San Diego Union-Tribune
June 22, 2011
By Sandra Dibble and Debbi Baker
SAN YSIDRO — The shooting death of a 40-year-old Tijuana resident by a U.S. Border Patrol agent Tuesday night has reignited a debate about the agency’s use of force in rock-throwing incidents.
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretariat issued a statement from Mexico City Wednesday that strongly condemned the shooting, stating: “The use of firearms to repel rock attacks, which preliminary information indicates may have happened in this case, represents disproportionate use of force.”
Four other fatal shootings by Border Patrol agents who reported being under rock attacks have occurred nationally since 2008.
Not all the details of Tuesday night’s incident are clear.
According to the San Diego Police Department, the agent had spotted three men crossing at the border fence just before 7:30 p.m. about a half mile west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
The agent called for backup and when a second agent arrived they tried to arrest the trio. Two of them fled back into Mexico through an opening in the fence, said San Diego police homicide Lt. Ernie Herbert.
Agents caught the third man who resisted arrest and started to fight.
During the struggle, one of the other men leaned over the top of the fence and hurled large rocks and a piece of wood with nails sticking out of it at the agents, Herbert said.
The piece of wood hit one of them in the head, the lieutenant said.
As the man began to throw another rock, an agent opened fire, hitting him once. The man fell back into Mexico and died, Herbert said. Authorities identified him as Jose Alfredo Yañez Reyes.
The man involved in the scuffle was arrested.
The agent who opened fire has been with the force for three years. His name had not been released. The agent who was hit with the board was treated at a hospital and released, police said.
Ralph DeSio, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, issued a statement that said: “A thorough, multi-agency investigation is currently on-going after the agent-involved shooting death of a Mexican national.
“CBP regrets the loss of life and awaits the results of the investigation into this incident.“
Reyes was shot in the left eye, said Fermín Gómez, an assistant attorney general for the state of Baja California. He fell at the foot of a tree on the Mexican side of the border fence. Because of the cross-border nature of the incident, the investigation has been taken over by the federal Attorney General’s office, and that they are collaborating with U.S. authorities.
Born in the state of Sinaloa, Yañez Reyes described by Mexican authorities as a longtime Tijuana resident who lived with his 18-year-old girlfriend and their son in a western area of the city called Colonia Santa Rosa.
The woman, Mayra Paredes Niño, gave a statement to the Mexican federal attorney general’s office Wednesday afternoon. She did not make a comment as she left the building.
Paredes, who is five months pregnant, said Yañez had not spoken to her of his intention of crossing to the United States, according Baja California’s human rights ombudsman, Heriberto García, who met with her following the shooting. Paredes said that Yañez worked as a tow truck operator and occasionally helped his father as a laborer, according to García. He was separated from his wife and three children, who live in Ensenada.
Christian Ramirez, national coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, called the shooting “another abuse of authority by Border Patrol agents.”
“We are very concerned by this pattern of violence along the U.S.-Mexican border,” Ramirez said.
He said he heard different versions of what may have happened.
Mexican human rights organizations have said that Yañez was walking toward a car impound lot, to recover his vehicle that had been stolen earlier in the week. He was to meet his wife there, Ramirez said.
“We have not confirmed whether Jose Alfredo was trying to enter the United States, was throwing rocks, or a passerby,” he said.
The four other fatal shootings since 2008 occurred in San Diego, Arizona and Texas.
In August 2008, a 23-year-old man was shot on Mexican soil west of the San Ysidro border when Border agents opened fire after being subject to a rock attack by a group of people suspected of trying to illegally enter the United States.
In 2010, an agent shot and killed a 15-year-old boy who authorities said was throwing rocks at him near the border in El Paso. In January, a 17-year-old who was also said to be throwing rocks was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent near Nogales, Ariz.
In March a 19-year-old U.S. citizen who was allegedly running from agents was shot and killed near Douglas, Ariz. after a rock throwing incident.
The Border Patrol reports that 20 agents in the San Diego sector have died in the line of duty since 1925 including Agent Robert Rosas Jr. who was ambushed and killed in July 2009 near the border fence in Campo.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jun/22/border-shooting-re-ignites-use-force-debate/
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Read County Judge Escobar's testimony at Senate committee hearing on border security
El Paso Times
April 7, 2011
Below is a prepared statement of County Judge Veronica Escobar's testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:
I have the honor of being the County Judge for El Paso, Texas, the greatest community in the U.S. In Texas, the County Judge is the Chief Executive of the County. In this administrative capacity, I preside over a five-member commissioners court, which has budgetary and administrative authority over county government operations. The County Judge is elected county-wide. That means, as of the 2010 Census, I represent 800,000 people in the world's largest bi-national metropolitan community.
El Paso also happens to be the safest city of our size in America, and we've consistently been ranked among the top three safest communities for well over a decade. Not only do we have some of the lowest crime rates in the nation, but a recent poll of our citizens shows that we know we are safe and we feel safe.
I appreciate the opportunity to share the border experience with all of you. It's sometimes frustrating when policies created and laws passed in D.C. do not address the realities that border residents live.
Residents who live on the U.S.-Mexico Border have seen their communities used as a convenient backdrop to heated debates and political posturing about immigration and drug policies. Incredibly, it's been said by some elected officials-two from our own state-that there are bombs going off in the streets of El Paso. That is absolutely untrue. As a border community, we have challenges, no doubt, but exploding bombs are not among them.
What happens when the rhetoric escalates and the facts get lost? It hurts my local economy; it hurts our ability to recruit talent; it negatively affects our convention business; and it doesn't solve the real problems.
We are all concerned about and devastated by the tragedies occurring every day on the other side of our river - the drug war raging on the streets of Ciudad Juárez. I am glad for the assistance being given Mexico, and I hope there is more to come, including discussions about our own contributions to the drug war that is devastating Juárez and El Paso families. In the mean time illegal drugs continue to flow north to feed Americans' insatiable appetite for them; U.S. guns used in that bloodshed continue to move south; and El Paso, like other border cities, is a corridor caught in the middle of that north/south activity as well as the rhetoric that emanates from our state's and nation's capitols.
My local law enforcement agents are dealing with transnational gang activity; my jail houses them; our prosecutors are pursuing charges against them in court; and my local property tax base is shouldering much of that burden.
The federal government has been aware of the costs associated with the challenges we face on the border and the burden carried by local property taxpayers; your financial assistance is very much appreciated, especially through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) and High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) funds. However, according to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, HIDTA funds have remained relatively stable since the program's inception over 10 years ago. Meanwhile, salaries, benefits and equipment costs have all increased over time; we either have to scale back operations or fund increases on the backs of local property taxpayers. SCAAP funds are also very much appreciated but only cover a small portion (10-15%) of the costs of housing these offenders. And, unfortunately, in the 2012 budget, SCAAP funds are being reduced by 60%, which would mean yet another increased burden on my residents.
Federal grants offer a supplement that we appreciate, but they can be inflexible. For example, the 2010 Operation Stonegarden grant did not allow us to purchase vehicles, which we badly needed. That significantly diminishes our capacity to effectively patrol the County of El Paso, which consists of over 1,060 square miles, 47 miles of which are adjacent to our international border.
We need help with investments that supplement our ability to recruit and hire more officers. The COPS grants have poured money into Texas but the El Paso County Sheriff's Office has been passed over for two years. The El Paso Police Department likewise has been ignored. Meanwhile cities like San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Austin have received funding for as many as 50 new officers. These are not border cities. Let me repeat: These are not border cities. My Sheriff's office needs "boots on the ground." While receiving funding for overtime is helpful, our officers are getting burned out.
We are concerned that with the talk of slashing budgets and cutting support to our communities, we will erode the gains we have made in getting the federal government to assist us as we assist you.
When the war between cartels began to reach a critical level in Ciudad Juárez, we saw a pattern emerge that we never predicted and hasn't stopped. Our county hospital district, which houses the only Level 1 trauma center in our region-the next closest center is 275 miles away-began seeing victims of the violence who were rushed through our ports of entry and into our ER. Since 2008, we've spent $4.9 million in trauma care specifically for these victims; to date, we've been compensated for only $1.2 million, leaving local property taxpayers to pick up $3.7 million in uncompensated costs. We've repeatedly requested funding from the Merida initiative to help off-set the costs borne by local property taxpayers because we just don't see that financial burden diminishing - unless the U.S. changes its drug policies or the cartels suddenly declare a cease fire.
Where has some of the federal funding gone, if not to my trauma facility or increasing my law enforcement capacity? It's gone to a wall. While federal law enforcement has gone on the record to praise the border wall, it is to me and others an example of considerable federal dollars being spent on a rusting monument that makes my community look like a junk-yard.
The vast majority of border crossers are not criminals, but economic migrants; and as you know, a significant amount of illegal drugs are funneled through our ports of entry.
A true fix to undocumented immigration could come from comprehensive immigration reform that would create a path for the undocumented to regularize their status, institute migrant worker visas, and, in general, offer a realistic, common-sense approach to a complicated challenge. And comprehensive immigration reform will finally take away the platform used by state politicians who want local police and sheriff's departments to enforce federal immigration laws. For the record, the El Paso County Sheriff, the El Paso Police Chief, the El Paso Mayor, Congressman Reyes and I all oppose having local law enforcement officers enforce federal immigration laws.
Community policing, the strategy utilized so effectively by local law enforcement in El Paso, involves building trust and relationships between law enforcement and citizens that helps solve crimes and keep neighborhoods crime-free. If my sheriff's deputies are required by the Texas legislature to enforce federal immigration laws, and if they become de-facto immigration officers, that trust disappears, families become afraid to report crime, and we become a less safe community.
Another facet of an overall fix should focus on our border ports. Our ports of entry should be as modern as our cell phones are. Unfortunately, they are not. They lack significant investment in staff and infrastructure, and what should be a point of opportunity becomes simply a point of obstruction. Every year, $30 billion of commerce comes across El Paso's ports, but a minimum of at least an hour wait for vehicles and up to 2 - 3 hour wait times for pedestrians during peak periods, creates a disincentive. Consider what that wait feels like, especially for pedestrians, in the sweltering summer southwest sun.
To help be a part of the solution, El Paso County has partnered with our Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to access FHWA funds for a Southwest Border Trade Demonstration Project (SBTDP) that will use the latest technology to track trucks coming across our ports of entry. It's a solution that, if successful, will help ease the congestion and help create smarter, more secure and efficient ports of entry that keep people and goods moving. We need more solutions like this for our ports of entry so that they are not complete bottlenecks where cars and trucks idle for hours, polluting our air and harming our economy.
I live in a thriving, safe and wonderful border community. I am fiercely loyal to and very proud of El Paso. While some politicians like to use caricatures of the border for purposes of political rhetoric-rhetoric that portrays our communities as dangerous, volatile, and unsafe-the reality for us couldn't be more different. Don't get me wrong. We have challenges, but those challenges can be addressed much more effectively by more responsible burden-sharing by the Federal government, whose mission it is to secure our borders and, by extension, our public safety, our commerce, and our immigrant population. We are indeed on the front-lines and a safe border means a safe nation. But vilifying immigrants, building expensive, ugly walls, and encouraging hysteria and xenophobia only hurts our border communities, our commerce, and the economy of the nation.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_17793766
April 7, 2011
Below is a prepared statement of County Judge Veronica Escobar's testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:
I have the honor of being the County Judge for El Paso, Texas, the greatest community in the U.S. In Texas, the County Judge is the Chief Executive of the County. In this administrative capacity, I preside over a five-member commissioners court, which has budgetary and administrative authority over county government operations. The County Judge is elected county-wide. That means, as of the 2010 Census, I represent 800,000 people in the world's largest bi-national metropolitan community.
El Paso also happens to be the safest city of our size in America, and we've consistently been ranked among the top three safest communities for well over a decade. Not only do we have some of the lowest crime rates in the nation, but a recent poll of our citizens shows that we know we are safe and we feel safe.
I appreciate the opportunity to share the border experience with all of you. It's sometimes frustrating when policies created and laws passed in D.C. do not address the realities that border residents live.
Residents who live on the U.S.-Mexico Border have seen their communities used as a convenient backdrop to heated debates and political posturing about immigration and drug policies. Incredibly, it's been said by some elected officials-two from our own state-that there are bombs going off in the streets of El Paso. That is absolutely untrue. As a border community, we have challenges, no doubt, but exploding bombs are not among them.
What happens when the rhetoric escalates and the facts get lost? It hurts my local economy; it hurts our ability to recruit talent; it negatively affects our convention business; and it doesn't solve the real problems.
We are all concerned about and devastated by the tragedies occurring every day on the other side of our river - the drug war raging on the streets of Ciudad Juárez. I am glad for the assistance being given Mexico, and I hope there is more to come, including discussions about our own contributions to the drug war that is devastating Juárez and El Paso families. In the mean time illegal drugs continue to flow north to feed Americans' insatiable appetite for them; U.S. guns used in that bloodshed continue to move south; and El Paso, like other border cities, is a corridor caught in the middle of that north/south activity as well as the rhetoric that emanates from our state's and nation's capitols.
My local law enforcement agents are dealing with transnational gang activity; my jail houses them; our prosecutors are pursuing charges against them in court; and my local property tax base is shouldering much of that burden.
The federal government has been aware of the costs associated with the challenges we face on the border and the burden carried by local property taxpayers; your financial assistance is very much appreciated, especially through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) and High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) funds. However, according to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, HIDTA funds have remained relatively stable since the program's inception over 10 years ago. Meanwhile, salaries, benefits and equipment costs have all increased over time; we either have to scale back operations or fund increases on the backs of local property taxpayers. SCAAP funds are also very much appreciated but only cover a small portion (10-15%) of the costs of housing these offenders. And, unfortunately, in the 2012 budget, SCAAP funds are being reduced by 60%, which would mean yet another increased burden on my residents.
