Archive for the ‘Borders’ Category

by Joe Newby

Despite budget cuts and the sequester, the Department of Homeland Security sought to purchase bagpipes and drums for its customs and border protection operation, Twitchy reported Wednesday. The Blaze reported Thursday, however, that the order was suddenly and mysteriously canceled.

According to the bid posted Wednesday, the DHS sought to buy 10 black polypenco bagpipes with cases and accessories, snare drums, tenor drums and drum accessories.

The original solicitation called for “new equipment only” and specified that “NO remanufactured or ‘gray market’ items” would be allowed.

Becket Adams wrote that the bid was canceled shortly after it was exposed on the Drudge Report.

“Still,” Adams wrote, “two questions remain.”

“What in the world does the DHS need with bagpipes and miscellaneous band equipment? Was it somehow for one of the military bands? If not, or even if so, how much would it have cost taxpayers?” he asked.

According to themacleods.net, a “decent set of bagpipes” would cost $950 – $1,600 for “a basic set.” More ornate sets could cost “several thousand” dollars, the website said.

“The average price for a set of pipes with imitation ivory projecting mounts and engraved hallmarked sterling silver is about $5500. The cost with real ivory is closer to $7500,” the site added.

We found a set of polypenco pipes at Dunbar priced at $870. Accessories like bags and reeds are sold separately.

Twitchy said that a number of people on Twitter, including Roll Call’s Jonathan Strong, wondered why the DHS would need bagpipes.

“Seriously though, why is DHS buying bagpipes?” he asked.

“I like bagpipes, but really. Does DHS need them?” asked blogger Katie Armistead.

“No money for W/H tours but plenty for Ike & Tina Obama party and bagpipes,” another person said.

“We may not know for some time” why the instruments were needed, Adams wrote. “A request for comment was not immediately returned by a DHS spokesperson,” he added.

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By Javier Manjarres

Republican Congressman Dennis Ross has started off his second term in office by introducing five legislative bills, one of them being the Legal Agricultural Workforce Act, guest worker program for farm labor that is proposed under the authority of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), not the Department of Labor. According to Ross, the program allows participants to work for 10 months at a time, essentially making it a 10 month work visa. When asked about the real problem of these guest workers overstaying their visas, Ross stated the following-

“One of the things we talked about was paying into a fund, instead of paying FICA, which we don’t pay anyways, but pay that amount so when they finish their ten months they collect it when they go back. Which Ross adds it’s “even better, because then there is an incentive to want to go back and then there’s an incentive to want to come back because they’ll have a job when they come back.
Ross continued-

If they wanted to stay here, they would leave their money here, but they send their money back home because that’s where their families are. They don’t necessarily want to come here as a citizen, they want to come here because of the economic opportunities. This program recognizes their desire to use this country as a source, to do jobs that domestic workers don’t want to do, and it allows them to go back home to their family and meet our needs here.” – Congressman Dennis Rosss
When asked about Senator Rubio’s recent immigration reform ideas, Ross said that he “lauds him for doing that” but like many conservatives, wants to see “the details.” Ross stresses that we need to be careful not to create a “new pathway to citizenship” for illegal immigrants. The congressman didn’t hold back on expressing his frustration about the lack of immigration reform messaging as well as the broader issue of Republican outreach to the growing Latino community, a problem that was apparent long before last year’s wipeout with Hispanics-

We didn’t’ even have the conversation, and my party wonders why we suffered in the polls in November. -Congressman Dennis Ross

Saying they’re fed up with being told they can’t do their jobs, 10 immigration agents on Thursday sued the Obama administration to try to halt the president’s new non-deportation policy and an earlier memo instructing them not to go after rank-and-file illegal immigrants.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Texas, adds a legal controversy to the political fight that has been brewing over President Obama’s immigration policies, which have steadily narrowed the range of immigrants the government is targeting for deportation.

The 10 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and deportation officers said Mr. Obama’s policies force them to choose between enforcing the law and being reprimanded by superiors, or listening to superiors and violating their own oaths of office and a 1996 law that requires them to put those who entered the country illegally into deportation proceedings.

Upping the ante, the agents are being represented by a high-profile lawyer, Kris W. Kobach, secretary of state in Kansas and the chief promoter of state immigration crackdowns such as Arizona’s tough law.

“ICE is at a point now where agents are being told to break federal law, they’re pretty much told that any illegal alien under age of 31 is going to be let go. You can imagine, these law enforcement officers are being put in a horrible position,” Mr. Kobach said.

