Texas Rio Grande Wall Project by Crowdfunded Nonprofit Builder Runs Aground on Litigation
By Todd Bensman
The demand by President Trump's Office of the U.S. Attorney for a temporary work stoppage at the site near Mission, Texas, comes on the heels of a state judge's order that construction stop until separate objections by the National Butterfly Center upstream can be fully assessed. The upshot of these legal moves is that several miles of wall will not go up on the planned timeline of mid-January.
Texas Rio Grande Wall Project by Crowdfunded Nonprofit Builder Runs Aground on Litigation
The McAllen U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of Texas has sued to temporarily halt construction of a private border security wall along 3.5 miles of privately held Rio Grande floodplain, to ensure that Fisher Industries, which is working with its minority partner, the nonprofit, crowd-funded We Build the Wall, Inc., obtains the necessary federal approvals first.
The demand by President Trump's Office of the U.S. Attorney for a temporary work stoppage at the site near Mission, Texas, comes on the heels of a state judge's order that construction stop until separate objections by the National Butterfly Center upstream can be fully assessed.
The upshot of these legal moves is that several miles of wall will not go up on the planned timeline of mid-January.
Or, potentially, ever.
At issue, federal attorneys allege, is that the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), a bilateral U.S.-Mexico agency responsible for managing the Rio Grande, might not get a chance to review Fisher's hydrology impact plan to ensure the wall doesn't change normal river flow or flood paths in line with international treaty obligations. Fisher Industries, the $40 million project's lead, has cleared and graded ground along a 120-foot wide, 3.5-mile long riverfront zone it purchased where the steel-bollard wall would go up. Panels were supposed to start going in next week.
The federal suit was rushed out after We Build the Wall officials announced on its social media that "The wall is going up this week no matter what, we will not stop until it's finished," the federal complaint said.
We Build the Wall officials said Fisher Industries has a completed hydrology report that proves the wall will not impact flows and was always planning to file it before panels went up. An official of the nonprofit, not authorized to speak, told CIS: "Everything revolves around this hydrology report. Everyone's always forewarning us, 'wait, wait, stop stop!' But we've always fully intended on complying with that."
We Build the Wall's Brian Kolfage announced in a tweet Thursday that his organization was dropped from the suit and that "it will all unravel soon as it's baseless claims are based on garbage from a group who enables cartels."
Still, there's certainly no guarantee that IBWC will approve the hydrology report or not require further, time-consuming work, or that an approval won't draw challenging litigation further delaying construction.
Litigation like this was anticipated. As I recently reported from the construction site before any lawsuits were filed, "legal injunction talk" began ginning up against the project as soon as large construction equipment began arriving at the river in early November, and the IBWC was "ratting sabers".
Anti-Trump neighbors at the National Butterfly Sanctuary, who had unsuccessfully sued to stop federal wall projects in the area, began objecting to the We Build the Wall project almost immediately and issued a call for lawyers to help fight it.
Social media warfare broke out between pro- and anti-wall factions.
Then the National Butterfly Sanctuary filed the first suit, in state court, seeking a temporary injunction on claims that the wall would irreversibly damage its property upstream.
Javier Pena, a lawyer for the sanctuary, told CIS the fence would block flood water and "basically act as a dam" causing inundation, erosion to butterfly property, and "ecological horrors".
"The only wall that should be built is a wall that has been approved by the United States government," Pena said. "We'll see if the judge agrees with them."
Pena no doubt was aware that construction on federal walls in the politically blue region has slowed to a crawl, months behind schedule, by litigation over land access and bureaucracy.
By Todd Bensman
"In 2016, according to my analysis of the data, more Americans were reported killed by homicide in Mexico than the combined total of Americans killed by homicide in every other country abroad." MONICA SHOWALTER
Mexico cynically wades into El Paso shooting debacle, brimming with hypocrisy
Part III: Like in Europe, America’s Broken Asylum System Enables Terrorist Infiltration Over the U.S.-Mexico Border
By Todd Bensman
Townhall.com
"In 2016, according to my analysis of the data, more Americans were reported killed by homicide in Mexico than the combined total of Americans killed by homicide in every other country abroad." MONICA SHOWALTER
Mexico cynically wades into El Paso shooting debacle, brimming with hypocrisy
As if the El Paso mass murder couldn't be a more noxious showcase for political bad behavior, in wades the Mexican government, launching lawsuits against the U.S. for supposedly failing to protect its citizens, which is something they've never bothered about before. According to NBC News:
Mexico on Sunday threatened to take legal action against the United States for failing to protect its citizens after this weekend's mass shooting in the border city of El Paso.
