Can we restore the Rule of Law? Unlawful detained by Suspicion.

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A video produce by CheckpointUSA On November 26th, I was stopped & seized for about the 50th time since the beginning of 2008. The seizure took place at an internal suspicionless Homeland Security checkpoint along Southern Arizona's SR86 near mile post 146. SR86 is an East-West public highway located over 40 miles North of the border and never intersects the border at any point.

During the stop, Agent Gilmore admitted he knew who I was & all three agents told me I wasn't being detained. Nonetheless, these facts didn't stop the agents from refusing to allow me to go about my lawful business, choosing instead to escalate the encounter by requesting that I move to secondary inspection for more intensive scrutiny absent my consent or any articuable suspicion.

While continuing to deny that I was being detained and refusing to allow me to leave, the agents threatened me with arrest for impeding their operations.

After close to eight minutes of being unlawfully detained, a Border Patrol supervisor eventually arrives on-scene and wastes no time in telling me that I'm free to go with no further scrutiny.

Given the circumstances surrounding this extended non-detention, the only reasonable explanation that can be attributed to the agent's behavior is a desire to train the traveling public to be obedient to the whims of any federal agent with a shiny badge & a gun.

For those of you who actually think the government cares about the border, how many illegal aliens do you think crossed unchallenged 40 miles to the South because three Border Patrol agents were harassing Americans 40 miles to the North at a suspicionless checkpoint?

Virtual Fence for Mexico Border Is Put Off but continue building the wall of shame.!!!!!

The US Customs and Border Protection is putting off plans for a virtual fence being built by Boeing Co. along the Mexico border and instead will focus on getting a physical fence in place as it tries to implement a border-security plan that is already late and over budget.

A virtual fence being built by Boeing along the Mexico border is being delayed by US Customs and Border Protection, which is set on getting a physical fence in place.

Both the virtual and the physical fences were the anchors of a 2005 Bush administration plan called the Secure Border Initiative. But the plan to secure the US-Mexico border has been plagued by cost overruns and delays and has come in for withering criticism from Congress.

Boeing has struggled to overcome technical problems on its virtual fence, part of a contract called SBInet that also includes physical fences. The virtual-fence system was first tested on a 28-mile stretch that was originally planned to be ready more than a year ago; it isn't operational.

The Boeing system was supposed to let Border Patrol agents handle more territory with the help of a series of towers capable of electronically monitoring rough stretches of the border.

According to Jayson Ahern, US Customs and Border Protection deputy commissioner, the highest priority is to put out a system of physical fences and barriers that will keep people and vehicles from illegally crossing the US-Mexico border.
Click here for a full story:

The great Wall of Shame.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I say that those who want this fence don't understand the border, don't understand the sense of community.
Along the border, a string of opposition groups ranging from municipal leaders to private landowners continues to argue against the proposed project.

The project will continue despite the controversies and most likely carry on to the next administration. Both major presidential candidates voted as Senators in favor of H.R. 6061 in 2006 and remain committed to the project. The fence will be an important issue for immigrant communities – especially Mexican and Hispanic groups – which see the construction of the barrier with skepticism.
No Mexican official has met with the International authorities or commented on the situation. It is expected to change when the International Boundary and Water Commission provides information regarding this matter and grave concern regarding the U.S. entry into Mexican soil by 20 meters, an act which is, according to the plaques on the obelisks, ‘a severe penalty’ of international law,”

The wall of Shame.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is America's border fence working, or an utter waste? A lot of people Traveling to Texas to meet families on the U.S.-Mexico border who's fear losing their property, their safety, and their way of life.
"The Great Wall of China did not stop the Mongols, and the Berlin Wall didn't stop people escaping to freedom -- why do they think this will be any different?"

The Irrational symbolic politic of Paranoia: Steel Fence

Just west of El Paso, near where Spanish conquistador Juan de Onate crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico in 1598, construction crews have completed a steel fence authorities say is a new model for border security.

