Two charged with forgery
BY JAMES GILBERT, SUN STAFF WRITER

Two Mexican nationals, both illegal aliens, were each charged with a single felony each Thursday in Yuma Justice Court.

Florencio Mendez-Santiago and Isaac Merino-Ortiz were both charged with one count of forgery for allegedly carrying false identification at the time of their arrest.

According to court documents, Yuma police responded to a report that a vacant house in the 1200 block of Arena Drive was possibly being used as a drop house for illegal aliens.

Once at the vacant home, police knocked on the front door and Santiago answered, court records indicated. At that point, according to court records, approximately 15 males ran for the back door of the home, where other officers were waiting.

_____

Fines will target Americans who smuggle humans
By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

The lure of quick cash has drawn ever-larger numbers of U.S. citizens into human smuggling in recent years, but those who get caught at border crossings may soon find themselves quickly parted from their ill-gained funds.

Yesterday, customs officials at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry became the first in the nation to implement a program of civil fines for citizens and legal residents caught smuggling people into the country. A first offense is punishable by a fine of $5,000. Second-time offenders will be fined twice as much.

_____

War on drugs sparks incursions, officials say
By Anna Cearley and Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

An increased Mexican military presence along the border over the past decade could be making it more likely that Mexican and U.S. authorities are crossing paths, according to several border law enforcement experts.

"The military in recent years is being drawn into the war on drugs," said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute, based at the University of San Diego.

Victor Clark, a Tijuana-based human rights activist who follows drug trends, said "there is more militarization along the border because the U.S. is pressuring to have more there."

_____

Drug gang plan to smuggle in Osama's guys

By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- A drug-trafficker who admitted importing a quarter-ton of cocaine from Mexico also plotted to smuggle 20 men he said were Iraqi terrorists into the United States, charging them $8000 a head.

In December 2004, Noel Exinia told associates in wiretapped and consensually recorded conversations that the men were "gente de Osama" -- Osama's guys -- and that they were "really bad people," who were armed and made the smugglers working with them afraid, according to papers filed last week by the U.S. Justice Department with the federal court in Brownsville, Texas.

In the papers, prosecutors say that Exinia was asked to move the men in by his boss in the notorious Gulf Cartel, a Mexican drug smuggling and organized crime network.

______

Border Patrol warned: Brace for violence
Feds say smugglers likely to retaliate over new enforcement push
By Jon Dougherty
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Federal officials say Border Patrol and other federal agents working chronic drug-smuggling routes along the U.S. boundary with Mexico could be targets for retaliation by well-armed cartels from south of the Rio Grande, after a new enforcement push has dramatically curbed the importation of contraband.

"I do think we have to be prepared for the fact that as we press hard on these criminal organizations, some of them will want to fight back," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters earlier this week.

Admitting there had already been an "uptick in violence" against federal officers in recent months because of increased anti-smuggling operations, Chertoff said agents were not only targeting drug rings but also human smugglers as well. Despite the threats of retaliation, however, Chertoff insisted: "We want to make it very clear that ... will not cause us to back off" the current enforcement push.