Hidalgo County judge launches investigation into conflict of interest

The Monitor
January 10, 2015
by Jacob Fischler

EDINBURG — After a year of battling with the county’s drainage director on various fronts, Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia launched an investigation this week into drainage district subcontracts that went to a company owned by the wife of district Manager Godfrey Garza.

After learning late last year that drainage district contractors in 2007 hired Valley Data Collection Specialists, Inc., a company owned by Garza’s wife, Garcia sent a letter Monday to Garza’s company, Integ Corp., requesting an accounting of all contracts and subcontracts that went to the company since then.

“You, as the Drainage District Manager, are responsible to negotiate with the contractors we hire,” Garcia wrote. “On December 16, 2014, we learned that your wife is the owner of a company (Valley Data Collection Specialists, Inc.) that does subcontracting work for contractors you negotiate with… Therefore I believe there exists a serious conflict of interest in your part.”

In an interview, Garza said he would provide the judge with a response that answered his questions, but added that his wife did not own the company at the time it was subcontracted for county projects.

“We're going to respond back to him on the letter that he submitted to Integ,” Garza said. “And in response to the letter, we should be able to answer the questions that he has. Specifically, the question on Valley Data going back to 2007 — my wife was not the owner then.”

Garza declined to say when his wife did become the owner, saying he preferred to withhold that information until he wrote it in the letter.

But he added: “I never contracted with myself or my interests.”

The issue became public in a commissioners court meeting Dec. 16 when Garcia questioned Garza’s stewardship of public money — as has become routine at the drainage district portions of commissioners court.

“See, my concern is here you are representing us, entering into contracts with the contractors and then the contractors entering into contracts with your company — well, your family’s company,” Garcia said to Garza. “Don’t you really seriously believe that constitutes a conflict of interest?”

Garza said he needed to research the issue and could not answer at the time.

The two have butted heads continually since at least last January, when Garcia learned that an earlier contract with the county had paid Integ — Garcia believed erroneously — a 1.5 percent commission for work on the hybrid border wall-levee system.

Garcia and other commissioners soon thereafter sought to begin a transition to a new drainage district manager who could be ready to take over by the time Garza’s contract expires in February 2015. But commissioners have yet to settle on a job description for the new manager or an assistant manager who could one day replace Garza.

http://m.themonitor.com/news/local/hidalgo-county-judge-launches-investigation-into-conflict-of-interest/article_af2aa6f0-9932-11e4-a7b5-cba304796e84.html?mode=jqm

For some Texans on the border, more walls and patrols won't solve the immigration crisis

Public Radio International
August 13, 2014
by Jason Margolis

Scott Nicol, a college art teacher and sculptor, likes to bring people to walk the border wall in Hidalgo, Texas. On a windy day, we stroll along a path in the shadow of 18-foot-high iron bars. One of Nicol’s favorite pastimes is hunting for homemade wooden ladders.

“That’s how you get over the wall," says Nicol pointing at some ladders lying on the ground. "I mean that’s what they’re for. It takes $2 or $3 worth of hardware and nails to defeat a wall that cost $12 million a mile,” says Nicol.

That’s $12 million a mile for this section of wall — the average cost per mile across the border is closer to $4.5 million.

President Obama is asking for $3.7 billion to deal with the latest border crisis — tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American children coming to the US border seeking asylum. House Republicans have countered with an offer of $694 million, with contingencies. The big one is that they want more border security.

That makes Nicol apoplectic. During our 30-minute stroll, we counted the Border Patrol jeeps. We found eight, as well as one ATV and a helicopter overhead. Texas Game Wardens also patrol the Rio Grande in speedboats mounted with machine guns.
 
“That makes me very nervous,” says Nicol. “There’s absolutely no reason or instance where you would be using that kind of artillery unless there’s a military invasion.”

Yet, more reinforcements are on the way. Texas Governor Rick Perry says he’s sending up to 1,000 National Guard troops to the border soon. Perry says they’re needed to stop drugs and criminals.

Nicol, who also does work with the Sierra Club, says the border wall became his issue for a simple reason: it just makes him angry. To him, it's too costly and divides habitat areas like a wildlife bird sanctuary on the river. He understands the need for border security, but thinks much of the wall's design simply doesn’t make sense. For example, as we’re walking along for nearly a mile, the wall stops.

“Obviously anybody that has traveled up from Central America is not going to be stopped by something that’s only 9/10th of a mile wide. They’ll just go around it,” says Nicol.

It works this way up and down the Rio Grande — there's the wall, then a gap for a few miles, then more wall.

But the chief patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley, Kevin Oaks, says the wall isn’t as haphazard as Nicol makes it out to be.

“What it does is it slows the traffic down temporarily, so it gives the agents and whatever technology we employ a little more time to get activated,” says Oaks. The Border Patrol also has unmanned aerial vehicles — drones — that patrol more isolated stretches of the border.

Oaks admits that people can use a ladder to climb over the wall, or even tunnel under. But he says it’s all about striking a balance between what can be funded and what can be achieved.

“If you look at history, there’s no physical way that you can ever possibly, 100 percent secure the border. So you have to come up with a compromise, and that compromise is a low-risk border,” says Oaks. For him, that means safe border communities and a low flow of drugs and criminals coming across.

By many metrics, the investment is paying off — the border is the most secure it’s been in 40 years. The annual tab for immigration and border enforcement nationwide: $18 billion. The budget for just the US Border Patrol alone is closer to $3.5 billion annually.

Community activist Michael Seifert, who lives less than a mile from the border in Brownsville, says there are other costs for border residents, on both sides. Border Patrol agents have killed 19 people, some US citizens, but mostly Mexicans, in a recent two-and-a-half year period.

“And not a single one of those cases has been brought to a fitting conclusion — this is what happened, the agent was justified or not. They’re simply not pursued,” says Seifert.

Kevin Oaks says his agents aren’t acting with impunity. “Every allegation of misconduct is thoroughly investigated and adjudicated appropriately.” 
 
Oaks says the FBI and the Office of Inspector General oversee corruption and criminal charges lodged against Border Patrol. They also conduct internal investigations.

Scott Nicol says he's never had a problem with any agents directly and understands the vast majority are trained professionals just doing their jobs. Still, he doesn’t want more agents to deal with this latest border crisis. After all, he says, Central American children are turning themselves in, not sneaking into the US.

“The response from certain politicians is, ‘Send in the National Guard, build more walls,’” says Nicol. “They can’t get their heads around immigration, they can only think about it in terms of security.”

Nicol, as well other border residents, agree more resources are needed to deal with this latest border crisis. But they want money to ease the backlog in immigration courts and provide better services for the children, not to build more security.

http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-08-13/some-texans-border-more-walls-and-patrols-wont-solve-immigration-crisis

Cuellar: We need to act now to avert a potential humanitarian crisis along border

