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The U.S. Border Patrol Friday announced it is building an outpost in New Mexico's Bootheel, one of the last unguarded regions between the United States and Mexico. It's an unforgiving terrain where Geronimo made his last stand. Today, it remains largely isolated with no cell service, few unpaved roads but growing lawlessness as drug dealers and human smugglers increasingly look for alternatives to more traveled routes. There are tales of drug traffickers breaking into homes and high speed chases that sometimes force school buses off dirt roads. One rancher even stumbled upon 19 lost and starving Chinese immigrants who had...

Prosecutors who asked a federal court to seal the records in the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent as part of their investigation into the “Fast and Furious” operation now say they will ask that some of the documents be made public - more than a year after the shooting death. Six newspaper and television stations in Arizona had asked that documents in the Dec. 14, 2010, death of Border Patrol Agent Brian A. Terry be unsealed, telling a federal court the public had a right to inspect the records and attend any criminal trials that may come out...

Alan D. Bersin, commissioner of the 57,000-employee U.S. Customs and Border Protection, will resign effective December 30, he said Thursday. Bersin was appointed to the post by President Barack Obama on March 27, 2010. He notified the president of his resignation Thursday, he said in a statement. "My service as commissioner has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my public life," Bersin said. "I am immensely proud of the significant and meaningful achievements we have made on our borders and at our nation's ports of entry over nearly two years. "Through innovative solutions and strengthened partnerships, we have...

The Monty Python defense. My goodness. Joltin' Joe Lieberman announces a Senate Homeland Security investigation on F&F "inter-ageny miscommunication" and the head of Border Patrol runs away the very same day. Folks, just received this statement by email: Statement from Alan D. Bersin, Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Earlier today, I notified the President of my intent to resign as Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection effective Dec. 30. I have expressed my deep gratitude and appreciation to President Obama and Secretary Napolitano for the opportunity to have led such an exceptional organization and for the confidence they...

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION at the link below to show you Stand With Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and AGAINST the political witchhunt of Obama's Department of Justice. This Administration and its open-borders allies La Raza, MALDEF and the ACLU, will stop at nothing to try and destroy the most prominent national symbol in the fight against illegal immigration. Sheriff Joe will not back down. Please sign the petition to show we stand behind him. [Note: The opposition already has a petition AGAINST Joe with 11,014 signatures (as of 6:32PST). Let's blow past them with 20,000 signatures or more by the end...

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION at the link below to show you Stand With Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and AGAINST the political witchhunt of Obama's Department of Justice. This Administration and its open-borders allies La Raza, MALDEF and the ACLU, will stop at nothing to try and destroy the most prominent national symbol in the fight against illegal immigration. Sheriff Joe will not back down. Please sign the petition to show we stand behind him. [Note: The opposition already has a petition AGAINST Joe with 3,400 signatures. Let's blow past them with 5,000 signatures or more by the end of today!]

by John HillStand With Arizona Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Human Smuggling Unit arrested 17 illegal aliens over 48 hours - including 2 smugglers, in the north valley region. The illegals had paid the smugglers between $1,000 and $2,000 each to be smuggled across the border. Demonstrating how Arizona is a critical gateway for the entire nation, most of those arrested were heading to locations in the east: Mississippi, Virginia, Florida, Georgia and New Jersey. They are now headed to Sheriff Joe's Tent City instead. Way to go, Joe! But the shocking detail of this arrest is the...

11-24-11 While Border Patrol agents spend hours and hours taking sensitivity training and being made into mini-environmentalists, illegal aliens continue to burn thousands of acres and trash huge swaths of public and private lands. Border Patrol agents have known this for many years. We know this is shocking, but they don't care about our land, our environment, our "cultural" preservation, or our laws. And why should they? While the Obama Administration and some Republican candidates like Newt Gingrich pander to them and encourage them to keep violating our immigration laws with promises of amnesty, why should they respect any of...

It was a very uncomfortable Thursday for Attorney General Eric Holder on Capitol Hill as he testified before the House Judiciary Committee about Operation Fast and Furious. If it wasn’t clear that Fast and Furious was implemented as a way to push more gun control measures without the consent of Congress, it’s crystal clear now. Continued stonewalling from the Justice Department had Rep. James Sensenbrenner talking about impeachment Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers called for the enforcement of new gun control measures pushed through the Justice Department in July without the approval of Congress, requiring...

