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 Nogales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nogales. 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
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
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
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Senate ‘Gang of 8’ Members Pledge To Bolster Border Security On Arizona Trip
Talking Points Memo
March 27, 2013
by Benjy Sarlin
Senators working on a bipartisan immigration bill toured the Arizona border Wednesday in an effort to reassure worried hawks that security will be a top priority in any legislation they produce.
“What I learned today is we have adequate manpower, but not adequate technology,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters after meeting with Border Patrol agents.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) stressed the hardware side of the equation as well, calling for “constant surveillance over the entire length of the border” via improved equipment. Illustrating his point, he tweeted shortly before the press conference that he, Schumer, and Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Michael Bennett (D-CO), had just watched a woman climb over an 18-foot border fence before being apprehended.
Responding to a reporter’s question, McCain said that the border security issue was more urgent because of Congress’ failure to reach a deal replacing sequester cuts.
“There’s no doubt that our border is less secure because of the sequester and we’ll be doing everything we can to restore that funding,” he said.
The Senate group has yet to release a draft of their bill (Schumer put their status at “90 percent” complete), but an early framework includes a requirement that certain border metrics be met before undocumented immigrants can apply for green cards and citizenship. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressed concern this week that the border “trigger” could end up being too vague and stranding millions of immigrants in legal limbo. Republican lawmakers, led by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rand Paul (R-KY), have said the trigger concept is absolutely necessary to draw GOP support.
McCain told reporters that he did not see the Senate group’s border measures as a long term barrier to citizenship.
“I believe that if we do the right thing … that over a relatively short period of time with the proper use of technology, with the proper coordination between different agencies that we will be able to see that we have a degree of border security that will allow people to move forward with a path to citizenship,” he said.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/senate-border-trip-immigration.php
March 27, 2013
by Benjy Sarlin
Senators working on a bipartisan immigration bill toured the Arizona border Wednesday in an effort to reassure worried hawks that security will be a top priority in any legislation they produce.
“What I learned today is we have adequate manpower, but not adequate technology,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters after meeting with Border Patrol agents.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) stressed the hardware side of the equation as well, calling for “constant surveillance over the entire length of the border” via improved equipment. Illustrating his point, he tweeted shortly before the press conference that he, Schumer, and Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Michael Bennett (D-CO), had just watched a woman climb over an 18-foot border fence before being apprehended.
Responding to a reporter’s question, McCain said that the border security issue was more urgent because of Congress’ failure to reach a deal replacing sequester cuts.
“There’s no doubt that our border is less secure because of the sequester and we’ll be doing everything we can to restore that funding,” he said.
The Senate group has yet to release a draft of their bill (Schumer put their status at “90 percent” complete), but an early framework includes a requirement that certain border metrics be met before undocumented immigrants can apply for green cards and citizenship. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressed concern this week that the border “trigger” could end up being too vague and stranding millions of immigrants in legal limbo. Republican lawmakers, led by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rand Paul (R-KY), have said the trigger concept is absolutely necessary to draw GOP support.
McCain told reporters that he did not see the Senate group’s border measures as a long term barrier to citizenship.
“I believe that if we do the right thing … that over a relatively short period of time with the proper use of technology, with the proper coordination between different agencies that we will be able to see that we have a degree of border security that will allow people to move forward with a path to citizenship,” he said.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/senate-border-trip-immigration.php
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Border Patrol scrutinized over teen's shooting death
Arizona Republic
October 18, 2012
by Bob Ortega
NOGALES, Ariz. - There was nothing unusual about the call to the Border Patrol and Nogales police on Oct. 10 to report two men climbing the border fence to bring drugs into the United States.
It also was not unusual that once Border Patrol agents arrived at the scene and attempted to arrest the men, who were now fleeing back to Mexico, one or more people began to hurl rocks over the fence at the agents from the Mexico side of the border.
The decision by one or more agents to open fire on the rock throwers, though, is another matter. It is the subject of furious disagreement between the Border Patrol and critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union and human-rights advocates, who say agents resort to deadly force too often. The Mexican government has condemned the shooting and called for a thorough investigation.
At least one Border Patrol agent fired shots through an opening in the fence. Moments later, Mexican police found the body of a 16-year-old boy on the ground in front of a medical office. Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez had been shot eight times. Police investigators marked 11 bullet holes on the walls of the medical office.
Elena Rodriguez is the 18th person to be killed by Border Patrol agents since January 2010, with all but two of those deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border, says Vicki Gaubeca, director of the ACLU's Regional Center for Border Rights, in Las Cruces, N.M. Eight of those killed allegedly had been throwing rocks at Border Patrol officers.
In the most recent incident, there are discrepancies between the Border Patrol's version of events and accounts of witnesses on the Mexican side of the border. The Border Patrol said its agent fired at someone who was throwing rocks at the agents over the fence. Elena Rodriguez's family has said all the bullets entered the boy's body from behind.
The discrepancies may be resolved: A Border Patrol spokesman says video cameras on the border fence were in operation during the incident. Those recordings have been turned over to FBI investigators. Sonora's attorney general also has requested a copy from the Department of Justice, the attorney general's spokeswoman, Sandra Hurtado, said.
The FBI was on the scene hours after the incident and has collected reports from the agents and Nogales police officers. It is standard for the FBI to investigate deadly incidents involving the Border Patrol.
ACLU attorney Chris Rickerd has criticized agents' actions in several deaths involving border agents, including a March 21, 2011, incident in which a Border Patrol officer in Douglas shot a 19-year-old U.S. citizen, Carlos Lamadrid, three times in the back as Lamadrid fled into Agua Prieta, Mexico. Rickerd said the Border Patrol should explain what disciplinary actions it takes when agents violate use-of-force policies.
The Border Patrol didn't respond by deadline to questions from The Republic about what disciplinary actions, if any, have been taken related to the 18 deaths.
Customs and Border Protection spokesman Michael Friel said the agency's use of force is based on the Department of Justice's policy. "Law-enforcement personnel are trained to use deadly force in circumstances that pose a threat to their lives, the lives of their fellow law-enforcement partners and innocent third parties," he said.
CBP wouldn't provide additional details on its use-of-force policy. But rocks are considered potentially lethal, and the agency typically has not disciplined officers for firing at rock throwers.
The agency doesn't classify rock-throwing incidents separately from other assaults on agents, but Friel said that such incidents are the most common type of assault along the border, numbering in the hundreds over the past three years.
