Border Patrol

Feds discover ‘most sophisticated’ cross-border tunnel with extensive ventilation, rail system

Immigration enforcement agents have uncovered a cross-border tunnel that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is saying could be the “most sophisticated” yet. Stretching from San Luis, Ariz. to San Luis, Mexico, the smuggling passageway includes a fully developed ventilation system, electrical wiring and a rail system. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), authorities discovered the tunnel in late July, before it could be completed. Photos show the tunnel measured three feet wide and four feet high. The discovery was made during an ongoing, multi-agency effort by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). “This appears to be the most sophisticated tunnel in U.S. history, and certainly the most sophisticated I’ve seen in my career,” Border Patrol Yuma Sector’s Acting Chief Patrol Agent Carl Landrum said in a statement Thursday. “We will continue to work closely with our partners – Homeland Security Investigations and state and local agencies — to provide the best national security possible.” Earlier this year, authorities announced they had found the longest known border smuggling tunnel, which stretched from Tijuana to San Diego. The tunnel originated near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and measured 4,309 feet long — more than three-quarters of a mile. The next-longest tunnel in the U.S., discovered in San Diego in 2014, was 2,966 feet long. In March, authorities located a tunnel containing a variety of drugs — including about 1,300 pounds of cocaine, 17 pounds of heroin, and two pounds of fentanyl. CBP has warned in the past that drug trafficking from the U.S.-Mexico border region results in the loss of American lives. News of the tunnel came on the same day that CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan held a press conference in which he warned about the scourge of smuggling. “As the U.S. continues to take on the challenges posed by COVID-19, we must secure our borders from illegal aliens who show their complete disregard of even the most basic application of health and safety precautions, which have become our new norm against COVID-19,” said Morgan, showing pictures of container trucks packed with migrants He added that criminal organizations and smugglers provide false promises to migrants and “have no concern for their safety or the safety of American citizens — again in this backdrop of COVID-19.” He explained that the migrants are kept in crowded, unsanitary stash houses for days in the sweltering heat, a situation he described as a “perfect incubator” for the new coronavirus.

Indeed..  And that’s just the latest consequence of illegal immigration..  Kudos to the great people in CBP and Homeland Security who discovered this before it was completed, and shut it down.  Excellent!!       🙂

23 Deported Sex Offenders Arrested by Border Patrol in May

Border Patrol agents arrested 23 previously deported sex offenders after they illegally crossed the border into the United States. “Transnational criminal networks don’t do background checks on the people they help smuggle into the country,” said Chief Rodney Scott. “Our vigilance makes this country safer, one encounter at a time.” Border Patrol officials report that all migrants apprehended after illegally crossing the border undergo a biometric background investigation that includes checking local, state, and federal law enforcement databases for warrants and previous convictions. In these cases, the illegal aliens had previous convictions for sexual offenses — many against children. Here are some of the examples cited by Border Patrol officials: Border Patrol Apprehends Convicted Sex Offender Near Nogales Human Smuggler, Convicted Sex Offender Arrested by Border Patrol Border Patrol Nabs a Sex Offender and Armed Smugglers Over Memorial Weekend Sex Offender, Human Smuggler Arrested by Border Patrol Utah Sex Offender Arrested By Border Patrol Border Patrol Nabs a Sex Offender and Armed Smugglers Over Memorial Weekend Sex Offender, Human Smuggler Arrested by Border Patrol Convicted Criminals Arrested at the Border in the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Agents Apprehend Two Sex Offenders Over Weekend Two Career Criminals Captured at the Border by RGV Agents Border Patrol Agents Arrest Convicted Child Sex Offender

Thanks to the great men and women of the Border Patrol for all they do every day to keep us safe, and make sure vermin like these criminal aliens (many of them sex offenders) are not roaming our streets.  Great work!!  For more, click on the text above.

Trend of Armed Human Smuggler Arrests Continues in Texas near Border

Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents arrested another armed human smuggler in South Texas near the Rio Grande border with Mexico. Del Rio Sector agents patrolling Val Verde Road near the Mexican border with Texas attempted to stop a 2004 GMC Yukon SUV. As the vehicle stopped, about 16 people bailed out of the vehicle and fled on foot toward the Rio Grande, according to information provided by Del Rio Sector Border Patrol officials. Joined by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations aircrew, Border Patrol agents arrested the two U.S. citizen human smugglers and one of the Mexican illegal aliens before they could get to the river. Officials said the remainder of the group made it into the river and crossed back into Mexico. Border Patrol agents assigned to the Del Rio Sector Foreign Operations Branch contacted the Mexican government and provided the location of the illegal crossing. Mexican law enforcement responded and rounded up the migrants. Mexican authorities turned them over to civil services in Ciudad Acuna, Coahuila, for processing. Agents searched the SUV and found a loaded .380 caliber Ruger pistol. They also found drug paraphernalia. A records check on the driver identified him as a 24-year-old U.S. citizen with a criminal record for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The smugglers now face a felony charge under 8 USC 1324, alien smuggling. They could also face a federal charge for being a felon in possession of a firearm. “With effective cooperation between our law enforcement partners, our reach to disrupt their dangerous activities is greatly enhanced.” Del Rio Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Doyle E. Amidon Jr. said in a written statement. “Collaboration continues to be an invaluable key to our success in capturing these dangerous criminals.” Under coronavirus protection protocols put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Mexican illegal alien will likely be returned to his home country after clearing a medical screening and criminal background check.