The savage violence among cartel rivals in Mexico and Central American countries for control over drug smuggling routes into the United States to supply degenerate addicts and party people is among the top ten underreported stories in 2011 as reported by Nate Rawlings for Time. Of course, maybe the story is widely ignored because the media has swallowed the lies from the Obama administration that there is no evidence of any spillover violence into the United States, and as long as it's only people in other countries getting killed the self-absorbed hacks who otherwise call themselves journalists -- some of...

Border Patrol agents pursue smugglers one moment and sit around in boredom the next. It was during one of the lulls that Bryan Gonzalez, a young agent, made some comments to a colleague that cost him his career. Stationed in Deming, N.M., Mr. Gonzalez was in his green-and-white Border Patrol vehicle just a few feet from the international boundary when he pulled up next to a fellow agent to chat about the frustrations of the job. If marijuana were legalized, Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges saying, the drug-related violence across the border in Mexico would cease. He then brought up an organization...

From multiple sources come shocking charges of deadly ineptitude and an FBI coverup. Previously, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s death in Peck Canyon, Arizona was described as a chance meeting that led to a firefight: an illegal alien “rip crew” working for the Sinaloa cartel was hoping to find other illegal aliens and to rob them at gunpoint. Instead, they stumbled across a Border Patrol unit and murdered Agent Terry. Last week, the Washington Times offered a new version of the encounter: they reported that the rip crew was not hunting illegals, but Border Patrol teams — with the intention...

An advocacy organization for U.S. Border Patrol agents has posted online a series of files containing the discovery documentation in the case against Agent Jesus Diaz, who is serving a 24-month prison term for his encounter with a teenage drug smuggler. The posting by the Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council came even though a federal judge had issued an order forbidding the disclosure of the documents by defense counsel. The order from U.S. District Judge Alia Moses came on the heels of a WND report based on some of the targeted documents revealing that the unidentified teenage drug smuggler had...

WASHINGTON — Texas Gov. Rick Perry vowed to completely secure the U.S.-Mexican border within 12 months of being inaugurated president during a GOP presidential debate Tuesday that showcased the emergence of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as the go-to alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. In a debate focused on national security, Perry was quickest to the count on border issues, saying he would complete “strategic fencing” along the 1,969-mile U.S.-Mexican border, add “boots on the ground” and aviation assets such as Predator surveillance aircraft to intercept potential Iranian-backed terrorists crossing into the United States from Mexico as well...

<p>Five illegal immigrants armed with at least two AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifles were hunting for U.S. Border Patrol agents near a desert watering hole known as Mesquite Seep just north of the Arizona-Mexico border when a firefight erupted and one U.S. agent was killed, records show.</p>

“I have learned to live with trash,” said fifth-generation Arizona rancher Jim Chilton.He saw his once-beautiful ranch, just a few miles from the border with Mexico, is now dotted with clusters of crushed trees and cactus, whole hillsides have been turned into charred eyesores, years worth of his award-winning conservation projects obliterated — and the whole thing is littered with trash, tons and tons of trash. And some of the trash was dead bodies. Chilton had the misfortune of settling in the path of what would become a dangerous drug- and human-smuggling route on the U.S.-Mexican border, parallel with the...

Thirty-seven Republican House members are challenging the two-year prison sentence being served by a U.S. Border Patrol agent for his conduct in the arrest of a drug-smuggling suspect, while a dozen other lawmakers are pressing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to explain his role in the botched “Fast and Furious” weapons investigation. In a letter Thursday to President Obama, the 37 members — led by Rep. Duncan Hunter of California — described the prosecution of Agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. as “unfair and excessively disproportionate” and suggested it set a “dangerous precedent” that could place other agents and the...

ESCOBARES — Fifteen gunmen crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S. near a shootout between the Mexican military and a group of gunmen was taking place. Several area SWAT teams were responding about 1:30 p.m. Tuesday to a ranch near Escobares, just across the U.S.-Mexico border where a shootout broke out south of the Rio Grande. The shootout reportedly began shortly after noon but details were not readily available. Residents on the U.S. side reported seeing members of the U.S. Border Patrol and Starr County Sheriff's Office near the border securing the area. A U.S. law enforcement official confirmed a...

Sorting out the details of his shooting death is now the focus of multiple agency investigations MATHIS — A man killed about noon Thursday by a border patrol agent near Mathis was a 20-year-old from Mexico, authorities said Friday. Sorting out the details of his shooting death is now the focus of multiple agency investigations. U.S. Border Patrol agents attempted to stop a Lincoln SUV in the 5700 block of Farm-to-Market Road 666, when the driver refused and authorities said he tried to run over an agent in an attempt to get away. That agent then shot the man in...