No agents have been killed in rock-throwing incidents. Since early 2010, seven Border Patrol agents have been killed on duty: five in vehicle accidents; one, Brian Terry, was shot by drug smugglers in 2010; and one, Nicholas Ivie, was shot in a friendly-fire incident two weeks ago near Bisbee.
Lt. Carlos Jimenez of the Nogales Police Department said it's common for drug cartels to hire people as border lookouts "and to tell them if something goes bad to throw rocks to distract or deter law-enforcement officers ... They'll pay anybody willing to do it, youths, old people. They don't discriminate by age or gender."
Elena Rodriguez's mother, Araceli Rodriguez, insisted that her son would not have been involved in drug activity and must have been walking in the area when he was shot less than four blocks from his home.
"He wasn't a bad boy," she said tearfully in an interview at her home in Nogales, Sonora. A framed photograph of her son surrounded by flowers stood on a nearby table.
"They killed my little boy, and I want to know why. I want to know why they shot him so many times, why they shot him in the back," she said. "We want justice."
The Border Patrol declined to discuss details of the Elena Rodriguez case, citing the FBI investigation.
Garcia said in a report that he saw two men carrying bundles of marijuana on their backs, jumping down from the fence onto the Arizona side and running toward houses on a street facing the fence. He chased them into a driveway and lost sight of them.
Moments later, he said, the first of several Border Patrol agents arrived, along with a police K-9 officer, John Zuniga.
In his report, Zuniga wrote that he spotted the two men, who had dropped their bundles, trying to climb back over the fence into Mexico. After Zuniga and Border Patrol agents yelled at them to get down from the fence, Zuniga reported that he "heard several rocks start hitting the ground, and I looked up and could see the rocks flying through the air."
As he took his dog back to his vehicle, Zuniga heard gunfire. When he looked up, he saw an agent standing by the fence.
Neither Zuniga nor Garcia reported seeing shots fired.
"I then heard an agent say, 'There is one 10-7,' which means out of service or no longer alive," Zuniga wrote in the report.
The Border Patrol initially told the public that an agent had fired and someone "appeared" to have been hit. The agency has not said whether more than one agent fired shots.
Across the fence, in his home and medical office on Calle Internacional, a street that runs along the border, Dr. Luis Contreras Sanchez was surfing the Internet when he heard someone run past his window, followed by at least eight shots, he said in an interview with The Republic.
"I turned out the light, dove down and called the police," he said. "I didn't hear anyone screaming or yelling outside, or I'd have gone out."
Minutes later, police arrived, Contreras Sanchez said. He looked out and saw the boy face down on the sidewalk.
While Border Patrol officials said that the agent fired after rock-throwers ignored repeated orders to stop, Contreras Sanchez said he didn't hear such orders. The Nogales Police Department's reports don't mention orders for the rock-throwers to stop.
"If you see photos of where he was standing and where he allegedly was throwing rocks, from that distance, how lethal could those rocks be? How defensible is it to shoot someone?" asks the ACLU's Gaubeca.
The fence where the incident occurred was rebuilt a year ago as part of a project to construct more than 650 miles of new barriers mandated by Congress to tighten border security.
The new fence covers a 2.8-mile stretch from one end of Nogales to the other. Built of parallel beams constructed from a triple layer of rebar, concrete and steel, the fence averages 18 to 20 feet in height and has an extra steel barrier on top to make it harder to scale.
When it was completed during the summer of 2011, officials said the fence would better protect border agents from rock-throwers because unlike the old sheet-metal fence, which was 10 to 12 feet high, agents can see through it.
It may have had an impact. Border Patrol officers in the Tucson Sector, which includes Nogales, reported 251 assaults for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2011, a 40 percent drop from the previous fiscal year.
At the main border crossing in Nogales, the fence is at street level. Moving west, toward Contreras Sanchez's office, three blocks away, the fence climbs a steep hill on the U.S. side. Where Elena Rodriguez was shot, the base of the fence is 25 feet above street level; the top of the fence is roughly 45 feet above where the boy was shot.
The angle is such that it would be all but impossible for a rock-thrower to hit someone near the fence on the U.S. side.
Elena Rodriguez's family has hired a U.S. attorney, Luis Parra, to sue the Border Patrol.
Similar cross-border suits in recent years have been dismissed by U.S. courts. For example, 15-year-old Sergio Hernandez-Guereca was shot twice and killed by a Border Patrol officer in El Paso in June 2010, allegedly while throwing rocks as the agent arrested another youth.
The Department of Justice declined to prosecute the agent, saying he hadn't violated CBP's use-of-force policies or training. The department declined an extradition request by the state government of Chihuahua. Federal district courts twice dismissed suits by the family, alleging wrongful death and violation of the boy's rights. In both cases, U.S. District Judge David Briones ruled that U.S. constitutional protections don't apply because Hernandez-Guereca was a Mexican citizen and in Mexico at the time he was killed. An appeal to the 5th Circuit Court is pending.
David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, called the judge's ruling "a legitimate legal interpretation in the absence of any higher court ruling that suggests otherwise . . . It exposes one of the many challenges of the border region that are not well captured in national law."
He said firing a gun on one side of an international border doesn't necessarily create legal responsibility for the impact in the neighboring country.
Gaubeca said that while the Mexican government could ask to extradite the Border Patrol agent, the U.S. government can, as it has before, simply say no.
"How do you wrestle with the issue of causing harm on the other side of an international boundary, and what remedy is there for people who feel this is a wrongful shooting or an inappropriate use of lethal force?" Gaubeca asked.
This, she argues, is why it's particularly important for the Border Patrol to train its agents to defuse confrontations.
Since 2007, when the George W. Bush administration launched a major expansion, the Border Patrol has nearly doubled in size, to more than 21,000 agents. To recruit and quickly hire that many new agents, the Border Patrol reduced requirements, deferred background checks and omitted lie-detector tests that had been standard, and shortened training that officers receive, said John Carlos Frey, a filmmaker who this year produced a documentary on the patrol for the PBS program "Need to Know."
Rickerd, of the ACLU, said in a recent blog post that the Border Patrol should "make clear whether or not it abides by best law enforcement practices," in terms of the training it gives agents, whether it equips them with adequate protective gear that would reduce their need to use deadly force, and what plans it has to install dashboard-mounted and other cameras to record its agents' actions.
On Monday, as she waited to meet with state police for any news on the investigation, Araceli Rodriguez shared one of the many questions to which she'd like an answer: "Why didn't the Border Patrol agents just fire a warning shot in the air?"
