[Terridan]

This has been happening since before 9/11. I still don't get why the military isn't assisting our Border Patrol, who are horribly undermanned. During the earlie 80's, along the Gulf Coast, the military was allowed to assist us in law enforcement with apprehending the drug cartels, by allowing us to use there equipnent and surveilance aircraft, etc. What gives? We still have ample men in the National Guard along with the other branches. Is it because they are needed to scramble for big city acts of terrorism?

[steplock]

bump for verification.

[Arpege92]

Something has got to be done and done soon!!!!!!

[ElkGroveDan]

Flood Of Non-Speaking Middle Eastern Males Crossing Border

OH MY GOD! We're being invaded by mutes!!!!!!!

[ETERNAL WARMING]

Why is this showing up now? Is Amnesty pusher/Open border Bush actually trying to convince us he's with us on the Illegal/Border issue? LOL This has been going on for years! Does he really think we don't know that?

[MediaMole]

It would be nice if stories like these had something more than anonymous quotes. The Tombstone Tumbleweed site has an official denial from the Border Patrol

TWO GROUPS OF MIDDLE-EASTERN INVADERS CAUGHT IN COCHISE COUNTY IN PAST SIX WEEKS

Information officer Andy Adame, from the Border Patrol Tucson sector says, “I guarantee it’s not true.”

However, seasoned Border Patrol field agents have shared some disturbing information....

[janetgreen]

and we're told not to say a thing to the media, but I have to," said the agent, whose name will obviously remain anonymous.

They were told NOT to allow Americans to be informed of this by the media??? I guess it's too close to the election to allow important information like this to be out in the open. People might wonder what the hell "homeland security" is, and why Mr. Bush hasn't bothered to protect our borders.

[BagCamAddict]

ping-o-rama:

On or about the early morning hours of June 13, 2004 Border patrol agents from the Wilcox station encountered a large group of suspected illegal border crossers, estimated to be around 100, just east of the Sanders Ranch near the foothills of the Chiricauha Mountains. 71 suspected illegal aliens were apprehended; among them were 53 males of middle-eastern decent.

[ChocChipCookie]

Wasn't it this bushcountry.org website that was posting those oddball emails from a so-called Australian guy who claimed the world was going to be hit by meteors? There was a whole series of these emails, and the people at bushcountry.org seemed to believe every word.

[Palladin]

Geez!!!

Tom Ridge--don't just stand there. DO SOMETHING!

[Ros42]

Here's the guy we need to support on this issue!

http://www.house.gov/tancredo/Immigration/

[Ros42]

Here's proof of whose coming in our country through the Mexican border:

http://www.house.gov/tancredo/Immigration/nationalsecurity.html

[krunkygirl]

BUMP and save

[CholeraJoe]

Iranians speak Farsi, not Arabic as their native language. Most Iranians speak Arabic but with a distinct accent. What kind of accent? How the hell should I know? I speak English with an Alabama/Texas/Louisiana accent that gets much thicker when I'm speaking with someone from the South.

My assistant witnessed it a few months ago when I called our sister office in Birmingham while she was in my office. She commented, "Wow, cj you sound like you're speaking a foreign language."

[VaBthang4]

"this is ridiculous that we don't take this more seriously, and we're told not to say a thing to the media, but I have to," said the agent, whose name will obviously remain anonymous."

Forgive me but wouldn't an agent be protected under whistle blower status? Why would he or she remain anonymous? If the story is true, I do not appreciate the half-assed attempt at bringing the story to light. What's more important to this supposed BP Agent? His Country or his job?

[philetus]

