CBP

Large Group of Central American Migrants Apprehended 60 Miles into Texas

Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended a large group of mostly Central American migrants marching through a ranch located about 60 miles north of the Texas-Mexico border. The group included an unaccompanied minor. Agents assigned to the Hebbronville Border Patrol Station came upon a suspicious vehicle in an area known for human smuggling. As the agents approached the vehicle, the driver jumped out and fled into the brush. Agents said that no one else was inside the vehicle, according to Laredo Sector Border Patrol officials. Agents could not locate the driver but managed to find a presumed drop-off location for what appeared to be a group of migrants attempting to circumvent the immigration checkpoint by walking through a ranch. After picking up the trail, the agents tracked the group until they eventually caught up with them. The agents apprehended 17 people they determined to be illegally present in the U.S., officials said. The migrants came to the U.S. from El Salvador (2), Guatemala (13), and Mexico (2). The group reportedly included one unaccompanied minor. The agents arrested the group of migrants and transported them to the station for processing. Officials seized the abandoned vehicle. Human smugglers frequently abandon migrants in the brush under circumstances that often lead to injury or death. In July, Border Patrol agents rescued a woman who had been left to die. Hebbronville Station agents received a call that a woman had become lost on a ranch, Breitbart News reported. Quickly responding, the agents managed to find the woman and provide her with medical assistance. A few days earlier, Hebbronville agents received another call from a woman who said she and her male companion were lost and the man desperately needed medical attention. The agents responded with the assistance of a National Guard helicopter aircrew and quickly located the couple. Unfortunately, the man had become unresponsive and eventually died from symptoms of heat and dehydration. So far this year, 344 migrants died during or shortly after illegal border crossings. Of those, 207 died in Texas alone.

Assaults on ICE, Border Patrol surge as illegal immigrants get more violent

Assaults on ICE agents reached a decade high in 2017, and assaults on Border Patrol agents have also surged in recent years, according to new government numbers that seem to back up agents’ claims that illegal immigrants are increasingly looking to fight rather than flee. The new numbers, reported by Homeland Security’s inspector general, could even be underselling the problem, investigators said, because the government doesn’t do a good job of tracking incidents, and agents and officers don’t always report them properly. But the report does signal renewed danger particularly on the southwest border, where agents say a surge in illegal immigration in recent years generally correlates with growing violence. Prosecutors, meanwhile, often refuse to bring charges or win cases against the perpetrators, the audit found. At the border, the most frequent method of attack was projectiles — usually large rocks — which accounted for half of assaults. But bombs, clubs, knives, guns and even laser pointers to blind agents have all been used. Most of the injuries were minor and didn’t require treatment, the audit found. Customs and Border Protection recorded 1,089 assaults in 2010, which steadily dropped through 2014, when there were just 381 assaults. But things turned violent once again, steadily rising to 856 assaults in 2017. Last year was the most violent this decade at the border, with 28 assaults per every 10,000 apprehensions. In the interior, meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers saw 48 assaults in 2017, tying 2010 as the highest in records going back to the beginning of the decade. That was nearly double the number from 2016. ICE officers, who handle deportations, and Border Patrol agents, who patrol the line between the U.S. and Mexico, say they’ve seen an increasing willingness on the part of migrants to resort to violence in recent years. One of those assaults recorded in 2017 came when ICE officers tried to apprehend Lester Sadict Cruz-Garcia, an illegal immigrant from Honduras who was arrested by police in New York on a domestic assault charge. Police released him into the community, ignoring a request by ICE that he be held. Deportation officers then had to go out into the community to track him down at his home. When they approached him he struggled and kicked, attempting to get away, the officers said. They eventually got him in handcuffs and tried to get him into the back of an ICE vehicle when he bit one of the officers on the arm. The officer was taken to the hospital where he was prescribed antibiotics. Cruz-Garcia was sentenced in June to 364 days in jail.

 

Trump Admin Names First Female Border Patrol Chief

For the first time in the agency’s 94-year history, the U.S. Border Patrol will have a female chief, Carla Provost. The new chief’s service record places her in border sectors in Texas, Arizona, and California. Provost will take the reigns as the 18th chief after decades of active service in several positions. She first came on duty in January 1995 as a member of Class 277. Her initial station was in Douglas, Arizona, part of the Tucson Sector. She quickly rose up the ranks in 1998 with a promotion to Supervisory Border Patrol Agent and then Field Operations Supervisor in 2001. By 2006, Provost was transferred to the Yuma Sector as an Assistant Chief Patrol Agent. She was agent in charge of the Welton Station in Yuma in 2009 and later served as Deputy Chief Patrol Agent of the El Paso Sector in 2011. Two years later, she led 1,200 employees in the California El Centro Sector. Shortly before her ultimate promotion, she worked as the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Internal Affairs and Acting Chief. Provost won numerous awards throughout her tenure and also served as a firearms and post-academy law instructor. The new chief hopes her role will encourage more women to join the green line, according to AZ Central. “The Border Patrol has been at about 5 percent of women my entire career … But I can tell you we are seeing more and more women rise through the ranks and into senior positions. And I believe that this will help with the recruitment.” Before the Border Patrol, Provost was a police officer in Manhattan, Kansas. She holds a master’s degree in National Resource Strategy from National Defense University and a bachelor of science in criminal justice from Kansas State University. Chief Provost will assume full command amid a spike in illegal border crosser apprehensions along the southwestern U.S.-Mexico Border.