Rio Grande Guardian
June 2, 2014
by Luis Montoya

LAREDO, June 2 - U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar on Monday called for the establishment of a multi-agency processing center on the border to deal with a recent influx of immigrant apprehensions.
In a letter sent to the chairs and ranking members of various House committees, as well as Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, the Cuellar pointed out that since the beginning of this year over 145,000 undocumented immigrants have been apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley sector. This is more than a 65 percent increase over the same period of Fiscal Year 2013. If current rates continue, the Rio Grande Valley is expected to have over 240,000 apprehensions for Fiscal Year 2014, Cuellar wrote, in his letter. Cuellar said the Valley is currently at more than 190 percent of its temporary detention capacity. “We need to do a better job taking care of the children who are crossing the southern border unaccompanied and we must act immediately to avert a potential humanitarian crisis along the border,” Cuellar, D-Laredo, wrote. Cuellar sent a letter on the same day President Obama President Obama held a news conference at the White House to say there is an "urgent humanitarian situation" at the border. Obama referenced a surge of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing into the United States from Mexico. According to Kids in Need of Defense, a group that advocates for immigrant children and provides legal services during deportation proceedings, as many as 150,000 unaccompanied children could cross into the United States next. In fiscal year 2012 that number was 13,625, the group says. It rose to 24,668 in 2013. The government predicts as many as 60,000 children could enter the U.S. unaccompanied in 2014. Border Patrol cannot keep the children form more than 72 hours and so the numbers are overwhelming the agencies charged with catering for the children. Obama said he was placing Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate in charge of a group that will coordinate services among many federal agencies in order to better assist the minors apprehended at the border. The Office of Management and Budget says it will cost $2.28 billion next year to deal with minors caught at the southern border. This is more than the $868 million requested by the Obama Administration in March. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, along with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has urged cooperation between the United States, Mexico and several Central American countries on the issue of migrant children. Cuellar’s letter was sent to U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, ranking member of the same committee. It was also sent to U.S. Rep. John Carter, chairman of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, and U.S. Rep. David Price, ranking member of the same committee. Cuellar’s letter was sent also to U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, and U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, ranking member of the same committee. It was also sent to U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the same committee. Here is Cuellar’s letter in full: June 2, 2014 In recent weeks, the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas has experienced an unprecedented influx of undocumented immigrant apprehensions and detentions, many of which are unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico. These crossings have created a resource crisis in the Rio Grande Valley that demands immediate attention from the federal government and the Appropriations Committee. Since the beginning of this year, over 145,000 undocumented immigrants have been apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley sector, a more than 65 percent increase over the same period of Fiscal Year 2013. If current rates continue, the Rio Grande Valley is expected to have over 240,000 apprehensions for Fiscal Year 2014. On average, over 70 percent of apprehensions are Other Than Mexicans (OTM) and a large percentage of them are Unaccompanied Children (UAC). Currently, the Rio Grande Valley is apprehending approximately 300 UACs on a daily basis. I represent much of this area in the 28th District of Texas, which stretches from San Antonio in the north to Laredo and the much of the upper Rio Grande Valley. I have had extensive personal conversations with the men and women of Border Patrol in the past few weeks about this ongoing issue and they have laid out the issues straining the resources and personnel of Border Patrol. Every undocumented immigrant that is apprehended while attempting to cross the border must be processed by Border Patrol. With this unprecedented surge in crossings, the Rio Grande Valley is currently at more than 190 percent of its temporary detention capacity. Those that are detained are then transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many others are released with a notice to appear before an immigration judge at a future date. This resource crisis requires a multi-agency response involving the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Justice. Because of the massive influx of immigrants being apprehended at the border, it is necessary to create a central location in which all elements of the adjudication process can be completed. We need to do a better job taking care of the children who are crossing the southern border unaccompanied and we must act immediately to avert a potential humanitarian crisis along the border. I am committed to working with Chairwoman Kay Granger, Ranking Member David Price, and the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Subcommittee to work with our partners in Mexico and other Central American countries. Thank you for your consideration. If you require further information, do not hesitate to contact me, my legislative director Megan Swearingen, or my legislative assistant Wendell White at 225-1640. Sincerely, Henry Cuellar, PhD U.S. Congressman Texas District 28

Indigenous Texans Want UN Support Against Border Fence

Texas Tribune
May 23, 2014
by Julian Aguilar

EL CALABOZ, Texas — Eloisa Tamez remembers the exact day five years ago when she said it took the federal government just 24 hours to seize and plow through a parcel of land that had been in her Lipan Apache family for generations.

Following two years of courtroom battles with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the agency got the go-ahead in 2009 to extend its controversial border fence across her land. Since then, roughly 75 percent of her formerly three-acre lot has been behind a steel barrier, land that's now the property of the federal government.

Tamez isn’t alone in her opposition to the fence, which was erected to stop undocumented immigrants, human smugglers and drug traffickers from breaching the U.S. border. But her family's allegations that the fence discriminates against Native American tribes with land along the border has added a complicated new layer to the debate.

In partnership with the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, Tamez and other Lipan Apaches are seeking relief from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. They allege that the fence has “blocked access to sacred sites and deprives the Lipan Apache of their First Amendment right to express their religious freedoms at certain traditional ceremonies," according to a news release issued when the clinic submitted its report to the U.N. in February. (That report is a supplement to earlier reports the Lipan Apaches and the UT law clinic have submitted to federal and U.N. officials.)

A spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley sector, whose jurisdiction includes El Calaboz in Cameron County, did not respond to a request for comment on the report. The agency would only say that it usually does not comment on pending legal issues.

The federal government has argued that the fence, combined with technology and manpower, is essential to border security. And some border residents have lauded its arrival, saying their land was overrun with trespassers before its construction.

But other border residents, immigrants, environmentalists and human rights groups have not seen the fence in such a positive light. They argue that it sends the wrong message to the U.S.'s southern neighbor and is a waste of resources that hasn’t stopped the flow of illegal migration.

Tamez, who was compensated about $58,000 for her land, said she took the federal money in protest, and used it to fund scholarships for nursing students at the University of Texas at Brownsville.
“I am not going to personally use the money that the government has given me due to this injustice; I want it to live forever in my parents' name,” she said. “They are the ones who worked hard on this land to give us a life.”

Margo Tamez, Eloisa’s daughter and a professor of indigenous studies at the University of British Columbia, said the Lipan Apaches never surrendered their land to the federal government and, under current treaty obligations, still have a right to craft their own cultural, educational and governmental practices. Without access to all of their land, she said, those rights are curtailed, hindering the tribe's ability to maintain its culture.

“The indigenous people such as the Lipan Apaches are vulnerable and threatened,” she said. “They have already been subject to assimilation.”

The latest report filed with U.N. officials argues that seizure of Native American land requires consent, and that there is legal precedent for it.

“Indigenous communities have a right to be previously consulted in deciding any measures that affect their territory,” the report states.

The Tamez family wants the border wall to come down, an unlikely scenario.

But Ariel Dulitzky, the director of UT Law's Human Rights Clinic, said other positive outcomes are possible, including financial compensation for the Lipan Apaches or at least a recommendation for more consultation with affected populations in the future.

“The [U.N.] could recommend that the U.S. adopt a measure to take into consideration the rights of the Lipan Apaches — for instance, how the Border Patrol carries out activities in the Lipan Apache areas,” he said.

Dulitzky said he expects a response this summer. The timing could be crucial as the government considers further expanding the border fence. If the U.S. Congress passes immigration reform, it is likely that border security triggers will be included in the legislation. Several Republican lawmakers have said additional fencing is a key element to heightening security.

“New legislation is expected to double and triple the border wall fencing and presence of border patrol agents,” the report states. “If the [U.S. government] is not held to account for the legacy of colonization and the border wall’s discriminatory effects, critical traditional knowledge will be lost.”

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/05/22/indigenous-texans-seek-un-support-over-border-fenc/

Border Fence Still Dividing Communities

FOX 29 News
May 5, 2104
by Grace White

It's a controversial part of the border, the section between the fence in America and the Rio Grande bordering Mexico that some call 'No Man's Land.'

"This is home, this is America," said Pamela Taylor, who lives across the fence.

It looks like any other neighborhood.

"We know most of the guys," she said.

There's a sense of pride.

You could call it a gated community, except that this isn't a gate, traffic comes right through.

This isn't the residents' idea of protection, it's the U.S. Government's idea of border security.

"We are the last (house)," said Taylor.

She has lived in her home just outside Brownsville for decades.

"It's been known as no man's land," said Taylor.

There's only a handful of homeowners on the other side of the fence and most have been fighting the government for years.

Some claim they've been cut-off from their country and others say they now have limited access to their homes.

The fence cuts right through Rusty Monsees' property.

"It doesn't work, there's no way it can work," said Monsees, who lives near the fence.

"No matter what happens on this side of the fence we have absolutely no control over it," said Taylor.

Border patrol agents walked us onto the other side to prove they do.

"A lot of people have the misconception that southside of the fence is 'No Man's Land,' but it by no means is that," said Danny Tirado, spokesman for U.S. Border Patrol.

