat.
During Tuesday's Mass, O’Malley and the bishops laid a wreath at the border wall in Nogales and called for Catholics to remember those who have died.
"We know the border is lined with unmarked graves," O'Malley said. "They call them illegal aliens. We are here to say they are not forgotten. They are our neighbors. Our brothers. Our sisters. … You cannot love God without loving your neighbor."
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-bishops-arizona-immigration-reform-20140401,0,4292997.story#axzz2xn3LcHrz
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Cardinal, bishops to celebrate Mass at border fence
Nogales International
March 21, 2014
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston will celebrate Mass at the border fence in Nogales on April 1 as part of a three-day visit to the border by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration and several bishops from border dioceses.
The delegation will pray at the fence on West International Street on behalf of the close to 6,000 migrants who have died in the U.S. desert since 1998, said the Diocese of Tucson, which is hosting the event.
The Mass begins at 9 a.m. on West International Street and will be followed by a news conference at 10:30 a.m.
The purpose of the trip is to highlight the human suffering caused by a broken immigration system, the diocese said in a news release.
“What we fail to remember in this debate is the human aspect of immigration – that immigration is primarily about human beings, not economic or social issues,” said Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, auxiliary bishop of Seattle and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration. “Those who have died – and those deported each day – have the same value and innate God-given dignity as all persons, yet we ignore their suffering and their deaths.”
The trip follows the example of Pope Francis, who, in his first trip outside of Rome, traveled to the Italian island of Lampedusa to remember African migrants who died attempting to reach Europe.
“The U.S.-Mexico border is our Lampedusa,” Elizondo said. “Migrants in this hemisphere try to reach it, but often die in the attempt.”
The Migration Committee and bishops will participate in a number of events while in Southern Arizona, such as touring the border with the Border Patrol; visiting the comedor and shelter operated by the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, Sonora to assist migrants; and walking symbolically in a desert area to experience the conditions endured by immigrants crossing the desert.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/cardinal-bishops-to-celebrate-mass-at-border-fence/article_3cdef8bc-b111-11e3-83bb-0019bb2963f4.html
March 21, 2014
Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston will celebrate Mass at the border fence in Nogales on April 1 as part of a three-day visit to the border by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration and several bishops from border dioceses.
The delegation will pray at the fence on West International Street on behalf of the close to 6,000 migrants who have died in the U.S. desert since 1998, said the Diocese of Tucson, which is hosting the event.
The Mass begins at 9 a.m. on West International Street and will be followed by a news conference at 10:30 a.m.
The purpose of the trip is to highlight the human suffering caused by a broken immigration system, the diocese said in a news release.
“What we fail to remember in this debate is the human aspect of immigration – that immigration is primarily about human beings, not economic or social issues,” said Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, auxiliary bishop of Seattle and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration. “Those who have died – and those deported each day – have the same value and innate God-given dignity as all persons, yet we ignore their suffering and their deaths.”
The trip follows the example of Pope Francis, who, in his first trip outside of Rome, traveled to the Italian island of Lampedusa to remember African migrants who died attempting to reach Europe.
“The U.S.-Mexico border is our Lampedusa,” Elizondo said. “Migrants in this hemisphere try to reach it, but often die in the attempt.”
The Migration Committee and bishops will participate in a number of events while in Southern Arizona, such as touring the border with the Border Patrol; visiting the comedor and shelter operated by the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, Sonora to assist migrants; and walking symbolically in a desert area to experience the conditions endured by immigrants crossing the desert.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/cardinal-bishops-to-celebrate-mass-at-border-fence/article_3cdef8bc-b111-11e3-83bb-0019bb2963f4.html
Monday, March 3, 2014
Arizona soldiers, US CBP unite to secure border hot spot
Arizona National Guard Public Affairs
March 3, 2014
TUCSON, Ariz. – As overseas contingencies and deployments for U.S. armed forces taper off, Arizona’s citizen soldiers are shifting their focus to domestic missions to gain real-world experience and maintain readiness.
The Arizona Army National Guard’s Tucson-based 2220th Transportation Company found a creative way to hone their skills and help secure the Arizona-Mexico border in the process. Working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the light-medium truck company moved 193 tons of concrete barriers from El Centro, Calif., to Naco, Ariz., over drill weekend March 1 to fortify a porous section of the state’s border.
Army Guard and Customs officials called the convoy operation a success and said it was a model for future inter-agency coordination.
“We’ve been working on a solution for getting that border infrastructure into place in Naco for quite some time,” said Manuel Padila, Jr., the chief patrol agent for the Tucson sector. “When the Guard saw this as a training opportunity it became a win-win situation for everyone. This certainly highlights the long-standing partnership we’ve had with the Guard and it points to new ways we can work together.”
Where once a fence line was the only impediment for vehicles looking to illegally breach the border at Naco, now a robust barricade denies ease of entry.
In all, the Guard delivered 115 cement blocks – 15 more than originally requested by CBP. In a matter of days, 52 Arizona Guardsmen mobilized 26 vehicles to transport the load more than 400 miles.
“We used every section in the company to support the mission,” said Army Capt. Janek Kaslikowski, the company commander. “We have an operations section that planned the mission – estimated fuel, rest stops, and driver changes – and a maintenance section that kept us running. Our soldiers received invaluable experience with securing a load, off loading, vehicle recovery, and the importance of preventive maintenance checks and services.”
According to Kaslikowski, the mission was the perfect vehicle for bridging the gaps in experience between his junior soldiers and his combat-tested senior noncommissioned officers.
“It was interesting to see them work together on this mission because this is exactly what we would do in theater,” he said. “The NCOs led this mission and gave the junior soldiers plenty of opportunity to gain experience that they may not get without deploying.”
“We paired experienced drivers with inexperienced drivers,” said Army 2nd Lt. Sha-raya Harris, first platoon leader on her third drill with the Guard. “I was one of the inexperienced drivers.”
Some of the most junior motor transport operators in the company had only 10 minutes behind the wheel from initial training, said Harris. Now they all have seven-to-eight hours of experience negotiating turns, hills, and stops with 16 tons in tow.
“It was great training, but I think this mission was equally important for building relationships. Everywhere we went people supported us. Border Protection employees, the ranchers in Naco, even other drivers on the Interstate – everyone found this mission interesting and wanted to help us along the way,” said Harris.
Read more: http://www.dvidshub.net/news/121445/arizona-soldiers-us-cbp-unite-secure-border-hot-spot#.UxVbQ7vn8-g#ixzz2uy50eN00
March 3, 2014
TUCSON, Ariz. – As overseas contingencies and deployments for U.S. armed forces taper off, Arizona’s citizen soldiers are shifting their focus to domestic missions to gain real-world experience and maintain readiness.
The Arizona Army National Guard’s Tucson-based 2220th Transportation Company found a creative way to hone their skills and help secure the Arizona-Mexico border in the process. Working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the light-medium truck company moved 193 tons of concrete barriers from El Centro, Calif., to Naco, Ariz., over drill weekend March 1 to fortify a porous section of the state’s border.
Army Guard and Customs officials called the convoy operation a success and said it was a model for future inter-agency coordination.
“We’ve been working on a solution for getting that border infrastructure into place in Naco for quite some time,” said Manuel Padila, Jr., the chief patrol agent for the Tucson sector. “When the Guard saw this as a training opportunity it became a win-win situation for everyone. This certainly highlights the long-standing partnership we’ve had with the Guard and it points to new ways we can work together.”
Where once a fence line was the only impediment for vehicles looking to illegally breach the border at Naco, now a robust barricade denies ease of entry.
In all, the Guard delivered 115 cement blocks – 15 more than originally requested by CBP. In a matter of days, 52 Arizona Guardsmen mobilized 26 vehicles to transport the load more than 400 miles.
“We used every section in the company to support the mission,” said Army Capt. Janek Kaslikowski, the company commander. “We have an operations section that planned the mission – estimated fuel, rest stops, and driver changes – and a maintenance section that kept us running. Our soldiers received invaluable experience with securing a load, off loading, vehicle recovery, and the importance of preventive maintenance checks and services.”
According to Kaslikowski, the mission was the perfect vehicle for bridging the gaps in experience between his junior soldiers and his combat-tested senior noncommissioned officers.
“It was interesting to see them work together on this mission because this is exactly what we would do in theater,” he said. “The NCOs led this mission and gave the junior soldiers plenty of opportunity to gain experience that they may not get without deploying.”
“We paired experienced drivers with inexperienced drivers,” said Army 2nd Lt. Sha-raya Harris, first platoon leader on her third drill with the Guard. “I was one of the inexperienced drivers.”
Some of the most junior motor transport operators in the company had only 10 minutes behind the wheel from initial training, said Harris. Now they all have seven-to-eight hours of experience negotiating turns, hills, and stops with 16 tons in tow.
“It was great training, but I think this mission was equally important for building relationships. Everywhere we went people supported us. Border Protection employees, the ranchers in Naco, even other drivers on the Interstate – everyone found this mission interesting and wanted to help us along the way,” said Harris.
Read more: http://www.dvidshub.net/news/121445/arizona-soldiers-us-cbp-unite-secure-border-hot-spot#.UxVbQ7vn8-g#ixzz2uy50eN00
Thursday, February 20, 2014
481-foot drug tunnel found crossing US-Mexico Border
Arizona Republic
February 14, 2014
by Daniel Gonzalez
NOGALES, Ariz. — Nogales has been the epicenter for cross-border drug tunnels for years. U.S. authorities have found 100 drug tunnels in that city since 1990, more than any other location along the 2,000-mile United States-Mexico border.
But the tunnel found this week tops them all. At 481 feet, longer than 11/2 football fields, it is the longest ever discovered in Nogales, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
The tunnel extended from a house in Nogales, Sonora, to a house in Nogales, Ariz., and was being used to smuggle marijuana and other drugs into the U.S., ICE officials said.
Federal authorities found a half pound of heroin and 46 pounds of marijuana inside.
They seized another 590 pounds of marijuana after stopping a vehicle federal agents saw driving away from the house in Nogales, Ariz., on Monday.
