Tag Archives: Border Patrol

Report: Ford blamed in drug mule lawsuit

July 30, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

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If a college student is caught smuggling drugs across the border, one might think the kid got what was coming to him. But when a Mexican student at the University of Texas in El Paso was caught by Border Patrol agents with duffel bags filled with marijuana in his trunk, the man used a classic excuse: He claimed they weren’t his.

While a claim like that is almost unbelievable, Ricardo Magallanes, the student, is now suing Ford for handling its vehicles’ key codes negligently enough to allow drug smugglers to break into his Ford Focus and stash the drugs, The Daily Caller reports. The twist here is that four other people who lived in Juarez and worked in El Paso were involved in the same type of scheme – allegedly unwittingly, just like Magallanes – and all the cars were Fords except one model from General Motors. FBI agents also found an employee at a Dallas Ford dealership that had accessed the key codes to all four of the cannabis-stuffed Fords.

While we all may not own Fords, the case still causes us slight paranoia. We’ll definitely be checking our trunks before we cross any more international borders.

Ford blamed in drug mule lawsuit originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 30 Jul 2013 13:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog

News, Politics, Government

5 killed after van overturns during Border Patrol pursuit

April 22, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Authorities say five people died after the van they were traveling in rolled over in southern Arizona as it was being pursued by Border Patrol agents.

Rural/Metro Fire spokesman Willie Treatch says 22 people were in the van at the time it rolled over Saturday night in between Tucson and Benson, Ariz.

Seventeen other people were taken to hospitals for treatment. Their injuries are unknown.

Treatch says he didn’t know the circumstances of the vehicle pursuit by the Border Patrol.

The Border Patrol didn’t return calls seeking comment on Sunday.

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/national/~3/8tMBlJvvGw0/

Articles of Interest

US-Mexico Border Wall Forces Risky Detours For Those Trying To Cross

April 10, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

A tall barrier separates two worlds. To the south, a crowded Mexican border town. To the north, beyond a heavily patrolled no-man’s land, the lure of work and a better life in America.

The 2.5 meter (eight-foot) tall metal barrier has dramatically reduced the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border in the busy San Diego area, in the far southwestern United States.

Critics, however, say this has just forced the migrants to walk miles into the open desert to get around the wall, resulting in thousands of deaths.

Security along the 3,200 kilometer (2,000 mile) border with Mexico is a key factor in the debate over overhauling US immigration policy and figuring out what do with the 11 million people already living in the country illegally.

From a border hilltop near San Diego, the impact of the barrier is clear.

“Generations and generations of smugglers have lived in this area,” said Border Patrol agent Timothy Hamill as he gestures south to a working-class neighborhood in Tijuana, Mexico.

From the hilltop one can see the waves of the Pacific Ocean to the west. To the east, the fence crawls over rugged hills into the horizon.

The crow of roosters can be heard from the Mexican side. In one poor Tijuana neighborhood, La Libertad, frugal residents use the barrier as a wall for their humble homes.

Armed US Border Patrol agents in pine-green uniforms patrol the open strip of desert between the wall and a secondary chain link fence on the US side.

Giant banks of stadium lights illuminate the border strip at night. Agents monitor the area around the clock using 59 cameras on 14 observation towers.

As recently as 20 years ago migrants would cross the border in large groups.

But, starting in the 1990s, agents began to raise a barrier of welded steel panels along the busiest parts of the border.

In the San Diego area, the steel fence runs some 90 meters (300 feet) into the Pacific Ocean, then east for 45 miles. A secondary chain link fence topped with razor wire runs for 13 miles.

Detentions dropped from around 400,000 a year before the wall to 28,000 last year in the San Diego area alone, Hamill said, while authorities have increased their haul of captured illegal drugs nearly 65 percent since 2005.

Along the route Hamill points to signs of tunnels under the border that have been dug, and sealed, over the years, as well as various holes in the wall.

“The border is more secure than it has been in the past,” Hamill said. “But we definitely still have challenges to face. Protecting America is a very challenging mission and is very important to remain vigilant.”

— A deadly detour? —

Arrests may be down, but the undocumented migrants are still coming, says Enrique Morones, an activist with the group Border Angels.

The barrier and the increased security has meant a rising death toll among migrants who now make a wide detour into the desert to avoid detection.

