Border Patrol faces little accountability: Shootings by agents are up, but few are held responsible; families and the public rarely learn the outcome of secret, complex investigations

Just two months after a Border Patrol agent shot her 16-year-old son in Nogales, Sonora, Araceli Rodríguez Salazar sensed silence spreading over the case.

"I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of waiting. I want justice," she said on a recent afternoon, standing outside her humble home on a downtown hillside.

If the pattern holds, she'll be waiting much longer.

Even as the number of shootings by agents increases, the system for holding them accountable remains complicated and opaque, leaving the public in the dark about the status of the cases, an Arizona Daily Star investigation has found. One Arizona case has remained secret and "ongoing" for almost three years.

Questions have sharpened after agents shot people who apparently weren't threatening them at least twice in Arizona over the last two years.

Still, agents get the benefit of the doubt from the public and prosecutors, and are rarely criminally charged. In the few cases when agents have been prosecuted in Arizona, they've won.

That may be because the shootings were justified, but the secrecy of the process means the public may never know.

As questions of accountability grow louder, shootings by Border Patrol agents continue - primarily in Arizona. In the last three years agents have shot at least 22 people nationwide. Nine of those cases have been in Southern Arizona - four in the last two months and two just last week.

Last Sunday, a Border Patrol agent in the Baboquivari Mountains killed an apparent illegal immigrant - 19-year-old Guatemalan Margarito Lopez Morelos - who, the agency said, struggled with an agent. On Tuesday, an agent southwest of Gila Bend shot and wounded a man who, the agency said, brandished a weapon.

Since January 2010, there have been at least six cross-border shootings by agents, including the one that killed Rodríguez-Salazar's son, José Antonio Elena Rodríguez. When killed, he was on a sidewalk across the 36-foot-wide street along the border.

Two people were on the border fence when agents arrived at about 11 p.m. Rocks flew, though police reports leave it unclear who threw them, and at least one agent fired into Mexico.

Elena Rodriguez was hit at least seven times - twice in the head and five times in the back. The walls next to him were pocked with bullet holes.

"What would have happened if a Sonoran police officer had opened fire and shot a 16-year-old walking along the street in Arizona?" asked Kat Rodriguez of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, a human-rights advocacy group in Tucson. "We all know the response would be very different, and it shouldn't be."

agent ivie's death

Early on Oct. 2, Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie cautiously approached a site east of Bisbee where a ground sensor had gone off. Two fellow agents approached from another direction.

In an apparent accident, Ivie fired at the other agents, striking one, the FBI and Cochise County Sheriff's Department reported. The agent who was struck fired back, killing Ivie.

Amid an outpouring of support for Ivie's family, some found a key aspect of the case troubling: Here was a case where an agent apparently didn't know what he was shooting at.

Border Patrol agents are taught to use deadly force only when they or someone else are threatened with death, agency spokesman Bill Brooks said.. However, officers everywhere must always have "target discrimination" and fire only at the person posing the threat, said Dave Klinger, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

"If I've got a guy shooting at me, I don't get to send rounds downrange at the general area," said Klinger, who himself shot and killed a man when he was a Los Angeles police officer.

The same rules apply to rock-throwing, Klinger and others said. The closer the thrower, the more likely it poses an imminent threat.

On March 21, 2011, an agent shot and killed 19-year-old Carlos LaMadrid in Douglas. Local police had chased LaMadrid to the border fence, where a Border Patrol vehicle collided with the one LaMadrid was driving, Cochise County sheriff's reports show.

LaMadrid and a passenger began climbing a ladder friends had put against the fence, and at the same time someone atop the fence began throwing rocks at the agent. The agent fired and killed LaMadrid as he climbed the ladder. The rock throwers escaped into Mexico.

Cochise County Attorney Ed Rheinheimer said he has made a decision about whether to prosecute the agent in the LaMadrid case, but he is waiting until federal authorities make their call so as not to influence their decision.

who's in charge?

The FBI, Department of Homeland Security inspector general, the Border Patrol's critical incident team and the Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs branch all may respond to any shooting by a Border Patrol agent.

The U.S. Attorney's Office oversees the investigation, and local agencies - such as a sheriff's department - may also investigate whether state laws were broken. In Elena Rodriguez's case, the local agency was Sonoran state police, who responded on their side of the border.

Who's in charge, and what happens from there? That's a tougher question. Even Jim Calle, a Tucson attorney whose job is to defend Border Patrol agents involved in shootings or accused of misconduct, can't pinpoint the process.

"I've been doing this for more than a decade, and it's still confusing to me," Calle said. "That's how the federal government operates. They're slow. It's opaque, and they (the investigations) are always difficult."

