AN ICE AGENT'S QUEST FOR JUSTICE
The government turns ICE agents into criminals while coddling drug cartel members.
November 9, 2017
"Betrayed."
Victor Avila is a survivor. Soft-spoken but iron-willed, he dedicated his life to law enforcement and to his country. Yet, the feds are now fighting tooth and nail to bury the full truth about the 2011 ambush by Los Zetas drug cartel thugs in Mexico that left him gravely wounded and his partner, special agent Jaime Zapata, dead.
This week, two of the Mexican gangsters convicted in the horror on Highway 57 between Mexico City and Monterrey were sentenced to double life terms in prison.
"HSI Special Agents Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila were in Mexico to protect and serve our country when they were ambushed by these ruthless criminals, who will now spend the rest of their lives in a prison cell," Acting Assistant Attorney General Blanco announced on Monday.
"This case serves as a reminder, that if you harm a U.S. agent, the U.S. government will pursue you to the ends of the earth to ensure that you are brought to justice."
Five others received lesser sentences of 35, 34, 30, 28 and 12 years for murder and attempted murder, which Avila on Tuesday called a "complete and utter disappointment." As he described in his victim impact statement, "I was shot in three places and had shrapnel and glass imbedded in my body in too many places to count. Not only did I have to undergo multiple surgeries to remove the bullets and shrapnel and stitch together my shredded muscles and skin, but I also had to learn to walk again."
Avila's wife, who also worked for the government, lost her job. The ICE agent's health care costs and other bills related to the attack's aftermath piled up, leaving the family nearly $200,000 in debt and his wife and two children traumatized. "To this day, the government has not reimbursed my out-of-pocket expenses related to my work injuries," he told U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth.
Another disgraceful indignity: This week, the feds refused to cover the Avilas' $3,000 in travel and lodging costs from Texas to D.C. for the sentencing hearing, but did provide humanitarian parole for several of the Zetas' family members from Mexico to attend the trial.
Even more disappointing, however, is the callousness of Beltway bureaucrats obstructing the Avilas' and Zapatas' search for answers. The families want to know who ordered the agents to travel through Zetas-infested territory unprotected to pick up equipment from another agent; why their superiors ignored a State Department security warning banning travel by U.S. personnel on Highway 57; and what the Obama administration hid as evidence mounted that the semi-automatic weapons ad handguns used in the ambush came from one of its botched gun-walking operations that echoed the infamous and deadly Operation Fast and Furious scheme.
"The significant importance here," Avila explained on an upcoming episode of my CRTV.com show, "Michelle Malkin Investigates," is that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives "had identified the arms traffickers, had them under surveillance, and had the opportunity to arrest them months before, and did nothing. They still allowed these individuals ... the Osorio brothers, to continue trafficking in arms, and allowing the weapons to be walked south into Mexico. Once the weapons went south into Mexico, there is no trace of them. They were long gone. They were lost."
While the feds have paid lip service to Zapata's sacrifice and Avila's courage, their actions have administered a collective slap in the face. The families' public records requests have been stymied every step of the way. Not a single Justice Department official has been punished for President Obama's deadly gun-walking failures. Instead, Avila was ostracized, transferred against his will and issued a "3R" letter to "resign, retire or relocate."
As Avila's wife, Claudia, told my program: "He had to give up his passion ... he loved his job. And the government ended that. I think more than anything we feel betrayed. We feel like complete outcasts ... Very unfair. If you didn't know any better, you would think that Victor was this criminal person that did something very wrong in his line of duty and is being punished for it. I mean, we're outraged. We're very disheartened. The government has most definitely turned their back on us. And not only us but the Zapata family. I mean, they lost their son. They're still trying to find answers; they are overwhelmed.
Where is Congress? Where is President Trump? True justice for the Avila and Zapata families requires full accountability and real consequences — not just for the triggermen but for the crapweasels who enabled them.
JUDICIAL WATCH:
THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS OPERATING IN AMERICA’S
OPEN BORDERS
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/07/john-binder-californias-surrender-to.html
In 2013, California lawmakers passed legislation
that allowed illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses if they can prove to
the Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) their identity and state residency. The
plan was one of the largest victories to date by the open borders lobby.… JOHN BINDER –
BREITBART.com
THE LA RAZA MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS REMIND
AMERICANS (Legals) THAT THERE IS NO (REAL) BORDER WITH NARCOMEX!
SHOCKING IMAGES OF CARTELS ON U.S. BORDERS:
“Heroin is not produced in the United
States. Every gram of heroin present in the United States provides unequivocal
evidence of a failure of border security because every gram of heroin was
smuggled into the United States. Indeed,
this is precisely a point that Attorney General Jeff Sessions made during his
appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on October 18, 2017
when he again raised the need to secure the U.S./Mexican border to protect
American lives.” Michael Cutler …..FrontPageMag.com
Mark Levin: ‘There Is a Big,
Ugly Side to Illegal Immigration’
Thursday
on Levin TV, nationally
syndicated radio show host Mark Levin warned about the dangers of illegal
immigration saying, “There
is a big, ugly side of illegal immigration,” Levin said. “There’s all
kinds of crimes being committed
by people who aren’t supposed to be here.”
“The greatest criminal threat to the
daily lives of American citizens are the Mexican drug cartels.”