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/10/17/20121017border-patrol-scrutinized-teen-shooting-death.html
October 18, 2012
by Bob Ortega
NOGALES, Ariz. - There was nothing unusual about the call to the Border Patrol and Nogales police on Oct. 10 to report two men climbing the border fence to bring drugs into the United States.
It also was not unusual that once Border Patrol agents arrived at the scene and attempted to arrest the men, who were now fleeing back to Mexico, one or more people began to hurl rocks over the fence at the agents from the Mexico side of the border.
The decision by one or more agents to open fire on the rock throwers, though, is another matter. It is the subject of furious disagreement between the Border Patrol and critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union and human-rights advocates, who say agents resort to deadly force too often. The Mexican government has condemned the shooting and called for a thorough investigation.
At least one Border Patrol agent fired shots through an opening in the fence. Moments later, Mexican police found the body of a 16-year-old boy on the ground in front of a medical office. Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez had been shot eight times. Police investigators marked 11 bullet holes on the walls of the medical office.
Elena Rodriguez is the 18th person to be killed by Border Patrol agents since January 2010, with all but two of those deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border, says Vicki Gaubeca, director of the ACLU's Regional Center for Border Rights, in Las Cruces, N.M. Eight of those killed allegedly had been throwing rocks at Border Patrol officers.
In the most recent incident, there are discrepancies between the Border Patrol's version of events and accounts of witnesses on the Mexican side of the border. The Border Patrol said its agent fired at someone who was throwing rocks at the agents over the fence. Elena Rodriguez's family has said all the bullets entered the boy's body from behind.
The discrepancies may be resolved: A Border Patrol spokesman says video cameras on the border fence were in operation during the incident. Those recordings have been turned over to FBI investigators. Sonora's attorney general also has requested a copy from the Department of Justice, the attorney general's spokeswoman, Sandra Hurtado, said.
The FBI was on the scene hours after the incident and has collected reports from the agents and Nogales police officers. It is standard for the FBI to investigate deadly incidents involving the Border Patrol.
Use of deadly force
Even before Elena Rodriguez's death, the ACLU, several members of Congress and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had this year called for an independent, comprehensive investigation into Customs and Border Protection's policies on use of force.ACLU attorney Chris Rickerd has criticized agents' actions in several deaths involving border agents, including a March 21, 2011, incident in which a Border Patrol officer in Douglas shot a 19-year-old U.S. citizen, Carlos Lamadrid, three times in the back as Lamadrid fled into Agua Prieta, Mexico. Rickerd said the Border Patrol should explain what disciplinary actions it takes when agents violate use-of-force policies.
The Border Patrol didn't respond by deadline to questions from The Republic about what disciplinary actions, if any, have been taken related to the 18 deaths.
Customs and Border Protection spokesman Michael Friel said the agency's use of force is based on the Department of Justice's policy. "Law-enforcement personnel are trained to use deadly force in circumstances that pose a threat to their lives, the lives of their fellow law-enforcement partners and innocent third parties," he said.
CBP wouldn't provide additional details on its use-of-force policy. But rocks are considered potentially lethal, and the agency typically has not disciplined officers for firing at rock throwers.
The agency doesn't classify rock-throwing incidents separately from other assaults on agents, but Friel said that such incidents are the most common type of assault along the border, numbering in the hundreds over the past three years.
No agents have been killed in rock-throwing incidents. Since early 2010, seven Border Patrol agents have been killed on duty: five in vehicle accidents; one, Brian Terry, was shot by drug smugglers in 2010; and one, Nicholas Ivie, was shot in a friendly-fire incident two weeks ago near Bisbee.
Lt. Carlos Jimenez of the Nogales Police Department said it's common for drug cartels to hire people as border lookouts "and to tell them if something goes bad to throw rocks to distract or deter law-enforcement officers ... They'll pay anybody willing to do it, youths, old people. They don't discriminate by age or gender."
Elena Rodriguez's mother, Araceli Rodriguez, insisted that her son would not have been involved in drug activity and must have been walking in the area when he was shot less than four blocks from his home.
"He wasn't a bad boy," she said tearfully in an interview at her home in Nogales, Sonora. A framed photograph of her son surrounded by flowers stood on a nearby table.
"They killed my little boy, and I want to know why. I want to know why they shot him so many times, why they shot him in the back," she said. "We want justice."
The Border Patrol declined to discuss details of the Elena Rodriguez case, citing the FBI investigation.
Responding to the scene
Nogales, Ariz., police Officer Quinardo Garcia was the first of several officers to respond to a report, at 11:16 p.m. on Oct. 10, of two men climbing over the border fence from Mexico.Garcia said in a report that he saw two men carrying bundles of marijuana on their backs, jumping down from the fence onto the Arizona side and running toward houses on a street facing the fence. He chased them into a driveway and lost sight of them.
Moments later, he said, the first of several Border Patrol agents arrived, along with a police K-9 officer, John Zuniga.
In his report, Zuniga wrote that he spotted the two men, who had dropped their bundles, trying to climb back over the fence into Mexico. After Zuniga and Border Patrol agents yelled at them to get down from the fence, Zuniga reported that he "heard several rocks start hitting the ground, and I looked up and could see the rocks flying through the air."
As he took his dog back to his vehicle, Zuniga heard gunfire. When he looked up, he saw an agent standing by the fence.
Neither Zuniga nor Garcia reported seeing shots fired.
"I then heard an agent say, 'There is one 10-7,' which means out of service or no longer alive," Zuniga wrote in the report.
The Border Patrol initially told the public that an agent had fired and someone "appeared" to have been hit. The agency has not said whether more than one agent fired shots.
Across the fence, in his home and medical office on Calle Internacional, a street that runs along the border, Dr. Luis Contreras Sanchez was surfing the Internet when he heard someone run past his window, followed by at least eight shots, he said in an interview with The Republic.
"I turned out the light, dove down and called the police," he said. "I didn't hear anyone screaming or yelling outside, or I'd have gone out."
Minutes later, police arrived, Contreras Sanchez said. He looked out and saw the boy face down on the sidewalk.
While Border Patrol officials said that the agent fired after rock-throwers ignored repeated orders to stop, Contreras Sanchez said he didn't hear such orders. The Nogales Police Department's reports don't mention orders for the rock-throwers to stop.
