Minutemen, Oath Keepers, CA State Militia, on the California Border

Gathering aims to relaunch Minutemen, fortify border, in response to caravan.

Operation Cinco de Mayo: In this video from the San Diego Union Tribune the founder of the Minutemen, former California State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly explains why he called for the muster on the border of California and Mexico. The groups that responded to the call were Minutemen, Oath Keepers, and the California State Militia. Tim Donnelly is currently running for Congress.

At the end of the San Diego Union-Tribune excerpt are photos by Lisa Collins. Wonder what the border actually looks like? See the photos below. There are plans to continue these operations on our southern border.

From the article by by Bradley J. Fikes for the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Pledging to report unauthorized entries into the United States — and shame any state leaders who welcome them — about 20 border security supporters assembled Saturday morning near Jamul.

The group, including members of the Minuteman patrol movement, coordinated volunteers to watch designated border regions for 24 hours.

Their vigil, starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, was meant to help federal officers, Minuteman leader Tim Donnelly said.

By reporting unauthorized border crossings, the observers hope to help outnumbered border officers, Donnelly said. He is a Republican candidate for the 8th congressional district, which covers much of the desert area north of Imperial County.

The border-watching exercise was in part a reaction to the caravan of Central Americans who traveled through Mexico to enter the U.S. at the border between San Diego and Tijuana, said Donnelly, a former assemblyman.

Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune A group of border security supporters put on their gear in preparation for heading to the U.S. – Mexican border to observe and report any signs of illegal immigration to the U.S. Border Patrol.

It was also meant as a warning to Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the California Values Act, which limits law enforcement in the state from certain kinds of cooperation with federal immigration officials. The law has been criticized as an effort to make California a sanctuary for unauthorized immigrants.

“My hope is that we will reignite the (Minuteman) movement and that people will again be aiding (border agents) for longer periods of time, longer musters,” Donnelly said.

The camouflage-dressed volunteers, wearing boots, bringing backpacks and other wilderness gear, were instructed on safety such as avoiding rattlesnakes before heading out from Pio Pico campground.

Volunteers were told to avoid confrontations with border crossers if possible, and to help those in distress.

“There is no animus toward those who are crossing desperate, you know, to escape oppression,” Donnelly said. “But at the same time, among those people come through wolves, people who mean harm people like Luis Bracamontes, who was just recently sentenced to death here in California for executing two sheriff’s deputies up in Sacramento.”

While expressing sympathy for plight of border crossers, Donnelly and others blasted Brown, who they said has violated his oath of office.

“This is not about waving American flags,” Donnelly said. “This is about actually securing the border and sending a message to the political authorities, to Jerry Brown.

“I dare Jerry Brown to come down and arrest me, because you might get arrested down here for being a tyrant, for being a traitor, for aiding and abetting illegal aliens and harboring them in violation of federal law, which is the supreme law of the land when it comes to immigration.”

Read more at The San Diego Union-Tribune

Photos by Lisa Collins, Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. of CA, who handled the logistics for Tim Donnelly:

Securing the border with the Minutemen, Oath Keepers and Militia at Patriot Point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The post Minutemen, Oath Keepers, CA State Militia, on the California Border appeared first on Oath Keepers.

Border Patrol Supervisor Arrested for Allegedly Beating a Mom and Her Infant Son to Death

A decorated Border Patrol supervisor was arrested this week on two counts of capital murder after a woman and her one-year-old son were found dead in a park.

The post Border Patrol Supervisor Arrested for Allegedly Beating a Mom and Her Infant Son to Death appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

Border Patrol Supervisor Arrested for Allegedly Beating a Mom and Her Infant Son to Death

A decorated Border Patrol supervisor was arrested this week on two counts of capital murder after a woman and her one-year-old son were found dead in a park.

The post Border Patrol Supervisor Arrested for Allegedly Beating a Mom and Her Infant Son to Death appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

Man Files Complaint Against Border Patrol for Trespassing—So They Put a Spy Camera On His Property

After a family filed an official complaint with the U.S. Border Patrol regarding agents who were trespassing on their land, the agents returned and set up a surveillance camera on the property.

The post Man Files Complaint Against Border Patrol for Trespassing—So They Put a Spy Camera On His Property appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

They Seized His Truck Because He Had 5 Bullets

Driving with bullets apparently is now a crime in America. That’s what one U.S. citizen discovered.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized Gerardo Serrano’s truck and kept it for two years because he had five rounds in his center console.

The truck was stopped by CBP at a border crossing in Eagle Pass, Texas, because Serrano was taking pictures of the border crossing to share with his family, the Institute for Justice alleges. That caused agents to search his truck.

Discover How To Become Invisible In Today’s Surveillance State!

When they found five low-caliber bullets, the agents alleged Serrano with transporting “munitions of war” and instituted civil forfeiture proceedings against him. That enabled them to take the Ford F-250 without even charging Serrano with a crime. He had to rent a car to get home to Kentucky.

Detained for Taking Pictures

“Gerardo was never convicted of a crime, let alone charged with one,” the Institute alleges. “Indeed, forgetting a few bullets in your car is not a crime. For taking pictures, Gerardo’s truck was seized under a law designed to punish international arms smugglers, not innocent Americans visiting family in Mexico.”

The Institute added, “No court has ever approved the seizure of Gerardo’s truck, and Gerardo has never had an opportunity to argue that he should get the truck back.”

To get the truck back, the Institute had to sue the CPB on Serrano’s behalf. Finally, it was returned in late October.

“The government cannot illegally seize and keep someone’s property for two years, and then give it back and pretend like no harm was done,” said Institute attorney Robert Everett Johnson. “We will continue to fight to see that Gerardo is made whole, and to make sure this never happens again.”

Under civil forfeiture law, prosecutors sue a piece of property in civil court instead of filing criminal charges. That enables them to take property, or money without filing charges or going to criminal court.