Morones estimates there have been some 10,000 deaths along the whole border.

“Before they built the wall,

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post

News, Politics, Government

Budget cuts, DC debate have illegals surging across Mexican border, experts say

April 2, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Contrary to the Administration’s claim the border has never been more secure, high ranking Border Patrol officials in Texas are considering the need “for a tent city” because a surge of illegal immigrants have the Rio Grande Valley “boiling over” with smuggling traffic and new immigrants.

News, Politics, Government

Shots reportedly fired at border agents near Sumas

April 2, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

The U.S. Border Patrol reportedly has one man in custody and an armed suspect surrounded on a logging trail near Sumas along the Canada border in northwest Washington.

The Bellingham Herald reports (http://bit.ly/10t9uTb) the Whatcom County sheriff’s office was first alerted to the situation at 9:20 a.m. Tuesday after the pair reportedly fired gunshots when border agents tried to approach them.

___

Information from: The Bellingham Herald, http://www.bellinghamherald.com

Articles of Interest

Illegal Border Crossings Double, Not Decreasing As Feds Claim

April 2, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By Breaking News

Mexico SC Illegal Border Crossings Double, Not Decreasing As Feds Claim

About two weeks ago the New York Times published an article claiming that the Arizona – Mexico border was the safest it’s been in years and that illegal border crossings had dramatically decreased. They cited all of the beefed up security measures and equipment including miles of 18 foot high fencing, increased patrols of Blackhawk helicopters, agents, drones, night vision, infrared vision, etc.

Then last week, 4 US senators, two Republicans and two Democrats, toured the border in Nogales, Arizona. That section of border is the most heavily protected in the state, yet while the senators were walking along the border, a Mexican woman scaled the 18 foot tall fence and hopped down on to US soil. She was immediately arrested and detained and I offered up the possibility that she was paid to help demonstrate to the senators just how on top of everything the agents on hand were.

After reading the New York Times report, I raised concerns about the degree of border security based upon the recent border tour by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and the reports from some of the ranchers who live along the border. Brewer said she saw drug cartels poised ready to cross the border into Arizona. The ranchers report crossings on a daily basis.

Now, as if to rebut the NY Times report, at least one unnamed Border Patrol agent has the courage to tell the real story. That agent told Townhall, under conditions of anonymity, that the number of illegal border crossings have doubled, not decreased. The agent said:

“We’ve seen the number of illegal aliens double, maybe even triple since amnesty talk started happening. A lot of these people, although not the majority, are criminals or aggravated felons. This is a direct danger to our communities.”

Read More at godfatherpolitics.com . By Dave Jolly.

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

House Budget Plan Includes Sharp Cuts to Programs for Poor

March 21, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By The Associated Press

Filed under: Job Market, U.S. Government, Government Spending, Barack Obama, Economy

Carolyn Kaster/APThe long-term plan GOP budget plan, put forth by Paul Ryan, R-Wis., offers slashing cuts to domestic agencies, Medicaid and health-care plan subsidies while exempting the Pentagon and Social Security beneficiaries.

By ANDREW TAYLOR

WASHINGTON — A familiar budget plan to sharply cut safety-net programs for the poor and clamp down on domestic agencies performing the nuts-and-bolts programs of the government is cruising to passage in the tea party-flavored House.

The Republican measure is advancing to the finish line in the House as the Senate starts a lengthy slog toward passage of a rival budget measure. It takes a sharply different view, restoring automatic cuts to agency budgets and increasing taxes by $1 trillion over the coming decade.

The dueling budget plans are anchored on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum in Washington, appealing to core partisans in the warring parties gridlocked over persistent budget deficits. President Barack Obama is exploring the chances of forging a middle path that blends new taxes and modest curbs to government benefits programs.

The sharp contrast over the 2014 budget and beyond came as the House is positioned to clear unfinished budget business — a sweeping, government-wide funding bill to keep Cabinet agencies running through the 2013 budget year, which ends Sept. 30.

The Senate passed the bipartisan 2013 measure by a sweeping 73-26 vote Wednesday after easing cuts that threatened intermittent closures of meat packing plants starting this summer and reviving college tuition grants for active-duty members of the military. The cuts were mandated by automatic spending cuts that took effect at the beginning of the month.

