The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas will hold a community meeting Thursday in Brownsville to discuss human rights and civil rights issues on the border.
The event is co-sponsored by the Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity and Action (CASA). Border residents are urged to attend the meeting to voice their concerns about the border wall, immigration detention centers, and collaboration between local law enforcement officers and the Border Patrol, among other issues.
“We really want to hear from border residents about what worries them, what issues are important in their communities,” said Rebecca Bernhardt, Director of Policy Development at the ACLU of Texas, “and what they want for their communities in the future.”
The meeting will include “Know Your Rights” training about residents’ legal rights in law enforcement encounters, and attorneys and other advocates will be available to answer questions from community members.
“This information is important for residents so they know what to do when they are approached by police officers or border patrol officers in their homes, in their cars, and on the street,” Bernhardt said. “They will learn what law enforcement constitutionally can and cannot do.”
CASA member E. Elizabeth Garcia said CASA is getting complaints from community members that during routine traffic stops police officers are asking about their immigration status.
“Many in our community live in fear of being targeted and subjected to invasive, inappropriate questioning,” Garcia said. “For this reason, we want to provide community members with an opportunity to discuss their experiences as well as information on how to handle these types of incidents.”
The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at San Felipe de Jesus Church, 2218 Carlos Avenue. Dinner and refreshments will be provided.
Environmental advocates said Wednesday that they weren’t surprised by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s decision this week to waive several environmental laws to expedite construction of border fencing in four states. Still, they haven’t given up on efforts to stop the project.
“I thought eventually, they would do this,” said Martin Hagne, manager of Valley Nature Center in Weslaco. “But I don’t feel we are defeated, and we’re certainly looking at every avenue possible.”
For months, environmental groups have spoken out against the proposed border fence, saying it would affect wildlife’s ability to migrate and reach fresh water from the Rio Grande.
Hidalgo County’s proposal to construct 22 miles of concrete levees that would double as a border fence rankled environmentalists even more.
Officials from the Rio Grande Valley’s wildlife refuges and environmental advocates said the combined fence-levee structure would make it impossible for endangered species like the ocelot to migrate.
Environmental groups likely will have a tough time finding an avenue to stop the proposal now, however. Under the 2005 Real ID Act, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has the authority to waive any laws that prevent quick construction of border fencing, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
That waiver leaves environmental groups with little legal recourse against the fence’s construction, said Oliver Bernstein, spokesman for the Sierra Club.
Last year, Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife filed a federal lawsuit challenging the construction of fencing on the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in Arizona. A federal judge issued an injunction against construction in October that later became moot after Chertoff invoked his waiver authority, Bernstein said.
“Once that waiver was granted, construction started right up and we weren’t able to do anything else,” he said.
The two organizations have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the court to evaluate whether the Real ID Act is constitutional.
“We expect a response sometime this summer,” Bernstein said.
Chertoff’s announcement came after a March 3 letter from Kenneth Stansell, deputy director of the U.S. Department of the Interior, to Greg Gibbens, director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Secure Border Initiative. In the letter, Stansell says that any border fence or levee that cuts across the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge would ultimately violate the refuge’s purpose, and therefore Chertoff would have to waive the National Wildlife Refuge Administration Act to move forward on fence construction.
Stansell further warned that a proposed fence-levee combination in Hidalgo County would present more environmental problems than the original fence proposal.
“This combined project would eliminate wildlife passage by replacing CBP’s original ‘wildlife-friendly’ fence design with an impermeable 16- to 18-foot high wall built into a flood-control levee,” Stansell said in the letter.
Even with the waiver in place, the U.S. Department of the Interior is still working with the Department of Homeland Security on ways to minimize the fence’s environmental impact, said Department of the Interior spokesman Shane Wolfe.
The agencies are working on an agreement that would grant $50 million to the Department of the Interior to fund mitigation projects that would help endangered species, Wolfe said in a statement.
Environmental advocates said they are appealing to members of Congress to change the Real ID Act, and also are waiting to see what happens with the Supreme Court appeal and the November presidential elections.
“I think the public is starting to see that we have some valid points,” Hagne said. “I think this issue will gain national momentum.”
Refuge officials said, meanwhile, that they’re doing what they can to protect wildlife as fence plans move ahead - even if they feel their hands are tied.