Of the 20 people gunned down at a Walmart at the Cielo Vista Mall, at least seven were Mexican citizens, and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard promised Mexico City will act.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry called the attack in El Paso a "terrorist act against innocent Mexicans."
Apparently, they've seen how their individual illegals can exploit loopholes in U.S. law to their advantage, and now that bastion of peace and tranquility to our south would like a serving of the same. Instead of warning Mexican potential illegals to stay out of the U.S. the way a normal country would do, they want to muscle the U.S. legal system to their benefit, creating a sort of right to protection in the U.S. which is something Mexicans certainly don't have back home.
And more to the point, the Mexican state would like to blame the U.S. for the action of the lone freak who shot up the Wal-Mart in El Paso, same as the average Democratic politician. The fact that the freak is going to the executioner's table is irrelevant, because what they're really after is putting the U.S. and President Trump in particular on trial.
According to a summary of their doings from Axios:
Mexico threatened legal action Sunday against the U.S. for failing to protect its citizens after a shooting in the border city of El Paso, Texas, killed 20 people, including 6 Mexican nationals, the New York Times reports.
Details: Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the Mexican government was looking into extraditing the suspect to Mexico on a terrorism charge over Saturday's shooting, per CNN. Mexico also plans legal action against the seller who provided the weapon used in the attack, according to the NYT.
What they're saying: Ebrard said in a Twitter video, translated by NBC News, that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wants to "ensure that Mexico’s indignation translates" into "expeditious and forceful" legal action for the country to take a role and demand that conditions are established that protect Mexicans in the U.S.
The big picture: Many Mexicans are aware of an anti-immigrant screed apparently posted online by the suspect just before the shooting and they see the attack as an expression of tensions between the U.S. and Mexico over immigration, guns and violence, often fueled by President Trump's policies and rhetoric, the Times notes.
On those grounds, any American who's attacked, assaulted, drinks poisoned liquor, or is killed in Mexico, should have grounds to do the same. Failure to protect, don't you know. Such irony. Turns out more Americans (75 of them) have been killed in Mexico than all the remaining countries of the worldcombined. Here's what Forbes reported last year:
In 2016, according to my analysis of the data, more Americans were reported killed by homicide in Mexico than the combined total of Americans killed by homicide in every other country abroad.
More than 31 million Americans visited Mexico in 2016, the National Travel & Tourism Office says, and State Department data shows there were reports of 75 American homicide victims there. In comparison, 49 million Americans traveled to all other foreign countries, and 69 were reported killed by homicide.
That's quite some hypocrisy they've got, given the number of American dead bodies they've got on their record. Think they'll go along with reciprocity? Not the Mexican government we know. The double standard stands.
But that's hardly their only hypocrisy. Here's another logic joke from them:
They encourage their nationals to emigrate illegally (remember the Mexican government comic books? Apparently, they're still distributing them) to get rid of potential discontents, and now they complain when the place, loaded as it is with unvetted migrants they don't want around, is somehow not safe? Any city loaded with illegals is a den of crime -- just look at the crime in Chicago, Baltimore or any sanctuary city. Apparently, those killings are O.K. by the Mexicans so long as they are done by other Mexicans or maybe Central Americans. But this Dallas-area white interloper doing the killing is something different, something sue-worthy? They've tolerated crime for years on both sides of the border, not doing a thing so long as the distilled remittances keep coming. Now at this late date, with this lone freak, they are suddenly upset.
Now for a third hypocrisy: They say they want to extradite the maggot? What the heck would that be for? Like El Chapo Guzman, he'd be in a fine position to continue his Internet postings in a Mexican prison because all kinds of contraband is tolerated in Mexican prisons, particularly cell phones, and anything can be bribed for. For that matter, he'd be in a great position to escape, much as Guzman did from Mexican prisons, more than once. The creep, under Mexican law, would also be spared the death penalty, something he's not going to be spared if he stays in Texas. It looks like this extradition move is some sort of revolting bid to save him and allow him to flourish. You can bet he'd be a happy camper if somehow he got extradited to Mexico. Sorry amigos: The maggot is going to pay.