Federal grants offer a supplement that we appreciate, but they can be inflexible. For example, the 2010 Operation Stonegarden grant did not allow us to purchase vehicles, which we badly needed. That significantly diminishes our capacity to effectively patrol the County of El Paso, which consists of over 1,060 square miles, 47 miles of which are adjacent to our international border.
We need help with investments that supplement our ability to recruit and hire more officers. The COPS grants have poured money into Texas but the El Paso County Sheriff's Office has been passed over for two years. The El Paso Police Department likewise has been ignored. Meanwhile cities like San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Austin have received funding for as many as 50 new officers. These are not border cities. Let me repeat: These are not border cities. My Sheriff's office needs "boots on the ground." While receiving funding for overtime is helpful, our officers are getting burned out.
We are concerned that with the talk of slashing budgets and cutting support to our communities, we will erode the gains we have made in getting the federal government to assist us as we assist you.
When the war between cartels began to reach a critical level in Ciudad Juárez, we saw a pattern emerge that we never predicted and hasn't stopped. Our county hospital district, which houses the only Level 1 trauma center in our region-the next closest center is 275 miles away-began seeing victims of the violence who were rushed through our ports of entry and into our ER. Since 2008, we've spent $4.9 million in trauma care specifically for these victims; to date, we've been compensated for only $1.2 million, leaving local property taxpayers to pick up $3.7 million in uncompensated costs. We've repeatedly requested funding from the Merida initiative to help off-set the costs borne by local property taxpayers because we just don't see that financial burden diminishing - unless the U.S. changes its drug policies or the cartels suddenly declare a cease fire.
Where has some of the federal funding gone, if not to my trauma facility or increasing my law enforcement capacity? It's gone to a wall. While federal law enforcement has gone on the record to praise the border wall, it is to me and others an example of considerable federal dollars being spent on a rusting monument that makes my community look like a junk-yard.
The vast majority of border crossers are not criminals, but economic migrants; and as you know, a significant amount of illegal drugs are funneled through our ports of entry.
A true fix to undocumented immigration could come from comprehensive immigration reform that would create a path for the undocumented to regularize their status, institute migrant worker visas, and, in general, offer a realistic, common-sense approach to a complicated challenge. And comprehensive immigration reform will finally take away the platform used by state politicians who want local police and sheriff's departments to enforce federal immigration laws. For the record, the El Paso County Sheriff, the El Paso Police Chief, the El Paso Mayor, Congressman Reyes and I all oppose having local law enforcement officers enforce federal immigration laws.
Community policing, the strategy utilized so effectively by local law enforcement in El Paso, involves building trust and relationships between law enforcement and citizens that helps solve crimes and keep neighborhoods crime-free. If my sheriff's deputies are required by the Texas legislature to enforce federal immigration laws, and if they become de-facto immigration officers, that trust disappears, families become afraid to report crime, and we become a less safe community.
Another facet of an overall fix should focus on our border ports. Our ports of entry should be as modern as our cell phones are. Unfortunately, they are not. They lack significant investment in staff and infrastructure, and what should be a point of opportunity becomes simply a point of obstruction. Every year, $30 billion of commerce comes across El Paso's ports, but a minimum of at least an hour wait for vehicles and up to 2 - 3 hour wait times for pedestrians during peak periods, creates a disincentive. Consider what that wait feels like, especially for pedestrians, in the sweltering summer southwest sun.
To help be a part of the solution, El Paso County has partnered with our Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to access FHWA funds for a Southwest Border Trade Demonstration Project (SBTDP) that will use the latest technology to track trucks coming across our ports of entry. It's a solution that, if successful, will help ease the congestion and help create smarter, more secure and efficient ports of entry that keep people and goods moving. We need more solutions like this for our ports of entry so that they are not complete bottlenecks where cars and trucks idle for hours, polluting our air and harming our economy.
I live in a thriving, safe and wonderful border community. I am fiercely loyal to and very proud of El Paso. While some politicians like to use caricatures of the border for purposes of political rhetoric-rhetoric that portrays our communities as dangerous, volatile, and unsafe-the reality for us couldn't be more different. Don't get me wrong. We have challenges, but those challenges can be addressed much more effectively by more responsible burden-sharing by the Federal government, whose mission it is to secure our borders and, by extension, our public safety, our commerce, and our immigrant population. We are indeed on the front-lines and a safe border means a safe nation. But vilifying immigrants, building expensive, ugly walls, and encouraging hysteria and xenophobia only hurts our border communities, our commerce, and the economy of the nation.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_17793766
Border hearing: Escobar, McCain spar on security
El Paso Times
April 8, 2011
by Aileen B. Flores
Federal funding has not met growing demands for law enforcement agencies along the U.S.-Mexico border to meet the appetite for a secure border, County Judge Veronica Escobar said Thursday.
Escobar was part of a delegation that testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in Washington, D.C.
During her testimony, she and committee member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., disagreed on the value of a border fence.
Escobar said, "While federal law enforcement has gone on the record to praise the border wall, it is, to me and others, an example of considerable federal dollars being spent on a rusting monument that makes my community look like a junkyard.
"We are indeed on the front lines, and a safe border means a safe nation," she said. "But vilifying immigrants, building expensive, ugly walls, and encouraging hysteria and xenophobia only hurts our border communities, our commerce and the economy of the nation."
McCain said her comments do not apply to Arizona's citizens.
"I don't view ranchers who live in the southern part of my state who had repeated home invasions as xenophobic," he said.
McCain talked about several violent incidents in southern Arizona. He also mentioned signs posted along the Arizona border warning residents against traveling in certain areas because of potential drug and human smugglers.
He said drug smuggling has changed the jobs of border law enforcement. McCain said sheriff's deputies' jobs in border communities are more difficult, more challenging and more dangerous than ever before.
He repeatedly said he does not believe the U.S. border is immune to being affected by Mexico's violence.
"There is no logic associated with that," he said.
McCain said he appreciated the fact that U.S. border cities are safe but, to him, the statement is not logical when Mexico's violence is increasing.
McCain added that the National Guard's presence along the U.S.-Mexico border is "indispensable." He said the National Guard supplements the U.S. Border Patrol.
Escobar said the federal government has supported local law enforcement agencies through programs, funds and grants. But funding has not grown along the border over the years to meet law enforcement's needs.
"The federal funds coming into my community are critical and are not enough," she said. Escobar also said this has caused property taxes to increase and law enforcement agencies to make operational cuts.
Escobar said El Paso County has requested money from the Merida Initiative, a multiyear program that helps the governments of Mexico, Central American nations, the Dominican Republic and Haiti to confront criminal organizations.
But the U.S. government has not given the county any money from Merida, Escobar told the panel.
Specifically talking about Juárez, Escobar said the continuing pattern of violence has led to an increase in people seeking treatment at El Paso's University Medical Center trauma center.
Since 2008, El Paso County has spent close to $5 million in trauma care for victims of the Juárez violence -- of which only $1.2 million has been collected -- Escobar said.
Escobar credits El Paso's safety to a good relationship between law enforcement officials and residents.
"We depend on that relationship to keep us safe," she said. She added that El Paso has achieved its designation of America's safest city despite its proximity to Juárez -- called by many the world's most dangerous city.
Escobar voiced her support for comprehensive immigration reform and was clear that El Paso officials are against local law enforcement enforcing immigration laws.
Escobar asked for better technology and equipment for the international ports of entry and said it would speed up crossing times.
She was one of four witnesses in Thursday's hearing, which focused on illegal immigration and border-related crime in border communities.
Other witnesses were Imperial County (Calif.) Sheriff Raymond Loera, Luna County (N.M.) Sheriff Raymond Cobos and Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu.
Cobos testified that Mexico's violence has affected his community in an indirect way.
He talked about a recent incident in which the Columbus, N.M., police chief, its mayor, a village trustee and eight others were charged with trafficking firearms to Mexican cartels.
Cobos also voiced his support of the border fence and said it has deterred women and children from crossing illegally.
The delegation's testimony was part of a series of hearings that will study progress made during the past 10 years as a result of substantial federal support to secure the U.S. border with Mexico.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_17792139
April 8, 2011
by Aileen B. Flores
Federal funding has not met growing demands for law enforcement agencies along the U.S.-Mexico border to meet the appetite for a secure border, County Judge Veronica Escobar said Thursday.
Escobar was part of a delegation that testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in Washington, D.C.
During her testimony, she and committee member Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., disagreed on the value of a border fence.
Escobar said, "While federal law enforcement has gone on the record to praise the border wall, it is, to me and others, an example of considerable federal dollars being spent on a rusting monument that makes my community look like a junkyard.
"We are indeed on the front lines, and a safe border means a safe nation," she said. "But vilifying immigrants, building expensive, ugly walls, and encouraging hysteria and xenophobia only hurts our border communities, our commerce and the economy of the nation."
McCain said her comments do not apply to Arizona's citizens.
"I don't view ranchers who live in the southern part of my state who had repeated home invasions as xenophobic," he said.
McCain talked about several violent incidents in southern Arizona. He also mentioned signs posted along the Arizona border warning residents against traveling in certain areas because of potential drug and human smugglers.
He said drug smuggling has changed the jobs of border law enforcement. McCain said sheriff's deputies' jobs in border communities are more difficult, more challenging and more dangerous than ever before.
He repeatedly said he does not believe the U.S. border is immune to being affected by Mexico's violence.
"There is no logic associated with that," he said.
McCain said he appreciated the fact that U.S. border cities are safe but, to him, the statement is not logical when Mexico's violence is increasing.
McCain added that the National Guard's presence along the U.S.-Mexico border is "indispensable." He said the National Guard supplements the U.S. Border Patrol.
Escobar said the federal government has supported local law enforcement agencies through programs, funds and grants. But funding has not grown along the border over the years to meet law enforcement's needs.
"The federal funds coming into my community are critical and are not enough," she said. Escobar also said this has caused property taxes to increase and law enforcement agencies to make operational cuts.
Escobar said El Paso County has requested money from the Merida Initiative, a multiyear program that helps the governments of Mexico, Central American nations, the Dominican Republic and Haiti to confront criminal organizations.
But the U.S. government has not given the county any money from Merida, Escobar told the panel.
Specifically talking about Juárez, Escobar said the continuing pattern of violence has led to an increase in people seeking treatment at El Paso's University Medical Center trauma center.
Since 2008, El Paso County has spent close to $5 million in trauma care for victims of the Juárez violence -- of which only $1.2 million has been collected -- Escobar said.
Escobar credits El Paso's safety to a good relationship between law enforcement officials and residents.
"We depend on that relationship to keep us safe," she said. She added that El Paso has achieved its designation of America's safest city despite its proximity to Juárez -- called by many the world's most dangerous city.
Escobar voiced her support for comprehensive immigration reform and was clear that El Paso officials are against local law enforcement enforcing immigration laws.
Escobar asked for better technology and equipment for the international ports of entry and said it would speed up crossing times.
She was one of four witnesses in Thursday's hearing, which focused on illegal immigration and border-related crime in border communities.
Other witnesses were Imperial County (Calif.) Sheriff Raymond Loera, Luna County (N.M.) Sheriff Raymond Cobos and Pinal County (Ariz.) Sheriff Paul Babeu.
Cobos testified that Mexico's violence has affected his community in an indirect way.
He talked about a recent incident in which the Columbus, N.M., police chief, its mayor, a village trustee and eight others were charged with trafficking firearms to Mexican cartels.
Cobos also voiced his support of the border fence and said it has deterred women and children from crossing illegally.
The delegation's testimony was part of a series of hearings that will study progress made during the past 10 years as a result of substantial federal support to secure the U.S. border with Mexico.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_17792139
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Details of teen's death at border seem elusive
Arizona Daily Star
January 8, 2011
by Brady McCombs
NOGALES, Sonora - As family and friends cried over his casket in a house just south of the border, the facts surrounding how Ramses Barron Torres died earlier this week remained murky.
What is known for certain is that Barron, 17, died shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday near the U.S.-Mexico border fence less than a mile east of downtown Nogales during an apparent confrontation with Border Patrol agents. What exactly occurred in a shallow wash between two hills, however, is unclear.
Sonoran state police who investigated the incident said Barron was fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent as the teen was climbing the border fence.
An autopsy determined the cause of death was a bullet that entered through the outside of his right arm and went through his chest, puncturing his lungs and spleen, according to a news release from the state police.
A spokesman for the Sonoran Attorney General's Office told the Nogales (Ariz.) International newspaper there is a Nogales, Sonora, police surveillance video of the incident but the office hasn't reviewed it yet. Calls to that office by the Arizona Daily Star were not returned.
The FBI, which is investigating the incident as an assault on a federal agent, wouldn't confirm or deny if Barron was fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent.
FBI spokesman Manuel Johnson has said agents were attempting to apprehend drug-smuggling suspects when other people began throwing rocks at them. An agent fired at the rock throwers, but it's unknown what happened after that, Johnson said.
"Due to the investigation remaining ongoing it would be inappropriate to make further comments at this time," Johnson wrote in an e-mail Friday.
The Border Patrol has confirmed that at least one agent fired shots while agents were assaulted with rocks by several people. That agent, whose identity has not been released, is on administrative leave, said Border Patrol spokeswoman Colleen Agle.
"A thorough, multiagency investigation is currently ongoing," she said in an e-mailed statement.
Family members say Barron was probably crossing over the fence to visit his girlfriend who lives in Nogales, Ariz.
The family said the teen was with a friend at the time. The friend later told them that Barron was standing on the Mexican side of the fence when he was hit by the bullet.
A report from Nogales, Sonora, police said Barron was dropped off at a hospital in Nogales, Sonora, by three men who drove away after setting him on the ground.
"I don't know what he was doing at 3 a.m., but I know he was a good kid," said Oscar Sierra, Barron's uncle. "It sucks. He was only 17. He was a beautiful kid."