"There are times when the public never learns about the shooting, never mind the process," he added. "The one thing I am sure of is that every time an agent pulls a trigger, their conduct is critically reviewed, and it is really, really scrubbed hard for all the details to see if they've done anything wrong."

The families of those killed and others find it hard to believe the cases are well-investigated because they can't see it. One of the families stuck in the process is that of Ramses Barron Torres, killed on the Mexican side of the border fence in Nogales, Sonora, by a Border Patrol agent on Jan. 5, 2011.

An FBI spokesman said at the time that Border Patrol agents were trying to arrest drug smugglers when people started throwing rocks at them. Sonoran police said Barron Torres was climbing on the south side of the border fence when shot. It's unclear whether he was a rock thrower.
Now, 23 months later, he FBI says the investigation is ongoing.

Another case has been open even longer: Jorge Solis-Palma was shot on Jan. 4, 2010, after, agents said, he threw rocks at them. The Cochise County Attorney's Office cleared the agent two months later, but the FBI still considers it "an ongoing matter" almost three years later.

In the days after Barron Torres was shot, "there were reporters from here, reporters from over there," his mother, Zelma, said in Spanish. "After a few days, they disappeared. Up till now, I don't know anything."

names are secret

When a Tucson police officer or a Pima County sheriff's deputy shoots and kills somebody, the process is mostly transparent and typically quick.

Both agencies make it a rule to inform the public of the incident quickly and include the officer's name. The Border Patrol keeps the names of agents involved in shootings secret - to the point that LaMadrid's family got a court order to force the federal government to reveal the name of the agent who shot him so they could serve him with legal papers.

On the local level, two investigations of shootings occur.

In one, the local homicide department looks into whether the officer broke the law. Investigators pass their findings to the county attorney's office for a ruling on whether charges should be filed.
In the other investigation, internal affairs decides whether the officer followed department rules and regulations.

Those cases are typically wrapped up in two to six months, attorney Calle said.

The different ways the two levels of government respond is typical, said Klinger, the University of Missouri professor.

"The further away from the populace the seat of power is, the less accountability there is," he said. "For whatever reason, people haven't been making a big stink about federal use of deadly force."
In Border Patrol shooting cases, the investigation may be in an "ongoing" status long after FBI special agents have completed their work, said James Turgal, special agent in charge of the agency's Phoenix division. That may be because prosecutors from the county to the U.S. Attorney's Office to the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., are considering their options.

"Just because the FBI walks down to the U.S. Attorney's Office and presents a case, it doesn't mean we get an answer the next day," he said.

doubtful witnesses

FBI agents enter Border Patrol shooting cases impartially, Turgal said. But the way some cases proceeded left witnesses with doubt.

On June 7, 2010, Border Patrol agents in San Diego killed Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas as they were expelling him from the country into Tijuana. In a press release, San Diego police said agents had uncuffed Hernandez-Rojas and he became violent, causing an agent to use a taser to subdue him.
But witnesses say, and video recordings of the incident show, Hernandez-Rojas's hands were restrained behind his back and he was lying on the ground, screaming for help, as about a dozen agents stood over him, when he was tased and died. The PBS program "Need to Know" revealed the videotapes and some witness accounts in two shows this year.

On June 7, 2010, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed 15-year-old Sergio Hernández-Guereca in a concrete canal that separates Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, from El Paso. In a news release, the FBI said the agent fired when a group "surrounded the agent and continued to throw rocks at him."

Witness accounts and videos show that the agent was not surrounded and that apparently no more than one person threw a rock at him. Nevertheless, the FBI labeled the incident as an "assault on a federal officer."

In some cases, the aftermath of the shootings does not inspire witnesses' confidence in investigators. In both the San Diego and El Paso cases, witnesses who were crossing border bridges when the shootings occurred said they were hustled away and not questioned.

One American woman who watched the agent shoot Hernández-Guereca said in a deposition that she refused to leave the bridge despite a security guard shouting at her, and she spoke to investigators only after she insisted on calling 911 and later called the FBI.

"No one approached me and said, 'Listen, can you tell us what happened?'" Bobbie James McDow said in a sworn deposition taken as part of a civil lawsuit. "It was basically, 'Get off the bridge, get off the bridge, get out of here.' "

More recently, a Nogales, Ariz., resident whose 911 call started chain of events that led to the killing of Jose Antonio Elena Rodríguez across the border, said no one has interviewed him.

Marco Gonzalez, a radio announcer who lives along the border, called 911 the night of Oct. 10 to tell police that people had jumped the border fence and were moving through his yard and a neighboring street. Soon after, he saw border agents drive by, then heard gunshots.

Neither Nogales police nor Border Patrol agents nor the FBI contacted him.