What is your reaction? Share it in the section below:

Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio found guilty of ‘contempt of court’

MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. (INTELLIHUB) — Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio claims that he did not intentionally go against a previous ruling by a federal judge when he turned illegals over to authorities but was still charged with criminal contempt.

America’s toughest sheriff told authorities that he did not authorize DHS or ICE to turn illegal aliens over to U.S. Border Patrol and claimed that the judge’s ruling wasn’t very clear.

In 2011 a judge ruled that ‘just because someone is in the country illegally doesn’t mean that law enforcement can arrest them.’

One American Civil Liberties Union supporter said that she can’t wait until the day comes that the former sheriff is behind bars.

“Experts believe that Arpaio will not go to jail,” a Fox News staffer reports.

Featured Image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

Disturbing Video Shows US Border Agents Make 16yo Boy Drink Liquid Meth Until He Dies

Disturbing government surveillance video, released this week, has sparked outrage from Congress and the public alike. The video shows two U.S. Border Patrol agents encourage a 16-year-old boy to drink liquid meth — until he died.

The video was obtained this week by ABC and it entirely contradicts the agents’ statements claiming the boy drank the meth on his own.

The boy, 16-year-old Cruz Velazquez, died within two hours of drinking the concentrated liquid meth. However, the two officers, Valerie Baird and Adrian Perallon, who enticed him to drink it remain on the job today and never faced disciplinary action.

According to ABC, a former head of internal affairs at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, James Tomsheck, told ABC News the two officers violated agency protocols by allowing the young man to drink from the bottle, and that he was told at the time they would be punished.

“If they truly suspected there was a controlled substance in the bottle,” Tomsheck said, “they should’ve conducted a field test.”

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However, there was no field test. Instead, the officers used a human teenager as their lab rat and it cost him his life.

“Drug smuggling is wrong and is a crime, but this teenage boy did not deserve a death sentence,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the ranking member on the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security told ABC News. “For CBP officers to inflict a summary death sentence is not only immoral but also illegal.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee agreed with Lofgren.

“In order for CBP officers to prevent smuggling, ensure public safety, and do their difficult job at the border properly, CBP must have the appropriate protocols in place and officers must follow them,” Thompson told ABC News. “While there is no excuse for attempting to bring illicit substances into the country, it is absolutely clear from the video that there were numerous failures in judgement and procedure that led to the senseless death of a 16-year-old boy. CBP must ensure that such a tragedy never occurs again.”

READ MORE:  School Cop Grabs Gun, Tries to Arrest Straight-A Student — for Violating Dress Code

After the teen’s death, an ‘investigation’ was conducted which cleared the officers of any wrongdoing. Both officers denied telling Velasquez to drink the meth and the official report called it an ‘accident.’

“What you see, I think, is a basic lack of compassion and decency toward a 16-year-old boy,” said Gene Iredale, the San Diego-based attorney who represented the Velazquez family. “Almost a delight that you would see in children who just pull the wings off flies slowly, a smile when he’s being asked to drink something and being put in this position.”

“They know what’s going on. This is a game in which he is being played with,” Iredale told ABC.

In the still image from the video below, we can see the officers encourage the teen to drink the meth.

Once he drinks it, the officers laugh and encourage him to drink more.

In total, the teen swallowed four sips from the bottle of meth — enough to send him into cardiac arrest and stop his heart. Minutes later, he began sweating and screaming in Spanish about “the chemicals” in the solution. “My heart! My heart!” he yelled, records showed. Officers waited more than thirty minutes before contacting EMTs. Two hours later, he would be pronounced dead.

Sadly, no one will be held responsible for his death — except for the U.S. taxpayer that is.

In March, taxpayers paid for the criminal negligence of the officers and the Velazquez family received $1 million to settle a lawsuit. The border patrol issued no apology, no admission of wrongdoing, and both officers testified that they never received so much as a slap on the wrist for their conduct.

READ MORE:  WATCH: School Teacher Owns Border Patrol Agents, Refuses to Comply with "Citizenship Check"

“How can the government allow that? It’s like, ‘OK you can kill someone,’” Reyna Velazquez, Cruz’s sister, told ABC News. “They took him as a fool, as who cares. Well, that fool, he was the greatest person I ever knew.”

WATCH: School Teacher Owns Border Patrol Agents, Refuses to Comply with ‘Citizenship Check’

A middle school teacher was detained for over an hour by U.S. Border Patrol agents, after she refused to comply with their “citizenship check,” when driving through New Mexico — inside the United States — far from the Mexican border.

Shane Parmely, a teacher at Bell Middle School in San Diego, refused to answer when she was asked by a border patrol agent if she was a “citizen.” She told ABC 10 that she did not comply with the officers to protest the fact that border agents have been unjustly targeting and profiling Latino drivers.

When Parmely pulled up to the checkpoint, in a car with her two children, one of the officers demanded to know if they were citizens.

“Citizens?” the agent barked.

“Are we crossing a border?” Parmely responded.

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“No. Are you United States citizens?” the agent repeated.

“Are we crossing a border? I’ve never been asked if I’m a citizen before when I’m traveling down the road,” Parmely repeated defiantly.

When Parmely attempted to assert her rights, the agent told her that “You are required to answer an immigration question. You are not required to answer any other questions.”

Then Parmely asked the agent, “So if I just come through and say, ‘Yes, I’m a citizen,’ I can just go ahead?”

“If the agent is justified by the answer, then yes,” he responded.

Parmely then explained that she knew people who were unjustly targetted because of the color of their skin. “So if I have an accent, and I’m brown, can I just say, ‘Yes,’ and go ahead or do I have to prove it? I have a bunch of teacher friends who are sick of their kids being discriminated against,” she said.

READ MORE:  Ex-Border Patrol Guard Sentenced to 12 Years For Smuggling Cocaine

Parmely continued to stand her ground, and she was eventually let go without answering the agents’ questions.

