Copyright © 2013 Texas Department of Agriculture
Friday, May 31, 2013
May 31 2013...Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition goals
NBo
Donald L. Reay
Executive Director
Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition
240 Thunderbird, Ste A
El Paso, TX 79912
May 31 2013...from a border rancher...re Gang of Eight illusion
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May 31, 2013 "Senate Immigration bill could benefit U.S. Ag, too" (AMERICAN FARM BUREAU)
Senate immigration bill could benefit U.S. agriculture, too
May 29, 2013 - Washington Post
By Editorial Board, Published: May 27
SO MANY parts of the nation’s immigration system are rusting, clanking or broken that the situation affords an opportunity for reformers in the Senate: Devise a legislative fix for practically everything and, in the process, forge a broad coalition for a sweeping overhaul that includes legalizing 11 million unauthorized immigrants.The absurdly dysfunctional agricultural sector is a prime example. Up to two-thirds of the workforce tending to crops and livestock — at least 1 million current workers — are undocumented, up from a third in the mid-1990s. Many are relatively skilled, most have been in the country for a decade or more, and some have moved up to jobs in middle management. Despite their central role in providing the country’s food, they remain subject to harassment, raids and deportation.
Farmers and ranchers have complained about this for years, warning that the shortage of native-born workers willing and able to do agricultural work, along with the threats to migrant labor, would put farmers out of business and shift crop production overseas. Their increasingly dire pronouncements have been met by the usual right-wing rhetoric attacking “amnesty” for illegal workers.
At the same time, the creaky visa system designed to supply agribusiness with foreign guest workers is widely seen as a failure — bureaucratic, inflexible and incapable of meeting time- and weather-sensitive labor demands. By the time guest workers are issued visas, it’s often too late. The results are that relatively few employers rely on the program and farmers struggle with chronic labor shortages.
Past attempts at a standalone fix have failed in Congress, lacking unified support from agribusiness and farm workers. But employers and unions forged a deal just in time for inclusion in the Senate immigration bill.
Their pact would grant legal status through so-called Blue Cards for undocumented farm workers, who could become permanent legal residents in a sped-up five-year process. The guest-worker visa program would be scrapped in favor of a new system to provide up to 337,000 visas over three years for foreign farm workers. Unions got a relatively tight cap on visas (though it could be adjusted in the future by the agriculture secretary) and a requirement that employers pay for migrants’ housing and transportation to and from the job. Employers mostly held the line on wages.
It’s in no one’s interest to saddle farmers and ranchers with an unstable workforce and labor shortages that threaten the supply of domestically grown crops. The agricultural provisions in the immigration bill would go a good distance toward fixing that. And as part of the overall immigration legislation, it may generate support for the bill from some rural lawmakers who would otherwise oppose it.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of American Farm Bureau Federation.
May 31, 2013 _"Immigrants Force Rancher Out of Cattle Business" (So. Tex. Property Rights Assn)
Immigrants Force Rancher out of Cattle Business
-
Posted: May 29, 2013 6:52 PM
Updated: May 29, 2013 8:03 PM
PENITAS - A landowner is opting for a new approach to keep illegal immigrants from destroying his fences.
Rene Garcia, of Penitas, said illegal immigration forced his family out of the cattle business. He said repeated trespassing and vandalism left his fences in shambles.
Garcia said he will install a ladder to help the immigrants go over the fence. He hopes that will keep them from destroying his property.
"We just couldn't keep up with it," Garcia said.
Garcia said his father-in-law sold off his cattle because he could not keep up with the fence repairs. He said his father-in-law raised cattle for nearly 50 years.
Garcia said the new fences they built are meant to keep people out.
"They want to get across, and they don't care what they have to go through. They will knock it down, climb over it (and) go through it," Garcia said.
Garcia said problems started when construction on the border fence stopped just behind his property. He said illegal immigrants were funneled to his ranch, and sometimes right up to his doorstep.
