Gov. Brewer to Obama: Stop the Jokes, Secure the Border

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer wasn’t laughing when President Obama stood at the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday and joked that Republican lawmakers who won’t support a sweeping overhaul of the immigration system until the border is secured won’t be happy until they get a moat with alligators along the border.

“I think he should get back to business being the president of the United States,” Brewer told Fox News on Saturday.

“I don’t think his comic attitude and laughing at a serious issue is being very well received, certainly not here in Arizona, I would imagine not across America,” she said. “This is a serious situation. And for him to go to a pep rally and make light of the situation is unbelievable.”

In a new video created by the Arizona Republican Party and posted to YouTube, Brewer tells Obama to stop the jokes, do his job and secure the border.

The video notes that Brewer invited Obama to visit the Arizona border nearly a year ago, but he declined.

In his speech on Tuesday, Obama boasted of increasing border patrol agents, nearing completion of a border fence, and screening more cargo.

But the video says the U.S. Border Patrol controls only 44 percent of the border with Mexico – only 15 percent of that right on the border, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The video also notes that Mexican drug cartels are operating in more than 230 U.S. cities, according to the State Department, and points out that Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed in December by an armed group of illegal immigrants.

The video also compares the speech the president made in Tucson, Arizona in January after the mass shooting that left six dead and 13 wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, to the one he made in El Paso.

Read more here.

Mexican Hypocrisy

During all of the furor over Arizona’s SB1070 immigration enforcement law last spring, one of the most egregious attacks on the sovereignty of the border state came in the form of a highly inappropriate and insulting speech by Mexican President Calderó n before the U.S. Congress.

As the Democrat dominated chamber applauded the attack on Arizona, our hapless commander in chief and his constitutionally challenged attorney general were threatening legal action despite having not taken the time to have read the 10 page bill.

Comparisons were made to Nazi Germany and liberals expressed outrage over the mere thought that Arizona police officers would be demanding to see the papers of anyone who appeared to be Hispanic. Naturally the new law (which mirrors federal statutes) included appropriate constitutional protections and did not allow for the indiscriminate checking of papers, but never-the-less the Democrats and their fellow travelers in the MSM pressed their agenda driven attack and legal action from the federal government is still ongoing.

Fast forward nine months. The UK Telegraph reports that the Mexican government of President Calderó n is instituting a high-tech new I.D. system which will be in place by 2013. The new cards which will include an iris scan, fingerprints, photo and signature are said to be 99% reliable.

“The legal, technical and financial conditions are ready to start the process of issuing this identity document,” Felipe Zamora, responsible for legal affairs at the Mexican Interior Ministry, told journalists Thursday.

The new system will be implemented gradually beginning with children over the next two years and then the adult population by 2013. The system will help the Mexican authorities to keep track of their citizens and should help Mexico to secure its borders against illegal immigration. The cost of the project is estimated to carry a price tag of $25 million.

Human rights advocates have expressed concern that the new system will be used for the gathering of personal information which could be used to violate individual rights and privacy. In the meantime it will be interesting to see if the Mexican government, which has published guide books on how to illegally cross the border and elude the authorities in the United States will warn its citizens not to show their I.D. cards to the gringos in Arizona (or elsewhere).

Drug Killings Make 2010 Deadliest Year for Mexico Border City

The embattled border city of Ciudad Juarez had its bloodiest year ever with 3,111 people killed in drug violence, an official said Saturday.

The city across from El Paso, Texas, has seen its homicide rate soar to one of the highest in the world since vicious turf battles broke out between gangs representing the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels in 2008.

That year, 1,587 people were killed in drug violence, and the toll increased to 2,643 in 2009.

Ciudad Juarez’s bloodiest month last year was October, when 359 people were killed, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for prosecutors in Chihuahua state, where the city is located.

Sandoval did not give statistics on murders unrelated to the drug war.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in drug violence nationwide since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the cartels after taking office in December 2006.

In the southern state of Guerrero, four members of a family were killed Saturday when gunmen opened fire at a New Year’s celebration in the town of Piedra Iman.

State investigators said the four men, ages 80, 60, 32 and 17, were slain at a party on a basketball court.