The five-meter (18-foot) tall fence has a mesh woven so tightly that feet and fingers cannot grab hold, but it still allows people to see through. Steel pylons are set close enough to stop a truck from bursting through, and two meters of reinforced concrete underground deters any tunneling.

The structure is designed to push would-be Undocumented immigrants and drug smugglers out into the desert where they are more easily caught, said Border Patrol Agent Martin Hernandez.

"Will it completely stop them from coming across? Of course not," Hernandez said. "Rest assured, there will eventually be holes in parts of the wall made by people trying to get in. But it buys us valuable time."

The US Department of Homeland Security is racing to meet a December 31 deadline to raise 670 miles of steel fences and vehicle barriers along the 3,200 kilometer (2,000 mile) long southern border. About half has been completed, including this six kilometer (four mile) segment at New Mexico's Santa Teresa Port of Entry.

But DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff faces a flurry of lawsuits by environmentalists and border communities that could stop construction cold.

To meet his deadline, Chertoff is using sweeping authority Congress granted in 2005 to waive 36 federal laws protecting water, air quality, endangered animals, and native American sites.

"The Great Wall of China did not stop the Mongols, and the Berlin Wall didn't stop people escaping to freedom -- why do they think this will be any different?" asked El Paso County Attorney Jose Rodriguez, the point man in one of the lawsuits.

The fence "is a political initiative meant to satisfy conservatives in Congress who have played to fears about all immigrants being terrorists, criminals, and living off the dole," he fumed.

The overwhelming majority of the half-million people believed to cross the border ilegally each year are peaceful, mostly Mexicans seeking low-wage jobs. About 12 percent of those caught in the El Paso sector in 2007, Hernandez said, have a criminal background or were previously deported from the United States.

The El Paso lawsuit argues that Chertoff's authority to waive federal law is unconstitutional. Dozens of groups have joined the suit, including the Tigua Indian tribe, which for centuries has held religious ceremonies on the banks of the Rio Grande, which marks the border between Texas and Mexico.

In El Paso, Chertoff's waiver overrides local rules on managing land use, air quality, and river water. "We have no idea to what extent we can enforce our own laws," said Rodriguez.

A separate lawsuit by Texas border mayors argues that Chertoff negotiated land prices in bad faith, failed to properly consult locals, and that landowners with connections to the US president -- a former Texas governor -- are getting special treatment.

Mexico is the second largest US trading partner after Canada, and border chambers of commerce involved in the lawsuit fear the immigration clampdown will hamper business.

Chertoff denies the charges, saying he is simply trying to complete what Congress ordered him to do. "The consequences of an open border are smuggling of drugs and human beings into this country," he said in mid-May.

-- Is the security clampdown stopping Undocumented border crossers? --

Many El Pasoans, including Fernando Garcia, head of the Border Network for Human Rights, note that the terrorists responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States did not cross the border with Mexico.

Yet the terrorist attacks "intensified and mixed anti-immigrant racist views with a law-enforcement-only approach towards immigration," he said.

The result was an increase in border security, including a flood of new resources that saw the Border Patrol double in size from 2001 to a planned 18,000 by the end of 2008.

In some areas Undocumented crossers are prosecuted as criminals, jailed briefly then deported. "That has a very significant deterrent impact," Chertoff said.

As a result, the Border Patrol reports a significant drop in the number of illegal border crossings this year compared to 2007, proof they say that increased enforcement works.

However those numbers represent only the number of people caught, immigration activists say.

"The main immigration flow has not stopped coming, it just shifted," said Josiah Heyman, a University of Texas at El Paso border expert.

Surveys in central Mexico, the source of most Undocumented immigration, show that show that most people are aware of the border crackdown yet are still willing to venture north, Heyman said.

According to Garcia, ten years ago some 100 people died annually crossing the border, most by dehydration in the desert or drowning as they tried to cross the Rio Grande.

The figure has been around 500 since the border crackdown intensified in 2005. "In other words, the same number or more people are crossing the border," he claims.

He proposes handing between 60,000 and 100,000 temporary work visas a year to fill the US demand for cheap labor, then give the estimated 12 million Undocumented immigrants already in the country a way to legalize their status.