Several large signs hung from the chain-link fence in front of the family's house demanding justice.
"We demand justice and that the assassin of Ramses, son of Calle del Rey, be given impunity. We ask for the government's assistance," said a sign in Spanish.
Calle del Rey is the street where Barron lived with his mother and 12-year-old sister in a small house in the steep hills east of downtown.
He grew up in the poor neighborhood along the border. Their house is about 1,000 feet from where the shooting occurred.
Dozens of friends mingled inside, on the porch and on the dirt street. Many wore T-shirts with Barron's picture that said in Spanish: "We will always remember you. Rest in peace." Many of the men wore hats that read "Rest in peace Ramses," with his date of birth and death.
He had many friends and almost as many girlfriends, said his stepfather, Armando Caraveo. "He was very popular," Caraveo said. "Look at all these people."
His mother, Zelma Berenice Barron Torres, called him a good boy who liked to spend time on the Internet, listen to music and dance. He was still a student, and was getting ready to take a blacksmith's class, she said.
"He was very happy; he had a lot of friends," she said in Spanish. "He wasn't a drug addict."
She has a meeting Monday with Mexican Consulate officials but she's unsure what it's about. She hopes they can help make sure a thorough investigation is carried out.
"That's why we want justice," she said, pointing to the casket. "We don't want them to get impunity. If they let this go, they are going to let other things go, too, and everyone over there (United States) is going to get off free."
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_2335d8fc-57ed-5f43-abcb-2fd1a8b5d977.html
January 8, 2011
by Brady McCombs
NOGALES, Sonora - As family and friends cried over his casket in a house just south of the border, the facts surrounding how Ramses Barron Torres died earlier this week remained murky.
What is known for certain is that Barron, 17, died shortly after 3 a.m. Wednesday near the U.S.-Mexico border fence less than a mile east of downtown Nogales during an apparent confrontation with Border Patrol agents. What exactly occurred in a shallow wash between two hills, however, is unclear.
Sonoran state police who investigated the incident said Barron was fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent as the teen was climbing the border fence.
An autopsy determined the cause of death was a bullet that entered through the outside of his right arm and went through his chest, puncturing his lungs and spleen, according to a news release from the state police.
A spokesman for the Sonoran Attorney General's Office told the Nogales (Ariz.) International newspaper there is a Nogales, Sonora, police surveillance video of the incident but the office hasn't reviewed it yet. Calls to that office by the Arizona Daily Star were not returned.
The FBI, which is investigating the incident as an assault on a federal agent, wouldn't confirm or deny if Barron was fatally shot by a Border Patrol agent.
FBI spokesman Manuel Johnson has said agents were attempting to apprehend drug-smuggling suspects when other people began throwing rocks at them. An agent fired at the rock throwers, but it's unknown what happened after that, Johnson said.
"Due to the investigation remaining ongoing it would be inappropriate to make further comments at this time," Johnson wrote in an e-mail Friday.
The Border Patrol has confirmed that at least one agent fired shots while agents were assaulted with rocks by several people. That agent, whose identity has not been released, is on administrative leave, said Border Patrol spokeswoman Colleen Agle.
"A thorough, multiagency investigation is currently ongoing," she said in an e-mailed statement.
Family members say Barron was probably crossing over the fence to visit his girlfriend who lives in Nogales, Ariz.
The family said the teen was with a friend at the time. The friend later told them that Barron was standing on the Mexican side of the fence when he was hit by the bullet.
A report from Nogales, Sonora, police said Barron was dropped off at a hospital in Nogales, Sonora, by three men who drove away after setting him on the ground.
"I don't know what he was doing at 3 a.m., but I know he was a good kid," said Oscar Sierra, Barron's uncle. "It sucks. He was only 17. He was a beautiful kid."
Several large signs hung from the chain-link fence in front of the family's house demanding justice.
"We demand justice and that the assassin of Ramses, son of Calle del Rey, be given impunity. We ask for the government's assistance," said a sign in Spanish.
Calle del Rey is the street where Barron lived with his mother and 12-year-old sister in a small house in the steep hills east of downtown.
He grew up in the poor neighborhood along the border. Their house is about 1,000 feet from where the shooting occurred.
Dozens of friends mingled inside, on the porch and on the dirt street. Many wore T-shirts with Barron's picture that said in Spanish: "We will always remember you. Rest in peace." Many of the men wore hats that read "Rest in peace Ramses," with his date of birth and death.
He had many friends and almost as many girlfriends, said his stepfather, Armando Caraveo. "He was very popular," Caraveo said. "Look at all these people."
His mother, Zelma Berenice Barron Torres, called him a good boy who liked to spend time on the Internet, listen to music and dance. He was still a student, and was getting ready to take a blacksmith's class, she said.
"He was very happy; he had a lot of friends," she said in Spanish. "He wasn't a drug addict."
She has a meeting Monday with Mexican Consulate officials but she's unsure what it's about. She hopes they can help make sure a thorough investigation is carried out.
"That's why we want justice," she said, pointing to the casket. "We don't want them to get impunity. If they let this go, they are going to let other things go, too, and everyone over there (United States) is going to get off free."
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_2335d8fc-57ed-5f43-abcb-2fd1a8b5d977.html
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Mexican teen dies after border incident
Sierra Vista Herald
January 6, 2011
by Jonathan Clark
NOGALES — A Mexican teenager who died after a confrontation early Monday morning with Border Patrol agents in Nogales was killed by a gunshot, Sonoran officials say.
The Sonora State Investigative Police, or PEI, said 17-year-old Ramses Barron Torres, who died shortly after 3 a.m. Monday at a Nogales, Sonora, hospital, was shot in the back of the right arm, with the bullet continuing into his chest cavity, puncturing a lung, and lodging in the left side of his ribcage.
The Border Patrol has declined to comment on the incident, as has the FBI, whose investigators scoured the scene of the incident below the Hudgins Street turnaround on Wednesday morning. Nogales Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkham said one of his officers went to the scene, “but all he could get was the location and that it involved an agent and a UDA (undocumented alien).”
The PEI said it was notified at approximately 3:10 a.m. that a dead body had been dropped off in front of the emergency room at the Hospital General in Nogales, Sonora. Arriving at the hospital, officers found the body of Barron Torres, showing “bruises and abrasions on different parts of his body.”
A prosecutor ordered an immediate autopsy, which determined that the cause of death had been a gunshot wound, the PEI said.
An incident report from the Nogales, Sonora municipal police said that a security guard at the hospital reported seeing a cherry-colored Dodge Durango with Arizona license plates pull up to the hospital at around 3 a.m. Three men got out of the vehicle, pulled a fourth man out and laid him on the ground before speeding off, the report said.
However, the PEI statement said one of the men cried out for a stretcher, saying he had an injured person who needed attention. As emergency personnel searched for vital signs, the three passengers told them that Barron Torres had been climbing the border wall when a Border Patrol agent shot him once. He then fell onto a pile of gravel on the Mexican side of the fence, the men said.
Earlier on Wednesday, The Associated Press quoted Nogales, Sonora, city spokesman Alejandro Palacios as saying that Barron Torres died after he fell from the border fence and hit his head on a rock.
Palacios told the AP that Border Patrol agents fired warning shots in the air after the teen and other youths had illegally crossed the border and began throwing rocks at them. He said none of the youths were shot.
Reached by the Nogales International, Palacios declined to confirm that account and referred all questions to the PEI.
http://www.svherald.com/content/news/2011/01/06/mexican-teen-dies-after-border-incident
January 6, 2011
by Jonathan Clark
NOGALES — A Mexican teenager who died after a confrontation early Monday morning with Border Patrol agents in Nogales was killed by a gunshot, Sonoran officials say.
The Sonora State Investigative Police, or PEI, said 17-year-old Ramses Barron Torres, who died shortly after 3 a.m. Monday at a Nogales, Sonora, hospital, was shot in the back of the right arm, with the bullet continuing into his chest cavity, puncturing a lung, and lodging in the left side of his ribcage.
The Border Patrol has declined to comment on the incident, as has the FBI, whose investigators scoured the scene of the incident below the Hudgins Street turnaround on Wednesday morning. Nogales Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkham said one of his officers went to the scene, “but all he could get was the location and that it involved an agent and a UDA (undocumented alien).”
The PEI said it was notified at approximately 3:10 a.m. that a dead body had been dropped off in front of the emergency room at the Hospital General in Nogales, Sonora. Arriving at the hospital, officers found the body of Barron Torres, showing “bruises and abrasions on different parts of his body.”
A prosecutor ordered an immediate autopsy, which determined that the cause of death had been a gunshot wound, the PEI said.
An incident report from the Nogales, Sonora municipal police said that a security guard at the hospital reported seeing a cherry-colored Dodge Durango with Arizona license plates pull up to the hospital at around 3 a.m. Three men got out of the vehicle, pulled a fourth man out and laid him on the ground before speeding off, the report said.
However, the PEI statement said one of the men cried out for a stretcher, saying he had an injured person who needed attention. As emergency personnel searched for vital signs, the three passengers told them that Barron Torres had been climbing the border wall when a Border Patrol agent shot him once. He then fell onto a pile of gravel on the Mexican side of the fence, the men said.
Earlier on Wednesday, The Associated Press quoted Nogales, Sonora, city spokesman Alejandro Palacios as saying that Barron Torres died after he fell from the border fence and hit his head on a rock.
Palacios told the AP that Border Patrol agents fired warning shots in the air after the teen and other youths had illegally crossed the border and began throwing rocks at them. He said none of the youths were shot.
Reached by the Nogales International, Palacios declined to confirm that account and referred all questions to the PEI.
http://www.svherald.com/content/news/2011/01/06/mexican-teen-dies-after-border-incident
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
El Paso murders, crime rate overall fall
El Paso Times
August 3, 2010
by Daniel Borunda
EL PASO -- About 1,700 homicides have occurred in Juárez this year. El Paso has had one.
Despite the rampant bloodshed in Mexico, the overall crime rate in El Paso has decreased slightly this year.
The drop in murders comes as the El Paso City Council mulls raising taxes or furloughing police officers. Neighborhood Watch groups this evening will get together for block parties as part of the anti-crime National Night Out.
Police officials said crime is down 1 percent citywide with decreases in the number of murders, burglaries, auto thefts and vehicle break-ins. Assaults are up 4 percent and robberies have remained the same.
One homicide this year is unusual even for a city that normally has few slayings. El Paso, estimated population of 751,000, had seven homicides at this time last year. The year ended with 13 homicides.
"It almost defies explanation," said Jack Levin, one of the nation's best known criminologists. "I can't think of another city in the U.S., another large city, that has only had one homicide. It's absolutely outstanding."
Homicides in recent years have been declining nationally with the aging of the baby boomer generation, said Levin, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston.
Levin, in a telephone interview, said cities with large Latino immigrant populations, such as El Paso, San Diego and San Jose, Calif., tend to have low crime rates.
"Immigrants -- whether from Mexico, Italy, or Poland -- have often left family and friends to have a new life and begin anew," Levin said. "They are very success oriented, middle class. They simply have a very low crime rate."
But Levin said that while the immigrant factor helps explain El Paso's low crime numbers, it doesn't explain why murders would plummet one year to the next.
"I've actually said to the reporters in other cities, 'If you want to be safe from murder, move to El Paso,' " Levin said.
However, Levin cautioned, killings tend to occur in clusters and the rest of the year could be different.
Detective Mike Baranyay, an El Paso police spokesman, said the credit for the drop in crime goes to police working with residents who are willing to report suspicious activity.
"The community, I believe, is really taking an active role in keeping their community safe," Baranyay said.
Tina Gianes, president of the Neighborhood Watch Association of El Paso, said most of the complaints she hears are about cars speeding on residential streets or shady door-to-door salesmen.
Gianes said one of the reasons El Paso has a reputation as a safe city is because crime is kept from escalating because residents will report suspicious activity.
"I think more people are getting involved. They are not afraid to speakup," she said.
The contrast is Juárez. The city of 1.3 million has been described as the murder capital of Mexico and one of the most dangerous cities in the world. A two-year war between the Sinaloa and Juárez drug cartels has escalated to the use of car bombs, explosives and frequent attacks on police.
Levin said the drug violence in Mexico has its roots in extreme poverty, powerful organized crime gangs and a "tremendous amount of corruption."
The violence in Juárez is the backdrop as the city of El Paso struggles with its budget and a contract dispute with the police union that could lead to higher property taxes, the canceling of a police academy class or furloughs for police officers.
The El Paso police union last week voted against reopening contract negotiations.
The city wanted to delay a 2 percent cost of living raise that is due Sept. 1. The city has made $3.5 million in cuts to its budget and is looking to cut $1 million more.
A crime is committed in El Paso every 16.1 minutes, according to a "crime clock" in the police budget presentation using data from last year. A murder occurred every 28 days.
Ron Martin, president of the El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association, said taking officers off the street will affect services.
"If you are already stretched thin, how are you going to furlough officers and not affect response times?" Martin said.
Some members of the City Council have argued that further budget cuts to other public services are not feasible.
"City Council can say whatever they want," Martin said. "They are not the ones who reduce crime. It is the police officers. Crime has been reduced because officers are out there every day."
Levin, the criminologist, said other cities face the same dilemma.
"El Paso may save money by reducing the size of the police force, perhaps reducing programs for children, but in the long term it will be very costly," Levin said.
"Part of the reason the crime rate is low is El Paso has been willing to spend the money to keep youngsters busy and supervised and keeping police on the streets," Levin said. "You can pay now or you can pay later. But one way or another, you pay."
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_15663742?source=email
August 3, 2010
by Daniel Borunda
EL PASO -- About 1,700 homicides have occurred in Juárez this year. El Paso has had one.