“Mexican drug cartels
are the “other” terrorist threat to America. Militant Islamists have the goal
of destroying the United States. Mexican drug cartels are now
accomplishing that mission – from within, every day, in virtually every
community across this country.” JUDICIALWATCH
“Mexican authorities have arrested the former mayor of a
rural community in the border state of Coahuila in connection with the
kidnapping, murder and incineration of hundreds of victims through a network of
ovens at the hands of the Los Zetas cartel. The arrest comes after Breitbart
Texas exposed not only the horrors of the mass extermination, but also the
cover-up and complicity of the Mexican government.”
"An
important factor in our long-term
success requires
securing our borders,"
Attorney
General Sessions said.
“Heroin is not produced in the United
States. Every gram of heroin present in the United States provides unequivocal
evidence of a failure of border security because every gram of heroin was
smuggled into the United States. Indeed,
this is precisely a point that Attorney General Jeff Sessions made during his
appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on October 18, 2017
when he again raised the need to secure the U.S./Mexican border to protect
American lives.” Michael Cutler …..FrontPageMag.com
Overall, in the 2017 Fiscal Year, officials revealed that a
record-breaking 455,000 pounds plus of drugs had already been seized. In 2016,
that number amounted to 443,000 pounds. The 2017 haul is worth an estimated
$6.1 billion – BREITBART – JEFF SESSION’S DRUG BUST ON SAN DIEGO
JOHN BINDER
CALIFORNIA MOVES CLOSER TO FINAL ANNEXATION BY
MEXICO
DE FACTO CITIZENSHIP PER LA RAZA:
NO TEST, NO BACKGROUND CHECKS
ON CRIMINALITY, NO BACK TAXES, NO
FINES.... JUST JUMP STRAIGHT TO VOTING BOOTHS!
AND VOTE OFTEN!!!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/07/john-binder-californias-surrender-to.html
In 2013, California lawmakers passed legislation
that allowed illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses if they can prove to
the Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) their identity and state residency. The
plan was one of the largest victories to date by the open borders lobby.… JOHN BINDER –
BREITBART.com
Deported ‘Dreamer’ Caught
Entering The US Illegally
Again
It was big news earlier this year when 23-year-old Juan Manuel Montes-Bojorquez filed a lawsuit against U.S. Customs and Border Protection claiming he had been deported to Mexico even though he was a protected DACA recipient. Monday, Bojorque was arrested after coming across the border illegally again. From the Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. Border Patrol said Mr. Montes was found about a mile north of the U.S.-Mexico border in a scrub-covered stretch of desert. The arresting agent wrote that Mr. Montes told officials he was planning to go to Sacramento.Mr. Montes sued the Trump administration in April, alleging that Border Patrol agents in Calexico arrested and deported him in February even though he had been protected from deportation under the Obama era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program…Mr. Montes was thought to be the first DACA recipient deported by the Trump administration.
Montes-Bojorquez came to the U.S. at age nine and applied and was granted DACA status. He claimed that on February 18th of this year he was rounded up by a CBP officer on a bike and deported to Mexico later that same night after no one bothered to check his DACA status. He then admits he jumped a fence into the U.S. the following day and was arrested. He was deported Feb. 20th for what he claims was the second time.
CBP initially claimed Bojorquez was deported because his DACA status had lapsed in 2015. However, a records search revealed he had renewed it and was protected from deportation until 2018. But in a statement released in April, the agency claimed it had never encountered Bojorquez on February 18th, meaning he wasn’t deported but had returned to Mexico on his own. Doing so, CBP pointed out, voided his DACA status:
The U.S. Border Patrol has no record of encountering Mr. Montes-Bojorquez in the days before his detention and subsequent arrest for immigration violations on February 19, 2017. There are no records or evidence to support Montes-Bojorquez’s claim that he was detained or taken to the Calexico Port of Entry on February 18, 2017…During Mr. Montes-Bojorquez’s detention and arrest by the United States Border Patrol on February 19, he admitted to agents that he had illegally entered the United States and was arrested. He later admitted the same under oath. All of the arrest documents from February 19, 2017, bear Montes-Bojorquez’s signature. During his arrest interview, he never mentioned that he had received DACA status. However, even if Montes-Bojorquez had informed agents of his DACA status, he had violated the conditions of his status by breaking continuous residency in the United States by leaving and then reentering the U.S. illegally.
So according to CBP, that first arrest that Bojorquez claims took place on Feb. 18th never happened. Bojorquez’ lawsuit claimed it did and was a violation of his DACA status. The judge in his case decided to expedite the trial and DHS agreed in September to let him return to the U.S. so he could testify. Then in October, he dropped the lawsuit. From the San Diego Union-Tribune:
According to a motion for dismissal filed late Wednesday, the government resolved the records request by producing supplemental documents on Oct. 5, and Montes decided not to pursue his additional claims. A judge approved the motion on Thursday.“Like all litigation, this case has been a taxing experience for Juan Manuel,” one of his attorneys, Nora Preciado of the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement. “He has now asked us to dismiss his case. As his attorneys, we respect his wishes and have filed the papers on his behalf.”…The Calexico Border Patrol chief said in a sworn affidavit there were other problems with Montes’ claims. The chief said there have been no repatriations after 10 p.m. this year, and that there were no agents working bicycle patrol the night in question.
So not only was there no evidence the Feb. 18th encounter ever happened, there was also testimony that it couldn’t have happened the way Bojorquez claimed it did. Now he has apparently come across the border again and could face up to 2 years in jail as well as another deportation.
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