Sanctions unlikely

An agent who shoots somebody is unlikely to face prosecution or even internal discipline.
The Border Patrol declined to say whether the agents in any of the six recent Southern Arizona shooting cases were reprimanded. "Administrative and disciplinary actions of our employees are not made public," agency spokesman Brooks said in an email.

Calle, the Border Patrol union's lawyer, said in shootings it's "exceedingly rare that an agent faces disciplinary consequences for their conduct."

That's partly because most shootings are legally justified, agents and attorneys said. They argue there are more shootings now largely because more border jumpers resist arrest.

Also, they say, agents enjoy an assumption that they're in the right, and they face a higher threshold for prosecution than the average citizen.

"Law enforcement officers are given the benefit of the doubt, not only by juries and American citizens, but inside DAs' and U.S. attorneys' offices," said Johnny Sutton, who was U.S. attorney for the western district of Texas from 2001 to 2009. "You're always loath to prosecute a cop because you understand they're putting their lives on the line every day."

As U.S. attorney, Sutton ruled many shootings by agents justified and denied prosecution, he said, but his office also put two Border Patrol agents in prison. In 2005, agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean shot an unarmed drug trafficker who was running away. Their conviction and sentencing prompted a nationwide outcry led by television personalities. President Bush commuted their sentences on his last day in office.

Beyond the benefit of the doubt officers receive, their jobs make them less likely to be charged in the first place. Prosecutors must consider the likelihood of winning a conviction when taking on a case, and it's simply harder to win a case against a cop.

Cochise County Attorney Rheinheimer brought a second-degree murder case against Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Corbett in 2008, arguing Corbett's January 2007 killing of an illegal immigrant was unjustified and a crime. There were two trials, two hung juries and finally Rheinheimer dropped the case.

The Border Patrol agents union lambasted Rheinheimer for prosecuting, saying "he let undue influence from the Mexican government and the radical special-interest groups taint his decision-making ability."

Longtime Tucson civil-rights activist Isabel Garcia, an attorney, laid the blame for the loss on the public's misconception of the border area as a war zone.

"Even when we get what we should get - full prosecution - it's really hard to break that impunity," she said. "The public is very ignorant. They believe all the ugly stuff, so of course they give the agents full immunity."

If there's a next time, Rheinheimer said, he would factor in his failure to convict Corbett when deciding whether it's worth bringing charges against another agent.

That reality, he said, "is balanced against doing whatever is the right thing to do."

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/border-patrol-faces-little-accountability/article_7899cf6d-3f17-53bd-80a8-ad214b384221.html

Border Patrol agent suspected of smuggling drugs

PHOENIX (AP) -- A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been arrested after authorities say he used his patrol vehicle to smuggle drugs while on duty in southwest Arizona, according to a federal complaint.

Aaron Anaya was on patrol Sunday evening when he stopped along the international border, then loaded up several bundles of marijuana that had been dropped over the fence from Mexico, according to the complaint filed this week in federal court in Arizona.

Agents assigned to the Southwest Border Corruption Task Force had been conducting aerial surveillance in the area between Yuma and Wellton, about 185 miles southwest of Phoenix, when they spotted Anaya stop along the fence and retrieve the bundles, the complaint states. It does not say whether Anaya was the target of the initial surveillance or merely observed during the overall operation.

Authorities say the task force continued to track Anaya for several hours as he appeared to return to normal patrol duties.

The complaint says the agent was later arrested with nearly 147 pounds of marijuana found in three black duffel bags in his Border Patrol vehicle.

He is charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana and carrying a firearm - his service weapons - while committing the crime.

Asked if he was willing to speak to investigators, Anaya responded with an expletive, then said, "You guys got me on video," before asking for an attorney, according to the complaint.

Anaya's federal public defender didn't immediately return a telephone message Tuesday. His telephone number wasn't listed. Union representatives for the Border Patrol's Yuma sector didn't respond to emails.

The FBI, which was part of the task force, declined to discuss the case.

Yuma Sector Chief Border Patrol Agent Stephen S. Martin said the agency will fully cooperate with investigators.

"While I am sorely disappointed by the alleged conduct of one of our own, I appreciate the efforts by our law enforcement partners and our own agents to uncover those that violate their oath of office, and hold them accountable for their actions," Martin said in a statement Tuesday.

http://www.azfamily.com/news/Border-Patrol-agent-suspected-of-smuggling-drugs-182057541.html

Border agent wounds man near Gila Bend: 2nd such incident this week, at least 9th since Jan. '10

A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and injured a man Tuesday evening south of Gila Bend.

It was the latest in a series of shootings by border agents in Arizona - the second this week, the fourth since Oct. 2 and at least the ninth since January 2010.