Despite the rampant bloodshed in Mexico, the overall crime rate in El Paso has decreased slightly this year.
The drop in murders comes as the El Paso City Council mulls raising taxes or furloughing police officers. Neighborhood Watch groups this evening will get together for block parties as part of the anti-crime National Night Out.
Police officials said crime is down 1 percent citywide with decreases in the number of murders, burglaries, auto thefts and vehicle break-ins. Assaults are up 4 percent and robberies have remained the same.
One homicide this year is unusual even for a city that normally has few slayings. El Paso, estimated population of 751,000, had seven homicides at this time last year. The year ended with 13 homicides.
"It almost defies explanation," said Jack Levin, one of the nation's best known criminologists. "I can't think of another city in the U.S., another large city, that has only had one homicide. It's absolutely outstanding."
Homicides in recent years have been declining nationally with the aging of the baby boomer generation, said Levin, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston.
Levin, in a telephone interview, said cities with large Latino immigrant populations, such as El Paso, San Diego and San Jose, Calif., tend to have low crime rates.
"Immigrants -- whether from Mexico, Italy, or Poland -- have often left family and friends to have a new life and begin anew," Levin said. "They are very success oriented, middle class. They simply have a very low crime rate."
But Levin said that while the immigrant factor helps explain El Paso's low crime numbers, it doesn't explain why murders would plummet one year to the next.
"I've actually said to the reporters in other cities, 'If you want to be safe from murder, move to El Paso,' " Levin said.
However, Levin cautioned, killings tend to occur in clusters and the rest of the year could be different.
Detective Mike Baranyay, an El Paso police spokesman, said the credit for the drop in crime goes to police working with residents who are willing to report suspicious activity.
"The community, I believe, is really taking an active role in keeping their community safe," Baranyay said.
Tina Gianes, president of the Neighborhood Watch Association of El Paso, said most of the complaints she hears are about cars speeding on residential streets or shady door-to-door salesmen.
Gianes said one of the reasons El Paso has a reputation as a safe city is because crime is kept from escalating because residents will report suspicious activity.
"I think more people are getting involved. They are not afraid to speakup," she said.
The contrast is Juárez. The city of 1.3 million has been described as the murder capital of Mexico and one of the most dangerous cities in the world. A two-year war between the Sinaloa and Juárez drug cartels has escalated to the use of car bombs, explosives and frequent attacks on police.
Levin said the drug violence in Mexico has its roots in extreme poverty, powerful organized crime gangs and a "tremendous amount of corruption."
The violence in Juárez is the backdrop as the city of El Paso struggles with its budget and a contract dispute with the police union that could lead to higher property taxes, the canceling of a police academy class or furloughs for police officers.
The El Paso police union last week voted against reopening contract negotiations.
The city wanted to delay a 2 percent cost of living raise that is due Sept. 1. The city has made $3.5 million in cuts to its budget and is looking to cut $1 million more.
A crime is committed in El Paso every 16.1 minutes, according to a "crime clock" in the police budget presentation using data from last year. A murder occurred every 28 days.
Ron Martin, president of the El Paso Municipal Police Officers Association, said taking officers off the street will affect services.
"If you are already stretched thin, how are you going to furlough officers and not affect response times?" Martin said.
Some members of the City Council have argued that further budget cuts to other public services are not feasible.
"City Council can say whatever they want," Martin said. "They are not the ones who reduce crime. It is the police officers. Crime has been reduced because officers are out there every day."
Levin, the criminologist, said other cities face the same dilemma.
"El Paso may save money by reducing the size of the police force, perhaps reducing programs for children, but in the long term it will be very costly," Levin said.
"Part of the reason the crime rate is low is El Paso has been willing to spend the money to keep youngsters busy and supervised and keeping police on the streets," Levin said. "You can pay now or you can pay later. But one way or another, you pay."
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_15663742?source=email
Friday, July 30, 2010
An Arizona Morgue Grows Crowded
New York Times
July 28, 2010
by James C. McKinley
TUCSON — Dr. Bruce Parks unzips a white body bag on a steel gurney and gingerly lifts out a human skull and mandible, turning them over in his hands and examining the few teeth still in their sockets.
The body bag, coated with dust, also contains a broken pelvis, a femur and a few smaller bones found in the desert in June, along with a pair of white sneakers.
“These are people who are probably not going to be identified,” said Dr. Parks, the chief medical examiner for Pima County. There are eight other body bags crowded on the gurney.
The Pima County morgue is running out of space as the number of Latin American immigrants found dead in the deserts around Tucson has soared this year during a heat wave.
The rise in deaths comes as Arizona is embroiled in a bitter legal battle over a new law intended to discourage illegal immigrants from settling here by making it a state crime for them to live or seek work.
But the law has not kept the immigrants from trying to cross hundreds of miles of desert on foot in record-breaking heat. The bodies of 57 border crossers have been brought in during July so far, putting it on track to be the worst month for such deaths in the last five years.
Since the first of the year, more than 150 people suspected of being illegal immigrants have been found dead, well above the 107 discovered during the same period in each of the last two years. The sudden spike in deaths has overwhelmed investigators and pathologists at the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office. Two weeks ago, Dr. Parks was forced to bring in a refrigerated truck to store the remains of two dozen people because the building’s two units were full.
“We can store about 200 full-sized individuals, but we have over 300 people here now, and most of those are border crossers,” Dr. Parks said. “We keep hoping we have seen the worst of this, of these migration deaths. Yet we still see a lot of remains.”
The increase in deaths has happened despite many signs that the number of immigrants crossing the border illegally has dropped in recent years. The number of people caught trying to sneak across the frontier without a visa has fallen in each of the last five years and stands at about half of the record 616,000 arrested in 2000.
Not only has the economic downturn in the United States eliminated many of the jobs that used to lure immigrants, human rights groups say, but also the federal government has stepped up efforts to stop the underground railroad of migrants, building mammoth fences in several border towns and flooding the region with hundreds of new Border Patrol agents equipped with high-tech surveillance tools.
These tougher enforcement measures have pushed smugglers and illegal immigrants to take their chances on isolated trails through the deserts and mountains of southern Arizona, where they must sometimes walk for three or four days before reaching a road.
“As we gain more control, the smugglers are taking people out to even more remote areas,” said Omar Candelaria, the special operations supervisor for the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector. “They have further to walk and they are less prepared for the journey, and they don’t make it.”
Mr. Candelaria said the surge in discoveries of bodies this year might also owe something to increased patrols. He noted that some of the remains found this year belong to people who died in previous years. But Dr. Parks said that could not account for the entire increase this year. Indeed, the majority of bodies brought in during July, Dr. Parks said, were dead less than a week.
Human rights groups say it is the government’s sustained crackdown on human smuggling that has led to more deaths.
“The more that you militarize the border, the more you push the migrant flows into more isolated and desolate areas, and people hurt or injured are just left behind,” said Kat Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Coalición de Derechos Humanos in Tucson.
At the medical examiner’s office in Tucson, Dr. Park’s team of five investigators, six pathologists and one forensic anthropologist face an enormous backlog of more than 150 unidentified remains, with one case going back as far as 2003.
Every day, they labor to match remains with descriptions provided by people who have called their office to report a missing relative, or with reports collected by human rights groups and by Mexican authorities.
Since 2000, Dr. Park’s office has handled more than 1,700 border-crossing cases, and officials here have managed to confirm the identities of about 1,050 of the remains.
Investigators sift through the things the dead carried for clues — Mexican voter registration cards, telephone numbers scrawled on scraps of paper, jewelry, rosaries, family photographs. Often there is precious little to go on.
We had one gentleman who came in as bones, but around his wrist there was a bracelet from a Mexican Hospital that had his picture,” said David Valenzuela, one of the investigators.
If no documents are found, the task becomes harder. Many of the deceased immigrants were too poor to have visited doctors or dentists on a regular basis, so dental or medical records may not exist. Sometimes, a family photograph of the deceased smiling widely is all investigators have to document dental work.
On a recent morning, Bruce Anderson, the forensic anthropologist in the office, was examining the skeleton of an adolescent boy, whose age was somewhere between 14 and 17. His mummified remains were found on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation west of Tucson on July 15. The only lead to his identity was a missing front tooth and the neighboring teeth crowded together in the space.
Dr. Anderson called the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, who had a report of a 13-year-old who had been reported missing this year after crossing the border near Sonoyta, Mexico.
The charity immediately contacted the boy’s family to see if he had lost a permanent tooth. Dr. Anderson was still waiting for a reply.
The process takes time, and remains keep piling up. On Monday, Mr. Anderson faced a backlog of 14 new skeletons, in addition to the 40 active cases he is investigating, he said. “One person can’t keep up with this load,” he said.
The pathologists are also under strain. One day last week, Dr. Cynthia Porterfield did five autopsies, on remains of border crossers who died in the desert.
Dr. Porterfield was able to identify one: Jesse Palma Valenzuela, 30, who died on July 12. Three of his travel companions had tried to carry his body back to Mexico but became tired and abandoned him, wrapped in a blanket and positioned off the ground in a tree to keep animals from eating him. Then they crossed back into Mexico and notified the Border Patrol.
Agents discovered Mr. Valenzuela’s body on July 17, right where his friends said it would be, about two-and-a-half miles east of Lukeville, Ariz., not far from the border. Though decomposed, he was still recognizable.
“He’s got quite a few tattoos,” Dr. Porterfield said. “It is how the family ID’d him.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29border.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
July 28, 2010
by James C. McKinley
TUCSON — Dr. Bruce Parks unzips a white body bag on a steel gurney and gingerly lifts out a human skull and mandible, turning them over in his hands and examining the few teeth still in their sockets.
The body bag, coated with dust, also contains a broken pelvis, a femur and a few smaller bones found in the desert in June, along with a pair of white sneakers.
“These are people who are probably not going to be identified,” said Dr. Parks, the chief medical examiner for Pima County. There are eight other body bags crowded on the gurney.
The Pima County morgue is running out of space as the number of Latin American immigrants found dead in the deserts around Tucson has soared this year during a heat wave.
The rise in deaths comes as Arizona is embroiled in a bitter legal battle over a new law intended to discourage illegal immigrants from settling here by making it a state crime for them to live or seek work.
But the law has not kept the immigrants from trying to cross hundreds of miles of desert on foot in record-breaking heat. The bodies of 57 border crossers have been brought in during July so far, putting it on track to be the worst month for such deaths in the last five years.
Since the first of the year, more than 150 people suspected of being illegal immigrants have been found dead, well above the 107 discovered during the same period in each of the last two years. The sudden spike in deaths has overwhelmed investigators and pathologists at the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office. Two weeks ago, Dr. Parks was forced to bring in a refrigerated truck to store the remains of two dozen people because the building’s two units were full.
“We can store about 200 full-sized individuals, but we have over 300 people here now, and most of those are border crossers,” Dr. Parks said. “We keep hoping we have seen the worst of this, of these migration deaths. Yet we still see a lot of remains.”
The increase in deaths has happened despite many signs that the number of immigrants crossing the border illegally has dropped in recent years. The number of people caught trying to sneak across the frontier without a visa has fallen in each of the last five years and stands at about half of the record 616,000 arrested in 2000.
Not only has the economic downturn in the United States eliminated many of the jobs that used to lure immigrants, human rights groups say, but also the federal government has stepped up efforts to stop the underground railroad of migrants, building mammoth fences in several border towns and flooding the region with hundreds of new Border Patrol agents equipped with high-tech surveillance tools.
These tougher enforcement measures have pushed smugglers and illegal immigrants to take their chances on isolated trails through the deserts and mountains of southern Arizona, where they must sometimes walk for three or four days before reaching a road.
“As we gain more control, the smugglers are taking people out to even more remote areas,” said Omar Candelaria, the special operations supervisor for the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector. “They have further to walk and they are less prepared for the journey, and they don’t make it.”
Mr. Candelaria said the surge in discoveries of bodies this year might also owe something to increased patrols. He noted that some of the remains found this year belong to people who died in previous years. But Dr. Parks said that could not account for the entire increase this year. Indeed, the majority of bodies brought in during July, Dr. Parks said, were dead less than a week.
Human rights groups say it is the government’s sustained crackdown on human smuggling that has led to more deaths.
“The more that you militarize the border, the more you push the migrant flows into more isolated and desolate areas, and people hurt or injured are just left behind,” said Kat Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Coalición de Derechos Humanos in Tucson.
At the medical examiner’s office in Tucson, Dr. Park’s team of five investigators, six pathologists and one forensic anthropologist face an enormous backlog of more than 150 unidentified remains, with one case going back as far as 2003.
Every day, they labor to match remains with descriptions provided by people who have called their office to report a missing relative, or with reports collected by human rights groups and by Mexican authorities.
Since 2000, Dr. Park’s office has handled more than 1,700 border-crossing cases, and officials here have managed to confirm the identities of about 1,050 of the remains.
Investigators sift through the things the dead carried for clues — Mexican voter registration cards, telephone numbers scrawled on scraps of paper, jewelry, rosaries, family photographs. Often there is precious little to go on.
We had one gentleman who came in as bones, but around his wrist there was a bracelet from a Mexican Hospital that had his picture,” said David Valenzuela, one of the investigators.
If no documents are found, the task becomes harder. Many of the deceased immigrants were too poor to have visited doctors or dentists on a regular basis, so dental or medical records may not exist. Sometimes, a family photograph of the deceased smiling widely is all investigators have to document dental work.
On a recent morning, Bruce Anderson, the forensic anthropologist in the office, was examining the skeleton of an adolescent boy, whose age was somewhere between 14 and 17. His mummified remains were found on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation west of Tucson on July 15. The only lead to his identity was a missing front tooth and the neighboring teeth crowded together in the space.
Dr. Anderson called the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, who had a report of a 13-year-old who had been reported missing this year after crossing the border near Sonoyta, Mexico.