"The wall is symptomatic of the fact that the US is not responsive to a rational immigration policy," Heyman said. "It is symbolic politics of paranoia."
Outsiders fail to realize that residents have close family, business and historic ties to Mexico, border residents say.

El Paso Mayor John Cook is fond of saying the border unites, not divides, his city with neighboring Ciudad Juarez, forming a border metropolis of some 2.5 million people.

Agent Hernandez exemplifies the border's complexities. He grew up in a heavily immigrant area of El Paso, is fluent in Spanish, and in his youth frequently visited Ciudad Juarez, where he has relatives.

U.S./Canada Border station

Nobody crossed the border with proper screening...Another comedy perspective of the Border Patrol agents at the Borders. You be the judge.

U.S. Ilegals guns killing thousands in Mexico.

High-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from border states into Mexico, fueling a war among drug traffickers, the army and police that has left thousands dead, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.

The munitions are hidden under trucks and stashed in the trunks of cars, or concealed under the clothing of people who brazenly walk across the international bridges. They are showing up in seizures and in the aftermath of shootouts between the cartels and police in Mexico.

"I don't have an analyst," he said. "I don't have an administrative assistant. I don't have an inspector. One major case can soak up my entire office. And we have major cases all the time."
Gun dealers also far outnumber agents. Here in tiny Sierra Vista, on a rise high enough to afford a view into Mexico, half a dozen dealers operate in stores along the town's main thoroughfare, and they also sell and trade arms out of their homes
Arizona is a wide-open state for gun lovers: A license lets you carry a gun openly on the street or concealed.

Saguaro Firearms is a small, crowded shop on East Fry Boulevard, a strip of fast-food restaurants and mini-malls. Across the street is Guns & Gear. Anyone with proper ID and a brief background check can leave with a firearm under his or her belt and reach Mexico in minutes.

The manager at Saguaro Firearms, who gave his name only as Greg, carries a "comfortable to shoot" silver Kahr P40 in a black holster on his right hip.

"I don't believe all the hype" about all the guns getting into Mexico, he said, knifing open new boxes of ammunition.

He said that toll bridges, a fence and more border cops would not stop immigrants from flowing north or guns from flowing south. "Build a tower with an armed guard every 100 yards," he suggested. "Maybe then."

Washington and Mexico City are pledging cooperation to halt the weapons flow, but each capital wants more from the other. Washington is urging Mexican officials to be more vigilant at the border, and to thoroughly inspect and arrest crossers who carry weapons from the United States. Warning signs have been posted at the border, but few people pay heed.

William Hoover, the ATF's assistant director for field operations, told Congress that his agency is working with Mexican law enforcement officials on an "eTrace" system to track guns found in Mexico. The process allows the United States to start criminal investigations against anyone in the country who has sent a weapon to Mexico.

Mexico wants the United States to tighten gun laws in border states. They also want more checks on "straw man" purchasers like Rodriguez.

Key arrests

Since weapons began heading south in bulk three to five years ago, U.S. agents have made some key arrests. Unfortunately, many of them came after the weapons had been used in cartel warfare in Mexico.

This spring the ATF arrested a dealer and two others from the X-Caliber Guns store in Phoenix, which allegedly dispatched hundreds of AK-47s and other long guns and pistols to Mexico. The shop has since shut down; the three have pleaded not guilty.

ATF intelligence has shown that some of the firearms sold from X-Caliber were used by cartel gunmen against Mexican police and the Mexican army.

Six guns were traced to alleged members of the Sinaloa Cartel, who were rounded up shortly after Mexican police captured alleged drug lord Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman in May. An assault rifle traced to X-Caliber also turned up in a cache found after eight federal policemen were killed and three others wounded in a gun battle in Culiacan, according to the ATF.

Gun shows have become particularly troublesome. There, traffickers have their pick of weapons: AK-47s, AR-15s and the FN 5.57-caliber pistol known as "asesino de policia," or "cop killer."

"You see the Sinaloan cowboys come in," said Mangan, who browses the shows. "You see them with their ammunition belts and their ammunition boots. You can see the dollies being rolled outside to their cars.