Agents also took us on this ride-a-long to show us why the fence wasn't built on the actual border.

There's simply too many twists and turns on the Rio Grande to justify the cost

Even though the fence in places is a half mile north... "We have detection capabilities out there, between the river and the fence," said Tirado.

"I think they probably see it as the unofficial border," said Chris Cabrera, a spokesman for the Border Patrol Union.

Union representatives say while it does provide protection, the fence also creates challenges.

"In the not to distant past we've had some guys attacked, pretty bad, pretty bloody. Couple of guys reached for guns and tried to disarm our agents," said Cabrera.

The union says there's been talks of requiring agents to work in pairs.

"We have some agents that have been assaulted, it's not uncommon for a border patrol agent to arrest 17-20 people at a time by himself," said Cabrera.

"All this money that they've spent on this could have been better spent to improve and bring more border patrolmen," said Monsees.

Border Patrol is increasing manpower in the Rio Grande Valley because the number of people being caught coming across increased significantly from last year.

"Well they ask, well if it's so dangerous, why don't you move. Well why should I? I haven't done anything wrong," said Taylor.

So, Taylor makes the most of it, leaving sodas and water out for people passing through.

But don't mistake her generosity as an endorsement, she says what's happening on this side of the fence should concern every American.

"Whatever comes over this border they are going up north," said Taylor.

Brownsville Congressman Filemon Vela says, "Simply, I believe the border fence has been a waste of money and needs to be torn down." 

However, some argue the fence works.

The Border Patrol is catching more people as they cross over.

In 2012, the number was around 95,000.

Last year, it was 150,000.Border Fence Still Dividing Communities

http://www.foxsanantonio.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/border-fence-still-dividing-communities-3541.shtml#.U2xeLL4o4kk

Border fence extension remains in Congressional limbo

KSAT San Antonio
May 8, 2014
by Jesse Degollado

MCALLEN, Texas - 
                
Funded by the Secure Fence Act of 2006, plans to extend the border fence, part of immigration reform, remain in Congressional limbo.

Critics of the fence in south Texas question spending more taxpayer dollars on a barrier that they said has had little effect.

 

“A border fence is a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem," said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Dist. 28).

 

Cuellar, who serves on the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, said he supports “smart border security,” using technology.

 

“The wall here was $12 million a mile,” said Scott Nicol, one of its early opponents and founder of NoBorderWall.com. “It can be completely defeated by a couple of dollars worth of scrap wood."

 

Nicol has photographed makeshift ladders left behind by undocumented immigrants. He said most are seized by U.S. Border Patrol.

He also said the fence has done little to slow, much less stop, the current surge of Central Americans into the Rio Grande Valley.

“The walls are up and apprehensions are rising again, so I don’t see the wall doing a lot,” Nicol said.

William Alber, a retired General Motors worker from Michigan and a full-time winter Texan, said he agrees.

 

Alber said he watched the fence going up from his front yard at a mobile home park near McAllen.

“The wall didn’t do any good. They just come over the top of the wall,” Alber said.

 

He said they also often run across his driveway, but he’s never been threatened.

 

“It’s elderly ladies. It’s girls. I’ve seen little kids, 7, 8 years old running with them,” Alber said. “There’s no doubt in my mind they’re desperate.”

 

Alber said if Border Patrol is not there watching, many others simply go around the fence where it abruptly ends.

 

According to Customs and Border Protection, only 650 miles of fencing exists along the 2,000-mile southern border.

Daniel Tirado, a spokesman for U.S. Border Patrol, said the 54 miles of fencing in the Rio Grande Valley was strategically placed to give its 5,000-plus agents the tactical advantage.

 

Tirado said the border fence helps shift illegal activity to less populated areas, “decreasing the smuggler’s ability to exploit easily accessible routes through communities, increasing the possibility of apprehension.”   

 

However, those living between the fence and the Rio Grande have said they’re in a no-man’s land used by smugglers.

 

Tirado said that is why agents often patrol those areas, assisted by other means of detection such as cameras and sensors.

 

He said Border Patrol relies on a combination of technology, infrastructure and personnel to secure the south Texas border.  

 

http://www.ksat.com/news/border-fence-extension-remains-in-congressional-limbo/25886794

Texas lawmaker alleges wasteful spending by DHS at border

Brownsville Herald
May 8, 2014
by Ty Johnson

One Texan on the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Homeland Security questioned border fence construction Wednesday during the committee’s hearing on government waste within the Department of Homeland Security.

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, spoke specifically about border security during the hearing, which was held about a week after the Government Account ability Office issued a report concerning DHS, which has been classified at “high risk” for government waste since the department’s creation in 2002.
 While the unique missions of the department’s many components, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, make it difficult to create uniformity within the department, lawmakers have filed legislation to encourage DHS to get its house in order.
 The agencies where risk was deemed highest include CBP, ICE, Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.O’Rourke noted two projects along t
he border that were receiving heavy capital investment even as complications were revealed.
 “Generally, I thinkthat spending withinthe Department of Home-land Security is out of control,” he said Wednesday afternoon.

During the hearing, O’Rourke noted that his assessment is backed up by countless GAO reports that show DHS beginning expensive projects without knowing the full cost or having defined goals for the projects.
 O’Rourke said the classic example of a border security boondoggle was SBINet, a part of the Secure Border Initiative that DHS launched in 2006.
 The project cost ended up topping $1 billion before it ultimately was scrapped by then-Secretary Janet Napolitano in 2010, he said.
 The project had intended to place technologically advanced towers along the border to help with border security, but ultimately the department had nothing to show for it.
 “What is very concerning to me is I don’t know how much DHS has learned from that very costly solution,” he said.
 O’Rourke said he sees similarities between SBINet and DHS’ current plan to place integrated fixed towers along Arizona’s border with Mexico to provide additional monitoring of activity. The price tag on that project is poised to top $500 million even though O’Rourke said there are no metrics or clear lifecycle costs for the project.O’Rourke also criticized a $5.5 million project to erect a half-mile stretch of border fencing at Hart’s Mill, a historic crossing point near El Paso.
 The freshman congressman said crossings at that point have decreased recently and are now a fraction of what statistics indicated four years ago, but the project is still moving forward.
 “Why fence a half-mile section when there’s no demonstrable need?” he asked, explaining that he brought that up with former DHS leaders and was told that the projects were too far along to be halted.
 O’Rourke said while the El Paso fence project didn’t account for a large percentage of the department’s budget, the number of other projects along the border could end up costing taxpayers a lot to cut off land from the rest of the country.
 “$5.5 million may not sound like a lot, but $5.5 million here, $5.5 million there — soon it adds up and becomes real money,” he said.
 O’Rourke, like many Democrats in Congress who represent border districts, said fencing in and of itself is not a smart investment for the federal government.
 “Whatever you think about a wall, the need is just not there,” he said, explaining that the costs of building and maintaining a fence along the border had little return on investment compared to other expenses.
 “That money could go to hire customs officers, which we desperately need along the border,” he said.The full cost for hiring an additional customs officer, he said, is about $144,000, but the Commerce Department has found that single hire can help contribute an additional $2 million into the economy while creating another 33 jobs, many concentrated in border states like Texas.
 O’Rourke said DHS should work to redistribute its assets, especially personnel, to meet the needs along the border and stop constructing fixed structures.
 He said he thinks contractors are to blame for the runaway border spending, as the GAO report suggested that was the issue with SBINet.
 “Ultimately the contractors were writing the scope of the contract,” he said. “The agency itself no longer had control, which is why it turned out to be such a fiasco.”
 The DHS Acquisition Accountability and Efficiency Act, which aims to curtail spending within the department, has been placed on the House calendar and will be considered by the full House after its Committee on Homeland Security gave it a favorable recommendation last week.
 U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela Jr., D-Brownsville, serves on the committee but was not present for Wednesday morning’s hearing.

http://m.brownsvilleherald.com/news/local/article_2afcc190-d661-11e3-85aa-0017a43b2370.html?mode=jqm#.U2tvx_lm7uE.facebook

Behind border fence, woman deals with rising crime

The Brownsville Herald
May 3, 2014
by Ty Johnson

Among the thick brush on the American bank of the Rio Grande just south of the Santa Rosalia Cemetery, there is a concrete slab clearly visible from the dirt road frequented by U.S. Border Patrol vehicles.