CORPUS CHRISTI - The Border Patrol and Texas Department of Public Safety have blocked off FM 666 near FM 624 for a shooting involving agents. Officials are not commenting on exactly what happened just yet. There are unconfirmed reports a suspect was shot and killed. We'll keep you posted.

Personnel from San Diego Fire rescue found the men and women around 1 a.m. three feet underground and about 10 feet from the end of a sewer pipe on Via De La Amistad, which is just east of the Port of Entry. Rescuers worked for over an hour to free the adults. The five people had to crawl through mud and sewage to get out of the pipe. Crews had the individuals remove their clothing so they could be washed down with a hose after they crawled out of the pipe. They were given blankets and taken to a local...

During a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing today on Capitol Hill, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who is facing pressure surrounding his role in the Obama Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious, asked for more gun control and blamed law abiding gun shop owners for violence in Mexico. Breuer declared that nearly 70 percent of guns found in Mexico come from the United States, a figure that has been disproven by the National Rifle Association, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact and by Senator Charles Grassley’s office multiple times.  Also during testimony, Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein pushed for more gun control and Breuer expressed his...

Justice: Another border patrol agent faces prison after arresting an illegal alien smuggling drugs. When not being killed by guns funneled into Mexico by their own government, they are prosecuted for doing their job. In a case reminiscent of an earlier injustice against those protecting our borders, Border Patrol Agent Jesus E. "Chito" Diaz Jr. has been sentenced to two years in prison by U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum in San Antonio. The illegal alien he arrested for drug smuggling goes free. In November 2009, Diaz was named in a federal grand jury indictment after an October 2008 arrest...

Since February 24, 2011, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jesus Diaz has been sitting in a prison cell, following a conviction on one count of excessive force and 5 counts of lying to Internal Affairs. Given the circumstances of his case, and this government’s seeming crusade against Border Patrol agents, Agent Diaz could arguably called yet another political prisoner for Mexico. His crime? On October 16, 2008, Agent Diaz responded to a location near Eagle Pass, TX, after a report came in that several drug smugglers were in the area after crossing the river. Once the illegal aliens were apprehended, Agent...

They don't have a clue where he is. Two Bangladeshis who were caught by Customs and Border Protection illegally crossing the border in June 2010 admitted under questioning that they were members of a designated terrorist organization that signed on to a fatwa by Osama bin Laden pledging to wage war against Americans. But amazingly, after one of the men requested asylum, he was released on bond. And now one Homeland Security official tells me, concerning the released terror operative, “We don’t have the slightest idea where he is now.” The two men, Muhammad Nazmul Hasan and Mirza Muhammad Saifuddin,...

A corrupt U.S. border agent sitting in a federal prison cell is offering a chilling view of the Mexican drug cartels whose drug shipments he protected for years in return for hefty bribes. He is so terrified of the cartel's famous vicious streak that he fears for his own life -- and the lives of his family -- if he is identified as speaking to ABC News. He depicts a dangerously paranoid crime organization that has spies throughout U.S. law enforcement. To illustrate the cartel's pervasive reach, he said he got his introduction to them through an American cop. From...

A House committee approved a bill today that honors slain Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Jaime Zapata and directs funding to law enforcement task forces on the U.S.-Mexico border. The bill, the Jaime Zapata Border Enforcement Security Task Force Act of 2011, would distribute $102 million to special law enforcement groups to crack down on organization crime that could create security threats along the border

WASHINGTON - CBS News has obtained secretly recorded conversations that raise questions as to whether some evidence is being withheld in the murder of a Border Patrol agent. (Scroll down to listen to the audio) The tapes were recorded approximately mid-March 2011 by the primary gun dealer cooperating with ATF in its "Fast and Furious" operation: Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Arizona. He's talking with the lead case ATF case agent Hope MacAllister. The tapes have been turned over to Congressional investigators and the Inspector General. As CBS News first reported last February, the Bureau...

U.S. Border Patrol agents have discovered a cache of several high-powered weapons along the Rio Grande river including a rocket launcher, assault rifles and plastic explosives, authorities said. Agents found the weapons on Tuesday in a black bag along a quiet stretch of the Rio Grande near Fronton, a small community about 210 miles south of San Antonio. No arrests have been made. “These deadly weapons could have had a devastating impact on communities on both sides of the border and to our agents and other law enforcement officers,” Rosendo Hinojosa, head of Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, said...