Looking to the future, Democrats and Republicans staked out divergent positions over what to do about spiraling federal health care costs and whether to raise taxes to rein in still-steep government deficits.

The long-term GOP budget plan, authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., offers slashing cuts to domestic agencies, the Medicaid health care plan for the poor and “Obamacare” subsidies while exempting the Pentagon and Social Security beneficiaries. The measure proposes shifting programs like Medicaid to the states but is sometimes scant on details about the very cuts it promises.

The Ryan measure revives a controversial plan to turn the Medicare programs for the elderly into a voucher-like system — for future beneficiaries born in 1959 or later — into a program in which the government subsidizes the purchase of health insurance instead of directly paying hospital and doctor bills. Critics say the idea would mean ever-spiraling out-of-pocket costs for care, but Ryan insists the plan would inject competition into a broken system.

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The cuts to domestic agencies like the FBI, Border Patrol and National Institutes of Health could approach 20 percent when compared with levels agreed to as part of a hard-fought budget deal from the summer …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

News, Politics, Government

Court limits border searches of electronic devices

March 8, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

A federal appeals court says Border Patrol agents must have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity before conducting a forensic search on an electronic device.

Constitutional law experts say the Friday ruling from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a significant victory toward limiting illegal searches and protecting digital privacy.

The case centers on a U.S. citizen whose laptop was seized at the Arizona-Mexico border. After a monthslong review, federal investigators found hundreds of hidden child pornography files on Howard Cotterman‘s computer.

A district court previously found the search unconstitutional and suppressed the evidence against Cotterman.

But the higher court says federal agents had reasonable suspicion based on a previous child molestation conviction against Cotterman.

Border officials claim they don’t need reasonable suspicion to search electronic devices.

News, Politics, Government

Latin American anti-drug push hurt by budget cuts

March 8, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

U.S. officials say they’re sending fewer surveillance planes and Navy ships to halt Latin American drug shipments because of deep federal budget cuts put in place last week.

The cutbacks will force the U.S. to move patrols closer to the coast of South America and depend more on local governments hobbled by lack of equipment and official corruption.

The military/civilian task force that patrols drug-trafficking routes off the Central and South American coasts says two Navy ships won’t be replaced when they return to U.S. ports in coming weeks. The task force usually has between two and five ships on patrol.

Flights by Customs and Border Patrol radar planes are being cut back by 40 percent, leaving them with time for roughly 100 flights for the rest of the year.

News, Politics, Government

At Arizona's border morgue, bodies keep coming

March 7, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

The body of Ildefonso Martinez arrived on a Friday night last April as John Doe. For examiners at the Pima County morgue, his was an unusual case. Not in how he died — making the same journey that has claimed thousands of illegal immigrants — but rather because he was identified so quickly.

The death of migrants crossing the border has long been a tragic consequence of illegal immigration. For some, it is also a motivator in pushing Congress to act this year on immigration reform.

In the last 15 years, at least 5,513 migrants have been found dead along the U.S.-Mexico border, including 463 in fiscal year 2012, the Border Patrol reports.

The Tucson sector located 177 bodies in 2012, including that of Martinez.

News, Politics, Government

House Republicans unveil government funding measure

March 4, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

Republicans controlling the House are moving to give the Pentagon more money for military readiness. They also want to largely exempt agencies like the FBI and the Border Patrol as well as Western firefighting efforts from the effects of across-the-board spending cuts that are just starting to take effect.

Articles of Interest

Sequestration 101: The Sky Is Not Falling

March 3, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By Richard Larsen

Sequester SC Sequestration 101: The Sky Is Not Falling

Listening to our top politician in Washington this week was reminiscent of Chicken Little’s apocalyptic warning, “The sky is falling.” In daily appearances the loss of 2.5% of the federal budget has been lamented, implying catastrophic consequences. “It’s not apocalyptic,” he said, but the implication clearly made that it’s close to it. “It’s just dumb. And it’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt individual people and it’s going to hurt the economy over all,” he said.

The president elaborated, “Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded. Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country. Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.”

As if to not be outdone, California Representative Maxine Waters cried, “We don’t need to be having something like sequestration that’s going to cause these jobs losses, over 170 million jobs that could be lost.” Apparently she’s unaware that our entire civilian labor force is only 144 million jobs in America! But the hyperbole seems to work, at least for the president, as he continues to blame congress for a plan that the White House concocted.

