Immigration push aimed at employers, Napolitano
By PAUL DAVENPORT
Associated Press Writer

PHOENIX (AP) -- Republican legislators mounted a broad assault on illegal immigration on Monday with measures to impose new sanctions against employers who hire illegal immigrants and to put Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano on the spot for calling for sending more National Guard troops to the border.

Other immigration-related bills approved by the House Committee on Federal Mandates and Property Rights included one that attacked illegal immigration through multiple approaches on a situation that has seen Arizona become the busiest crossing point for illegal border crossers.

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Bush wants $42 million for new port
BY JONATHAN ATHENS, SUN STAFF WRITER

Ambitious plans to build a new commercial port five miles east of the existing U.S. Port of Entry in San Luis, Ariz., are another step closer to becoming a reality.

The Bush Administration is asking Congress to approve $42 million for the design and construction of San Luis II, a proposed four-lane commercial port. The money for the port is in the $2.77 trillion fiscal year 2007 budget President Bush is asking Congress to approve.

"I'm just happy we received the attention we needed. This is an asset for the country and for the region. We need a better port and I think everyone recognizes that fact," said Greater Yuma Port Authority Board President Gary Magrino.

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Alleged pot smuggler faces 2 felonies
BY JAMES GILBERT, SUN STAFF WRITER

A felony complaint was filed Monday in Yuma Justice Court against a 39-year-old man suspected of smuggling more than 70 pounds of marijuana in the gas tank of his car.

Pablin Cruz-Marmolejo, whose address is listed as a post office box in San Luis, Ariz., was charged with transportation of marijuana for sale and possession of marijuana for sale in a brief arraignment before Justice of the Peace David Cooper.

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Border Patrol agent fires at vehicle

A Yuma sector Border Patrol agent opened fire on a van that was accelerating at him while he was on foot Sunday morning near the U.S. Port of Entry at Andrade, Calif., according to Border Patrol spokesman Michael Gramley.

After having received a citizen call that a van loaded with illegal immigrants was headed northbound on Andrade Avenue, the agent had pulled over the van at about 7:15 a.m. Sunday morning just south of the All American Canal bridge, according to Gramley.

The van stopped in the middle of the road near the bridge, and the driver fled.

When the Border Patrol agent got out of his vehicle, he found 24 illegal aliens inside the van.

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Ariz. border incursion under investigated
Incident near Arivaca involved copter
Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau

After long downplaying the number of incursions along the Southwestern border, top Border Patrol officials now acknowledge such incidents are all too common. Over the past decade, the Department of Homeland Security has reported 231 incursions along the border, including 63 in Arizona. Homeland Security defines an incursion as an unauthorized crossing by Mexican military or police, or suspected drug or people smugglers dressed in uniforms.

Incursions gained international attention after the Sheriff's Office in Hudspeth County, Texas, reported on Jan. 23 that men dressed as members of the Mexican military provided cover for drug runners near the Rio Grande.

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House bill funds Guard border duty
Puts $10M in budget for governor to send troops to stop illegal crossers
By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES

PHOENIX — Unwilling to wait for federal help, a House panel voted unanimously Monday to use state tax money to deploy the National Guard along Arizona's southern border.

The proposal would put $10 million into the budget for Gov. Janet Napolitano to mobilize at least some of the state's 4,000 Guard troops.

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'Creative' smugglers hide pot in canned food
By Djamila Grossman
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Drug smugglers have proved very creative when shipping loads across the border, but hiding marijuana in cans of jalapeños and tomatoes is one of the more unusual cases, officials say.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Sasabe seized 34 pounds of marijuana Thursday, hidden in 10 food cans, said Brian Levin, an agency spokesman. Another part of the stash was found in the hollowed-out walls of a cooler filled with ice and sodas.

The driver, an 18-year-old man from Queen Creek, was arrested.

"For a while, that can is going to take the cake," Levin said. "This was one of the more elaborate attempts — it required creativity."

Smugglers have come up with many tricks to hide their drugs over the years, Levin said. Officers have found marijuana mixed in with cucumbers, drugs hidden in baby diapers and in children's backpacks, stuffed into body openings or strapped to the body, hidden in car tires, gas tanks or inside dashboards.

On Friday, officers in Nogales, Ariz., found 1,000 pounds of marijuana hidden between the outer and inner walls of a tractor-trailer rig carrying bricks, according to an agency press release.

"They have hidden it anywhere you can hide something," Levin said of drug smugglers.

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Suspect in '94 slaying is returned to Mexico
Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

A man who allegedly robbed and killed a cab driver in 1994 in Mexico and fled to the United States was turned over to Mexican authorities at the Stanton Street bridge Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

Noe "El Gremlin" Tamayo Renteria, 30, an undocumented immigrant living in a trailer park in a Chicago suburb, was arrested last month, officials said. He and an accomplice are accused of shooting Jorge Gasca Luna in the head inside Luna's taxi in the Mexican state of Guanajuato.

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Sheriffs to testify about problems on the border
Jake Rollow
El Paso Times

The sheriffs of El Paso and Hudspeth counties are expected to testify today before a congressional subcommittee in Washington, D.C., about the standoff last month near Sierra Blanca in which U.S. officers squared off with armed drug smugglers -- some of whom were dressed as Mexican soldiers.

Sheriff Leo Samaniego of El Paso and Sheriff Arvin West of Hudspeth County were invited to testify by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Investigations, who initiated an investigation following the standoff.

Mexican officials have denied that the Mexican military was involved and have launched their own investigation.

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State sues developer for alleged 'colonia' sales
By LYNN BREZOSKY
Associated Press Writer

HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) -- The state is suing a Cameron County developer for selling residential land plots without water and sewage service in violation of laws meant to stop the spread of shanty towns known as colonias, Attorney General Greg Abbott said Monday.

Colonias proliferated during the 1980s when developers sold parcels of unimproved land outside city limits at easy terms - often to recent Mexican immigrants. There are now an estimated 2,300 colonias dotting the Texas-Mexico border.

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Mexican man pleads not guilty in U.S. to dirty-bomb hoax
By Kelly Thornton
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

A Mexican man accused of fabricating a story about Chinese terrorists sneaking into the United States with a nuclear warhead was extradited to San Diego over the weekend.

José Ernesto Beltran Quinonez entered a plea of not guilty in federal court yesterday, more than a year after the hoax that prompted a massive investigation, federal warnings, discussions at President Bush's security briefing and a nationwide hunt for the group of Chinese supposedly plotting an attack.

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Founder of civilian patrol hopes to lead a 'revolution' in immigration reform
By Gillian Flaccus
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAGUNA WOODS – Jim Gilchrist can speak nonstop for more than an hour about the flood of illegal immigration that he predicts will bring America to its knees. But he can also talk warmly about his Mexican son-in-law and his half-Mexican “grandbrat.”

The distinction is not a complicated one for Gilchrist: His son-in-law is legal, while the immigrants he targets with his all-volunteer civilian border patrol, the Minuteman Project, are not.

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Gunmen fire assault rifles, grenade at newspaper office in Mexican border city, wounding reporter
By Jorge Vargas
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico – At least four unidentified assailants fired a hail of bullets from assault rifles and tossed a grenade into a building housing a newspaper in the violence-wracked border city of Nuevo Laredo on Monday, wounding one reporter seriously.

Reporter Jaime Orozco Tey of the daily newspaper El Manana was wounded in the attack and was in serious condition at a local hospital.

Bullet holes were left in the walls of the office building and glass was shattered; Ramon Cantu, director of the El Manana and an afternoon newspaper, La Tarde, said the offices' reception area was practically destroyed.