The National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) has made substantial progress challenging the disingenuous and inequitable Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Pay Reform proposal since it was first proposed by CBP. The NBPC continues to meet with Congressional leaders and representatives to speak in opposition to the proposal and point out the many inconsistencies and flaws with the proposal. The NBPC expressed concern regarding the proposal which only targets Border Patrol agents for a significant salary reduction by eliminating coverage under Administratively Uncontrollable Overtime (AUO), exempting agents from coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), converting agents to Law Enforcement...

In a surprise move in a controversial case, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona is opposing a routine motion by the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry to qualify as crime victims in the eyes of the court. The family asked to intervene as victims in the case against Jamie Avila, the 23-year-old Phoenix man who purchased the guns used to kill Terry. Such motions are routinely approved by prosecutors, but may be opposed by defense attorneys. However in this case, U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke argues because the family was not "directly or proximately harmed" by the illegal...

SAN DIEGO — One of five people charged in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent admitted Tuesday that the motivation behind the ambush killing was to rob the agent's night vision equipment. Emilio Gonzales pleaded guilty to murder of a federal officer in court and faces life in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 17.

Arizona lawmakers are hoping to raise around $50 million for border fencing with a new online public fundraising plan that launches Wednesday – despite skepticism from key stakeholders. Under legislation signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer in April, the state would use inmate labor and money pulled in through the website to fence in some of the 82 miles of border between Arizona and Mexico that remain open. Despite support from top state officials, the initiative is already facing problems. Private land owners and county sheriffs are skeptical that fencing even works and don’t plan on contributing, while the federal...

Dexter Hedrick swells with pride when he talks about the Wild Horse Program’s partnership with the United States Border Patrol. “To have done something to help protect my country is just such an honor to me,” said Hedrick, a manager for the Wild Horse Program at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility. On Friday, the U.S. Border Patrol adopted six mustangs from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Hutchinson. The horses were gathered from BLM-administered public lands and transported to the Hutchinson Correctional Facility, where inmates trained them as part of a special rehabilitation program. This is the first time...

For three years running American Border Patrol celebrated the Fourth of July by placing thousands of American flags on the border fence at its Arizona ranch. Each flag had a message from an American citizen attached. Last year more than 16,000 flags were placed on the fence (10,000 were new). But the Obama administration decided it didn't like the flags and messages, so it sent U.S. Border Patrol agents out in the middle of the night to tear them down and thrown them on the ground.

GILA BEND, Ariz. — Two Border Patrol agents rushing to help capture some suspected illegal immigrants were killed Thursday when their SUV entered a marked railroad crossing and was struck by a freight train. The crash happened in a rural farming area near Interstate 8 and the town of Gila Bend, about 85 miles southwest of Phoenix. Yuma Border Patrol sector spokesman Agent Kenneth Quillin said the agents were trying to position themselves on a road north of some other agents who were trying to capture a group of suspected illegal immigrants. The suspects were on foot, and none of...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday said an indictment against three illegal immigrants accused of killing a border patrol agent sends a "clear message" to drug cartels and border smugglers. A federal judge unsealed a 14-count indictment against Manuel Osorio-Arrelanes and two other Mexican natives last Friday, accusing them of participating in the shooting that killed 40-year old Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in December. "This indictment also sends a clear message to those who would consider committing violence against the Border Patrol: we will not stand for aggression against our men and women in uniform

On Friday, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes was arraigned in a Tucson federal courtroom for second-degree murder, conspiracy to assault a federal officer and firearms possession charges in connection to the December shooting death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry Though others have also been charged in Agent Terry’s death, the Justice Department has sealed their names. Osorio-Arellanes is scheduled to go on trial on June 17, if convicted, the Mexican national faces up to life in prison. On December 14, 2010, Agent Brian Terry was shot to death in the Arizona desert, while patrolling one of the region's most dangerous drug...

Veteran Border Patrol Officer Jesus Diaz faces a sentence of 10 to 35 years in federal prison for doing his job—nabbing drug smugglers sneaking across the Mexican border. Prosecuting the U.S. Border Patrol for doing its job is not new. Obama continues the Bush policy—talking about border security but keeping the border open, and prosecuting Border Patrol agents who get too aggressive enforcing the law. During the Bush years, the Mexican government pressured for the prosecution of BP agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean in an incident similar to the one that threatens not only the freedom of Jesus Diaz...

Paste your document here For the third time in a few months a federal report exposes how the U.S. government prioritizes environmental preservation over national security by keeping Border Patrol agents out of wildlife refuges that are heavily transited by Mexican drug and human smugglers. Among them is a popular smugglers’ corridor, the 2,300-acre San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, used by an illegal immigrant who murdered an Arizona rancher last spring. For years, Border Patrol agents have been prohibited by the Interior Department and the U.S. Forest Service from actively patrolling such areas because it threatens natural resources. Motorized...