The hyperbole is, however, a far cry from reality. The sequester, which is now in effect, is actually the budget authority figure, not a budget outlay. There’s an important difference. A budget authority provides through an appropriations bill the authority to spend a certain number of dollars. A budget outlay is an actual payment made for government obligations. The Congressional Budget Office in their January update scored the $85 billion in sequestration “cuts” as an actual $44 billion outlay. Rather than representing a “cut” of 2.2% of the federal budget, it’s a reduction of about 1.25% of a $3.6 trillion budget. And to make matters worse, it’s not really a cut, as a reduction in spending, but just a cut in the rate of growth of federal spending. The remaining $41 billion is in future budget outlays, unless Congress or the president tinker with the reduction further.

We have to remember that Washington doesn’t use zero-based budgeting; they use baseline budgeting. The baseline is an inclined trend-line of spending increases each year. Washington uses the current spending levels as the “baseline” for establishing future funding requirements. They then assume that future budgets will equal the current budget times the inflation rate times the population growth rate. So rather than “cutting” spending by $44 billion, the rate of growth for future spending is reduced by $44 billion the first year. And given Washington’s creative accounting techniques, the rate of spending will likely accelerate after the first year of sequestration cuts, in spite of the …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

News, Politics, Government

Weekly Address: Congress Must Compromise to Stop the Impact of the Sequester

March 2, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By The White House

Hi, everybody. On Friday, I met with leaders of both parties in Congress to try and find a way forward in light of the severe budget cuts – known in Washington as “the sequester” – that have already started to inflict pain on communities across the country.

These cuts are not smart. They will hurt our economy and cost us jobs. And Congress can turn them off at any time – as soon as both sides are willing to compromise.

As a nation, we’ve already fought back from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, and we’ll get through this, too. But at a time when our businesses are finally gaining some traction, hiring new workers, bringing jobs back to America – the last thing Washington should do is to get in their way. That’s what these cuts to education, research, and defense will do. It’s unnecessary. And at a time when too many of our friends and neighbors are still looking for work, it’s inexcusable.

Now, it’s important to understand that, while not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away, the pain will be real. Many middle-class families will have their lives disrupted in a significant way.

Beginning this week, businesses that work with the military will have to lay folks off. Communities near military bases will take a serious blow. Hundreds of thousands of Americans who serve their country – Border Patrol agents, FBI agents, civilians who work for the Defense Department – will see their wages cut and their hours reduced.

This will cause a ripple effect across the economy. Businesses will suffer because customers will have less money to spend. The longer these cuts remain in place, the greater the damage. Economists estimate they could eventually cost us more than 750,000 jobs and slow our economy by over one-half of one percent.

Here’s the thing: none of this is necessary. It’s happening because Republicans in Congress chose this outcome over closing a single wasteful tax loophole that helps reduce the deficit. Just this week, they decided that protecting special interest tax breaks for the well-off and well-connected is more important than protecting our military and middle-class families from these cuts.

I still believe we can and must replace these cuts with a balanced approach – one that combines smart spending cuts with entitlement reform and changes to our tax code that make it more fair for families and businesses without raising anyone’s tax rates. That’s how we can reduce our deficit without laying off workers, or forcing parents and students to pay the price. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. It’s the kind of approach I’ve proposed for two years now. A majority of the American people agree with me on this approach – including a majority of Republicans. We just need Republicans in Congress to catch up with their own party and the rest of the country.

Now, I know there are Republicans in Congress who would actually rather see tax loopholes closed than let these cuts go …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The White House Press Office

News, Politics, Government

Statement by the President on the Sequester

March 1, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By The White House

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

11:39 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. As you know, I just met with leaders of both parties to discuss a way forward in light of the severe budget cuts that start to take effect today. I told them these cuts will hurt our economy. They will cost us jobs. And to set it right, both sides need to be willing to compromise.

The good news is the American people are strong and they’re resilient. They fought hard to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and we will get through this as well. Even with these cuts in place, folks all across this country will work hard to make sure that we keep the recovery going. But Washington sure isn’t making it easy. At a time when our businesses have finally begun to get some traction — hiring new workers, bringing jobs back to America — we shouldn’t be making a series of dumb, arbitrary cuts to things that businesses depend on and workers depend on, like education, and research, and infrastructure and defense. It’s unnecessary. And at a time when too many Americans are still looking for work, it’s inexcusable.