Actions criticized
To some Border Patrol critics, even if Elena Rodriguez was throwing rocks, the agent's response was not justified."If you see photos of where he was standing and where he allegedly was throwing rocks, from that distance, how lethal could those rocks be? How defensible is it to shoot someone?" asks the ACLU's Gaubeca.
The fence where the incident occurred was rebuilt a year ago as part of a project to construct more than 650 miles of new barriers mandated by Congress to tighten border security.
The new fence covers a 2.8-mile stretch from one end of Nogales to the other. Built of parallel beams constructed from a triple layer of rebar, concrete and steel, the fence averages 18 to 20 feet in height and has an extra steel barrier on top to make it harder to scale.
When it was completed during the summer of 2011, officials said the fence would better protect border agents from rock-throwers because unlike the old sheet-metal fence, which was 10 to 12 feet high, agents can see through it.
It may have had an impact. Border Patrol officers in the Tucson Sector, which includes Nogales, reported 251 assaults for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2011, a 40 percent drop from the previous fiscal year.
At the main border crossing in Nogales, the fence is at street level. Moving west, toward Contreras Sanchez's office, three blocks away, the fence climbs a steep hill on the U.S. side. Where Elena Rodriguez was shot, the base of the fence is 25 feet above street level; the top of the fence is roughly 45 feet above where the boy was shot.
The angle is such that it would be all but impossible for a rock-thrower to hit someone near the fence on the U.S. side.
Elena Rodriguez's family has hired a U.S. attorney, Luis Parra, to sue the Border Patrol.
Similar cross-border suits in recent years have been dismissed by U.S. courts. For example, 15-year-old Sergio Hernandez-Guereca was shot twice and killed by a Border Patrol officer in El Paso in June 2010, allegedly while throwing rocks as the agent arrested another youth.
The Department of Justice declined to prosecute the agent, saying he hadn't violated CBP's use-of-force policies or training. The department declined an extradition request by the state government of Chihuahua. Federal district courts twice dismissed suits by the family, alleging wrongful death and violation of the boy's rights. In both cases, U.S. District Judge David Briones ruled that U.S. constitutional protections don't apply because Hernandez-Guereca was a Mexican citizen and in Mexico at the time he was killed. An appeal to the 5th Circuit Court is pending.
David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, called the judge's ruling "a legitimate legal interpretation in the absence of any higher court ruling that suggests otherwise . . . It exposes one of the many challenges of the border region that are not well captured in national law."
He said firing a gun on one side of an international border doesn't necessarily create legal responsibility for the impact in the neighboring country.
Gaubeca said that while the Mexican government could ask to extradite the Border Patrol agent, the U.S. government can, as it has before, simply say no.
"How do you wrestle with the issue of causing harm on the other side of an international boundary, and what remedy is there for people who feel this is a wrongful shooting or an inappropriate use of lethal force?" Gaubeca asked.
This, she argues, is why it's particularly important for the Border Patrol to train its agents to defuse confrontations.
Since 2007, when the George W. Bush administration launched a major expansion, the Border Patrol has nearly doubled in size, to more than 21,000 agents. To recruit and quickly hire that many new agents, the Border Patrol reduced requirements, deferred background checks and omitted lie-detector tests that had been standard, and shortened training that officers receive, said John Carlos Frey, a filmmaker who this year produced a documentary on the patrol for the PBS program "Need to Know."
Rickerd, of the ACLU, said in a recent blog post that the Border Patrol should "make clear whether or not it abides by best law enforcement practices," in terms of the training it gives agents, whether it equips them with adequate protective gear that would reduce their need to use deadly force, and what plans it has to install dashboard-mounted and other cameras to record its agents' actions.
On Monday, as she waited to meet with state police for any news on the investigation, Araceli Rodriguez shared one of the many questions to which she'd like an answer: "Why didn't the Border Patrol agents just fire a warning shot in the air?"
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2012/10/17/20121017border-patrol-scrutinized-teen-shooting-death.html
Monday, October 15, 2012
Mexican officials question border agent's use of force in boy's death in Nogales
Arizona Republic
October 13, 2012
by Bob Ortega
As more details emerge about the shooting death late Wednesday of a 16-year-old Mexican boy in Nogales, Sonora, by a Border Patrol agent, Mexican authorities increasingly are questioning whether lethal force was needed.
The FBI, and Mexican federal and state police, are carrying out parallel investigations into the incident.
Nogales Mayor Ramon Guzman Munoz told the Associated Press that Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was shot seven times. Various news reports by Sonora broadcasters and newspapers described anywhere from five to 14 bullet holes on the wall of the building beside which the body was found.
Elena Rodriguez's death - following more than a dozen similar incidents along the U.S.-Mexico border since 2010 - has provoked condemnation from Mexican authorities and outrage in Mexican news media, in particular over the number of times the youth allegedly was shot. Twitter messages and comments on Mexican news sites routinely condemned the shooting as an "asesinato," or murder.
This is the fifth incident in Nogales since mid-2010 in which Border Patrol officers resorted to force after youths threw rocks at them. In three of those cases, agents fired their guns, killing a 17-year-old boy in January 2011 and wounding a man in January of this year.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mike Friel said Saturday that the agency's "law-enforcement personnel are trained to use deadly force in circumstances that pose a threat to their lives, the lives of their fellow law-enforcement partners and innocent third parties."
Mexican officials have questioned the use of force before and filed diplomatic protests on several occasions, but Customs and Border Protection has not changed its policies on use of force in recent years, said Friel.
Sonora state police released a statement saying they found Elena Rodriguez's body, "with various gunshot wounds on different parts of the body," shortly after 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, lying next to the curb on Calle Internacional, a street that runs along the border fence. The body was found four blocks from the border crossing in downtown Nogales, at a spot where there is roughly a 10-foot vertical drop from the base of the fence to the street below.
According to the Border Patrol, several agents responded Wednesday night to reports that drug smugglers were carrying bundles into the U.S. As agents saw two men fleeing back into Mexico, people on the other side of the fence began to throw rocks at the agents. Agents ordered them to stop and when they didn't, an agent fired his weapon, hitting one of them, an agency spokesman said.
In interviews aired by several Mexican broadcasters, alleged witnesses said the youths were throwing rocks to prevent the Border Patrol from arresting the two men who were trying to climb back over the border fence after dropping bundles of drugs.
Ricardo Alday Gonzalez, a spokesman for Mexico's Embassy in Washington, D.C., said Friday that Mexican authorities will closely monitor the U.S. investigation into the incident, and cooperate with the FBI and other U.S. agencies, to "provide whatever support is necessary to ensure a transparent, exhaustive and accountable process in the United States."