This sorta thing is happening EVERY day in Texas, California, and other states on our border with Mexico.  It is just another reason (we’ve documented so many) why it is absolutely critical that we BUILD THE WALL NOW!!!….and put U.S. Army National Guard troops physically ON the border, until that wall/fence is finally built, above and below ground to prevent tunneling, etc.  Securing our southern border needs to be our federal government’s #1 domestic national security priority.  Period.  The Trump Administration is making big strides.  But, it’s nowhere near enough.

Largest contract yet for US-Mexico border wall announced, worth $1.3 billion

A North Dakota construction company has been awarded a massive $1.3 billion contract to build a portion of President Trump’s signature wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota confirmed that the contract to build the 42-mile section of wall in Arizona was awarded to Fisher Sand and Gravel Co. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday that there was no set date to start or complete construction on the latest contract award. Construction will take place near Nogales and Sasabe, both in Arizona. The Army Corps of Engineers, which awards contracts, said Fisher was one of several companies chosen in May 2019 to partake in building $5 billion worth of border wall. This month’s contract to Fisher was part of that award. When asked if there were any additional bidders for this latest contract, a spokesman said the agency couldn’t provide that information because of “procurement sensitivities.” The Arizona Daily Star first reported news of the contract. Trump has promised to build 450 miles of wall along the border with Mexico by the end of the year. So far, the government has awarded millions of dollars in contracts for the construction of 30-foot-tall barriers, along with new lighting, technology and infrastructure. The Trump administration says it has already built 187 miles of wall. Some of it is new but most is replacing old, much shorter barriers that officials said were not sufficient.

The federal government procurement process is a complicated and convoluted one, to be sure.  But, sounds like they’re making some good progress here.  Hopefully now that the contract(s) has been awarded, they can get to work soon.

Hundreds of Chinese migrants detained at US border amid coronavirus-tied travel ban

Since officials first reported the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan in late December and the United States imposed a travel ban for those entering from China, Border Patrol agents have detained 333 Chinese nationals attempting to enter the United States illegally, according to Department of Homeland Security data. While none have tested positive for the virus, the southern border remains a primary focus of the Trump administration, which sees the area as high risk and a gateway for COVID-19 to spread in the U.S. “We have a unique public health threat posed by individuals arriving unlawfully at the border, where migrants, law enforcement officials, frontline personnel, and the American public are put at risk,” said a DHS official who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly by the agency. Under MPP, which stands for the Migrant Protection Protocol, the U.S. has deported some 60,000 migrants to Mexico to await their deportation hearings. Unless the Supreme Court acts, the policy will be ruled illegal in California and Arizona and those individuals and other migrants claiming asylum will be allowed to remain in the U.S. indefinitely. “All it would take is a single infected individual to impact the detained migrant community within DHS facilities without proper precautions, which can only happen through orderly, lawful migration, the virus threatens to spread rapidly,” the official said. “Any halting of MPP would exacerbate this threat.” The U.S. southern border is a microcosm of the world, with foreign nationals from 122 separate countries apprehended or denied entry already this fiscal year — from October through the end of February. Seventy of those countries currently report confirmed COVID-19 cases, led by China but followed by Italy, Iran, India, Romania, Vietnam and Brazil. The virus started popping up on health officials’ radar screens in late December in China and has since spread around the world. Some of the countries on the list have had very low rates of the virus, including Mexico. Meanwhile, the number of cases in the U.S. has risen dramatically in recent days, topping 1,000. China has nearly 81,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, Italy has more than 10,000 and Iran has about 8,000. Last week the Border Patrol asked the CDC to take over testing of those migrants who show symptoms consistent with COVID-19. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also runs 16 detention facilities with airborne infection isolation rooms. So far, it tested 4 migrants, all coming back negative. “It’s absolutely a risk that we’re monitoring and we’re evaluating,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said..

Major kudos to our Border Patrol for all their hard work.  They get beat up daily by the dominantly liberal mainstream media and Democrat politicians who  attack these agents for doing the jobs they were hired to do; protect us.  And with this latest challenge, they’re doing phenomenal work given their limited resources.