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever told FoxNews.com that a supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol told him as recently as this month that the federal agency’s office on Arizona's southern border was under orders to keep apprehension numbers down during specific reporting time per Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/01/exclusive-federal-agents-told-reduce-border-arrests-arizona-sheriff-says/#ixzz1IHNhtMIo

(CNSNews.com) - Richard M. Stana, director of homeland security and justice issues at the Government Accountability Office (which is responsible for “auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively”), told the Senate Homeland Security Committee yesterday that the federal government can actually prevent or stop illegal entries into the United States along only 129 miles of the 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border. That leaves 1,825 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border where the Border Patrol cannot prevent or stop an illegal entry. Nonetheless, Stana told the committee, the Border Patrol itself says it has established “an acceptable...

PHOENIX — A Mexican man was climbing a ladder when a Border Patrol agent fatally shot him three times, a sheriff's spokeswoman told The Associated Press on Monday. Cochise County sheriff's investigators have no indication that Carlos La Madrid, 19, assaulted or tried to assault the agent when he was shot March 21, said agency spokeswoman Carol Capas. La Madrid had fled police in the Arizona border city of Douglas in a truck and drove to the border with Mexico. He was climbing a ladder and trying to cross the border, and another man atop the wall began throwing rocks...

The law enforcement-based union that represents all 17,500 non-supervisory U.S. Border Patrol agents says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s comments this week reassuring Americans that the U.S. border is safe and open for business are “wrong and give citizens a false sense of security.” “It is time for the political games to stop for fear of insulting the government of Mexico,” the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) said in a statement. “U.S. citizens are being kidnapped and killed while our Border Patrol agents fight a war at home that no one will allow them to win. “Not one more Border...

White House press secretary Jay Carney did not shed any light Monday on the allegations uncovered by CBS News that ATF intentionally let thousands of assault rifles and other weapons fall into the hands of Mexico's drug cartels. Insiders call the controversial practice letting guns "walk." In the wake of our CBS News investigation, Mexico has asked the U.S. for more information. Two AK-47 type variant assault rifles that ATF allegedly let "walk" were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December. Here's the excerpt from today's White House briefing: CBS News chief White House...

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - On the night he was killed, there is no indication that Border Agent Brian Terry ever got off a shot. That is one of the revelations contained in a confidential document that 9 On Your Side has obtained. The document is a BORTAC incident report - BORTAC being an acronym for Border Patrol Tactical Unit. According to the report, Terry was one of six officers taking part in a patrol in the Rio Rico area - not four, as the Border Patrol had previously stated. The Border Patrol has said very little about what happened that night,...

The U.S. Border Patrol is under fire for allegedly ordering its elite, SWAT-style units to use non-lethal bean bag ammunition before responding with deadly force – even against suspects armed with high-powered semi-automatic and automatic weapons like AK-47s. The controversy over the agency’s “bean bag” policy began in the days following the Dec. 14 killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and has escalated recently as more information is uncovered in the investigation of the fatal shooting.

“Files add some clarity to Terry's death,” The Arizona Daily Star is reporting. “Agents used beanbags against migrants, who replied with gunfire.” This corroborates a rumor that has been widely circulating since the mid-December shootout, when Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was fatally wounded in Peck’s Canyon after encountering armed illegal immigrants who would not obey commands to drop their weapons. A key point is highlighted in this new report: The Terry family remains upset about allegations that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed a gun smuggler it was investigating to purchase and smuggle into Mexico the...

Calexico, California -- Border Patrol agents are attacked while trying to make an arrest near the Calexico Station. According to the Border Patrol, 2 agents were in the process of arresting 3 suspected illegals near the border fence. During the arrests, 2 other men standing on top of the fence on the Mexican side started throwing large rocks at the agents. A third agent was able to maneuver his vehicle to provide some cover, but the men continued to throw rocks, seriously damaging the vehicle. None of the agents were hurt, but the rock throwers escaped back into Mexico.

MEXICO CITY - As his fellow officer was dying in the seat beside him after gunmen ambushed their vehicle this week, U.S. special agent Victor Avila, wounded himself, telephoned the U.S. Embassy here to shout that they were under attack. Avila and Jaime Zapata were traveling in an armored Chevrolet Suburban with diplomatic license plates on a popular four-lane highway four hours north of Mexico City. They were returning from a meeting with fellow agents in Monterrey, who had met them at a halfway point near San Luis Potosi to exchange technical equipment. According to U.S. officials who spoke on...