The house was under surveillance by a multiagency task force created in 2012 to find and dismantle drug tunnels.
The driver of the truck, Jesus Alberto Ramirez-Valencia, 22, a U.S. citizen from Nogales, Ariz., and two Mexican citizens, Jose Mario Armenta-Valdez, 41, and Jose Solorzano-Flores, 41, were charged with drug conspiracy.
The driver was apparently transporting the drugs to a second house where Solorzano-Flores was found outside, authorities say. Armenta-Valdez was arrested after federal agents raided the house, where an opening to the drug tunnel leading into the U.S. from Mexico was found.
Eric Balliet, assistant special agent in charge of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations in Nogales, said drug smugglers are resorting to tunnels because of tighter border security.
"If a drug-trafficking organization can establish a well-manufactured tunnel, the likelihood of a law-enforcement encounter is somewhat slim," Balliet said. "You don't run the risk of exposing your dope above ground, whether it's human backpackers or smuggling through the port or over the fence. It's completely concealed from start to finish."
The drug tunnel found Monday is the third uncovered in Nogales since December.
Since 1990, 169 tunnels have been found along the southern border, 100 of them in Nogales.
Last fiscal year, six of the seven tunnels found along the U.S.-Mexico border were found in Nogales.
In 2012, seven of the 16 tunnels found on the border were in Nogales, and 12 of the 18 the year before that, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Nogales is popular for drug tunnels because smugglers can tap a vast underground drainage system that connects the border cities, Balliet said.
Once inside the drainage system, smugglers bore spider tunnels into the U.S., he said
The two cities also have large neighborhoods close to each other, making it easy for smugglers to dig tunnels from a house on the Mexican side to a house on the U.S. side, he said.
The tunnel found Monday stretched 70 feet from a house in Nogales, Sonora, to the U.S. border and then another 411 feet to a house in Nogales, Ariz., ICE officials said.
The passageway was roughly 2 feet wide and 3 feet high, and had wood shoring, electric lighting and ventilation fans, ICE officials said.
The tunnel task force includes officers from ICE, the Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Nogales police, and Mexican authorities.
http://www.wbir.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/14/largest-ever-drug-tunnel-in-nogales-found/5484031/
February 14, 2014
by Daniel Gonzalez
NOGALES, Ariz. — Nogales has been the epicenter for cross-border drug tunnels for years. U.S. authorities have found 100 drug tunnels in that city since 1990, more than any other location along the 2,000-mile United States-Mexico border.
But the tunnel found this week tops them all. At 481 feet, longer than 11/2 football fields, it is the longest ever discovered in Nogales, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
The tunnel extended from a house in Nogales, Sonora, to a house in Nogales, Ariz., and was being used to smuggle marijuana and other drugs into the U.S., ICE officials said.
Federal authorities found a half pound of heroin and 46 pounds of marijuana inside.
They seized another 590 pounds of marijuana after stopping a vehicle federal agents saw driving away from the house in Nogales, Ariz., on Monday.
The house was under surveillance by a multiagency task force created in 2012 to find and dismantle drug tunnels.
The driver of the truck, Jesus Alberto Ramirez-Valencia, 22, a U.S. citizen from Nogales, Ariz., and two Mexican citizens, Jose Mario Armenta-Valdez, 41, and Jose Solorzano-Flores, 41, were charged with drug conspiracy.
The driver was apparently transporting the drugs to a second house where Solorzano-Flores was found outside, authorities say. Armenta-Valdez was arrested after federal agents raided the house, where an opening to the drug tunnel leading into the U.S. from Mexico was found.
Eric Balliet, assistant special agent in charge of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations in Nogales, said drug smugglers are resorting to tunnels because of tighter border security.
"If a drug-trafficking organization can establish a well-manufactured tunnel, the likelihood of a law-enforcement encounter is somewhat slim," Balliet said. "You don't run the risk of exposing your dope above ground, whether it's human backpackers or smuggling through the port or over the fence. It's completely concealed from start to finish."
The drug tunnel found Monday is the third uncovered in Nogales since December.
Since 1990, 169 tunnels have been found along the southern border, 100 of them in Nogales.
Last fiscal year, six of the seven tunnels found along the U.S.-Mexico border were found in Nogales.
In 2012, seven of the 16 tunnels found on the border were in Nogales, and 12 of the 18 the year before that, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Nogales is popular for drug tunnels because smugglers can tap a vast underground drainage system that connects the border cities, Balliet said.
Once inside the drainage system, smugglers bore spider tunnels into the U.S., he said
The two cities also have large neighborhoods close to each other, making it easy for smugglers to dig tunnels from a house on the Mexican side to a house on the U.S. side, he said.
The tunnel found Monday stretched 70 feet from a house in Nogales, Sonora, to the U.S. border and then another 411 feet to a house in Nogales, Ariz., ICE officials said.
The passageway was roughly 2 feet wide and 3 feet high, and had wood shoring, electric lighting and ventilation fans, ICE officials said.
The tunnel task force includes officers from ICE, the Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Nogales police, and Mexican authorities.
http://www.wbir.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/14/largest-ever-drug-tunnel-in-nogales-found/5484031/
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Plans underway for border mural resurrection
Nogales International
February 14, 2014
by Curt Pendergast
Behind a copy shop in the Heroes neighborhood in Nogales, Sonora, 34 metal panels are stacked against a wall, waiting to return to their former glory.
The panels are covered with images that form a replica of a mural painted by Tzetzal Indians in 1998 depicting their lives and dreams after declaring themselves part of an autonomous Zapatista revolutionary municipality in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
The Mexican Army destroyed the mural the day after it was placed on the wall of a community center in Taniperla, Chiapas. In a sign of solidarity, artists from Southern Arizona and Nogales, Sonora painted a replica of the mural on the border fence in Nogales in 2005. Artists did the same elsewhere in Mexico, as well as in Argentina and San Francisco.
The 60-foot-long mural, known as “Vida y Suenos de la Canada Perla,” or “Life and Dreams of the Perla Ravine,” was on the brink of destruction in 2011 when the fence made of landing mat panels was replaced with the current bollard fence. But thanks to a cross-border collaboration between local artists, the Border Patrol, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona), the Sierra Club and other organizations, the mural was saved and put into storage, where it remained for nearly three years.
Two weeks ago, the members of Taller Yonke, or Junk Studio, moved the panels to their new location in Heroes in preparation for the mural’s resurrection.
Now, Taller Yonke members Guadalupe Serrano and Luis Diego Taddei are hoping that same binational spirit will help them restore the mural and mount it along the Buenos Aires thoroughfare, not far from an enormous public mural, also painted by the group members, depicting a desert scene and indigenous symbols on bridge supports and a road embankment.
They plan to have the mural restored in the next month or two. “The sooner, the better,” Serrano said as he showed this reporter and Dan Millis of the Sierra Club the plan for the mural’s resurrection.
In addition to looking for people who would like to re-paint the mural, the group is seeking donations from both north and south of the border. Serrano estimated that it will take $1,000 to resurrect the mural.
“It doesn’t have to be money,” Serrano said. “If you have a gallon of paint you’re not using, that would work.”
Mounting supplies, such as anchors and brackets, are also needed.
The group can be contacted through its “Taller Yonke” page on Facebook
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/plans-underway-for-border-mural-resurrection/article_6cf86f38-958c-11e3-aac1-0019bb2963f4.html?mode=story
February 14, 2014
by Curt Pendergast
Behind a copy shop in the Heroes neighborhood in Nogales, Sonora, 34 metal panels are stacked against a wall, waiting to return to their former glory.
The panels are covered with images that form a replica of a mural painted by Tzetzal Indians in 1998 depicting their lives and dreams after declaring themselves part of an autonomous Zapatista revolutionary municipality in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.
The Mexican Army destroyed the mural the day after it was placed on the wall of a community center in Taniperla, Chiapas. In a sign of solidarity, artists from Southern Arizona and Nogales, Sonora painted a replica of the mural on the border fence in Nogales in 2005. Artists did the same elsewhere in Mexico, as well as in Argentina and San Francisco.
The 60-foot-long mural, known as “Vida y Suenos de la Canada Perla,” or “Life and Dreams of the Perla Ravine,” was on the brink of destruction in 2011 when the fence made of landing mat panels was replaced with the current bollard fence. But thanks to a cross-border collaboration between local artists, the Border Patrol, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona), the Sierra Club and other organizations, the mural was saved and put into storage, where it remained for nearly three years.
Two weeks ago, the members of Taller Yonke, or Junk Studio, moved the panels to their new location in Heroes in preparation for the mural’s resurrection.
Now, Taller Yonke members Guadalupe Serrano and Luis Diego Taddei are hoping that same binational spirit will help them restore the mural and mount it along the Buenos Aires thoroughfare, not far from an enormous public mural, also painted by the group members, depicting a desert scene and indigenous symbols on bridge supports and a road embankment.
They plan to have the mural restored in the next month or two. “The sooner, the better,” Serrano said as he showed this reporter and Dan Millis of the Sierra Club the plan for the mural’s resurrection.
In addition to looking for people who would like to re-paint the mural, the group is seeking donations from both north and south of the border. Serrano estimated that it will take $1,000 to resurrect the mural.
“It doesn’t have to be money,” Serrano said. “If you have a gallon of paint you’re not using, that would work.”
Mounting supplies, such as anchors and brackets, are also needed.
The group can be contacted through its “Taller Yonke” page on Facebook
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/plans-underway-for-border-mural-resurrection/article_6cf86f38-958c-11e3-aac1-0019bb2963f4.html?mode=story
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Border fence is musician's wall of sounds
Los Angeles Times
January 30, 2014
by Cindy Carcamo
SASABE, Ariz. -- On a windy day in southern Arizona's remote borderlands, Glenn Weyant had everything he needed to make music — a cello bow, a mallet and the miles-long fence dividing the United States and Mexico.
