Homeland Security To Investigate Sewer Smuggling

Hidalgo – Channel 5 News reports that it has learned that representatives from Border Patrol, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the International Boundary and Water Commission will be meeting with police to discuss a maze of sewage tunnels being used for smuggling.

The meeting is scheduled for sometime next week.

For now the Border Patrol has increased it’s presense in Hidalgo.

Source

Plane Stolen from Idaho Airport, May Be Related To Canada Theft

In light of recent events, this story caught our attention. Authorities in North Idaho are reporting that sometime early Tuesday morning a small airplane was stolen from the Boundary County Airport. The Boundary County Sheriff confirms they received a report regarding the theft of a 2005 Cessna T182T aircraft around 7 AM Tuesday morning.

The aircraft, with tail number N2183P, is a white and blue fixed wing single engine aircraft. It is believed the aircraft was taken from the airport around 5:45 Tuesday. They’re not sure in what direction the plane was flown from the airport.

Boundary County Airport Manager Dave Parker said the aircraft was worth $340,000 and described it as the “best plane at the airport.” He suspects the person who stole the aircraft may have been hiding out in a hangar all day Monday before taking the plane.

Authorities are working to confirm if the theft is related to several similar break-ins at the airport across the Canadian border in Creston, British Columbia. In those cases someone stole firearms, attempted to steal a plane only to find the battery was dead and stole a car and rammed it through a gate.

The Boundary County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the theft along with the Border Patrol.

via Source.

Shootout Closes US Mexico Border Crossing Near San Diego

U.S. authorities have closed the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, on the border with Mexico, after a shootout earlier today. San Ysidro is the nation’s busiest border crossing with roughly 40,000 vehicles cross there daily from Mexico.

Three vans loaded with suspected illegal immigrants tried to speed through the crossing Tuesday afternoon, drawing gunfire from at least two U.S. agents, authorities said.

“The port is closed and will remain closed for several hours,” U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spokeswoman Angelica Decima said after the incident at the congested San Ysidro crossing between the Mexican city of Tijuana and San Diego.

The suspected smugglers shot across busy lines of traffic at U.S. agents when they tried to stop three vans packed with about 70 illegal immigrants from crossing into the United States, the officials said.

The agents returned fire, and three people in the vans and a motorist were wounded, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Mexico’s violent drug gangs are increasingly moving into the lucrative people-smuggling business, but tight U.S. border security is forcing them to take bigger risks to get narcotics and illegal immigrants into the United States.

Tuesday’s brazen attempt was unprecedented at the heavily guarded crossing where helicopters circle overhead and armed agents with dogs keep watch at a series of staggered checkpoints.

All the illegal immigrants were arrested and taken into custody and the crossing, a major smuggling corridor for narcotics and illegal immigrants, was shut while police carried out the investigation.

via Read Article.

From Sign On San Diego – Union Tribune

A preliminary investigation indicated there was no return fire, said San Diego police homicide Lt. Kevin Rooney.

[...]

Rooney said the incident began about 3:30 p.m. when three full-sized vans, two with California plates and one with Mexico plates, were in line at the port to cross into the U.S.

The lead van was stopped and the driver was speaking to a U.S. agent at a booth when the agent stepped inside the booth and the driver sped off in an attempt to run the border, Rooney said. Drivers of the two vans that were next in line also tried to run the border.

The lead van became trapped in traffic and the driver tried to head to the west exit. The drivers of the other two vans put their vehicles in reverse and tried to head to the east exit.

Two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and one U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent then opened fire, Rooney said. He said he did not yet know how many shots were fired.

Rooney said that two people were shot and suffered non-life-threatening injuries; one was injured in a crash.

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Border Patrol Agent Shot, Killed Near San Diego

A U.S. Border Patrol Agent was shot and killed in the Campo area Thursday night while investigating a group of people presumed to have crossed into the country illegally.

An agent on patrol spotted the group sometime between 8:30 and 9 p.m. in the remote and rocky terrain south of state Route 94 off Shockey Truck Trail not far from the border, Agent Daryl Reed said.

He called for other agents who split up and began to trail the group, Reed said.

At about 9:15 p.m. agents, who had lost radio contact with their fellow agent, heard multiple gunshots and rushed to the area where they found the agent had been shot, Reed said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. San Diego police said the agent was shot in the head.

Several agencies responded to the shooting including the Sheriff’s Department, the FBI and Cal Fire. A large-scale search by land and air was conducted but no one in the group was found, Reed said.

Mexican authorities also were notified and conducted a search on their side of the border, Reed said. It’s unknown if the group was smuggling humans or drugs or if the people fled back into Mexico.

A FBI press conference is scheduled for later today.

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Pentagon, DHS Divided On Military’s Role at Border

A proposal to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to counter drug trafficking has triggered a bureaucratic standoff between the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security over the military’s role in domestic affairs, according to officials in both departments.

The debate has engaged a pair of powerful personalities, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in what their subordinates describe as a turf fight over who should direct the use of troops to assist in the fight against Mexican cartels and who should pay for them.

Source

Passports Become Mandatory at Mexico, Canada Borders

New rules requiring passports or new high-tech documents to cross the United States’ northern and southern borders are taking effect Monday, as some rue the tightening of security and others hail it as long overdue.

The rules are being implemented nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks and long after the 9/11 Commission recommended the changes. They were delayed by complaints from state officials who worried the restrictions would hinder the flow of people and commerce and affect border towns dependent on international crossings.

In 2001 a driver’s license and an oral declaration of citizenship were enough to cross the Canadian and Mexican borders; Monday’s changes are the last step in a gradual ratcheting up of the rules. Now thousands of Americans are preparing by applying for passports or obtaining special driver’s licenses that can also be used to cross the border.

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Explorer-Scouts Train To Fight Terrorism And More

Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

In a training exercise run by Border Patrol agents, Explorer scouts from Visalia, Calif., prepare to storm a “hijacked” bus.

The responding officers — eight teenage boys and girls, the youngest 14 — face tripwire, a thin cloud of poisonous gas and loud shots — BAM! BAM! — fired from behind a flimsy wall. They move quickly, pellet guns drawn and masks affixed.

“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.

It is all quite a step up from the square knot.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

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Hezbollah Uses Mexican Drug Routes Into U.S.

Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America’s tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S. Read more

Fake Budweiser Van Was Carrying 13 Alleged Illegal Immigrants

Tucson Sector Border Patrol Agents seized a vehicle replicating a Budweiser delivery van smuggling thirteen illegal aliens near Three Points, Ariz.

Yesterday morning at 9:00am, Border Patrol agents assigned to the Tucson Station encountered a suspicious Budweiser Van traveling north from the border. Agents recognized this was abnormal and the vehicle appeared out of place. Agents were able to then successfully yield the van using emergency lights and sirens from their patrol cruiser. Inside the van agents discovered 13 illegal aliens of which eight were citizens of China, and the other five citizens of Mexico. All occupants were arrested and transported to the Tucson Border Patrol station.

Prosecution is being sought against the driver for the violation of alien smuggling.

Defending our borders against terrorists, illegal narcotics, and illegal aliens is priority ONE for the Tucson Sector Border Patrol. Networks of individuals exists who desire to bring chaos and suffering to our nation. Criminal elements are creative, ingenious, and persistent in their efforts to profit from illegal activity.