OBAMA AND HIS OPEN & UNDEFENDED
BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX
NARCOMEXgate!
IBD
Editorials
Obama's
Executive Privilege Has The Stench Of Cover-Up
Posted
06/20/2012 07:01 PM ET
Scandal:
The president illegally asserts executive privilege to protect an attorney
general who's either a clueless political hack, malevolent or both, withholding
answers of who is responsible for a Border Patrol agent's death.
President Obama's contempt for the rule of law
hit a new low when, on the eve of a vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder
in contempt of Congress, he granted his AG's 11th-hour request to hide
sought-after documents on Operation Fast and Furious under the cover of
executive privilege.
"I write now to inform you that the
president has asserted executive privilege over the relevant post-Feb. 4, 2011,
documents," Deputy Attorney General James Cole says in a letter that GOP
Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa received just before Wednesday's
hearing and vote, a letter that apparently was not mentioned in a last-minute
meeting between Issa and Holder Tuesday night.
Or
maybe it wasn't the 11th hour at all, but just a long-planned final gambit in
the cover-up of who made the decisions in a federally sponsored effort to
provide Mexican drug cartels with sophisticated American firearms and who is
ultimately responsible for the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry with
these weapons?
As Fox News anchor Brit Hume recently noted,
speaking of Fast and Furious on the web-exclusive "Panel Plus"
segment of "Fox News Sunday," "The stench of cover-up on this
gun-running operation is very strong indeed."
Executive privilege, as Issa noted in his
opening remarks, can only be asserted when it involves direct presidential
decision-making and communications. It cannot be invoked, legally, to prevent
others in the chain of command from explaining their actions or responding to
requests for information on their decisions in which the president is not
involved.
Back in February 2011, Assistant Attorney
General Ron Welch, in response to the investigations by Rep. Issa and Sen.
Chuck Grassley of the Fast and Furious gun-"walking" program run out
of ATF's Phoenix office, wrote a letter stating that the "allegation that
ATF 'sanctioned' or otherwise knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons ...
is false."
Later, Deputy Attorney General Cole, in
another letter to Congress, wrote: "Facts have come to light during the
course of this investigation that indicate the Feb. 4 letter contains
inaccuracies." In other words, the Department of Justice lied to Congress.
The cover-up continues with the invocation of executive privilege.
Committee member Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa.,
spoke in written remarks about the active intimidation of ATF agents and
potential witnesses in the Fast and Furious probe by high officials at the
Department of Justice. As we have reported, some ATF agents have already
testified that Fast and Furious and its variants were no accident.
"Allowing loads of weapons that we knew
to be destined for criminals — this was the plan," ATF Agent John Dodson
told Issa's committee. "It was so mandated." ATF agent Olindo James
Casa said that "on several occasions I personally requested to interdict
or seize firearms, but I was always ordered to stand down and not to seize the
firearms."
Fast and Furious has become worse than
Watergate. No one died at Watergate. Just what is in those documents that Obama
and Holder so desperately want to hide? Brian Terry's family and the American
people deserve answers.
* ARIZONA IS A STATE UNDER OBAMA’S DEPT. of JUSTICE
ASSAULT. ALONG WITH THREE OTHER AMERICAN STATES, OBAMA HAS SHOVED HIS LA RAZA
SUPREMACY AGENDA OF OPEN BORDERS, SANCTUARY CITIES, DREAM ACTS, NO E-VERIFY, NO
I.D. TO INCONVENIENCE ILLEGALS VOTING!
WHILE OBAMA HAS STATIONED 2,500 TROOPS IN AUSTRALIA,
HE HAS REPEATEDLY SABOTAGED OUR BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX AND ASSURE THE MEX DRUG
CARTELS THAT MEX TRUCK DRIVERS COULD ENTER OUR BORDERS WITH THEIR HUMAN CARGO
AND DRUGS, SOMETHING WHICH BUSH PROHIBITED.
*
MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
FAIRUS.org
JUDICIALWATCH.org
ALIPAC.us
*
THE LA RAZA CRIME TIDAL WAVE
NEARLY HALF OF ALL MURDERS IN CA ARE BY MEXICAN GANGS!
Pinal County Sheriff: Mexican drug cartels now control
parts of Arizona
Posted:
06/11/2010
CASA
GRANDE, AZ - Two men shot earlier this week could be the result of the ongoing
battle between Mexican drug cartels now spilling over deep into Arizona,
officials say.