A step toward it is a step toward Mexico.
 From that slab, a well-worn path cuts through the tall grass leading to the water’s edge.

The path leads to a dam made of concrete blocks — there is an irrigation pump nearby — and provides an easy, dry crossing over the river and across the U.S. border, which is, in most places in Texas, the midpoint of the river.

The river is narrow and the water level is low, making an illegal crossing either way a short, dry skip from concrete block to concrete block.

“It’s an obvious place to cross,” says Pamela Taylor, whose house is a short walk to the east.

She’s lived at that house, which today stands between the border fence and the river, since 1946 and remembers a time when workers would cross the border freely, some pitching camp and sharing with her their tortillas. However, she said she’s never seen anything close to the types of illegal crossings she has witnessed recently.

“The situation now is so different,” she said. “They used to come in twos and threes. Now they come in 10s and 20s.”

Shortly after returning from an Easter holiday she learned she had “just missed it” from a neighbor.

“They just got 20 or 30 of them on your back patio,” she remembers him telling her of the apprehended immigrants arrested on her property.

Gone are the days of braceros and tortillas, she noted. Someone told her those arrested had also attempted to break into her home.

“It’s getting worse in this specific area, for some reason,” she said.

And it’s not just her who is noticing the influx.

RISING ACTIVITY

U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley this fiscal year are up nearly two-thirds compared to last year, according to the agency’s RGV Sector spokesman Daniel Tirado.

Tirado said Friday that agents in his sector had made in excess of 125,000 such arrests since October.
Those numbers have not gone unheeded, as U.S. Customs and Border Protection has worked over the past two months to shore up its personnel depth in the area, putting more boots on the ground in the region of the country with the most illegal crossings.

A personnel shift announced a little more than a month ago brought more than 100 Border Patrol agents from Arizona and California, and another 54 agents arrived in McAllen last week to help combat the growing number of people crossing illegally into United States in South Texas.

While Border Patrol sectors farther west have seen declines in the number of apprehensions, the Valley has seen such statistics skyrocket, likely due to an increase in the number of undocumented immigrants from Central and South America who cross in the Valley.

“The Rio Grande Valley is the shortest point of travel from South and Central Mexico to the United States,” Tirado said, volunteering that as one of many factors in the regional spike. “Most of the detainees are from South and Central America.”

As the bulk of illegal crossings has shifted eastward over the past two years, Border Patrol has begun concentrating its agents in the Valley, as well.

But if the higher number of agents leads to even higher levels of apprehensions — as it has appeared to so far — it could signal that immigrants are so intent on crossing in the Valley that they’ll attempt it despite the increased Border Patrol presence.

That new collective resolve may be what makes the situation seem so different for Taylor, but she also has tangible evidence that things have changed.

CLOSE ENCOUNTER

Taylor had been planting cacti along the dirt road that runs in front of her house when she heard it coming. She gave the path a wide berth and figured it was someone smuggling drugs.

She saw an SUV barreling down the road at a high rate of speed being chased by Border Patrol.
“I thought he was running dope,” she said.

It’s the third high-speed chase she’s seen in the past month.

Before that she had witnessed none in nearly seven decades.

“We had never had a high-speed chase,” she said.

Taylor is sure this new breed of activity is due to the increased number of immigrants trying to cross in the Valley.

“It’s unbelievable the amount of people that come across,” she said.

Taylor wants the fence gone and she wants more agents, but she said government representatives haven’t responded to her letters detailing what it’s like living in the no-man’s land the United States created by putting up the fence.

She continues to advocate for the end of the fence project, but she is clearly skeptical that anyone will listen.

“They have no idea what’s going on down here,” she said of the politicians in Washington.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/local/article_aa94c2d4-d339-11e3-a0b7-001a4bcf6878.html

Hidalgo County approves qualifications of attorney to examine drainage contract

The Monitor
April 16, 2014
by Jacob Fisher

EDINBURG — The Hidalgo County drainage board on Tuesday sidestepped an obstacle to investigating an 8-year-old contract with the county drainage director’s corporation, circumventing the District Attorney’s Office and outlining the board’s preferred qualifications for a private attorney to work on the case.

Board members spent almost 15 minutes of a 30-minute meeting debating whether the move was necessary or prudent. In the end, after a closed-door session, they elected to approve an outline of qualifications. The move stopped short of committing the board to actually hire an attorney.

 

“We just want to make sure that everything was done with respect to what was agreed upon,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Joseph Palacios said in a Wednesday interview.

 

Last month, the board assigned civil attorneys in the DA’s Office looked into the matter, but reported late last week to County Judge Ramon Garcia that they saw a potential conflict of interest if they continued to investigate and asked to be taken off the case.

 

“Initially, we wanted to use in-house counsel,” Palacios said. But both the DA’s office and the Atlas and Hall law firm — the firm that advises the county and signed off on the 2006 contract — had potential conflicts of interest.

 

“So the only option based on the water code that we have is to go through a bidding process,” Palacios added.

 

Garcia shone a spotlight on the contract early this year after the contract between the drainage board and Integ Corp. came up for renewal. Garcia objected to Integ receiving a 1.5 percent commission from a hybrid border wall and Rio Grande levee system project that was not originally part of the county’s master drainage plan and was largely paid for with federal dollars.

 

“At that time, when they gave them that contract, nobody was even thinking about border wall, nobody was even thinking about levees,” Garcia said.

 

Drainage District Manager Godfrey Garza is the president of Integ.

 

“Integ did not just sit there and just go out there and get a check for no reason,” he said. “This project cost 200 and some-odd million dollars. There was zero overruns on this project, and that has a lot to do with the team effort of everybody working on the project getting it done.”

 

Integ earned $3.73 million in commission from the project.

 

Some members of the board raised concerns that litigating the 8-year-old and already-paid contract would be more trouble than it’s worth.

 

“How much is it going to cost us?” Precinct 3 Commissioner Joe Flores asked at one point during Tuesday’s meeting, referring to the hiring of an attorney.

 

“I’m not sure how much, but we’ve already spent $3,700,000 that I don’t think we should have spent,” Garcia replied. “But that’s something for somebody else to determine.”

 

The board is asking an attorney:

 

>> Be licensed in the State of Texas.

>> Have 20 or more years of experience with extensive knowledge in contract law/litigation.

>> Provide an estimate of time they’d need to work on the case.

>> Provide a more detailed report to board of directors within 30 days after engagement.

 

http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/hidalgo-county-approves-qualifications-of-attorney-to-examine-drainage-contract/article_64a434aa-c5bd-11e3-8a5a-001a4bcf6878.html#.U09T_0s4WM4.facebook

A Vale of Terror, Transcended: Artists Explore Immigration, Border Issues and the Drug War

The New York Times
January 2, 2014
by Laura Tillman

MATAMOROS, Mexico — The artist Patricia Ruiz-Bayón recently met with three migrants in a shelter in this ravaged border city and invited them to take part in one of her performance works. The piece, “70+2...,” commemorated an act of extreme brutality that continues to traumatize the region: a 2010 massacre of 72 migrants in nearby San Fernando that the Mexican authorities say was carried out by the Zetas criminal gang.

Like the slain migrants, who were pulled from buses and shot, Ms. Ruiz-Bayón’s art volunteers were on a treacherous journey north toward the United States. On the day of the performance, barefoot and dressed in white, the participants, two men and a woman, walked slowly through soil that Ms. Ruiz-Bayón had transported from a San Fernando cornfield, evoking a mass grave but also hope and renewal. Then they walked along an infinity symbol that had been carved into the dirt, signifying the eternal path of migration.
      