21 killed in shootout between drug, migrant trafficking gangs near Arizona border

HERMOSILLO, Mexico (AP) — A massive gun battle between rival drug and migrant trafficking gangs near the U.S. border Thursday left 21 people dead and at least six others wounded, prosecutors said.

The fire fight occurred in a sparsely populated area about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the Arizona border, near the city of Nogales, that is considered a prime corridor for immigrant and drug smuggling.

The Sonora state Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that nine people were captured by police at the scene of the shootings, six of whom had been wounded in the confrontation. Eight vehicles and seven weapons were also seized.

All of the victims were believed to be members of the gangs.

The shootings occurred near a dirt road between the hamlets of Tubutama and Saric, in an area often used by traffickers.

Gangs often fight for control of trafficking routes and sometimes steal “shipments” of undocumented migrants from each other, but seldom have they staged such mass gun battles.

Gang violence near the Arizona border has led to calls from officials in the U.S. state for greater control of the border and is one reason given for a controversial law passed in April requiring Arizona police to ask people about their immigration status in certain situations.

In a city on another part of the U.S. border, gunmen killed an assistant attorney general for Chihuahua state and one of her bodyguards.

After being chased by armed assailants through the darkened streets of Ciudad Juarez, the vehicle carrying Sandra Salas Garcia and two bodyguards was riddled with bullets Wednesday night.

Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, said the second bodyguard was seriously wounded.

Salas was responsible for evaluating the work of prosecutors and special investigations units in Chihuahua.

Drug violence has killed more than 4,300 people in recent years in Ciudad Juarez, which borders El Paso, Texas.

More than 23,000 people have been killed by drug violence since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon began deploying thousands of troops and federal police to drug hot spots.

In her own words: Gov. Jan Brewer on Mexico joining lawsuit against Arizona’s illegal immigrant law

Full text of Gov. Jan Brewer statement on Mexico, as provided by her office

I am very disappointed that the national government of our neighbors and friends to the south has chosen to file a brief in federal court that distorts the truth about Arizona and the United States.

Despite false assertions and factual inaccuracies expressed by the country of Mexico in their recent brief filed in U.S. federal court, Arizona’s immigration enforcement laws are both reasonable and….

…constitutional. They mirror what has been federal law in the United States for many decades, and they have built-in and clear protections for civil rights.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Mexico president Felipe Calderon

The United States was formed as a nation of laws, and not of men. Arizonans are some of the most hospitable and generous people in the world, and we welcome visitors to share our incomparable natural beauty.

Our cultures and our trade are intertwined, and so must be our respect for the rule of law.

We refuse to accept that the United States government is unable to protect its citizens against a relentless and daily barrage of narco-terrorist drug and human smugglers. We will enforce, respect, and defend the laws of our land, including our laws that prosecute discrimination. We have taken additional steps to update training for our officers to legally enforce our new laws and to specifically prevent illegal racial profiling.

I will continue to fight tirelessly to protect the citizens of Arizona, and to defend Arizonans in federal court. I believe that Arizona will ultimately prevail and that our laws will be found constitutional.

Mexican Gangs Maintain Permanent Lookout Bases in Hills of Arizona

By Adam Housley

Mexican drug cartels have set up shop on American soil, maintaining lookout bases in strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona from which their scouts can monitor every move made by law enforcement officials, federal agents tell Fox News.

The scouts are supplied by drivers who bring them food, water, batteries for radios — all the items they need to stay in the wilderness for a long time

“To say that this area is out of control is an understatement,” said an agent who patrols the area and asked not to be named. “We (federal border agents), as well as the Pima County Sheriff Office and the Bureau of Land Management, can attest to that.”

Much of the drug traffic originates in the Menagers Dam area, the Vekol Valley, Stanfield and around the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation. It even follows a natural gas pipeline that runs from Mexico into Arizona.

In these areas, which are south and west of Tucson, sources said there are “cartel scouts galore” watching the movements of federal, state and local law enforcement, from the border all the way up to Interstate 8.

“Every night we’re getting beaten like a pinata at a birthday party by drug, alien smugglers,” a second federal agent told Fox News by e-mail. “The danger is out there, with all the weapons being found coming northbound…. someone needs to know about this!”