Pinal
County investigators say an area known as the smuggling corridor
now stretches from Mexico's border to metro Phoenix.
The
area , once an area for family hiking and off road vehicles has government
signs warning residents of the drug and human smugglers.
Night vision cameras have
photographed military armed cartel members delivering drugs to vehicles along
Highway 8.
"We
are three counties deep. How is it that you see pictures like these, not
American with semi and fully automatic rifles. How is that okay?" asked
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.
Babeu
said he no longer has control over parts of his county.
"We
are outgunned, we are out manned and we don't have the resources here locally
to fight this," he said at a Friday news conference.
Five
weeks ago Deputy Louie Puroll was ambushed and shot as he tracked six drug
smugglers.
Sheriff
Babeu said the ambush mirrored military tactics.
Even
more disturbing, Babeu said the man who called in to 911 operators for help
seemed to know a lot about the sheriff deputy's case.
"He
told operators they could find him where the deputy was shot and talked about
our search helicopter. Things that were talked about on the news," Babeu
said.
When
operators asked the fatally wounded man how he knew the area, he claimed he
sold cantelope near mile post 150.
Both
men were found dead several hours later.
Detectives
say next to them was a Bushmaster automatic rifle used by police officers for
patrolling. It does not appear to be stolen.
Investigators
also revealed that an autopsy showed strap marks on one of the men that likely
came from hauling heavy loads, they suspect were drugs.
One
of the men, deputies say, was voluntarily deported seven times.
Babeu said he doesn't believe
the drug cartel problems will not be solved when SB 1070 becomes a law, or with
President Obama's promise of 1,200 troops spread out among four border states.
"It
will fall short. What is truly needed in 3,000 soldiers for Arizona
alone," Babeu said.
*
KEEP THIS IN MIND AS YOU WITNESS OBAMA AND HIS LA RAZA
HISPANDERING ADMINISTRATION’S ENDLESS ASSAULT ON THE PEOPLE OF ARIZONA FOR MORE
“CHEAP” LABOR ILLEGALS, KNOWN TO HIM AS “UNREGISTERED VOTERS”.
Gov. Brewer: Most border-crossers are drug
'mules' for Mexican cartels
Expanding on comments made at a candidates' debate, Arizona Gov.
Jan Brewer said today she believes that most illegal immigrants crossing the
border are "mules" carrying drugs for Mexican cartels.
"I believe today, under the circumstances that we're facing,
that the majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of
Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they
are bringing drugs in," Brewer told the
Associated Press.
"There's strong information to us that they come as illegal people
wanting to come to work. Then they are accosted and they become subjects of the
drug cartel," she said.
During the June 15 Republican debate she said she believed that
most illegal immigrants did not enter the United States for work. She then
associated illegal immigrants with drug smuggling, drop houses, extortion and
other criminal activity, according to AP.
The state law she signed making it a crime to be in Arizona
illegally will take effect next month.
*
By Dennis Wagner, The Arizona Republic
On May 9, a 15-year-old girl
walked into Arizona through the San Luis port of entry, near Yuma, with 5
pounds of marijuana strapped around her belly, Customs and Border Protection
records show.
She was busted by customs officers.
Later that day, a 16-year-old boy tried the same thing with 2
pounds of cannabis taped to his legs. He, too, was arrested.
The marijuana, with a combined street value of $72,000, was
confiscated.
The juveniles — both U.S. citizens — were turned over to police,
but others keep taking their place.
In the past two years, Homeland Security officials have witnessed
a disturbing development along the Mexican border: kid smugglers.
"It's going up," said Michael Lowrie, a public-affairs
agent for the U.S. Border Patrol. "Not a
whole lot, but more than we've seen in, well, pretty much ever."
The
Border
Patrol
does not keep data on juvenile drug runners caught trying to sneak into
Arizona. Customs and Border Protection records show 130 minors were caught
attempting to bring drugs through entry ports from Sonora into Arizona during fiscal 2009, an 83%
increase over the previous year.
Teresa Small, a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman in San
Luis, said narcotics organizations are recruiting American teens with claims
that they won't face major punishment if caught.
"Drug-trafficking organizations lead them to believe they
will not have a substantial sentence," Small said. Prison terms are not
uncommon for teen smugglers.