What we are seeing here is plain old garden variety Mexican meddling in our internal affairs, this time rooted in some icky festering wounded national pride, some bid from Mexico to assert itself over U.S. laws in the wake of Trump's muscle on Mexico over the illegal migrant surge, using the U.S. courts with their continuous anti-Trump rulings to make itself the sovereign here. Mexico has already sent their illegals and now they want to take over gubernatorially through the courts, which puts this act on a continuum.
This garbage should be smacked down for the hypocrisy it is and as fast as possible. We don't need their government ruling over here and we sure as heck shouldn't be paying them.
Exclusive Video: Chaos Erupts in Texas Border Town as Los Zetas Cartel Attempts Complex Smuggling Operation
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RIO BRAVO, Texas — Chaos erupted in a small Texas border town as Los Zetas smugglers launched a complex smuggling operation. Border Patrol agents responded to an illegal crossing that quickly tied up agency resources in the area, enabling smugglers to move higher-value cargo elsewhere.
What had only moments earlier been a quiet neighborhood became a scene of chaos as Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents and a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO) helicopter aircrew leaped into action following the illegal crossing of a few migrants. Agents captured at least one in the presence of the Breitbart News team while the complex Los Zetas-connected smuggling operation unfolded.
Shortly after Breitbart News stopped at a well-known river crossing area in Rio Bravo, a monitoring Border Patrol agent quickly drove off in response to illegal activity. As the Breitbart crew followed, multiple Border Patrol vehicles responded and the AMO helicopter quickly appeared overhead to provide air cover and communications to the ground-based agents. Breitbart News witnessed the initial runner who led agents on a foot pursuit through the neighborhood.
“This is territory that is controlled by Los Zetas,” Breitbart Border and Cartel Chronicles Projects Director Brandon Darby explained. “This is a neighborhood that is a heavy smuggling neighborhood for Los Zetas.”
“We saw Border Patrol looking for someone, and there are multiple things going on,” Darby said describing the chaos that quickly erupted in the neighborhood. “What’s going on is they use one person to come in and run to distract the authorities while they are doing something else.”
During an April 2015 interview with Darby, Border Patrol Agent Hector Garza, speaking in his role as the then-president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 2455, confirmed that the areas directly across the river from Laredo and its surrounding communities are controlled by the Los Zetas Cartel.
As Darby described the unfolding scene, he said, “What’s happening is people in the U.S. connected to Los Zetas and the Los Zetas smuggling operation is occurring. We’re getting to see the CBP response. We’re getting to see Air and Marine. We’re getting to see Border Patrol agents in action. And we’re also getting to see the cartel-connected smugglers and scouts in action in this U.S. neighborhood — Rio Bravo, Texas.”
A Breitbart News videographer captured the moment when Border Patrol agents and a Homeland Security Investigations special agent took one of the runners into custody. The situation became tense while processing the captured illegal alien as what appeared to be a scout vehicle pulled up directly behind the Border Patrol vehicle to document the situation.
“We’ve seen guys walk past on cell phones,” Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow recounted. “They’re eyeing us. They’re counting our cars. They’re counting how many people are here.”
“Some people are driving by and waving and acting nice,” Marlow explained. “Others are driving by and making very aggressive gestures.” He and Darby noted that many of the same vehicles drove by repeatedly. “We’re seeing a lot of action on these streets, where we had been driving all morning and there had been very little action … almost no pedestrians, almost no automobile traffic. Then, all of a sudden, this is the most happening neighborhood in town.”
Darby explained that the cartel smugglers set up complex operations like this where they run a few people across the border to tie up and distract Border Patrol resources. He explained the decoys provide cover for “a drug load or maybe they’re trying to cross a load of people who have given them money — who have given them a significant amount of money or agreed to pay a significant amount of money.”
“So they send one of their own, one of the neighborhood guys who can run fast,” Darby continued. “They send him across and get Border Patrol to look somewhere else, and they can get their load across.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face book.
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