The agents blame part of their plight on new policies from Washington, claiming it has put a majority of the U.S. agents on the border itself. One agent compared it to a short-yardage defense in football, explaining that once the smugglers and drug-runners break through the front line, they’re home free.

“We are unable to work any traffic, because they have us forward deployed,” the agent said. “We are unable to work the traffic coming out of the mountains. That traffic usually carries weapons and dope, too, again always using stolen vehicles.”

The Department of Homeland Security denies it has ordered any major change in operations or any sort of change in forward deployment.

“The Department of Homeland Security has dedicated unprecedented manpower, technology and infrastructure resources to the Southwest border over the course of the past 16 months,” DHS spokesman Matt Chandler said. “Deployment of CBP/Border Patrol and ICE personnel to various locations throughout the Southwest border is based on actionable intelligence and operational need, not which elected official can yell the loudest.”

While agents in the area agree that southwest Arizona has been a trouble spot for more than a decade, many believe Washington and politicians “who come here for one-day visit” aren’t seeing the big picture.

They say the area has never been controlled and has suddenly gotten worse, with the cartels maintaining a strong presence on U.S. soil. More than ever, agents on the front lines are wearing tactical gear, including helmets, to protect themselves.

“More than 4,000 of these agents are deployed in Arizona,” Chandler says. “The strategy to secure our nation’s borders is based on a ‘defense in depth’ philosophy, including the use of interior checkpoints, like the one on FR 85 outside Ajo, to interdict threats attempting to move from the border into the interior of our nation.”

Without placing direct fault on anyone, multiple agents told Fox that the situation is more dangerous for them than ever now that the cartels have such a strong position on the American side of the border.

They say morale is down among many who patrol the desolate area, and they worry that the situation won’t change until an agent gets killed.

Uptick in Violence Forces Closing of Parkland Along Mexico Border to Americans

About 3,500 acres of southern Arizona have been closed off to U.S. citizens due to increased violence at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The closed off area includes part of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge that stretches along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu told Fox News that violence against law enforcement officers and U.S. citizens has increased in the past four months, forcing officers on an 80 mile stretch of Arizona land north of the Mexico border off-limits to Americans.

The refuge had been adversely affected by the increase in drug smugglers, illegal activity and surveillance, which made it dangerous for Americans to visit.

“The situation in this zone has reached a point where continued public use of the area is not prudent,” said refuge manager Mitch Ellis.

“It’s literally out of control,” said Babeu. “We stood with Senator McCain and literally demanded support for 3,000 soldiers to be deployed to Arizona to get this under control and finally secure our border with Mexico. “

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials have warned visitors in Arizona to beware of heavily armed drug smugglers and human traffickers.

“We need support from the federal government. It’s their job to secure the border and they haven’t done it,” said Babeu. “In fact, President Obama suspended the construction of the fence and it’s just simply outrageous.”

Signs have been posted warning Americans not to cross into the closed off territory south of Interstate 8. Babeu said the signs are not enough – he said Arizona needs more resources to help scale back the violence caused by the drug cartels.

“We need action. It’s shameful that we, as the most powerful nation on Earth, … can’t even secure our own border and protect our own families.”

Mexican Teen Killed on Border Was ‘Known Juvenile Smuggler,’ Sources Say

Fox News

The 15-year-old Mexican boy who was shot dead by a Border Patrol agent as U.S. authorities came under attack along the border Tuesday was known to authorities as a juvenile smuggler, sources close to the investigation told Fox News.

Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka was shot once near the eye as U.S. Border Patrol agents on bicycles were “assaulted with rocks” as they tried to detain illegal immigrants on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.

Huereka was charged with alien smuggling in 2009, according to sources who requested anonymity. Further details were not immediately available.

“He is a known juvenile smuggler,” a source told Fox News. He was also on a “most wanted” list of juvenile smugglers compiled by U.S. authorities in the El Paso area, sources said.

Heureka’s death marked the second time a Mexican citizen has been killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in as many weeks, stoking tensions along the border between the nations.