Supreme Court rules for Border Patrol agent in suit filed by Mexican family over cross-border shooting

A divided Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in favor of a Border Patrol agent who faced a lawsuit from parents of a Mexican child he killed in a June 2010 cross-border shooting. Jesus Mesa Jr. and the parents of 15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca gave different accounts of what happened, with the parents claiming the teen and his friends were playing a game where they ran back and forth across the border, and Mesa claiming they threw rocks at him during an illegal border-crossing attempt. The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling said that regardless of the circumstances, precedent regarding lawsuits against officers, known as “Bivens claims,” does not apply to cross-border shootings. “As we have made clear in many prior cases,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his opinion, “the Constitution’s separation of powers requires us to exercise caution before extending Bivens to a new ‘context,’ and a claim based on a cross-border shooting arises in a context that is markedly new.” In the 1971 opinion Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, the Supreme Court held that a person claiming they were unlawfully arrested and searched could bring a lawsuit under the Fourth Amendment, even if there was no statutory basis for it. In Tuesday’s opinion, Alito noted the high standard of extending Bivens to a “new context” and gave several reasons why it was inappropriate in this case. The first factor was the impact a lawsuit in such a case could have on foreign relations. “A cross-border shooting is by definition an international incident; it involves an event that occurs simultaneously in two countries and affects both countries’ interests,” Alito wrote. “Such an incident may lead to a disagreement between those countries, as happened in this case.” The U.S. had determined that Mesa should not face criminal charges or be extradited to Mexico. “To avoid upsetting the delicate web of international relations, we typically presume that even congressionally crafted causes of action do not apply outside our borders,” the opinion said. “These concerns are only heightened when judges are asked to fashion constitutional remedies. Congress, which has authority in the field of foreign affairs, has chosen not to create liability in similar statutes, leaving the resolution of extraterritorial claims brought by foreign nationals to executive officials and the diplomatic process.” Alito also pointed to concerns with the court getting involved with matters of national security. “Since regulating the conduct of agents at the border unquestionably has national security implications, the risk of undermining border security provides reason to hesitate before extending Bivens into this field,” he said. The court also pointed to Congress’ history of not awarding damages in cases against federal officials where the injuries took place outside the U.S. While Mesa was on American soil at the time, Hernández was on the Mexican side of the border when Mesa shot him. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas asserted that “the time has come to consider discarding the Bivens doctrine altogether,” noting that the court “has consistently refused to extend the Bivens doctrine for nearly 40 years, even going so far as to suggest that Bivens and its progeny were wrongly decided.”

Even though a split decision, it was the right one.

Greyhound to stop allowing Border Patrol agents to conduct immigration checks on buses without warrant

Greyhound said Friday it would prohibit U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents without a warrant from boarding its buses to conduct immigration checks as bus companies continue to face pressure from civil rights advocates over the practice. The announcement comes after an Associated Press report said a Jan. 28 Border Patrol memo contradicted Greyhound’s stance that it had to allow the agents on its buses under federal law. The company has maintained it didn’t agree with the checks but had no choice but to comply. The memo addressed to all chief patrol agents and signed by then-Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost before her retirement said agents can’t board private buses without consent from bus companies. “When transportation checks occur on a bus at non-checkpoint locations, the agent must demonstrate that he or she gained access to the bus with the consent of the company’s owner or one of the company’s employees,” the memo states. Border agents regularly climb onto buses within 100 miles of the border to ask passengers about their immigration status. Some have been captured on video, prompting outrage from immigration advocate groups. Civil rights organizations argue the checks are discriminatory and that passengers are routinely profiled under the Trump administration. Greyhound faces a lawsuit in California over the checks, which some claim violate consumer protection laws. The company said it would provide training to its drivers and bus station employees about the new policy, along with stickers to be placed on buses saying it does not consent to searches.

Just crazy..  More political correctness that puts all of us at risk.  When you get on an airline, you have to show an ID and prove who you are, and they ask all sorts of security questions when you check in.  How is this any different?  It’s not.  It’s just that it has, for a long time, happened more so near the border for very obvious, common sense, reasons.  But, now Greyhound is more worried about offending illegal aliens (and their lawyers), who shouldn’t be here in the first place, than it is worried about the safety of the rest of us.  Unreal…