“We’ve tried to figure out a way to make this a wildlife-friendly fence, but at the end of the day, it’s going to be a stretch,” said Nancy Brown, spokeswoman for the South Texas Refuge Complex.
McALLEN, Texas (AP) - Rio Grande Valley elected officials and environmentalists wonder if they will know the full impact of the border fence before it is in their backyards now that the federal government has bypassed the law requiring detailed environmental study.
They waited months for a final environmental impact statement to be produced after extensive study of what lay in the fence’s path.
Now the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says those studies will go on, but it does not have to produce a final report.
Members of the Texas Border Coalition were told in a conference call with federal officials Wednesday that they will not get the final report on the fence. Homeland Security said it would instead work from a draft study.
Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the coalition, said they were told that some findings and mitigation studies would be made available to them, but not the comprehensive report required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
“What is it we don’t want to show the world,” Foster said. “That makes one suspicious.”
Congress has mandated that the Department of Homeland Security have 670 miles of fencing in place along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of year to protect against terrorism and stem the tide of illegal immigration.
Last fall, the Department of Homeland Security released a massive draft environmental impact statement, with maps of possible fence routes and areas of environmental, historical and archaeological significance that would be studied in more detail for the final document. A public comment period followed when individuals, organizations and other government agencies submitted their concerns and suggestions for alternatives.
The National Environmental Policy Act was one of more than 30 laws Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced he was bypassing Tuesday.
The move away from an established process concerned border area officials and defenders of the environment.
“If you use this waiver and go around NEPA, and then claim you’re still going to do environmental studies, we would be wary of that because NEPA guarantees a process,” said Oliver Bernstein, spokesman for the Sierra Club in Texas. “They’ve kind of pulled the carpet out from under the community participation.”
In addition to detailing the fence’s impact, the final environmental impact statement was supposed to show that alternatives were explored, Bernstein said. “We may never know at this point.”
Amy Kudwa, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said the agency had the draft environmental impact statement. “We will continue to work from that and will continue to move forward with environmental assessments.” Kudwa did not know what information would be made public or when.
In a statement released Tuesday, Chertoff said his agency “is neither compromising its commitment to responsible environmental stewardship nor its commitment to solicit and respond to the needs of state, local and tribal governments, other agencies of the federal government and local residents.”
McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez, who participated in the call, said, “They say one thing and then they back off it.”
Cortez was left with the impression that “they (Homeland Security) felt that they had done sufficient work, that there were no significant concerns out there and they could move forward.”
Federally-contracted archaeologists, wildlife experts and others have been conducting surveys along the fence’s path since late last year.
Cortez said, “I think we have a right to see what the data says.”
Under the Real ID Act, Congress gave Chertoff the authority to waive laws that impeded building the fence.
As of March 17, there were 309 miles of fencing in place. The waivers announced Tuesday cover about 470 miles of the border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
Resistance to the border fence has been strongest in South Texas, where towns sit above the Rio Grande and families have strong ties on both sides of the border.
More than 50 Texas property owners have been sued by the government to allow surveying for the fence.
Gov. Janet Napolitano urged Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Sheriff Joe Arpaio to resolve their differences over immigration enforcement Wednesday as Hispanic leaders called for an end to the sheriff’s immigration patrols, claiming they are dividing the community and could lead to violence.
The governor, speaking at her weekly media briefing, said the problems “should be resolved professionally,” adding, “I think law enforcement ought to be focused on how public safety is most enhanced.”
She said the dispute over notification between the city and the sheriff over their operations needs to be settled.
“You run the risk of somebody getting hurt,” she said. “If you don’t know what other undercover operations or other things are going on out there, you really could have people running into each other… The second question is making sure that you are not violating people’s civil rights as you do these activities.”
Meanwhile, Hispanic leaders said the sheriff’s crackdowns on illegal immigrants are creating fear and unrest in the community.
“As a community, we see him going out setting up his troops and stopping people at random — racial profiling,” said Hector Yturralde, president of We Are America. “After they find out they can’t speak English or they have no identification, then they stop them for immigration.”
Yturralde added, “He is causing a division within this community that is not good. And that is not his job.”
He said the sheriff is using his title to grandstand at taxpayers’ expense.
In the past two weeks, Arpaio has conducted patrols at two Phoenix locations where day laborers gather, using some 200 deputies and posse members. Last week, more than 50 people were arrested in the area around Cave Creek and Bell Roads. More than a dozen were illegal immigrants. Arpaio has vowed to continue the operations.
