Thread: Border Patrol: Man refuses to answer immigration status at checkpoint, halts traffic

Border Patrol: Man refuses to answer immigration status at checkpoint, halts traffic

By Special to the Times
Published: Thursday, May 16, 2013 11:24 AM CDT

Border Patrol agents assigned to the Laredo North Station arrested a motorist Sunday who allegedly kept them from stopping and question him at the I-35 checkpoint.

The incident occurred Sunday morning, when agents assigned to the Laredo North IH-35 checkpoint encountered a male driver of a tractor-trailer approaching the primary lane.

The agent asked the driver for his immigration status, but the male driver refused to answer, according to a spokesman. The subject was referred to secondary inspection in order to allow other commercial traffic to be inspected. The driver refused and turned off his truck, obstructing the flow of commercial traffic.

The driver, identified as a 37-year-old male from Laredo, was placed under arrest and turned over to Homeland Security Investigations for alleged violations of federal law.

“Section 287 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and subsequent Supreme Court decisions have established the authority for United States Border Patrol checkpoints. Anyone impeding agents’ ability to carry out their duty of securing our nation’s borders, including their duty at checkpoints, will be subject to arrest and prosecution,” said Robert L. Harris, CBP Commander for the South Texas Campaign.

To report suspicious activity such as drug and/or alien smuggling, contact the Laredo Sector Border Patrol's toll-free number at 1-800-343-1994.

http://www.lmtonline.com/articles/20...c817190200.txt

Act of defiance just because maybe?

Defiant Texan arrested for third time at Border Patrol checkpoint

Thursday, May 16, 2013

An American citizen was arrested apparently for the third time by U.S. Border Patrol agents at the highway checkpoint on Interstate 35, but this time the only thing he was smuggling was attitude.

Cosme Cortez Jr., of Laredo, is in the custody of the federal government and charged with impeding agents from doing their job. (See charging document below)

They contend that when Cortez, 37, pulled up to the checkpoint while driving a tractor-trailer rig, he refused to tell them his citizenship status, and that as he defied agents, his truck was blocking traffic at the checkpoint.

Such checkpoints are permanently located on major roads leading away from the border, and travelers are routinely asked about their citizenship and other matters, such as where they are going. The checkpoints amount to barriers, of sorts, between U.S. border cities and the rest of the nation.

“I don’t have to answer your questions,” Cortez allegedly told agents, according to an affidavit filed in federal court. He was warned he would be arrested if he didn’t answer, agents contend, but he still refused.

And so Cortez, 37, who is from Laredo, stands charged at the federal courthouse there.

The arrest, which was made public Thursday, marked what seems to be the third time Cortez has been arrested at the very same checkpoint.

A “Cosme Jay Cortez” was arrested there in 2005 for smuggling undocumented immigrants, according to court records, as was a Cosme Cortez Jr., in 2007 for the same offense.

In 2005, Cortez was caught with four people stashed under the sleeper compartment of a truck headed to San Antonio. He pleaded guilty in that case.

Cortez was arrested again in 2007 and charged with smuggling would-be immigrants, this time in an Escalade.

The public federal court record does not list any sentence in either of the two cases.

Bureau of Prison records show only one person with the name Cosme Cortez has served prison time. He was released in August 2008 after serving nine months in federal prison.

http://blog.chron.com/narcoconfident...ol-checkpoint/