Border officials share details of smuggling tunnelVideo

Border officials share details of smuggling tunnel

Tunnel extends 4,309 feet from Tijuana, Mexico to San Diego, California.
U.S. authorities discovered the longest smuggling tunnel ever found along the southwest border.
The tunnel originates in Tijuana, Mexico, near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and extends a total of 4,309 feet long -- more than three-quarters of a mile. The next longest tunnel in the U.S., discovered in San Diego in 2014, was 2,966 feet long.
"While subterranean tunnels are not a new occurrence along the California-Mexico border, the sophistication and length of this particular tunnel demonstrates the time-consuming efforts transnational criminal organizations will undertake to facilitate cross-border smuggling,” Cardell Morant, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) San Diego, said in a press release. The investigation that led to the discovery spanned many years and involved various agencies.
A tunnel entry team agent stands by for security at a tunnel spur that went off into a different direction.
A tunnel entry team agent stands by for security at a tunnel spur that went off into a different direction.
The tunnel features a complex cart and rail system, forced air ventilation, high-voltage electrical cables and panels, an elevator at the tunnel entrance and a complex drainage system, according to U.S. Border Patrol.
No arrests or seizures have been made at this point after the discovery of the tunnel.
“The investigation continues, and I am confident that our hard work and dedication to uphold the law will lead to future arrests and seizures,” Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke said.
The tunnel is around five and a half feet tall and two feet wide and 4,309 feet long, averaging 70-feet deep and had a ventilation system, electricity and a rail system designed to move large packs of drugs.
The tunnel is around five and a half feet tall and two feet wide and 4,309 feet long, averaging 70-feet deep and had a ventilation system, electricity and a rail system designed to move large packs of drugs.
Due to the composition of the underground soil in this area, the tunnel is mostly self-sustaining.
Due to the composition of the underground soil in this area, the tunnel is mostly self-sustaining.
The tunnel is approximately 5 and a half feet tall, 2 feet wide and has an average depth of 70 feet from the surface. An offshoot of the main tunnel was discovered at around 3,500 feet into the U.S. It traveled several feet and came to an end without breaching the surface. It led agents back to the main tunnel where they discovered several hundred sandbags blocking the suspected former exit of the tunnel.



Crimes by Illegal Immigrants Widespread Across US – Sanctuaries Shouldn’t Shield Them

By Hans A. von Spakovsky


https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/hans-von-spakovsky-crimes-by-illegal-immigrants-widespread-across-us-sanctuaries-shouldnt-shield-them
“more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.”

///

Hans von Spakovsky: Crimes by illegal immigrants widespread across US – Sanctuaries shouldn’t shield them