He said Mexican federal and state law enforcement also "will not hesitate to request whatever assistance they require" from the FBI or other U.S. agencies.
The Border Patrol has declined to say what weapon the agent involved in Wednesday's incident fired. They also did not reply to queries about whether that agent is currently on leave.
The standard service firearm for Border Patrol agents is the .40-caliber Heckler & Koch pistol, which carries a 14-round magazine. Agents also have the option to carry an M-4 carbine identical to the one used by the U.S. Army, which has semiautomatic and automatic settings, Friel said. On the semiautomatic setting, the trigger must be pulled to fire each round; on the automatic setting, the rifle can fire multiple rounds with one pull of the trigger.
Border Patrol agents have access to non-lethal alternatives. In May of last year, for instance, a Nogales-based Border Patrol agent fired several rounds from a pepper-ball launcher at a suspected drug smuggler who was throwing rocks at him, and completed the drug seizure without injuries on either side.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/10/13/20121013border-agent-nogales-boy-death-shooting-questioned.html
October 13, 2012
by Bob Ortega
As more details emerge about the shooting death late Wednesday of a 16-year-old Mexican boy in Nogales, Sonora, by a Border Patrol agent, Mexican authorities increasingly are questioning whether lethal force was needed.
The FBI, and Mexican federal and state police, are carrying out parallel investigations into the incident.
Nogales Mayor Ramon Guzman Munoz told the Associated Press that Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was shot seven times. Various news reports by Sonora broadcasters and newspapers described anywhere from five to 14 bullet holes on the wall of the building beside which the body was found.
Elena Rodriguez's death - following more than a dozen similar incidents along the U.S.-Mexico border since 2010 - has provoked condemnation from Mexican authorities and outrage in Mexican news media, in particular over the number of times the youth allegedly was shot. Twitter messages and comments on Mexican news sites routinely condemned the shooting as an "asesinato," or murder.
This is the fifth incident in Nogales since mid-2010 in which Border Patrol officers resorted to force after youths threw rocks at them. In three of those cases, agents fired their guns, killing a 17-year-old boy in January 2011 and wounding a man in January of this year.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mike Friel said Saturday that the agency's "law-enforcement personnel are trained to use deadly force in circumstances that pose a threat to their lives, the lives of their fellow law-enforcement partners and innocent third parties."
Mexican officials have questioned the use of force before and filed diplomatic protests on several occasions, but Customs and Border Protection has not changed its policies on use of force in recent years, said Friel.
Sonora state police released a statement saying they found Elena Rodriguez's body, "with various gunshot wounds on different parts of the body," shortly after 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, lying next to the curb on Calle Internacional, a street that runs along the border fence. The body was found four blocks from the border crossing in downtown Nogales, at a spot where there is roughly a 10-foot vertical drop from the base of the fence to the street below.
According to the Border Patrol, several agents responded Wednesday night to reports that drug smugglers were carrying bundles into the U.S. As agents saw two men fleeing back into Mexico, people on the other side of the fence began to throw rocks at the agents. Agents ordered them to stop and when they didn't, an agent fired his weapon, hitting one of them, an agency spokesman said.
In interviews aired by several Mexican broadcasters, alleged witnesses said the youths were throwing rocks to prevent the Border Patrol from arresting the two men who were trying to climb back over the border fence after dropping bundles of drugs.
Ricardo Alday Gonzalez, a spokesman for Mexico's Embassy in Washington, D.C., said Friday that Mexican authorities will closely monitor the U.S. investigation into the incident, and cooperate with the FBI and other U.S. agencies, to "provide whatever support is necessary to ensure a transparent, exhaustive and accountable process in the United States."
He said Mexican federal and state law enforcement also "will not hesitate to request whatever assistance they require" from the FBI or other U.S. agencies.
The Border Patrol has declined to say what weapon the agent involved in Wednesday's incident fired. They also did not reply to queries about whether that agent is currently on leave.
The standard service firearm for Border Patrol agents is the .40-caliber Heckler & Koch pistol, which carries a 14-round magazine. Agents also have the option to carry an M-4 carbine identical to the one used by the U.S. Army, which has semiautomatic and automatic settings, Friel said. On the semiautomatic setting, the trigger must be pulled to fire each round; on the automatic setting, the rifle can fire multiple rounds with one pull of the trigger.
Border Patrol agents have access to non-lethal alternatives. In May of last year, for instance, a Nogales-based Border Patrol agent fired several rounds from a pepper-ball launcher at a suspected drug smuggler who was throwing rocks at him, and completed the drug seizure without injuries on either side.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/10/13/20121013border-agent-nogales-boy-death-shooting-questioned.html
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Border Patrol Kills Rock-Thrower At Border Fence
ABC News
October 11, 2012
By RANDY KREIDER
Local police have confirmed that one person is dead after a Border Patrol agent fired his gun at a crowd throwing rocks across the border fence in Nogales, Arizona late last night, and Mexican media reports say the deceased is a 14-year-old male.
According to the Border Patrol, agents in Nogales were responding to a report of two suspected smugglers on a road that parallels the border fence at 11:30 p.m. when they saw the alleged smugglers drop a narcotics load on the U.S. side of the boundary and flee back into Mexico.
The Border Patrol told ABC Tucson affiliate KGUN that while the smugglers were trying to climb back over the fence, a crowd on the Mexican side of the border in Nogales, Sonora began pelting the agents with rocks.
"Subjects at the scene then began assaulting the agents with rocks," said the Border Patrol in a statement. "After verbal commands from agents to cease were ignored, one agent then discharged his service firearm. One of the subjects appeared to have been hit."
The Border Patrol says it then notified the Mexican government of the shooting, and is "fully cooperating with the FBI-led investigation" now underway.
Nogales Police confirmed to KGUN that one person died at the scene.
A reporter for the Mexican radio station XENY took a photo of emergency personnel removing the body from the street, and reported that the victim was male. Other Mexican media have reported that the person who died at the scene was a 14-year-old male. The Border Patrol declined to confirm the age and gender of the deceased when asked by ABC News.
