Thread: Illegal Alien Joins Border Patrol;

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Illegal Alien Joins Border Patrol;
Tonight, "Broken Borders". It's unbelievable. Prosecutors say an illegal alien joined the U.S. Border Patrol and then helped smuggle illegal aliens into this country.

From Texas to San Diego, we've documented at least eight criminal cases against Border Patrol or other Homeland Security Department agents accused of either alien or drug smuggling so far this year.

T.J. BONNER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL: It's just terrible that someone who is charged with enforcing the immigration laws of the United States turns out to be not only an illegal alien but someone who is smuggling hundreds of other illegal aliens into the country. Who do you trust any more?

WIAN: Wiretaps indicate another Border Patrol agent was involved in alien smuggling with Ortiz, but prosecutors would not discuss the status of that agent.

Prosecutors allege wiretaps picked up a conversation with family members where Ortiz said he was paid between $1,800 and $2,000 to smuggle aliens in himself, or $300 a head to, as he put it, clear the way for aliens to sneak across the border.

REP. J.D. HAYWORTH (R), ARIZONA: Number one, it says that heads should roll at the Border Patrol. If this person was taking about $300 a head to smuggle other illegals into this country, who is to say that a foreign power or Islamofascist with access to untold wealth is able to up the ante and bring terrorist cells into this country?

WIAN: Border Patrol Chief Dave Aguilar said in a statement, "Any agent who defies the Border Patrol's motto of 'Honor First' and chooses to violate the trust of the citizens they swore to protect will be held accountable. There is no place in the Border Patrol for behavior that tarnishes and discredits the badges we proudly wear."

PILGRIM: Thanks very much, Casey Wian. Well, we have evidence of shocking new violence in lawless Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Gunmen killed a Nuevo Laredo city councilman today on the street. Two other people were also killed.

Now City Councilman Leopoldo Ramos Trevino was president of the Nuevo Laredo Public Safety Commission.

The U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo was shut down this week because of a flare-up in violence. The consulate will reopen on Monday, despite today's attack.

Nuevo Laredo is just over the border from Laredo, Texas. Texas officials fear the violence will spill over into their streets. Earlier this summer, gunman killed Nuevo Laredo's police chief just hours after he took office. More than 100 people other people have been killed in that town this year.

Border Patrol revamps hiring

Illegal immigrant was on the payroll
By Onell R. Soto
STAFF WRITER

November 20, 2005

For Border Patrol officials, it could scarcely have been more embarrassing.

One of their own was an illegal immigrant.

And, investigators say, he was using his government-issued truck to smuggle other illegal immigrants into the United States.

How could this happen? How could the government agency charged with guarding the nation's borders hire someone in the country illegally? And could it happen again?

Border Patrol officials said this month that they hired Oscar Antonio Ortiz in 2002 even though a background check flagged a problem in his application, he admitted using drugs and had been arrested on suspicion of smuggling.

They said they've revised their hiring process as a result of his Aug. 4 arrest to ensure no foreigners are mistakenly hired. (Only U.S. citizens may work as Border Patrol agents.)

Officials also ran checks on every worker within Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, looking for other illegal immigrants.
They found one other case in which they couldn't confirm citizenship and are now investigating it, a Border Patrol spokesman said. He didn't have any more information about that worker.

Ortiz is accused of using a fake birth certificate to join the Border Patrol. He's also accused of conspiracy to smuggle immigrants, lying to get his service weapon and being an illegal alien in possession of a gun.

He pleaded not guilty in San Diego federal court, quit his job and faces deportation to Mexico. If convicted, he faces more than 30 years in prison.

Ortiz was arrested after North County gang detectives investigating drug deals overheard him and another Border Patrol agent talking about smuggling on wiretaps.

Department of Homeland Security investigators took up the case and began looking into his background, according to court documents.

Navy service

They say they determined that Ortiz was born in Tijuana, not Chicago, as he claimed when he provided a copy of a birth certificate to hiring officials.

Investigators concluded the birth certificate was a forgery when they discovered its number matched someone else's records in Illinois.

It's unclear when Ortiz first used the birth certificate to claim U.S. citizenship.

Prosecutors said he went to middle school and high school in the Mexican state of Sonora.