"You really don't know what their intentions are. Some come with good intentions ... some don't," Garcia said.
Garcia thinks illegal immigrants are staying for long periods of time at his property. He said the evidence is toys, hygiene products and other items that litter his property.
"This is an endless effort," he said.
Garcia said he has resigned himself to the fact that he has to live with the intrusions.
Garcia said adding a ladder may be against the Border Patrol's efforts to catch illegal immigrants. But he feels he has no other choice.
"I don't believe the border is secure," he said.
Rene Garcia, of Penitas, said illegal immigration forced his family out of the cattle business. He said repeated trespassing and vandalism left his fences in shambles.
Garcia said he will install a ladder to help the immigrants go over the fence. He hopes that will keep them from destroying his property.
"We just couldn't keep up with it," Garcia said.
Garcia said his father-in-law sold off his cattle because he could not keep up with the fence repairs. He said his father-in-law raised cattle for nearly 50 years.
Garcia said the new fences they built are meant to keep people out.
"They want to get across, and they don't care what they have to go through. They will knock it down, climb over it (and) go through it," Garcia said.
Garcia said problems started when construction on the border fence stopped just behind his property. He said illegal immigrants were funneled to his ranch, and sometimes right up to his doorstep.
"You really don't know what their intentions are. Some come with good intentions ... some don't," Garcia said.
Garcia thinks illegal immigrants are staying for long periods of time at his property. He said the evidence is toys, hygiene products and other items that litter his property.
"This is an endless effort," he said.
Garcia said he has resigned himself to the fact that he has to live with the intrusions.
Garcia said adding a ladder may be against the Border Patrol's efforts to catch illegal immigrants. But he feels he has no other choice.
"I don't believe the border is secure," he said.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
May 30, 2013...Excerpts from Arizona border rancher Ed Ashurst (from upcoming book) re: Rob Krentz murder 3 years ago on the Krentz ranch
Story of a border rancher...excerpts from upcoming new book by N.Dale...
Douglas, Arizona 2013...
Ashurst echoes the concern of other ranchers living
near the U.S./Mexican border. “I manage a large cattle ranch in the far
southeastern corner of Arizona. I’ve been here for thirteen years. My home has been broken into twice. My son’s home has been broken into also. Between us, we have had $20,000 or $30,000
worth of stuff stolen including two ranch pick-ups, a four wheeler, nine
firearms (including a loaded AK 47), cash, jewelry, all of our credit cards,
and driver’s licenses. A guest house
here on the ranch has been broken into so many times we quit counting… many
times we haven’t even called the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department. They have no less than fifteen reports on
file where I’ve called for assistance dealing with an outlaw illegal alien,”
says Ashurst. “The Sinaloa Cartel,
headed by kingpin Chapo Guzman and others are reaping huge profits doing
business along the border. Douglas,
Arizona also has one of the largest Border Patrol stations in America.” “Ed manages the ranch where I grew up next
door until my folks sold it in 1969,” says Sue Krentz.
Douglas, Arizona 2013...
“I
live on the ranch bordering the Krentz ranch to the east and north,” explains
Ed Ashurst. “I can see the Krentz home looking out of my front door
approximately ten miles away. The day
after Rob’s death, I was involved in tracking the outlaw into Mexico. I saw the outlaw’s footprints where he
crossed the border fence. I mention this
to say I feel that I’m qualified to speak about current border issues.”
“Law
enforcement officials broke the news of Rob’s death to the kids and then the
kids told me,” Sue sadly remembers. “Rob was shot on our property coming along the
east side of the valley near Highway 80.
Phil, Rob’s brother, said he never heard a shot fired.”
.....Book release To Be Announced...
May 29, 2013 KRGV TV "Officials ask landlords to help prevent stash houses" (South Tex. Property Owners)
Officials Ask Landlords to Help Prevent Stash Houses
Posted: May 28, 2013 6:23 PM
Updated: May 28, 2013 9:53 PM
HIDALGO COUNTY - Authorities say landlords must do their part to avoid having their properties turned into stash houses.
