Flood of Border Agents Confirm Feds' No-Apprehension Policy

By Jana Winter

Published April 19, 2011 | FoxNews.com  

An Arizona sheriff says he has been flooded with calls and emails of support from local and federal agents who back his claims that the U.S. Border Patrol has effectively ordered them to stop apprehending illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexican border.

“Upper management has advised supervisors to have agents ‘turn back South’ (TBS) the illegal aliens (aka bodies) they detect attempting to unlawfully enter the country … at times you even hear supervisors order the agents over the radio to 'TBS' the aliens instead of catching them,” one San Diego border agent wrote in an email to Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever.

“This only causes more problems as the aliens, as you know, don't just go back to Mexico and give up. They keep trying, sometimes without 10 minutes in-between attempts, to cross illegally,” continued the email, which was among a number of communications to Dever reviewed by FoxNews.com. “This makes the job for agents more dangerous. Not only are the aliens more defiant, they also begin to feel like they can get away with breaking our federal laws.”

The email is one of more than 100 messages Dever said he received from active and retired Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officers from across the country. Many wrote of what they said was their own experience and first-hand knowledge of Border Patrol’s efforts to reduce apprehension numbers by making fewer arrests.

FoxNews.com first reported this month that Dever said several Border Patrol officials, including at least one senior supervisor, told him they had been directed to keep the number of border apprehensions down by chasing illegal immigrants back toward Mexico. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has recently cited a reduction in border apprehensions as evidence of an increasingly secure border.

Three days after FoxNews.com’s initial report, Border Patrol chief Michael Fisher sent a letter to Dever in which he denied the accusations and invited the sheriff on a ride-along with federal agents at border.

"That assertion is completely, 100 percent false," Fisher wrote in the letter. "That it comes from a fellow law enforcement official makes it especially offensive."

But accounts from law enforcement officials around the country continue to pour in supporting Dever and the conversations he says he had with Border Patrol officers, including at least one supervisor, about keeping arrest numbers down.

“This is nothing new, during my career with the border patrol, this was done regularly,” said another email to Dever reviewed by FoxNews.com. “By assigning agents to different tasks, locations, etc., the apprehensions can be increased or decreased dramatically,” wrote Dan McCaskill Jr., a retired Border Patrol agent who worked in the Anti-Smuggling Unit.

McCaskill went on to describe how, he said, apprehension numbers were regularly manipulated to achieve various budget, equipment or manpower goals.

In response to request for comment on the new allegations, Homeland Security offered the same statement from Jeffery Self, commander of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Joint Field Command, that was provided to FoxNews.com earlier this month:

“As the commander for border enforcement operations in Arizona, I can confirm that the claim that Border Patrol supervisors have been instructed to underreport or manipulate our statistics is unequivocally false. I took an oath that I take very seriously and I find it insulting that anyone, especially a fellow law enforcement officer, would imply that we would put the protection of the American public and security of our nation’s borders in danger just for a numbers game. Our mission does not waiver based on political climate and it never will. To suggest that we are ambiguous in enforcing our laws belittles the work of more than 6,000 CBP employees in Arizona who dedicate their lives to protect our borders every day.”

Local 2544, the Tucson branch of the National Border Patrol Council union, has also come out in support of Dever, and posted this message on their website after the FoxNews.com report.

“Sheriff Dever is right. We have seen so many slick shenanigans pulled in regards to 'got-aways' and entry numbers that at times it seems David Copperfield is running the Border Patrol. Creating the illusion that all is well and you can start having family picnics in the areas where we work has been going on far too long. Has there been improvement in some areas? Absolutely. Is the border anywhere near 'under control'? Absolutely not. Do some in management play games with numbers and cater to the wishes of politicians like Janet Napolitano and David Aguilar? Resoundingly, yes. Time for the foolish political games to stop.”

The union posted another response on their website following Fox News’ publication of Fisher’s April 6 letter to Dever:

“Just remember, for years now we have been told from the highest ranking managers in our agency that 'every apprehension is a FAILURE' (Johnny Williams - former INS Western Region Director), and that we 'are NOT immigration officers' (current CBP Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar to Border Patrol agents when he was the Chief of the Border Patrol)…. We have been told that - Apprehensions = failure, we are not 'immigration' officers, we should not 'lower' ourselves to the status of an immigration officer, and our primary job is not apprehending illegal aliens. Couple all this with Secretary Napolitano's recent public announcement about what she expects our apprehension numbers to be this fiscal year, and it's not hard to figure this thing out.”