In response to the incident, Border Patrol Spokesman Mark Endicott released a statement justifying the actions of the agents:

“Border Patrol checkpoints are a critical tool for the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws. At a Border Patrol checkpoint, an agent may question a vehicle’s occupants about their citizenship, place of birth, and request document proof of immigration status, how legal status was obtained and make quick observations of what is in plain view in the interior of the vehicle. During the course of the immigration inspection, if an occupant refuses to answer an agent’s questions, the agent may detain the driver for a reasonable amount of time until he or she can make a determination regarding the occupant’s immigration status.”

In a Facebook post after the encounter, Parmely said, “Enforcing racist laws perpetuates institutional racism. I’m sick of helping perpetuate racist laws just because I’m not inconvenienced by them.”

When Parmely refused to tell the agents whether or not she was a citizen, one of the officers showed her a card showing the current immigration laws and a supreme court decision that allegedly gives them the right to ask drivers if they are citizens—if they happen to be within 100 miles of the US border. This ruling has created what many activists have called a “constitution free zone.” Two-thirds of the United States’ population, about 200 million people live in this area.

It is important to mention that these powers are disputed by the American Civil Liberties Union, who suggests that border patrol agents claim to have more authority than they actually do.

READ MORE:  Cop Who Illegally Kidnapped and Beat Down Syndrome Man Says He Would Do It Again if He Could

According to the ACLU:

“8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(3) addresses CBP officials’authority to stop and conduct searches on vessels, trains, aircraft, or other vehicles anywhere within ‘a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States.’ Without further statutory guidance, regulations alone expansively define this ‘reasonable distance’ as 100 air miles from any external boundary of the U.S., including coastal boundaries, unless an agency official sets a shorter distance.1CBP agentscan also even enter private property without a warrant (excepting dwellings) within 25 miles of any border. In this 100-mile zone, CBP has claimed certain extra-constitutional powers. For instance, Border Patrol claims the authority tooperate immigration checkpoints. Agents, nevertheless, cannot pull anyone over without ‘reasonable suspicion’ of an immigration violation or crime (more than just a ‘hunch’). Similarly, courts have determined that outside of Ports of Entry Border Patrol cannot search vehicles in the 100-mile zone without a warrant or ‘probable cause’ (a reasonable belief, based on the circumstances, that an immigration violation or crime has occurred). In practice, Border Patrol agents routinely ignore or misunderstand the limits of their legal authority, violating the constitutional rights of innocent people. Although the 100-mile border zone is not literally ‘Constitution-free,’ CBP frequently acts like it is.”

BORDER PATROL ENERGIZED LIKE NEVER BEFORE, SAYS UNION PRESIDENT

Agents once again enforcing border security after catastrophic Obama era.

Dan Lyman | Infowars.com – JULY 17, 2017

The US Border Patrol is energized like never before, after enduring eight years of the Obama administration’s open borders policies, according to Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

Appearing on Fox and Friends, Judd expressed appreciation on behalf of his union for being re-empowered to do their jobs properly by the Trump administration.

“During the Obama administration, I know a lot of you and your officers felt hamstrung, couldn’t really do your job – what about now?” asked host Steve Doocy.

“There’s a vibe, there’s an energy in the Border Patrol that’s never been there before,” responded Judd. “In 20 years that I’ve been in the Patrol, we haven’t seen this type of energy.”

“We’re excited because we signed up to do a job, and this President is allowing us to do that job.”

When asked by Doocy if he felt that Trump could overcome RINO obstructionists in Congress and fulfill the critical campaign promise of building a wall on the southern border with Mexico, Judd replied, “You’ve got to appreciate the President. He knows the buttons to push, and he’s pushing the right buttons – and I think it’s going to get done.”

Asked to discuss the dramatic decrease in illegal border crossings over the past 6 months, Judd gave much of the credit to the Trump administration’s enforcement of existing laws that were sidelined by Obama.

“The President has done a great job of actually enforcing the laws, something we didn’t see in the last eight years,” responded Judd. “If we continue to do that, a clear message will be sent throughout the world that if you cross our borders illegally, you will be detained and you will be sent back.”

“We’ve had a drop [in illegal crossings] that we’ve never seen before with any president, and so if you’re in the left, right or middle, you have to say this President has done exactly what he promised to do, and we do have border security like we expect to see.”

The National Border Patrol Council made their first-ever presidential endorsement during the 2016 race, issuing a strongly-worded statementcondemning the status quo while throwing the weight of over 16,500 agents behind candidate Trump.

“We need a person in the White House who doesn’t fear the media, who doesn’t embrace political correctness, who doesn’t need the money, who is familiar with success, who won’t bow to foreign dictators, who is pro-military and values law enforcement, and who is angry for America and NOT subservient to the interests of other nations,” wrote the NBPC. “Donald Trump is such a man.”

Read more at Infowars: https://www.infowars.com/border-patrol-energized-like-never-before-says-union-president/

If you believe in the mission of Oath Keepers, to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, please consider making a donation to support our work.  You can donate HERE.

President of National Border Patrol Council: ‘We signed up to do a job and Trump is allowing us to do that job’

A new "energy" among border patrol agents is a stark contrast to policies implemented during the Obama Administration"s open border agenda

(INTELLIHUB) — President of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) Brandon Judd appeared on Fox News Monday to talk about the logistics of a border wall and the moral of border patrol agents under the Trump Administration.

“We’ve had a drop [in illegal crossings into the U.S.] that we’ve never seen before with any presidency,” the NBPC President said. “So if you are in the left, right, or middle, you have to say that this president has done exactly what he said that he was going to do which is have border security like we expect to see.”

Judd also pointed out that there is a good “vibe” in amongst agents right now and that President Trump’s administration is allowing agents to ‘do their job.’