The charity immediately contacted the boy’s family to see if he had lost a permanent tooth. Dr. Anderson was still waiting for a reply.
The process takes time, and remains keep piling up. On Monday, Mr. Anderson faced a backlog of 14 new skeletons, in addition to the 40 active cases he is investigating, he said. “One person can’t keep up with this load,” he said.
The pathologists are also under strain. One day last week, Dr. Cynthia Porterfield did five autopsies, on remains of border crossers who died in the desert.
Dr. Porterfield was able to identify one: Jesse Palma Valenzuela, 30, who died on July 12. Three of his travel companions had tried to carry his body back to Mexico but became tired and abandoned him, wrapped in a blanket and positioned off the ground in a tree to keep animals from eating him. Then they crossed back into Mexico and notified the Border Patrol.
Agents discovered Mr. Valenzuela’s body on July 17, right where his friends said it would be, about two-and-a-half miles east of Lukeville, Ariz., not far from the border. Though decomposed, he was still recognizable.
“He’s got quite a few tattoos,” Dr. Porterfield said. “It is how the family ID’d him.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29border.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
US border violence: Myth or reality?
BBC News
July 28, 2010
by Katie Connolly
Once upon a time, Spanish settlers named the crossing El Paso Del Norte - the pass to the north.
The border city of El Paso, Texas, lies along the Rio Grande, in the chasm between two inhospitable mountains.
Each day, thousands of people in cars, buses and on foot cross the short bridge that connects El Paso with its Mexican sister city, Juarez, one of the world's most dangerous places.
In the past two years, more than 5,000 people have been murdered in Juarez as drug-related crime has soared.
Politicians, including Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, tend to portray border towns as being pushed to crisis point.
"We see this crime on a daily basis. The federal government must respond more effectively, step up their enforcement and protection of the border before more American blood is shed," Mr Abbott told Fox News.
"It is more dangerous to walk the streets of Juarez, a few blocks from El Paso, than it is to walk the streets of Baghdad. There is a very serious problem that is beginning to bulge at our borders and put American lives at risk."
In mid-July, President Barack Obama ordered 1,200 National Guard troops to patrol the border, just days after a car bomb exploded in northern Juarez, very near El Paso.
Texas Governor Rick Perry called that deployment "grossly insufficient". Many politicians are calling for even more troops.
But the mayor of El Paso, John Cook, isn't one of them.
Second safest city
"The reality is we really don't need the help on this side of the border. We probably have every kind of federal law enforcement agency that you can think of. We're an extremely safe community," Mr Cook says.
Despite Juarez's murder toll, in El Paso, local authorities have recorded just two murders this year. In 2009 there were 11.
"Logically it would seem that if you have violence on one side of the border then you're going to have spillover on the other side," says Mr Cook. "But the reality is that we don't."
According to FBI crime statistics, El Paso is the second safest city in America. Crime rates there have dropped 36% over the past 10 years.
Other cities close to the border, including San Diego in California and Phoenix in Arizona, have similarly experienced declines in violent crime.
Over the same period, federal agencies have beefed up their presence along the border, and a 2,000-mile fence is slowly being constructed.
The fence near El Paso is 16-18 feet (4.9-5.5m) high, made of rust-coloured steel mesh. There are 2,700 border police in this sector, monitoring the border day and night, and a raft of FBI, CIA and drug enforcement agents.
Mr Cook questions the need for more troops, given that current border security levels appear to have been effective at containing drug violence south of the border.
Additionally, both he and local border enforcement officials believe that the leaders of drug cartels do not believe it is in their interest to bring the violence north.
Drug barons know that the response from the US government would be swift and heavy, and further hinder their ability to smuggle drugs into the lucrative American market.
Locals worry that with an even heavier security presence in town, El Paso risks becoming like Cold War Berlin, a riven city, its character disrupted by an imposing divider wall.
They believe politicians who don't live on the border fail to appreciate the deep interconnectedness of cities like Juarez and El Paso, which Mr Cook describes as "one city joined by a border".
So with crime rates declining and the border stable, how has this relatively safe Texan city found itself in the centre of a political firestorm over border violence, and the Obama administration's plans to deal with it?
Politics and fear
Border historian David Romo says it is a pattern. He's seen politicians fanning fears about the border before.
The first calls to build a border fence in El Paso to secure the city came in 1908. Back then, the fear was Chinese immigrants. In World War II, politicians worried about Germans streaming across.
These days, it's Mexicans who fuel unease. Mr Romo says that during times of economic distress, the border and the immigrants who cross it are used as scapegoats. He believes history is repeating itself, and politicians are using the same rhetoric they have for decades.
"It happens that every time an election year comes up, they know that creating fear and hysteria about the border will drive a wedge," Mr Romo says.
"In some ways it's cheap vote-getting. There is this cycle of kind of nativist hysteria that is very profitable for politicians. Nothing gets votes like the politics of fear."
Mr Romo says he's not seen evidence of violence infiltrating the El Paso community. He argues that the immigrants who make a new life across the border are motivated to act within the law because they fear being deported.
While Arizona Governor Jan Brewer blames immigrants, illegal and otherwise, for violent crimes and burglaries, Mr Romo says that, ironically, those immigrants have the most incentive to be law-abiding. They don't want to draw attention.
Bleak outlook
Although fears of spillover violence aren't substantiated by crime data, they are having a real impact on the economy of El Paso.
"From an economic development perspective, it's been very negative for us," Mr Cook said.
He has difficulty convincing new businesses to set up in El Paso because of the violence in Juarez. The first question he gets asked in business meetings is usually "is it safe?"
"They don't pay attention to the fact that we are the second safest large city in the United States," he says.
"We've had people who have looked to locating here with their companies and we have to convince them that it's a safe place. They almost don't believe you."
The longer the violence continues in Juarez, the bleaker the outlook becomes for El Paso, despite its impressive safety record.
For now, there's little more Mayor Cook can do but wait.
America's safest cities, 2009
1.Honolulu, Hawaii
2.El Paso, Texas
3.New York City, New York
4.San Jose, California
5.Austin, Texas
6.San Diego, California
7.Seattle, Washington
8.Portland, Oregon
9.Denver, Colorado
10.Los Angeles, California
Source: CQ Press City Crime Rankings 2009-2010
Cities with highest crime, 2009
1.Detroit, Michigan
2.Memphis, Tennessee
3.Baltimore, Maryland
4.Washington, DC
5.Atlanta, Georgia
6.Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
7.Indianapolis, Indiana
8.Columbus, Ohio
9.Milwaukee, Wisconsin
10.Dallas, Texas
Source: CQ Press City Crime Rankings 2009-2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10779151
July 28, 2010
by Katie Connolly
Once upon a time, Spanish settlers named the crossing El Paso Del Norte - the pass to the north.
The border city of El Paso, Texas, lies along the Rio Grande, in the chasm between two inhospitable mountains.
Each day, thousands of people in cars, buses and on foot cross the short bridge that connects El Paso with its Mexican sister city, Juarez, one of the world's most dangerous places.
In the past two years, more than 5,000 people have been murdered in Juarez as drug-related crime has soared.
Politicians, including Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, tend to portray border towns as being pushed to crisis point.
"We see this crime on a daily basis. The federal government must respond more effectively, step up their enforcement and protection of the border before more American blood is shed," Mr Abbott told Fox News.
"It is more dangerous to walk the streets of Juarez, a few blocks from El Paso, than it is to walk the streets of Baghdad. There is a very serious problem that is beginning to bulge at our borders and put American lives at risk."
In mid-July, President Barack Obama ordered 1,200 National Guard troops to patrol the border, just days after a car bomb exploded in northern Juarez, very near El Paso.
Texas Governor Rick Perry called that deployment "grossly insufficient". Many politicians are calling for even more troops.
But the mayor of El Paso, John Cook, isn't one of them.
Second safest city
"The reality is we really don't need the help on this side of the border. We probably have every kind of federal law enforcement agency that you can think of. We're an extremely safe community," Mr Cook says.
Despite Juarez's murder toll, in El Paso, local authorities have recorded just two murders this year. In 2009 there were 11.
"Logically it would seem that if you have violence on one side of the border then you're going to have spillover on the other side," says Mr Cook. "But the reality is that we don't."
According to FBI crime statistics, El Paso is the second safest city in America. Crime rates there have dropped 36% over the past 10 years.
Other cities close to the border, including San Diego in California and Phoenix in Arizona, have similarly experienced declines in violent crime.
Over the same period, federal agencies have beefed up their presence along the border, and a 2,000-mile fence is slowly being constructed.
The fence near El Paso is 16-18 feet (4.9-5.5m) high, made of rust-coloured steel mesh. There are 2,700 border police in this sector, monitoring the border day and night, and a raft of FBI, CIA and drug enforcement agents.
Mr Cook questions the need for more troops, given that current border security levels appear to have been effective at containing drug violence south of the border.
Additionally, both he and local border enforcement officials believe that the leaders of drug cartels do not believe it is in their interest to bring the violence north.
Drug barons know that the response from the US government would be swift and heavy, and further hinder their ability to smuggle drugs into the lucrative American market.
Locals worry that with an even heavier security presence in town, El Paso risks becoming like Cold War Berlin, a riven city, its character disrupted by an imposing divider wall.
They believe politicians who don't live on the border fail to appreciate the deep interconnectedness of cities like Juarez and El Paso, which Mr Cook describes as "one city joined by a border".
So with crime rates declining and the border stable, how has this relatively safe Texan city found itself in the centre of a political firestorm over border violence, and the Obama administration's plans to deal with it?
Politics and fear
Border historian David Romo says it is a pattern. He's seen politicians fanning fears about the border before.
The first calls to build a border fence in El Paso to secure the city came in 1908. Back then, the fear was Chinese immigrants. In World War II, politicians worried about Germans streaming across.
These days, it's Mexicans who fuel unease. Mr Romo says that during times of economic distress, the border and the immigrants who cross it are used as scapegoats. He believes history is repeating itself, and politicians are using the same rhetoric they have for decades.
"It happens that every time an election year comes up, they know that creating fear and hysteria about the border will drive a wedge," Mr Romo says.
"In some ways it's cheap vote-getting. There is this cycle of kind of nativist hysteria that is very profitable for politicians. Nothing gets votes like the politics of fear."
Mr Romo says he's not seen evidence of violence infiltrating the El Paso community. He argues that the immigrants who make a new life across the border are motivated to act within the law because they fear being deported.
While Arizona Governor Jan Brewer blames immigrants, illegal and otherwise, for violent crimes and burglaries, Mr Romo says that, ironically, those immigrants have the most incentive to be law-abiding. They don't want to draw attention.
Bleak outlook
Although fears of spillover violence aren't substantiated by crime data, they are having a real impact on the economy of El Paso.
"From an economic development perspective, it's been very negative for us," Mr Cook said.
He has difficulty convincing new businesses to set up in El Paso because of the violence in Juarez. The first question he gets asked in business meetings is usually "is it safe?"
"They don't pay attention to the fact that we are the second safest large city in the United States," he says.
"We've had people who have looked to locating here with their companies and we have to convince them that it's a safe place. They almost don't believe you."
The longer the violence continues in Juarez, the bleaker the outlook becomes for El Paso, despite its impressive safety record.
For now, there's little more Mayor Cook can do but wait.
America's safest cities, 2009
1.Honolulu, Hawaii
2.El Paso, Texas
3.New York City, New York
4.San Jose, California
5.Austin, Texas
6.San Diego, California
7.Seattle, Washington
8.Portland, Oregon
9.Denver, Colorado
10.Los Angeles, California
Source: CQ Press City Crime Rankings 2009-2010
Cities with highest crime, 2009
1.Detroit, Michigan
2.Memphis, Tennessee
3.Baltimore, Maryland
4.Washington, DC
5.Atlanta, Georgia
6.Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
7.Indianapolis, Indiana
8.Columbus, Ohio
9.Milwaukee, Wisconsin
10.Dallas, Texas
Source: CQ Press City Crime Rankings 2009-2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10779151
Monday, June 14, 2010
Border security trips up immigration debate
Los Angeles Times
June 15, 2010
by Ken Dilanian and Nicholas Riccardi
The Republican governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, calls her state "the gateway to America for drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and crime." She blames the federal government for failing to secure the border with Mexico.
Her Democratic predecessor, Janet Napolitano, now the country's Homeland Security secretary, counters that the Southwestern border "is as secure now as it has ever been."
The dispute over just how much border security is enough looms as the biggest impediment to any attempt by the Obama administration and Congress to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.
Republicans say they can't support an immigration bill until the border is under control. The Obama administration points out that crime in U.S. border cities is down, as are illegal border crossings.
There should be room for compromise: One side would get more resources for border enforcement, and the other would get a program allowing migrants to cross the border to work and a path to legalization for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S.
But so far, Washington is not even close.
Last month, President Obama nodded toward such an arrangement by agreeing to dispatch 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest border and seek half a billion dollars in additional funds for border enforcement.
That came after 18 months in which the Obama administration has outdone its predecessor on border enforcement spending and on deportations of illegal immigrants, all in an effort to build support for a comprehensive immigration overhaul.
None of it, however, has been enough for Republicans in Congress, including those, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, who previously supported immigration changes.
McCain, facing a primary challenge, said Obama's plan was insufficient, and he tried unsuccessfully to pass an amendment in the Senate calling for 6,000 troops and $2 billion in spending.
Napolitano, in an interview, expressed frustration about the Republicans' singular focus on border security.
"Their position has evolved to be, 'We don't even want to talk about immigration reform unless you secure — read: seal — the border,' " she said. "And the definition of what securing the border means keeps changing, and that then becomes a reason not to address the real underlying issue, which is immigration reform."
The raw statistics don't support the notion, as Brewer put it in April, that the U.S. side of the Mexico border is awash in "uncontrolled … horrendous violence."
