Mexican drug gang turns to kidnapping in U.S.

Tue Aug 12, 2008 6:34pm EDT

By Lizbeth Diaz

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - American businesswoman Veronica was stepping out of her car in California when two men forced her into the passenger seat at gunpoint, pushed her teenage daughter into the back and drove them into Mexico.

Taking advantage of lax Mexican security at the San Diego border, and with U.S. authorities focused mainly on those entering the United States, the kidnappers took the two women to Tijuana in January and held them for a month before their family paid a $100,000 ransom.

"We got an automatic green light to go through Mexican customs and then we were blindfolded and taken to a house in Tijuana. They held a pistol to my stomach all the time we were in the car," said Veronica, who declined to give her surname.

An unintended consequence of Mexican efforts to weaken drug gangs, drug traffickers around Tijuana are turning to abducting U.S. citizens and residents in southern California and holding them in Mexico as a new way to get funds, U.S. and Mexican authorities say.

Mexican intelligence officials say Veronica is one of around 30 Americans abducted in southern California and taken to Tijuana since last November. Many of the victims are of Hispanic origin and hold double nationality.

Census: Diversity to reign by 2042

PAUL OVERBERG and EMILY BAZAR

Published: 08.14.2008

The number of minorities in the United States is growing so briskly that non-Hispanic whites will lose their majority status in 2042, years before demographers had previously projected, according to Census data released today.

The population is surging on almost all fronts, the new figures show. There will be 400 million people in the U.S. in 31 years, up from fewer than 305 million now.

The swelling numbers will transform Americans' standard of living from the environment to public schools, demographers and public policy experts say.

"It affects quality of life in very important ways," says Mark Mather, who studies U.S. demographic trends for the Population Reference Bureau, a research group in Washington. "We're already experiencing that in traffic congestion, in schools and in our crowded coastal areas."

Dramatic growth in the numbers of legal and illegal immigrants, especially Hispanics, has propelled the increase. Annual immigration this year is about 1 million and is projected to double by 2050.

Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, says the earlier projections were low because they underestimated immigration.

"We've measured a much higher immigration in the '90s," he says. "In this decade, those high levels continued."

Border agent wounds man near Mexican border

Aug. 13, 2008 01:21 PM
Associated Press

SAN DIEGO - A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a man throwing rocks at agents near the U.S.-Mexico border in the San Diego area, authorities said Wednesday.

Edgar Israel Ortega Chavez, 22, was hospitalized with a bullet wound in his right torso after Mexican authorities found him alongside the dry, concrete-lined Tijuana River basin, Tijuana police said.

San Diego police said the shooter was a 10-year Border Patrol veteran but did not release his name. The department is investigating the shooting.

A Border Patrol spokesman, Daryl Reed, said the agent fired his gun on U.S. soil Tuesday night after seeing the man wielding a softball-sized rock on Mexican soil. Border Patrol agents tried unsuccessfully to disperse the group who had crossed to the U.S. side by firing pepper balls and using tear gas.

There was no fence separating the agent from the group when he fired, Reed said. A yellow stripe on the bottom of the river basin marks the border in the area.

Tijuana police said about 10 people were threatening Border Patrol agents, according to reports it fielded. Tijuana authorities found a tear gas canister and fragments and two. 223-caliber bullet shells near Ortega's body.

_____

Mexico criticizes shooting at border

U.S. says agent fired after rocks thrown

By Debbi Baker, Kristina Davis and Sandra Dibble

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS

August 14, 2008

SAN YSIDRO – The shooting of a Mexican man by a U.S. Border Patrol agent during a rock-throwing incident west of the San Ysidro border crossing drew a rebuke yesterday from the Mexican Consulate in San Diego and a demand that U.S. authorities conduct a “thorough investigation.”

“Any kind of shooting toward Mexican territory is rejected by the Mexican government,” Consul General Remedios Gómez Arnau said. “They should have waited for response of the Mexican authorities.”

Yea, right!

Sheriff takes illegal immigration sweeps west

by Veronica Sanchez - Aug. 14, 2008 06:09 AM
12 News

Last week, he promised he's do things differently and he did.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio vowed to stop illegal immigrants but this time he went west to the Surprise and El Mirage area. His first ever human smuggling and illegal immigration operation in the west Valley began around 4 p.m. Wednesday. By 5 p.m. Latino activists claimed deputies had rounded up at least three illegal immigrants.