Now, what’s important to understand is that not everyone will feel the pain of these cuts right away. The pain, though, will be real. Beginning this week, many middle-class families will have their lives disrupted in significant ways. Businesses that work with the military, like the Virginia shipbuilder that I visited on Tuesday, may have to lay folks off. Communities near military bases will take a serious blow. Hundreds of thousands of Americans who serve their country — Border Patrol agents, FBI agents, civilians who work at the Pentagon — all will suffer significant pay cuts and furloughs.

All of this will cause a ripple effect throughout our economy. Layoffs and pay cuts means that people have less money in their pockets, and that means that they have less money to spend at local businesses. That means lower profits. That means fewer hires. The longer these cuts remain in place, the greater the damage to our economy — a slow grind that will intensify with each passing day.

So economists are estimating that as a consequence of this sequester, that we could see growth cut by over one-half of 1 percent. It will cost about 750,000 jobs at a time when we should be growing jobs more quickly. So every time that we get a piece of economic news, over the next month, next two months, next six months, as long as the sequester is in place, we’ll know that that economic news could have been better if Congress had not failed to act.

And let’s be clear. None of this is necessary. It’s happening because of a choice that Republicans in Congress have made. They’ve …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The White House Press Office

Articles of Interest

Border Patrol Mechanic Saves Woman And Child From Car Submerged In Canal (PHOTO)

February 23, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By The Huffington Post News Editors

One mechanic has added another tool to his belt.

On Wednesday morning, a U.S. Border Patrol mechanic saved a woman and her 2-year-old daughter after their car became submerged in a canal.

The incident began when the woman, driving near Interstate 8 in El Centro, Calif., lost control of her vehicle and veered into the water. According to the Imperial Valley Press, as the car went under, the woman and her 2-year-old daughter managed to climb onto its roof.

President Obama: Automatic Budget Cuts Will Hurt Economy, Slow Recovery, and Put People Out of Work

February 19, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By <a href="/author-detail/3699933">Megan Slack</a>

Watch this video on YouTube

Just 10 days from now, Congress might allow a series of severe and automatic budget cuts to take place that will hurt our economic growth, add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls, and threaten military readiness.

But, as President Obama said this morning, these cuts don’t have to happen — Congress has the power to stop them.

In 2011, President Obama explained today, Congress passed a law saying that if they couldn’t agree on a plan to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion – including the $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction lawmakers in both parties have already accomplished over the last few years – about $1 trillion in automatic, arbitrary cuts would start to take effect this year.

“The whole design of these arbitrary cuts was to make them so unattractive and unappealing that Democrats and Republicans would actually get together and find a good compromise of sensible cuts as well as closing tax loopholes and so forth,” President Obama said. “And so this was all designed to say we can't do these bad cuts; let’s do something smarter. That was the whole point of this so-called sequestration.”

Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t compromised, these cuts are now poised to take effect next Friday, President Obama said:

Now, if Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place, it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research. It won’t consider whether we’re cutting some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness, or a vital service that Americans depend on every single day. It doesn’t make those distinctions.

Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded. Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country. Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off. Tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find childcare for their kids. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.

And already, the threat of these cuts has forced the Navy to delay an aircraft carrier that was supposed to deploy to the Persian Gulf. And as our military leaders have made clear, changes like this — not well thought through, not phased in properly — changes like this affect our ability to respond to threats in unstable parts of the world.

News, Politics, Government

Remarks by the President on the Sequester

February 19, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By The White House

South Court Auditorium

10:50 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. (Applause.) Please have a seat. Well, welcome to the White House.

As I said in my State of the Union address last week, our top priority must be to do everything we can to grow the economy and create good, middle-class jobs. That’s our top priority. That's our North Star. That drives every decision we make. And it has to drive every decision that Congress and everybody in Washington makes over the next several years.

And that’s why it’s so troubling that just 10 days from now, Congress might allow a series of automatic, severe budget cuts to take place that will do the exact opposite. It won't help the economy, won't create jobs, will visit hardship on a whole lot of people.