Mexico has seen a wave of killings and violence, but crime on the U.S. side is lower than it has been in previous years. In fact, the four largest American cities with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states, according to a new FBI report: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, Texas.
Illegal immigration is also down significantly, partly because of the U.S. economic recession.
Still, recent high-profile incidents have fueled perceptions that the drug violence in Mexico is spilling over. They include the March killing of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, shot on his property in what authorities suspect was an encounter with a drug smuggling scout.
There also has been a dramatic rise in home invasions in Arizona in which suspected gang members target drug stash houses — "mostly trafficker against trafficker," said Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney for Arizona.
But it's unclear whether border enforcement can have much effect on those trends. Experience has shown that fences, technology and patrols have slowed illegal crossings in some areas only to steer traffic to other, more remote stretches.
The projected cost of border fencing is about $5 million a mile. That would be a price tag of nearly $9 billion for the 1,700 miles of unfenced border.
With huge budget deficits looming, there is little appetite for such spending. But most political observers believe that for an immigration bill to stand any chance in Congress, the Obama administration is going to have to convince more Americans that violence and illegal immigration have been mostly quelled.
"It is impossible for me and any other serious Democrat to get this body to move forward until we prove to the American people we can secure our borders," Graham told Napolitano when she testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in April. "But once we get there, comprehensive reform should come up, will come up."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-border-security-20100615,0,5865058.story
June 15, 2010
by Ken Dilanian and Nicholas Riccardi
The Republican governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, calls her state "the gateway to America for drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and crime." She blames the federal government for failing to secure the border with Mexico.
Her Democratic predecessor, Janet Napolitano, now the country's Homeland Security secretary, counters that the Southwestern border "is as secure now as it has ever been."
The dispute over just how much border security is enough looms as the biggest impediment to any attempt by the Obama administration and Congress to overhaul the nation's immigration laws.
Republicans say they can't support an immigration bill until the border is under control. The Obama administration points out that crime in U.S. border cities is down, as are illegal border crossings.
There should be room for compromise: One side would get more resources for border enforcement, and the other would get a program allowing migrants to cross the border to work and a path to legalization for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S.
But so far, Washington is not even close.
Last month, President Obama nodded toward such an arrangement by agreeing to dispatch 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest border and seek half a billion dollars in additional funds for border enforcement.
That came after 18 months in which the Obama administration has outdone its predecessor on border enforcement spending and on deportations of illegal immigrants, all in an effort to build support for a comprehensive immigration overhaul.
None of it, however, has been enough for Republicans in Congress, including those, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona, who previously supported immigration changes.
McCain, facing a primary challenge, said Obama's plan was insufficient, and he tried unsuccessfully to pass an amendment in the Senate calling for 6,000 troops and $2 billion in spending.
Napolitano, in an interview, expressed frustration about the Republicans' singular focus on border security.
"Their position has evolved to be, 'We don't even want to talk about immigration reform unless you secure — read: seal — the border,' " she said. "And the definition of what securing the border means keeps changing, and that then becomes a reason not to address the real underlying issue, which is immigration reform."
The raw statistics don't support the notion, as Brewer put it in April, that the U.S. side of the Mexico border is awash in "uncontrolled … horrendous violence."
Mexico has seen a wave of killings and violence, but crime on the U.S. side is lower than it has been in previous years. In fact, the four largest American cities with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states, according to a new FBI report: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, Texas.
Illegal immigration is also down significantly, partly because of the U.S. economic recession.
Still, recent high-profile incidents have fueled perceptions that the drug violence in Mexico is spilling over. They include the March killing of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, shot on his property in what authorities suspect was an encounter with a drug smuggling scout.
There also has been a dramatic rise in home invasions in Arizona in which suspected gang members target drug stash houses — "mostly trafficker against trafficker," said Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney for Arizona.
But it's unclear whether border enforcement can have much effect on those trends. Experience has shown that fences, technology and patrols have slowed illegal crossings in some areas only to steer traffic to other, more remote stretches.
The projected cost of border fencing is about $5 million a mile. That would be a price tag of nearly $9 billion for the 1,700 miles of unfenced border.
With huge budget deficits looming, there is little appetite for such spending. But most political observers believe that for an immigration bill to stand any chance in Congress, the Obama administration is going to have to convince more Americans that violence and illegal immigration have been mostly quelled.
"It is impossible for me and any other serious Democrat to get this body to move forward until we prove to the American people we can secure our borders," Graham told Napolitano when she testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in April. "But once we get there, comprehensive reform should come up, will come up."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-border-security-20100615,0,5865058.story
Thursday, June 3, 2010
US-Mexico border isn't so dangerous
Associated Press
June 3, 2010
by Martha Mendoza
It's one of the safest parts of America, and it's getting safer.
It's the U.S.-Mexico border, and even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence, government data obtained by The Associated Press show it actually isn't so dangerous after all.
The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities.
The Customs and Border Protection study, obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request, shows 3 percent of Border Patrol agents and officers were assaulted last year, mostly when assailants threw rocks at them. That compares with 11 percent of police officers and sheriff's deputies assaulted during the same period, usually with guns or knives.
In addition, violent attacks against agents declined in 2009 along most of the border for the first time in seven years. So far this year assaults are slightly up, but data is incomplete.
"The border is safer now than it's ever been," said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling.
He said one factor is that with fewer jobs available amid the U.S. recession, illegal immigration has dropped. And responding to security concerns after 9-11, the Border Patrol has doubled the number of agents in the region since 2004.
Nonetheless, border lawmakers and governors say their region is under siege and needs more troops.
"Violence in the vicinity of the U.S.-Mexico border continues to increase at an alarming rate. We believe that this violence represents a serious threat to the national security of the United States as well as a serious threat to U.S. citizens that live along the 1,969-mile long border," a dozen bipartisan members of Congress from border states wrote President Obama.
In Arizona, a stringent new immigration law takes effect next month, requiring police to question suspects' immigration status if officers believe they're in the country illegally. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said in a televised interview last weekend: "We are out here on the battlefield getting the impact of all this illegal immigration, and all the crime that comes with it."
In response to the concerns from the border states, Obama pledged to send 1,200 National Guard troops to help and spend an extra $500 million on border security.
His one-time rival for the presidency, Arizona Sen. John McCain, said he should send at least 6,000 troops, which are needed because he said Arizona leads the nation in marijuana seizures, suffered 368 kidnappings in 2008 and has the highest property crime rates in the U.S.
But FBI crime reports for 2009 says violent crime in Arizona declined. And violent crimes in southwest border counties are among the lowest in the nation per capita — they've dropped by more than 30 percent in the last two decades. Of America's 25 largest cities, San Diego — with one out of four residents an immigrant — has the lowest number of violent crimes per capita.
Opponents of increased border security are frustrated by descriptions of a wave of violence when the statistics show the region to be relatively safe.
"Politicians are hyping up this incredible fear across the country about the border, but these numbers show these are lies being perpetrated on the American public," said immigrant advocate Isabel Garcia at Tucson-based Derechos Humanos. "The warnings about violence are just an excuse to crack down on migrants who want to work and be with their families."
Even residents of the border region who want more security are surprised by the talk of violence.
"I have to say, a lot of this is way overblown," said Gary Brasher of Tuboc, Arizona, who is president of the Coalition for a Safe and Secure Border.
So why send troops to the region?
"That's really something to ask the White House," Easterling said.
White House spokesman Mike Hammer said "there are other rationales for why those border deployments are occurring" but declined to name any of them. "I would really put this to the Department of Homeland Security," he said.
Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler would not answer the question on the record during a telephone interview with the AP. He later sent a written statement that said more help is needed to build upon "the unprecedented resources the Administration has dedicated over the past 16 months and will serve to expand long-term the successes that have been realized to date."
Governors along the border say improved crime rates don't counter their concerns about risk.
"The federal government currently does not know who is entering our country and when, which obviously creates tremendous security concerns," said Brewer's spokesman Paul Senseman.
And in Texas, "we respond to threats based on risk, not occurrence," said Gov. Rick Perry's spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger. Thus Perry has activated a secret state border protection emergency plan.
"With the safety of Texans on the line, we can't afford to wait," he said.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who ordered the National Guard to patrol the border in his state six weeks ago, is concerned about "the potential for drug cartel violence spilling over the border," spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spokesman Francisco Castillo said that while "we've seen some success," troops are needed "to provide more security along our borders."
Concerns about danger come, in part, from Mexico, where raging cartel violence has taken 23,000 lives in three years, often within view of the U.S. border. There's frequent talk of the potential for that violence to spread across the border, although so far it hasn't happened to any significant degree.
Several high-profile and frightening incidents have added to the fears: Authorities suspect an illegal immigrant working for drug smugglers killed Arizona rancher Robert Krentz in March, and last year Border Patrol agent Robert Rosas, 30, was murdered while on patrol near San Diego.
"Agents now have to question if they will be ambushed," U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz said as he sentenced a 17-year-old Mexican to 40 years for killing Rosas.
In fact, agents in the San Diego region are less likely to be attacked these days.
"Agent Rosas' death changed the way we do business. Agents are on high alert, we have to be ready. But if you just look at the numbers, assaults here are down 27 percent," said Border Patrol spokesman Jerry Conley, who worked with Rosas. He said that since Rosas' death, officers don't venture into potentially dangerous situations without backup. Solo patrols are rare, and they emphasize safety precautions.
There are exceptions to the trend: Assaults on agents in the Laredo, Texas, region increased from 44 in 2008 to 118 in 2009, and they increased in the neighboring Rio Grande Valley as well. Agents also fired their guns on 49 separate occasions in 2009, a 50 percent increase from 2008.
Customs spokesman Easterling said that while fewer people are trying to sneak across the border, those who do are more likely "engaged in activity other than illegal entry, such as drug smuggling, and are more likely to use violence as a means to help them escape apprehension."
But the bigger picture is one of increased safety. In fiscal year 2009, there were 1,073 violent attacks — mostly thrown rocks, bottles and sticks but also 48 incidents in which a gun was fired — against the 20,119 Border Patrol agents, down from 1,097 violent incidents against 17,819 agents in 2008.
In addition to those agents, another 22,000 officers work at the nation's border crossings and airports, checking people as they enter and exit the country.
It's one of the safest jobs in law enforcement: Last year 17 of them were assaulted, a 74 percent decrease from 2008.
Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it's time for lawmakers to reconsider what they'd like to see happening in the region.
"Border security has become the most overused, and least understood, concept in the struggle over what to do about our broken immigration system," he said. "While an election year may not be the best time, the United States finally needs an honest debate over what it means to secure the country's borders."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gr25xbV37mkGaC8-iRa16HHp5FlwD9G3SEA01
June 3, 2010
by Martha Mendoza
It's one of the safest parts of America, and it's getting safer.
It's the U.S.-Mexico border, and even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence, government data obtained by The Associated Press show it actually isn't so dangerous after all.
The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities.
The Customs and Border Protection study, obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request, shows 3 percent of Border Patrol agents and officers were assaulted last year, mostly when assailants threw rocks at them. That compares with 11 percent of police officers and sheriff's deputies assaulted during the same period, usually with guns or knives.
In addition, violent attacks against agents declined in 2009 along most of the border for the first time in seven years. So far this year assaults are slightly up, but data is incomplete.
"The border is safer now than it's ever been," said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling.
He said one factor is that with fewer jobs available amid the U.S. recession, illegal immigration has dropped. And responding to security concerns after 9-11, the Border Patrol has doubled the number of agents in the region since 2004.
Nonetheless, border lawmakers and governors say their region is under siege and needs more troops.
"Violence in the vicinity of the U.S.-Mexico border continues to increase at an alarming rate. We believe that this violence represents a serious threat to the national security of the United States as well as a serious threat to U.S. citizens that live along the 1,969-mile long border," a dozen bipartisan members of Congress from border states wrote President Obama.
In Arizona, a stringent new immigration law takes effect next month, requiring police to question suspects' immigration status if officers believe they're in the country illegally. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said in a televised interview last weekend: "We are out here on the battlefield getting the impact of all this illegal immigration, and all the crime that comes with it."
In response to the concerns from the border states, Obama pledged to send 1,200 National Guard troops to help and spend an extra $500 million on border security.
His one-time rival for the presidency, Arizona Sen. John McCain, said he should send at least 6,000 troops, which are needed because he said Arizona leads the nation in marijuana seizures, suffered 368 kidnappings in 2008 and has the highest property crime rates in the U.S.
But FBI crime reports for 2009 says violent crime in Arizona declined. And violent crimes in southwest border counties are among the lowest in the nation per capita — they've dropped by more than 30 percent in the last two decades. Of America's 25 largest cities, San Diego — with one out of four residents an immigrant — has the lowest number of violent crimes per capita.
Opponents of increased border security are frustrated by descriptions of a wave of violence when the statistics show the region to be relatively safe.
"Politicians are hyping up this incredible fear across the country about the border, but these numbers show these are lies being perpetrated on the American public," said immigrant advocate Isabel Garcia at Tucson-based Derechos Humanos. "The warnings about violence are just an excuse to crack down on migrants who want to work and be with their families."
Even residents of the border region who want more security are surprised by the talk of violence.
"I have to say, a lot of this is way overblown," said Gary Brasher of Tuboc, Arizona, who is president of the Coalition for a Safe and Secure Border.
So why send troops to the region?
"That's really something to ask the White House," Easterling said.
White House spokesman Mike Hammer said "there are other rationales for why those border deployments are occurring" but declined to name any of them. "I would really put this to the Department of Homeland Security," he said.
Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler would not answer the question on the record during a telephone interview with the AP. He later sent a written statement that said more help is needed to build upon "the unprecedented resources the Administration has dedicated over the past 16 months and will serve to expand long-term the successes that have been realized to date."