Deputies at first were vague about the location of the sweeps, but activists and Surprise police officers told us the target area was along the US 60 Grand Avenue, District 3 section between El Mirage and Surprise. That area included Sun City, which has been supportive of the sheriffs stance on illegal immigration.

The sheriff says he used thousands of dollars to conduct his sweep with private donations after the Governor Janet Napolitano took away his funding. Illegal immigrants we spoke to said they were fearful of the deputies and many opted to stay home.

Mexican soldiers enter Arizona, hold agent briefly

By Arthur H. Rotstein

ASSOCIATED PRESS

11:44 a.m. August 6, 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. – Federal authorities say four Mexican soldiers crossed into Arizona and briefly held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint before realizing where they were and returning to Mexico.

Border Patrol spokeswoman Dove Crawford says the incident early Sunday on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, about 85 miles southwest of Tucson, was in an area likely fenced only with barbed wire.

She says the soldiers lowered their weapons after about four minutes when the agent convinced them who he was and where they were, then retreated into Mexico.

Crawford says there have been about 40 similar incursions along the entire border this fiscal year.

Three illegal aliens arrested have a combined 69 arrests

August 7, 2008 - 5:47PM

BY JAMES GILBERT, SUN STAFF WRITER

Border Patrol agents in Yuma arrested three illegal aliens with extensive criminal histories and immigration violations in two separate incidents Wednesday.

At about 6 p.m., agents discovered a set of footprints leading away from the Colorado River near County 8th Street - "a high-traffic area," said Border Patrol spokesman Ben Vik.

Vik said agents tracked the prints for about two miles to a field where they found an illegal alien trying to evade them.

A fingerprint check identified him as Juan Francisco-Flores and revealed a criminal history originating in the late 1980s. Included were assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting injury upon spouse, driving under the influence and drug offenses. Francisco-Flores was also previously deported from the United States.

Later that same evening, a Yuma Sector camera operator helped agents in the arrest of two more criminal aliens who used the same crossing point to enter the U.S.

"They were trying to circumvent the north end of Yuma," Vik said. "The camera operator watched them enter the country illegally and guided agents to their location. It was a triumph of technology."

Silvio Arrellano-Estrada, a criminal alien with history beginning in the 1990s, was found to have three previous arrests for various forms of theft including shoplifting and vehicle theft, as well re-entry after deportation.

A records check identified the last subject as Sacramento Velasquez-Morales. His varied immigration and criminal history includes 60 arrests, using 47 aliases, spanning from the mid-1970s to present for multiple battery/assault charges, narcotics, theft and public drunkenness in various states such as California, Washington, Texas and Arizona.

Velasquez-Morales reportedly has multiple illegal entry offenses and has been formally removed from the U.S. eight times.

Mexico sees decline in migrant remittances

The Associated Press

Published: 07.30.2008

MEXICO CITY - Half-year figures are expected to show the first sustained decline on record in remittances sent home by Mexicans working abroad, officials said.

The downturn in U.S. housing construction and stepped-up immigration raids have made it tougher for migrants to find jobs, and less able to send money home. Mexico's Central Bank is scheduled to release figures on the remittance flow on Wednesday.

Jesus Cervantes, director of economic measurement for Mexico's central bank, said remittances are expected to decline 1.5 percent to 2 percent for 2008 as a whole over the previous year.

Cervantes said that would be the first such sustained drop since a reliable tally has been kept.

Annual remittances nearly tripled from about US$9 billion in 2001 to almost US$24 billion in 2007, amid improved reporting methods and swelling immigration.

Businesses in many Mexican towns that came to rely on the cash flow are now being forced to scale back — also in part because of the decline of the U.S. dollar, which has lost almost 8 percent of its value against the Mexican peso this year.

Mesa police find 22 at suspected drop house

by Senta Scarborough and Jourdan Rassas - Jul. 29, 2008 02:25 PM
The Arizona Republic

Neighbors were surprised to see a parade of police cars and black Suburban's roll down the quiet streets of their west Mesa neighborhood Tuesday afternoon.

Mesa police discovered at least 22 people in a suspected illegal immigrant drop house near Dobson Road and Eight Street, near the Mesa Riverview retail complex.

Police received a 911 call that led officers to the home in the 500 block of South Visalia, said Detective Diana Tapia, a police spokeswoman Police notified the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

There was a line of suspected undocumented immigrants handcuffed and on their knees in the shade of house as police took them individually to the side of the house for questioning.