The performance was the first in a series called “Todos Somos Victimas y Culpables, We Are All Victims and Culpable,” a deeply serious message in a part of Mexico that continues to be rattled by clashes between rival gangs and the police.

      

Ms. Ruiz-Bayón’s work is part of a growing art movement in the Rio Grande Valley exploring immigration politics and a rise in drug violence in the region over the past four years. Although the artists’ circumstances and their audiences vary, depending on where they live, they see themselves as part of a transnational community that is artificially divided.

      

The 18-foot-high border fence, ever-present in the artists’ work, is a ready symbol for the dissonance between the local understanding of the region as a unified one with strong cultural and economic ties, and policy prescriptions from Washington aimed at controlling the area and dividing it into discrete parts. As a new immigration bill presents the likelihood of new fencing and increased surveillance, the artists are determined to highlight the discord and societal hierarchy that the fence represents to many here. In their work, they also conjure an alternative situation. 

      

For Mexican artists in Matamoros and Reynosa, where the local news media has been largely silenced, their artwork, often urgent and somber, fills a void.

      

Artists on the American side of the border tend to take a more ironic approach. David Freeman of McAllen, Tex., designs piñatas in the shape of border guards, presumably waiting to be thrashed to bits, and meticulously made “trophies” for gang leaders composed of tiny machine guns, marijuana leaves and other objects covered in gold spray paint. He also integrates found objects into his work, like the wood-plank ladders the migrants used to climb the multibillion-dollar security fence and clothing and ID cards that they leave by the river.

      

Mr. Freeman moved to the region nine years ago, just as McAllen was beginning to pump civic funds into the arts. Since then, new galleries have sprung up on Main Street along with a monthly “art walk” and low-cost studio space. Not long ago, his studio was packed with work for a solo show at Texas A&M University at Commerce. Photographs of the border fence shared space with paintings in which he had daintily etched the fence into foreign landscapes. Mr. Freeman said he hopes his work will gain exposure beyond Texas and have a greater impact. Most galleries and museums in the Rio Grande Valley favor more conventional abstract and landscape paintings over political work.

      

The classically trained painter Rigoberto Alonso Gonzalez relies on an altogether different strategy to pierce what he says is the indifference of some Americans to the region’s drug war, painting Baroque-style scenes of violence in a dark palette. Some of his paintings show decapitated heads; other, larger tableaus depict gang members torturing victims or families discovering the bodies of their dead loved ones after shootouts.

       

Mr. Gonzalez, who was born in Reynosa, Mexico, and now lives across the river in Harlingen, Tex., left the Rio Grande Valley to study at the New York Academy of Art in 2002. When he returned, he quickly recognized the parallels between the gang narratives and historical paintings about biblical violence, like Caravaggio’s “Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.” He calls attention to the demand for drugs and cheap labor in the United States, which contributes to the drug war, by recreating real events in a style of painting that viewers are more accustomed to seeing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art than on CNN.

 

“If you depict it in a way that’s too raw, people are going to be turned off by it,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “You have to do it in a way that they’re drawn in, and then slowly they realize what it is that they’re looking at.”

 

His paintings have been collected and exhibited by museums in Texas and New Mexico, although some museums in the Rio Grande Valley are reluctant to show more graphic violence, he said. “It really doesn’t compare to what’s actually happening,” Mr. Gonzalez said of his stylized work.

      

While artists like Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Freeman have the freedom to speak out about politics in their work, the risks are higher for artists across the border.

      

After Reynosa was taken over by violence, the artist Tochiro Gallegos abandoned street photography, mindful that taking a picture of someone who didn’t want to be photographed could cost him his life. He moved into the studio and now makes portraits that speak metaphorically about the violence. Some of his subjects are shown with belts of bullets across their mouths — “a way to express everything we see, the way that we have to be quiet,” Mr. Gallegos said.

      

Ms. Ruiz-Bayón’s work, which extends beyond performance to sculpture and mixed media, also relies on metaphor to talk about migration, gender and violence.

      

In 2010, the same year as the massacre in San Fernando, a wave of gang violence pushed into Matamoros. Traumatized, Ms. Ruiz-Bayón said, she could not bring herself to make any artwork for an entire year.

      

In “70+2...,” she sought catharsis. “I’m so sick of guns, I’m so sick of blood,“ she said. “I wanted to make something that would make people think deeper and ask: ‘O.K., this is happening to me. How can I feel a little relief?’ ”

      

She visited San Fernando and tracked down on the Internet videos of the family members of the murdered migrants and a survivor. She spent time with migrants from Honduras and Guatemala, who also participated in her piece, and learned about the poverty they fled, the families they left behind and their journeys north.

      

“I had urgency to heal myself,” Ms. Ruiz-Bayón said. “And hopefully, in the process, it was a healing piece for the people.”

      

The prospect of performing in Matamoros last August initially made her anxious. Few murders are solved there, and she was concerned about the safety of the volunteers in the work. But the pieces finally fell into place, and she scheduled the performance at a secure private building, her concerns allayed. “I thought, if the migrants are brave enough to take this long, long, dangerous journey, why shouldn’t I?” she said.

      

The victims of the 2010 massacre have also been memorialized by journalists and novelists who created a website, 72migrantes.com, with profiles and photographs evoking each of the dead.  

       

George Flaherty, an assistant professor of art history at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in Latin American art, said terror is a major theme for artists who set out to document scores of anonymous deaths. “It’s about creating alternative archives and alternate ways of recognizing that which has been forgotten or willfully ignored,” he said.

      

The art is also about rectifying the way the border region is perceived from afar. The photographer Stefan Falke has been documenting artists in the region since 2008 in an project titled “La Frontera: Artists Along the U.S.-Mexico Border.” Having grown up in a divided Germany, Mr. Falke said, he was suspicious about the mainstream portrayal of the border area as a dangerous place without much to offer. He said he wanted to convey that the border is not a space of absence, but one of creativity and life.

      

To that end, he has photographed 180 artists from Brownsville to Tijuana. An exhibition of works from “La Frontera” is to open at the International Museum of Art and Science in McAllen on Jan. 23.

       

“You hear about tens of thousands of killings, and it’s natural to think, ‘Why would people want to live there?’ ” he said. “Then you go there, and you find everyone you meet doesn’t want to leave. They just love their city.”

      

Ms. Ruiz-Bayón, who has lived and worked in both the United States and Mexico, declined to identify her birthplace, saying she does not believe she belongs to one country or the other. “For me, the border is like a parentheses that is neither Mexico nor the United States,” she said. “It’s a place of its own.”

      

While such sentiments are common along the border, they are a striking counterpoint to discussions of immigration reform in Congress that take the necessity of enforced border security and hundreds of miles of hard fencing for granted.

      

Some artists have used the fence itself as an exhibition site. After construction crews built a new section less than a block from Galeria 409 in Brownsville, its owner, the artist Mark Clark, asked artists to bring their work to the fence and hang it on its metal beams. Included in the show, “Art Against the Wall,” was Mr. Clark’s painting of a voluptuous woman in a bikini floating down the Rio Grande in an inner tube, extending “Saludos desde el otro lado,” or “Greetings from the other side.”

Mr. Flaherty said that artists who seek to upend the way the border is usually viewed are trying to inspire a broader international conversation.