Governors along the border say improved crime rates don't counter their concerns about risk.
"The federal government currently does not know who is entering our country and when, which obviously creates tremendous security concerns," said Brewer's spokesman Paul Senseman.
And in Texas, "we respond to threats based on risk, not occurrence," said Gov. Rick Perry's spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger. Thus Perry has activated a secret state border protection emergency plan.
"With the safety of Texans on the line, we can't afford to wait," he said.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who ordered the National Guard to patrol the border in his state six weeks ago, is concerned about "the potential for drug cartel violence spilling over the border," spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spokesman Francisco Castillo said that while "we've seen some success," troops are needed "to provide more security along our borders."
Concerns about danger come, in part, from Mexico, where raging cartel violence has taken 23,000 lives in three years, often within view of the U.S. border. There's frequent talk of the potential for that violence to spread across the border, although so far it hasn't happened to any significant degree.
Several high-profile and frightening incidents have added to the fears: Authorities suspect an illegal immigrant working for drug smugglers killed Arizona rancher Robert Krentz in March, and last year Border Patrol agent Robert Rosas, 30, was murdered while on patrol near San Diego.
"Agents now have to question if they will be ambushed," U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz said as he sentenced a 17-year-old Mexican to 40 years for killing Rosas.
In fact, agents in the San Diego region are less likely to be attacked these days.
"Agent Rosas' death changed the way we do business. Agents are on high alert, we have to be ready. But if you just look at the numbers, assaults here are down 27 percent," said Border Patrol spokesman Jerry Conley, who worked with Rosas. He said that since Rosas' death, officers don't venture into potentially dangerous situations without backup. Solo patrols are rare, and they emphasize safety precautions.
There are exceptions to the trend: Assaults on agents in the Laredo, Texas, region increased from 44 in 2008 to 118 in 2009, and they increased in the neighboring Rio Grande Valley as well. Agents also fired their guns on 49 separate occasions in 2009, a 50 percent increase from 2008.
Customs spokesman Easterling said that while fewer people are trying to sneak across the border, those who do are more likely "engaged in activity other than illegal entry, such as drug smuggling, and are more likely to use violence as a means to help them escape apprehension."
But the bigger picture is one of increased safety. In fiscal year 2009, there were 1,073 violent attacks — mostly thrown rocks, bottles and sticks but also 48 incidents in which a gun was fired — against the 20,119 Border Patrol agents, down from 1,097 violent incidents against 17,819 agents in 2008.
In addition to those agents, another 22,000 officers work at the nation's border crossings and airports, checking people as they enter and exit the country.
It's one of the safest jobs in law enforcement: Last year 17 of them were assaulted, a 74 percent decrease from 2008.
Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it's time for lawmakers to reconsider what they'd like to see happening in the region.
"Border security has become the most overused, and least understood, concept in the struggle over what to do about our broken immigration system," he said. "While an election year may not be the best time, the United States finally needs an honest debate over what it means to secure the country's borders."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gr25xbV37mkGaC8-iRa16HHp5FlwD9G3SEA01
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Quiet border towns don't live up to their notoriety
Los Angeles Times
May 13, 2010
by Nicholas Riccardi
Reporting from Nogales, Ariz. — On the other side of the metal barrier that separates this town from its namesake in Mexico, there have already been more than 120 homicides this year, including the assassination of the assistant police chief.
In this sleepy town of 21,000, there hasn't been a killing in three years.
"If you look at it statistically, if you look at the community as a whole, it's very, very safe," said Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkham.
Despite the drug war that has claimed thousands of lives in Mexico, communities along the U.S. side of the 2,000-mile southern border have shown virtually no increase in crime for several years.
There are dozens of towns, counties and cities along the border and no single measure of crime along the whole frontier. But a review of crime statistics for the largest communities and interviews with law enforcement officials from Texas to California show that, despite a widespread perception that the violence in Mexico has spread north, U.S. border communities are fairly secure. Some have even become safer.
"It's not spilling over to our side of the border," said William Lansdowne, police chief in San Diego, where violent crime has dropped 8% in the last three years. "We police it really well."
At a Senate hearing last month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano — who, as Arizona governor, called for the deployment of National Guard troops to control the border — said the border was "as secure now as it has ever been."
That's not to say that border towns like Nogales are Mayberry RFD. The police tend to the same car accidents and domestic disputes as many small-town departments, but they also spend time chasing down 25-pound bales of marijuana that smugglers hoist over the border fence.
Plenty of tension remains along the border as well. Highly armed Mexican drug cartels continue to smuggle narcotics through the vast desert, especially in lightly populated southern Arizona. There are occasional eruptions of violence, such as the slaying of a Border Patrol agent tracking illegal immigrants outside San Diego last year and the fatal shooting of an Arizona rancher in March, possibly by a drug smuggler.
The latter incident is often cited by supporters of Arizona's controversial new anti-illegal immigration law. Opponents of the law say it could lead to widespread racial profiling, but Republican Gov. Jan Brewer voiced the views of many of the measure's supporters when she signed it into law last month.
"We cannot delay while the destruction happening south of our international border creeps its way north," she said.
At a recent forum in San Diego, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin said politicians and the media exaggerated the dangers along the border.
"I think people on the border are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the kind of political reaction that can generate a law like the Arizona law," Bersin said. "People on the border are periodically the subject of media attention that focuses on a border that most of us instinctively know is not out of control."
Laredo, Texas, has had two homicides this year, neither of which was related to the drug war across the border. Police spokesman Joe Baeza said the city had a hard time convincing people from outside the area of the relative calm.
"We get so many phone calls from people all over the country worried to come down here and do business because they think [the drug war] is happening on our side — and it's not," Baeza said. He added that Laredo saw a rise in violence earlier in the decade, but additional federal agents and smart policing stamped it out.
"The law enforcement community are really busting their backs to make sure that doesn't happen on this side, and the proof is in the pudding," Baeza said.
The Mexican border metropolis of Ciudad Juarez now has a higher murder rate than Baghdad as drug cartels battle for turf. Its neighbor on the U.S. side, El Paso, has long been one of the nation's safest big cities, with more than 600,000 people. Last year it was ranked second-safest behind Honolulu.
"Life in El Paso is good," said police spokesman Michael Baranyay, citing the one homicide the city has logged this year. "I don't think their issues over there are the same. They're not trying to get territory over here, they're trying to get territory over there."
In Yuma County, on the southwestern edge of Arizona, smugglers used to shoot at sheriff's deputies from across the Colorado River. But an influx of border patrol agents — there are now 18,500 on the entire border, more than ever before — chased crime away, said Capt. Eben Bratcher.
"It's tapered off to close to nothing now," he said.
There may be a cost to success, according to those who fight crime here.
"As the ports of entry and some of the other choke points have locked down, that's raised the stakes," said Lt. Jeff Palmer, head of the Pima County Sheriff's Border Crime Unit, which patrols the deserts between Tucson and Mexico. "People are more willing to commit violent acts to get their materials across."
That may be what's happening in Cochise County, a swath of rugged desert in the southeastern corner of the state that has been a favorite path for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers since the federal government fortified the California border in the 1990s.
Robert Krentz, a devout Catholic known for giving food and water to migrants who crossed his ranch near the border, was found shot to death in March. Footprints from the scene led into Mexico.
Crime statistics have been flat in Cochise County for a decade. But Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the county sheriff's office, said that obscured a rise in border violence.
Burglaries in the rural area where Krentz lived have nearly doubled in the last year. Nearby, one man was tied up at gunpoint when he went to help apparently stranded migrants. "The crime is spilling over," she said. "I don't know that we're going to catch a break here."
When Kirkham left law enforcement agencies in Phoenix's suburbs to become chief in Nogales, his colleagues thought he was crazy and entering a war zone. Now Kirkham laughs. The dark side of immigration and drug trafficking is more visible near Phoenix, 180 miles north, where migrants are often held for ransom by smugglers.
"All those issues don't hang by the border," Kirkham said. The smugglers "want to get away from it as fast as possible."
Indeed, the cartels have an interest in the peace and quiet of the U.S. side of the border — sometimes they use it as a safe zone for their operations. For several months, Kirkham said, his department monitored three suspected hit men from Mexico who stayed in a posh suburb just north of town, journeying back to Nogales' southern neighbor, apparently to perform assassinations.
The men, who were eventually arrested in Mexico, were on their best behavior in the U.S., he said.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/13/nation/la-na-border-crime-20100514
May 13, 2010
by Nicholas Riccardi
Reporting from Nogales, Ariz. — On the other side of the metal barrier that separates this town from its namesake in Mexico, there have already been more than 120 homicides this year, including the assassination of the assistant police chief.
In this sleepy town of 21,000, there hasn't been a killing in three years.
"If you look at it statistically, if you look at the community as a whole, it's very, very safe," said Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkham.
Despite the drug war that has claimed thousands of lives in Mexico, communities along the U.S. side of the 2,000-mile southern border have shown virtually no increase in crime for several years.
There are dozens of towns, counties and cities along the border and no single measure of crime along the whole frontier. But a review of crime statistics for the largest communities and interviews with law enforcement officials from Texas to California show that, despite a widespread perception that the violence in Mexico has spread north, U.S. border communities are fairly secure. Some have even become safer.
"It's not spilling over to our side of the border," said William Lansdowne, police chief in San Diego, where violent crime has dropped 8% in the last three years. "We police it really well."
At a Senate hearing last month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano — who, as Arizona governor, called for the deployment of National Guard troops to control the border — said the border was "as secure now as it has ever been."
That's not to say that border towns like Nogales are Mayberry RFD. The police tend to the same car accidents and domestic disputes as many small-town departments, but they also spend time chasing down 25-pound bales of marijuana that smugglers hoist over the border fence.
Plenty of tension remains along the border as well. Highly armed Mexican drug cartels continue to smuggle narcotics through the vast desert, especially in lightly populated southern Arizona. There are occasional eruptions of violence, such as the slaying of a Border Patrol agent tracking illegal immigrants outside San Diego last year and the fatal shooting of an Arizona rancher in March, possibly by a drug smuggler.
The latter incident is often cited by supporters of Arizona's controversial new anti-illegal immigration law. Opponents of the law say it could lead to widespread racial profiling, but Republican Gov. Jan Brewer voiced the views of many of the measure's supporters when she signed it into law last month.
"We cannot delay while the destruction happening south of our international border creeps its way north," she said.
At a recent forum in San Diego, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin said politicians and the media exaggerated the dangers along the border.
"I think people on the border are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the kind of political reaction that can generate a law like the Arizona law," Bersin said. "People on the border are periodically the subject of media attention that focuses on a border that most of us instinctively know is not out of control."
Laredo, Texas, has had two homicides this year, neither of which was related to the drug war across the border. Police spokesman Joe Baeza said the city had a hard time convincing people from outside the area of the relative calm.
"We get so many phone calls from people all over the country worried to come down here and do business because they think [the drug war] is happening on our side — and it's not," Baeza said. He added that Laredo saw a rise in violence earlier in the decade, but additional federal agents and smart policing stamped it out.
"The law enforcement community are really busting their backs to make sure that doesn't happen on this side, and the proof is in the pudding," Baeza said.
The Mexican border metropolis of Ciudad Juarez now has a higher murder rate than Baghdad as drug cartels battle for turf. Its neighbor on the U.S. side, El Paso, has long been one of the nation's safest big cities, with more than 600,000 people. Last year it was ranked second-safest behind Honolulu.
"Life in El Paso is good," said police spokesman Michael Baranyay, citing the one homicide the city has logged this year. "I don't think their issues over there are the same. They're not trying to get territory over here, they're trying to get territory over there."
In Yuma County, on the southwestern edge of Arizona, smugglers used to shoot at sheriff's deputies from across the Colorado River. But an influx of border patrol agents — there are now 18,500 on the entire border, more than ever before — chased crime away, said Capt. Eben Bratcher.
"It's tapered off to close to nothing now," he said.
There may be a cost to success, according to those who fight crime here.
"As the ports of entry and some of the other choke points have locked down, that's raised the stakes," said Lt. Jeff Palmer, head of the Pima County Sheriff's Border Crime Unit, which patrols the deserts between Tucson and Mexico. "People are more willing to commit violent acts to get their materials across."
That may be what's happening in Cochise County, a swath of rugged desert in the southeastern corner of the state that has been a favorite path for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers since the federal government fortified the California border in the 1990s.
Robert Krentz, a devout Catholic known for giving food and water to migrants who crossed his ranch near the border, was found shot to death in March. Footprints from the scene led into Mexico.
Crime statistics have been flat in Cochise County for a decade. But Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the county sheriff's office, said that obscured a rise in border violence.
Burglaries in the rural area where Krentz lived have nearly doubled in the last year. Nearby, one man was tied up at gunpoint when he went to help apparently stranded migrants. "The crime is spilling over," she said. "I don't know that we're going to catch a break here."
When Kirkham left law enforcement agencies in Phoenix's suburbs to become chief in Nogales, his colleagues thought he was crazy and entering a war zone. Now Kirkham laughs. The dark side of immigration and drug trafficking is more visible near Phoenix, 180 miles north, where migrants are often held for ransom by smugglers.
"All those issues don't hang by the border," Kirkham said. The smugglers "want to get away from it as fast as possible."
Indeed, the cartels have an interest in the peace and quiet of the U.S. side of the border — sometimes they use it as a safe zone for their operations. For several months, Kirkham said, his department monitored three suspected hit men from Mexico who stayed in a posh suburb just north of town, journeying back to Nogales' southern neighbor, apparently to perform assassinations.
The men, who were eventually arrested in Mexico, were on their best behavior in the U.S., he said.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/13/nation/la-na-border-crime-20100514
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Violence is not up on Arizona border
Arizona Republic
May2, 2010
by Dennis Wagner
NOGALES, Ariz. - Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez shakes his head and smiles when he hears politicians and pundits declaring that Mexican cartel violence is overrunning his Arizona border town.