The problem escalated last year to a point where federal and local
authorities created programs to warn Yuma County students about the dangers and
consequences of drug smuggling. The federal campaign includes a presentation by
border agents.
Judge Maria Elena Cruz said she has noticed a surge of young
smugglers who are stunned when she orders them incarcerated.
Small said most of the youthful offenders are Americans with
family members in Mexico. She said port officers generally refer suspects to
local authorities for prosecution under Arizona law, rather than to the federal
justice system.
"One thing for sure: They will get the hardest punishment
possible," Small said.
Still, the cases pile up.
On June 24, Customs and Border Protection reported, a 16-year-old
American boy was arrested at the San Luis port of entry with cocaine taped to
his leg.
"They think they're going to get away with it or get a slap
on the wrist," Lowrie
*
Pinal County Sheriff: Mexican drug cartels now control
parts of Arizona
Posted:
06/11/2010
CASA
GRANDE, AZ - Two men shot earlier this week could be the result of the ongoing
battle between Mexican drug cartels now spilling over deep into Arizona,
officials say.
Pinal
County investigators say an area known as the smuggling corridor
now stretches from Mexico's border to metro Phoenix.
The
area , once an area for family hiking and off road vehicles has government
signs warning residents of the drug and human smugglers.
Night vision cameras have
photographed military armed cartel members delivering drugs to vehicles along
Highway 8.
"We
are three counties deep. How is it that you see pictures like these, not
American with semi and fully automatic rifles. How is that okay?" asked
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.
Babeu
said he no longer has control over parts of his county.
"We
are outgunned, we are out manned and we don't have the resources here locally
to fight this," he said at a Friday news conference.
Five
weeks ago Deputy Louie Puroll was ambushed and shot as he tracked six drug
smugglers.
Sheriff
Babeu said the ambush mirrored military tactics.
Even
more disturbing, Babeu said the man who called in to 911 operators for help
seemed to know a lot about the sheriff deputy's case.
"He
told operators they could find him where the deputy was shot and talked about
our search helicopter. Things that were talked about on the news," Babeu
said.
When
operators asked the fatally wounded man how he knew the area, he claimed he
sold cantelope near mile post 150.
Both
men were found dead several hours later.
Detectives
say next to them was a Bushmaster automatic rifle used by police officers for
patrolling. It does not appear to be stolen.
Investigators
also revealed that an autopsy showed strap marks on one of the men that likely
came from hauling heavy loads, they suspect were drugs.
One
of the men, deputies say, was voluntarily deported seven times.
Babeu said he doesn't believe
the drug cartel problems will not be solved when SB 1070 becomes a law, or with
President Obama's promise of 1,200 troops spread out among four border states.
"It
will fall short. What is truly needed in 3,000 soldiers for Arizona
alone," Babeu said.
*
KEEP THIS IN MIND AS YOU WITNESS OBAMA AND HIS LA RAZA
HISPANDERING ADMINISTRATION’S ENDLESS ASSAULT ON THE PEOPLE OF ARIZONA FOR MORE
“CHEAP” LABOR ILLEGALS, KNOWN TO HIM AS “UNREGISTERED VOTERS”.
Gov. Brewer: Most border-crossers are drug
'mules' for Mexican cartels
Expanding on comments made at a candidates' debate, Arizona Gov.
Jan Brewer said today she believes that most illegal immigrants crossing the
border are "mules" carrying drugs for Mexican cartels.
"I believe today, under the circumstances that we're facing,
that the majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of
Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they
are bringing drugs in," Brewer told the
Associated Press.
"There's strong information to us that they come as illegal
people wanting to come to work. Then they are accosted and they become subjects
of the drug cartel," she said.
During the June 15 Republican debate she said she believed that
most illegal immigrants did not enter the United States for work. She then
associated illegal immigrants with drug smuggling, drop houses, extortion and
other criminal activity, according to AP.
The state law she signed making it a crime to be in Arizona
illegally will take effect next month.
*
From the Los Angeles Times
Opinion
Mexico's bloody drug war
The drug violence in Mexico rivals death tolls in Iraq.