Neighbors, who didn’t want to be identified, said they never suspected the home was used as a drop house. They said the neighborhood is quiet and all the neighbors watch out for one another.

Earlier Tuesday, ICE detained 49 suspected undocumented immigrants and one suspected smuggler in Phoenix after police responded to a call notifying them of a possible drop house.

Drop-house unit found 40 in six months, DPS says

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHOENIX — The Arizona Department of Public Safety says a specialized unit has discovered 40 drop houses in the past six months, arresting 99 people suspected of human smuggling and nearly 500 possible illegal immigrants in the process.

The Illegal Immigration Prevention and Apprehension Co-op Team's chief mission is to target violent crimes associated with human smuggling and to dismantle the syndicates or rings behind those crimes.

Sgt. Chuck Herrera, a detective on the team, said smuggling suspects who are caught often are also held on suspicion of kidnapping, rape, extortion, assault and other serious crimes.

RICO used against rentals to illegal entrants

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PLAINFIELD, N.J. — A federal lawsuit using a novel method to challenge a landlord's right to rent to illegal immigrants is stoking tensions that have been rising for years in this diverse city of 50,000 south of Newark.

A prominent group that opposes illegal immigration sued a Plainfield property management company this month, seeking to set a legal precedent by using anti-racketeering legislation to crack down on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants.

The suit alleges the company has so many undocumented tenants in its buildings that it constitutes unlawful harboring and should be considered by the courts as a criminal enterprise that encourages illegal immigration.

The suit was brought by the Immigration Reform Law Institute — the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform — against Connolly Properties on behalf of a former Connolly employee and two tenants who are U.S. citizens.

The tenants allege that they were steered into buildings occupied by illegal immigrants who were too afraid about their legal status to complain about decrepit conditions, according to Mike Hethmon, a lawyer for the group that filed the suit.

Flor Gonzalez, head of the Plainfield-based Latin American Coalition, worries that her city may become the latest battleground in the nationwide debate over immigration. The suit comes as tensions over the city's large immigrant population are rising to a boil, she said, with police ticketing day laborers, a recent spate of beatings and robberies of immigrants, and raids by federal immigration officials.

17 people found dehydrated in desert near Gila Bend

by Senta Scarborough - Jun. 22, 2008 06:30 PM

The Arizona Republic

Seventeen people, including four suffering severe dehydration, have been taken to local hospitals after they flagged down motorists for help along Arizona 85 near Gila Bend Sunday afternoon, U.S. Border Patrol officials said.

A 26-year-old woman and her two children were among the group, said Rob Daniels, a Border Patrol spokesman.

Border Patrol officials are still investigating the incident, but preliminary information leads them to believe the people were undocumented immigrants who crossed the border illegally just west of Lukeville.

A resident reported that people were trying to get assistance from passing motorists around noon at mile marker No. 9, Border Patrol spokesman Mario Escalante said.

The Border Patrol responded to the area and found 17 people suffering from dehydration. The high in Gila Bend on Sunday was 115.

"Most of the people were in pretty bad shape," Escalante said. "At this time, their safety and well-being is our first priority."

Twice-deported Mexican national is sentenced to 46 months for illegal reentry

Subject was convicted in Rhode Island of child abuse

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A Mexican national was sentenced today for illegally reentering the U.S., after an investigation by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Rhode Island.

A federal judge today sentenced Gustavo Granados, a citizen of Mexico, to 46 months in federal prison for illegally reentering the United States after being deported. Granados, 39, was convicted in 1992 in Rhode Island Family Court of second-degree child abuse, and was deported twice. His illegal status was discovered in January after a vehicle stop in East Providence.

United States Attorney Robert Clark Corrente and Bruce M. Foucart, special agent-in-charge of ICE's Office of Investigation in Boston, announced the sentence, which Senior U.S. District Court Judge Ernest C. Torres imposed in U.S. District Court, Providence. After his term in prison, Granados will again be subject to deportation.

"This case truly highlights the success of law enforcement coordination," said ICE Special Agent-in-Charge Foucart. "Thanks to the proactive efforts of the East Providence Police Department, a criminal illegal alien, who has abused a child, has been brought to justice. It is ICE's mission to protect national security and public safety, and the most effective way to do that is to assist and work with our local law enforcement partners."