Yturralde, Lydia Guzman with Respect Respecto and immigrants’ activist and former state lawmaker Alfredo Gutierrez expressed concerns that Arpaio’s patrols, which have drawn large groups of protesters and criticism from Phoenix police and the mayor, will end up in violence.
“We’re seeing people come out of the shadows who are very angry because at some point they feel victimized,” said Guzman. “And other people are coming out of maybe the other side of the shadows and saying we want something done.”
Gutierrez said most “decent” people do not believe the sheriff’s operations are accomplishing anything, except dividing the community.
“He chose to take this extraordinary provocative approach,” Gutierrez said, adding that during last week’s operation, “We were able to maintain control, but barely.”
He said more patrols could lead to formal resistance, i.e. civil disobedience on the streets of Phoenix.
“I think that will begin to occur at his next excursion, the next time he brings 200 or 300 people into a neighborhood to arrest people,” Gutierrez said.
Guzman and Gutierrez said everyone believes that immigration reform is absolutely necessary, but it is the responsibility of Congress and the federal government.
EDINBURG - U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Friday that he will file a bill authorizing the government to reimburse Cameron and Hidalgo counties for any spending on repairs to a federally owned flood control system along the Rio Grande.
Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas said he hopes to have 75 percent of the repairs completed by the end of the year. The first phase of construction is slated to begin in April.
The local reimbursement model “allows this reconstruction to go forward and not wait for the federal government to act,” Cornyn said. “It can take a while for the federal government to get around to doing the right thing sometimes.”
Assuming Congress authorizes the payback, proponents still would have to convince Congress to allocate the funding for it through the International Boundary and Water Commission, which is overseeing repairs and controls the levees along the nation’s southern border.
“(Cornyn) said he’s going to tack it on to the fastest bill he can find,” Salinas said of the funding request.
Hidalgo County voters in 2006 approved a $100 million bond issue to repair the levees, but area leaders hoped the federal government would relieve the burden on local taxpayers by reimbursing the county for any spending on those repairs.
Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos and other officials put the price tag of repairing that county’s levee’s at $50 million. So any help from the federal government would help save local taxpayers from shouldering the burden.
Rick Noriega, Cornyn’s Democratic challenger in the upcoming November general election, said during a visit to McAllen on Thursday that the senator is now pushing for money and supporting a combination border security wall/levee to hide the fact that he authorized funding for the unpopular wall in the first place.
“He’s looking for a way out for the three votes he cast for the wall,” Noriega said. “Why haven’t you (Cornyn) brought funding down here to fix the levees first?”
The federal government is responsible for levee maintenance, but federal law and an agreement between the county and IBWC prohibit the IBWC from reimbursing the county.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in January that it would build a border wall here designed to halt illegal entry from Mexico along 22 miles of the county’s levees. That portion of the project is stalled while officials try to figure out exactly how to fund it.
The entire levee repair project in Cameron and Hidalgo counties is expected to cost about $125 million.
McALLEN - Human smugglers are employing increasingly risky and dangerous methods to transport illegal immigrants since security tightened along the U.S.-Mexico border, law enforcement officials said.
“They’re getting less area they can successfully enter,” said Oscar Saldaña, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman.
“That’s why were seeing more of these desperate acts. And unfortunately, we anticipate there’s going to be more of these types of events.”
On Thursday a Ford F-150 carrying more than 20 illegal immigrants collided with another vehicle on Expressway 83 in Peñitas, leaving three dead and another 14 injured.
They were the latest victims of what appears to be a growing and often fatal trend in the Rio Grande Valley of human smugglers, or coyotes, filling cars and trucks with loads of immigrants far beyond the vehicles’ capacity and then driving at high speeds, often to elude law enforcement.
Law enforcement’s presence here has increased significantly over the past six years, since President Bush ordered federal law enforcement agencies to tighten control of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The number of Border Patrol agents in the Valley has risen from about 1,200 in 2002 to more than 2,200 this year, Saldaña said. And local law enforcement agencies - from small-town police departments to the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office - have been awarded a series of state and federal grants to dedicate officers to border security details.
“You’re talking about human smuggling and drugs,” Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said. “There’s no doubt in the last five years the attitude of the human smuggler has taken a 180. They have transformed themselves into a commodity broker that has no limitations to getting their cargo to where they want to go.”