Last week, at Mr. Obama’s direction, the Homeland Security Department began taking applications from those 30 years of age or younger who came to the U.S. as children and who have kept a fairly clean criminal record. They are being granted “deferred action,” which is an official notice they are not to be deported, and will be allowed to obtain work permits to stay and get jobs legally in the U.S.

ICE officials didn’t have an immediate comment on the lawsuit, but the Obama administration has repeatedly defended the legality of its actions.

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing in July, Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, warned of the possibility of a lawsuit and asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano if she would rescind the order before it came to that.

“Representative, I will not rescind it,” she replied. “It’s right on the law. It’s the right policy. It fits within our prosecutorial priorities. And although it came out of the Department of Homeland Security, let me say that president is foursquare behind it, embraces this policy as the right thing to do.”

She said the administration doesn’t have the ability to issue a stay of action for a broad category of people, but said the new policy is different because it invests decisions on a case-by-case basis with agents and officers, who are instructed not to pursue cases for those who meet the guidelines she laid out.

Ms. Napolitano said she’s acting in accordance with Supreme Court rulings that have established a wide latitude for discretion by the executive branch, and said federal law directs the administration to establish immigration enforcement priorities.

But in their 22-page complaint, the agents say they’ve been told in broad terms to ignore a whole class of illegal immigrants. They said they have been instructed not to bother asking for proof, but to take an illegal immigrant’s word that he would qualify for the president’s more liberal policy.

One of the instances the lawsuit cites is a now well-known case in El Paso where ICE Agent Samuel Martin picked up an illegal alien from the El Paso County jail. Agent Martin says the man tried to escape and, in the process, assaulted him and another agent — but when they got the man to ICE’s processing center agency supervisors said he had to be released under the new policies.

In that case, the issue wasn’t Mr. Obama’s recent policy on immigrants eligible under the so-called “Dream Act,” which stalled on Capitol Hill, but an earlier memo by ICE Director John Morton that said agents should focus on criminals and repeat-immigration offenders.

Chris Crane, an ICE deportation officer, president of the National ICE Council and one of those suing to stop the policy, said morale is low among rank-and-file employees at the agency.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/23/immigration-agents-sue-stop-obamas-non-deportation/

Federal agents who risk their lives to patrol the U.S. border are slamming their boss — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano — for giving Americans a “false sense of security” by almost constantly assuring them that the U.S.-Mexican border is safe.

During her visit to Texas, Napolitano stated that violence along the Mexican border is merely a mistaken perception because the area is better now than it ever has been thanks to the Obama Administration’s commitment to “fostering a secure and prosperous” region, according to a public-interest group that investigates and exposes government corruption and fraud.

Napolitano claims that some of America’s safest communities are in the southwest border region, notes Judicial Watch.

Border Patrol union officials say that if the border was better now than it has ever been Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry would not have been brutally murdered by heavily armed Mexican criminals operating over 13 miles inside the United States. In some countries that is construed as an act of war, but here we get words not deeds when Napolitano terms events like this as evidence, “there is much to do with our colleagues in Mexico in respect to the drug cartels.”

It is time for the political games to stop for fear of insulting the government of Mexico. U.S. citizens are being kidnapped and killed while our Border Patrol agents fight a war at home that no one will allow them to win. Not one more Border Patrol agent should fall or citizen be victimized because our government fails to act. Mexico is hemorraghing violence and the United States is being hit with the blood splatter, said a NBPC statement.

The U.S.-Mexico border is unsafe and to say anything else is not true.

Outraged Border Patrol agents on the front line of the escalating violence responded to Napolitano’s politically-motivated comments by reminding politicians, news reporters and the American people that three of their agents have been murdered by Mexican drug cartels in the last few years and ranchers have been gunned down in border communities.

U.S. citizens are also being “kidnapped and killed” with regularity, according to the National Border Patrol Council, which represents more than 17,000 agents nationwide.

As an example of the impact on U.S. communities, the NBPC points out that the Phoenix area has become a “cartel-related crime hotspot.” Simply put, the U.S.-Mexico border is unsafe, the Border Patrol union assures.

“It is time for the political games to stop for fear of insulting the government of Mexico,” the Border Patrol group says. “Mexico is hemorrhaging violence and we are being hit with the splatter.”

The Border Patrol agents are absolutely correct in their assessment. Mexican drug-cartel violence has reached epic proportions and routinely spills into the very towns Napolitano promotes as “America’s safest communities.”

Federal agents have come under siege by heavily armed drug smugglers and local media has exposed record levels in crimes associated with illicit narcotics operations. In fact, more than 13,000 people were murdered across Mexico last year in disturbing and cruel ways not previously seen. Regardless, Napolitano declared that the region “is as secure as it has ever been.”