His method, like his music, was improvisational and low-tech: He inserted electronic equipment into an Altoids tin, turning it into a microphone. Weyant filled the tin with magnets and pressed it against the fence a few inches off the ground. Wires attached to the tin led to an amp and several effects pedals — the kind electric guitarists use — which allow him to manipulate sounds.
Desert scrub, mesquite and sun-bleached rocks would serve as his audience; sometimes they do double duty as instruments.
"Nobody thought of the border wall as possibly anything other than something to separate people," he said. "I transform it. I play it."
For eight years, Weyant has tapped, banged and stroked the fence to produce haunting, sometimes ethereal, sounds in a region he has called the "de facto militarized zone." Compositions can last a minute — or more than half an hour.
"I'm a border deconstructionist," said Weyant, a 50-year-old Tucson resident. "I want to deconstruct preconceived notions. What I'm saying is you don't need to be afraid of the wall. You have nothing to fear."
Weyant moved to Tucson 19 years ago when much of the border fence in southern Arizona was barbed wire. It seemed forbidden. He didn't know whether he could even touch it.
"Am I allowed?" Weyant recalled wondering.
Though people tend to stay away from the fence — at least on the northern side — it's not against the law to touch it.
The New Jersey native had been drawn to unusual sounds his whole life — as a boy he enjoyed listening to the hypnotic pattern of his grandfather's electric fan. One day in 2005 — a time of growing concern about illegal immigration and terrorism — he decided that he wanted to hear what sounds the fence could make.
"It was a symbol of fear and loathing. I wanted to transform it into something else … an instrument so that people on both sides can have open dialogue and communication," Weyant said.
He experimented with drumsticks, mallets, violin bows and cello bows. Sometimes he'd use sticks found on the ground.
In Nogales, he played a fence made of re-purposed helicopter landing pads, sometimes creating a staccato sound. He'd capture the noise from birds landing on top of the fence, and the sounds of cars and people passing through the port of entry.
In Sasabe, he created a delicate raspy sound when he put a violin or cello bow on rusty mattress wires ranchers had stretched between fence posts to keep their cattle from straying into Mexico.
The results, he said, were beautiful.
Weyant is more interested in creating effects than melodies. His recordings can sound like wind chimes or have the flute-like breathiness created by blowing across a bottle top. Other sounds resemble moans, whistles and clicks and suggest whale songs or the ambient noise on a New Age relaxation tape.
"Some people describe it as nails on a chalkboard," he said. "It can elicit a repulsion, fear, eeriness. It can be ethereal. It's something that can be expansive."
People who have stumbled across Weyant sometimes looked on from afar, unsure of what he's doing. Others have approached him and stayed for a private concert.
"Making the inhumane, humane and human," one person commented on a YouTube video of Weyant making music. "Bravo. Beautiful. Inspiring." In this recording, Weyant rarely touched the wall and mostly amplified the sound the wind created blowing across rocks and through the fence.
At one point, Weyant augmented the sound by playing a cello while wearing a zebra-head mask. His methods often defy explanation. He once employed a moose call, blowing into the whistle-like contraption while standing next to the fence.
For the most part, Border Patrol agents have left him alone.
"I'm a white male playing the border wall," Weyant said. "I'm aware of my privileged status."
Some agents have greeted him with friendly curiosity.
"Why are you playing a wall?" one asked.
Another radioed his superiors: "There's a guy playing the wall. Is he allowed to do that?"
A few agents have warned him about people on the southern side of the fence.
"Hey, you know they throw rocks," one told him.
"Usually," Weyant said, "when you play in a venue, you don't have people with guns watching you and one guy telling you that people on the other side want to hurt you." Still, he's never had any dangerous run-ins with people on either side of the fence.
Weyant, a former professor of journalism who is now a stay-at-home dad, said he gets to the border wall as much as he can, often once a month. He has given lectures about his music at various universities. He's collaborated with musicians who have incorporated his border sounds into their works. He sells his compositions for 99 cents to $500 but has given away some to humanitarian aid associations. He makes them available on his website, SonicAnta, or posts videos of himself on YouTube.
On the recent blustery afternoon, Weyant went to the border fence near the small town of Sasabe, about 70 miles southwest of Tucson. Behind him, long, parched grasses danced in the wind. Snarled mesquite poked from the sandy earth. Baboquivari Peak towered above. The rock formation sometimes serves as a compass for migrants who make the illegal trek north.
Crumpled water bottles, cans and plastic packages littered the desert — some of it detritus left by immigrants crossing from Mexico. Weyant has played some of the castoffs too, stroking them or tapping them against the fence or other objects.
Weyant said the border wall was an appropriate place to make music because it's haunted with stories.
"This section is where hundreds of people die," he said. "Did they come from Guatemala?"
Dusty handprints stood out against the rusty patina of the fence. "Was it just a kid who jumped the fence? So many stories," Weyant said. "There's a lot of mojo here."
In recent years, people throughout southern Arizona have seen the buildup of border security. They've seen sections of the fence morph from flimsy barriers into tall, fortified structures that tattoo the Sonoran Desert.
But few have heard the border change.
Weyant has. The sounds, like the fence itself, are often harsher than before.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, crews installed a fence near Sasabe made of industrialized steel columns set a few inches apart. Weyant slapped a rust-peppered bollard — one of hundreds poking out of the desert in military formation. The columns are full of slurry and aren't as interesting to play, he said.
He slapped the fence again. A dull thud followed.
"This stuff sounds dead," Weyant said.
He walked along the fence, past seemingly identical columns, until he came to one he had played many times before. He tapped it up and down with his hand, searching for a spot that resonated. He theorizes that the slurry deteriorates, creating air pockets that allow more refined sounds to echo.
He stuck on the Altoids tin with the amp wires. He found a discarded portion of the old barbed wire fencing and drew the cello bow across it.
The wind continued to blow and Weyant stopped playing as the gusts passed through the fence. It sounded like a howling coyote.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-na-ff-c1-border-music-20140130-dto,0,3650473.htmlstory#axzz2ru37xhZV
January 30, 2014
by Cindy Carcamo
SASABE, Ariz. -- On a windy day in southern Arizona's remote borderlands, Glenn Weyant had everything he needed to make music — a cello bow, a mallet and the miles-long fence dividing the United States and Mexico.
His method, like his music, was improvisational and low-tech: He inserted electronic equipment into an Altoids tin, turning it into a microphone. Weyant filled the tin with magnets and pressed it against the fence a few inches off the ground. Wires attached to the tin led to an amp and several effects pedals — the kind electric guitarists use — which allow him to manipulate sounds.
Desert scrub, mesquite and sun-bleached rocks would serve as his audience; sometimes they do double duty as instruments.
"Nobody thought of the border wall as possibly anything other than something to separate people," he said. "I transform it. I play it."
For eight years, Weyant has tapped, banged and stroked the fence to produce haunting, sometimes ethereal, sounds in a region he has called the "de facto militarized zone." Compositions can last a minute — or more than half an hour.
"I'm a border deconstructionist," said Weyant, a 50-year-old Tucson resident. "I want to deconstruct preconceived notions. What I'm saying is you don't need to be afraid of the wall. You have nothing to fear."
Weyant moved to Tucson 19 years ago when much of the border fence in southern Arizona was barbed wire. It seemed forbidden. He didn't know whether he could even touch it.
"Am I allowed?" Weyant recalled wondering.
Though people tend to stay away from the fence — at least on the northern side — it's not against the law to touch it.
The New Jersey native had been drawn to unusual sounds his whole life — as a boy he enjoyed listening to the hypnotic pattern of his grandfather's electric fan. One day in 2005 — a time of growing concern about illegal immigration and terrorism — he decided that he wanted to hear what sounds the fence could make.
"It was a symbol of fear and loathing. I wanted to transform it into something else … an instrument so that people on both sides can have open dialogue and communication," Weyant said.
He experimented with drumsticks, mallets, violin bows and cello bows. Sometimes he'd use sticks found on the ground.
In Nogales, he played a fence made of re-purposed helicopter landing pads, sometimes creating a staccato sound. He'd capture the noise from birds landing on top of the fence, and the sounds of cars and people passing through the port of entry.
In Sasabe, he created a delicate raspy sound when he put a violin or cello bow on rusty mattress wires ranchers had stretched between fence posts to keep their cattle from straying into Mexico.
The results, he said, were beautiful.
Weyant is more interested in creating effects than melodies. His recordings can sound like wind chimes or have the flute-like breathiness created by blowing across a bottle top. Other sounds resemble moans, whistles and clicks and suggest whale songs or the ambient noise on a New Age relaxation tape.
"Some people describe it as nails on a chalkboard," he said. "It can elicit a repulsion, fear, eeriness. It can be ethereal. It's something that can be expansive."
People who have stumbled across Weyant sometimes looked on from afar, unsure of what he's doing. Others have approached him and stayed for a private concert.
"Making the inhumane, humane and human," one person commented on a YouTube video of Weyant making music. "Bravo. Beautiful. Inspiring." In this recording, Weyant rarely touched the wall and mostly amplified the sound the wind created blowing across rocks and through the fence.
At one point, Weyant augmented the sound by playing a cello while wearing a zebra-head mask. His methods often defy explanation. He once employed a moose call, blowing into the whistle-like contraption while standing next to the fence.
For the most part, Border Patrol agents have left him alone.
"I'm a white male playing the border wall," Weyant said. "I'm aware of my privileged status."
Some agents have greeted him with friendly curiosity.
"Why are you playing a wall?" one asked.
Another radioed his superiors: "There's a guy playing the wall. Is he allowed to do that?"
A few agents have warned him about people on the southern side of the fence.
"Hey, you know they throw rocks," one told him.
"Usually," Weyant said, "when you play in a venue, you don't have people with guns watching you and one guy telling you that people on the other side want to hurt you." Still, he's never had any dangerous run-ins with people on either side of the fence.
Weyant, a former professor of journalism who is now a stay-at-home dad, said he gets to the border wall as much as he can, often once a month. He has given lectures about his music at various universities. He's collaborated with musicians who have incorporated his border sounds into their works. He sells his compositions for 99 cents to $500 but has given away some to humanitarian aid associations. He makes them available on his website, SonicAnta, or posts videos of himself on YouTube.