Less publicized than their counterparts in the drug trafficking industry, human smuggling organizations tend to be highly structured, with resources and operatives spread across the globe, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Janice Ayala, who directs investigations between Laredo and Brownsville.
Fees range anywhere from $300 to $50,000 per person, depending on where the immigrant is coming from and wants to go, as well as the difficulty of the route, she said. A person traveling from China might have one smuggler take them to Central America, another take them to Mexico, another to take them across the border and another to move them through the United States.
“These are organizations moving people from one country to another to another, so they need a very sophisticated network in order to do that,” Ayala said.
“Most of these alien smuggling organizations are paying passage to a large (drug) cartel, because they have the routes to the U.S.”
Officials uniformly expressed dismay at what Treviño described as the “abrasive and violent” attitude of the coyotes.
“Back in the day, a coyote would take money for helping people across, but they were maybe more of a compañero, more of a surrogate,” Treviño said.
The Mexican government, at both the state and federal level, is in the midst of a public relations campaign to warn Mexican nationals of the growing danger of crossing the border illegally.
Billboards in the United States and Mexico caution against traveling with coyotes, and government-written newspaper columns tell horror stories of immigrants drowning in the Rio Grande or being left to die in the desert heat.
“We share the tragic stories of migrants, so people can talk to relatives and discourage them,” said Miriam Medel, vice consul of the Mexican Consulate in McAllen.
“(The coyotes) are our worst enemy, and we’re always trying to tell people not to trust them.”
In Washington, D.C., where Congress is expected to address immigration reform again next year, the recent worsening of the human smuggling problem has not as yet gained traction as a political issue, said Douglas Rivlin, a spokesman for the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant advocacy group.
In fact, despite heightened interest early in this presidential campaign, illegal immigration has fallen off as a talking point for the candidates over the last two months, he said.
“I think (some people are aware) in terms of just some of the press coverage we’ve seen about immigrants being held captive by smugglers, but not in terms of people being aware that we’re in a new era of smuggling,” Rivlin said.
‘Our worst enemy’
‘Abrasive and violent’
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) - Mexican soldiers arrested nine police officers who were allegedly carrying drugs in their patrol cars in the violence-plagued city of Ciudad Juarez, just south of El Paso, Texas.
The officers were detained over the weekend while carrying marijuana and radios with non-police frequencies, Mayor Jose Reyes and municipal Public Safety Department spokesman Jaime Torres said Monday.
“We know there are officers who aren’t upright and are breaking the law,” Reyes said. “Our job is to identify them and fire them, and to support the federal authorities in their efforts.”
Last week, the government sent more than 2,500 soldiers and federal police to crack down on soaring violence in the border state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juarez is located.
About 200 people have been killed in the city of 1.3 million so far this year, and 47 policemen have resigned or requested retirement in the last month.
Chihuahua is also home to the town of Palomas, across from Columbus, New Mexico, where at least 40 people have been killed since Jan. 1. Palomas’ police chief recently sought asylum in the U.S. after his deputies abandoned him and he received death threats.
RACHAL - U.S. Border Patrol agent Adam Ruiz had to act fast as the van full of undocumented immigrants veered into the path of a hurtling 18-wheeler.
Should he pursue the vehicle’s driver, who bailed out on the shoulder of U.S. 281 and left the van’s gear in drive? Or chase down the van and its occupants as they edged closer and closer into oncoming traffic?
In seconds, Ruiz sprang into action. The eight-year agency veteran bolted toward the moving vehicle, leaped through the passenger side door and steered the vehicle to safety.
His quick thinking and fast action may have saved the lives of the nine Mexican nationals later found sitting the back of the van without any type of safety restraints, local Border Patrol spokesman Daniel A. Doty said.
“This happens more than people know,” Doty said. “Our first concern is for the safety of the people involved.”
But as daring as the March 11 rescue near Rachal sounds, it’s a situation border agents are encountering more often as they step up efforts to crack down on human smugglers.
Ruiz, a supervisory agent stationed in McAllen, declined interview requests about the rescue. But its details emerged Monday in court documents filed against the van’s driver, 30-year-old Ramiro Regalado Garcia.
Immigrant smugglers, or coyotes, are increasingly putting their passengers’ lives in danger in efforts to avoid arrest, Doty said. Some have even left still-moving vehicles to hurtle into trees, fences and highway barriers.