The famous words, ridiculed in the press worldwide, came days after U.S. Border Patrol agents engaged in a violent gun battle with Mexican drug smugglers along the Rio Grande in Texas. The federal officers came under siege during a bust that netted half a ton of U.S.-bound marijuana.

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A version of this column originally appeared in island-adv.com.

Closure of Border Patrol stations across four states triggers alarm
By Judson Berger

The Obama administration is moving to shut down nine Border Patrol stations across four states, triggering a backlash from local law enforcement, members of Congress and Border Patrol agents themselves.
Critics of the move warn the closures will undercut efforts to intercept drug and human traffickers in well-traveled corridors north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Though the affected stations are scattered throughout northern and central Texas, and three other states, the coverage areas still see plenty of illegal immigrant activity — one soon-to-be-shuttered station in Amarillo, Texas, is right in the middle of the I-40 corridor; another in Riverside, Calif., is outside Los Angeles.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it’s closing the stations in order to reassign agents to high-priority areas closer to the border.

“These deactivations are consistent with the strategic goal of securing America’s borders, and our objective of increasing and sustaining the certainty of arrest of those trying to enter our country illegally,” CBP spokesman Bill Brooks said in a statement. “By redeploying and reallocating resources at or near the border, CBP will maximize the effectiveness of its enforcement mandate and align our investments with our mission.”
But at least one Border Patrol supervisor in Texas has called on local officers to “voice your concerns” to elected officials, warning that the “deactivation” will remove agents from the Texas Panhandle, among other places. Several members of Congress have asked Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher to reconsider the plan. And local officials are getting worried about what will happen once the Border Patrol leaves town, since they rely on those federal officials to assist in making immigration arrests.

“It could impact us tremendously since we’ve only got two agents up here now for 26 counties,” Potter County Sheriff Brian Thomas told FoxNews.com.

Potter County, in the Texas Panhandle, would be affected by the planned closure of the Amarillo station.
Thomas said that while his area is far from the border, it’s still a major “corridor” for illegal immigrants — and he said his office depends on Border Patrol to respond to their calls.
“I can’t hold a carload of people out there on I-40 for eight hours while somebody comes from El Paso,” he said. “I mean, that’s just crazy.”

Border Patrol’s resident agent in charge in Amarillo expressed similar worries, in a recent memo to local law enforcement alerting them to the planned closure. The official, Robert Green, warned that the “entire complement” of two agents would be reassigned from Amarillo to somewhere closer to the border. He said “there is no active plan” right now for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to fill the void on assisting local officials with stops.

SUMMARY
The following Border Patrol stations are set for closure:
Texas: Lubbock, Amarillo, Dallas, San Angelo, Abilene and San Antonio.
Idaho: Twin Falls
Montana: Billings
California: Riverside

Empathizing with local officials, he wrote: “As a former deputy I found myself on the other end of the radio hoping to contact USBP to assist me with a vehicle full of undocumented foreign nationals on the side of the road.”
And in an unusual plea, he urged the recipients of his memo to contact elected officials about the change. “I would encourage you, if you have found USBP assistance valuable in the past, to contact your political representatives and voice your concerns,” Green wrote.
The letter was first posted online by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Thomas confirmed to FoxNews.com that he received it. Bob Dane, communications director with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, also said he’s confirmed the letter’s authenticity with ICE.

CBP later acknowledged the memo, but said in its statement that Green was expressing his “personal opinion.”
Lawmakers have started to get involved. Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry, who represents Amarillo, joined two other Texas lawmakers whose districts would be affected in asking the Border Patrol chief to “reconsider the proposal.”
A letter sent Tuesday to Fisher warned the plan would “leave our area vulnerable.” They noted that the Amarillo and Lubbock stations alone, two of those affected, accounted for 638 apprehensions of illegal immigrants just this year.

FAIR also blasted the Obama administration for the plans.
“It’s part of the systematic dismantling of both border and interior enforcement,” Dane told FoxNews.com. “It complements the non-enforcement policy of this administration.”
He warned that local officials in those areas will have a hard time summoning far-away Border Patrol agents to assist, and said the tone of Green’s memo was a “not-so-subtle shout-out” that the agency feels “outmanned, outgunned … by their own government.”

The stations set for closure in about six months include six in Texas. They are in: Lubbock, Amarillo, Dallas, San Angelo, Abilene and San Antonio. The other three are in Billings, Mont.; Twin Falls, Idaho; and Riverside, Calif.
Brooks said that the closures do not mean agents will be out of contact.
“Though Border Patrol agents would no longer be located in these areas, the Border Patrol intends to maintain strong and meaningful law enforcement partnerships with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement agencies in these areas through continuing to actively share intelligence and information” and other avenues, he said.