"Why do they need the high-powered guns? Because the Mexican military is armed too, and they need to pierce that armor."

Sometimes it's the ammunition that tips agents off. In November 2006, an agent in street clothes was talking to a dealer at Kirkpatrick's Guns & Ammo, less than a mile from the border in Laredo, Texas. He spotted two men repackaging more than 12,000 rounds of ammunition they had just purchased.

An investigation later led to the arrest of Carlos Alberto Osorio-Castrejon and Ramon Uresti-Careaga, both Mexican citizens Pleaded guilty to being in an ilegal possession of ammunition and was given 10 months in prison. Uresti was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 15 months in prison.

The ammunition, the judge told Uresti and the court, "was going to somebody in Mexico involved in some illegal activity -- drug trafficking, alien smuggling perhaps. Or something else."
Just up the road from Kirkpatrick's, past the taquerias and the Mexican insurance offices, there is yet another gun shop.

"Call me Rocky," said the man who runs Border Sporting Goods. He advertises "What We Don't Have, We Can Get." He sells guns and ammunition and reloading and hunting equipment. He personally owns more than 100 firearms.

He blamed Mexico for the gun trafficking. "It is not doing enough to stop it," he said. "They are a crooked country." He said U.S. gun laws were too easily broken. "A crook could care less how many laws you have."


He maintained that most gun dealers were honest and vigilant and report suspicious activity. And he called it unfair to make gun stores responsible for what their customers do: "That's like holding a car manufacturer liable for traffic accidents."

The dealers here in Sierra Vista said they reported any customer they did not feel comfortable about.

Mike Benton runs Guns & Gear, which is easy to find on East Fry Boulevard; a U.S. flag out front marks the spot. He said two men claiming to be American citizens recently purchased four or five long guns.

"They had the necessary documents, and an instant FBI check was approved," Benton said. Still, he thought it unusual and notified authorities. "I never heard back," he said.

Shop owners heard back when they called about Adan Rodriguez. At 335 pounds, Rodriguez was easy to remember after he started showing up at shops in Mesquite, Texas, outside Dallas.

Over a series of months, Rodriguez purchased 112 assault-class rifles, 9-mm Beretta pistols, revolvers and high- caliber rifles, court records show.

The dealers alerted the ATF's Dallas office, and Tom Crowley, a special agent there, said that an undercover officer and hidden video camera were planted.

Seduced by money

Arrested, Rodriguez complained that he was making just $1,400 a month laying carpet and had lost his job. He said that his mother was disabled and that he had hoped to marry soon.

Then a friend of a friend introduced him to "Kati" and "Cesar," and they convinced him to do a little side work for some Mexican clients.

Kati and Cesar provided Rodriguez with cash amounts of up to $12,000, often in thousand-dollar stacks. Sometimes they sent an older Latino man, "Jefe," ("Boss") to deliver the money for guns.

When he bought the weapons, he took them to safe houses in Dallas.

At the time of his arrest, Rodriguez told the agents, he was being pushed to buy hand grenades and a rocket launcher too.

One of the Berettas was used in a shootout in Reynosa, Mexico, that left a cartel member dead and injured two Mexican federal agents.

In a handwritten letter to The Times from his prison cell in Seagoville, Texas, Rodriguez described how he got in deeper and deeper with the cartels.

"It started out by selling one of my personal guns, and things went on [from] there," he said. "It was an easy way to make some money."

Rodriguez hesitated to write more: "I worry about my safety and my family's safety."

The cartels, as he knows, are well-armed.

Border Towns against The Fence, The Barrier, The Wall..








The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency plans to build a nearly 700-mile fence along the southern border of the United States to curb Undocumented immigration. The fence, which could be completed by year's end, would split border towns and alter the relationships between U.S. border communities and their neighbors in Mexico. Eagle Pass, Texas, Mayor Chad Foster, a proponent of border control without physical barriers, has worked with other border communities on the issue as president of the Texas Border Coalition. American City & County talked with Foster about how a physical barrier could affect his community.