In this case, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported, Yuma Sector agents responded to possible bandit activity near a checkpoint on Arizona 85.

The agents came across two armed men about 14 miles southwest of Gila Bend, and at least one of the agents fired, hitting one of the armed men, the agency said in a news release.

That man was flown to a Phoenix hospital and is in stable condition; the other man, a Mexican national illegally in the country, was arrested. Agents found a handgun and an assault rifle at the scene, the news release said.

The FBI is investigating.

On Sunday at midday, an agent working in the southern Baboquivari Mountains on the Tohono O'odham Nation shot and killed a man whom the agency described as getting into an altercation with the agent.

Neither Mexican consular officials nor the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office knew the identities of either man shot in this week's incidents.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/border-agent-wounds-man-near-gila-bend/article_1da78974-695c-56ea-b1f3-c06f56cd44e3.html

Family of teen killed in border shooting alleges excessive force, will sue

PHOENIX -- The family of a teenager shot and killed in an incident at the border last week says they will file a lawsuit alleging excessive force.

According to Nogales Mayor Ramon Guzman Munoz, Jose Rodriguez, 16, died in "a hail of bullets." He said the teen was hit seven times. Another Mexican official said Rodriguez, pictured above in a photo taken several years ago, was shot in the back.

It happened Wednesday after the Border Patrol received reports of suspected drug smugglers. Agents reportedly saw two people abandon a load of drugs and dart back across the border into Mexico.

Those people then began throwing rocks at the agents, ignoring orders to stop.

That's when an agent opened fire.

Police found Rodriguez' body on a sidewalk near the border barrier.

While a Mexican official told The Associated Press the teen was shot by the Border Patrol agent, the Border Patrol has said only that shots were fired that night. The agency has not identified the agent who fired and is not commenting pending the outcome of the investigation.

Rodriguez' family has not said exactly when they will file suit.

Border agents are generally allowed to use lethal force against rock throwers, and there are several ongoing investigations into similar shootings in Arizona and Texas.

http://www.azfamily.com/news/Family-of-teen-killed-in-border-shooting-alleges-excessive-force-174375151.html

U.S. Border Patrol Fires at Rock Throwers in Mexico, and Three Have Died

 Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, a stocky 16-year-old Mexican boy died face down on a pitted concrete sidewalk in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. José Antonio Elena Rodriguez had been shot seven times. His alleged killer, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, had gunned him down from the Arizona side of the border.

The Border Patrol, in a statement to The Daily Beast, claims the FBI is investigating the shooting, which began when Border Patrol agents came upon smugglers dropping loads of narcotics in Nogales, Ariz. As the smugglers hightailed it back into Mexico, the agents were “assaulted” with rocks from the Mexican side, the statement says. The agents ordered the rock throwers to “cease.” When the rocks kept coming in from Mexico, an agent “discharged his service weapon.” The Border Patrol did not say an agent killed the boy, but said instead “one of the subjects appeared to have been hit.”

The unlikely scenario of Border Patrol agents in the United States gunning down Mexican rock throwers in Mexico has played out several times in the last two years, outraging the Mexican government, raising questions about the Border Patrol’s use of force, and causing diplomatic huddles between the two countries.

“This is happening with a disturbing frequency,” a high-placed Mexican official who is very familiar with the Rodriguez shooting investigation tells The Daily Beast.  “It’s about use of force. How much of a threat is a rock compared to a firearm?”

Not counting the Rodriguez case, in the last two years, Border Patrol agents in the United States have reportedly shot and killed at least three Mexicans in Mexico, and injured at least one other, according to press reports. In each case, rocks were allegedly thrown from Mexico into the United States either as a way to divert agents from arresting Mexicans or as a mean-spirited taunt.

At least one other killing may have occurred in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. On Jan. 5, 2011, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed 17-year-old Ramses Barron Torres when he and others on the Mexican side of the fence allegedly began throwing rocks at Border Patrol agents making a drug bust in the United States, according to Nogales International newspaper.

A year before, a Mexican teen was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The agent claimed the boys were running into the United States, then running back into Mexico. When he grabbed one of the boys, the agent said, the others began throwing rocks at him. He fired. The family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the agent in the United States, but it was dismissed, according to the El Paso Times, because the shooting occurred in Mexico.

A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle keeps watch along the border fence in Nogales, Ariz. (Ross Franklin / AP Photo)

Another fatal shooting occurred in September. A Mexican man on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande near Nuevo Laredo was shot by a Border Patrol agent aboard a boat in U.S. waters, according to the San Antonio Express-News. The family said the man was picnicking; the Border Patrol said the victim was pelting the agent with rocks.