Here’s what’s at stake. Over the last few years, both parties have worked together to reduce our deficits by more than $2.5 trillion. More than two-thirds of that was through some pretty tough spending cuts. The rest of it was through raising taxes — tax rates on the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. And together, when you take the spending cuts and the increased tax rates on the top 1 percent, it puts us more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances.

Now, Congress, back in 2011, also passed a law saying that if both parties couldn’t agree on a plan to reach that $4 trillion goal, about a trillion dollars of additional, arbitrary budget cuts would start to take effect this year. And by the way, the whole design of these arbitrary cuts was to make them so unattractive and unappealing that Democrats and Republicans would actually get together and find a good compromise of sensible cuts as well as closing tax loopholes and so forth. And so this was all designed to say we can't do these bad cuts; let’s do something smarter. That was the whole point of this so-called sequestration.

Unfortunately, Congress didn’t compromise. They haven't come together and done their jobs, and so as a consequence, we've got these automatic, brutal spending cuts that are poised to happen next Friday.

Now, if Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place, it will jeopardize our military readiness; it will eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research. It won’t consider whether we’re cutting some bloated program that has outlived its usefulness, or a vital service that Americans depend on every single day. It doesn’t make those distinctions.

Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded. Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. Air traffic controllers …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The White House Press Office

News, Politics, Government

Passengers disembark after Carnival's cruise from hell arrives in Alabama port

February 15, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

The first buses carrying passengers from a cruise ship disabled for days at sea are pulling away to take them to next stop on their journey.

The cruise ship terminal in Mobile, Ala., was raucous late Thursday as the first of some 3,000 passengers streamed off the Carnival Triumph, a cruise ship passengers compared to a shanty town due to reports of vile conditions onboard.

Pulled by a tugboat at a maddeningly slow pace, the ship finally arrived in the port at about 9:15 p.m. Central time Thursday after taking about six grueling hours to be towed from the mouth of Mobile Bay some 30 miles to the port.

Anxious passengers were lining the decks waving, cheering loudly and whistling to those on shore, but had hours to wait before they can walk on solid ground.

Earlier, Terry Thornton, a senior vice president of marketing, said passengers will be disembarked shortly after the vessel arrives. Even though the ship has been fully cleared by customs and Border Patrol, the process could still take four to five hours as there is only one functioning elevator on the ship.

He said warm food, blankets, and cellphones await passengers, and that the ship would be taken Friday to a nearby shipyard to be assessed.

Once off the ship, most passengers will head on another journey, this time via bus. Carnival said the 3,143 passengers and 1,086-person crew had the option of a seven-hour bus ride to the Texas cities of Galveston or Houston or a two-hour trip to New Orleans. The company said it had booked 1,500 hotel rooms in the Louisiana city, and passengers staying there would be flown Friday to Houston.

“I can’t imagine being on that ship this morning and then getting on a bus,” said Kirk Hill, whose 30-year-old daughter, Kalin Christine Hill, is on the cruise. “If I hit land in Mobile, you’d have a hard time getting me on a bus.”

Carnival CEO Gerry Cahill apologized at a news conference late Thursday.

“I appreciate the patience of our guests and their ability to cope with the situation. And I’d like to reiterate the apology I made earlier. I know the conditions on board were every poor,” he said. “We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case.”

On Thursday night, dozens of chartered buses — with markings from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — had gathered in Mobile. Carnival said 100 buses had been reserved and that it will cover transportation costs.

The cruise was initially supposed to arrive sometime Thursday afternoon, but the company later pushed the expected time to sometime between 8 and 11 p.m. The latest problem is a broken towline that is creating a new delay, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

Thelbert Lanier was waiting at the port for his wife, who texted him early Thursday.

“Room smells like an outhouse. Cold water only, toilets haven’t work in 3 1/2 days. Happy Valentines Day!!! I love u & wish I was there,” she said in …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

News, Politics, Government

Head of Customs and Border Protection is retiring

February 8, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

The highest-ranking official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection is retiring.

Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar says he will be leaving the federal law enforcement agency at the end of March. He had spent more than 30 years with the Border Patrol when he became deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection in 2010.

In a statement issued Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano thanked Aguilar and said he has worked tirelessly to secure the border.

