All posts tagged U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Border agent indicted for violating illegal alien’s rights

by Admin on April 20, 2012 in Border Patrol, Illegal Immigration, Tyrrany with No comments

The U.S.-Mexican border is arguably one of the most dangerous spots in the world. Photo credit: DHS/CBP

In almost total secrecy, the Obama Justice Department has charged a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Luis Fonseca, for depriving the rights of a yet to be identified illegal alien at the Border Patrol station located on Imperial Beach, California, last July. Fonseca, however, was not indicted until a week ago.

Agent Fonseca, 32, allegedly kneed and choked an unidentified alien during his tour near the Mexican border last summer. During his arraignment on Monday April 16, he entered a not guilty plea.

A grand jury had handed down the indictment on April 12, but details were withheld and the DOJ neglected to promulgate why the legal action was taken against the Border Patrol agent, according to an ”Inside-the-Beltway” public-interest group that investigates and exposes government corruption and misconduct.

“Border Patrol Agent Fonseca kneed and choked an unidentified alien, depriving him of the right under the Constitution and the laws of the United States to be free from use of unreasonable force by a law enforcement officer,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement. “The indictment also alleges as a result of the use of unreasonable force the individual sustained bodily injury.”

According to Department of Justice’s records, a federal grand jury indicted Fonseca on a single charge of deprivation of rights under color of law. The charge, a civil rights violation, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment.

The case is problematic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the government’s secrecy surrounding details. In the one-page indictment the illegal immigrant is identified only as “UA#1.” The document also claims that, as a result of the use of “unreasonable force” the undocumented alien sustained some kind of “bodily injury” yet no further details are provided, according to Judicial Watch’s Corruption Chronicles.

“The grand jury indictment is dated April 12, 2012 which means the feds dragged their feet, probably because they knew it was a weak case,” stated the Judicial Watch’s entry .

Fonseca was arrested on Friday during a shift at the Border Patrol’s Imperial Beach station and is currently on paid leave. He pleaded not guilty in federal court this week, according to DOJ records.

According to the federal prosecutor handling the case, “People detained at the border should be treated with human dignity and respect by federal agents. It is important for the public to know that the Department of Justice takes alleged civil rights violations seriously. We have processes in place to investigate and will take action where appropriate to protect those rights.”

Many law enforcement professionals are highly suspicious of this latest case of a Border Patrol agent being “dragged into court by the Obama Justice Department.

“It’s clear that Obama’s sympathies are with the illegal aliens entering the U.S. He’s all but told U.S. immigration and border officials to stop enforcing the law. This is just another message from the Obama Administration to Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to not be too zealous in doing their jobs,” claims former New York City Detective Jeff Knudson.

On top of the DOJ’s actions against Fonseca, – himself a Latino — the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General is also investigating the matter.

“Perhaps when that report is finished, more information will be revealed to the public. For instance, the victim’s identity and the exact bodily injury that he or she supposedly suffered at the hands of the Border Patrol agent accused of committing the choking and kneeing,” states the Judicial Watch posting.

The U.S. government has worked hard to protect illegal immigrants and their “constitutional” rights in the last few years. This has empowered them to file a number of lawsuits against local and federal law enforcement agencies for violating their rights. In Connecticut a group of illegal aliens sued the government for violating their constitutional rights during the operation that led to their apprehension.

In New York an illegal immigrant with a lengthy criminal record got a $145,000 settlement from the state for having his civil rights violated during one of his many arrests. In Maryland an illegal immigrant from El Salvador for unlawfully and unconstitutionally detaining her based on race and in California illegal aliens sued a city for banning them from seeking work on public streets.

The Law Enforcement Examiner has in the past exposed President Barack Obama’s illegal-alien relatives, one of whom was arrested for drunk driving in Massachusetts.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Border agent indicted for violating illegal alien’s rights – National Law Enforcement | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/article/border-agent-indicted-for-violating-illegal-alien-s-rights#ixzz1sdiIOzDP

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Sentencing reset in case tied to Zapata’s death

by Admin on April 3, 2012 in 2nd Amendment, Border Patrol, Crime and Border Security, Fast and Furious, Homeland Security, Justice Department - Eric Holder, Project Gunwalker with No comments

By EMMA PEREZ-TREVINO, The Brownsville Herald

The sentencing of a man who has been tied to a weapon used in the fatal attack on ICE Special Agent Jaime J. Zapata has been pushed back. Otilio Osorio of Lancaster had been scheduled for sentencing Monday, but it was reset for May 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas. The sentencing will be before U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay, court records show. Osorio pleaded guilty this past Oct. 25 to weapons violations.