The Mexican official familiar with all the investigations tells The Daily Beast that in addition to the shootings in Mexico, in the last six years, more than two dozen Mexicans have been “shot, Tazered, or otherwise abused” by Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement officials on the American side of the border. Very often, rock throwing is part of the scenario. Since the shootings are found to be justifiable by U.S. officials, the message to Border Patrol agents is, “it’s fair game for a Border Patrol agent to shoot a Mexican,” he says.

“What would happen,” the official asks, “if the tables were turned?  What would happen if an American teenager threw rocks at a Mexican agent and the Mexican agent shot the American? This is the question we always ask Americans.”

Mexican leaders met Friday in Mexico City to discuss the Rodriguez killing, according to The Arizona Republic, and the shooting has been roundly condemned by all levels of Mexican government. In Washington on Thursday, the Mexican Embassy issued a blistering statement saying preliminary information about the Rodriguez shooting raises “serious doubts about the use of lethal force by U.S. Border Patrol agents, something that both the Mexican Government and Mexican society strongly deplore and condemn.”

The shootings have sparked “conversations” between the United States and Mexico, says Christopher Wilson, an expert on Border Patrol issues and associate in the Mexico Institute Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. No one wants to deprive the Border Patrol of the use of weapons to deter and defend, says Wilson. But the shootings “have happened several times” and bear similarities—young victims, rock throwing, and a debate over whether the victims were really rock throwers, narco-traffickers, or innocent bystanders.

‘What would happen if an American teenager threw rocks at a Mexican agent and the Mexican agent shot the American? This is the question we always ask Americans.’

“There’s a lot of space for conversations on creative ways” for the United States to manage Border Patrol “protocols,” Wilson says, so such incidents don’t occur in the future.

At least one method—shooting things other than bullets—seems to work. Last year, a Nogales-based Border Patrol agent “used a pepper ball launcher to repel a rock-throwing smuggling suspect and seize $12,500 worth of marijuana,” the Nogales International reported.

No one was injured.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/13/u-s-border-patrol-fires-at-rock-throwers-in-mexico-and-three-have-died.html

Border deaths at historic highs even as crossings plunge

Historically low numbers of people are crossing the border illegally into Southern Arizona this year, but they're still dying at historically high rates.

In the 10 months through July 31, remains of 161 suspected illegal immigrants have been found in Southern Arizona from New Mexico to the Yuma County line.

That puts this year's death toll on pace to end up at about the annual average for the last decade - 197 - even though that period includes years when there were three to four times as many attempted crossings.

That means the rate of border deaths so far this year - the number of deaths per 100,000 apprehensions - is at about the record high set last year, 154. Illegally crossing the border into Arizona is riskier than it's ever been.

Experts point to a few factors keeping the death rate up.

With the border harder to cross, "smugglers will guide illegal aliens through more remote, harsh terrain to avoid detection by law enforcement, which increases risk of death," U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Brent Cagen said in a written response to questions.

Another possible factor: Central Americans seem to be a growing proportion of those crossing the border illegally. They may arrive at the U.S. border already in greater distress than Mexicans who are just leaving their home country, said Geoff Boyce, spokesman for No More Deaths, a group that patrols areas southwest of Tucson to help migrants.

Also, not every set of remains may be from a recently deceased person.

Joe Adams and his crew have found at least two sets of remains in the last couple of months. Adams, a St. Louis private investigator who leads a border-watch team in the area south of Three Points, reported a woman's decomposing body in early May.

Mariana Chaverri Piña had died in the previous few days. But they also found the bones of at least one person in July, and it was unclear how long that body had been there.

"In 2011, nearly half of all discoveries of deceased individuals were those of skeletal remains," wrote Cagen of the Border Patrol.

frantic phone call
Just last week, a family in Waukegan, Ill., was urgently calling authorities in Arizona, begging them to search for their lost loved one. It's a phenomenon that happens here all summer as the heat takes crossers down.

Jaime Pasillas, 42, a father of four American-citizen children, had returned to Mexico earlier this summer to renew a 10-year visa, his family said through announcements from the League of United Latin American Citizens. But his renewal was rejected, and he decided to return illegally.

On July 30, Pasillas called his family to tell them he was crossing from Sonora into Arizona with a "coyote," or smuggler, and would arrive in three to five days, but then they heard nothing. On Aug. 9, family members spoke with the last person known to have seen Pasillas alive.

The picture he painted was painful: Pasillas' feet were wounded in the crossing, and he was lagging behind the group. On Aug. 6, the guides left Pasillas in the desert around Santa Rosa in the northern Tohono O'odham Nation, with a gallon of water. The high temperature that day in Ajo and Tucson was 106 degrees.