Granados pleaded guilty in March to illegal reentry. At the plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra R. Beckner said the government could prove that Granados was deported as an aggravated felon in May 1995. After illegally reentering the country, he was deported again in October 1999, and illegally reentered again near Nogales, Ariz., in July 2005.

Granados was most recently living in an apartment on Mowry Street, Central Falls. In January, East Providence Police made a routine traffic stop of a car that Granados was driving and subsequently contacted ICE for an immigration check. ICE agents took custody of Granados on Jan. 15 and brought the case to the United States Attorney's Office for prosecution.

Feds to Begin Prosecuting Illegal Immigrants

Under a new action called 'Operation Streamline,' those who are arrested for illegal entry will be arrested, booked, tried, and sentenced.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

By Jim Forsyth

(WOAI-San Antonio) - For decades, people who entered Texas illegally from Mexico and other countries have been caught, and deported. But starting Thursday, those who are unlucky enough to try to sneak in over a four mile stretch of the Rio Grande near Brownsville, the policy will change drastically, 1200 WOAI news has learned.

Under a new action called 'Operation Streamline,' those who are arrested for the federal crime of illegal entry will be arrested, fingerprinted, booked, tried, and sentenced to up to six months in jail. After they are released, they will be deported.

"Operation streamline is a zero tolerance prosecution initiative for any person arrested for illegally entering the United States," said Ricardo Rosas of the U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley sector. "Those individuals who we apprehend will be formally prosecuted."

Mexico asks World Court to stay executions in U.S.

By Arthur Max

ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:03 p.m. June 5, 2008

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Mexico appealed to the U.N.'s highest court Thursday to block the executions of Mexicans in the United States, arguing U.S. officials have failed to comply with a judgment ordering a review of their trials.

The International Court of Justice said Mexico asked the court for an “interpretation” of an earlier ruling to clarify its meaning when it asked the U.S. to “review and reconsider” the cases of the condemned prisoners.

Until that can be done, Mexico said the United States “must take any and all steps necessary” to ensure that none of its citizens is executed, and asked the court to take urgent measures to intercede.

The court, informally known as the World Court, ruled in 2004 that the convictions of some 50 Mexicans on death row around the United States violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which provides that people arrested abroad can have access to their home country's consular officials.

The court, which sits in The Hague, said the Mexicans should have new hearings in U.S. courts to determine whether the violation affected their cases.

Mexican “Family Values” Won’t Improve America?

Memo From Mexico, By Allan Wall

Old stereotypes die hard. How many times have we heard that Mexican and Hispanic immigration is good for the U.S., because Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants (including illegal aliens) have "family values"?

Our own president is particularly fond of this argument. For example, at a National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in 2006, Bush proclaimed (to applause) that

"The daily example of our Hispanic communities reminds us that strong faith and strong families can build a better future for all. We are more—we're a more hopeful society because men and women of Hispanic descent have put their faith and values into action."

Some go so far as to say that Hispanics are just better people than Americans and are going to improve the moral fiber of our country.

In fact, as long ago as 1993, Francis "End of History" Fukuyama said that

“But it would also seem a priori likely that third-world immigrants should have stronger family values than white, middle-class, suburban Americans, while their work ethic and willingness to defer to traditional sources of authority should be greater as well.” [Immigrants and Family Values, Commentary, May 1993]

In 2003, former Mexican political operative Fredo Arias-King described interviewing pro-immigration social conservative U.S. congressmen on behalf of the PAN Party and Vicente Fox. Here's his impression of why they supported immigration:

"Congressmen in this group mentioned that the immigrants ‘bring family values’ that compensate for the perceived deterioration in the morality of Americans. Their preoccupation seemed to be a return to an America they feel is slipping away."

That argument is downright un-patriotic, I don't care who makes it.

If you believe that the moral fiber of American society has declined, and I do, then the solution is to work to improve it, not to replace Americans with foreigners.

Any social conservative who wants to replace Americans with foreigners is an unpatriotic social conservative.

But, as it turns out, the argument is bogus even on its own terms. Mass immigration is definitely not improving the moral fiber of American society.

8 suspected illegal immigrants face fraud charges after raid

The Associated Press

PHOENIX — Sheriff's deputies say they've arrested eight suspected illegal immigrants on fraud charges for allegedly using forged documents or stolen identities to get jobs at two amusement parks in metropolitan Phoenix.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says the fraud bust might lead to a case under the state's employer sanctions law if deputies can prove the amusement parks operators knew they were hiring illegal immigrants.