Trump Admin to Send Border Patrol Special Ops on Raids in Sanctuary Cities

The Trump administration is sending officers from a special operations unit of the Border Patrol to assist in raids by Immigration Customs and Enforcement in so-called sanctuary cities. The officers from BORTAC, the Border Patrol’s version of a SWAT unit, will deploy to New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and various other cities whose local governments forbid law enforcement from working with federal immigration officials, the New York Times reported on Friday. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lawrence Payne confirmed the initiative. BORTAC officers will be deployed “in order to enhance the integrity of the immigration system, protect public safety, and strengthen our national security,” Payne said. “As we have noted for years, in jurisdictions where we are not allowed to assume custody of aliens from jails, our officers are forced to make at-large arrests of criminal aliens who have been released into communities,” ICE acting director Matthew T. Albence said in a statement. “When sanctuary cities release these criminals back to the street, it increases the occurrence of preventable crimes, and more importantly, preventable victims.” BORTAC usually operates in hot, rugged areas along the U.S.-Mexico border and specializes in capturing criminals and cracking down on smuggling operations. While embedded with ICE in sanctuary cities, BORTAC officers will engage in more run-of-the-mill arrests. The news comes after Attorney General William Barr announced Monday that the Justice Department would begin a “significant escalation” against sanctuary cities. Barr said the department would move to file lawsuits against sanctuary cities and locales that actively impede federal immigration enforcement.

Robert Perez: Combating distribution of counterfeit goods an ‘important effort’

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) push to crack down on the distribution of counterfeit goods under the Trump administration is “a very important effort,” CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert Perez said Saturday. Appearing on “Fox & Friends: Weekend” with host Griff Jenkins, Perez said that success in combatting the distribution and smuggling of these goods is a “direct result of the president’s last memorandum from last April directing the DHS to really put forth an action plan to directly impact the trafficking of illicit counterfeit items.” In his April 2019 memorandum, President Trump pledged to rein in the sale of counterfeit products on sites such as Amazon, eBay and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. With the ever-increasing rise of e-commerce, the White House on Friday declared it would step up efforts once more. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol would subject online retailers and warehouse operators to increased scrutiny and potential penalties under measures announced by DHS’s acting secretary Chad Wolf. Additionally, the department vowed to apply fines and penalties to a broader range of participants in e-commerce and look for additional ways to interfere with fraudulent commerce. Within the last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have seized more than 27,000 shipments of counterfeit goods with intellectual property right enforcement violations worth more than $1.5 billion in their efforts to combat the border crisis. “That’s $1.5 billion of lost potential revenue for the actual trademark holders and American businesses who hold these trademarks, and $1.5 billion of less-than-optimal commodities purchased by consumers oftentimes presenting health and safety risks to the purchasers here in the American public,” he explained to Jenkins. “So, that is what we’re combatting,” Perez added.

Kudos to the CBP and other law enforcement agencies working this issue!

Mexican troops disarmed American soldiers on US side of the border

Armed Mexican troops disarmed two United States soldiers while they were on the American side of the border, U.S. defense officials have said. U.S. Northern Command said in a statement that “five to six Mexican military personnel questioned two U.S. Army soldiers who were conducting border support operations” this month. The U.S. soldiers were in an unmarked Customs and Border Protection [CBP] vehicle near the southwest border near Clint, Texas. Officials confirmed that the Mexican troops were armed with what seemed to be rifles. They raised their weapons when they saw the two U.S. soldiers, and then took a pistol from one and put it in the CBP vehicle. According to officials talking to CNN, the two Americans obliged “in an attempt to de-escalate a potential volatile situation.” “Throughout the incident, the U.S. soldiers followed all established procedures and protocols,” the statement said. The two U.S. troops were on the south side of the security perimeter but north of the Rio Grande and thus were in the U.S., according side American territory, it added. Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security officials demanded an explanation from the Mexican government. “An inquiry by CBP and DOD [Department of Defense] revealed that the Mexican military members believed that the US Army soldiers were south of the border,” the statement said. “Though they were south of the border fence, U.S. soldiers remained in U.S. territory, north of the actual border.”

Soo..  Is an official apology forthcoming from the Mexican government for this outrageous invasion onto our side, and the confrontation with our American soldiers?  Our politicians need to demand that official apology now!  Call, or email, your member of Congress and both of your U.S. Senators and demand that they secure that apology.  Major kudos to our troops who handled that with such class and professionalism.  They are a credit to their uniforms.  They could easily have turned the tables, and ended that nonsense real quick in a way that would have ended very differently.  Mexican troops make, on average, a couple hundred incursions onto U.S. soil each ear.  And, sometimes, they fire on U.S. Border Patrol agents, etc.  Yeah…  You read that correctly.  So, this is hardly an isolated incident.  That’s why our politicians need to really push back on the Mexican government.  If anything, it’s just another reason why we need to BUILD THE WALL NOW!!!..and put armed U.S. Army National Guard troops physically ON the border with Mexico to prevent would-be crossers from setting on foot on U.S. soil…as well as to deter these sorts of incursions onto our side by Mexican troops.