Family members came to Southern Arizona to try to help find him, and Julie Contreras of LULAC urged tribal authorities and the Border Patrol to search. The patrol did prepare to launch a search early Aug. 13, but then they found out the O'odham police had found a body three days before.
While final identification has not occurred, the family has identified Pasillas by a tattoo. Now they are working to get his body returned to Waukegan.

At border, in distress
Some crossers are arriving at the border already in medical distress.

Tucson-based Humane Borders is setting up water stations in Mexico, in cooperation with Mexican authorities, because some migrants have walked so far before even crossing the border into the U.S.
"Many people that are trying to cross are going to points extremely far east or west of the main crossing areas while still on Mexican soil," said Bob Feinman, a board member of Humane Borders. "By foot these can be a couple or three days."

Indeed, agents in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector are on pace to carry out about 13 percent more rescues this year than last, when they recorded 500.

No More Deaths members, who work in the broad area around Arivaca, have seen the same trend, Boyce said. Migrants walk west from Nogales for a day or two to get into the better-hidden canyons and washes before cutting north into the United States.

"By the time people get to where we're going to see them in our work," he said, "it adds that much more strain and environmental exposure."


Rate of death rises
The number of people trying to cross the border into Southern Arizona illegally has been plummeting, but the number of people dying in the process is not. The reason: It's more risky to cross. This chart shows the number of bodies found in the Tucson Sector per 100,000 Border Patrol apprehensions. While apprehensions aren't a direct measure of crossings, other measures have also shown migration is extremely low.

Year Number of deaths per 100,000 apprehensions
2004 39
2005 52
2006 46
2007 59
2008 57
2009 88
2010 119
2011 154
2012* 153
* Through July 31

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/border-deaths-at-historic-highs-even-as-crossings-plunge/article_90dd06a4-63cd-5ca2-b40a-f499909bf7ae.html

MUSIC VIDEO:Shining Soul: 'Papers' Militarization of Border

SHINING SOUL MUSIC VIDEO "PAPERS"

WEBSITE: http://shiningsoul-music.blogspot.com/
DOWNLOAD AT: http://shiningsoulmusic.bandcamp.com/
EMAIL: WORKWITHSHININGSOUL@GMAIL.COM




"The militarization of the U.S./Mexico border
has led only to cultural and environmental destruction
of the indigenous peoples whose land is on or near
the border, such as the O'odham, Yaqui
and Lipan Apache Nations.

Border Militarization brings death and terror
to indigenous peoples from other parts
of the continent migrating to this land.

The immigration struggle is also
an Indigenous struggle. '

http://oodhamsolidarity.blogspot.com/2011/07/music-videoshining-soul-papers.html

Comatose Border Patrol Victim Spared Deportation, Removal from St. Joseph's (For Now)

by Stephen Lemons

Univision

Jose Gutierrez, who is in a vegetative state, with part of his skull removed

Saint Joseph is traditionally the patron saint of workers and immigrants. The latter is because the father of Jesus was forced to flee to Egypt to save the Christ child from Herod the Great's wrath. Once King Herod was dead, Joseph moved his family back to Israel, settling in Nazareth.

There is a large statue of St. Joseph outside of his namesake hospital in Phoenix, which was founded in 1895 by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy, but St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center does not always pity the poor immigrant as it should.

This morning, Shena Wilson, the wife of Jose Gutierrez Guzman, kept watch over her husband in the hospital's intensive care unit, under the guard of two U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers. Not that Gutierrez was in any condition to escape their clutches.

At that time, Gutierrez was, for reasons unknown, not listed as a patient in St. Joseph's directory. Nevertheless, he lay comatose with part of his skull removed. He sustained Taser marks, a broken tooth, and a severe head injury after his run in with the Border Patrol near the San Luis, Arizona port of entry. He also has two black eyes.

No wonder CBP wanted to boot him from the country, stat.

According to New Times' sister paper LA Weekly, the CBP has stated that "the man struck his head on the ground during the incident." That's a lot of damage from a trip and fall. Unless, gravity received a little help.

Gutierrez had lived in the United States since he was nine, Wilson told me.

He was deported this past March 21, although he was a resident of Los Angeles, held a steady job as a film engineer, and fronted for LZ10, which the LA Weekly describes as a "popular Spanish-rock band." Wilson told me Gutierrez was desperate to get back to the United States, as Mexico is not his home and as his daughter was in the hospital.

But Gutierrez did not make it back to Los Angeles. After receiving substantial injuries while in CBP custody, he was hospitalized. Wilson's lawyer, Brian Lerner, told me the Border Patrol and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security wanted to again deport Gutierrez. But Lerner obtained a stay from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, blocking this.

When I spoke with him, Lerner informed me that St. Joseph's wanted to remove Gutierrez in his vegetative state to Mexico, and that he was seeking further relief from the Ninth Circuit to prevent such action.