In June 2011, a Border Patrol agent in San Diego, California fatally shot a suspected border crosser who was allegedly perched on top of the border fence, throwing rocks and wood with exposed nails at agents while they attempted to arrest other suspected border crossers, authorities told ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/border-patrol-kills-rock-thrower-border-fence/story?id=17456759
October 11, 2012
By RANDY KREIDER
Local police have confirmed that one person is dead after a Border Patrol agent fired his gun at a crowd throwing rocks across the border fence in Nogales, Arizona late last night, and Mexican media reports say the deceased is a 14-year-old male.
According to the Border Patrol, agents in Nogales were responding to a report of two suspected smugglers on a road that parallels the border fence at 11:30 p.m. when they saw the alleged smugglers drop a narcotics load on the U.S. side of the boundary and flee back into Mexico.
The Border Patrol told ABC Tucson affiliate KGUN that while the smugglers were trying to climb back over the fence, a crowd on the Mexican side of the border in Nogales, Sonora began pelting the agents with rocks.
"Subjects at the scene then began assaulting the agents with rocks," said the Border Patrol in a statement. "After verbal commands from agents to cease were ignored, one agent then discharged his service firearm. One of the subjects appeared to have been hit."
The Border Patrol says it then notified the Mexican government of the shooting, and is "fully cooperating with the FBI-led investigation" now underway.
Nogales Police confirmed to KGUN that one person died at the scene.
A reporter for the Mexican radio station XENY took a photo of emergency personnel removing the body from the street, and reported that the victim was male. Other Mexican media have reported that the person who died at the scene was a 14-year-old male. The Border Patrol declined to confirm the age and gender of the deceased when asked by ABC News.
In June 2011, a Border Patrol agent in San Diego, California fatally shot a suspected border crosser who was allegedly perched on top of the border fence, throwing rocks and wood with exposed nails at agents while they attempted to arrest other suspected border crossers, authorities told ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/border-patrol-kills-rock-thrower-border-fence/story?id=17456759
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Third tunnel in a week found under U.S.-Mexico border
Reuters
November 22, 2011
by Tim Gaynor
Border police in Nogales, Arizona, uncovered a drug smuggling tunnel from Mexico, the latest in a spate of illicit passageways found under the border in recent days.
The U.S. Border Patrol said the 319-foot long tunnel was discovered on Monday. It measured three feet wide by two feet tall, and ran for 100 feet into Mexico at a depth of about 20 feet.
It was chiseled through solid rock and was equipped with electricity, lighting, water pumps, and held up by support beams and plywood shoring, the Border Patrol's Tucson sector said in a news release.
While securing the tunnel, agents also found 26 bundles of marijuana weighing more than 430 pounds. One suspect was arrested by authorities in Mexico, Border Patrol agent Colleen Agle said.
The tunnel was the third discovered running under the porous U.S.-Mexico border in less than a week, and the 21st illicit passageway found beneath the streets of Nogales in the past two years.
Last Wednesday Authorities in California announced the find of an underground passageway that stretched 400 yards to an industrial park south of San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico. They seized more than 17 tons of marijuana and arrested two men.
The same day, authorities in Nogales found another smaller passageway beneath the porch of a house that ran 70 feet from a drain in Nogales in Mexico.
Agle said Mexican smugglers are increasingly turning to tunneling in a bid to beat beefed-up border security in the city, where a tall, new steel border fence was completed earlier this year.
"As we have been putting more resources along the border in this area, we are really taking away a lot of the traditional avenues for smuggling contraband and illegal aliens," Agle told Reuters.
She added that the majority of illicit passageways found under the city keyed into the extensive storm drain system that runs under the two Nogales, and contributes to making them such a hotspot for tunnelers.
"One of the things that (smugglers) are doing is exploiting the legitimate drainage system down here, and attempting to create illicit tunnels," she added.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/23/us-usa-mexico-tunnel-idUSTRE7AL2TS20111123
November 22, 2011
by Tim Gaynor
Border police in Nogales, Arizona, uncovered a drug smuggling tunnel from Mexico, the latest in a spate of illicit passageways found under the border in recent days.
The U.S. Border Patrol said the 319-foot long tunnel was discovered on Monday. It measured three feet wide by two feet tall, and ran for 100 feet into Mexico at a depth of about 20 feet.
It was chiseled through solid rock and was equipped with electricity, lighting, water pumps, and held up by support beams and plywood shoring, the Border Patrol's Tucson sector said in a news release.
While securing the tunnel, agents also found 26 bundles of marijuana weighing more than 430 pounds. One suspect was arrested by authorities in Mexico, Border Patrol agent Colleen Agle said.
The tunnel was the third discovered running under the porous U.S.-Mexico border in less than a week, and the 21st illicit passageway found beneath the streets of Nogales in the past two years.
Last Wednesday Authorities in California announced the find of an underground passageway that stretched 400 yards to an industrial park south of San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico. They seized more than 17 tons of marijuana and arrested two men.
The same day, authorities in Nogales found another smaller passageway beneath the porch of a house that ran 70 feet from a drain in Nogales in Mexico.
Agle said Mexican smugglers are increasingly turning to tunneling in a bid to beat beefed-up border security in the city, where a tall, new steel border fence was completed earlier this year.
"As we have been putting more resources along the border in this area, we are really taking away a lot of the traditional avenues for smuggling contraband and illegal aliens," Agle told Reuters.
She added that the majority of illicit passageways found under the city keyed into the extensive storm drain system that runs under the two Nogales, and contributes to making them such a hotspot for tunnelers.
"One of the things that (smugglers) are doing is exploiting the legitimate drainage system down here, and attempting to create illicit tunnels," she added.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/23/us-usa-mexico-tunnel-idUSTRE7AL2TS20111123
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Drug Smugglers Tunnel Into Arizona Parking Spaces
ABC News
October 12, 2011
By RANDY KREIDER
Drug smugglers are endlessly creative when it comes to inventing ways to move marijuana, cocaine and other contraband from Mexico into the United States.
In the latest innovation uncovered by law enforcement, smugglers in the border town of Nogales, Arizona were bringing drugs into the U.S. for the cost of a quarter.
The parking meters on International Street, which hugs the border fence in Nogales, cost 25 cents. Smugglers in Mexico tunneled under the fence and under the metered parking spaces, and then carefully cut neat rectangles out of the pavement. Their confederates on the U.S. side would park false-bottomed vehicles in the spaces above the holes, feed the meters, and then wait while the underground smugglers stuffed their cars full of drugs from below.
When the exchange was finished, the smugglers would use jacks to put the pavement "plugs" back into place. The car would drive away, and only those observers who were looking closely would notice the seams in the street.