By David Danelo
December 10, 2008
On Nov. 3, the day before Americans elected Barack Obama president, drug cartel henchmen murdered 58 people in Mexico. It was the highest number killed in one day since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. By comparison, on average 26 people -- Americans and Iraqis combined -- died daily in Iraq in 2008. Mexico's casualty list on Nov. 3 included a man beheaded in Ciudad Juarez whose bloody corpse was suspended along an overpass for hours. No one had the courage to remove the body until dark.
The death toll from terrorist attacks in Mumbai two weeks ago, although horrible, approaches the average weekly body count in Mexico's war. Three weeks ago in Juarez, which is just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, telephone messages and banners threatened teachers that if they failed to pay protection money to cartels, their students would suffer brutal consequences. Local authorities responded by assigning 350 teenage police cadets to the city's 900 schools. If organized criminals wish to extract tribute from teachers, businessmen, tourists or anyone else, there is nothing the Mexican government can do to stop them. For its part, the United States has become numb to this norm.
As part of my ongoing research into border issues, I have visited Juarez six times over the last two years. Each time I return, I see a populace under greater siege. Residents possess a mentality that increasingly resembles the one I witnessed as a Marine officer in Baghdad, Fallouja and Ramadi.
"The police are nothing," a forlorn cab driver told me in September. "They cannot protect anyone. We can go nowhere else. We live in fear."
An official in El Paso estimated that up to 100,000 dual U.S.-Mexican citizens, mostly upper middle class, have fled north from Juarez to his city this year. Only those lacking means to escape remain.
At the same time, with the U.S. economy in free fall, many illegal immigrants are returning south. So illegal immigration -- the only border issue that seems to stir the masses -- made no splash in this year's elections. Mexico's chaos never surfaced as a topic in either the foreign or domestic policy presidential debates.
Despite the gravity of the crisis, our closest neighbor has fallen off our political radar. Heaven help you if you bring up the border violence at a Washington dinner party. Nobody -- Republican or Democrat -- wants to approach this thorny discussion.
Mexico, our second-largest trading partner, is a fragmenting state that may spiral toward failure as the recession and drug violence worsen. Remittances to Mexico from immigrant labor have fallen almost 20% in 2008. Following oil, tourism and remittances, drugs are the leading income stream in the Mexican economy.
While the bottom is dropping out of the oil and tourism markets, the American street price of every narcotic has skyrocketed, in part because of recent drug interdiction successes along the U.S. border.
Unfortunately, this toxic economic cocktail also stuffs the cartels' coffers. Substitute tribal clans for drug cartels, and Mexico starts to look disturbingly similar to Afghanistan, whose economy is fueled by the heroin-based poppy trade.
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Obama's pick for Homeland Security director, has argued for permanently stationing National Guard troops along the border. That response alone will do little to assuage American border citizens. To them, talk of "violence bleeding over" is political pabulum while they watch their southern neighbors bleed.
If Napolitano wishes to stabilize the border, she will have to persuade the Pentagon and the State Department to take a greater interest in Mexico. Despite Calderon's commendable efforts to fight both the cartels and police corruption, this struggle shows no signs of slowing. When 45,000 federal troops are outgunned and outspent by opponents of uncertain but robust size, the state's legitimacy quickly deteriorates.
The Mexican state has not faced this grave a challenge to its authority since the Mexican revolution nearly a century ago.
If you want to see what Mexico will look like if this pattern continues, visit a border city like Tijuana, where nine beheaded bodies were discovered in plastic bags 10 days ago. Inhale the stench of decay. Inspect the fear on the faces. And then ask yourself how the United States is prepared to respond as Mexico's crisis increasingly becomes our own.
David J. Danelo is the author of "The Border: Exploring the U.S.-Mexican Divide" and "Blood Stripes: The Grunt's View of the War in Iraq."
December 10, 2008
On Nov. 3, the day before Americans elected Barack Obama president, drug cartel henchmen murdered 58 people in Mexico. It was the highest number killed in one day since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. By comparison, on average 26 people -- Americans and Iraqis combined -- died daily in Iraq in 2008. Mexico's casualty list on Nov. 3 included a man beheaded in Ciudad Juarez whose bloody corpse was suspended along an overpass for hours. No one had the courage to remove the body until dark.
The death toll from terrorist attacks in Mumbai two weeks ago, although horrible, approaches the average weekly body count in Mexico's war. Three weeks ago in Juarez, which is just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, telephone messages and banners threatened teachers that if they failed to pay protection money to cartels, their students would suffer brutal consequences. Local authorities responded by assigning 350 teenage police cadets to the city's 900 schools. If organized criminals wish to extract tribute from teachers, businessmen, tourists or anyone else, there is nothing the Mexican government can do to stop them. For its part, the United States has become numb to this norm.