A second Arizona sheriff, Paul Babeu of Pinal County, also testified at a Senate Homeland Security Committee last week in support of Dever’s charges. Dever was slated to appear at the hearing, but said he could no longer attend when the date of his appearance was changed.

Asked specifically about Dever’s assertion that agents were told to turn back illegals to reduce apprehensions, Babeu told the committee he’d specifically asked his top lieutenant, Matt Thomas, about the claims.

"He said, 'Sheriff, I have heard that myself directly from border agents in the Tucson sector,'" Babeu testitified.

Babeu told FoxNews.com he’s been told by Border Patrol officials that for every person apprehended at the border, an average of 2.7 succeed in crossing into the U.S. With those numbers, he said he was concerned paramilitary or terror cells equipped with more sophisticated support and training could easily get through.

“This is no longer just public security threat, this is national security threat,” he told FoxNews.com.

T.J. Bonner, retired president of the National Border Patrol Council, said in an interview with FoxNews.com that he’s familiar with “TBS-ing” and shares Babeu’s concerns about criminals and terrorists crossing the border.

“TBS has been going on for a number of years. You’ll never find orders in writing, and some agents have even been disciplined for TBS-ing people. That’s a practice that dates back to quite some time, to try and discourage is part of their 'strategy of deterrence.'"

Bonner said Border Patrol agents are receiving “TBS” orders from someone higher up, but he isn’t sure who.

“Agents don’t just do this on their own. The orders must come from on high. They don’t just wake up one day and say I’m going to risk my job, my livelihood,” said Bonner, who retired last year after 32 years with Border Patrol. “I’m not sure if it’s Napolitano or folks in Customs and Border Protection, but somebody wants to silence critics in Arizona to claim success in Arizona.”

As for Dever, he says he’s just hoping that some good will come out of this.

“Frankly, I don't want to create a firestorm," he said. "I only want this problem solved.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/19/arizona-sheriff-cites-flood-border-agents-confirming-feds-apprehension-policy/#ixzz1KYJkL2tC

1 U.S. Immigration Agent Killed, 1 Injured in Mexico

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1 U.S. Immigration Agent Killed, 1 Injured in Mexico 

Published February 16, 2011
| FoxNews.com

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was killed and another wounded while driving through northern Mexico Tuesday, in a rare attack on American officials in this country which is fighting powerful drug cartels.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said one agent was critically wounded in the attack and died from his injuries. The second agent was shot in the arm and leg and remains in stable condition.

ICE Director John Morton late Tuesday identified the slain agent as Jaime Zapata, who was on assignment from the office in Laredo, Texas, where he served on the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Unit as well as the Border Enforcement Security Task Force. The injured agent, who was not identified, remains in stable condition, Morton said.

"I'm deeply saddened by the news that earlier today, two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents assigned to the ICE Attache office in Mexico City were shot in the line of duty while driving between Mexico City and Monterrey by unknown assailants," Napolitano said.

U.S. and Mexican officials said they were working closely together to investigate the shooting and find those responsible. They did not give a motive for the attack.

"Let me be clear: any act of violence against our ICE personnel -- or any DHS personnel -- is an attack against all those who serve our nation and put their lives at risk for our safety," Napolitano said. "We remain committed in our broader support for Mexico's efforts to combat violence within its borders."

The two agents were driving in the northern state of San Luis Potosi when they were stopped at what may have appeared to be a military checkpoint, said one Mexican official, who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case. Mexican military officials said they have no checkpoints in the area.

After they stopped, someone opened fire on them, the official said.

San Luis Potosi police said gunmen attacked two people a blue Suburban on Highway 57 between Mexico City and Monterrey, near the town of Santa Maria Del Rio, at about 2:30 p.m.

Police said one person was killed and another was flown to a Mexico City hospital, though they couldn't confirm the victims were the ICE agents.

A U.S. law enforcement source who was not authorized to speak on the case said the agent who died was on loan from Laredo, Texas.

Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan spoke with Morton to express Mexico's condolences, according to a spokesman.