On the recent blustery afternoon, Weyant went to the border fence near the small town of Sasabe, about 70 miles southwest of Tucson. Behind him, long, parched grasses danced in the wind. Snarled mesquite poked from the sandy earth. Baboquivari Peak towered above. The rock formation sometimes serves as a compass for migrants who make the illegal trek north.
Crumpled water bottles, cans and plastic packages littered the desert — some of it detritus left by immigrants crossing from Mexico. Weyant has played some of the castoffs too, stroking them or tapping them against the fence or other objects.
Weyant said the border wall was an appropriate place to make music because it's haunted with stories.
"This section is where hundreds of people die," he said. "Did they come from Guatemala?"
Dusty handprints stood out against the rusty patina of the fence. "Was it just a kid who jumped the fence? So many stories," Weyant said. "There's a lot of mojo here."
In recent years, people throughout southern Arizona have seen the buildup of border security. They've seen sections of the fence morph from flimsy barriers into tall, fortified structures that tattoo the Sonoran Desert.
But few have heard the border change.
Weyant has. The sounds, like the fence itself, are often harsher than before.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, crews installed a fence near Sasabe made of industrialized steel columns set a few inches apart. Weyant slapped a rust-peppered bollard — one of hundreds poking out of the desert in military formation. The columns are full of slurry and aren't as interesting to play, he said.
He slapped the fence again. A dull thud followed.
"This stuff sounds dead," Weyant said.
He walked along the fence, past seemingly identical columns, until he came to one he had played many times before. He tapped it up and down with his hand, searching for a spot that resonated. He theorizes that the slurry deteriorates, creating air pockets that allow more refined sounds to echo.
He stuck on the Altoids tin with the amp wires. He found a discarded portion of the old barbed wire fencing and drew the cello bow across it.
The wind continued to blow and Weyant stopped playing as the gusts passed through the fence. It sounded like a howling coyote.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-na-ff-c1-border-music-20140130-dto,0,3650473.htmlstory#axzz2ru37xhZV
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Deaths will continue with or without immigration reform
Cronkite News
December 6, 2013
Brittany Hargrave
For nine years, Steve Johnston has toted gallons of water, food packages, clothing and blankets up and down Arizona’s rugged border terrain, leaving the provisions on immigrant trails into the U.S. in the name of saving lives.
While bipartisan supporters say that the U.S. Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill, S 744, will solve the nation’s illegal immigration problems if passed by the House of Representatives, Johnston offers a stark, contrasting view.
“I’m convinced S 744 will kill more people,” he says.
Johnston, 68, is a volunteer for the Tucson-based humanitarian-aid group No More Deaths, which is among several humanitarian and immigrant-advocacy groups that oppose the immigration bill, in part, for what they call its lack of foresight.
Johnston says the bill will “stress (volunteer) capabilities” by increasing border-enforcement efforts in Arizona and further funneling migrants into the most dangerous routes in the mountainous terrain of the Sonoran Desert.
He bases his prediction on trends from the past. Border enforcement strategies have been linked to a migrant-death rate in Arizona that has dramatically increased since the state became the most common entry point for illegal immigration into the U.S. in 1998.
Johnston’s prediction is plausible but not inevitable, says Doris Meissner, director of the Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute and former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service under President Bill Clinton.
“A straight-line analysis is that deaths have remained high in Arizona and the bill is unlikely to lower those numbers and may even increase them,” she says. “However, the whole premise of comprehensive immigration reform is to create a system whereby people come into the U.S. to meet labor market demands and would be able to do so in a safe and orderly fashion. That should reduce reasons why people try to cross the southwest border illegally and thus decrease the number of deaths.”
There are several components of the bill that could impact migrant deaths and humanitarian work.
Primarily, S 744 calls for spending tens of billions of dollars on greater border-enforcement measures. This includes doubling the number of Border Patrol agents at the southern border to more than 38,000; constructing 700 additional miles of border fencing; deploying aircraft; building watch towers; and mandating area-specific technology such as camera systems, ground sensors and drones.
Much of those resources would be targeted toward high-risk zones like the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, which in the 2012 fiscal year made one- third of the arrests of undocumented immigrants and one-half of marijuana seizures nationwide. Arizona already has 318 miles of some kind of border fencing, according to the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson and Yuma sectors. The remaining 70 miles have environmental obstacles that act as natural barriers.
Arizona became the focal point for illegal immigration as the result of a concentrated border-enforcement strategy that began in 1993 when “Operation Hold the Line” beefed up security with manpower and technology in busy illegal immigrant corridors into Texas. The Clinton administration followed with “Operation Gatekeeper” in 1994, increasing enforcement in the busiest illegalimmigration entry point – San Diego, Calif.
The strategy was aimed at forcing those who hoped to cross into the U.S. illegally into mountainous terrain with weather that fluctuates from blistering hot in the summer to frigid cold and snow in the winter acting as a deterrent. But it didn’t.
Migrant crossings and apprehensions plummeted in California and Texas following those policy changes, but they dramatically increased in Arizona. In 1992, there were just more than 95,000 apprehensions in the Tucson and Yuma sectors combined. By 2000, that number jumped to more than 700,000.
The apprehension numbers have now dropped to pre-1994 levels, the product of increased enforcement, fewer jobs available in the U.S. and an improving economy in Mexico. Deaths have not.
According to the U.S. Border Patrol, death counts have fluctuated between 170 per year and 250 per year since 2005. During that same period, apprehensions in the Tucson sector have decreased by 73 percent. The bottom line: The death rate is rising compared to reported apprehensions.
Those numbers alarm people like Gene Lefebvre, who was active in the 1980s Sanctuary Movement and who co-founded No More Deaths.
“Whether enforcement is high or low, people will try to come across if they believe they have more opportunities here,” Lefebvre says. “Over the years, numbers (of apprehensions) have been driven by the U.S. economy and jobs, as well as poverty on the other side.”
He says an improving U.S. economy will lead to more illegal immigration and more deaths in the desert.
“(The government) projected that people would die, but what they didn’t project, what they didn’t count on, was the desperation of people,” he says. “People came anyway.”
Data indicate fewer people are trying to cross illegally through Arizona, but the desperation of the people who do come over explains why the death count remains high, says Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, a professor at the University of Arizona and program coordinator for the Binational Migration Institute. Those who make the trip take more dangerous routes as enforcement blocks easier access points, she says.
“We’re talking about people who are looking at the risk in a very different way than you or I would,” she says. “You and I wouldn’t want to go through the desert. Being with family is an incredible push factor for people. Overriding the deterrents of going through the desert are factors people face in their hometowns – they can’t make enough money to buy food or medicine for their family. They’re willing to take that chance.”
The Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner has found more than 2,000 bodies of suspected migrants in its jurisdiction since January 2001. It handles more unidentified remains than any other medical-examiner office in the country.
Humane Borders, another humanitarian-aid group based in Tucson, has worked with the Pima medical examiner office to put together a map plotting coordinates of migrant remains using geographic information system (GIS) software. The map also provides information concerning common demographics of migrants who die while crossing the border.
Because of advanced levels of decomposition, not all bodies can be identified when found. Still, the bodies that are identifiable by age, gender and cause of death offer a picture of who the migrants are: Eighty percent are male. Exposure is the cause of death in nearly 75 percent of cases. More than 40 percent of bodies are found on the Tohono O’odham Nation reservation. Most of the dead were between the ages of 20 and 49.
According to Gregory Hess, the office’s chief medical examiner, the biggest problem working with hundreds of unidentified bodies per year is storage.
“The unidentified bodies don’t go anywhere fast,” he says.
After the investigation is complete and there is no positive identification, the office generally calls to have the bodies buried in the Pima County plot or cremated, Hess says. That can add up to thousands of dollars in costs per year to the county.
It’s tragedies like those that another component of S. 744 hopes to cut down. In addition to its focus on enforcement, the bill calls for construction of 1,000 distress beacons along nearly 2,000 mile-long U.S. – Mexico border.
Currently, there are 22 distress beacons in the Tucson sector and 24 distress beacons in the Yuma sector. Factors on where the distress beacons are placed include how remote an area is, how many agents are deployed in the area, number of immigrant deaths in the area and what technology is available to help patrol, says Nicole Ballistrea, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson sector.
Distress beacons were first installed in Arizona in 2002 and consist of tall red posts equipped with buttons that can be pushed in emergencies to call for help. The towers are solar powered and lighted at night. Instructions for pressing the button and sending a distress signal appear in multiple languages. The instructions do not say the beacon is connected to Border Patrol. After being treated medically, border crossers without appropriate documentation are deported.
The Tucson sector beacons have been activated about 180 times “over the last few years,” Ballistrea says. Other than that estimate, there is little information on how effective distress beacons are.
Johnston, of No More Deaths, approves of the distress-beacon component of S 744, but says he believes it could be improved if the beacons were equipped with cell-phone towers, so migrants in distress could use their cell phones in areas with poor reception.
“That’s the thing that will save the most lives,” he says. “Right now, migrants have to climb to the top of the highest mountain to get reception, and that’s very difficult. If the beacons have a cell-phone tower and use that ability, I’ll be in favor. Otherwise, it’s just a PR thing.”
The U.S. Border Patrol and local Arizona humanitarian groups have a checkered history. In the past, Border Patrol agents have ticketed humanitarian volunteers for littering after volunteers left water bottles and food out for migrants. Videos also exist of Border Patrol agents destroying the water and other provisions left out by the humanitarian groups.
Right now, relationships between the aid groups and the Border Patrol seem better, Johnston says. He attributes the improvement to Manuel Padilla Jr., who became the Tucson sector Border Patrol chief earlier this year.
“At the moment, the sector chief is sympathetic to our cause,” Johnston says. “Still, water is being destroyed. Blankets are still being taken away.”
Rubio-Goldsmith, who has studied the interaction between U.S. Border Patrol agents and border communities, says the Border Patrol has the difficult task of balancing justice and mercy.