Q: What is Eagle Pass' relationship like with the neighboring Mexican community, Piedras Negras?

A: If there's a fire in Piedras Negras, the Eagle Pass Fire Department responds to it. If there's a fire in Eagle Pass, the Piedras Negras Fire Department responds to our needs. Mexico endured their first tornado in the history of the country on April 24, 2007. I called Piedras to see what their needs were. There was an older neighborhood [that] needed chainsaws and generators to [remove debris]. [The] tornado [came] from Piedras, jumped the river and hit Maverick County, Texas. The governor of Coahuila, Mexico, [went] to Piedras Negras with resources to help [the city] with their cleanup. [Then], he sent manpower and equipment and helped us with our cleanup and never asked for a dime. That's the way we work on the border. We're two countries that have historically worked as one community.

Q: How would the proposed border fence affect Eagle Pass and other border communities?

A: In the lower Rio Grande Valley, there's 69.9 miles of fencing to be done. With that fencing done, we're, in actuality, ceding 2,400 acres to Mexico [that] are going to be on the wrong side of the fence. We're going to see [our historic] Fort Duncan Park, the basis for the existence of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, fenced out. Our municipal golf course, which goes to the river's edge, and our city park will be on the wrong side of the fence.

Q: What alternatives do you propose?

A: We're not advocating doing anything less than securing our border. The Texas Border Coalition [advocates] security as our priority, but one size does not fit all. In Texas, we have a bamboo-like plant that will grow 30 feet high and in some areas of the river, [it] can be as deep as a half a mile from the river's bank. Any illegal activity that gets into that cane is out of sight. So, we're advocating the eradication of [the plant]. That facilitates line of sight for border patrol agents. [Along] the Texas border, we have camera towers along the banks of the river, and we have border patrol boats that are physically patrolling the river. We've seen a 70 percent decrease in apprehensions with no physical barriers. We feel that we can secure our Texas border without the need for any physical barriers.

Q: Why would the fence not be an effective way to secure the border?

A: Border Patrol has admitted [that] this fencing will only slow an illegal entry down three to four minutes. We just don't think that's good enough when the Congressional Research Service [studied] the expense of building 700 miles of fence. Maintaining it for 20 years will cost the taxpayers in excess of $49 billion. It makes no sense, especially when we have technology available to secure our border rather [than using] the antiquated solutions that haven't been used since the 16th century. No one knows our border better than those [of us who] live and raise our families

Empirical Image. Sealing the U.S. Mexico Border doesn't match the reality. .






To maintain a climate of uncertainty and fear of immigrants, it is necessary to portray the border region as unstable, porous, and the source of society’s ills. Despite being accepted as biblical truth, the image does not really match the reality.

The U.S.-Mexico border is the most traversed border in the world. With an average of 250 million crossings annually, only less than 1 percent estimated occurs without authorization and attracts all of the political attention.

In San Diego alone, over 70,000 Mexicans cross over daily, mainly to buy consumer goods. In 2003, shoppers spent $40.8 billion in the local economy, adding an extra $3.3 billion through sales tax. Considering there are several major twin cities that straddle the border, Mexicans help sustain the whole border economy by contributing taxes and creating jobs.

While the regularized influx of migrant workers is nothing new, the shaping of the imagery is a recent phenomenon.

According to Peter Andreas:

Public perception is powerfully shaped by the images of the border which politicians, law enforcement agencies and the media project. Alarming images of a border out of control can fuel public anxiety; re-assuring images of a border can reduce such anxiety…[therefore], successful border management depends on successful image management and this does not necessarily correspond with levels of actual deterrence.

This “image management” is used in the current context to criminalize migration while moving the focus away from the real issues. While no “terrorists” have been caught crossing through the Arizona desert, there is the permanency of fear (and perpetuation of the belief) that terrorists are coming across, blending into the stream of migrant workers.

The other phantom of border enforcement, drug trafficking, is also linked with migration through the “unguarded wastelands.” In fact, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report in the aftermath of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the further opening of the borders to cargo traffic, it was estimated that most cocaine coming into the U.S. entered through official ports of entry, occasionally with the collusion of corrupt customs agents.