      

“They’re very much challenging the understanding of the border as a checkpoint and geopolitical boundary or zone,” he said, “and bringing to our attention that the border is malleable, it’s figurative, it’s poetic.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/arts/design/artists-explore-immigration-border-issues-and-the-drug-war.html?ir=Canada&_r=0

 

Cornyn's border wall shift

Rio Grande Guardian
December 28, 2013
by Steve Taylor

MISSION, December 28 - One of the more remarkable stories of 2013 along the border was U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s shift in stance towards the border wall.
Cornyn voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006. The legislation called for 700 miles of physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Cornyn defended that vote vociferously for many years afterwards. However, over the past year the senior senator from Texas changed his tone on the issue and many put this down to input from groups like the Border Trade Alliance and the Texas Border Coalition. In June, the U.S. Senate passed the Hoeven-Corker border security amendment, which called for an additional 350 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border. Cornyn opposed the measure and made clear his opposition at a “Smart Border” roundtable he and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar held Sept. 5 at a warehouse in Mission belonging to CiL Group, a major exporter/importer of Texas and Mexican agricultural goods. Dozens of business and economic development leaders from the Rio Grande Valley were present for the roundtable. They applauded Cornyn’s stance on the border wall and on legislation he and Cuellar authored to allow public-private partnerships to fund infrastructure projects at border ports of entry. After the roundtable discussion, Cornyn and Cuellar held a news conference. At the conference, Cornyn went further than ever before in distancing himself from those who believe a border wall will deter illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Asked about his stance on the border wall, Cornyn told a reporter: “The problem is that there are some people who do not understand the border. When they think about border security they think, let's build a fence. Well, we know the Border Patrol has told us that that is useful in some urban areas but it is not something you are going to do across the entire border. It really is laughable because, as we have said at different times, if you build a 50-foot fence along the border there would be a boom in the sale of 51-foot ladders. Or there would be tunnels or something else. It makes no sense. “What we need is a smart border approach. We need technology, we need boots on the ground, we do need some infrastructure but the part that we are here today to emphasis is that if you can isolate the bad actors by facilitating the flow of legitimate commerce and people who want to come here and spend money then that actually helps the law enforcement agencies focus their efforts on the people that they need to focus on; not everybody because as you know it is just a very small, very tiny percentage of the people who come across the border who want to do us harm or commit crime.” Some of the elected officials at the roundtable could not believe the man making those remarks was Sen. John Cornyn. He had, after all, been such a big supporter of the border wall in previous years. At the news conference, Rep. Cuellar was full of praise for Cornyn. But, the Laredo Democrat appeared to take a swipe at U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. “Senator Cornyn gets it. He understands the border. I appreciate the good work the Senator has done for our state and especially the dynamic border we call home, the Rio Grande,” Cuellar said. “We have got to have sensible, smart, border security. When we think about border security, when we think about the border, this is what we ought to be looking at,” said Cuellar, pointing to bundles of Texas cotton in the Mission warehouse that CiL Group exports to Mexico. “This is the trade that we ought to focus on,” Cuellar continued. “We have got to support people like Senator Cornyn that understand the border because there are other people that just come in, they have a press conference, they say they are going to take care of the border and they just do not get it. They ought to come up here, spend time like the Senator did here today with business people and say this is what the border is all about.” Cuellar pointed out that when one considers FBI statistics, the border crime rate is lower than the national crime rate. He said where he and Cornyn work, in Washington, D.C., it is much more violent than the border region, with far more murders and rapes reported. “When people come here to the border, they come in and say they are going to do this and this. This is what they need to look at,” Cuellar said, referring again to the bundles of cotton that acted as a backdrop for the news conference. "Yes, we need to do border security but let us think about the trade, the business, the retail that is so important to our area,” Cuellar said. Cornyn said the legislation he and Cuellar filed to boost infrastructure development at border ports of entry shows that Congress can, sometimes, work in a bipartisan fashion. “We need what I like to call a smart border, that is one that strikes the right balance between security and one that respects the important role of binational trade and commerce and tourism and what that means to our economy,” Cornyn said. “Six million jobs in the United States depend upon that binational trade. And, as Mexico continues to grow its economy, which it is, and we continue to see infrastructure improvements like transportation put more pressure on our Texas borders and our ports of entry it is important we have not only the infrastructure but also the staffing. And while we know the federal government has neglected those for a long time we are introducing legislation that will provide an opportunity for more investment in terms of staffing and infrastructure here in the form of public-private partnerships in particular.” Marc A. Rodriguez, chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, was present for the “Smart Border” roundtable. At the news conference, Rodriguez said he was “totally impressed” with the regional approach taken by border leaders and the spirit of cooperation that existed between Cornyn and Cuellar. “As goes Texas, so goes the nation,” he said. Postscript: On Dec. 19 in Washington, D.C., Customs and Border Protection signed five public-private partnerships that will allow local entities to pay for additional CBP staff at ports of entry. The agreements are permitted under the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013. The idea is to allow CBP to set up a reimbursable fee agreement program to increase the department's ability to provide new or enhanced services on a reimbursable basis to support growth in cross-border trade and travel. The five entities selected for these partnerships are Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport; The City of El Paso, Texas; South Texas Assets Consortium (STAC); The City of Houston Airport System; and Miami-Dade County. STAC consists of the cities of Laredo, McAllen and Pharr, Starr-Camargo Bridge Co., and Cameron County. “The utilization of public-private partnerships is an important component of CBP’s strategy to optimize resources,” said CBP Acting Commissioner Thomas S. Winkowski. “Together with our private sector partners, we can better facilitate trade and travel to continue to grow our local and national economies.” Winkowski said the reimbursable services proposals were reviewed and ranked based on criteria including: impact on current CBP operations, health and safety issues, community and economic benefits, and the feasibility of instituting the agreements in a timely manner. He said these agreements will not replace existing services, and new services can include all customs and immigration inspection-related matters. “We congratulate the STAC partners for signing their annex agreement today, which will reflect the unique needs of port communities from Laredo to Brownsville,” Border Trade Alliance President Noe Garcia said. “We look forward to these pilots demonstrating that CBP and partners at the local level can craft innovative solutions for facilitating legitimate trade and travel through improved staffing levels.” Sam F. Vale, president of Starr-Camargo Bridge Co., said his bridge is ready to begin implementing the agreements. “These agreements take an innovative, regional approach to port management. Now bridge owners and operators have a greater voice in how needed resources will be deployed to the ports of entry. On behalf of all the STAC participants, we look forward to working with CBP in implementing these pilot projects, which we believe will greatly enhance our region’s economy and international trade competitiveness," said Vale, who is also president of STAC.

http://riograndeguardian.com/bordernews_story.asp?story_no=20

Pharr PD: Salvadoran man loses pinky finger to border fence

The Monitor
November 18, 2013
by Daniella Diaz

PHARR — A man who scaled the border fence wound up losing a finger after it got caught in the fence, authorities said.

Friday night, police responded to a call from U.S. Customs and Border Protection about a 22-year-old man from El Salvador who had jumped the fence, according to a Pharr police news release.

Police found Hector Anibal Aguila lying in the grass under the bridge, holding his hand up, according to the release. He told police that his hand got caught along the fence and it severed his right pinky finger.

 

He was transported to Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco for treatment and then was turned over to Border Patrol.

 

http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_226481d6-50b4-11e3-aaa5-0019bb30f31a.html