“Border Patrol doesn’t like people going through their land, yet Border Patrol is there and they are supposed to help,” she says. “How they respond is kind of a mixed bag.”
Ballistrea says the Tucson sector Border Patrol maintains an “ongoing dialogue with multiple humanitarian groups.”
In instances where migrants coming into the country illegally become distressed, Border Patrol agents must “first and foremost act as humanitarians,” she says.
“Employees who disregard (their oath) and instead choose to violate the trust of the citizens they swore to protect will be held accountable,” she says. “Although (Border Patrol and humanitarian groups) may originate from different backgrounds, we share a common goal in saving lives. Agents are often called upon to shift from law enforcement to rescue mode in a moment’s notice.”
The best way to reform immigration policy is to work on economic policies affecting migrant workers and focus on the root motivator for why so many Mexican immigrants come to the U.S., Lefebvre says.
“There has always been a flow between the U.S. and Mexico,” he says. “People accepted that as a fact of life. Until 1994, (policies) were loose most of the time. When there was a tough economy, there were restrictions. When we needed workers, we encouraged them to come.”
In the past, workers would come from Mexico to work in the agriculture, construction or hotel industries. They would work for six months to a year, send money home and then go home themselves, Lefebvre says. Some came back and some didn’t.
“They preferred to live in Mexico, but came to the U.S. to save money for their families and for farmland,” he says.
S 744 would reform worker visas, and that change in system could stem the flow of illegal immigration, says Meissner, of the Migration Policy Institute. The bill, if passed, could also lead to more migrant rescues by increasing air surveillance, she says. It could lead to more humanitarian efforts from BorStar. If enforcement continues to increase in Arizona, the bill could shift primary migration patterns to Texas. And yes, she says, it could lead to more migrant deaths in the Arizona desert.
“It’s probably some of all of the above,” she says. “But, Border Patrol is quite successful at this point. Adding more policy on border enforcement doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because border enforcement alone is not a viable enough strategy.”
http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2013/12/deaths-will-continue-with-or-without-immigration-reform/
December 6, 2013
Brittany Hargrave
For nine years, Steve Johnston has toted gallons of water, food packages, clothing and blankets up and down Arizona’s rugged border terrain, leaving the provisions on immigrant trails into the U.S. in the name of saving lives.
While bipartisan supporters say that the U.S. Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill, S 744, will solve the nation’s illegal immigration problems if passed by the House of Representatives, Johnston offers a stark, contrasting view.
“I’m convinced S 744 will kill more people,” he says.
Johnston, 68, is a volunteer for the Tucson-based humanitarian-aid group No More Deaths, which is among several humanitarian and immigrant-advocacy groups that oppose the immigration bill, in part, for what they call its lack of foresight.
Johnston says the bill will “stress (volunteer) capabilities” by increasing border-enforcement efforts in Arizona and further funneling migrants into the most dangerous routes in the mountainous terrain of the Sonoran Desert.
He bases his prediction on trends from the past. Border enforcement strategies have been linked to a migrant-death rate in Arizona that has dramatically increased since the state became the most common entry point for illegal immigration into the U.S. in 1998.
Johnston’s prediction is plausible but not inevitable, says Doris Meissner, director of the Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute and former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service under President Bill Clinton.
“A straight-line analysis is that deaths have remained high in Arizona and the bill is unlikely to lower those numbers and may even increase them,” she says. “However, the whole premise of comprehensive immigration reform is to create a system whereby people come into the U.S. to meet labor market demands and would be able to do so in a safe and orderly fashion. That should reduce reasons why people try to cross the southwest border illegally and thus decrease the number of deaths.”
There are several components of the bill that could impact migrant deaths and humanitarian work.
Primarily, S 744 calls for spending tens of billions of dollars on greater border-enforcement measures. This includes doubling the number of Border Patrol agents at the southern border to more than 38,000; constructing 700 additional miles of border fencing; deploying aircraft; building watch towers; and mandating area-specific technology such as camera systems, ground sensors and drones.
Much of those resources would be targeted toward high-risk zones like the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, which in the 2012 fiscal year made one- third of the arrests of undocumented immigrants and one-half of marijuana seizures nationwide. Arizona already has 318 miles of some kind of border fencing, according to the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson and Yuma sectors. The remaining 70 miles have environmental obstacles that act as natural barriers.
Arizona became the focal point for illegal immigration as the result of a concentrated border-enforcement strategy that began in 1993 when “Operation Hold the Line” beefed up security with manpower and technology in busy illegal immigrant corridors into Texas. The Clinton administration followed with “Operation Gatekeeper” in 1994, increasing enforcement in the busiest illegalimmigration entry point – San Diego, Calif.
The strategy was aimed at forcing those who hoped to cross into the U.S. illegally into mountainous terrain with weather that fluctuates from blistering hot in the summer to frigid cold and snow in the winter acting as a deterrent. But it didn’t.
Migrant crossings and apprehensions plummeted in California and Texas following those policy changes, but they dramatically increased in Arizona. In 1992, there were just more than 95,000 apprehensions in the Tucson and Yuma sectors combined. By 2000, that number jumped to more than 700,000.
The apprehension numbers have now dropped to pre-1994 levels, the product of increased enforcement, fewer jobs available in the U.S. and an improving economy in Mexico. Deaths have not.
According to the U.S. Border Patrol, death counts have fluctuated between 170 per year and 250 per year since 2005. During that same period, apprehensions in the Tucson sector have decreased by 73 percent. The bottom line: The death rate is rising compared to reported apprehensions.
Those numbers alarm people like Gene Lefebvre, who was active in the 1980s Sanctuary Movement and who co-founded No More Deaths.
“Whether enforcement is high or low, people will try to come across if they believe they have more opportunities here,” Lefebvre says. “Over the years, numbers (of apprehensions) have been driven by the U.S. economy and jobs, as well as poverty on the other side.”
He says an improving U.S. economy will lead to more illegal immigration and more deaths in the desert.
“(The government) projected that people would die, but what they didn’t project, what they didn’t count on, was the desperation of people,” he says. “People came anyway.”
Data indicate fewer people are trying to cross illegally through Arizona, but the desperation of the people who do come over explains why the death count remains high, says Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, a professor at the University of Arizona and program coordinator for the Binational Migration Institute. Those who make the trip take more dangerous routes as enforcement blocks easier access points, she says.
“We’re talking about people who are looking at the risk in a very different way than you or I would,” she says. “You and I wouldn’t want to go through the desert. Being with family is an incredible push factor for people. Overriding the deterrents of going through the desert are factors people face in their hometowns – they can’t make enough money to buy food or medicine for their family. They’re willing to take that chance.”
The Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner has found more than 2,000 bodies of suspected migrants in its jurisdiction since January 2001. It handles more unidentified remains than any other medical-examiner office in the country.
Humane Borders, another humanitarian-aid group based in Tucson, has worked with the Pima medical examiner office to put together a map plotting coordinates of migrant remains using geographic information system (GIS) software. The map also provides information concerning common demographics of migrants who die while crossing the border.
Because of advanced levels of decomposition, not all bodies can be identified when found. Still, the bodies that are identifiable by age, gender and cause of death offer a picture of who the migrants are: Eighty percent are male. Exposure is the cause of death in nearly 75 percent of cases. More than 40 percent of bodies are found on the Tohono O’odham Nation reservation. Most of the dead were between the ages of 20 and 49.
According to Gregory Hess, the office’s chief medical examiner, the biggest problem working with hundreds of unidentified bodies per year is storage.
“The unidentified bodies don’t go anywhere fast,” he says.
After the investigation is complete and there is no positive identification, the office generally calls to have the bodies buried in the Pima County plot or cremated, Hess says. That can add up to thousands of dollars in costs per year to the county.
It’s tragedies like those that another component of S. 744 hopes to cut down. In addition to its focus on enforcement, the bill calls for construction of 1,000 distress beacons along nearly 2,000 mile-long U.S. – Mexico border.
Currently, there are 22 distress beacons in the Tucson sector and 24 distress beacons in the Yuma sector. Factors on where the distress beacons are placed include how remote an area is, how many agents are deployed in the area, number of immigrant deaths in the area and what technology is available to help patrol, says Nicole Ballistrea, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson sector.
Distress beacons were first installed in Arizona in 2002 and consist of tall red posts equipped with buttons that can be pushed in emergencies to call for help. The towers are solar powered and lighted at night. Instructions for pressing the button and sending a distress signal appear in multiple languages. The instructions do not say the beacon is connected to Border Patrol. After being treated medically, border crossers without appropriate documentation are deported.
The Tucson sector beacons have been activated about 180 times “over the last few years,” Ballistrea says. Other than that estimate, there is little information on how effective distress beacons are.
Johnston, of No More Deaths, approves of the distress-beacon component of S 744, but says he believes it could be improved if the beacons were equipped with cell-phone towers, so migrants in distress could use their cell phones in areas with poor reception.
“That’s the thing that will save the most lives,” he says. “Right now, migrants have to climb to the top of the highest mountain to get reception, and that’s very difficult. If the beacons have a cell-phone tower and use that ability, I’ll be in favor. Otherwise, it’s just a PR thing.”
The U.S. Border Patrol and local Arizona humanitarian groups have a checkered history. In the past, Border Patrol agents have ticketed humanitarian volunteers for littering after volunteers left water bottles and food out for migrants. Videos also exist of Border Patrol agents destroying the water and other provisions left out by the humanitarian groups.
Right now, relationships between the aid groups and the Border Patrol seem better, Johnston says. He attributes the improvement to Manuel Padilla Jr., who became the Tucson sector Border Patrol chief earlier this year.
“At the moment, the sector chief is sympathetic to our cause,” Johnston says. “Still, water is being destroyed. Blankets are still being taken away.”
Rubio-Goldsmith, who has studied the interaction between U.S. Border Patrol agents and border communities, says the Border Patrol has the difficult task of balancing justice and mercy.
“Border Patrol doesn’t like people going through their land, yet Border Patrol is there and they are supposed to help,” she says. “How they respond is kind of a mixed bag.”