The decision by a California appeals court Friday overturning the conviction of an illegal immigrant who shot and killed Kate Steinle in San Francisco in 2015 once again put the national spotlight on the serious problem of crimes committed by people in the U.S. illegally.
The appeals court in San Francisco overturned the conviction of Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Garcia-Zarate was earlier found not guilty of first- and second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and assault with a semi-automatic weapon. 
Garcia-Zarate said he unwittingly picked up a gun, which he said was wrapped in a T-shirt, and it fired accidentally. The appeals court overturned his conviction on the firearm possession charge because it said the judge at his trial failed to give the jury the option of finding him not guilty on the theory that he only possessed the gun for a moment.
Opponents of federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress repeatedly claim that illegal immigrants are “less likely” to commit crimes than U.S. citizens – and thus represent no threat to public safety. But that’s not true when it comes to federal crimes.
Non-citizens constitute only about 7 percent of the U.S. population. Yet the latest data from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that non-citizens accounted for nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of all federal arrests in 2018. Just two decades earlier, only 37 percent of all federal arrests were non-citizens.
These arrests aren’t just for immigration crimes. Non-citizens accounted for 24 percent of all federal drug arrests, 25 percent of all federal property arrests, and 28 percent of all federal fraud arrests.
In 2018, a quarter of all federal drug arrests took place in the five judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border. This reflects the ongoing activities of Mexican drug cartels. Last year, Mexican citizens accounted for 40 percent of all federal arrests.
In fact, more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.
Migrants from Central American countries are also accounting for a larger share of federal arrests, going from a negligible 1 percent of such arrests in 1998 to 20 percent today.
Critics will try to downplay the importance of the Justice Department’s report by pointing out that the majority of crimes in the United States are handled by prosecutors in state and local courts. But even there the data is shocking.
A recent report from the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed that 297,000 non-citizens had been “booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and July 31, 2019.” So these are non-citizens who allegedly committed local crimes, not immigration violations.
The report noted that a little more than two-thirds (202,000) of those booked in Texas jails were later confirmed as illegal immigrants by the federal government.
According to the Texas report, over the course of their criminal careers those illegal immigrants were charged with committing 494,000 criminal offenses.
In fact, more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.
Some of these cases are still being prosecuted, but the report states that there have already been over 225,000 convictions. Those convictions represent: 500 homicides; 23,954 assaults; 8,070 burglaries; 297 kidnappings; 14,178 thefts; 2,026 robberies; 3,122 sexual assaults; 3,840 sexual offenses; 3,158 weapon charges and tens of thousands of drug and obstruction charges
These statistics reveal the very real danger created by sanctuary policies. In nine self-declared sanctuary states and numerous sanctuary cities and counties, officials refuse to hand over criminals who are known to be in this country illegally after they have served their state or local sentences.
This refusal to cooperate with federal immigration officials suggests that state and local officials supporting the sanctuary movement believe it’s better to let these criminals return to their communities rather than being removed from this country. Not all of their constituents would agree.
The Texas report is careful to note that it is not claiming “foreign nationals” commit “more crimes than other groups.” Whether that is true or not – and it is certainly true when it comes to federal crimes – is irrelevant.
What is highly relevant to the current debate about immigration policy is that the Texas report “identifies thousands of crimes that should not have occurred and thousands of victims that should not have been victimized because the perpetrators should not be here.”
We know that in Texas and around the country some individuals would be alive today – and their families would not be mourning their loss – if we had a secure border and an effective interior enforcement system.
Instead of trying to obstruct enforcement of our immigration laws, state and local officials should do everything they can to help the feds reduce the very real – and all too often fatal – dangers posed by criminal illegal immigrants.
One of the worst recent examples of a state official who refuses to help federal immigration authorities carry out their duties is North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
The Democratic governor recently vetoed a bill that would require local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Cooper did so just days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents captured an illegal immigrant charged with first-degree rape and indecent liberties against a child.

Acting ICE Director: ICE Removed More Than 145,000 Criminal Aliens Last Year, Including 10,000 Gang Members

Listen to the Article!

 (CNSNews.com) - Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made more than 105,000 criminal arrests last year and removed more than 145,000 criminal aliens, “to include the arrests of nearly 10,000 gang members and the removal of another 6,000,” acting ICE Director Matt Albence said Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Albence warned about the dangers of sanctuary cities, calling it a “public safety matter.”



“We are here today to help the public understand the human cost of sanctuary laws and policies, which ban and prevent local law enforcement agencies from working with ICE to include even the simple sharing of information about criminals already in their custody. Laws and policies like these make us all less safe plain and simple,” he said.

Albence said that 70 percent of ICE arrests are made at local jails and state prisons nationwide, “but we used to make more, and we used to get more criminals off the street before sanctuary laws and policies prevented us from doing so.”


“There’s a lot of misinformation out there with regard to how we do our operations and what is required, so I’m going to give a little bit of information and context to dispel some of those myths and misinformation that’s out there,” the director said.

“One myth is the sanctuary jurisdictions along with many politicians and members of the media continually perpetuate is that ICE doesn’t prioritize its limited enforcement resources. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.

Albence said that 90 percent of the people that ICE arrests in the interior of the country “are convicted criminals, individuals who’ve been charged with a criminal violation, are immigration fugitives or are illegal re-entrants, meaning they’ve been through the immigration court process previously, been deported and re-entered illegally, which is a federal felony and one of which we received 7,000 convictions for last year.”

“And immigration fugitives, to be clear as well, are those individuals who’ve had their day in court, have exhausted all forms of due process, have been ordered removed by an immigration judge, and failed to comply with that removal order,” the director said.