"Please keep Special Agent Zapata's family, friends, and colleagues close to your heart during this difficult time. May the work we continue to do as an agency be worthy of a sacrifice as great as the one made by Special Agent Zapata," Morton said in a statement Wednesday.

Zapata, who joined ICE in 2006, had also served as a member of the U.S. Border Patrol in Yuma, Arizona. He was a native of Brownsville, Texas and graduated from the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2005. No age was given for Zapata.

Though Mexico is seeing record rates of violence from warring drug cartels and a crackdown on organized crime, it is rare for U.S. officials to be attacked. The U.S. government, however, has become increasingly concerned about the safety of its employees in Mexico amid the escalating violence.

In March, a U.S. employee of a consulate, her husband and a Mexican tied to the American consulate were killed when drug gang members fired on their cars as they left a children's party in Ciudad Juarez, the city across from El Paso, Texas.

The U.S. State Department has taken several measures over the past year to protect consulate employees and their families. It has at times authorized the departure of relatives of U.S. government employees in northern Mexican cities.

In July, it temporarily closed the consulate in Ciudad Juarez after receiving unspecified threats.

In 1985, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena Salazar was tortured and killed in Mexico. Mexican trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero is serving a 40-year prison term for Camarena's slaying.

ICE, the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government, enforced immigration laws and is primarily responsible for arresting, detaining and deporting people who are in the U.S. illegally. It also investigates drug cases in the U.S. and Mexico and other types of trafficking.

It was created in 2003 through a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service and has more than 20,000 employees in offices in all 50 states and 47 foreign countries.

Mexico is fighting heavily armed and powerful drug cartels that supply the U.S. market. Since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown against drug trafficking shortly after taking office in December 2006, almost 35,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence.

Fox News' Mike Levine and the Associated Press contributed to this report

Manhunt for Suspect in Border Agent Killing

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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/15/border-patrol-agent-killed-southern-arizona-416534199/
Published December 16, 2010 | Associated Press

A shootout between border patrol agents and bandits near Arizona's troubled boundary with Mexico  has left one American agent dead and a suspect wounded, a union leader says.

The clash Tuesday night came after agents spotted suspected bandits known for targeting illegal immigrants along a violent smuggling corridor in the Arizona desert, National Border Patrol Council President T.J. Bonner said.

Brian A. Terry, 40, was waiting with three other agents in a remote area north of the border city of Nogales late Tuesday when the gun battle erupted, Bonner said. Terry died in the shooting, but no other agents were injured.

Border Patrol spokesman Eric Cantu and FBI spokeswoman Brenda Lee Nath declined to confirm Bonner's account but said that authorities have four suspects in custody and are searching for a fifth. The Border Patrol declined to reveal the country of origin of the suspects.

The shooting followed months of heated political rhetoric on the immigration issue in Arizona as lawmakers passed a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigrants. Politicians pushing for immigration reform cite violence episodes like the Border Patrol shooting as proof that the state and federal governments need to better secure the border.

"It is a stark reminder of the very real dangers our men and women on the front lines confront everyday as they protect our communities and the American people," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. She plans to be in Arizona on Thursday and Friday to meet with Border Patrol agents in Nogales and Tucson.

The shooting occurred in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, the busiest gateway for illegal immigrants into the United States. Half of the marijuana seizures along the 1,969-mile southern border are made in the sector, which covers 262 miles of the boundary.

Terry was part of an elite squad similar to a police SWAT team that was sent to a remote area north of Nogales known for border banditry, drug smuggling and violence, said Border Patrol Agent Brandon Judd, president of the local agents' union.

Terry and the other agents came across a group of five people. There was no sign that they were hauling drugs, but two were carrying rifles, said Judd, who didn't know what prompted the firefight.

Bonner, whose group represents 17,000 agents, said the fatal shooting shows that the border is still dangerous.

"This is a sign that the politicians and bureaucrats are overly optimistic in their assessment that the borders are more secure now than at any point in our history. It showed just the opposite," Bonner said.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who has railed against border violence and signed Arizona's new illegal-immigration law earlier this year, struck a similar tone.

"Although we needed no reminder of the ever-increasing dangers along our southern border, this tragedy serves as stark notice that the threats facing all who serve in protecting our state and nation are real and are increasing on a daily basis," Brewer said.