Via Intellihub

Featured Image: Pablo Manriquez/Flickr

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

Senate Bill to Force Citizens to Register Cash Not in a Bank, Violators Get 10 Years in Prison

A new bill seeks to track your money and assets incessantly, will enjoin any business with government ties to act as a de facto arm of DHS, and would steal all of your assets — including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies — should you fail to report funds when traveling with over $10,000.

Under the guise of combating money laundering, Senate Bill 1241, “Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017,” ramps up regulation of digital currency and other autocratic financial controls in an attempt to ensure none of your assets can escape one of the State’s most nefarious, despised powers: civil asset forfeiture.

All of this under the farcically broad umbrella of fighting terrorism.

Civil forfeiture grants the government robbery writ large: your cash, property, and assets can be stolen completely sans due process, your guilt — frequently pertaining to drug ‘crimes’ — matters not.

A court verdict of not guilty doesn’t even guarantee the return of State-thefted property.

In fact, the government can seize virtually whatever it wants if it so much as suspects some of your assets might have been acquired through or used in the commission of even lesser crimes.

For some time, a war on cash has been brewing behind the closed doors of government, and — although officials prefer to claim counterfeiting, terrorism, and money laundering as the impetus for asset tracking — in actuality, physical currency facilitates black market and untaxed transactions, and, most imperatively to the U.S., cannot be thefted under civil asset forfeiture laws as easily as money exchanged digitally.

Characterized as an effort to “to improve the prohibitions on money laundering, and for other purposes,” the bill severely curtails the right to travel freely, without undue hindrance, as travelers with more than $10,000 in assets — including those held digitally, like Bitcoin — must file a report with the U.S. government.

Noncompliance with the tyrannical law — including failing to fill out the aforementioned form — would incur penalties befitting a fascist dictatorship: an individual could find the entirety of their assets seized, not just those unreported, and could be locked in a prison cage for up to ten years.

READ MORE:  Minnesota Man Arrested, Sentenced to 6-Months in Jail for Having a Windmill On His Property

To be clear, the State wants to write a permission slip to seize all of your assets — bank accounts, including, specifically, “safety deposit boxes,” prepaid cards, gift cards, prepaid phones, prepaid coupons, cryptocurrencies, all of it — even for being remiss in reporting what you’re traveling with.

Considering one’s digital assets veritably follow wherever that travel takes them, a cryptocurrency portfolio would theoretically have to be reported each time that person travels outside the confines of the U.S.

Of course, the legislation in actuality just amends laws pertaining to assets and travel already considered dictatorial — right now, failure to fill out the form carries not just the penalty of seizure, but a sentence of up to five years behind bars.

“And if that weren’t enough, this bill also gives them with new authority to engage in surveillance and wiretapping (including phone, email, etc.) if they have even a hint of suspicion that you might be transporting excess ‘monetary instruments,’” Simon Black of SovereignMan.com reports.

“Usually wiretapping authority is reserved for major crimes like kidnapping, human trafficking, felony fraud, etc.

“Now we can add cash to that list.”

But it wouldn’t just be the government hawkishly surveilling your every transaction, as, essentially, all retailers would be roped into becoming State spies — any business selling gift or prepaid cards would be required to report those, too.

Worse — and in defiance of current structures pertaining to digital currency — the government wishes to somehow require issuers of cryptocurrencies into its abhorrent, ostensive money-laundering police spy ring.

According to the legislation, reports Smaulgold.com, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection must, within 18 months of the legislation’s passage, devise a “border protection strategy to interdict and detect prepaid access devices, digital currencies, or other similar instruments, at border crossings and other ports of entry for the United States, including an assessment of infrastructure needed [emphasis added] to carry out the strategy […]

“The obligation to declare amounts in any form over $10,000 exists, irrespective of whether custom officials have a way of detecting such holdings. Since digital currencies technically travel with the holder [wherever] the holder goes, one would have to declare one’s entire crypto portfolio each time the holder entered the U.S.”

Travelers possessing assets, precious metals, and accounts in excess of $10,000 held outside the United States, however, would not be required to declare those to the government — perhaps leaving an albeit sketchy option for those wary of unscrupulous authorities.

While the government insists ‘If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear,’ the Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017 proves you might not be able to hide anything from its greedy clutches — and if you try, you could wind up thrown in a cage for a decade, penniless upon release.

Welcome to America, where your assets are literally the government’s business, and freedom is anything but free.

It Begins: ICE Raids Innocent LEGAL Family and Shoots Their Dad

Belmont Cragin, IL — Answers must be demanded over the inexplicable shooting of a wholly innocent man in the Chicago area home he’s owned for decades, as ICE agents — ostensively searching for the man’s adult son — opened fire on the homeowner despite children just months old sleeping nearby.

And no one knows why U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided the house in the first place — they’re citizens.

ICE claims the family man had a gun. His daughter begs to differ.

“It’s a lie when they say he was holding a gun. He doesn’t even own a gun,” railed Carmen Torres, who was asleep in the basement with her one-year-old daughter and husband when the immigration police blasted through the door. “They shot my dad. They shot him, and I don’t know why.”

Official explanations beyond rudimentary factual accounts of the shooting have not been forthcoming — even as the man who did nothing illegal recovers in the hospital.

In fact, Torres, like the rest of his family — including the son allegedly targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — are not in the country illegally.

They’re documented American citizens — and have lived in the same location in Chicago’s Belmont Cragin neighborhood for over 30 years.

“They didn’t say anything,” Carmen Torres asserted for the media, adding that, besides her daughter, a 5-month-old and 9-year-old were in the home during the ICE invasion. “They just came in and pointed pistols in our faces and dragged us out. We didn’t even have time to dress or grab milk for the baby.”

But the discrepancies between the nascent official narrative and eyewitness testimony from family and friends in the home at the time of the botched raid only grow stranger from there.

“A spokesman for ICE said that ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents were attempting to arrest a person when a second person pointed a weapon toward the agents and as a result, an agent fired his gun and wounded the man,” local ABC7 summarized.