Indeed..  We wish Chief Provost all the best in her new promotion!     🙂

Nearly $900G in drug cash seized on plane bound for Mexico; two 19-year-olds held, authorities say

Two 19-year-old men were arrested Tuesday, accused of smuggling nearly $900,000 in suspected drug-related cash, authorities said. The suspects, identified as Joan Pablo Hoyos Avila and Rafael Gabriel Martinez Leal, each face a bulk-cash smuggling charge, for which they could get five years in prison if convicted, the San Antonio Express-News reported. Hoyos was identified as a business student at the University of the Incarnate Word, a private Catholic university in San Antonio. Acting on a tip, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents halted a private plane at San Antonio International Airport that was preparing to depart for Monterrey, Mexico, according to the newspaper. Authorities found the cash bundled inside sealed boxes aboard the plane, after asking the craft’s five occupants – including the pilot – if they had any valuables to declare, the report said. Martinez accepted full responsibility for the cash smuggling operation, according to an affidavit, while Hoyos told authorities that he had accepted cash from several individuals and stored it in his garage until Martinez was able to pick it up.

National Guard deployment led to more than 10,000 arrests of illegal immigrants, says CBP

The National Guard’s deployment to the southwest border in mid-April has led to 10,805 “deportable alien arrests” of people who illegally entered the United States from Mexico, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman said Monday. Because guardsmen are military personnel and not law enforcement officers, they cannot apprehend illegal immigrants. But CBP officers and Border Patrol agents apprehended thousands of people that guardsmen helped point out. The National Guard’s presence also helped lead to the interception of more than 3,300 others who were turned back before they crossed into the U.S., CBP press secretary Corry Schiermeyer said in an email to the Washington Examiner. The Guard’s deployment has also led to an additional 11,686 pounds of marijuana being seized as a result of their work. There are 1,601 National Guard troops at the border assisting with various surveillance, maintenance, and related operations. That number could tick up considerably if the 4,000 National Guard troops President Trump approved on April 4 are called on in a future request from CBP. Troops are providing support from the air, surveillance backup, and assistance with infrastructure projects like vegetation clearing and road maintenance, not including border wall construction. Another task is to specifically free up agents to leave their desks and get back out to the field. The troops monitoring remote video surveillance systems have then been able to report sightings to a greater field of agents, and thus the number of apprehensions has increased, officials said. The deployment is funded through the end of fiscal 2018, Sept. 30. Ronald Vitiello, then-acting CBP deputy commissioner, said in April the intent of the mission is for CBP to regain operational control of the border.

Border Patrol losing agents faster than it can hire them

The U.S. Border Patrol is losing agents faster than it can hire them, according to a new audit released Wednesday that said competition with other federal law enforcement and the difficulty of passing a polygraph test have sapped the agency of nearly 2,000 agents it’s supposed to have. More than 900 agents leave each year on average but the Border Patrol only hires an average of 523 a year, the Government Accountability Office said in a broad survey of staffing and deployment challenges at the key border law enforcement agency. The law requires the agency to have a minimum of 21,370 agents on board, but it had just 19,500 agents as of May. That’s an even bigger problem when stacked up against President Trump’s call for hiring 5,000 more agents, to reach a workforce of 26,370. Managers blamed everything from remote working conditions to competition with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the interior immigration agency that’s also staffing up, for difficulty in filling out ranks. Problems span the southwest border, with eastern California and western Texas suffering particular shortages. The new GAO analysis also looked at how the agents who are on board are deployed, amid a long-running dispute within the agency over the use of highway checkpoints. Checkpoint backers say they serve as a critical chokepoint, helping snare drugs and, occasionally, illegal immigrants traveling on the roads. Opponents say they are easily circumvented..

Oh, it’s probably a little bit of both..  To be fair, those checkpoints DO catch SOME bad apples.  BUT, it’s also true those checkpoints can be circumvented.  Also, those illegals caught at such checkpoints are caught inside the U.S., and as such are immediately entitled to all sorts of legal, financial, and other “entitlements” which we-the-actual American citizens pay for.  As many of you know, here at The Daily Buzz we have been calling for our federally elected leaders to BUILD THE WALL NOW!!!!….and put U.S. Army National Guard troops (to augment the personnel shortfalls with the Border Patrol) physically ON the border with Mexico; NOT back 40 miles, as has been the practice for years.  Being physically ON the border serves as a deterrent to those would-be crossers from trying to make an attempt.  Here at The Daily Buzz, we’ve been calling for these measures 2.5 years before Donald Trump made the wall a campaign pledge.

As for the shortfall in hiring CBP agents…  We’re glad to hear that the agency is maintaining high standards.  We’d rather have 100 dedicated, honest, and quality agents…than 1000 incompetent, and easily bribed or ethically-challenged ones.

Obama’s Border Patrol Chief Resigns

One day after President Donald J. Trump signed two executive orders with respect to border security and constructing a wall, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol reportedly resigned. On Thursday morning, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website posted a notice confirming the departure of U.S Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan: “On behalf of the men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Border Patrol, I want to thank Mark Morgan for his unwavering dedication to our border security mission, and recognize his life-long career in service to the nation.  Mark Morgan’s career spans more than 31 years of faithful service to the nation, including service in the U.S. Marine Corps, as a local deputy sheriff and police officer, 20 years in the FBI, as Assistant Commissioner of CBP’s Office of Internal Affairs, and, finally, as Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol.” The statement was drafted by acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleelan who assumed command after Gil Kerlikowske stepped down on the day Trump was inaugurated. Thursday afternoon, the Associated Press reported that Morgan claimed he was “forced out”, and decided to resign rather than fight the decision. The AP’s source spoke on the condition of anonymity because the remarks were reportedly not for public consumption. Both Morgan and Kerlikowske were appointed to their position by former President Barack Obama at a time when border agents were admittedly being overwhelmed by human smuggling organizations. During a visit to the border, Kerlikowske claimed there was no future for Trump’s wall and has often said the border is secure.

And that is why Gil stepped down..  It was between Trump’s wall, and Gil’s opposition to it…and guess who lost?  Exactly..    🙂