Ballistrea says the Tucson sector Border Patrol maintains an “ongoing dialogue with multiple humanitarian groups.”
In instances where migrants coming into the country illegally become distressed, Border Patrol agents must “first and foremost act as humanitarians,” she says.
“Employees who disregard (their oath) and instead choose to violate the trust of the citizens they swore to protect will be held accountable,” she says. “Although (Border Patrol and humanitarian groups) may originate from different backgrounds, we share a common goal in saving lives. Agents are often called upon to shift from law enforcement to rescue mode in a moment’s notice.”
The best way to reform immigration policy is to work on economic policies affecting migrant workers and focus on the root motivator for why so many Mexican immigrants come to the U.S., Lefebvre says.
“There has always been a flow between the U.S. and Mexico,” he says. “People accepted that as a fact of life. Until 1994, (policies) were loose most of the time. When there was a tough economy, there were restrictions. When we needed workers, we encouraged them to come.”
In the past, workers would come from Mexico to work in the agriculture, construction or hotel industries. They would work for six months to a year, send money home and then go home themselves, Lefebvre says. Some came back and some didn’t.
“They preferred to live in Mexico, but came to the U.S. to save money for their families and for farmland,” he says.
S 744 would reform worker visas, and that change in system could stem the flow of illegal immigration, says Meissner, of the Migration Policy Institute. The bill, if passed, could also lead to more migrant rescues by increasing air surveillance, she says. It could lead to more humanitarian efforts from BorStar. If enforcement continues to increase in Arizona, the bill could shift primary migration patterns to Texas. And yes, she says, it could lead to more migrant deaths in the Arizona desert.
“It’s probably some of all of the above,” she says. “But, Border Patrol is quite successful at this point. Adding more policy on border enforcement doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, because border enforcement alone is not a viable enough strategy.”
http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2013/12/deaths-will-continue-with-or-without-immigration-reform/
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Arizona border fence plan stalled after 3 years
Associated Press / USA Today
November 6, 2013
PHOENIX (AP) — A plan by Republican Arizona lawmakers to build a mile of fencing along the border with Mexico using private money has stalled nearly three years after it was sanctioned by the Legislature.
Private donations expected to fund the project dried up after only a fraction of the funding was in hand, leaving the project far short of its lofty goals.
Lawmakers on a border security committee that met Wednesday acknowledged the state has received just $264,000 for the project, well short of the $2.8 million needed to build the first mile of fencing.
The plan championed by Rep. Steve Smith originally called for collecting as much as $50 million to build a 15-foot fence at busy, yet-to-be-determined border-crossing points then erecting fences along miles of the state's 375-mile border that have no federal fences.
The effort began during the height of Arizona's battle against illegal immigration, before a backlash that left former state Senate President Russell Pearce out of a job after a recall and the GOP-led Legislature with no more appetite for measures targeting immigration.
The Arizona Legislature's border security advisory committee, which includes lawmakers, sheriff's and state department heads, took no action Wednesday on a new spending plan. It also put off until next month a discussion on how to allocate what money it has.
Donations dried up less than six months after the state launched a website in 2011 to collect money for the project. In December of that year, the state had more than $250,000, but the tally remained at just over $264,000 on Wednesday.
Smith, R-Maricopa, said he still hopes to use the cash as seed money for some type of enhanced border security — a fence or some other measure he declined to detail.
"I think all options are on the table," Smith said. "I think people would be really surprised what we can do with a little bit of funds."
The committee co-chair, Rep. David Stevens, said Smith is considering asking the committee to distribute money to sheriffs with jurisdictions along the border.
"He wants to put it to use on the border, because it's not enough to build a fence," Stevens said Tuesday evening. Smith would not confirm that on Wednesday.
The Legislature created the committee in 2011 and tasked it with making recommendations to the governor about how to handle the border. The fence project was one of its key goals
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/06/arizona-border-fence-stalled/3458435/
November 6, 2013
PHOENIX (AP) — A plan by Republican Arizona lawmakers to build a mile of fencing along the border with Mexico using private money has stalled nearly three years after it was sanctioned by the Legislature.
Private donations expected to fund the project dried up after only a fraction of the funding was in hand, leaving the project far short of its lofty goals.
Lawmakers on a border security committee that met Wednesday acknowledged the state has received just $264,000 for the project, well short of the $2.8 million needed to build the first mile of fencing.
The plan championed by Rep. Steve Smith originally called for collecting as much as $50 million to build a 15-foot fence at busy, yet-to-be-determined border-crossing points then erecting fences along miles of the state's 375-mile border that have no federal fences.
The effort began during the height of Arizona's battle against illegal immigration, before a backlash that left former state Senate President Russell Pearce out of a job after a recall and the GOP-led Legislature with no more appetite for measures targeting immigration.
The Arizona Legislature's border security advisory committee, which includes lawmakers, sheriff's and state department heads, took no action Wednesday on a new spending plan. It also put off until next month a discussion on how to allocate what money it has.
Donations dried up less than six months after the state launched a website in 2011 to collect money for the project. In December of that year, the state had more than $250,000, but the tally remained at just over $264,000 on Wednesday.
Smith, R-Maricopa, said he still hopes to use the cash as seed money for some type of enhanced border security — a fence or some other measure he declined to detail.
"I think all options are on the table," Smith said. "I think people would be really surprised what we can do with a little bit of funds."
The committee co-chair, Rep. David Stevens, said Smith is considering asking the committee to distribute money to sheriffs with jurisdictions along the border.
"He wants to put it to use on the border, because it's not enough to build a fence," Stevens said Tuesday evening. Smith would not confirm that on Wednesday.
The Legislature created the committee in 2011 and tasked it with making recommendations to the governor about how to handle the border. The fence project was one of its key goals
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/06/arizona-border-fence-stalled/3458435/
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Sister of border agency leader pleads guilty to human smuggling charge
Center for Investigative Reporting
November 1, 2013
by Andrew Becker
The sister of the top-ranking U.S. Customs and Border Protection official in Arizona pleaded guilty Thursday to smuggling an immigrant through a Border Patrol checkpoint near Tucson in the car she was driving, her defense attorney said.
Tammy Leigh Stephens, 52, of Phoenix, admitted in U.S. District Court in Tucson to aiding and abetting an illegal entry. As part of a plea agreement, a second charge of transporting a migrant not authorized to be in the U.S. for financial gain was dropped, her attorney, Eric S. Manch, said in a telephone interview.
Stephens is the sister of Jeffrey Self, the commander of the agency’s Arizona Joint Field Command, which, under his control, unifies three major border operations in the state and includes one of the busiest smuggling corridors along the Southwest U.S. border.
Agency officials said they have no information that suggests any employees were involved or aware of the alleged criminal activity, including Self.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection “is fully cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and will refer all questions to them,” Melanie Roe, the agency’s assistant commissioner for public affairs, said in a written statement.
Stephens and a co-defendant, Jason Miles English, who pleaded guilty to the same charge Wednesday, were sentenced to 30 days each, said Cosme Lopez, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona. He declined to answer other questions related to the prosecution.
A 25-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol, Self has stepped aside from any involvement with his sister’s case, officials said. In the interim, he will be reassigned to Washington, where he will serve as the acting deputy assistant commissioner for the Office of Training and Development. In that role, he will lead efforts to implement recently announced changes to the agency’s use-of-force policies and practices.
The union that represents Border Patrol agents took issue with Self's reassignment.
“A normal Border Patrol agent who had a close relative arrested for alien smuggling would themselves be investigated by internal affairs and the Border Patrol, not rewarded and reassigned to a high-profile position within the agency,” said Shawn Moran, a vice president of the National Border Patrol Council.
Alan Bersin, then commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, appointed Self as the first commander of the Joint Field Command when it was created in 2011. Martin Vaughan, an official with the agency’s Office of Air and Marine, will serve as the Joint Field Command’s acting commander.
The offices that fall under the Arizona Joint Field Command – the U.S. Border Patrol, Office of Field Operations, and the Office of Air and Marine – include operations at some of the agency’s biggest Border Patrol stations, various border crossings and other ports of entry, and unmanned aerial vehicles and other aircraft.
Arizona is a major transit area for human and drug smuggling and has been a major focus for the agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In fiscal year 2012, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 124,631 unauthorized border crossers in Arizona, the lowest number in 19 years, while capturing more than 1.1 million pounds of drugs between and at border crossings and other ports, according to the agency.
The family relation makes for an uncommon situation, but defense attorneys for Stephens and co-defendant English described the alleged smuggling attempt as nothing unusual for that area.
“There’s not really anything about the case that seems out of the ordinary,” said Manch.
Stephens was driving a white Mitsubishi Galant with two passengers Oct. 20 when she approached a Border Patrol checkpoint on State Route 85 near Why, Ariz, according to the criminal complaint signed by a Border Patrol agent.
When an agent asked the nationality of a passenger, Marlene Josefina Rodriguez-Fernandez, Stephens answered that the woman was a U.S. citizen, the complaint shows.
Rodriguez-Fernandez presented a U.S. passport that did not belong to her and eventually admitted that she was not a citizen or national of the United States and did not have documents that permitted her to be in the country.
She told the Border Patrol that she made arrangements to be smuggled into the United States and agreed to pay money for the use of a U.S. passport, the complaint shows. She was told to go to a gas station after crossing the border and board a car with a female driver, who turned out to be Stephens.
English later entered the car, asked for an identification document from Rodriguez-Fernandez and told her “to say that they were returning from partying in Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico,” the complaint shows.
English admitted to the Border Patrol that he agreed to accompany Stephens to the border to “pick up a friend,” according to the complaint.
There's no indication Stephens has been involved in smuggling before, Manch said. He said there were "a lot of reasons" for her decision to be involved in the smuggling attempt, but it was complicated and he declined to give more specifics. He said she was aware of her brother's involvement in border security but did not know his specific role.