How Southern Arizona became home base for terror http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/news/31354.php Flight schools, hot climate, visa availability cited By Barrett Marson ARIZONA DAILY STAR Southern Arizona became the home to numerous radical Islamists in the early 1980s when they moved here and began raising money for Afghan freedom fighters, some experts say. Their anger and fund-raising efforts were redirected against the United States after America ended its financial and political efforts in Afghanistan as the Cold War with the Soviet Union began to thaw. People such as Wadi el-Hage, a personal assistant to Osama bin Laden who raised money in Tucson for the Afghan effort, did not cease raising cash because the United States withdrew its support of the Afghan mujahedeen, or holy warriors, said Harry Ellen, a Phoenix businessman and an FBI informant in the 1990s. "That helped radicalize them not only for their cause but against us, too," said Ellen, who met el-Hage several times. "We became a host that slapped their guest." El-Hage is now in federal prison for life after his conviction for conspiring to bomb two U.S. embassies in Africa. With the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. government took notice of the radical leanings held by some Arizona Muslims. A joint FBI-CIA analysis titled, "Arizona: Long Range Nexus for Islamic Extremists," likely explores the history of Tucson's rise to prominence among Muslim radicals but remains classified. Its existence was revealed in the bipartisan 9/11 commission's final report released Thursday. That leaves others to explore the reasons why Tucson and Arizona became a destination for Islamic fundamentalists. FBI spokeswoman Susan Herskovits would not talk specifically about the analysis but said Arizona offers numerous attractions that make it a destination for many Arabs, including legitimate scholars and law-abiding residents. The University of Arizona recruited Middle Easterners for its science programs, and Arizona's weather makes flight training schools popular. The desert climate reminds Middle Easterners of home. And Tucson's popularity spread through word of mouth, she said. "Once people from another culture end up in a place like Tucson, other people hear about it and want to be there," Herskovits said. In addition to el-Hage, Tucson and the Phoenix area have been home to numerous al-Qaida operatives, including: ● Hani Hanjour, who attended the UA and a flight school in the Phoenix area before piloting American Airlines 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11. ● Mubarak al Duri, who lived in Tucson and, according to the 9/11 commission's report, served as bin Laden's principal procurement agent for weapons of mass destruction. ● Wa'el Jelaidan, who was president of the Tucson Islamic Center in 1984-'85 and helped found al-Qaida later that decade. Most known or suspected terrorists seem to have been drawn to Tucson and Arizona by two lures - the availability of flight schools and student visas, said David D. Van Fleet, a professor and terrorism expert in the School of Management at Arizona State University. He said that may also explain why fund-raising organizations linked to bin Laden branched into certain U.S. cities with "little clusters" of Muslim extremists. The 9/11 commission reported that the al Khifa organization, which had branches in Tucson, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and New York City, recruited American Muslims to fight in Afghanistan - including some who later took part in terrorist actions in the United States and against U.S. embassies in East Africa. That doesn't mean the UA or the state was "somehow fostering or festering these kinds of folks," Van Fleet said. "It's simply the convenience of where to get into a flight school or get into a country through a student visa." Activities of Muslim extremists have been detailed in two reports stemming from the Sept. 11 terror attacks - one by a joint congressional committee that released its report last year and another by the bipartisan commission that released its findings this week. Tucson and Arizona played prominent roles in both reports. Each contained high-profile sections related to a memo written in July 2001 by an FBI agent warning of Islamic extremists taking flight training classes in Arizona. And each detailed the prominent al-Qaida figures who had moved in and out of Arizona in the two previous decades. Ellen, a Muslim convert in the 1980s who lived in Ajo between 1975 and 1991, often visited the Islamic Center of Tucson to learn more about his adopted religion and culture to help in planned business dealings in Egypt, he said. He said he later gave information to the FBI on trips he made to meet with Palestinian leaders, including Yasser Arafat. While at the Islamic Center, Ellen gained a vast amount of knowledge about the Islamic community in Tucson, where he said he met el-Hage, al Duri and others who have played a part in al-Qaida or aroused the suspicion of the FBI. El-Hage and others rarely voiced extremist views, Ellen said. But they sometimes took exception to the political tones set in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. "When you did talk to them, they were angry about the politics of Egypt, they were angry about the politics of Saudi Arabia," he said. Bin Laden has often cited the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia as a reason for his war against America. Ellen fell out of favor with the FBI, however, in 1999. A U.S. Justice Department inspector general's investigation of how the Phoenix FBI office handled Ellen is continuing and is being run from the Tucson office, he said. Herskovits would not comment on the Ellen case. Ellen said Arabs are not only attracted to the Tucson area because of the hot weather and the UA, but also because of its low-key, out-of-the-way location. Los Angeles or New York, while big cities that have lots of amenities, don't provide the cover that Tucson offers. "They are not here to have fun," Ellen said. "In Tucson, clearly, they weren't being looked at." Karl Delaguerra, who runs an anti-terrorism training and threat-assessment firm in Tucson called the Palladium Group, said Tucson is very accepting of people with diverse backgrounds. That allows Muslim extremists and others to fly under the radar and not raise suspicion. "That is the kind of environment that radicalized individuals would be drawn to be able to operate quite freely," said Delaguerra, who has worked with the government on terrorism issues and studied Tucson's connections to terror. But Stuart Marsh, a professor at the UA's Arid Lands Resource Sciences program, scoffed at the notion that the university attracts a large number of radicals. "We have never had a student who was considered any kind of problem," Marsh said. "It's a bad rap." Whether Islamic extremists would continue to use Tucson as a base is unknown. But Ellen would not discount it. "No one would expect lightning," he said, "to come from the same source twice." ● Reporter Enric Volante contributed to this story.

