Posted on 05/02/2012 2:41:57 PM PDT by jazusamo
(CNSNews.com) -- The U.S. side of the southwest border is home to “some of the safest communities in America,” Gene Garza, the director of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)in the Laredo, Texas field office, told lawmakers on Tuesday.
Garza testified before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security on May 1 at a hearing entitled, “Using Technology to Facilitate Trade and Enhance Security at Our Ports of Entry.” The CBP is a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Garza said he based his assessment of the safety of U.S. communities along the southwest border to information derived from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), a compilation of annual U.S. crime statistics.
However, the U.S. Attorneys’ Annual Statistical Report for Fiscal Year 2011 paints a different picture, showing that 80 percent of all cases filed against criminal defendants in U.S. Magistrate Courts were filed in districts along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Both the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys are components of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
Although the most recent U.S. Attorneys’ report makes no direct mention of U.S. border violence, the FY 2010 report states, "Violence along the border of the United States and Mexico has increased dramatically during recent years. The violence associated with Mexican drug trafficking organizations poses a serious problem for law enforcement personnel."
In addition, in May 2011, Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, when testifying before lawmakers, questioned the ability of the FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to fully assess the crime situation in border areas.
McCraw said the FBI crime statistics highlighted by the CBP about safe border communities fail to provide a full assessment of the situation on the ground.
As McCraw testified, “To accurately assess the overall criminal impact of an unsecure border on Texas requires the syntheses of several different variables within and outside the border region. For example, if we were to use only Index Crimes as reported through the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system, it would not include essential variables such as extortions, kidnappings, smuggling incidents, corruption, smuggling-related trespassing and vandalism, arrests of aliens from countries with strong terrorist networks, seizures of Cartel drugs, weapons and bulk cash on the 10 major smuggling corridors throughout Texas, Cartel command and control networks operating in Texas, increases in Cartel-related gang activity, death squad members living in Texas, Cartel-related killings of U.S. citizens in Mexico, Cartel-related violence along the border directed at U.S. law enforcement and the recruitment of Texas children in our border region to support Cartel operations on both sides of the border.”
The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports include data on “violent crime” and “property crime,” but not all the criminal actions and activities cited by McGraw. The FBI’s violent crime index covers murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. The FBI’s property crime list includes data on burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson.
Nonetheless, CBP’s Garza used the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports data in claiming that border communities are among the safest in America.
“In fiscal year 2011, CBP seized 5 million pounds of narcotics, including nearly 370,000 pounds seized at the ports of entry. These numbers demonstrate the effectiveness of our layered approach to security,” stated Garza in his written testimony. “Violent crime in border communities has remained flat or fallen in the past decade, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Report, and some of the safest communities in America are at the border. In fact, violent crimes in Southwest border counties overall have dropped by more than 40 percent and are currently among the lowest in the Nation per capita, even as drug-related violence has significantly increased in Mexico.”
While Garza claimed that statistics from the FBI show a decline in violent crimes in U.S. communities that are on or near the southwest border, the U.S. Attorneys’ report presents another side of the story.
There were 71,387 cases filed in U.S. Magistrate Courts against criminal defendants between Oct. 1, 2010 and Sept. 20, 2011 (FY 2011), according to the Attorneys’ latest statistical report. Among those cases, 57,310 (80 percent) occurred along the southwest border.
Despite the U.S. Attorneys’ data, DHS Secretary Napolitano echoed Garza’s claims that the border communities are among the safest in the country, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 25: “Violent crime in U.S. border communities has also remained flat or fallen over the past decade, and statistics have shown that some of the safest communities in America are along the border.”
some of the most heavily armed too, I reckun.
The illegals don’t settle in areas next to the border. San Diego is safer than Los Angeles because the illegals pass through San Diego on their way to areas to the north. If you go up north Santa Ana, Los Angeles or most parts north watch out for the Mexican gangs. And by the way, the border fence does not stop most of them. They go over the fence, around the fence, under the fence, and through the fence.
Some of the safest are, but how many illegals end up being the problem in places like Salinas?
Gene been smokin’ the wacky weed again.
He may be, or backing his boss and his bosses boss for the upcoming election.
What Garza does not mention is that the Mexican side of the border has become a warzone. El Paso Texas is one of the safes cities in the country. Juarez, right across the border, makes Detroit look like Mayberry. The reason is simple, drug dealers still have geographic access to their markets along the border but can take care of most of their illegal business in Mexico where they don’t have to deal with US feds and police.
The problem is that soon enough the narcos will figure out that the Feds are not interested in stopping them. When that happens the spillover will be unlike anything most Americans have ever seen.
With the exception of San Diego..the border cities have poor economies and there isn’t much reason for the worst illegals to stay there. They head north for greener pastures. Just go to the bus terminals in El Paso near the border and see them loaded up and headed all over the country.
Snips Undocumented workers have been taking advantage of a loophole called the Additional Child Tax Credit, a fully-refundable credit of up to $1,000 per child that was intended to help working families with children living at home. Not only are they claiming children within the U.S., they are also claiming children in Mexico. The whistleblower, a tax preparer who brought the case to the attention of WTHR, said he has thousands of examples of illegal immigrants claiming credits for children residing in Mexico, including children labeled as nieces and nephews on their filings.
“We’ve seen sometimes 10 or 12 dependents, most times nieces and nephews, on these tax forms,” the whistleblower said. “The more you put on there, the more you get back.”
Human sacrifices suspected along Mexico border
Snip: Mexican prosecutors are investigating the poor family living in shacks outside a small town near the U.S. border as alleged members of a cult that sacrificed two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman to Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, a figure adored mostly by outlaws but whose popularity is growing across Mexico and among Hispanics in the United States.
4 dead, 7 hurt wen SUV fleeing Border Patrol crashes
Snips: The Dodge Durango carrying 11 people hit a wall and rolled into the yard of a home in Casa Grande at about 1 a.m., police spokesman officer Thomas Anderson said. Officers found three people dead at the scene, and a fourth died after being airlifted to a hospital in Phoenix, 50 miles to the north.
Multiple-fatality crashes involving vehicles packed with illegal immigrants are not uncommon in Arizona, especially when drivers try to flee from law enforcement. It's also common for smuggling vehicles to travel in pairs, with one acting as a decoy so the vehicle with drugs or illegal immigrants can slip away.
Thanks for the links and excerpts, MamaDearest.
The U.S. side of the southwest border is home to “some of the safest communities in America,”
Crack cocaine makes hair grow on bald spots.
My dog can talk.
I can bench press 745 pounds. With one arm.
My wife, Morgan Fairchild, has seen me do it.
She has a pet ocelot she walks on a leash outside our
penthouse on the upper east side in Central Park, yeah.
She married me because I have a 14” ....
heh
`If you’re going to lie, might as well make it a big one.’
Goebels, Alinsky & Carney
Thanks, MamaDearest. All that is MUCH too close to home and to those in D.C. it never happened.
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