Detractors, though, say the changes are part of a pattern. The administration recently announced it would stop deporting young illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have not committed a serious crime. And after the Supreme Court upheld one plank of Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law last month, federal officials said ICE would be selective in responding to calls about immigration status – prioritizing cases that meet certain criteria, like whether the suspect is wanted for a felony.

Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, who signed the Thornberry letter, also voiced concern about the latest announcement on station closings in a written statement.

“The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t demonstrated that sending additional resources to the border will be a more efficient use of resources than maintaining a presence further north,” Neugebauer said. “I’d like to see numbers that reassure me that this strategy change won’t ultimately result in fewer arrests.”

Source

by Jason Howerton

Arizona militias say they are done waiting for the government to protect their borders after state lawmakers shot down a bill that would have created a state-sanctioned border militia unit.

The Arizona Daily Star reports that militia volunteers remain committed to stopping what they say is an invasion of smugglers and illegal immigrants, even after being denied state organization status.

The defeated bill would have created a 300-member volunteer militia at the request of the governor. They would have been be armed; however, a provision in the bill required that members be screened in order to prevent violent extremists from joining. You can read the text of the bill here.

Like almost any topic related to illegal immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border, the issue is extremely contentious. The Daily Star reports:

A longtime Arizona border-militia leader, Jack Foote, worked for a period with the group that wrote the bill and said its demise is motivating sympathizers of the border-militia movement.

“We have now washed our hands of our state’s Legislature,” Foote, of Cottonwood, said via email. “Now we are going to do things our own way.”

But critics of that movement, such as Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League, said the border-militia idea is extremist in its nature, not just at its outer edges.
“Some are explicitly white supremacist,” said Pitcavage, who has studied extreme right-wing movements for years. “The others may not be white supremacists but may well be racists.”

Critics of militia groups often point to the case of Jason Todd “J.T.” Ready, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi and border-militia leader, who shot and killed four people before taking his own life. He was being investigated by the FBI at the time.
Critics of militia groups often point to the case of Jason Todd “J.T.” Ready, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi and border-militia leader, who shot and killed four people before taking his own life. He was being investigated by the FBI at the time.

In this undated handout photo from J.T. Ready, J.T. Ready is shown. Ready. Ready is a reputed neo-Nazi who has been conducting heavily armed patrols to catch illegal aliens in the Arizona desert. (AP Photo/J.T. Ready)The latest legislative blow to citizen militias in Arizona is part of a growing list defeats.

The fight to form a lawful border militia in Arizona began in 2007, when former Sen. Jack Harper introduced a bill to sanction a state Homeland Security Force that could be used on the border if called upon by the governor, The Star reports. However, then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, now Department of Homeland Security secretary, vetoed the legislation, calling it unnecessary because the governor is already within his or her right to call up a militia.

Harper and others pushed the issue again in 2011 and were able to pass a new bill to establish an Arizona State Guard. The victory was shallow, however, as no money was provided establish the guard and the toothless bill made little impact.

Then drawing from the public laws of 22 other states, state Sen. Sylvia Allen put together a team of people to write a bill that called for $1.9 million to fund the new volunteer militia last year.

But like the others, the legislation faced heavy opposition from lawmakers and was eventually killed. Among the bill’s opponents were Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and head of the Arizona National Guard, Maj. Hugo Salazar who worried about the militia group being armed and that he hadn’t been consulted enough, The Star reports.

“All this does is, it legitimizes the Minutemen-type model of enforcement,” said state Sen. Steve Gallardo, a staunch opponent of the bill.

The reported surge in border militia activity in Arizona, as Fox News Latino points out, seems to contradict a report published in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Spring 2012 Intelligence Report that claimed the “nativist extremist” movement had collapsed.

The same report links the Tea Party to the armed militia groups, saying the Tea Party movement has become “home to many nativist extremists.” The center argues the interest of the two groups intersected in 2009 over President Obama’s healthcare plan when coverage for illegal immigrants was a hot topic issue.

“Since then, the lines between the movements have become increasingly blurred, with leaders frequently making appearances at each other’s events,” the report read.

Now, even without legislative support, militia supporters are vowing to continue.

“There is a large military veteran population in our state who would go down there and do the work that the state needs done under the state flag,” Michael Frye, a supporter of the bill, told the Star. Now, he added, “There’s really no other choice but for those folks like myself to form citizen militias.”