Official: Agency does not tip Mexico to location of watch groups

BY JAMES GILBERT, SUN STAFF WRITER
May 11, 2006
The Yuma Sector Border Patrol does not inform the Mexican government of the whereabouts of citizens groups that patrol the border, a sector spokesman says, contradicting a report earlier this week in a California newspaper.

"The agency does not report the activities or locations of civilian, non-law-enforcement groups to the government of Mexico," Ron Hays said Thursday in a telephone interview. "That is not the case. It's just not happening."

The article, which appeared in Tuesday's edition of the Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif., cited three documents on the Web site of the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations, that the newspaper said stated the Border Patrol shared information about civilian border-watch groups' locations in instances when the groups participated in apprehending illegal aliens, and if violence is used.

Hays said the Border Patrol maintains an open line of communication with the Mexican government — and other governments — in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, but only as a way of assuring illegal aliens’ rights are observed.