In a similar case earlier this year, 22-year-old accused smuggler Jose Padilla lost an ear as he tried to jump out of a moving vehicle during a police pursuit in La Joya. The six Honduran and Salvadoran immigrants police say he was carrying managed to escape the eventual crash without major injury.
“At one time several years ago, people would just park the car and start running,” Doty said. “Now that we’ve increased our manpower, they’re starting to adopt new strategies to get away.”
But Border Patrol agents have also adjusted their tactics to address these dangerous situations, he said. Now, one group of agents focuses on apprehending fleeing drivers while another group works to ensure the safety of his immigrant cargo.
Operating under new training strategies, Ruiz ran after the endangered Mexican nationals while Border Patrol helicopters kept tabs on a fleeing Regalado. Agents apprehended him yards from where his van was eventually stopped.
On Monday, Regalado pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges and remains in federal custody pending a sentencing hearing scheduled for June 9.
But thanks to some fast thinking from Ruiz, the coyote’s nine passengers were all able to return to Mexico safely.
“He is an exceptional agent,” Doty said. “But he doesn’t like to take the spotlight for something any other agent would have done in that situation.”
It started out as a simple code enforcement assignment for Kern County Sheriff’s deputies and code enforcement officers Thursday afternoon.
It ended up as a major raid by deputies and federal immigration agents that led the apprehension and deportation of 38 undocumented aliens, all from Mexico, living at four locations in Ford City.
Deputies and code enforcement officers went to 216 Monroe St. to investigate code enforcement issues and found 18 men, all in this county illegally, living in a large room at the house.
“It was an (illegal alien) motel,” Sheriff’s Sgt. Martin Downs said.
Downs contacted Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers who responded rapidly with a large bus.
The eighteen aliens detained on Monroe Street were loaded onto the bus, and deputies and ICE agents decided to check several more locations where aliens have been known to gather.
They went next to a house at 502 Tyler Street and found nine undocumented men.
They already had several detained from the house when three more walked up to the house and were taken into custody.
Next, a raid on a residence at 219 Van Buren turned up nine undocumented aliens and a fourth stop at a house on Buchanan Street added four more to the round-up.
The raids were halted only because they ran out of room on the bus.
All of the men detained were going to be taken to the United States-Mexican boarder and released into Mexico within about 12 hours.
Most are expected to get back into this country within a day or so, deputies and ICE agents said.
The structure the aliens were staying in on Monroe Street was an add-on to an existing home.
Downs said it contained cubicles for 18 people with a toilet and shower.
The men were paying $125 per month each for a spot in the structure, Downs said.
It was declared unsafe for occupancy by code enforcement officers.
“Deputies were surprised when they found so many people staying there.
“We went in and there was this group of people,” Downs said. “We just kept finding more and more and more of them.”
Instead of deputies holding the 18 men detained or just releasing them onto the street, Downs came up with a plan.
He contacted ICE officials in Bakersfield and they agreed to come pick the men up and stage raids at the other locations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration plans to use its authority to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations in an effort to finish building 670 miles of fence along the southwest U.S. border by the end of this year, federal officials said today.
Invoking the legal waivers — which Congress authorized — would cut through bureaucratic red tape and sidestep environmental laws that currently stand in the way of the Homeland Security Department building 267 miles of fencing in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, according to officials familiar with the plan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the waivers had not yet been announced.
The move would be the biggest use of legal waivers since the administration started building the fence. Previously, the department has used its waiver authority for two portions of fence in Arizona and one portion in San Diego.
As of March 17, there were 309 miles of fencing in place, leaving 361 to be completed by the end of the year. Of those, 267 miles are being held up by federal, state and local laws and regulations.
The waivers would address the construction of a 22-mile levee barrier in Hidalgo County, Texas; 30 miles of fencing and technology deployment on environmentally sensitive ground in San Diego, Tucson and the Rio Grande; and 215 miles in California, Arizona and Texas that face other legal impediments due to administrative processes. For instance, building in some areas requires assessments and studies that — if conducted — could not be completed in time to finish the fence by the end of the year.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had said using the waivers would be a last resort. The department has held more than 100 meetings with lawmakers, environmental groups and residents in an effort to work out obstacles and objections to fence construction. The department will conduct environmental assessments when necessary, one of the officials said. But the waivers allow the department to start building before completing the assessments.
The department was expected to announce the plans later today.