Murdered Border Agent Jamie Zapata

Federal authorities found last year that Osorio bought a gun that resembles an AK-47 from a business in Joshua, Texas. The weapon was later found in Mexico in February 2011 tied to Zapata’s murder and the attempted murder of fellow Special Agent Victor Avila, also with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Zapata, of Brownsville, and Avila, of El Paso, were traveling in thestate of San Luis Potosi on government business when they were ambushed by two hit squads of the Zetas criminal organization, according to federal officials. The Osorios, Kelvin Leon Morrison, Angel Pablo Monroy, Rosendo Quinones, Luis Carbajal, Eder Talamantes and Kevin Bueno were indicted in the Northern District of Texas last year, charged with conspiring to make false statements to firearms dealers, and possessing firearms with obliterated serial numbers, beginning June 2010 through February 2011. In February this year, Ranferi Osorio, Morrison and Carbajal were sentenced. Osorio was sentenced to 120 months in jail, Morrison got 30 months in prison, and Carbajal received two-year probation. Talamantes and Monroy will be sentenced June 4 while the sentencing date for Bueno and Quinones is June 18, court records show.

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Protestors gather in Aurora to protest ICE crackdown

by Admin on March 2, 2012 in ICE, Illegal Immigration, Immigration with No comments

More ICE agents in Denver as part of crackdown

AURORA – Dozens of people told federal immigration agents on Friday to get out of the Aurora Detention Center.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are spending 24 hours a day at the jail, screening all of the people that come in on their legal status.

“We do not want ICE in our communities,” Julie Gonzales with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition said.

Those that found themselves in front of Aurora City Hall Friday, found themselves against a new strategy by Immigration agents at the Aurora Detention Center.

“This is going to break community trust in law enforcement,” Gonzales said.

Keep reading…

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ICE Offers Transgender Hormone Treatments, Abortions For Detained Illegals Under Obama’s New Guidelines…

by Admin on March 2, 2012 in Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Mexican Cartel War, Multi Culturalism with 1 Comment

Via: Zip: The country’s beyond broke and we’re accommodating she-men here illegally? Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot?

Via Daily Caller:

Hormone treatments for transgendered detainees, abortion services and extensive outlets for complaints — these are just a few of the reasons Texas Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith is not pleased with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) recently released Performance-Based National Detention Standards(PBNDS).

In the spirit of detention reform, in 2011, for the first time since 2008, ICE finished its revision of detention standards for those being held for being in the country illegally. Those new standards were released this month. ICE has already started to implement the changes. [...]

According to Smith, however, the revisions amount to a vast and expensive expansion of privileges.

“The Obama administration’s new detention manual is more like a hospitality guideline for illegal immigrants,” Smith wrote in a statement. “The administration goes beyond common sense to accommodate illegal immigrants and treats them better than citizens in federal custody.”

The standards also outline a wide range of medical procedures available to those in detention facilities, including services such as abortion access, hormone treatments for transgendered people, dental work and a 15-day supply of medications upon release, deportation or transfer.

Keep reading…

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Senators ask Napolitano, Holder to penalize Chicagoland county for defying immigration officials

by Admin on February 25, 2012 in Corruption, Illegal Immigration, Immigration with 1 Comment
The death of a Chicago man killed by a drunk driver who was in the United States illegally has become an unlikely catalyst in the national policy debate over immigration. Eight Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder on January 30, asking them to cut off some federal funding currently sent to Cook County, Illinois.

This undated photo shows the three McCann brothers. From left to right, Kevin McCann, Brian McCann, and the late Denny McCann

That funding, disbursed through a federal grant program called the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, pays localities for costs incurred in processing criminal aliens when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants them detained before they can post bail.

Cook County received $2.29 million last year, $3.4 million in 2010 and $4.4 million in 2011.

Yet a Cook County ordinance forbids police from cooperating with those requests, called “detainers,” from ICE officials.

“It is ironic and frustrating that the Administration has filed suit against several states for passing laws that aim to protect their citizens and help enforce immigration law while essentially turning a blind eye to jurisdictions that actively promote safe harbor policies,” the senators wrote to Napolitano and Holder.

“If the Administration truly believes immigration law is only to be enforced by the Federal government, as it has argued before several courts, it should adhere to that position and take action against jurisdictions that actively thwart effective Federal enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

On January 4, ICE Director John Morton sent Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle his own written warning that his ordinance could cause significant conflicts with the federal government. The county, he said, had ignored all 268 ICE requests to detain criminal aliens instead of setting their bail.

“In addition to undermining local public safety, the Ordinance may also violate federal law,” Morton wrote, adding that it “also inhibits ICE’s ability to validate Cook County’s annual request for State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) funding.”