In all, U.S. Border Patrol agents found 16 tunnels leading to the 18 metered parking spaces on International Street. The pavement is now riddled with neat, symmetrical patches.
"It's unbelievable," Nogales mayor Arturo Garino told Tucson, Arizona ABC affiliate KGUN. "Those are the strides these people take to get the drugs across the border."
Past methods of smuggling have included catapults that launch bales of drugs across the border fence. "The [smugglers] have tried everything," said Garino, "and this is one of the most ingenious [methods] of them all.
The city, advised by Homeland Security, has agreed to remove the parking meters. Nogales stands to lose $8,500 annually in parking revenue, plus the cost of citations.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/drug-smugglers-tunnel-arizona-parking-spaces/story?id=14722556
October 12, 2011
By RANDY KREIDER
Drug smugglers are endlessly creative when it comes to inventing ways to move marijuana, cocaine and other contraband from Mexico into the United States.
In the latest innovation uncovered by law enforcement, smugglers in the border town of Nogales, Arizona were bringing drugs into the U.S. for the cost of a quarter.
The parking meters on International Street, which hugs the border fence in Nogales, cost 25 cents. Smugglers in Mexico tunneled under the fence and under the metered parking spaces, and then carefully cut neat rectangles out of the pavement. Their confederates on the U.S. side would park false-bottomed vehicles in the spaces above the holes, feed the meters, and then wait while the underground smugglers stuffed their cars full of drugs from below.
When the exchange was finished, the smugglers would use jacks to put the pavement "plugs" back into place. The car would drive away, and only those observers who were looking closely would notice the seams in the street.
In all, U.S. Border Patrol agents found 16 tunnels leading to the 18 metered parking spaces on International Street. The pavement is now riddled with neat, symmetrical patches.
"It's unbelievable," Nogales mayor Arturo Garino told Tucson, Arizona ABC affiliate KGUN. "Those are the strides these people take to get the drugs across the border."
Past methods of smuggling have included catapults that launch bales of drugs across the border fence. "The [smugglers] have tried everything," said Garino, "and this is one of the most ingenious [methods] of them all.
The city, advised by Homeland Security, has agreed to remove the parking meters. Nogales stands to lose $8,500 annually in parking revenue, plus the cost of citations.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/drug-smugglers-tunnel-arizona-parking-spaces/story?id=14722556
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Creative pot smugglers try 'a little bit of everything'
Arizona Daily Star
September 28, 2011
by Brenna Goth
Nogales smugglers are trying new tricks to get their product through the border fence built this summer.
Capitalizing on the 4-inch openings between steel bars in the fence, pot bundles have been found molded into long, thin tubes that can slip between the slats, law enforcement officials say.
Tossing large, football-shaped bundles over the fence has also become prevalent since the new construction, said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada. Estrada has worked in law enforcement at the border for more than 40 years and said smugglers have tried "a little bit of everything."
With the football bundles, smugglers tape the packages before throwing or launching them from Mexico.
"There are quarterbacks in Mexico and receivers in the U.S.," said Lt. Gerardo Castillo, who works for the Santa Cruz County Metro Task Force. "We try to intercept, obviously."
The thin bundles of pot were first found during a July seizure and were likely passed through a space, Castillo said. He said the tubular bundles were about 20 inches long and about a half-inch thinner than the new border-fence gaps.
The 2.8-mile border fence completed this summer aimed to provide more security through increased height and strength.
But smugglers find tactics to address any new challenges a fence provides, Castillo said.
"It's a cat-and-mouse game," he said. "If we build a wall, they're going to climb it. Whatever barrier exists, they're going to overcome it."
Increased Border Patrol manpower and technology have forced smugglers to bring across smaller loads in recent months, said Agent Jason Rheinfrank.
Rheinfrank recalled other unusual smuggling tactics, like a colleague who found a man wading through the Douglas sewage system with a scuba mask and bundle of marijuana, and the time someone used the lighting system at a baseball field in Douglas to attach fishing line from Mexico to a house.
"They'd zip-lined it (marijuana) down across the border," Rheinfrank said. "They come up with all different methods."
Though it is possible for people to pass things between spaces in the new fence, the visibility provided by the openings is beneficial, Rheinfrank said.
"If you're up to no good? Boom. We can instantly respond to that area," Rheinfrank said.
Estrada said he did not envision any changes being made to the fence to prevent the package-passing. Opportunity will remain despite prevention efforts, he said.
"It just makes cartels more creative," Estrada said. "That's the nature of the beast down here in Nogales."
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_2330a339-707b-50a4-9ad3-dc2265e7ebfd.html
September 28, 2011
by Brenna Goth
Nogales smugglers are trying new tricks to get their product through the border fence built this summer.
Capitalizing on the 4-inch openings between steel bars in the fence, pot bundles have been found molded into long, thin tubes that can slip between the slats, law enforcement officials say.
Tossing large, football-shaped bundles over the fence has also become prevalent since the new construction, said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada. Estrada has worked in law enforcement at the border for more than 40 years and said smugglers have tried "a little bit of everything."
With the football bundles, smugglers tape the packages before throwing or launching them from Mexico.
"There are quarterbacks in Mexico and receivers in the U.S.," said Lt. Gerardo Castillo, who works for the Santa Cruz County Metro Task Force. "We try to intercept, obviously."
The thin bundles of pot were first found during a July seizure and were likely passed through a space, Castillo said. He said the tubular bundles were about 20 inches long and about a half-inch thinner than the new border-fence gaps.
The 2.8-mile border fence completed this summer aimed to provide more security through increased height and strength.
But smugglers find tactics to address any new challenges a fence provides, Castillo said.
"It's a cat-and-mouse game," he said. "If we build a wall, they're going to climb it. Whatever barrier exists, they're going to overcome it."
Increased Border Patrol manpower and technology have forced smugglers to bring across smaller loads in recent months, said Agent Jason Rheinfrank.
Rheinfrank recalled other unusual smuggling tactics, like a colleague who found a man wading through the Douglas sewage system with a scuba mask and bundle of marijuana, and the time someone used the lighting system at a baseball field in Douglas to attach fishing line from Mexico to a house.
"They'd zip-lined it (marijuana) down across the border," Rheinfrank said. "They come up with all different methods."
Though it is possible for people to pass things between spaces in the new fence, the visibility provided by the openings is beneficial, Rheinfrank said.
"If you're up to no good? Boom. We can instantly respond to that area," Rheinfrank said.