According to José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, federal deputy attorney general and the head of the elite SIEDO anti-organized crime unit, the Mexican government is currently investigating possible links between state police in Baja California and U.S. Border Patrol agents in drug trafficking.

Migrants themselves face the greatest danger along the border. Pushing the crossing routes into the desert and mountains has created a human rights tragedy. Dying at the rate of one a day, casualties on the border will soon surpass the number of people killed on 9/11, and are ten times the number of people who died escaping over the Berlin Wall. Border militarization has not stopped migration, only imposed new, deadly rules on it.

But the biggest smuggler or coyote is the U.S. immigration system that forces them into such a perilous journey in the interests of big business in the first place.

Lou Dobbs reported his madness, fear and bigotry against Mexico and Mexicans.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Transcript from Yesterday. Click here.

LOU DOBBS TONIGHT

Flooding Costs Rises; University of Iowa Campus Flooded; Taliban Attacks on the Rise; Your Food Safety; Border Security Crisis

Aired June 16, 2008 - 19:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LOU DOBBS, HOST: Tonight tens of thousands in Iowa still unable to return to their homes. Floodwaters in some cities are beginning to recede tonight, but there are new concerns now for towns along the Mississippi River, as those waters are rising.
The shocking results tonight of a Congressional investigation into our broken borders after years of promises and billions of dollars, it's as easy as ever to cross into this country, especially from Mexico

SCHIAVONE: In a study that preceded the latest tomato scare, the Harvard School of Public Health found more than half of those surveyed only barely trust the food inspection process. More than half do not trust food imports from communist China and almost half don't trust foods from Mexico

The FDA reports the overwhelming majority of tomatoes consumed in the U.S. at the time of the salmonella outbreak were from inside the U.S., Central Florida and outside the U.S., Mexico.


How Schiavonne, Lou Dobbs and FDA found out Salmonella outbreak is from Mexico? When they had admitted there is no regular inspections or enough inspectors.!!

SCHIAVONE: Not only will they not reveal what the chain is, which wouldn't all of us like to know what the chain is. They won't even say what the region of the country was that this chain was located in, but they know they have this cluster of nine people that they feel they can now do a more disciplined trace back.

DOBBS: I've got to say Congress should be removing everyone at the top of the FDA right now. They should just be simply removed and get out of the way because they're not public servants. They're not acting responsibly or intelligently or effectively.

What in the world are they doing? Secondly, the idea that there is no inspector in the field either in Central Florida or Mexico, more than a week after this outbreak, a week and a half.
What!!!!!!!! That's your answer Lou blame Mexico for your arrogance and your ignorance....

SCHIAVONE: They don't have anybody in any farm anywhere because they say they just don't know where to go.

Another example how Lou Dobbs pandering and make waves of Anti Immigrant sentiment against Mexico and Mexicans..

it's as easy as ever to cross into this country, especially from Mexico.

A new Congressional investigation tonight shows what we've been reporting on this broadcast literally for years. That our borders remain virtually wide open, that our border with Mexico is wide open, and as Casey Wian now reports, undercover investigators had a more than 90 percent, 90 percent success rate as they tried to enter this country illegally.

Casey Wian relied on a GAO SECRET INVESTIGATIVE report performed on 2006.

Even the test with explosives or Radioactive Material were performed on the Northern Border. Why he didn't Mentioned Northern Border.(Canada)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is an undercover tester for the Government Accountability Office packing phony radioactive material and then smuggling it across unguarded sections of the U.S./Mexico border. The same GAO study of border security over the past five years found that even at legal crossing points testers were able to use fake ID to enter illegally 93 percent of the time.

GAO concluded that terrorists or other criminals could use counterfeit identification to pass freely through most of the tested ports of entry with little chance of being detected.

None of this Investigative report from Casey Wian mentioned Northern Border either Canada just Mexico.. Why?
Even they didn't took the time to read this Important statement on page 7.