Defense lawyer Stephen P. White said Ortiz attended schools in San Diego County, including Southwestern College in Chula Vista.

He joined the Navy in 1998 and served four years, most of that time aboard the San Diego-based Tarawa, an amphibious attack ship.

Navy buddies describe him as an honorable man who told them he was from Chicago. Navy service often qualifies foreign-born sailors for U.S. citizenship.

Background check

Seven weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Ortiz applied to join the Border Patrol, at the time part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but now part of Homeland Security.

He told recruiters that he had used cocaine and marijuana, prosecutors say.

His application, like that of thousands of other would-be agents, was forwarded to the Office of Personnel Management, which does the vast majority of background checks for federal jobs.

"We did a good investigation," said Kathy Dillaman, who oversees more than 8,000 government workers and contractors who perform 1.4 million background checks a year for the federal agency. "We forwarded the results to INS."

She wouldn't say exactly what the background investigation found.

Union officials criticize her agency for using contractors, but she said everyone who does that work gets the same kind of training as federal agents and meet the same standards.

While her agency conducts background checks, it does not make hiring decisions, leaving that up to the agencies it works for.

Salvador Zamora, a Border Patrol spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the information Ortiz provided on his application, including his name, couldn't be verified with a government database on births and deaths in the United States.

So, as part of the hiring process, Ortiz was asked to provide proof of citizenship to the INS's Laguna Niguel office.

Ortiz sent a copy of the Illinois birth certificate, Zamora said.

The worker vetting his application looked at the birth certificate, and coupled with everything else he knew about Ortiz, including his Navy service, became convinced he was a U.S. citizen, Zamora said.

"The information before (the worker) was enough for him to make a discretionary decision to move the application forward," he said. "Nothing else was a red flag."

And past drug use doesn't automatically disqualify applicants, Zamora said.

The background investigation in 2002 didn't turn up that a few months before he applied for the Border Patrol – while serving aboard the Tarawa – Ortiz was arrested in San Ysidro with two illegal immigrants in the car he was driving.

The immigrants said they each paid $200 to be smuggled into United States.

Few people caught trying to smuggle immigrants through San Ysidro are prosecuted, and no charges were filed against Ortiz.

That may explain why the arrest didn't show up at the time Ortiz was hired, Zamora said.

Wiretaps

Earlier this year, federal investigators and sheriff's gang detectives opened an investigation into a drug-trafficking ring they believe was headed by an Encinitas gang member.

The investigators eavesdropped as a member of the ring talked in a phone call to a relative, a Border Patrol agent who worked with Ortiz, about immigrant and drug smuggling.

A second investigation, which also included wiretaps, yielded recordings of Ortiz and the other agent talking about smuggling, authorities said.

The other agent, who has not been identified, has been put on administrative leave but has not been charged with a crime.

In the wiretaps, they talked about smuggling immigrants in their work vehicles, prosecutors said. Other times, they talked about being paid by smuggling rings to look the other way while immigrants were brought through the area they were supposed to be patrolling east of Tecate.

"We don't do anything, just clear the way and we get $300 per head," the other Border Patrol agent tells a family member during one conversation in May.

Ortiz's arrest prompted some political commentators and union officials to lash out against the Border Patrol's hiring practices.

But it also prompted the agency to look at itself.

"We recognized that there was something (wrong) based on the circumstances of this case," said Ronald Vitiello, senior associate Border Patrol chief, based in Washington, D.C.

Before Ortiz's arrest, the onus was on candidates to prove they were worthy of the badge.

"The hiring process always allowed for folks to validate that they could work in the United States and also that they had a clear criminal record," he said.

It is now up to the Border Patrol investigators to answer those questions directly, Vitiello said.

Border Patrol candidates are now subject to much more thorough inquiries than when Ortiz was hired, he said.

That includes more detailed questions than most federal job applicants face about their past drug use and that of relatives.

"We're confident," Vitiello said, "that we're not going to see an issue like this again."

Carolyn Martin, a Carlsbad investigator, said that since Ortiz was arrested, all prospective hires for the Border Patrol have to provide birth certificates that are then checked independently with the issuing agency or a federal database.

"If anything good came out of this, it is that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is taking care of this," said Martin, president of the American Federal Contract Investigators Association.