"Their words were that they were going to `transfer' him back to Mexico," Lerner said of his discussions with the hospital.

St. Joseph's spokeswoman Carmelle Malkovich e-mailed me the following statement after I called her for comment:

The situation related to our patient Jose Gutierrez continues to be very fluid. Earlier today we learned that the federal government will not be prosecuting Mr. Gutierrez, and he is no longer in their custody. Homeland Security personnel have left the hospital and he is now here as a regular patient.

This means that the federal authorities are no longer directing his location and gives us very different options for transitioning the patient to serve his long term care needs.

Because of this change, any plans to transfer the patient anywhere today have been cancelled.

We will continue to focus on the safety of the patient as he recovers. St. Joseph's is not licensed to administer long term medical care. We will work with his family to transition him to the next level of care. Mr. Gutierrez's condition has improved and he no longer needs acute care, which is the only type of care we are licensed to provide.

No other details have been confirmed at this time.

Suzanne Pfister, VP of External Affairs with St. Joe's, denied that the hospital wanted to remove Gutierrez on its own, and that it had just been following the lead of the CBP.

Lerner disputed this, stating that St. Joe's "backed down." He found Pfister's characterization "a little disingenuous."

He said that he'd been preparing to ask the Ninth Circuit to step in once more and halt any action by the hospital when he received word that St. Joe's had relented.

Lerner related that Gutierrez would likely be transferred to a California facility next week sometime.

He warned that if St. Joe's attempted to remove Gutierrez to Mexico, "I can get to the Ninth Circuit very quickly."

St. Joseph's is a not-for-profit facility. Malkovich at one point described it to me as "private." It's exempt from corporate taxes, and it receives untold millions in federal grants and Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

Nevertheless, St. Joe's has been known to remove from the U.S. severely ill folks who happen to be undocumented. Back in 2007, I wrote about the death of Joe Arvisu, a North High School student with leukemia who suffered a head injury, became a patient at St. Joe's and was ultimately shipped back to a hospital in Mexico, where he died.

Lerner believes St. Joe's would have put Gutierrez in an ambulance headed for Mexico, despite Gutierrez being in a coma, had he and Wilson not put up a fight.

He promised that "a lawsuit will go forward" on the matter once Gutierrez is back in California and his condition is stable.

CBP did not return repeated calls for comment. Can't say that I blame them. This was turning into a public relations disaster for both CBP and St. Joe's.

Local pro-immigrant advocacy group Puente deserves credit for alerting the local media and for protesting St. Joe's last night and this morning. Such activism and media scrutiny doesn't hurt. In this case, it likely helped, particularly in regard to St. Joe's actions.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/04/saint_josephs_wants_to_remove.php

U.S. Border Patrol agent in Yuma sector indicted on drug charges

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was indicted Tuesday on charges of trafficking marijuana along the Mexican border, authorities said.

A federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment against Michael Angelo Atondo after fellow Border Patrol agents found him with 44 bundles of marijuana in his vehicle in a remote area April 4, according to Robbie Sherwood, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Sherwood gave this account:

Atondo set off a sensor several miles away from his Wellton-area patrol zone in an area just east of San Luis. When agents arrived, he was standing in uniform next to his Border Patrol vehicle, which was backed up to the border fence.

Parked on the other side were two Jeep Cherokees backed up to the fence. When the Border Patrol agents approached the three vehicles, the Jeeps fled deeper into Mexico.

The agents discovered 44 packages of marijuana in the back of Atondo's vehicle, each weighing totaling about 745 pounds.

The haul had an estimated wholesale value of $371,000.

Officials with the DEA and IRS launched an investigation.

Atondo was charged with conspiracy to commit importation of marijuana, importation of marijuana, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana and possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

If convicted, Atondo could spend up to 40 years in prison on each count, as well as a $2 million fine and four years of supervised release.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/04/12/20110412yuma-border-patrol-agent-indicted-marijuana-0412abrk.html

Tucson Group “Polices” the Police on Immigration

TUCSON, Ariz.— A coalition of community groups in Tuscon is using video to show how readily police are cooperating with Border Patrol, despite local law enforcement’s stated opposition to Arizona’s new immigration law before it took effect.

The “Yo Soy Testigo” ("I’m a witness") campaign, launched by Tucson-based Coalición Derechos Humanos, seeks to shine a light on the practice of police cooperation with Border Patrol in the city.

The group, in partnership with PanLeft Productions and Migra Patrol CopWatch, has been using video cameras to document just how often police officers are detaining Latinos—with or without documents—and turning them over to immigration authorities. The group hopes that the videos will increase community awareness of how police are really treating Latinos, despite their supposed opposition to SB1070, and will pressure law enforcement to change its policies.