As part of my ongoing research into border issues, I have visited Juarez six times over the last two years. Each time I return, I see a populace under greater siege. Residents possess a mentality that increasingly resembles the one I witnessed as a Marine officer in Baghdad, Fallouja and Ramadi.
"The police are nothing," a forlorn cab driver told me in September. "They cannot protect anyone. We can go nowhere else. We live in fear."
An official in El Paso estimated that up to 100,000 dual U.S.-Mexican citizens, mostly upper middle class, have fled north from Juarez to his city this year. Only those lacking means to escape remain.
At the same time, with the U.S. economy in free fall, many illegal immigrants are returning south. So illegal immigration -- the only border issue that seems to stir the masses -- made no splash in this year's elections. Mexico's chaos never surfaced as a topic in either the foreign or domestic policy presidential debates.
Despite the gravity of the crisis, our closest neighbor has fallen off our political radar. Heaven help you if you bring up the border violence at a Washington dinner party. Nobody -- Republican or Democrat -- wants to approach this thorny discussion.
Mexico, our second-largest trading partner, is a fragmenting state that may spiral toward failure as the recession and drug violence worsen. Remittances to Mexico from immigrant labor have fallen almost 20% in 2008. Following oil, tourism and remittances, drugs are the leading income stream in the Mexican economy.
While the bottom is dropping out of the oil and tourism markets, the American street price of every narcotic has skyrocketed, in part because of recent drug interdiction successes along the U.S. border.
Unfortunately, this toxic economic cocktail also stuffs the cartels' coffers. Substitute tribal clans for drug cartels, and Mexico starts to look disturbingly similar to Afghanistan, whose economy is fueled by the heroin-based poppy trade.
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Obama's pick for Homeland Security director, has argued for permanently stationing National Guard troops along the border. That response alone will do little to assuage American border citizens. To them, talk of "violence bleeding over" is political pabulum while they watch their southern neighbors bleed.
If Napolitano wishes to stabilize the border, she will have to persuade the Pentagon and the State Department to take a greater interest in Mexico. Despite Calderon's commendable efforts to fight both the cartels and police corruption, this struggle shows no signs of slowing. When 45,000 federal troops are outgunned and outspent by opponents of uncertain but robust size, the state's legitimacy quickly deteriorates.
The Mexican state has not faced this grave a challenge to its authority since the Mexican revolution nearly a century ago.
If you want to see what Mexico will look like if this pattern continues, visit a border city like Tijuana, where nine beheaded bodies were discovered in plastic bags 10 days ago. Inhale the stench of decay. Inspect the fear on the faces. And then ask yourself how the United States is prepared to respond as Mexico's crisis increasingly becomes our own.
David J. Danelo is the author of "The Border: Exploring the U.S.-Mexican Divide" and "Blood Stripes: The Grunt's View of the War in Iraq."
*
FROM MEX-OWNED NEW YORK TIMES –MOUTHPIECE FOR LA RAZA
PROPAGANDA
ACCORDING TO CA ATTORNEY GEN KAMALA HARRIS, HALF THE MURDERS
IN MEX-OCCUPIED CA ARE BY MEX GANGS!
YOUR STATE IS NEXT!
May 26, 2012
For
Many Illegal Entrants Into U.S., a Particularly Inhospitable First Stop
EDINBURG, Tex. —
For decades, the first stop for illegal immigrants making their way across the
Texas border has often been a stash house or drop house, an apartment or rental
home where they might spend hours or days in squalor waiting to be transported
elsewhere. Often it is where they are held until their families pay the smugglers’
fees.
But in recent months, stash houses have proliferated in border
towns in the Rio Grande Valley and in cities farther north, like Houston, a
trend that has been occurring in Texas but not in other states on the border.
And local, state
and federal authorities in Texas say these houses are becoming increasingly
overcrowded, with smugglers packing in dozens of people and treating the
occupants not so much like customers but prisoners whom they starve, beat or
rape.