And while she's satisfied with efforts within the Border Patrol, she said she's concerned that other federal agencies aren't getting the background investigations they need because of the way the Office of Personnel Management does business.

Background investigators can't explore problems they suspect outside the area they were asked to investigate, she said. For instance a drunken driving conviction that surfaces during an examination of financial issues isn't reported back to the agency that requested the background check, she said.



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Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... ortiz.html

I would make a bet that if he gets any time at all it will be less then the 2 border agents in Tx will have to serve stating with the new year! Most likely though Bennie Thompson will write a letter to the border patrol telling them they must keep him on or they might be libel for discrimination!

Mexican Americans seem to have such a great loyalty to Mexico that it does not makes sense to employ them in jobs that could easily assist illegals in gaining access to the US. Does anyone have statistics on how many Mexican Americans have illegally assisted Mexico? I am just curious.

Navy Sailors Admit Smuggling Mexican Immigrants

AP, May 31, 2006


SAN DIEGO—Two active-duty U.S. Navy sailors have pleaded guilty to smuggling illegal Mexican immigrants through a visa processing office during after-hours at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Petty Officers 2nd Class Antonio Pina and Jose Hernandez Valdez each face three years in federal prison for smuggling people through the San Ysidro Port of Entry building late the night of Jan. 31.

Pina worked as military police officer at a shore patrol station at San Ysidro, which links San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. Court records show that he unlocked a door 10 feet from the border to let six illegal immigrants guided by Hernandez pass through the station and out to a waiting SUV on the U.S. side.

Hernandez, a Mexican citizen, has also agreed to be deported. According to court records, he holds an expired green card and falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen when he enlisted in the Navy in 2000.

Neese

I think those Mexican/American numbers you speak of are probably so low that we would be better off focusing efforts to other areas of concern. Most of us who circulated petitions for DefendColoradoNow noticed that Latino/Americans were especially vocal about securing our borders and fining/prosecuting those who hire illegals. They are probably losing more good jobs to illegals than most other socio-economic groups.

extex

"Good walls make better friends"

Seven sailors charged in scam to wed immigrants

By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot
© November 16, 2005

NORFOLK — Seven crew members from the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower have been arrested by the FBI in New York on charges they set up sham marriages to illegal immigrants .

They are among 10 people caught in a sting operation in which the sailors were allegedly paid a portion of as much as $4,000 each for quick marriages so the immigrants could remain in the United States legally.

The case caught local Navy officials and Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents by surprise. They said Tuesday they did not know of the sting until late Monday when they were told the FBI was planning to make the arrests.

Three of the sailors appeared in Norfolk’s U.S. District Court on Monday. They were identified in court records as: Seaman Dominique Crawford, 21, of Charlotte, Seaman Jibri Omari Usher, 23, of Dunedin, Fla., and Petty Officer 3rd Class Shaunye Kalena Walker, 22, of Raleigh .

The other sailors arrested were identified as Seaman Gary Nathaniel Moore, Seaman Javin Larrel Brown, Seaman Joshua Levi Jackson and Seaman Keith Allen Burris. No additional information about them was available.

The suspects, including the sailors, are accused of being paid by illegal immigrants to obtain marriage licenses . Except in one case, the marriages were never actually sealed. Federal agents could not say Tuesday how Howard met the sailors.

Howard, who was among those charged with conspiracy, offered to provide people to marry illegal immigrants at a cost of $3,000 to $4,000 per marriage, the complaint said. The money was split between Howard and the sailors, authorities alleged.

Howard also was paid to provide fraudulent identification such as fake U.S. passports, Social Security cards and driver’s licenses, according to the criminal complaint.

Howard’s attorney, James M. Keneally, declined to comment Tuesday, the day after U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael H. Dolinger set Howard’s bail
at $200,000 .

The seven sailors came in recent weeks to New York, where they thought they were meeting illegal immigrants from Egypt, Russia, South America and Europe, the complaint said.

[b]During the past two years, there have been 136 cases in which sailors have tried to obtain Basic Allowances for Housing through marriage scams, he said.

http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.c ... 59&tref=po

I think those Mexican/American numbers you speak of are probably so low that we would be better off focusing efforts to other areas of concern.

You may be right, but it wouldn't seem right to put Muslims in charge of our airport security either.