“We want to expose this reality and for people in the community to take responsibility,” said Isabel Garcia, director of Coalición de Derechos Humanos. She urges people to call the Yo Soy Testigo hotline to report any incidents so they can be videotaped and documented.

Prior to SB 1070, local police departments and other state agencies already had their own policies to detain undocumented immigrants on a discretionary basis. Had a court allowed the new law to take full effect, such detentions would have become mandatory throughout Arizona.

But the mandatory detention provision of SB 1070 provoked a strong outcry from the state's local law officers.

“We are not interested in enforcing federal immigration law,” said Captain Michael Gillooly, the Tucson Police Department's chief of staff. “The problem with SB 1070 is that it mandated we did that.”

In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star in July, Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said: “Although illegal immigration has undeniable impacts on Arizona, requiring local police already strapped for resources to act as immigration agents is not the answer.”

The Pima County Sheriff's Department and the South Tucson Police Department also opposed SB 1070.

But despite such widespread opposition, videos captured by Jason Aragon of PanLeft and Migra Patrol Copwatch show a different picture.

A recent video posted online, titled “SB 1070 is in full effect,” shows a woman detained by Tucson police and then shortly after taken away by Border Patrol.

Lynda Cruz, a volunteer with Migra Patrol CopWatch, was present that day, and said the woman was pulled over for a minor infraction. The woman, a legal resident, had forgotten her wallet at home and didn’t have any identification, Cruz says.

Volunteers like Cruz advise people who are detained to refuse to speak with their captors and to request the presence of their attorney.

When New America Media asked about this incident, Gillooly said the Tucson Police Department was confident that the officer acted appropriately and was following department policy.

“Our investigation of that revealed that when the Border Patrol arrived, that female refused to answer any questions,” Gillooly said. He said the federal agent was forced to take her to the station to check whether she was an undocumented immigrant.

When asked why the police detained this woman and called the Border Patrol, Gillooly said he wouldn’t provide any more information.

Cruz said similar incidents have occurred in South Tucson, an area that is predominantly Hispanic.

Gillooly said the department has not seen an increase in complaints from community members about possible racial profiling or police abuse.

“People don’t complain? How are they going to complain if they are the ones retaliated against?” responded Garcia of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos.

The situation in Tucson hasn’t attracted nearly as much media attention as the controversial immigration raids in Latino neighborhoods in Phoenix by Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies. But, in many ways, the dynamics at play in Tucson are creating heightened tensions.

About 40 percent of the city’s half-million residents are Latinos. Tucson, located less than two hours from the Mexican border, is also home to a Border Patrol station, which facilitates more direct cooperation between police and U.S. immigration authorities. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has 3,300 Border Patrol agents dedicated to the Tucson sector of the border.

In the past five years, the Border Patrol added 1,000 agents as part of a federal effort to escalate border security.

Unlike Phoenix, it is not uncommon to see Border Patrol cars driving through Tucson. Many of those who work at the Border Patrol station live in the community.

“People are divided over this issue,” said Alex González, a volunteer [or “promotoras”] with Coalición de Derechos Humanos. “Even families are divided on this.”

She said the new “Yo Soy Testigo” hotline has been flooded with calls denouncing police detentions and cooperation with Border Patrol.

One of the calls she took last week came from Gerardo Robles, a heartbroken undocumented immigrant, who sobbed over the phone in desperation. His wife, who was also undocumented, was pulled over by a Tucson police officer in a traffic stop. The officer called the Border Patrol, and now his wife is in a detention center.

Robles and his family have been living in Tucson for six years. He said they considered leaving the state because of SB 1070 but had been hoping for the best— in the past, police had stopped him on several occasions but had never called the Border Patrol. The politics behind SB 1070 might have changed things, he said.

“A criminal that traffics with drugs—those people are in the streets,” he said. “They are the ones that are free. My wife was coming back from work to feed our two children.”

http://newamericamedia.org/2010/09/tucson-group-polices-the-police.php

Group attacks border fence in protest of border patrol shooting

A group of young people demonstrated on the Rio Grande near the Santa Fe bridge Saturday to protest the fatal shooting Monday of a 15-year-old Juárez boy a U.S. Border Patrol agent. The demonstrators appeared to have crossed the Rio Grande and attacked the international fence on the U.S. side of the border. The demonstrators also cut a hole in the fence.

The protest was staged after the shooting death of Sergio Adrian Hernández Guereca, who was killed by a Border Patrol agent trying to make an arrest during a rock-throwing incident near the Paso del Norte Bridge in Downtown El Paso.

Officials said the agent was defending himself when he fired his weapon three times. The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation in the case.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15284326?source=most_viewed