According to dna.info, 56-year-old Torres “was hit in his left arm and taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was in serious condition, police said. ICE said the wounded man was not the person they came to arrest.”

Whether or not Torres brandished a gun — or if the father even owned a firearm — will now ostensibly be examined in investigations already launched by ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility, as well as the Chicago Police Department.

However, one factor central to this single, controvertible example of an ICE immigration raid gone violently awry, and portentous of any to follow, is Chicago’s status as a sanctuary city — a designation prohibiting local law enforcement from cooperating with federal authorities to round up those believed to be in the United States without documentation deemed mandatory by the State.

Despite that and other protections sanctuary cities provide immigrant families, ICE maintains authority to conduct sweeps for undocumented people — whether or not the location takes issue with its presence — leaving little recourse, even in the supposedly safest spots in the nation for those scared of being wrongly deported.

To wit, Chicago Police responded to the shooting, but a spokesperson for the department said officers had not participated in the raid.

Infuriated city aldermen — who just voted unanimously to renew Chicago’s safe haven status, despite potential loss of government funding courtesy of the Trump administration — preliminarily condemned the raid as illustrative of law enforcement brutality and ICE’s dangerously expanding authority.

“ICE’s guns blazing raid on a northwest side home filled with sleeping kids is exactly why the City of Chicago should refuse to collaborate with ICE. ICE routinely violates the American people’s constitutional rights,” inveighed Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa in a statement cited by ABC7. “This guns blazing ICE raid deepens my resolve to organize my community so we can keep each other safe from the threat posed by ICE.”

Others proffered similar concerns.

“We’re going to have to talk to CPD to find out if this was a coordinated effort, because if it was in any way, that raises concerns about us as a sanctuary city,” explained Alderman Gilbert Villegas, who represents the 36th Ward, where police terrorized and fired upon this family of innocent Americans. “Is this our future in Chicago with Donald Trump as president?”

While the ICE agent may have been justified shooting Torres if the as-yet debatable detail of his raising a gun first proves true, Villegas expressed qualms about the overall legitimacy of the raid, given incongruent accounts of what occurred.

“The community’s got to be nervous about this, and rightfully so, because you have a right to be in your own home without being intimidated,” Villegas observed. “I’m conflicted because I haven’t got all the details [of the incident] yet, but from the way this has started to play out, it looks like an overstep by an overzealous ICE agent who’s just trying to follow Trump’s orders.”

Officious immigration agents might indeed be the perversely authoritarian outgrowth of President Trump’s disputatious and exhaustive effort to round up anyone lacking appropriate permissions to be in the country.

One skittish ICE agent proved to be a nightmare for Felix Torres — but the entire agency received a law-and-order pat on the back from the new administration.

Last month, as immigration raids gained momentum, the Department of Homeland Security issued two memos seeming to give teeth to contentious mass deportations and the raids preceding them — enjoining ICE agents to, in twisted essence, take back their power.

Of the dual memoranda, Vanity Fair reported,

“D.H.S. outlined a radical shift in U.S. immigration policies, constituting a wholesale rejection of the approach under President Barack Obama. Among other things, the new Trump policy—which the president described as a ‘military operation’—calls for the hire of 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and broadens the definition of ‘removable alien.’ It allows Border Patrol agents to target undocumented immigrants convicted of any criminal offense—no matter how minor. A New York Times report, based on interviews with 17 I.C.E. agents and officials, suggests that this has emboldened and empowered federal immigration agents across the U.S.”

Nationalists subscribing to Trump’s particular brand of, get out of America if you don’t belong here, consistently praise the same immigration raids striking terror into the hearts of citizens, legal residents, and undocumented workers, as necessary to cleanse the nation of an ostensive unproductive, criminal element.

However, everything about the shooting of Felix Torres instead intimates a phenomenal abuse of concentrated power by federal agents working outside the bounds of local authority.

And that Torres’ family are U.S.citizens residing inside the boundaries of a sanctuary city could evince a transformation of Immigration and Customs into America’s first — if semantically unofficial — experiment with a national police force.

Rumored to be in the planning stages for years, a federal police force remains the substance of conjecture and debate; but, for ICE to assume the chimerical powers of local law enforcement and that of a federal agency belies a categorical blurring of lines — the same lines meant to protect individuals and honor differences in governance by state.

Empowering the already powerful ICE agents could prove to be an horrific error in judgment.

READ MORE:  Entire Domestic Flight Detained, Forced to "Show Papers" as ICE Looked for Non-Existent Immigrant

In fact, although ICE refused multiple media requests to clarify why agents descended on the home, or to confirm the subject of the raid on Torres’ home, were refused — but an unnamed and unverified source told ABC7 there are allegedly weapons charges outstanding against the adult son.

That absolutely should not alleviate concerns or excuse the raid and shooting, even marginally. Once again, this is a family of American citizens living in a sanctuary city — as a weapons charge falls indisputably in the jurisdiction of local police.

“Why was, basically, ICE here? What was the reason ICE was here?” queried Rosa Reyes of Communities United — asking the one question most in need of an answer.

“If it has to do with a police matter, it has to be the actual police from Belmont-Cragin taking care of the matter, not ICE.”

No matter where you fall on the spectrum of opinion concerning immigration, the Wall, border patrol, or anything pertaining to Trump’s terrifying attempt to clean house, that arms of the government have ceased effectively communicating with each other — must sound a chorus of alarm bells.

Villegas and other aldermen attempted to gather information from ICE on the non-fatal shooting of Torres, but were either rebuffed or met with stony silence. An announcement from ICE is slated for release later today.

“They’re treating our office like we’re nobody,” Villegas opined, “so that tells me that I have to talk to the congressmen and the senators to get some answers on this issue, but this is very alarming.”