"She's embarrassed enough about this incident” and just wants to get back to her life, he said.
http://cironline.org/reports/sister-border-agency-leader-pleads-guilty-human-smuggling-charge-5493
November 1, 2013
by Andrew Becker
The sister of the top-ranking U.S. Customs and Border Protection official in Arizona pleaded guilty Thursday to smuggling an immigrant through a Border Patrol checkpoint near Tucson in the car she was driving, her defense attorney said.
Tammy Leigh Stephens, 52, of Phoenix, admitted in U.S. District Court in Tucson to aiding and abetting an illegal entry. As part of a plea agreement, a second charge of transporting a migrant not authorized to be in the U.S. for financial gain was dropped, her attorney, Eric S. Manch, said in a telephone interview.
Stephens is the sister of Jeffrey Self, the commander of the agency’s Arizona Joint Field Command, which, under his control, unifies three major border operations in the state and includes one of the busiest smuggling corridors along the Southwest U.S. border.
Agency officials said they have no information that suggests any employees were involved or aware of the alleged criminal activity, including Self.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection “is fully cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and will refer all questions to them,” Melanie Roe, the agency’s assistant commissioner for public affairs, said in a written statement.
Stephens and a co-defendant, Jason Miles English, who pleaded guilty to the same charge Wednesday, were sentenced to 30 days each, said Cosme Lopez, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona. He declined to answer other questions related to the prosecution.
A 25-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol, Self has stepped aside from any involvement with his sister’s case, officials said. In the interim, he will be reassigned to Washington, where he will serve as the acting deputy assistant commissioner for the Office of Training and Development. In that role, he will lead efforts to implement recently announced changes to the agency’s use-of-force policies and practices.
The union that represents Border Patrol agents took issue with Self's reassignment.
“A normal Border Patrol agent who had a close relative arrested for alien smuggling would themselves be investigated by internal affairs and the Border Patrol, not rewarded and reassigned to a high-profile position within the agency,” said Shawn Moran, a vice president of the National Border Patrol Council.
Alan Bersin, then commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, appointed Self as the first commander of the Joint Field Command when it was created in 2011. Martin Vaughan, an official with the agency’s Office of Air and Marine, will serve as the Joint Field Command’s acting commander.
The offices that fall under the Arizona Joint Field Command – the U.S. Border Patrol, Office of Field Operations, and the Office of Air and Marine – include operations at some of the agency’s biggest Border Patrol stations, various border crossings and other ports of entry, and unmanned aerial vehicles and other aircraft.
Arizona is a major transit area for human and drug smuggling and has been a major focus for the agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In fiscal year 2012, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 124,631 unauthorized border crossers in Arizona, the lowest number in 19 years, while capturing more than 1.1 million pounds of drugs between and at border crossings and other ports, according to the agency.
The family relation makes for an uncommon situation, but defense attorneys for Stephens and co-defendant English described the alleged smuggling attempt as nothing unusual for that area.
“There’s not really anything about the case that seems out of the ordinary,” said Manch.
Stephens was driving a white Mitsubishi Galant with two passengers Oct. 20 when she approached a Border Patrol checkpoint on State Route 85 near Why, Ariz, according to the criminal complaint signed by a Border Patrol agent.
When an agent asked the nationality of a passenger, Marlene Josefina Rodriguez-Fernandez, Stephens answered that the woman was a U.S. citizen, the complaint shows.
Rodriguez-Fernandez presented a U.S. passport that did not belong to her and eventually admitted that she was not a citizen or national of the United States and did not have documents that permitted her to be in the country.
She told the Border Patrol that she made arrangements to be smuggled into the United States and agreed to pay money for the use of a U.S. passport, the complaint shows. She was told to go to a gas station after crossing the border and board a car with a female driver, who turned out to be Stephens.
English later entered the car, asked for an identification document from Rodriguez-Fernandez and told her “to say that they were returning from partying in Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico,” the complaint shows.
English admitted to the Border Patrol that he agreed to accompany Stephens to the border to “pick up a friend,” according to the complaint.
There's no indication Stephens has been involved in smuggling before, Manch said. He said there were "a lot of reasons" for her decision to be involved in the smuggling attempt, but it was complicated and he declined to give more specifics. He said she was aware of her brother's involvement in border security but did not know his specific role.
"She's embarrassed enough about this incident” and just wants to get back to her life, he said.
http://cironline.org/reports/sister-border-agency-leader-pleads-guilty-human-smuggling-charge-5493
Monday, August 12, 2013
Rep. Raúl Grijalva: Strict Focus on Secure Border Fences Is 'Naive Thinking'
PBS News Hour
July 11, 2013
July 11, 2013
RAY SUAREZ: And we continue our look at immigration reform, as GOP leaders repeated for a second day that there's no clear consensus on a path forward for comprehensive legislation.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-Ohio: We got a broken system that needs to be fixed.
RAY SUAREZ: House Speaker John Boehner insisted today the vast majority of House Republicans do want immigration reform, but on their terms.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: Through all the conversations that have occurred from -- with my own members, with Democrat members, it's clear that dealing with this in bite-sized chunks that members can digest and the American people can digest is the smartest way to go.
RAY SUAREZ: In other words, the House will not take up the comprehensive bill that passed the Senate or anything like it.
That bill includes a path to citizenship for some 11 million people already in the country illegally. Democrats insist on including that step. House Republicans have focused instead on border security, but they're under growing pressure to relent on the citizenship question, and after a two-hour meeting yesterday, they displayed a conference divided.
REP. DARRELL ISSA, R-Calif.: There are three categories that those 11 million people go into, people that we all agree should remain here, people that we all agree should be removed, criminal aliens, people who have committed crimes and so on, and then people who may be in between.
REP. STEVE KING, R-Iowa: I made the point that anything that is legalization ends up in citizenship. And if that's the case, I'm opposed to it, because it destroys the rule of law. You could never reestablish the rule of law in this country, at least with regard to immigration, again.
RAY SUAREZ: This morning, the lead authors of the Senate bill, Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican John McCain, talked hopefully, after meeting with President Obama at the White House.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, D-N.Y.: Once you say doing nothing is not an option, you have to move in a direction to be bipartisan. And once you're bipartisan, you're going to get some progress that can get something done. So, again, it's not going to be the same exact thing as we believe, but, at the end of the day, hopefully, it will be close enough that we can come to an agreement.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz.: We are in no way bigfooting the members of the House of Representatives. We'd like to see legislation along the lines of ours, but we can work with them on different pieces of legislation. We want legislation that we can go to conference on, that we can get a majority vote in both houses.
RAY SUAREZ: House Republicans will now consider four separate bills, with a concentration on border security and enforcement of existing laws. None offers the possibility of citizenship.
But Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned today of the consequences of not acting quickly.
REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif.: I think delay can create problems, but I'm ever optimistic. So I believe that we will have immigration reform for the simple reason that the American people want us to have it, and that, if it doesn't happen in this year, it's unlikely that it's going to happen in an election year.
RAY SUAREZ: Republicans have talked of voting on immigration before the month-long recess that begins in early August. But Boehner seemed to leave some wiggle room today.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: I'm much more concerned about doing it right than I am of meeting some deadline.
RAY SUAREZ: If action on immigration slides to the fall, fiscal battles over the federal budget and debt ceiling could sideline the issue indefinitely.
And to the next in our immigration conversations.
Earlier this week, we talked with House Republicans Trey Gowdy of South Carolina and Raul Labrador of Idaho, along with Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez.
Tonight, another Democrat, Arizona's Raul Grijalva. He is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and serves as co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I spoke with him yesterday.
Congressman Grijalva, welcome to the program.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA, D-Ariz.: Thank you, Ray.
RAY SUAREZ: A lot of attention is being paid to whether Republicans will go for the Senate bill in the House, but I thought, since you're co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, we should ask you whether Democrats in the House are happy with the changes that were made to the bill to get it through the Senate?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Well, I think a great deal of discomfort, some outright opposition to the surge, the Corker amendment that added $30 billion-plus, doubled everything that was already in the bill.
And, for many, for environmentalists and people that care about those public land laws, clean water, clean air, the waiving of all those laws along the border and public lands, people have difficulty with that. The issue of just militarizing the border to an extent that it becomes almost a combat zone will change the texture and the life in that community forever.
I think it's excessive. I think it's overkill. I think we need to define what security is. And I think it includes much more components than boots on the ground and drones and helicopters and sensors and towers and fences. It includes much more.
But the definition is very narrow. We will make an effort to try to expand that definition, but the bottom line, Ray, has been that a lot of the swallowing and bitterness of some of these additions by the Senate and even some of the components that were in the Senate bill before Corker were being swallowed because of the importance of a path to citizenship.
RAY SUAREZ: So, you call it a bitter pill to swallow. Does it still have your vote as written if it came to the House floor?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: If it came to the House floor and there were -- at this point, I have a great deal of discomfort with it.
I feel that I have -- I have been reluctant to state what I would do in that situation, so that we wouldn't marginalize the opportunity to try to improve it.
But a lot will depend on what the Republicans do here. If we start to redefine the path, then the only sole reason for any compromise or swallowing any of this has been the millions of people that we would add comfort and protection to. If that starts to leave, then, quite frankly, there's no compromise.
RAY SUAREZ: Is the path to citizenship, some path to citizenship, a necessary precondition for this bill or a version of it to get your vote?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: My vote and I think a great number of Democrats.
The sentiment I'm giving you, Ray, about we don't like this part, we don't like that part is pretty prevalent, but the golden opportunity to do something about these families -- and I represent 350 miles of border communities, Nogales, San Luis, Somerton, all those communities, and constantly every day dealing with those families, the deportations, the split families, children left in foster care because their parents are gone.
I mean, the human toll sometimes makes you makes you believe that that has to be the ultimate goal. And if that path isn't there, then what are we settling for?
RAY SUAREZ: Earlier in the week, Congressman Trey Gowdy, your Republican colleague from South Carolina, was on this program.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Right.
RAY SUAREZ: And he said the path to citizenship is not as important to him as securing the border right now, because unless you secure the border, you end up back in the same problem we're in now, with newly legalized residents and more people coming over the border trying to achieve that status.