Roughly 30 relatives and friends gathered late Tuesday to mourn the boy, who died on the Mexican side of the river.

“Damn them! Damn them!” the boy’s sister, Rosario Hernandez, sobbed at a wake in the family’s two-room adobe house on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez.

“There is a God, so why would I want vengeance if no one will return him to me. They killed my little boy and the only thing I ask is for the law” to be applied, said the boy’s father, Jesus Hernandez.

His mother was less hopeful. “May God forgive them because I know nothing will happen” to them,” Maria Guadalupe Huereka said.

Border Patrol Special Operations Supervisor Ramiro Cordero said preliminary reports indicate that U.S. officers on bicycle patrol were “assaulted with rocks” by an unknown number of people before Herueka was shot.

“During the assault at least one agent discharged his firearm,” Cordero said. “The agent is currently on administrative leave. A thorough, multi-agency investigation is currently ongoing.”

A U.S. official told the Associated Press that video of the incident shows the Border Patrol agent did not enter Mexico.

The unidentified official said the video also shows what seem to be four Mexican law enforcement officers driving to the edge of the muddy bed of the Rio Grande, walking across to the U.S. side, picking up an undetermined object and returning to Mexico near the area where the boy’s body lay. Like their U.S. counterparts, Mexican law officers are not authorized to cross the border without permission.

A Mexican migrant, Anastasio Hernandez, 32, died less than two weeks ago after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer shocked him with a stun gun at the San Ysidro border crossing, which separates San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. The San Diego medical examiner’s office ruled that death a homicide.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Tuesday that his government “will use all resources available to protect the rights of Mexican migrants.”

The government “reiterates its rejection to the disproportionate use of force on the part on U.S. authorities on the border with Mexico,” the president added in a statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mexico opens California office to provide ID for illegals

By: Sara A. Carter

The Mexican government is opening a satellite consular office on Catalina Island — a small resort off the California coast with a history of drug smuggling and human trafficking — to provide the island’s illegal Mexican immigrants with identification cards, The Washington Examiner has learned.

The Mexican consular office in Los Angeles issued a flier, a copy of which was obtained by The Examiner, listing the Catalina Island Country Club as the location of its satellite office. It invites Mexicans to visit the office to obtain the identification, called matricular cards, by appointment.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican whose district includes Catalina Island, said handing out matricular cards will exacerbate an already dangerous situation.

“Handing out matricular cards to Mexicans who are not in this country legally is wrong no matter where it’s done,” he said. “But on Catalina it will do more damage. It’s a small island but there’s evidence it’s being used as a portal for illegals to access mainland California.”

Rohrabacher added, “If there were a large number of Americans illegally in Mexico and the U.S. consulate was making it easier for them to stay, Mexico would never permit it.”

Mexican officials with the consular office in Los Angeles could not be reached immediately for comment. The matricular consular identification card, is issued by the Mexican government to Mexican nationals residing outside the country, regardless of immigration status. The purpose is to provide identification for opening bank accounts and obtaining other services. But the cards are usually used to skirt U.S. immigration laws, since Mexicans in the country legally have documents proving that status, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

In 2004 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI officials called the card an unreliable form of identification. The agency said that Mexico lacks a centralized database for them, which could lead to forgery, duplication, and other forms of abuse.

Officers with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said their agency was asked by Mexican officials not to enforce U.S. immigration laws on the island while the cards were being issued.

“It amazes me every time that the Mexican government has the gall to tell us what to do,” said an ICE official, who asked not to be named. “More surprisingly is how many times we stand by and let them. This is just an example of one of hundreds of requests we’ve had to deal with.”

In April, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies seized a boat carrying large quantities of marijuana and detained three Mexican nationals who said they were being smuggled into the United States.

The island has a sizable Mexican migrant population. Most are undocumented low-income workers.

L.A. Students To be Taught Lies

By Jana Winter

The Los Angeles Unified School District school board wants all public school students in the city to be taught that Arizona’s new immigration law is un-American.

The school board president made the announcement Tuesday night after the district’s Board of Education passed a resolution to oppose the controversial law, which gives law enforcement officials in Arizona the power to question and detain people they suspect are in the U.S. illegally when they are stopped in relation to a crime or infraction.