Safety considerations prevented our Investigators to performing the same assessment work on the U.S./Mexico Border as performed on the Northern Border. In Contrast to our observations on the Northern Border, Our Investigators observed

CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to a Broken border and protection. My Opinion: It's sad history but doesn't mean that we are less corrupted than the Mexican counterpart. Blaming Mexico and Mexicans doesn't make you an exception of pathetic and Anti Mexican.




MIAMI — Bribery. Drug trafficking. Immigrant smuggling. McClatchy Newspapers.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is supposed to stop these types of crimes.
But instead, so many of its officers have been charged with committing those crimes themselves that their boss in Washington recently issued an alert about the "disturbing events" and the "increase in the number of employee arrests."

Thomas Winkowski, assistant commissioner of field operations, wrote a memo to
more than 20,000 officers nationwide noting that employees must behave professionally at all times — even when they are not on the job.
"It is our responsibility to uphold the laws, not break the law," Winkowski wrote in the Nov. 16 memo, which was obtained by The Miami Herald. Winkowski could not be reached for comment.

Winkowski's memo cites several employee arrests involving domestic violence, driving under the influence and drug possession. But court records show that Customs and Border Protection officers and other Department of Homeland Security employees from South Florida to the Mexican border states have been charged with dozens of far more serious offenses.

Among them: A Customs and Border Protection officer at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport was charged in February with conspiring to assist a New York drug ring under investigation by tapping into sensitive federal databases.
Winkowski's warning signals an overwhelming preoccupation with public perception in the era after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Two highly controversial issues, illegal immigration and national security, have thrust Homeland Security into the public eye as it tries to prevent another terrorist attack.
The bureaucratic behemoth grew out of a controversial consolidation five years ago of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Employees of both agencies joined either of two new agencies: Customs and Border Protection or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known for their acronyms CBP and ICE.
CBP handles the border, airports and seaports; ICE investigates immigration- and customs-law violators.
"We as an agency are constantly policing ourselves so that the public trust is not diminished as a result of inappropriate activity, whether it's on the job, off the job, criminal or not criminal," said Zachary Mann, a special agent and CBP spokesman in Miami.
Some ICE employees also have been caught up in episodes of alleged misconduct — although a senior Miami-area official said he was not aware of any increase in criminal or administrative actions.

"I haven't noticed an uptick in misbehavior, even though we have had a substantial increase in personnel since the merger," said Anthony Mangione, the ICE Miami special agent in charge.

Administrative incidents are normally kept quiet by federal authorities. But officials can't control publicity when misconduct escalates to serious criminal behavior, such as the February case involving the CBP officer at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Elizabeth Moran-Toala, a six-year veteran, was accused of accessing an electronic database known as the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, which serves as a tool to stop illegal drug imports.
According to an indictment, she is accused of tapping into the system several times to pass along information to a Delta Airlines baggage handler who was conspiring with a drug ring to transport cocaine and heroin on flights from the Dominican Republic to New York. Moran-Toala, 36, was transferred to New York in late February for prosecution.

Other recent South Florida cases — mirroring a pattern on the border states — have involved officers and agents accused of accepting illegal payoffs for migrant smuggling, drug trafficking, witness tampering, embezzlement and rape.
CBP and ICE managers say these cases simply reflect individual criminal behavior, not the culture of the married agencies.
But some longtime employees said administrative incidents, such as hostile confrontations or heavy drinking, may reflect the low morale and intense rivalries after the merger of federal agencies under Homeland Security.
Some employees from the old INS are the most vocal in their complaints. They bitterly denounce employees who came from the old Customs Service for "seizing control" of both CBP and ICE, "lording it over" former INS employees and showing disdain toward immigration-related work.

Expected to improve efficiency, the merger has instead spawned tension. Both CBP and ICE scored near the bottom in a 2007 survey of employee satisfaction at 222 federal government agencies.
Mangione, the ICE agent, dismissed the notion that employee misbehavior is a result of post-merger friction.
"An employee smuggling aliens has nothing to do with the merger," Mangione said. "It's somebody being a criminal."
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border/228232