Terry, a native of the Detroit area, served in the Marines and as a police officer in the Michigan cities of Ecorse and Lincoln Park before joining the Border Patrol in 2007. He wasn't married and didn't have any children. He is survived by his mother, father, a brother and two sisters.

Terry's older sister, Michelle Terry-Balogh, told The Associated Press from Flat Rock, Mich., that her brother loved his job. "It was his life," she said. "He said it was very dangerous, but he loved what he did and wanted to make a difference."
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Arizona's Closed Federal Parkland is a No-Man's Land

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- FoxNews.com, July 02, 2010 
Joshua Rhett Miller

EXCLUSIVE: Arizona's Closed Federal Parkland is a No-Man's Land

The number of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers crossing through Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona has "decreased significantly," but there's a dark cloud to this silver lining. To make it happen, this public land had to be closed to public.


BUENOS AIRES NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Arizona – The number of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers crossing through this magnificent national parkland in southern Arizona has "decreased significantly" in the last four years, park officials say.

But there's a dark cloud to this silver lining: To make it happen, the refuge had to close a sliver of this slice of heaven to the quarter-billion American taxpayers who own it -- essentially creating a no-man's-land on which only drug smugglers, gun-runners, human traffickers and the Border Patrol agents who track them down dare to tread.

And with rival Mexican drug gangs gunning each other down less than 50 miles away, the chance that the closed portion of the wildlife refuge will reopen in the foreseeable future appears to be between slim and none. For the time being, officials say, this public land will be closed to the public.

In 2006, the refuge manager at the time, Mitch Ellis, saw that the smugglers and drug-runners were winning, and his solution was to close 3,500 acres of this 118,000-acre natural habitat. He cited increased violence in the area due to “border-related” activities, including assaults on law enforcement officers and migrants, as the reason for the closure.

Back then, says Sally Gall, the park's acting refuge manager, it was estimated that as many as 4,000 people a day were crossing illegally into the U.S. from Mexico, tramping across public land that's home to nearly 330 species of animals and hosts up to 40,000 visitors annually.

“We had probably the most ever immigration traffic in this area,” Gall told FoxNews.com during an exclusive tour of the refuge on Thursday. “It was incredible. There was a lot of concern for public safety.”

The signs went up on Oct. 3, 2006. A year later, construction of an 18-foot-tall pedestrian fence was completed, replacing the porous vehicle barriers and barbed-wire fences that had stood there before. This public area was officially closed to the public. The result, says Gall, is that the number of border-crossers has been reduced to a “couple hundred” a day -- or roughly 1/20th of what it was.

But the 3,500 acres will remain off-limits for the foreseeable future, she said – despite what she calls an “incredible response” of negative feedback that followed recent reports surrounding the closure. The 3,500-acre parcel is only 3 percent of the entire refuge, Gall said, so she prefers to err on the side of caution.

“It doesn’t have a great impact to visitor use on the refuge,” she said. “Is it something worth opening? We don’t feel like it is right now.” “There isn’t a timeline,” she said. “With the fluctuations of border activity, with immigrants coming through, as well as Border Patrol activity and now the proposed National Guard, it makes sense to wait this out and see what happens.”

That doesn't sit well with Zack Taylor, a retired U.S. Border Patrol agent with more than 26 years on the job, who said he considered the closure a concession of U.S. land to Mexican drug cartels and human smuggling operations. If you're going to close down 3,500 acres inside America, he said, you might as well close down the entire border.

“They’ve known for years that this was an escalating problem and that it was going to grow and become a larger problem,” Taylor, a member of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, told FoxNews.com. “The anger is that [federal authorities] have intentionally made it more dangerous by not putting enough people down there to do the job.”

He said U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials were essentially creating an “ad hoc amnesty” by not closing the entire U.S.-Mexico border, including the 3,500-acre parcel on the Buenos Aires refuge.

“The United States government is giving it away,” he said. “They’re intentionally not doing their job and not enforcing the law. It becomes a crime.”

Another retired U.S. Border Patrol agent who asked not to be identified due to consulting work he does in the area, questioned the accuracy of the sharp decline in immigrant activity in the area.