"We have not, thank God, witnessed any spillover violence from Mexico," Bermudez says emphatically. "You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America."
FBI Uniform Crime Reports and statistics provided by police agencies, in fact, show that the crime rates in Nogales, Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade, even as drug-related violence has spiraled out of control on the other side of the international line. Statewide, rates of violent crime also are down.
While smugglers have become more aggressive in their encounters with authorities, as evidenced by the shooting of a Pinal County deputy on Friday, allegedly by illegal-immigrant drug runners, they do not routinely target residents of border towns.
In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes. Aggravated assaults dropped by one-third. No one has been murdered in two years.
Bermudez said people unfamiliar with the border may be confused because Nogales, Sonora, has become notorious for kidnappings, shootouts and beheadings. With 500 Border Patrol agents and countless other law officers swarming the Arizona side, he said, smugglers pass through as quickly and furtively as possible.
"Everywhere you turn, there's some kind of law enforcement looking at you," Bermudez said. "Per capita, we probably have the highest amount of any city in the United States."
In Yuma, police spokesman Sgt. Clint Norred said he cannot recall any significant cartel violence in the past several years. Departmental crime records show the amount of bloodshed has remained stable despite a substantial population increase.
"It almost seems like Yuma is more of an entryway" for smugglers rather than a combat zone, he said.
Perceptions vs. reality
Since the murder of Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz by a suspected illegal immigrant in March, politicians and the national press have fanned a perception that the border is inundated with bloodshed and that it's escalating.
In a speech on the Senate floor last week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that the failure to secure that border between Arizona and Mexico "has led to violence - the worst I have ever seen."
He reiterated that Saturday after speaking at the West Valley Military Family Day event in Glendale, saying the concern that drug violence could spill across the border remains intense because Mexico's political situation is volatile.
"The violence is on the increase," McCain told The Arizona Republic. "The president of Mexico has said that it's a struggle for the existence of the government of Mexico."
Congressional members, including Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and John Shadegg, R-Ariz., sent President Barack Obama a letter asking that National Guard soldiers be sent to the border because "violence in the vicinity of the U.S. Mexico border continues to increase at an alarming rate."
And last month, as she signed Arizona's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigrants, Gov. Jan Brewer also called for National Guard troops. The law makes it a state crime to be in Arizona illegally and requires authorities to check documents of people they reasonably suspect to be illegal. Brewer said she signed it to solve what she said is an Arizona "crisis" caused by "border-related violence and crime due to illegal immigration."
Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff of Pima County, said there always has been crime associated with smuggling in southern Arizona, but today's rhetoric does not seem to jibe with reality.
"This is a media-created event," Dupnik said. "I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure."
Even Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, among the most strident critics of federal enforcement, concedes that notions of cartel mayhem are exaggerated. "We're not seeing the multiple killings, beheadings and shootouts that are going on on the other side," he said.
In fact, according to the Border Patrol, Krentz is the only American murdered by a suspected illegal immigrant in at least a decade within the agency's Tucson sector, the busiest smuggling route among the Border Patrol's nine coverage regions along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Still, Dever said, the slaying proved useful to southern Arizonans who are sick of smugglers and immigrants tramping through their lands.
"The interest just elevated. And we keep the pressure on because next week something else is going to happen, and the window of opportunity will close," Dever said.
Cochise County's crime rate has been "flat" for at least 10 years, the sheriff added. Even in 2000, when record numbers of undocumented immigrants were detained in the area, just 4 percent of the area's violent crimes were committed by illegal aliens.
Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said his town suffers from home invasions and kidnappings involving marijuana smugglers who are undoubtedly tied to Mexican organizations. However, he added, most of those committing the rip-offs are American citizens.
"I think the border-influenced violence is getting worse," Villasenor said. "But is it a spillover of Mexican cartel members? No, I don't buy that."
More help on the border
While the nation's illegal-immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2004, according to federal records, the violent-crime rate declined 35 percent.
More recently, Arizona's violent-crime rate dropped from 512 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 447 incidents in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available.
In testimony to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security last month, Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney for Arizona, noted that Arizona now has more than 6,000 federal law-enforcement agents, with the majority of them employed by the Border Patrol. That represents nearly 10 agents for every mile of international line between Arizona and Sonora.
Border Patrol presence has been backed by increases in counter-smuggling technology and intelligence, the establishment of permanent highway checkpoints and a dramatic increase in customs inspectors at U.S. ports.
"The border is as secure now as it has ever been," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate panel last week.
Given that level of security, Bermudez and others say, it is no wonder that cartel operatives pass through border communities as quickly as possible, avoiding conflicts and attention.
In fact, violent-crime data suggest that violence from Mexico leapfrogs the border to smuggling hubs and destinations, where cartel members do take part in murders, home invasions and kidnappings.
In Phoenix and Tucson, cartel-related violence is hardly new.
In 1996, for example, Valley law-enforcement agents estimated that 40 percent of all homicides in Maricopa County were a result of conflicts involving Mexican narcotics organizations, mostly from Sinaloa state. A decade later, the Attorney General's Office exposed a $2 billion human-smuggling business based in metro Phoenix, where criminals often assaulted illegal aliens while holding them for payment of smuggling fees. More recently, cartel-related home invasions and abductions put Phoenix among the world leaders in kidnappings.
'A third country'
During a national border security expo in Phoenix last week, David Aguilar, acting deputy commissioner for Customs and Border Protection, said policy makers and the public need to understand that the border is not a fence or a line in the dirt but a broad and complex corridor.
"It is," Aguilar explained, "a third country that joins Mexico and the United States."
He emphasized that the cartels operate throughout Mexico and the United States, and he noted that those who think of border security in terms of a "juridical line" really don't understand the dynamics.
Aguilar said that Juarez, Mexico, is widely regarded as the "deadliest city in the world" because of an estimated 5,000 murders in recent years. Yet right across the border, El Paso, Texas, is listed among the safest towns in America.
A review of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports suggests that Arizona's border towns share El Paso's good fortune. Douglas and Nogales are about the same size as Florence but have significantly lower violent-crime rates. Likewise, Yuma has a population greater than Avondale's but a lower rate of violent offenses.
In Nogales, Ariz., residents seem bemused and annoyed by their town's perilous reputation. Yes, they sometimes hear the gunfire across the border. No, they don't feel safe visiting the sister city across the line. But with cops and federal agents everywhere, they see no danger on their streets.
"There's no violence here," said Francisco Hernandez, 31, who works in a sign shop and lives on a ranch along the border. "It doesn't drain over, like people are saying."
Leo Federico, 61, a retired teacher, said he has been amazed to hear members of Congress call for National Guard troops in the area.
"That's politics," he said, shrugging. "It's all about votes. . . . We have plenty of law enforcement."
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/05/02/20100502arizona-border-violence-mexico.html
May2, 2010
by Dennis Wagner
NOGALES, Ariz. - Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez shakes his head and smiles when he hears politicians and pundits declaring that Mexican cartel violence is overrunning his Arizona border town.
"We have not, thank God, witnessed any spillover violence from Mexico," Bermudez says emphatically. "You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America."
FBI Uniform Crime Reports and statistics provided by police agencies, in fact, show that the crime rates in Nogales, Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade, even as drug-related violence has spiraled out of control on the other side of the international line. Statewide, rates of violent crime also are down.
While smugglers have become more aggressive in their encounters with authorities, as evidenced by the shooting of a Pinal County deputy on Friday, allegedly by illegal-immigrant drug runners, they do not routinely target residents of border towns.
In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes. Aggravated assaults dropped by one-third. No one has been murdered in two years.
Bermudez said people unfamiliar with the border may be confused because Nogales, Sonora, has become notorious for kidnappings, shootouts and beheadings. With 500 Border Patrol agents and countless other law officers swarming the Arizona side, he said, smugglers pass through as quickly and furtively as possible.
"Everywhere you turn, there's some kind of law enforcement looking at you," Bermudez said. "Per capita, we probably have the highest amount of any city in the United States."
In Yuma, police spokesman Sgt. Clint Norred said he cannot recall any significant cartel violence in the past several years. Departmental crime records show the amount of bloodshed has remained stable despite a substantial population increase.
"It almost seems like Yuma is more of an entryway" for smugglers rather than a combat zone, he said.
Perceptions vs. reality
Since the murder of Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz by a suspected illegal immigrant in March, politicians and the national press have fanned a perception that the border is inundated with bloodshed and that it's escalating.
In a speech on the Senate floor last week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that the failure to secure that border between Arizona and Mexico "has led to violence - the worst I have ever seen."
He reiterated that Saturday after speaking at the West Valley Military Family Day event in Glendale, saying the concern that drug violence could spill across the border remains intense because Mexico's political situation is volatile.
"The violence is on the increase," McCain told The Arizona Republic. "The president of Mexico has said that it's a struggle for the existence of the government of Mexico."
Congressional members, including Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and John Shadegg, R-Ariz., sent President Barack Obama a letter asking that National Guard soldiers be sent to the border because "violence in the vicinity of the U.S. Mexico border continues to increase at an alarming rate."
And last month, as she signed Arizona's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigrants, Gov. Jan Brewer also called for National Guard troops. The law makes it a state crime to be in Arizona illegally and requires authorities to check documents of people they reasonably suspect to be illegal. Brewer said she signed it to solve what she said is an Arizona "crisis" caused by "border-related violence and crime due to illegal immigration."
Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff of Pima County, said there always has been crime associated with smuggling in southern Arizona, but today's rhetoric does not seem to jibe with reality.
"This is a media-created event," Dupnik said. "I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure."
Even Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, among the most strident critics of federal enforcement, concedes that notions of cartel mayhem are exaggerated. "We're not seeing the multiple killings, beheadings and shootouts that are going on on the other side," he said.
In fact, according to the Border Patrol, Krentz is the only American murdered by a suspected illegal immigrant in at least a decade within the agency's Tucson sector, the busiest smuggling route among the Border Patrol's nine coverage regions along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Still, Dever said, the slaying proved useful to southern Arizonans who are sick of smugglers and immigrants tramping through their lands.
"The interest just elevated. And we keep the pressure on because next week something else is going to happen, and the window of opportunity will close," Dever said.
Cochise County's crime rate has been "flat" for at least 10 years, the sheriff added. Even in 2000, when record numbers of undocumented immigrants were detained in the area, just 4 percent of the area's violent crimes were committed by illegal aliens.
Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said his town suffers from home invasions and kidnappings involving marijuana smugglers who are undoubtedly tied to Mexican organizations. However, he added, most of those committing the rip-offs are American citizens.
"I think the border-influenced violence is getting worse," Villasenor said. "But is it a spillover of Mexican cartel members? No, I don't buy that."
More help on the border
While the nation's illegal-immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2004, according to federal records, the violent-crime rate declined 35 percent.
More recently, Arizona's violent-crime rate dropped from 512 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2005 to 447 incidents in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available.
In testimony to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security last month, Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney for Arizona, noted that Arizona now has more than 6,000 federal law-enforcement agents, with the majority of them employed by the Border Patrol. That represents nearly 10 agents for every mile of international line between Arizona and Sonora.
Border Patrol presence has been backed by increases in counter-smuggling technology and intelligence, the establishment of permanent highway checkpoints and a dramatic increase in customs inspectors at U.S. ports.
"The border is as secure now as it has ever been," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate panel last week.
Given that level of security, Bermudez and others say, it is no wonder that cartel operatives pass through border communities as quickly as possible, avoiding conflicts and attention.
In fact, violent-crime data suggest that violence from Mexico leapfrogs the border to smuggling hubs and destinations, where cartel members do take part in murders, home invasions and kidnappings.
In Phoenix and Tucson, cartel-related violence is hardly new.
In 1996, for example, Valley law-enforcement agents estimated that 40 percent of all homicides in Maricopa County were a result of conflicts involving Mexican narcotics organizations, mostly from Sinaloa state. A decade later, the Attorney General's Office exposed a $2 billion human-smuggling business based in metro Phoenix, where criminals often assaulted illegal aliens while holding them for payment of smuggling fees. More recently, cartel-related home invasions and abductions put Phoenix among the world leaders in kidnappings.
'A third country'
During a national border security expo in Phoenix last week, David Aguilar, acting deputy commissioner for Customs and Border Protection, said policy makers and the public need to understand that the border is not a fence or a line in the dirt but a broad and complex corridor.
"It is," Aguilar explained, "a third country that joins Mexico and the United States."
He emphasized that the cartels operate throughout Mexico and the United States, and he noted that those who think of border security in terms of a "juridical line" really don't understand the dynamics.
Aguilar said that Juarez, Mexico, is widely regarded as the "deadliest city in the world" because of an estimated 5,000 murders in recent years. Yet right across the border, El Paso, Texas, is listed among the safest towns in America.
A review of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports suggests that Arizona's border towns share El Paso's good fortune. Douglas and Nogales are about the same size as Florence but have significantly lower violent-crime rates. Likewise, Yuma has a population greater than Avondale's but a lower rate of violent offenses.
In Nogales, Ariz., residents seem bemused and annoyed by their town's perilous reputation. Yes, they sometimes hear the gunfire across the border. No, they don't feel safe visiting the sister city across the line. But with cops and federal agents everywhere, they see no danger on their streets.
"There's no violence here," said Francisco Hernandez, 31, who works in a sign shop and lives on a ranch along the border. "It doesn't drain over, like people are saying."
Leo Federico, 61, a retired teacher, said he has been amazed to hear members of Congress call for National Guard troops in the area.
"That's politics," he said, shrugging. "It's all about votes. . . . We have plenty of law enforcement."
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/05/02/20100502arizona-border-violence-mexico.html
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