Robert Garza said his tenants turned his house at 601 Thornwood in Mission into a stash house. Police and Border Patrol agents found nearly 50 illegal immigrants hiding in the house Thursday.
"It caught me by surprise. I didn't expect it ... didn't see it coming," Garza said.
He said the unexpected tenants left a major mess.
"It was nasty. We had just cleaned it up for the new renters. Now we have to do it again," Garza said.
Garza said he never suspected his house was being used to house illegal immigrants.
Garza said a young couple rented the house.
"They just said, ‘we got the money right now. How much do we need to give for the deposit to hold the house?' I told them (the amount) and they said, ‘we got (money) even for the rent. So we'll take it now,'" Garza said.
Police said that should have been the first red flag. They said most tenants aren't so willing to put so much cash down in advance.
Mission Police Cpl. Manuel Casas said landlords should ask for several types of identification from prospective tenants.
"As a landlord you have an investment ... your house, your apartment. It's your money," Casas said.
He said background searches also can help weed out potential criminals.
"Texas DPS has a website that you can use for a criminal background on a person. It's not illegal to do that. If I'm renting out a house, I wouldn't want to rent it to a criminal that brings the elements of a stash house for narcotics and humans," Casas said.
CLICK HERE to visit the DPS criminal background website.
Robert Garza said his tenants turned his house at 601 Thornwood in Mission into a stash house. Police and Border Patrol agents found nearly 50 illegal immigrants hiding in the house Thursday.
"It caught me by surprise. I didn't expect it ... didn't see it coming," Garza said.
He said the unexpected tenants left a major mess.
"It was nasty. We had just cleaned it up for the new renters. Now we have to do it again," Garza said.
Garza said he never suspected his house was being used to house illegal immigrants.
Garza said a young couple rented the house.
"They just said, ‘we got the money right now. How much do we need to give for the deposit to hold the house?' I told them (the amount) and they said, ‘we got (money) even for the rent. So we'll take it now,'" Garza said.
Police said that should have been the first red flag. They said most tenants aren't so willing to put so much cash down in advance.
Mission Police Cpl. Manuel Casas said landlords should ask for several types of identification from prospective tenants.
"As a landlord you have an investment ... your house, your apartment. It's your money," Casas said.
He said background searches also can help weed out potential criminals.
"Texas DPS has a website that you can use for a criminal background on a person. It's not illegal to do that. If I'm renting out a house, I wouldn't want to rent it to a criminal that brings the elements of a stash house for narcotics and humans," Casas said.
CLICK HERE to visit the DPS criminal background website.
May 29 2013...(KRGV TV) Border Patrol Skirts Comments on Fuel Limits - (South Tex. Property Owners)
Border Patrol Skirts Comments on Fuel Limits
Posted: May 28, 2013 9:13 PM
Updated: May 28, 2013 10:17 PM
HIDALGO COUNTY - Border Patrol officials issued a statement about fuel rationing at some of their stations. The statement, however, said little about the issue.
The comments come after a CHANNEL 5 NEWS investigation into fuel limits imposed on agents patrolling areas like Brooks County.
"The effects of sequestration continue to have serious impacts on CBP's operations, including nearly $600 million in cuts. We continue to encourage all parties to work together on a solution that can replace sequestration entirely and avoid the damaging impacts to CBP and critical services across the country," the statement said.
The statement did not mention the fuel rationing.
Chris Cabrera, vice-president of the Rio Grande Valley chapter of the Border Patrol agents' union, said the rationing is affecting operations.
Cabrera said the rationing started months ago.
The comments come after a CHANNEL 5 NEWS investigation into fuel limits imposed on agents patrolling areas like Brooks County.