(RELATED: Read the senators’ letter to Napolitano and Holder and ICE’s letter to Cook County, Illinois)

The case that snapped the federal government to attention involved Denny McCann, killed in 2011 by a criminal alien named Saul Chavez,  who was driving drunk. When Chavez was arrested for the same offense in 2008, he told a police officer that he was in the country illegally.

Keep reading…

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Family of DUI homicide victim: Feds failed to deport illegal-immigrant killer

by Admin on February 20, 2012 in Illegal Immigration, Immigration with No comments
Family members of a Chicago man killed in 2011 by a drunk driver are steaming mad at city officials for failing to bring the driver’s illegal immigration status to the attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they first learned about it, four years ago.

A 2008 police report shows local authorities learned Saul Chavez was an illegal immigrant following an unrelated arrest that year, but did nothing about it.

On June 8, 2011, Chavez was driving drunk in the Logan Square Neighborhood of Chicago when his car hit and killed long-time insurance agent Denny McCann, 66.

Chavez’s blood-alcohol content was 0.29 percent, more than three times the legal limit.

Witnesses said that on impact McCann cracked the windshield of Chavez’s 2002 Dodge Neon and then tumbled forward. But the driver tried to flee, running him over and dragging him 200 feet with the car. McCann died that night.

Chavez was already a convicted drunk driver when he ran down McCann, and a police report obtained by the Daily Caller shows that he told police during a Sept. 20, 2008 DUI arrest that he was in the United States illegally.

The report also reveals that when Chicago Police asked Chavez for his license and  vehicle registration that night, Chavez responded, “I live in Chicago on Kedzie [Street]. I don’t have a driver’s license because I don’t have papers.” (RELATED: Read the 2008 police report)

McCann’s family members say police should have turned Chavez over to ICE, the federal agency responsible for enforcing immigration law. Had ICE been called, they argue, Denny McCann would be alive today.

Instead, Denny is dead and Chavez is on the run. He fled after posting bail last year and law enforcement agencies have not located him.

Keep reading… 

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Big Sis: Only “A Small Number” Of Illegal Aliens Were Deported For Only Being Here Illegally Last Year…

by Admin on February 16, 2012 in Homeland Security, ICE, Illegal Immigration, Immigration with No comments

Via: Zip: Here’s a scary thought, this woman is in charge of homeland security.

(CNSNews.com) — A “small number” of illegal aliens who had “committed no other crime” apart from being in the United States unlawfully were deported in fiscal year 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told lawmakers Wednesday

“One of the things we must do in DHS [Department of Homeland Security] is prioritize the mission,” she said during a House Appropriations Committee Homeland Security subcommittee hearing.

“And those that have committed no other crime, and we look at other factors — length of time in the United States, family relations, ties in the United States, service in the military and the like. Those would be low priority matters.”

Napolitano was responding to questions put by Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the committee’s chairman, who wanted to know how many of the estimated 14-20 million illegal aliens believed to be in the country were being deported by the DHS.

She replied that roughly 400,00 individuals were removed from the U.S. in FY2011, 90 percent of whom fell under priorities set out in March 2011 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), focusing on criminals and other dangerous illegal aliens.

“But were there any deported that were just simply here illegally?” Rogers asked.

“There were a small number that would have been picked up, and yes,” Napolitano replied.

Keep reading…

 

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Head of ICE, others pay tribute at ss

by Admin on February 16, 2012 in Border Patrol, Jaime J. Zapata, Milenio Cartel, Occupier and Chief with No comments

By JACQUELINE ARMENDARIZ/ The Brownsville Herald

Top officials from all levels — federal, state, county and city — attended a noon Mass on Wednesday to honor Jaime Zapata, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent from Brownsville who was slain in Mexico last year.

One year to the day of Zapata’s death, church bells solemnly rang out. Military personnel and more than 30 uniformed officers from the Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol sat with others, filling the pews of St. Luke Catholic Church in Brownsville.

ICE Director John Morton was there, and several officers wore badges with a black mourning ribbon.

“It’s extremely important to continue to support our brother officer,” Interim Brownsville Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said after the Mass. “To pay tribute because he gave his life for the common good that we all strive for.”

Zapata’s death garnered national attention as a tragic moment showing the cost of U.S. efforts in Mexico while a brutal drug war rages in the country.

Rodriguez said a law enforcement officer’s death often strengthens the bonds in a community, at the same time highlighting the dangers officers face and the delicate nature of life itself.

“No officer’s death should be in vain, and we all see to it that it’s not,” he said. “We learn from it and we are better for it.”