“Many sanctuary jurisdictions will also incorrectly assert that they cannot hand over custody of criminal aliens in their jails unless ICE provides an arrest warrant signed by a federal judge. Those that say that are either willfully ignorant or patently disingenuous,” Albence said.

“The truth is that federal law does not provide any mechanism for judicial warrants to be issued for civil immigration violations. There is not a single judge, magistrate anywhere in this country that has a lawful authority to issue a warrant for a civil immigration violation. By statute, Congress has given this authority solely to supervisory immigration officers. This is one of the ways in which our system -- the immigration enforcement system -- differs from the criminal justice system, and it's perfectly lawful,” he said.

Albence said that of the nearly 1,300 arrests made this week, ICE officers arrested “nearly 200 who could’ve been arrested at the jail if the detainer had been honored.”

“Of the criminal aliens we took into custody this week, three had convictions for manslaughter or murder. One hundred had convictions for sexual assault or crimes, with the victims of nearly half of them being children. Seventy had convictions for crimes involving drugs, and more than 320 had convictions for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” he said.
Crimes by Illegal Immigrants Widespread Across US – Sanctuaries Shouldn’t Shield Them

By Hans A. von Spakovsky


https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/hans-von-spakovsky-crimes-by-illegal-immigrants-widespread-across-us-sanctuaries-shouldnt-shield-them
“more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.”

///

Hans von Spakovsky: Crimes by illegal immigrants widespread across US – Sanctuaries shouldn’t shield them

The decision by a California appeals court Friday overturning the conviction of an illegal immigrant who shot and killed Kate Steinle in San Francisco in 2015 once again put the national spotlight on the serious problem of crimes committed by people in the U.S. illegally.
The appeals court in San Francisco overturned the conviction of Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Garcia-Zarate was earlier found not guilty of first- and second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and assault with a semi-automatic weapon. 
Garcia-Zarate said he unwittingly picked up a gun, which he said was wrapped in a T-shirt, and it fired accidentally. The appeals court overturned his conviction on the firearm possession charge because it said the judge at his trial failed to give the jury the option of finding him not guilty on the theory that he only possessed the gun for a moment.
Opponents of federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress repeatedly claim that illegal immigrants are “less likely” to commit crimes than U.S. citizens – and thus represent no threat to public safety. But that’s not true when it comes to federal crimes.
Non-citizens constitute only about 7 percent of the U.S. population. Yet the latest data from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that non-citizens accounted for nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of all federal arrests in 2018. Just two decades earlier, only 37 percent of all federal arrests were non-citizens.
These arrests aren’t just for immigration crimes. Non-citizens accounted for 24 percent of all federal drug arrests, 25 percent of all federal property arrests, and 28 percent of all federal fraud arrests.
In 2018, a quarter of all federal drug arrests took place in the five judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border. This reflects the ongoing activities of Mexican drug cartels. Last year, Mexican citizens accounted for 40 percent of all federal arrests.
In fact, more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.
Migrants from Central American countries are also accounting for a larger share of federal arrests, going from a negligible 1 percent of such arrests in 1998 to 20 percent today.
Critics will try to downplay the importance of the Justice Department’s report by pointing out that the majority of crimes in the United States are handled by prosecutors in state and local courts. But even there the data is shocking.
A recent report from the Texas Department of Public Safety revealed that 297,000 non-citizens had been “booked into local Texas jails between June 1, 2011 and July 31, 2019.” So these are non-citizens who allegedly committed local crimes, not immigration violations.
The report noted that a little more than two-thirds (202,000) of those booked in Texas jails were later confirmed as illegal immigrants by the federal government.
According to the Texas report, over the course of their criminal careers those illegal immigrants were charged with committing 494,000 criminal offenses.
In fact, more Mexicans than U.S. citizens were arrested on charges of committing federal crimes in 2018.
Some of these cases are still being prosecuted, but the report states that there have already been over 225,000 convictions. Those convictions represent: 500 homicides; 23,954 assaults; 8,070 burglaries; 297 kidnappings; 14,178 thefts; 2,026 robberies; 3,122 sexual assaults; 3,840 sexual offenses; 3,158 weapon charges and tens of thousands of drug and obstruction charges
These statistics reveal the very real danger created by sanctuary policies. In nine self-declared sanctuary states and numerous sanctuary cities and counties, officials refuse to hand over criminals who are known to be in this country illegally after they have served their state or local sentences.
This refusal to cooperate with federal immigration officials suggests that state and local officials supporting the sanctuary movement believe it’s better to let these criminals return to their communities rather than being removed from this country. Not all of their constituents would agree.
The Texas report is careful to note that it is not claiming “foreign nationals” commit “more crimes than other groups.” Whether that is true or not – and it is certainly true when it comes to federal crimes – is irrelevant.
What is highly relevant to the current debate about immigration policy is that the Texas report “identifies thousands of crimes that should not have occurred and thousands of victims that should not have been victimized because the perpetrators should not be here.”
We know that in Texas and around the country some individuals would be alive today – and their families would not be mourning their loss – if we had a secure border and an effective interior enforcement system.
Instead of trying to obstruct enforcement of our immigration laws, state and local officials should do everything they can to help the feds reduce the very real – and all too often fatal – dangers posed by criminal illegal immigrants.
One of the worst recent examples of a state official who refuses to help federal immigration authorities carry out their duties is North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
The Democratic governor recently vetoed a bill that would require local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Cooper did so just days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents captured an illegal immigrant charged with first-degree rape and indecent liberties against a child.