"The effects of sequestration continue to have serious impacts on CBP's operations, including nearly $600 million in cuts. We continue to encourage all parties to work together on a solution that can replace sequestration entirely and avoid the damaging impacts to CBP and critical services across the country," the statement said.
The statement did not mention the fuel rationing.
Chris Cabrera, vice-president of the Rio Grande Valley chapter of the Border Patrol agents' union, said the rationing is affecting operations.
Cabrera said the rationing started months ago.
May 28 2013...US-Mex Cooperation against Cartels...(FORBES)
U.S.-Mexico Cooperation Against Cartels Remains Strong
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Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s approach to combating Mexican drug cartels has been a much-discussed topic since well before he was elected. Indeed, in June 2011 — more than a year before the July 2012 Mexican presidential election — I wrote an analysis discussing rumors that, if elected, Pena Nieto was going to attempt to reach some sort of accommodation with Mexico’s drug cartels in order to bring down the level of violence.
Such rumors were certainly understandable, given the arrangement that had existed for many years between some senior members of Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party and some powerful cartel figures during the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s long reign in Mexico prior to the election of Vicente Fox of the National Action Party in 2000. However, as we argued in 2011 and repeated in March 2013, much has changed in Mexico since 2000, and the new reality in Mexico means that it would be impossible for the Pena Nieto administration to reach any sort of deal with the cartels even if it made an attempt.
But the rumors of the Pena Nieto government reaching an accommodation with some cartel figures such as Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera have persisted, even as the Mexican government arrests key operatives in Guzman’s network, such as Ines Coronel Barreras, Guzman’s father-in-law, who was arrested May 1 in Agua Prieta, Mexico. Indeed, on April 27, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest published a detailed article outlining how U.S. authorities were fearful that the Mexican government was restructuring its security relationship with the U.S. government so that it could more easily reach an unofficial truce with cartel leaders. Yet four days later, Coronel — a significant cartel figure — was arrested in a joint operation between the Mexicans and Americans.
Clearly, there is some confusion on the U.S. side about the approach the Pena Nieto government is taking, but conversations with both U.S. and Mexican officials reveal that these changes in Mexico’s approach do not appear to be as drastic as some have feared. There will need to be adjustments on both sides of the border while organizational changes are underway in Mexico, but this does not mean that bilateral U.S.-Mexico cooperation will decline in the long term.
Because of this, the Pena Nieto administration believes that it is critical to reduce the overall level of violence in the country. Essentially it wants to transform the cartel issue into a law enforcement problem, something handled by the Interior Ministry and the national police, rather than a national security problem handled by the Mexican military and the Center for Research and National Security (Mexico’s national-level intelligence agency). In many ways the Pena Nieto administration wants to follow the model of the government of Colombia, which has never been able to stop trafficking in its territory but was able to defeat the powerful Medellin and Cali cartels and relegate their successor organizations to a law enforcement problem.
The Mexicans also believe that if they can attenuate cartel violence, they will be able to free up law enforcement forces to tackle common crime instead of focusing nearly all their resources on containing the cartel wars.
Although the cartels have not yet been taken down to the point of being a law enforcement problem, the Pena Nieto administration wants to continue to signal this shift in approach by moving the focus of its efforts against the cartels to the Interior Ministry. Unlike former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who was seen leading the charge against the cartels during his administration, Pena Nieto wants to maintain some distance from the struggle against the cartels (at least publicly). Pena Nieto seeks to portray the cartels as a secondary issue that does not demand his personal leadership and attention. He can then publicly focus his efforts on issues he deems critically important to Mexico’s future, like education reform, banking reform, energy reform and fostering the Mexican economy. This is the most significant difference between the Calderon and Pena Nieto administrations.
Of course it is one thing to say that the cartels have become a secondary issue, and it is quite another to make it happen. The Mexican government still faces some real challenges in reducing the threat posed by the cartels. However, it is becoming clear that the Pena Nieto administration seeks to implement a holistic approach in an attempt to address the problems at the root of the violence that in some ways is quite reminiscent of counterinsurgency policy. The Mexicans view these underlying economic, cultural and sociological problems as issues that cannot be solved with force alone.