Bishop Flores: Border wall is a 'psychological scar' for South Texas

Rio Grande Guardian
November 28, 2013
by Steve Taylor


BROWNSVILLE, November 28 - The border wall has caused a psychological scar for the communities of South Texas, says Bishop Daniel Flores of the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville.
Flores said he can see the border wall from his office in Brownsville. He said the border wall is just a few blocks south of the basilica in San Juan, and when he gives mass in Escobares, he can walk about 150 feet from the church and he is at the border wall. “As a rule, the bishops in the United States did not think the fence was a good idea. Personally, myself and my family have roots on both sides of the border. Most families here have that. It is kind of a psychological scar across the heart of a very culturally rich place,” Flores said. Asked by a reporter to elaborate on why the border wall is a psychological scar, Flores said: “For 150, 200, years, the relationship here in the Valley and further up the river the relationship between Texas and Mexico has been a familial one. Things have changed somewhat radically over the last 25 years or so. But the fence in a certain way becomes a symbol that, that these are two worlds that cannot have any connection,” Flores said. “It has a symbolic value that I think is unpleasant to contemplate because a scar is a scar. It cuts through the middle and it separates. A fence separates whereas the river is respectful; it is a respectful, more fluid thing, respectful of two independent nations. Most people who live on the other side of the border are very happy to live in Mexico. They don’t particularly want to live in the United States; nice place to visit, I wouldn’t want to live there. “For whatever reason, people sometimes feel they have to come but it becomes a sort of sign of an inability to control and that is why it becomes kind of a psychological sort of wound, it does. It is there. Thanks be to God, we still have a lot of movement back and forth, all the bridges along the way. And families still have their relationships and things like that but it did not always exist there and we pray God one day it won’t have to exist there. That is the way I would put it.” Flores spoke about immigration and border security with reporters on Friday while unveiling a letter signed by 13 border bishops from northern Mexico, Texas and New Mexico who are concerned about the plight of families that have been separated due to flawed immigration policies. Click here to read both the English and Spanish versions of the letter from the border bishops. “This letter in particular is directed to the Church, that we should be particularly conscious of how to help families that are suffering, in many cases families that are facing separation because part of the family is documented and part of the family is not,” Flores said. “The Church has always had a responsibility to open itself up to the service of those who are suffering and the families are now suffering right now. So, parishes, social service organizations, things like that, all of our presence in the community should be particularly attentive to the needs of immigrant families.” Flores said the letter is also directed at the “political order,” those who are responsible for passing laws. He said they should not forget about immigration reform and not to let this moment pass. “I just think that this is something we all need to do: to make known that this is a human reality that needs to be addressed in an orderly way by those responsible for governing and that it would be a failure of governance if this were not addressed in a timely and just way.” The border bishops and Texas Catholic Conference have sent letters pushing for immigration reform in the past. Asked what difference the new letter might make, Flores said: “Yes, it is true, we have been saying this for a long time, the bishops of the United States have been saying it, the bishops of this region have been saying it; he bishops of the Americas have been saying it. We pray for it, we work for it but in a certain way we just do not tire of saying it because ultimately those responsible for governing have to take the responsibility to craft a reasonable, more just, system that is respectful of the needs of families. That’s what the Church will continue to talk about. We cannot sit back and complain about how it is that the family is falling apart in our society and yet tolerate a system of law that has as its goal the separation of families.” Asked if the Texas Catholic Conference has met with the Texas congressional delegation on the issue of immigration reform, Flores said: “The Texas Catholic Conference keeps in contact with our delegation. I meet with our own representatives, in the Valley you cross paths very easily and this is an issue I always try to raise with them. In general I think the congressional delegation along the border is attuned to this issue. Whenever you pass a law in the United States it requires a consensus of the whole country and there are parts of the country where there is more resistance to the possibility.” By way of example, Flores cited the Senate bill on immigration reform, which included much tougher border enforcement. “For the bishops this was very difficult because, frankly, to spend that much more money on a border that is already militarized in a certain way, in our view does not help the situation. Speaking as pastors, it is problematic. How much more can you militarize the border?”

http://www.riograndeguardian.com/borderlife_story.asp?story_no=25

Cornyn urges CBP to rethink border fence

El Paso Inc.
November 24, 2013
by David Crowder


U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has weighed into the fray over plans to fill in the half-mile gap in the border fence at the historic site of the first Spanish crossing, Hart’s Mill and Old Fort Bliss.

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, has organized a last-minute campaign to persuade U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, to reconsider the project and to work with El Paso leaders and stakeholders before proceeding.


On Wednesday, Cornyn wrote to Thomas Winkowski, CBP’s acting commissioner, after meeting with O’Rourke.

“I understand that the project is near significant cultural and historical sites, and I would strongly encourage you to work closely with the El Paso community to ensure preservation of sensitive areas,” Cornyn wrote.

Construction of the 17-foot steel wall was to start last Wednesday and even though it didn’t, Border Patrol spokesman Doug Mosier said CBP has notified the contractor to proceed.

Called by some the epicenter of El Paso’s history, the site on West Paisano Drive is now in the midst of several large construction projects.

They include taking down the Yandell Street overpass while putting up massive concrete supports for the toll road that will complete the last leg of Loop 375.

In his letter, Cornyn noted that CBP “conducted Environmental Stewardship Plans to consider the impact of the proposed pedestrian fencing on significant historic sites in the Hart’s Mill area.”

The result of that survey was that “the project would not result in significant impacts to cultural resources in October 2011.”

“While I recognize the efforts of CBP to consider sensitive resources in the region I would urge you to coordinate closely with local stakeholders and consider any further action which may be necessary to balance project goals with historic preservation,” Cornyn’s letter concluded.

O’Rourke’s chief of staff, David Wysong, said Winkowski “is the only one who could, theoretically, halt it.”

Six signers

On Tuesday, Winkowski received a similar letter signed by O’Rourke and five more House members: Democrats Pete Gallego, Filemon Vela and Rubén Hinojosa of Texas, and from California, Democrats Tony Cárdenas and Eric Swalwell.

Their letter, stronger than Cornyn’s, refers to the site as the place where Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate crossed the Rio Grande in 1598, a rocky ford that came to be known as the Paso del Norte.

“The proposed fence construction is antithetical to Congress’ intentions in establishing Oñate’s crossing as part of the National Historic Trail in October 2000 and will hamper future development and improvements to this site that adequately reflect its historical and cultural significance,” their letter states.

They call on the Border Patrol to delay construction.

“Preserving the historic significance of this area should be our first priority and we strongly believe that a compromise can be reached,” the representatives’ letter continues.

It notes that the El Paso sector has a 93-percent level of operational control, which far exceeds other sectors on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This has contributed to the recognition of El Paso as the safest city in America for the third straight year,” the letter reads. “It seems that there is little need to construct additional fence from a safety perspective when taxpayer dollars could be used more effectively in other areas of the border.”

Border Patrol spokesman Mosier said that while Congress has set aside some environmental and archaeological protections to speed the fence, CBP “has made a commitment to responsible environmental stewardship.”

In an email, Mosier said, “Specific to the Hart’s Mill area, in order to protect cultural resources, CBP conducted intensive cultural resources surveys and consulted with the Texas state historic preservation office, who concurred with CBP’s determination that no significant impacts to cultural resources would occur as a result of fence construction,”

The CBP has arranged to have an independent environmental monitor on-site during fence construction, Mosier added.

Although the site has never been developed as a tourist attraction beyond construction of historic markers, the Texas Historical Commission’s executive director Mark Wolfe, in a Nov. 19 letter, said the National Park Service has recognized it as a “high potential site.”

Wolfe, the state’s historic preservation officer, told El Paso Inc. that his agency agrees with CBP’s archaeological review that determined “no features of concern would be disturbed by the project.”

Property owner Chip Johns said he wonders when the archaeological review was conducted and by whom. He owns the acreage that takes in the Oñate crossing, the Old Fort Bliss officers’ barracks and the mid-1800s home of Simeon Hart, best known as the Hacienda Restaurant, which is now closed.

“If they came on the property, they never asked me,” Johns said, adding he finds it hard to believe there is nothing of historical or archaeological significance in the path of the fence, given that it was a very busy place for hundreds of years.

Wolfe sent his letter to state Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, who conceded that neither the city nor the county have done anything to protect or develop the site. But that’s no reason not to protect it, he said.

“The mayor and City Council ought to be involved in preventing the federal government from going forward,” Rodriguez said. “We can’t lose another one of our historic treasures.”

O’Rourke, he said, is doing everything he can “but it’s up to the federal government to step back and reassess the project.”

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser was ill and could not be reached for a comment, but city spokeswoman Juli Lozano released a statement from him saying O’Rourke has kept him up to date on the issue.

“I want to stress that at this time, the city is allowing Congressman O’Rourke to handle the issue and will rely on his diligence to do what is necessary to address the issues,” the statement says.

Johns was surprised last Thursday when two O’Rourke’s staffers, district representative Mario Porras and intern Dana Ramos, showed up at the site to see if construction had begun. “Hot damn, it’s amazing and kind of hard to believe that someone in Washington is actually doing what they say they’re going to do,” Johns said of O’Rourke. “He’s picked up the ball and run with it. How far he’ll get, who knows?”

 http://www.elpasoinc.com/news/local_news/article_0768de4c-5611-11e3-9c5f-0019bb30f31a.html

Border fence to be built at Juan de Oñate crossing, site of Hart’s Mill and the first Fort Bliss

Newspaper Tree
November 22, 2013
Alberto Tomas Halpern

The Department of Homeland Security or DHS, which oversees the U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection or CBP, will build approximately 0.6 miles of additional border fencing near the historic Hart’s Mill area of El Paso.