Critics of the law say it will result in racial profiling.

The school board voted unanimously on Tuesday to “express outrage” and “condemnation” of the law, and it called on the school superintendent to look into curtailing economic support to the Grand Canyon State. About 73 percent of the students in the school district are Latino.

But supporters of the law say the school board is way out of bounds and that the measure will just distract from the children’s education.

“This is ridiculous, it’s ridiculous for us to be involved in Arizona law,” said Jane Barnett, Chairman, Los Angeles County Republican Party. “There is a 50 percent dropout rate in some parts of the school district—is this going to keep kids in school?”

According to its press release, “The Los Angeles Board of Education also requested that Superintendent Ramon Cortines ensure that civics and history classes discuss the recent laws with students in the context of the American values of unity, diversity and equal protection for all people.”

“America must stand for tolerance, inclusiveness and equality,” said Board President Monica García, according to the release. “In our civics classes and in our hallways, we must give life to these values by teaching our students to value themselves; to respect others; and to demand fairness and justice for all who live within our borders. Any law which violates civil rights is un-American.”

In an e-mail to FOXNews.com, school district spokesman Robert Alaniz elaborated:

“The Board of Education directed the Superintendent to ensure that LAUSD civics and history classes discuss the recent laws enacted in Arizona in the context of the American values of unity, diversity, and Equal Protection for all. Much like a number of controversial periods and laws that are part of our history and are currently taught including:

— Slavery

— Jim Crowe laws and segregation

— Native American reservations

— Residential schools (for Native Americans)

— The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

— Anti-Irish racism in the 19th century

— Racism against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe in the 20th century

— Anti-Semitism

— Internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II

— The Mexican Repatriation Program (1929-1939).”

The school district resolution also opposed another new Arizona law that bans schools from teaching classes that promote the overthrow of the government or advocate ethnic solidarity.

The school board called on Arizona’s leaders to reverse both of these “misguided” new laws, the press release said.

The board said the laws “effectively sanction and promote unconstitutional racial profiling and harassment,” and “blatantly violate the civil rights of both Arizona residents and all visitors to the State.”

They said Arizona’s new laws also “severely restrict the education of all children in Arizona by refusing to incorporate vital sections of history that incorporate the contributions of this country’s many diverse groups.”

The superintendent was also asked to investigate ways to curtail contracts with Arizona-based businesses and district travel to the state.

“We need to do everything in our power to help our students be global citizens, develop appreciation for the diversity in our midst, and reject any forms of racism or bias,” said Board Vice President Yolie Flores. “This resolution highlights our commitment to ensuring that our students understand the ideals and constitutional rights that this great country is founded on, while also gaining an appreciation of the histories and cultural contributions of those who have helped build this nation.”

“It is a sad day in America when the rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution are trampled upon under the color of law and authority,” said LAUSD Board Member Martinez. “Everyone, regardless of their status in the United States, has the right to equal protection under our laws. These Arizona laws are nothing but a knee-jerk backlash resulting from the lack of a comprehensive and well thought out immigration reform policy.”

The LA County Republican chairwoman said she’s been inundated with phone calls, e-mails and Facebook messages from people all over Los Angeles who say their school district has no business meddling in another state’s laws when they’ve got so many problems of their own to deal with.

“This is really crazy,” she said. “Everybody is upset about this.”

Barnett called the school board resolution a “pathetic stunt” that distracts educators from what they should be focusing on: educating the students.

“This is nothing we should be involved in. Let the courts deal with this,” she said. “We need to keep out of other people’s states’ business.”

Nathan Mintz, the founder of the South Bay Tea Party and the Republican nominee for the 53rd State Assembly seat.

“This is just another example of these embedded bureaucrats in California doing anything they can to deflect and distract from the poor job their doing of educating our children,” said Nathan Mintz, the founder of the South Bay Tea Party and the Republican nominee for the 53rd State Assembly seat.

He said attacking Arizona’s immigration law is just “a distraction from the key issue of educating the kids in our schools.”

“We support Arizona,” Barnett said. “In fact, I think we ought to go there right now for vacation.”