Opponents of Border Security and Immigration Law Enforcement Aid Human Traffickers

The debate over the construction of a wall along the U.S. Mexican border is heating up even as the infamous leader of the Mexican Sinaloa Drug Cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman awaits his trial in the Eastern District of New York for smuggling billions of dollars of heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs into the United States across that border.

The DOJ press release, “Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera Faces Charges in New York for Leading a Continuing Criminal Enterprise and other Drug-Related Charges” provides the salient facts concerning this case.

On March 13, 2017 Bloomberg Business reported, Schumer Warns of Government Shutdown Over Trump’s Border Wall.

That report began with the following:

Senate Democrats warned Republicans Monday that attempts to take funding away from Planned Parenthood or pay for President Donald Trump’s border wall in a stopgap spending bill that must pass by late April would result in a government shutdown.

The threat from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders sets up a climactic first showdown with the president, particularly with their inclusion of Trump’s signature border wall proposal.

“If Republicans insist on inserting poison pill riders such as defunding Planned Parenthood, building a border wall, or starting a deportation force, they will be shutting down the government and delivering a severe blow to our economy,” Schumer said in a statement.

Aliens trespassing into the United States poses a serious threat to national security and public safety yet while Mr. Schumer has proposed making trespassing on landmarks or critical infrastructure a federal crime with a five year jail sentence to deter this dangerous criminal conduct, he refuses to take the necessary measures to prevent aliens from entering the United States illegally by trespassing and/or violating our immigration laws within the United States.

Yet Schemer and his fellow Democrats are so diametrically opposed to securing the treacherous U.S./Mexican border against illegal (un-inspected entry) and mounting an effective law enforcement effort to identify, locate and arrest illegal aliens who have entered the United States without inspection, often aided by smugglers, that they are willing to shut down the federal government to prevent these critical enforcement efforts.

In Mexico aliens smugglers are referred to as “Coyotes” and a smuggled alien is referred to as a “Chicken” or in Spanish, “el Pollo” because coyotes eat chickens.  This is why it might be time for the Democrats to change their mascot to a coyote- they are certainly aligning themselves with the smugglers.

Constructing a wall along the southern border would help our valiant but beleaguered Border Patrol Agents to secure that violent border.

Enforcing our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States is another component of what I have come to refer to as the “Immigration Law Enforcement Tripod”  (The third leg of that enforcement tripod concerns the inspections conducted at ports of entry by CBP (Customs and Border Protection) inspectors.

When I was an INS agent I was assigned for a couple of years to the INS Anti-Smuggling Unit in NYC.  The alien smugglers we encountered were among the most vicious, violent and pernicious criminals I have ever encountered in my 30 year career.  They often smuggle narcotics as well as humans.  They frequently use violence, including rape, to control the aliens that they smuggle and to extort additional fees for their “services” from their victims or their victims’ families.

By arresting illegal aliens who had been smuggled into the United States and transported to the New York area, my colleagues and I convinced these illegal aliens to provide us with vital information so that we could identify, arrest and successfully prosecute the smugglers in Los Angeles who had smuggled them into the United States.  We shut down that smuggling organization by using the information we obtained from the illegal aliens.

The key to combatting human trafficking is effective immigration law enforcement.

On October 5, 2015 Senator Chuck Schemer posted the following press release on his official website:

SCHUMER, GILLIBRAND ANNOUNCE OVER $2 MILLION IN FEDERAL FUNDS TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING & SUPPORT SURVIVORS IN NEW YORK CITY

Here is how the press release began:

Schumer, Gillibrand Announce Federal Grants Will Be Used To Fund Task Force to Develop & Implement Strategies to ProsecuteSex- and Labor-Traffickers and Help Human-Trafficking Survivors

U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand today announced $2,070,022 in federal funding allocated through Department of Justice (DOJ) for four New York City based organizations. Specifically, the funding will help recovery for survivors of all types of human trafficking by survivor-centered services and interagency communication.

“With this critical federal funding, these organizations will be able to continue their important work, prosecuting vile sex- and labor-traffickers and serving the survivors of human trafficking in New York City,” said Senator Schumer. “It is important that we work to both eliminate human trafficking through prosecution and help survivors obtain the comprehensive services they need and deserve.”

 “This critical federal funding will allow these organizations to facilitate a wide range of programs to combat human trafficking and provide assistance to survivors,” said Senator Gillibrand. “New York City will now have additional resources to identify and respond to the needs of human trafficking survivors. I will continue to push for funding to help keep our families safe and better protected.”

While not all human trafficking involves smuggling aliens into the United States a significant proportion of such criminal activities involves the smuggling of aliens across international borders for a variety of illegal purposes that include sex trafficking and the importation of aliens trapped in virtual servitude to the alien smugglers.

Schumer may talk about prosecuting human traffickers but has done everything possible to impede the work of the DHS to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws.

The primary opponents of these human smugglers are our Border Patrol agents and our ICE agents.  Yet, the Democrats in Congress as well as the mayors of Sanctuary Cities who are dead set against securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.

To make this point succinctly, those who oppose the enforcement activities of immigration law enforcement officers are the best allies human traffickers could ever hope to have.

Human smuggling activities occur around the world and occur across our southern and northern borders as well as along our 95,000 miles of coastline and through our international airports.

Back on May 18, 2004 I was invited by Rep. Shiela Jackson Lee as her witness, to testify at a hearing conducted by the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims on the topic, Pushing The Border Out On Alien Smuggling: New Tools And Intelligence Initiatives.

At my insistence, Rep. Jackson Lee agreed to broaden the focus of the hearing and acknowledge  that alien smuggling is not limited to the U.S./Mexican border but also includes those who provide aliens with counterfeit or altered identity documents and engage in schemes that involve visa fraud.

That hearing convinced her and then House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner to work cooperatively to draft legislation to create a fraud task force.

It is worth noting that the 9/11 Commission determined that fraud documents and fraud schemes were vital to the success of terrorists.