How do you reply to that?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: I think that within the Senate bill, there's E-Verify that's going to make a demand of employers that people must have the proper documentation. Otherwise, the penalties on those employers that hire unauthorized people is going to be huge.
Beyond that, you know, people are coming out of the shadows, declaring themselves, starting that process, family unification, much -- 40 percent of the people that are right now in this country overstayed their work visas or overstayed their visas.
And as you seal this border and as you try to feel that the only way you can provide immigration reform is by zero-tolerance, secure border fences, double links, Border Patrol agents shoulder to shoulder, that's naive thinking. That's not the reality of the border.
And the reality of the economy of this nation and this world, the effect of poverty, there's root causes here. And merely building the fences, symbolism, it's pandering and good political rhetoric, but it is not going to fix or accommodate the issue that we're dealing with here, which is the people that are here already and what do you do about them? He doesn't answer that question.
And his idea of -- his idea of keeping people here with a provisional legal status is something that's so un-American, to have a second class of workers and people in this country with no access to citizenship and, more importantly, with a different set of rights and protections than the rest of us have.
I don't think that's American. I don't think -- we have never been about that. And I think he misses the point on that value. But securing the border, from somebody from a state that doesn't have to deal with it on a daily basis, it's not just overreach. I think it's oversimplification.
RAY SUAREZ: So very, very quickly, before we go, Congressman, is there a compromise floating out there that will leave people like Congressman Gowdy satisfied about the border and its security and leave the members of your Progressive Caucus satisfied that you have done well by the people who are here struggling, trying to get legal status?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Yes, I think a path has to be integral, redefining what you mean by security, so that we make it comprehensive, so that the issues that the gentleman from South Carolina is concerned about, we use -- part of security has to be economic development.
Six million jobs in this country depend on direct trade import and export from Mexico, in the country. And so this is about jobs. This is about a vitality that we need in the borderlands in terms of an economy. We need to redefine that.
I think that's the compromise, that you expand the definition of security from the simpleton stuff that we're talking about right now, fences and boots, to the more complex and lasting solutions, which is the economic development, good ports of entries, increased trade, increased visitorship.
It's a win-win for everybody. And if there was an opportunity to sit down and have a rational discussion without posturing, I think that's a potentially good compromise.
RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona, thanks for joining us, sir.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Thank you, Ray. Appreciate it.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/immigration_07-11.html
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-Ohio: We got a broken system that needs to be fixed.
RAY SUAREZ: House Speaker John Boehner insisted today the vast majority of House Republicans do want immigration reform, but on their terms.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: Through all the conversations that have occurred from -- with my own members, with Democrat members, it's clear that dealing with this in bite-sized chunks that members can digest and the American people can digest is the smartest way to go.
RAY SUAREZ: In other words, the House will not take up the comprehensive bill that passed the Senate or anything like it.
That bill includes a path to citizenship for some 11 million people already in the country illegally. Democrats insist on including that step. House Republicans have focused instead on border security, but they're under growing pressure to relent on the citizenship question, and after a two-hour meeting yesterday, they displayed a conference divided.
REP. DARRELL ISSA, R-Calif.: There are three categories that those 11 million people go into, people that we all agree should remain here, people that we all agree should be removed, criminal aliens, people who have committed crimes and so on, and then people who may be in between.
REP. STEVE KING, R-Iowa: I made the point that anything that is legalization ends up in citizenship. And if that's the case, I'm opposed to it, because it destroys the rule of law. You could never reestablish the rule of law in this country, at least with regard to immigration, again.
RAY SUAREZ: This morning, the lead authors of the Senate bill, Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican John McCain, talked hopefully, after meeting with President Obama at the White House.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, D-N.Y.: Once you say doing nothing is not an option, you have to move in a direction to be bipartisan. And once you're bipartisan, you're going to get some progress that can get something done. So, again, it's not going to be the same exact thing as we believe, but, at the end of the day, hopefully, it will be close enough that we can come to an agreement.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz.: We are in no way bigfooting the members of the House of Representatives. We'd like to see legislation along the lines of ours, but we can work with them on different pieces of legislation. We want legislation that we can go to conference on, that we can get a majority vote in both houses.
RAY SUAREZ: House Republicans will now consider four separate bills, with a concentration on border security and enforcement of existing laws. None offers the possibility of citizenship.
But Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned today of the consequences of not acting quickly.
REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif.: I think delay can create problems, but I'm ever optimistic. So I believe that we will have immigration reform for the simple reason that the American people want us to have it, and that, if it doesn't happen in this year, it's unlikely that it's going to happen in an election year.
RAY SUAREZ: Republicans have talked of voting on immigration before the month-long recess that begins in early August. But Boehner seemed to leave some wiggle room today.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: I'm much more concerned about doing it right than I am of meeting some deadline.
RAY SUAREZ: If action on immigration slides to the fall, fiscal battles over the federal budget and debt ceiling could sideline the issue indefinitely.
And to the next in our immigration conversations.
Earlier this week, we talked with House Republicans Trey Gowdy of South Carolina and Raul Labrador of Idaho, along with Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez.
Tonight, another Democrat, Arizona's Raul Grijalva. He is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and serves as co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I spoke with him yesterday.
Congressman Grijalva, welcome to the program.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA, D-Ariz.: Thank you, Ray.
RAY SUAREZ: A lot of attention is being paid to whether Republicans will go for the Senate bill in the House, but I thought, since you're co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, we should ask you whether Democrats in the House are happy with the changes that were made to the bill to get it through the Senate?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Well, I think a great deal of discomfort, some outright opposition to the surge, the Corker amendment that added $30 billion-plus, doubled everything that was already in the bill.
And, for many, for environmentalists and people that care about those public land laws, clean water, clean air, the waiving of all those laws along the border and public lands, people have difficulty with that. The issue of just militarizing the border to an extent that it becomes almost a combat zone will change the texture and the life in that community forever.
I think it's excessive. I think it's overkill. I think we need to define what security is. And I think it includes much more components than boots on the ground and drones and helicopters and sensors and towers and fences. It includes much more.
But the definition is very narrow. We will make an effort to try to expand that definition, but the bottom line, Ray, has been that a lot of the swallowing and bitterness of some of these additions by the Senate and even some of the components that were in the Senate bill before Corker were being swallowed because of the importance of a path to citizenship.
RAY SUAREZ: So, you call it a bitter pill to swallow. Does it still have your vote as written if it came to the House floor?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: If it came to the House floor and there were -- at this point, I have a great deal of discomfort with it.
I feel that I have -- I have been reluctant to state what I would do in that situation, so that we wouldn't marginalize the opportunity to try to improve it.
But a lot will depend on what the Republicans do here. If we start to redefine the path, then the only sole reason for any compromise or swallowing any of this has been the millions of people that we would add comfort and protection to. If that starts to leave, then, quite frankly, there's no compromise.
RAY SUAREZ: Is the path to citizenship, some path to citizenship, a necessary precondition for this bill or a version of it to get your vote?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: My vote and I think a great number of Democrats.
The sentiment I'm giving you, Ray, about we don't like this part, we don't like that part is pretty prevalent, but the golden opportunity to do something about these families -- and I represent 350 miles of border communities, Nogales, San Luis, Somerton, all those communities, and constantly every day dealing with those families, the deportations, the split families, children left in foster care because their parents are gone.
I mean, the human toll sometimes makes you makes you believe that that has to be the ultimate goal. And if that path isn't there, then what are we settling for?
RAY SUAREZ: Earlier in the week, Congressman Trey Gowdy, your Republican colleague from South Carolina, was on this program.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Right.
RAY SUAREZ: And he said the path to citizenship is not as important to him as securing the border right now, because unless you secure the border, you end up back in the same problem we're in now, with newly legalized residents and more people coming over the border trying to achieve that status.
How do you reply to that?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: I think that within the Senate bill, there's E-Verify that's going to make a demand of employers that people must have the proper documentation. Otherwise, the penalties on those employers that hire unauthorized people is going to be huge.
Beyond that, you know, people are coming out of the shadows, declaring themselves, starting that process, family unification, much -- 40 percent of the people that are right now in this country overstayed their work visas or overstayed their visas.
And as you seal this border and as you try to feel that the only way you can provide immigration reform is by zero-tolerance, secure border fences, double links, Border Patrol agents shoulder to shoulder, that's naive thinking. That's not the reality of the border.
And the reality of the economy of this nation and this world, the effect of poverty, there's root causes here. And merely building the fences, symbolism, it's pandering and good political rhetoric, but it is not going to fix or accommodate the issue that we're dealing with here, which is the people that are here already and what do you do about them? He doesn't answer that question.
And his idea of -- his idea of keeping people here with a provisional legal status is something that's so un-American, to have a second class of workers and people in this country with no access to citizenship and, more importantly, with a different set of rights and protections than the rest of us have.
I don't think that's American. I don't think -- we have never been about that. And I think he misses the point on that value. But securing the border, from somebody from a state that doesn't have to deal with it on a daily basis, it's not just overreach. I think it's oversimplification.
RAY SUAREZ: So very, very quickly, before we go, Congressman, is there a compromise floating out there that will leave people like Congressman Gowdy satisfied about the border and its security and leave the members of your Progressive Caucus satisfied that you have done well by the people who are here struggling, trying to get legal status?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Yes, I think a path has to be integral, redefining what you mean by security, so that we make it comprehensive, so that the issues that the gentleman from South Carolina is concerned about, we use -- part of security has to be economic development.
Six million jobs in this country depend on direct trade import and export from Mexico, in the country. And so this is about jobs. This is about a vitality that we need in the borderlands in terms of an economy. We need to redefine that.
I think that's the compromise, that you expand the definition of security from the simpleton stuff that we're talking about right now, fences and boots, to the more complex and lasting solutions, which is the economic development, good ports of entries, increased trade, increased visitorship.
It's a win-win for everybody. And if there was an opportunity to sit down and have a rational discussion without posturing, I think that's a potentially good compromise.
RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona, thanks for joining us, sir.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Thank you, Ray. Appreciate it.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/immigration_07-11.html
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