In this South
Texas town this month, as the police approached a house and a trailer on a
dead-end dirt road, illegal immigrants scattered and fled. But those inside a
third residence — a two-bedroom house made of white-painted cinder block, no
more than 800 to 1,000 square feet — could not escape, because of chains on the
doors and security bars on the windows.
There was no
air-conditioning, no electricity. A total of about 115 men and women were being
held at the property, but the largest group — at least 50, perhaps more — were
locked in the cinder block house. A few of them told investigators that they
had been warned they would be killed or beaten if they did not remain quiet.
Some had not been fed in days.
One of two men
who subsequently pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to harbor aliens,
Marcial Salas-Garduino, 23, greeted newcomers to the house the same way,
according to court documents.
“Welcome to
hell,” he told them.
Fourteen miles
away, in a rural area near the town of Alton, 33 immigrants were found in a
400-square-foot house in March. The man who ran it gave them two eggs and three
tortillas once a day and forbade them to go outside.
In March and
April, the authorities discovered 32 people crowded into a trailer in Edinburg,
49 in a three-bedroom house in Houston, about 60 in a house in Brownsville and
60 others in a three-bedroom residence in McAllen.
“We were used to
encountering 10 to 15 people per stash house in the past,” said Enrique Sotelo,
the Alton police chief. “Now we are not surprised when we see 40 to 75 people
crammed into small two- or three-bedroom houses.”
Overcrowding has
become routine in stash houses, where there is often no furniture and people
sleep on the floor. Chief Sotelo said he had been in stash houses where people
were packed so tight that some slept sitting up, leaning against the walls. Border Patrol agents in South
Texas have not only raided more stash houses this year than they did last year,
they have also found substantially higher numbers of people inside them.
In the federal
Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley sector — a large area of
Southeast Texas that includes Edinburg, Brownsville and McAllen — more than
2,000 illegal immigrants have been apprehended this fiscal year in nearly 80
stash houses, up from 1,012 in 69 stash houses in the entire 2011 fiscal year.
“You’ve got
people stacked on top of people,” said Jerry Robinette, special agent in charge
with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Antonio. “When you have a
two-bedroom house that’s made for a family of 4 or 6 and you have 30 or 40
people in there, you can imagine how things can escalate in that kind of an
environment.”
Occupants of
stash houses in Texas have been sexually assaulted, denied food or water,
forced to work for their captors and tortured. One of the 21 people found at a
stash house last year in Edinburg told investigators that the man in charge had
hit him with a baseball bat because the occupants connected the refrigerator
after being told not to.
Smugglers often
hold the immigrants as ransom to extort more money from their families. Even
those who are not being used for extortion are held captive to avoid detection
by neighbors and to prevent the loss of money that would result if they escaped
before all the fees were paid.
The rise of stash houses in Texas comes as an opposite trend
unfolds in parts of Southern California and Arizona, where such activity has
declined in recent years. The Phoenix area was once known as the drop house
capital of America, but no longer — federal agents discovered 805 immigrants in
51 homes there last fiscal year, down from 3,221 people in 186 homes in the
2008 fiscal year.
Law enforcement
officials said the reason behind the trend was unclear.
Some said that
while the authorities in Arizona had been focused on drop houses for years —
federal agents in the Phoenix area helped reduce the number after forming a
drop house task force in 2009 — those in Texas were now detecting more of them
in part through improved coordination and increased enforcement.
Others said the
smugglers operating in Texas appeared to be doing whatever they could to
increase their profits at a time when illegal immigration into the United States at the Mexican border
has slowed.
“I can only guess
that at this point it’s more economical for them to keep people in one house,”
said Sean McElroy, deputy special agent in charge with Immigration and Customs
Enforcement in Houston. “I think they’re just trying something different.
They’re definitely feeling a lot of pressure.”
And as human smuggling across the border has
become dominated by Mexican drug cartels, the treatment of those inside the stash houses has worsened. “The detection
and apprehension of illegal aliens right now is becoming more like a rescue
operation,” said Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public
Safety.
These days, the
first phone calls or tips that lead the authorities to the houses often come
from those locked inside or from their relatives. In Edinburg, a town of 77,000
about 16 miles from the border, neighbors said they never saw or heard large
numbers of people inside the cinder block house. The police were summoned by a 911
call made by a Spanish-speaking man who was locked inside.
In a hushed
voice, he asked the dispatcher to send help.
Michelle O’Donnell contributed reporting from Houston.
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