A former chief of the Border Patrol, Aguilar has been at the head of Customs and Border Protection since being named acting commissioner from the end of December 2011 through 2012.

Napolitano did not name a successor to lead the agency, which has a workforce of more than 60,000.

Articles of Interest

Judge Rules In Favor Of ICE Agents Suing Obama

February 2, 2013 Bartle Doo Leave a comment

By Breaking News

Federal Judge Reed O’Conner ruled on Friday that 10 ICE agents and officers indeed do have standing to challenge in Federal court the so-called Morton Memo on prosecutorial discretion and the DREAM directive on deferred action.

The agents filed their complaint in October, charging that unconstitutional and illegal directives from DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Director John Morton order the agents to violate federal laws or face adverse employment actions. This is a major first step for the ICE agents in their case against the administration!

In his 35-page decision, Judge O’Conner found that the ICE agents and officers have standing, but that the State of Mississippi does not. He has not yet ruled, however, on the agents’ motion for a preliminary injunction to halt implementation of the DHS directives.

The primary impetus for the lawsuit came last June, when Secretary Napolitano issued a memo offering deferred action and employment authorization to illegal aliens under age 31 who meet certain criteria similar to those outlined in the DREAM Act, which has failed to pass Congress on three occasions.

Even before that, though, ICE Director John Morton essentially gutted immigration enforcement by issuing a memo on prosecutorial discretion that, in effect, prohibits ICE agents and officers from arresting or removing any but the most violent criminal aliens. Under Morton’s stated policy, most of the 12 million or so illegal aliens that the administration wants to legalize are currently safe from deportation.

This is just one of the reasons that the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council voted unanimously that they have no confidence in Morton’s ability to lead the agency. Aside from ordering ICE agents to not enforce federal immigration laws, Morton has also gutted worksite enforcement and the 287(g) program, which is a cooperative effort between local law enforcement and federal immigration agents.

The 10 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents filed a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration seeking an end of President Barack Obama’s new non-deportation policy derided as Obama’s Dream Act Light by opponents of his illegal immigration policies, according to the ICE agents’ union.

The ICE agents filed the lawsuit in federal court in one of the state’s most affected by the Obama policy — Texas. The agents allege that President Obama’s policies have reduced the number of illegal aliens who will be deported back to their country of origin.

The ICE agents allege in their lawsuit that the Obama executive order causes a confusing situation in which they must choose between enforcing federal laws and being disciplined by their commanders, or obeying their supervisors thereby violating oaths of office and a Clinton administration law — passed by a bi-partisan Congress in 1996 — that mandates the deportation of illegal aliens.

Kris W. Kobach, the secretary of state in Kansas, is representing the ICE agents in their lawsuit. Kobach has been a leading voice in support of state immigration legislation such as Arizona’s controversial law.

In the 20-page legal complaint, the agents state they’ve been ordered to ignore an entire category of illegal aliens. The agents allege they were told to stop requesting proof of citizenship or immigration status.

“Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and her underlings want their agents and officers to just take the word of an illegal alien without verifying his or her statement,” said former police commander David Scher. “It’s as ridiculous as releasing a suspected bank robber who states he didn’t commit the robbery without any verification by police officers,” he said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Christopher Crane, President of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, the union representing America’s more than 7,000 ICE agents and personnel, and Border Patrol agent George McCubbin, President of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing America’s more than 17,000 border agents and personnel, both blasted President Barack Obama’s de facto “Dream Act,” and the actions of superiors at their respective agencies.

“The Administration claims it has diligently enforced immigration law and that the border is ‘more secure than ever.’ But those on the front lines know this to be untrue. They see the violence, chaos and lawlessness. They have lost confidence in the leadership of their agencies,” according to the outspoken Agent Crane.

“This administration has engaged in a sustained, relentless effort to undermine America’s immigration laws. They have handcuffed and muffled those charged with protecting the public safety and the integrity of our borders. Such action has not only weakened our security but our democracy, as well,” he stated.

“All Americans, immigrant and native born, will have a better future if our nation remains unique in the world for the special reverence it places on the rule of law and fairness in our immigration system,” Crane stated.

“It‘s impossible to understand the full scope of the administration’s changes, but what we are seeing… concerns us greatly,” Crane said.

By Jim Khouri CPP.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

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