[philetus]

Activists opposing Protect Arizona initiative

Protect Arizona Now is a "mean-spirited" initiative that would harm public health and safety, said Isabel Garcia, founder of Coalición de Derechos Humanos.

Alexis Mazón, an attorney representing opponents of the measure, disputed the study's findings.

[philetus]

Latino leaders: Our clout growing

The Associated Press


PHOENIX - The Hispanic community's political clout isn't proportional to the size of its population, but the nation's largest minority group is gradually gaining influence, several Latino leaders said yesterday.

Though politicians across the country are courting Hispanics, one of the Latino community's biggest political challenges is raising its voter turnout, said leaders at the National Council of La Raza's convention in Phoenix. The group is dedicated to promoting Latino issues.

Hispanic turnout is poor because of low voter interest, some Latinos aren't legal citizens and a significant portion of the community is too young to cast ballots, the leaders said.

"You have got immigrant groups that you are going to (have to) wait for the second generation, who always have a greater degree of participation than the first," said Alex Zermeno, board chairman for the Unity Council in Oakland, Calif.

Latinos, who vote at a lower percentage than other minority groups, should have a greater influence in many elections, said Adam J. Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University.

"The end result of this is that Hispanic voters have less true direct representation, and as a result their issues are not as focused on as they should be," Segal said from his office in Washington, D.C.

Though Hispanic political advances are happening at a slower pace than they should, Latinos are becoming more politically astute, even in places not thought of as bastions for Latinos, Segal said.

Latinos are gaining more influence across the nation, though the momentum is stronger in certain regions, said George Martinez, an official with the Oro Development Corp., a nonprofit agency in Oklahoma whose clients include migrant workers.

"The political clout in Oklahoma is not what we would like for it to be," Martinez said. "We are getting there slowly."

In a speech yesterday before the civil rights group, presumed Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said Hispanics have values that made America strong. "You embody the American ideal," he said.

Ronnie Perez, a counselor from Phoenix, said he believes Hispanic clout is in line with the size of the country's Latino population, but that voter participation remains a big problem.

"(Hispanics) may not feel their vote makes a difference, and it's also that they may not feel that the issues that are currently being discussed are relevant to them," said Ruth Armendariz, recruiter for a bank.

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[philetus]

FRIDAY
OCTOBER 19
2001

COMING TO AMERICA
'Arab terrorists'
crossing border
Middle Eastern illegals find easy entrance into U.S. from Mexico

By J. Zane Walley
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

COCHISE COUNTY, Ariz. -- The U.S.-Mexican border here is the most heavily used corridor for illegal alien traffic on America's southern boundary. With its difficult topography that is folded, creased and convoluted, it is a land that yields well to smuggling. The Huachuca, Chiricahua, Dragoon and Whetstone Mountains are riddled with hundreds of deep canyons, caves and arroyos that offer superb concealment for the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens that annually cross here.

The numbers of unauthorized immigrants smuggled across this porous border dumbfound the imagination. To date, the U.S. Border Patrol has apprehended 158,782 illegals in 2001. By the Border Patrol's own admission, it catches one alien in five, and admits that around 800,000 have slipped across the U.S. line this year.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24987

[philetus]

Sexual predators caught at border Arizona

Child molestation is the most despicable crime on the books. Federal authorities are working to protect children by cracking down on sexual predators across the globe. The United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last July launched Operation Predator, an effort aimed at foreign national pedophiles, human traffickers, international sex tourists and others who prey on children.

More than 3,000 people have been arrested across the nation. Arizona held the highest number of arrests at 168.

Convicted sexual predators cross the international border with frightening regularity. Recently, Border Patrol agents in Douglas apprehended a man who served two years in a California prison for lewd and lascivious acts with a child.

Carlos Alberto Gonzalez, 30, of El Salvador, was deported after serving his prison sentence. He was identified using a database of fingerprints maintained by the FBI.