Zapata was 32 years old when he was killed.

His death occurred just nine days after he arrived in Mexico City for a temporary assignment, based at the U.S. Embassy.

He and a fellow ICE officer were traveling in an armored U.S. government SUV when they were attacked by gunmen. The shooters were allegedly members of the Zetas crime organization.

On a highway between Monterrey and Mexico City bullets barraged their vehicle.

Zapata died. ICE Special Agent Victor Avila, of El Paso, was wounded.

A Texas congressman said that despite the vehicle’s reinforcements, Zapata might be alive today had its doors not automatically unlocked when the gears were put in park, according to a Washington Post report published on Wednesday.

Zapata’s death prompted a review of security procedures established for law enforcement officers assigned to the U.S. Embassy, a senior ICE official said Wednesday.

“Since the shooting a number of steps have been undertaken to improve personnel safety and vital information-sharing capabilities,” the official said.

In a statement on Wednesday, ICE noted that it continues to honor Zapata. ICE also said it has partnered with Mexican law enforcement to bring to justice his killers.

State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, said on Wednesday that he knew the Zapata family through church but had been unaware of the law enforcement work Jaime and several of his brother did.

“He was a noble young man,” Lucio said. “He seemed like a strong individual committed to his work and a loving member of his family.”

Lucio said he presented a proclamation to the family honoring their son in a ceremony on Wednesday.

After his death, the family founded the Jaime Jorge Zapata Foundation to help students interested in law enforcement and to aid the families of fallen officers.

Late last year, the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College posthumously honored Zapata with its Distinguished Alumni Award.

“If he met a person, he really met them for life,” his mother, Mary Zapata-Muñoz, said in a video presentation from the ceremony.

Others described Zapata’s personality, as well as his hopes and dreams and his plans to marry.

“We thought he was going to be safe,” Amador Zapata Jr. said of his son’s assignment in Mexico.

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No Joke: Obama Appoints “Public Advocate” For Illegal Immigrants Worried About Law Enforcement…

by Admin on February 7, 2012 in Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Obama Propaganda with No comments

The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a new “public advocate” charged with listening to immigrants’ concerns about its law enforcement policies — but Republicans said the position amounts to an official mouthpiece for illegal immigrants being deported.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the advocate will “serve as a point of contact for individuals, including those in immigration proceedings, NGOs and other community and advocacy groups, who have concerns, questions, recommendations or other issues they would like to raise.”

The agency — part of the Homeland Security Department — said Andrew Lorenz-Strait will be the first advocate.

But Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that meant elevating the concerns of illegal immigrants.

“It’s outrageous that the Obama administration has appointed a taxpayer-funded activist for illegal and criminal immigrants who are detained or ordered deported. The administration all too often acts more like a lobbying firm for illegal immigrants than as an advocate for the American people,” Mr. Smith, Texas Republican, said.

Mr. Smith said that when Congress created the Homeland Security Department, it specifically created an advocate’s position for those in the legal immigration process, but it declined to create one for illegal immigrants, who the courts have regularly ruled are not entitled to the same protections as citizens and legal residents.

Even as it has set a record for deportations, the Obama administration has taken steps to try to give illegal immigrants more rights within the deportation system and has instructed prosecutors to drop cases against many of those detained as illegal immigrants.

The administration says that, with limited resources, it is trying to focus its deportation efforts on criminals and those with repeated immigration violations on their records, rather than rank-and-file illegal immigrants.

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Suspect in ICE agent’s death makes court appearance

by Admin on January 25, 2012 in Border Patrol, ICE, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Jaime J. Zapata with No comments

By LAURA B. MARTINEZ/The Brownsville Herald

Murdered ICE Special Agent Jamie Zapata

An alleged drug cartel member accused in the slaying of ICE Special Agent Jaime Jorge Zapata made a brief appearance this morning in a district court in Washington.

Julian Zapata Espinoza, also known as “Piolin” or “Tweety” appeared before U.S. District Chief Judge Royce Lamberth for a status conference on his case.

A spokesman for the U.S. District Court in Washington, said the attorneys for the government provided the judge with an update of the status of Zapata Espinoza’s case.

Zapata Espinoza is charged with one count of murder and other charges stemming from the shooting death of Agent Zapata and the wounding of Victor Avila, also a special agent for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The spokesman also said Lamberth also granted an order suspending Zapata Espinoza’s right to a speedy trial given the complexity of the case. The order will be in effect until April 25, when another status conference is scheduled.

The attorneys representing the government made this request.

Agent Zapata, 32, a native of Brownsville, was killed last February in Mexico in an attack by suspected members of the Zetas criminal organization.

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