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas says authorities didn't yet have a sanctions case resulting from the raid Tuesday morning at Golfland Entertainment locations in Mesa and north Phoenix.

1 in 3 children in state has an immigrant parent

by Daniel González - Jun. 10, 2008 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

The number of Arizona children who come from immigrant households is soaring.

At least one in three Arizona children now has at least one immigrant parent, up from about one in four 10 years ago, said Nancy Welch,a researcher at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University.

She co-authored a new report that concluded at least 471,000 children living in Arizona are from immigrant households - or more than the entire population of Mesa.

The report is based on 2006 census data.

ICE to illegals: We'll 'find you and send you home'

13 teams of agents bust more than 900 criminal aliens in California

Posted: May 30, 2008 11:55 pm Eastern
WorldNetDaily

More than 900 illegal aliens have been sent packing after a three-week U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in California.

Half of the criminal aliens and fugitives arrested during the statewide sting have already been sent to their home countries. Since a large number of the illegals have faced previous deportation, immigration authorities immediately ousted them from the U.S.

The rest remain in police custody, awaiting travel arrangements for deportation or hearings before an immigration judge.

Brian DeMore, acting field officer director for ICE detention and removal operations in Los Angeles, issued a press release about his team's success.

"ICE is committed to protecting the integrity to this country's immigration system and that means ensuring that the removal orders handed down by the nation's immigration courts are carried out," he said. "As a country, we welcome law-abiding immigrants, but foreign nationals who violate our laws and commit crimes in our communities should be on notice that ICE is going to use all of the tools at its disposal to find you and send you home."

Immigration authorities sought out and detained a total of 905 illegal alien criminals in California – 327 in Los Angeles alone. Of the 327 arrested in L.A., 244 were fugitives aliens who have dodged deportation orders or who have returned to the U.S. after being evicted by authorities. Approximately 25 percent of L.A. illegals in custody have criminal histories, and one person has been convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14.

16 migrants, hidden pot found by agents

FERNANDA ECHÁVARRI

Published: 05.31.2008

Sixteen illegal immigrants, two with criminal records; 2,600 pounds of marijuana; and human skeletal remains were found by Border Patrol on Thursday, authorities said.

Agents with the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector found an abandoned Chevrolet truck on the Tohono O'odham Nation Thursday morning, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rob Daniels said.

The truck was hidden under thick desert brush and had 2,600 pounds of marijuana inside, Daniels said.

Though agents searched the area for a driver, nobody was found.

In the afternoon, agents found 15 illegal immigrants northwest of Sasabe, Daniels said.

Agents took them into custody and database checks showed one had a warrant for his arrest in Alabama, he said.

The man, originally from El Salvador, was wanted on accusations of sexual assault and rape in 2006, Daniels said. He was turned over to Tucson police for extradition to Alabama.

In Miami, Spanish is becoming the primary language

May 29, 4:38 AM (ET)

By GISELA SALOMON

MIAMI (AP) - Melissa Green's mother spoke Spanish, but she never learned - her father forbid it. Today, that's a frequent problem in this city where the English-speaking population is outnumbered.

The 49-year-old flower shop owner and Miami native said her inability to speak "espanol" makes it difficult to conduct business, seek help at stores and even ask directions. She finds it "frustrating."

"It makes it hard for some people to find a job because they don't speak Spanish, and I don't think that it is right," said Green, who sometimes calls a Spanish-speaking friend to translate for customers who don't speak English.

"Sometimes I think they should learn it," she said.

In many areas of Miami, Spanish has become the predominant language, replacing English in everyday life. Anyone from Latin America could feel at home on the streets, without having to pronounce a single word in English.

In stores, shopkeepers wait on their clients in Spanish. Universities offer programs for Spanish speakers. And in supermarkets, banks, restaurants - even at the post office and government offices - information is given and assistance is offered in Spanish. In Miami, doctors and nurses speak Spanish with their patients and a large portion of advertising is in Spanish. Daily newspapers and radio and television stations cater to the Hispanic public.

San Luis, AZ, just south of Yuma, has over 30,000 people, 98% of whom are Latino. Try finding someone to wait on you who speaks English! It will be a long wait! -mm