One of the issues that was addressed during the hearing was the use of visas to protect illegal alien victims of human trafficking and alien criminals to create incentives for those illegal aliens to provide vital actionable intelligence about such vile criminals.

Of course the mayors of Sanctuary Cities refuse to discuss this critical issue.  If they were truly concerned about illegal aliens living in their towns, they would make certain to provide the ethnic immigrant communities with information about how they can come forward to assist law enforcement to identify, locate and arrest the alien criminals who live among them and prey upon them.

However, this would go against the narrative that immigration law enforcement personnel are the “bad guys” and the immigration law violators are the “victims.”

In fact, on March 13, 2017 The Hill reported, Dems back body cameras for ICE agents, noting:

Democrats in the House want to require immigration agents to wear body cameras amid concerns over increased immigration enforcement and the hiring of new agents.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill to that effect Friday, with 18 Democratic co-sponsors.

Clarke said the measure is necessary to protect those targeted by immigration enforcement from potential abuse.

I was interviewed on Newsmax-TV on March 14th about the threats by the Democrats to shut down the government over the border wall and the proposal to require ICE agents to wear body cameras.

As I noted during my interview, President Trump is determined to prevent the un-inspected entry of aliens into the United States  in order to prevent the entry of terrorists and criminals and to protect the lives and livelihoods of Americans.

How could any American politician be opposed to those important goals?

FRONTPAGEMAG

Ex-Border Patrol Guard Sentenced to 12 Years For Smuggling Cocaine

TUCSON (CN) – A former U.S. Border Patrol agent who previously pleaded guilty to drug charges was sentenced on Friday to more than 12 years in prison for smuggling what he believed to be 110 pounds of cocaine.

Juan Pimentel has been behind bars since November 2015, when state troopers pulled over his rental Ford Explorer on Interstate 10 and found 50 bundles of what turned out to be a white powder stuffed in four suitcases, court records show.

Testifying at his sentencing hearing, Pimentel said the suitcases were already inside the SUV when an acquaintance – later identified as an undercover agent — provided it to him. Pimentel was to be paid $50,000 for delivering the bundles to Chicago.

Mark Williams, Pimentel’s lawyer, said his client succumbed to repeated pressure from the undercover agent but had admitted to making a grave mistake and deserved leniency for cooperating with authorities.

“He’s very embarrassed, ashamed, remorseful,” Williams told U.S. District Judge Raner Collins.

From the witness stand, Pimentel looked toward his family and a group of Border Patrol agents sitting in the courtroom, and said he was “sorry to put them through a hard time.”

Whereas his lawyer portrayed Pimentel as simply a follower who previously had nothing to do with cocaine, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Davenport called him a “dirty Border Patrol agent” and brought up a couple of incidents of marijuana smuggling involving the former agent in the mid-2000s. In response to Davenport’s questioning, Pimentel admitted that he “helped out” some men who were involved in the marijuana trade.

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“This is someone who’s had zero respect for the badge,” Davenport told the judge.

Collins sided with Davenport after the lawyers carried on a lengthy discussion about whether a firearm found inside the SUV was relevant to the planned drug transaction. Pimentel said he always carried a gun out of habit.

Judge Collins weighed in with his belief that Pimentel had the gun for his protection in Chicago. Reciting the former agent’s involvement with other illegal activity, he declared him “predisposed” to get involved with cocaine.

“You had plenty of time to say no, cocaine is not my thing, but instead chose to drive 1,700 miles from Tucson to Chicago with the cocaine,” the judge told Pimentel.

The former agent was sentenced to 150 months in prison for a charge he pleaded guilty to in July — attempted possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. He received an additional 10 months for receiving a bribe as a public official. The second charge stems from a February 2015 incident in which he was paid cash in exchange for providing license plate information from a law enforcement database, court records show.

Pimentel’s case gained notoriety when former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske announced his arrest in Phoenix during a news conference where he addressed corruption within the ranks. He promised Pimentel’s badge would be destroyed after a conviction or guilty plea. On Friday, the agents were in court to observe what happens when one of their own becomes corrupt, Davenport said.

Outside the courtroom, Natalie Pimentel said her husband’s situation has been hard on the family.

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“The devil tempted him and he went for it,” she said of her husband, adding that she didn’t know about any illicit activities until after his arrest.

“He’s cried, he knows his mistakes,” she said. “It’s sad; it’s sad for my kids.”

The judge said he would recommend that Pimentel serve his time in New York state, where his family now lives.

Trump to Use 100K National Guard to Round up Immigrants: Legit or Media Hysteria?

(ANTIMEDIA) “Unprecedented” deportations of immigrants through the deployment of up to 100,000 National Guard troops? The Trump administration considered it, according to the Associated Press, citing a “draft memo.” But how legit is the story, and who benefits from it?

Unnamed staffers from the Department of Homeland Security reportedly provided the AP with the 11-page document, an alleged executive order-to-be. Two hours after breaking the story Friday morning, the news organization released the source material.

It outlines the possible use of National Guard troops in 11 states, from as far west as Portland, Oregon, to New Orleans, Louisiana, in the east. Southern border states Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas are listed, as are some states bordering them: Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Utah.

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At no point is there any explicit mention of what the Guard troops would do thanks to the fact that this draft did not propose federalizing them. Each state governor orders a deployment at their discretion and under their command. What the would-be order seeks to do is expand the 287(g) program, which allows state and local agencies to assist federal immigration enforcement in detecting and apprehending unauthorized immigrants. The program was initiated under President George W. Bush and scaled back by President Barack Obama.

The proposal was purportedly a part of official discussions as late as Friday, anonymous DHS staffers told the AP. But the AP’s attempts late Thursday and early Friday to get official comments from DHS and the White House went unanswered.

Instead, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer came out denying any such program was being considered once the story was published. He undercut the authenticity of the report, saying the draft was ‘‘not a White House document” and that the AP’s story was “100 percent not true.”