Estrada said he did not envision any changes being made to the fence to prevent the package-passing. Opportunity will remain despite prevention efforts, he said.
"It just makes cartels more creative," Estrada said. "That's the nature of the beast down here in Nogales."
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_2330a339-707b-50a4-9ad3-dc2265e7ebfd.html
Border fence fails to end drug smuggling
UPI
September 28, 2011
NOGALES, Ariz., Sept. 28 (UPI) -- A new border fence in Nogales, Ariz., is no barrier to drug smugglers who simply make narcotics hand-offs between the fence's re-enforced bars, officials said.
The Santa Cruz County Metro Task Force says its investigators discovered a number of oddly shaped bundles of marijuana during a recent drug seizure, the Nogales International reported Tuesday.
Forty-eight pounds of marijuana had been wrapped in thin tubular packages investigators say they believe were slipped through the fence, which has interconnected, concrete-filled steel tubes with an approximately 4-inch open space between them.
Task force Lt. Gerry Castillo dubbed the transfers "boom-boom" hand-offs in which someone on the Mexico side quickly pushes a package through to a person on the U.S. side before fleeing.
Passing contraband through the fence is nothing new and smugglers use "any method they can conceive of," Border Patrol Agent Eric Cantu said.
The $11.6-million, 2.8-mile border fence was completed this summer following a groundbreaking in March.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/09/28/Border-fence-fails-to-end-drug-smuggling/UPI-31191317233868/?spt=hts&or=2
September 28, 2011
NOGALES, Ariz., Sept. 28 (UPI) -- A new border fence in Nogales, Ariz., is no barrier to drug smugglers who simply make narcotics hand-offs between the fence's re-enforced bars, officials said.
The Santa Cruz County Metro Task Force says its investigators discovered a number of oddly shaped bundles of marijuana during a recent drug seizure, the Nogales International reported Tuesday.
Forty-eight pounds of marijuana had been wrapped in thin tubular packages investigators say they believe were slipped through the fence, which has interconnected, concrete-filled steel tubes with an approximately 4-inch open space between them.
Task force Lt. Gerry Castillo dubbed the transfers "boom-boom" hand-offs in which someone on the Mexico side quickly pushes a package through to a person on the U.S. side before fleeing.
Passing contraband through the fence is nothing new and smugglers use "any method they can conceive of," Border Patrol Agent Eric Cantu said.
The $11.6-million, 2.8-mile border fence was completed this summer following a groundbreaking in March.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/09/28/Border-fence-fails-to-end-drug-smuggling/UPI-31191317233868/?spt=hts&or=2
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Smugglers making hand-offs through bars of border fence
Nogales International
September 27, 2011
by JB Miller
In another change of tactics precipitated by the new Nogales border fence, smugglers appear to be making narcotics hand-offs from Mexico to the U.S. through the bars of the barrier, authorities say.
Lt. Gerry Castillo of the Santa Cruz County Metro Task Force said his office is looking into a case that began in July when investigators discovered a number of oddly shaped bundles of marijuana during a seizure at an undisclosed location.
He said the investigators at first thought the 48 pounds of marijuana that had been wrapped in thin tubular packages might be "tunnel bundles." However, upon closer examination, they discovered that the bundles were not dirty.
That's when investigators decided that the packages had likely been passed through the fence, which features interconnected, concrete-filled steel tubes with an approximately 4-inch open space between them.
"Boom-boom," is how Castillo described the suspected hand-offs, in which someone on the Mexico side quickly hands a bundle to a person on the U.S. side before taking off.
"We block them for awhile and they come up with another plan," Castillo said of the cat-and-mouse game between drug smugglers and law enforcement.
Castillo said no arrests have been made in the ongoing investigation, but authorities have identified three people of interest.
No change
The new $11.6-million, 2.8-mile border fence was completed this past summer following a groundbreaking in March. At the time of construction, Border Patrol officials said the taller, stronger, more secure barrier would allow it to station fewer agents at the fence and deploy more of them to outlying trouble spots.
However, Agent Eric Cantu, spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said there has been no change of staffing at the fence area. He added that passing contraband through the fence is nothing new and smugglers use "any method they can conceive of."
Cantu said blocking the space between the bars with material like steel mesh would be unproductive because smugglers would just cut through it.
"We have to be aware of all techniques currently used and try to mitigate through the increase of infrastructure, manpower, and technology and also through our cooperation with other law-enforcement partners," Cantu said.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/smugglers-making-hand-offs-through-bars-of-border-fence/article_68277168-e920-11e0-8e81-001cc4c03286.html
September 27, 2011
by JB Miller
In another change of tactics precipitated by the new Nogales border fence, smugglers appear to be making narcotics hand-offs from Mexico to the U.S. through the bars of the barrier, authorities say.
Lt. Gerry Castillo of the Santa Cruz County Metro Task Force said his office is looking into a case that began in July when investigators discovered a number of oddly shaped bundles of marijuana during a seizure at an undisclosed location.
He said the investigators at first thought the 48 pounds of marijuana that had been wrapped in thin tubular packages might be "tunnel bundles." However, upon closer examination, they discovered that the bundles were not dirty.
That's when investigators decided that the packages had likely been passed through the fence, which features interconnected, concrete-filled steel tubes with an approximately 4-inch open space between them.
"Boom-boom," is how Castillo described the suspected hand-offs, in which someone on the Mexico side quickly hands a bundle to a person on the U.S. side before taking off.
"We block them for awhile and they come up with another plan," Castillo said of the cat-and-mouse game between drug smugglers and law enforcement.
Castillo said no arrests have been made in the ongoing investigation, but authorities have identified three people of interest.
No change
The new $11.6-million, 2.8-mile border fence was completed this past summer following a groundbreaking in March. At the time of construction, Border Patrol officials said the taller, stronger, more secure barrier would allow it to station fewer agents at the fence and deploy more of them to outlying trouble spots.
However, Agent Eric Cantu, spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said there has been no change of staffing at the fence area. He added that passing contraband through the fence is nothing new and smugglers use "any method they can conceive of."
Cantu said blocking the space between the bars with material like steel mesh would be unproductive because smugglers would just cut through it.
"We have to be aware of all techniques currently used and try to mitigate through the increase of infrastructure, manpower, and technology and also through our cooperation with other law-enforcement partners," Cantu said.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/smugglers-making-hand-offs-through-bars-of-border-fence/article_68277168-e920-11e0-8e81-001cc4c03286.html
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