Acting ICE Director: ICE Removed More Than 145,000 Criminal Aliens Last Year, Including 10,000 Gang Members

Listen to the Article!

 (CNSNews.com) - Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made more than 105,000 criminal arrests last year and removed more than 145,000 criminal aliens, “to include the arrests of nearly 10,000 gang members and the removal of another 6,000,” acting ICE Director Matt Albence said Thursday.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Albence warned about the dangers of sanctuary cities, calling it a “public safety matter.”



“We are here today to help the public understand the human cost of sanctuary laws and policies, which ban and prevent local law enforcement agencies from working with ICE to include even the simple sharing of information about criminals already in their custody. Laws and policies like these make us all less safe plain and simple,” he said.

Albence said that 70 percent of ICE arrests are made at local jails and state prisons nationwide, “but we used to make more, and we used to get more criminals off the street before sanctuary laws and policies prevented us from doing so.”


“There’s a lot of misinformation out there with regard to how we do our operations and what is required, so I’m going to give a little bit of information and context to dispel some of those myths and misinformation that’s out there,” the director said.

“One myth is the sanctuary jurisdictions along with many politicians and members of the media continually perpetuate is that ICE doesn’t prioritize its limited enforcement resources. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.

Albence said that 90 percent of the people that ICE arrests in the interior of the country “are convicted criminals, individuals who’ve been charged with a criminal violation, are immigration fugitives or are illegal re-entrants, meaning they’ve been through the immigration court process previously, been deported and re-entered illegally, which is a federal felony and one of which we received 7,000 convictions for last year.”

“And immigration fugitives, to be clear as well, are those individuals who’ve had their day in court, have exhausted all forms of due process, have been ordered removed by an immigration judge, and failed to comply with that removal order,” the director said.

“Many sanctuary jurisdictions will also incorrectly assert that they cannot hand over custody of criminal aliens in their jails unless ICE provides an arrest warrant signed by a federal judge. Those that say that are either willfully ignorant or patently disingenuous,” Albence said.

“The truth is that federal law does not provide any mechanism for judicial warrants to be issued for civil immigration violations. There is not a single judge, magistrate anywhere in this country that has a lawful authority to issue a warrant for a civil immigration violation. By statute, Congress has given this authority solely to supervisory immigration officers. This is one of the ways in which our system -- the immigration enforcement system -- differs from the criminal justice system, and it's perfectly lawful,” he said.

Albence said that of the nearly 1,300 arrests made this week, ICE officers arrested “nearly 200 who could’ve been arrested at the jail if the detainer had been honored.”

“Of the criminal aliens we took into custody this week, three had convictions for manslaughter or murder. One hundred had convictions for sexual assault or crimes, with the victims of nearly half of them being children. Seventy had convictions for crimes involving drugs, and more than 320 had convictions for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol,” he said.