The Integrated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) has helped authorities identify 105 sexual predators caught crossing the border since October 2003 in the Tucson sector.

Records released by Border Patrol indicate that sexual offenders are regularly apprehended in Nogales. Agents assigned to the Nogales station caught one person with a record of child molestation and one convicted of sexual assault in mid-June. Further details about the arrests were not available.

ICE reports that more than half of the 3,247 people arrested nationwide were foreign nationals. More than 450 of those arrested were deported.

The agency released some examples of foreign nationals arrested for sex crimes against children.

Molesters in the U.S.

Agents arrested a Canadian man in May for allegedly traveling to Colorado for the purpose of having sexual relations with boys between the ages of five and 10. He attempted to pay for the sex, and offered more money if he could conduct sadomasochistic acts with the boys.

He was arrested by ICE agents at the Colorado Springs Airport and was charged with travel with intent to engage in sexual activity with a minor.

Other arrests include a foreign national living in Los Angeles who repeatedly molested his daughter, then demanded she have an abortion when she became pregnant. He was previously deported two times from the United States.

A Jamaican man living in Philadelphia is accused of raping his eight-month-old daughter. The infant was severely injured during the attack, and required reconstructive surgery.

Smuggled for sex

Increasingly, desperate people seeking a life in the United States are lured into the sex trade. Smugglers are known to bring illegal migrants here under false pretenses, and then force them to become prostitutes.

ICE agents arrested Maria de Jesus Valle-Maldonado, a Mexican national living in Los Angeles, Calif., on charges that she brought young women and girls to the U.S. and put them to work in her brothel. Agents raided the brothel, and found about one dozen people, some as young as 14, working as prostitutes. Valle-Maldonado pleaded guilty July 1 to federal charges of conspiracy to import aliens for the purpose of prostitution.

amber

In March, smugglers in the Douglas area attacked a Mexican woman who was crossing the border with her one-year-old child. They stole the baby, and demanded a $500 ransom from the child's father, who was living in Ohio. The father, along with ICE agents, arranged to meet with the kidnappers in Douglas. The baby was found and rescued.

Two women operating a prostitution/smuggling ring in Texas pleaded guilty to felony charges in October 2003. The women signed "employment contracts" with young Mexican girls and their parents saying that the girls would work in a restaurant when they arrived in the United States. Instead, the girls were forced to work as prostitutes to pay the $1,500 smuggling fee.

Another prostitution ring involving smugglers was broken up in August 2003. Two Mexican women were sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison for luring four girls to the United States, holding them captive and forcing them to work as prostitutes.

Sex tourism

Many sexual predators travel to other countries to commit crimes against children, thinking that being outside of the U.S. will prevent an arrest. A federal law passed last year makes it a crime to travel overseas with the purpose of engaging in sexual acts with minors.

amber

ICE agents coordinate with police agencies worldwide to apprehend child molesters. The increased cooperation has helped to catch "sex tourists" intent on victimizing children in other nations.

A California man was arrested June 23 for allegedly having sexual relations with a boy in Costa Rica while he was serving there as a Peace Corps volunteer. He is accused of providing the boy with money drugs and alcohol in exchange for sex.

A well-regarded anesthesiologist from Georgia was arrested in April for allegedly going to Russia several times to have sex with children. He is accused of drugging the children, then sodomizing them. He was arrested at JFK Airport in New York City as he returned from Russia.

High-tech child abuse

Child molesters and abusers no longer have to leave their homes to view lewd acts involving youngsters. The Internet has made child pornography a multi-million dollar industry.

ICE has paid close attention to lewd images of children disseminated online. Agents have arrested 116 people in the United States for possession of child pornography as part of the largest such investigation so far.

United States and foreign law enforcement looked into an Internet billing company based in Minsk, Belarus. They found the company was used to launder money and provide credit card billing for 50 child pornography web sites.

Agents are now focusing on the sites' subscribers. So far, people from all walks of life have paid to view child pornography online: a California teacher, the chief of pediatric medicine at a New York hospital, a minister at a New Jersey school for girls, a Louisiana Catholic priest, a camp counselor from Nevada, a police officer from Buffalo, N.Y. and a Chicago school principal.

Federal officials are pleased that Operation Predator has resulted in so many arrests during the past year.

"In just one year, I'm pleased to announce that we have taken enforcement action against sexual predators from every walk of life, from every state, and from more than 100 countries," said Michael Garcia, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.


http://www.teamamberalert.net/news/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2647