And just like that, the Trump administration is poised to accuse the media of more bias and falsehoods. Sound familiar? Last month, the AP and New York Times reported on another draft order potentially reopening CIA black sites and re-instituting torture. The story flopped, and since then, President Donald Trump’s war of words with the media has only grown.

Even in the AP’s story, the further one reads, the less apocalyptic the details become. At the time of publishing, it took 15 paragraphs before AP writer Garance Burke reported, “Under current rules, even if the proposal had been implemented, there would not be immediate mass deportations.”

Elsewhere in the reporting, an unidentified DHS official says the draft was a very early one, not seriously considered, and never even proposed to the DHS secretary.

Why run the story with such an imminent sounding headline? Perhaps because the real purpose behind the draft would be less enticing to a readership conditioned for stories about a haphazard presidency.

The draft order references another executive order already signed, although it provides the wrong date. On January 25, Trump signed an order calling for an increase of 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, never implying a need to deploy the National Guard.

What purpose the draft order may serve is to simply inform Trump and his cabinet as to how a preferred policy choice compares to whatever else is conceivable. Would a president want all options thoroughly vetted? It’s possible.

Is this draft order an example of “unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement” as the AP reports? Consider comparing it to what occurred under Obama in May 2010, when he deployed some 1,200 National Guard troops to the southern border and requested $500 million from Congress to increase enforcement.

The Trump administration will undoubtedly continue to showcase its moral outrage at such media reports, and naturally so, as this is partially how he won the election.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

While Both Sides Point Fingers, Here Are the Facts On Trump’s 100,000 Troop Plan

An alarming report from the Associated Press — saying the “Trump administration considered a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants” — has now been stridently denied by the White House as “false.”

With Fake News accusations so prevalent, it would be simple to chalk the plan and accusation up to the mundane — but this particular incident has several strange details making it anything but typical.

Citing an 11-page document titled “Implementing the President’s Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements Policies,” appearing to be issued by Department of Homeland Security Secretary General John Kelly and obtained by the AP, the Trump administration deliberated deploying “as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border,” and the document further “calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana.”

But, despite claims the AP discussed the document in question with unnamed ‘staffers’ at the Department of Homeland Security, White House spokesman Sean Spicer balked, telling the press aboard Air Force One within minutes of the article being published,

“That is 100 percent not true. It is false. It is irresponsible to be saying this.”

He added, “There is no effort at all to round up, to utilize the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants.”

According to the original AP article,

“The memo was addressed to the then-acting heads of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It would have served as guidance to implement the wide-ranging executive order on immigration and border security that President Donald Trump signed Jan. 25. Such memos are routinely issued to supplement executive orders.

“Also dated Jan. 25, the draft memo says participating troops would be authorized ‘to perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension and detention of aliens in the United States.’ It describes how the troops would be activated under a revived state-federal partnership program, and states that personnel would be authorized to conduct searches and identify and arrest any unauthorized immigrants.”

Although the AP did not originally link to or show an image of the document, it has since been published — but the status of information divulged, whether or not the plan has been considered or even brought to President Trump’s attention, remains unknown. Per the memorandum, addressed to officials in Immigration and Border Patrol, Kelly states:

“I am directing the Commissioner of CBP and the Director of ICE to immediately engage with the Governors of the States adjacent to the land border with Mexico and to those states adjoining such border States for the purpose of entering into agreements of section 287(g) of the INA to authorize qualified members of the state National Guard, while such members are not in federal service, or qualified members of a state militia or state defense force under the command of the Governor, to perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the apprehension, investigation and detention of aliens in the United States.”

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Without further elaboration on context, the memorandum and the AP’s report present quite the quagmire for trying to parse who’s actually telling the truth — or determining if there might be dissension between arms of the government.

Spicer insisted, “It is not a White House document” — as it indeed appears to be from DHS — and admitted, “I don’t know what could potentially be out there, but I know that there is no effort to do what is potentially suggested.”

“A DHS official described the document as a very early draft that was not seriously considered and never brought to the secretary for approval,” the AP reported originally.

Spicer also did not make clear why the White House would not be privy to a putative DHS plan this massive in scale — the operation would allegedly have involved 11 states and their respective National Guards.

“Spokespeople for the governors of nine of the states either declined to comment or said it was premature to discuss whether they would participate. Representatives for Texas and Arkansas did not immediately respond to the AP,” the outlet reports.

But where this really gets weird is that, despite Spicer’s categorical denial the memorandum came from the White House, he did not assert a similar plan hasn’t been considered. Further,

“A White House aide confirmed to DailyMail.com Friday morning that the idea ‘has been discussed,’ but wouldn’t say whether a plan has been formalized or recommended to the president.

“DailyMail.com’s White House source said the idea is to hasten the removal from the U.S. of ‘criminal aliens’ like those Trump railed against during one campaign stop after another last year.”

 Of course, without the Daily Mail naming its source, that information is also impossible to confirm with certainty.

Weirder still, DHS also disputes the contents of the memorandum and the AP’s report.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan told the media Friday — shortly before a copy of the document became public — “It’s incorrect. The Department is not considering mobilizing the National Guard for immigration enforcement.”

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Someone is lying.

If DHS isn’t considering mobilizing the National Guard to act as immigration police, then the memo might have been created and abandoned — but officials, besides the unnamed person who spoke to the AP, aren’t saying that.

Spicer said the document didn’t emanate from the White House, and flatly denied the plan to mobilize the Guard — then surreptitiously contradicted himself, intimating such a procedure had indeed been deliberated.

It’s a mess — by design.

This is how propaganda works. It deceives. Instills doubt. Creates chaos, and wreaks havoc on the dissemination of fact through a free press. Once people question information on such a wide scale — and rightly so, given deceitful reports published regularly now by the corporate press — then everything opens to interpretation, including the truth.

Trump National Guard Draft Memo by zerohedge on Scribd