“They’re painting a picture that the border is under control,” said the former agent, who retired in 2007 after 30 years along the border. “And it’s not ... not at all.”

During a tour of the closed area, roughly one mile north of the Mexican border, FoxNews.com spotted evidence of illegal immigrant activity in the form of roughly a dozen large water containers just across the fence on Mexican soil, adjacent to a drainage pipe on the U.S. land.

Wayne Lackner, special operations supervisor for the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, confirmed that the water containers appeared to be evidence of recent border-crossings.

“It comes in cycles,” Lackner said. “Sometimes it could be broad daylight you can have activity there, or it could be during hours of darkness.”

Still, Lackner said, activity has decreased to a level where his agency could “probably have some input” into whether the 3,500 acres should be reopened to the public. He said citizens should feel safe near the area now.

"From a public standpoint, I would see no problem if people recreated down there,” he said. “I think it’s safe. The majority of [illegal immigrants], you know, they’re not going to bother you. If you see ‘em, just make sure to call somebody and watch where you’re at. It’s really no different than anywhere else.”

But that's not necessarily so, say nearby ranchers who painted an entirely different picture of the activity in the region. Tom Kay, 68, whose Jarillas Ranch features more than four miles of border fence and shares its western boundary line with the Buenos Aires refuge, estimated that up to 400 illegal immigrants walk onto his 15,000-acre land every day.

“The ones that get to Tucson probably came through here,” Kay told FoxNews.com. “This is where it all begins.” He said he's seeing fewer border-crossers than in previous years, due in part to surveillance towers that were built near his property.

But after years of never locking his door or removing keys from vehicles, Kay has found it necessary to change his ways.

“I gotta lock the barn up now,” he said. “If I don’t, I wake up and find people in the hay."

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Federal Agencies Nixing Conventions Over State's Immigration Law

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FOXNews.com - June 24, 2010

Two federal agencies have joined the "boycott Arizona" trend and nixed conferences there out of concern over the state's immigration law, a Democratic Arizona congresswoman said, calling the development "very troubling."

The cancellations by the Department of Education and the U.S. Border Patrol may have been more out of a desire to steer clear of controversy than outright protest of the law. But Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who has written to dozens of cities and groups in a campaign to persuade them to end their boycotts, said it was disturbing to learn that the federal government would withdraw from the state over the issue.

"It is very troubling when the federal government becomes involved in a boycott against our state," Giffords said in a written statement. "Although I personally disagree with the immigration law, it came about because of growing frustration over the federal government's unwillingness to secure the border. The federal government's participation in this boycott only adds to that frustration."

FoxNews.com is awaiting response from both agencies. Giffords' office said the cancellations were confirmed by the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association.

According to Giffords, the Education Department canceled a convention set for October at a Tucson resort after the Mexican government said it would not send any representatives to the meeting. The department then moved the event to Minnesota.

Further, her office said the Border Patrol "verbally" canceled a conference set for May at a resort in Prescott after an official asked that it be moved out of concern over the immigration law debate. The Border Patrol -- which has more than 4,000 agents in Arizona, representing nearly a quarter of its force -- had booked 40 rooms for the event before canceling, though there was no contract signed for the event, according to Giffords' office.

Giffords is among a number of Arizona officials who argue that the boycotts imposed by cities across the country do nothing to change the law and only punish workers and businesses there. The boycotts would hit the hospitality industry, which is made up in large part of Hispanic workers, particularly hard.

In the letter she has been sending to cities and groups that have imposed boycotts, Giffords wrote that the punitive measures have "unfairly targeted" her state's businesses.

The Obama administration is planning to file suit against the Arizona law, citing its sustained concern about the move to subject some residents to routine checks on their immigration status.

So far, a couple of cities have written Giffords back defending their actions against her state.

El Paso Mayor John Cook wrote in a letter to the congresswoman June 10 that his city was not "condoning" illegal immigration by passing a resolution that prohibits city officials from attending conferences in Arizona. He said his city's measure, though not a full-fledged boycott, emphasizes the importance of passing a comprehensive immigration overhaul and "expresses our concerns with the possibility of law enforcement racially profiling people."

Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell also wrote this month that its ban on employee travel to the state -- and a reconsideration of city contracts there -- was imposed out of concern for racial profiling.
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