Federal and local officials oppose the fencing, citing historical and environmental concerns.

The fence will be built at a site where Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate crossed the Rio Grande in 1598 as he and his band of settlers made their way north from Mexico City. Oñate’s path became a major trade route for the next 300 years, bringing livestock and trade goods into the U.S. The route also introduced new cultures to a westward expanding America.

In 2000, Oñate’s trail was added to the National Trails System and is called El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail. It is noted for being the oldest route leading north out of Mexico.

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 amended a 1996 law, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, charging DHS to construct physical barriers and reinforced fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. The amended law gives authority to the DHS secretary to waive environmental laws in order to build border barriers expediently.

The Secure Fence Act, in part, provided for fencing from five miles west of the Columbus, New Mexico port of entry to ten miles east of El Paso, though gaps in fencing exist in sections along the way.

According to Border Patrol and CBP spokesman Bill Brooks, the latest construction of fencing is a continuation of a previous fence project.

The fence that will be built is what CBP calls a “pedestrian fence,” meant to stop pedestrians and vehicles from crossing. Brooks said the fence will look similar to what already exists near the area, which includes layers of thick wires crossed over one another.

Brooks explained that the notice to proceed with construction was issued on Wednesday, November 20.
The fencing contractor is C3 Construction, an Arizona-based company. Newspaper Tree observed no construction activity at the area the day the notice was issued.

Construction is expected to be completed sometime next spring.

Brooks described CBP as committed to responsible environmental stewardship, despite the environmental law waiver. He added that CBP conducted an intensive cultural resources survey and consulted with the Texas Historical Commission. The historical commission, Brooks said, agreed with CBP’s determination that the fence construction would have no significant impact on cultural resources.

Mark Wolfe, the executive director and state historic preservation officer at the Texas Historical Commission, told Newspaper Tree that CBP contracted with Gulf South Research Corporation, a Louisiana environmental consulting firm, to conduct an archeological review of the area in 2011.

Wolfe said CBP’s study showed that no historical or cultural resources would be disturbed by the fence, nor would it have an adverse affect on the appearance of historic buildings. The study was reviewed by the historical commission’s archaeological, historical and architectural divisions, all of whom agreed that the fence would have no significant impacts.

“That’s the extent of our review,” Wolfe said, noting that his agency did not conduct its own independent study. “We don’t have the budget for that. Our decisions are based on the information provided (by CBP).”

Wolfe explained that the Texas Historical Commission does not have the authority to delay or halt federal projects, even if they disagree with the findings of federal agencies. If they do find that federal projects would negatively impact historic sites, the historical commission can work with agencies to mitigate those affects.

“What we do is we comment on the undertaking proposed by the federal agency,” Wolfe said. He added, “The whole purpose of it is for federal agencies to step back and think about the implications.”

In the case of the fence in the Hart’s Mill area, Wolfe says CBP did consider those implications. “So the process, I think, works.”

In 2009, the El Paso city council unanimously adopted a resolution opposing the construction of border fences. The resolution says in part, “Across the world, walls erected to divide peoples and nations are symbols of failed and repressive efforts to thwart human freedom and prosperity.”

Congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-TX 16) was a city representative in 2009 and joined in supporting the city resolution.

The recent news of the fence construction prompted him to write letters of opposition to CBP and Border Patrol officials, citing the historical and cultural value of the area.

In his letters, O’Rourke stresses the history of El Paso’s Hart’s Mill area, describing Oñate’s crossing near the area, the Hart’s Mill residence and the establishment of the original Fort Bliss in the area.

“[T]he historical significance of this area to our country, the state of Texas, and City of El Paso is immense,” O’Rourke said.

He described Oñate’s crossing in the area as the first Thanksgiving celebration in the United States.

“As a point of comparison, if the Border Patrol were to propose the construction of a fence at Plymouth Rock I am sure Congressional representatives and the surrounding community would object based on its importance as a symbol in American history,” O’Rourke said. “The proposed fence construction at Hart’s Mill should be viewed no differently.”

Joining O’Rourke in opposition to the fencing, in a November 19 letter to CBP commissioner Thomas Winkowski, are congressmen Pete Gallego (D-TX 23), Tony Cardenas (D-CA 29), Filemon Vela (D-TX 34), Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX 15), and Eric Swalwell (D-CA 15).

O’Rourke added that more fencing is unnecessary in El Paso, since the sector is at a level of operational control that exceeds that of other parts along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“It seems that there is little need to construct additional fence from a safety perspective when taxpayer dollars could be used more effectively in other areas of the border,” O’Rourke told Winkowski.

According to Border Patrol data, apprehensions of undocumented crossers in the El Paso sector are at their lowest level in 20 years. In 1993, the Border Patrol reported 258,781 apprehensions in the El Paso sector. In 2012, that number fell to 9,678 apprehensions (see chart “Total Illegal Alien Apprehensions By Fiscal Year” in slideshow, above).

In late September, during a visit to the border fence near Sunland Park, New Mexico, El Paso Border Patrol Sector spokesman Ramiro Cordero attributed the reduction in apprehensions and El Paso’s safety to the fence.

“Fences make good neighbors,” Cordero said. He added, “You have Ciudad Juarez in 2008, 2009, 2010 as the most dangerous city in the world, the worst in the world. And El Paso was what? And continues to be: the safest city in the nation. What a contrast.”

Cordero stated that critics of border fences are wrong in saying they divide communities.

“You don’t see people, cousins, coming up to the middle of the river to talk to each other,” he said. “This has nothing to do with dividing communities, absolutely nothing. This is to protect people.”

Cordero concedes that border fences, while designed to deter people from scaling them, can be overcome, but with much difficulty.

He asked rhetorically, “Can you climb it? Oh yeah.”

Still, he thinks the fences do slow down would-be border crossers and are an effective tool.

O’Rourke noted that several local officials, including State Senator Jose Rodriguez, County Judge Veronica Escobar, County Commissioner Patrick Abeln, Mayor Oscar Leeser and City Representative Cortney Niland, were also concerned about the construction of the fence.

Rodriguez said in a statement that he was opposed to a border fence when he was the county attorney and he continues to oppose it as a senator.

“This portion of the wall will harm historical resources of national significance. It’s extremely unfortunate that local concerns and even federal rules can be disregarded in order to impose this expensive and unnecessary wall on communities that don’t want it,” he said.

Mayor Leeser issued a statement to Newspaper Tree, saying that the upcoming construction of the fence is being monitored at the federal level by O’Rourke and that the congressman is keeping the city informed on the issue.

“I want to stress that at this time the City is allowing Congressman O’Rourke to handle the issue and will rely on his diligence to do what is necessary to address the issues,” Leeser stated.

Commissioner Abeln’s concerns were similar to O’Rourke’s and he thinks more thought should have been taken in considering whether a fence should be built in the area.

“To fence that off is like fencing off a piece of history,” Abeln said. “It is just a disappointment to me because it’s another place where we have failed to realize the history of our community.”

Abeln pondered how history could have been very different if border fences existed in the 16th Century.
“Had they put that fence in 1598, maybe Juan de Oñate would not have crossed,” he surmised.

Abeln made clear that he supports federal law enforcement officials, but thinks that they have been unduly burdened by failed immigration and drug control policies.

After considering the role of border fences from a larger perspective, Commissioner Abeln drew one conclusion, saying: “The fact is, when you think about it, they’re a failure of public policy at some level. You don’t build fences because something is working. You build them because something is not working.”

http://newspapertree.com/articles/2013/11/22/border-fence-to-be-built-at-juan-de-onate-crossing-site-of-harts-mill-and-the-first-fort-bliss