Mexican officials in the current government say that the approach the Calderon administration took to fighting the cartels was wrong in that it sought to solve the problem of cartel violence by simply killing or arresting cartel figures. They claim that Calderon’s approach did nothing to treat the underlying causes of the violence and that the cartels were able to recruit gunmen faster than the government could kill or capture them. (In some ways this is parallel to the U.S. government’s approach in Yemen, where increases in missile strikes from unmanned aerial vehicles have increased, rather than reduced, the number of jihadists there.) In Mexico, when the cartels experienced trouble in recruiting enough gunmen, they were able to readily import them from Central America.
However — and this is very significant — this holistic approach does not mean that the Pena Nieto administration wants to totally abandon kinetic operations against the cartels. An important pillar of any counterinsurgency campaign is providing security for the population. But rather than provoke random firefights with cartel gunmen by sending military patrols into cartel hot spots, the Pena Nieto team wants to be more targeted and intentional in its application of force. It seeks to take out the networks that hire and supply the gunmen, not just the gunmen themselves, and this will require all the tools in its counternarcotics portfolio — not only force, but also things like intelligence, financial action (to target cartel finances), public health, institution building and anti-corruption efforts.
The theory is that by providing security, stability and economic opportunity the government can undercut the cartels’ ability to recruit youth who currently see little other options in life but to join the cartels.
To truly succeed, especially in the most lawless areas, the Mexican government is going to have to begin to build institutions — and public trust in those institutions — from the ground up. The officials we have talked to hold Juarez up as an example they hope to follow in other locations, though they say they learned a lot of lessons in Juarez that will allow them to streamline their efforts elsewhere. Obviously, before they can begin building, they recognize that they will have to seize, consolidate and hold territory, and this is the role they envision for the newly created gendarmerie, or paramilitary police.
The gendarmerie is important to this rebuilding effort because the military is incapable of serving in an investigative law enforcement role. They are deployed to pursue active shooters and target members of the cartels, but much of the crime affecting Mexico’s citizens and companies falls outside the military’s purview. The military also has a tendency to be heavy-handed, and reports of human rights abuses are quite common. Transforming from a national security to a law enforcement approach requires the formation of an effective police force that is able to conduct community policing while pursuing car thieves, extortionists, kidnappers and street gangs in addition to cartel gunmen.
Certainly the U.S. government was very involved in the Calderon administration’s kinetic approach to the cartel problem, as shown by the very heavy collaboration between the two governments. The collaboration was so heavy, in fact, that some incoming Pena Nieto administration figures were shocked by how integrated the Americans had become. The U.S. officials who told Dana Priest they were uncomfortable with the new Mexican government’s approach to cartel violence were undoubtedly among those deeply involved in this process — perhaps so deeply involved that they could not recognize that in the big picture, their approach was failing to reduce the violence in Mexico. Indeed, from the Mexican perspective, the U.S. efforts have been focused on reducing the flow of narcotics into the United States regardless of the impact of those efforts on Mexico’s security environment.
However, as seen by the May 1 arrest of Coronel, which a Mexican official described as a classic joint operation involving the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration and Mexican Federal Police, the Mexican authorities do intend to continue to work very closely with their American counterparts. But that cooperation must occur within the new framework established for the anti-cartel efforts. That means that plans for cooperation must be presented through the Mexican Interior Ministry so that the efforts can be centrally coordinated. Much of the current peer-to-peer cooperation can continue, but within that structure.
Another attempt at command control and coordination is in the Pena Nieto administration’s current efforts to implement police consolidation at the state level. While corruption has reached into all levels of the Mexican government, it is unquestionably the most pervasive at the municipal level, and in past government operations entire municipal police departments have been fired for corruption. The idea is that if all police were brought under a unified state command, called “Mando Unico” in Spanish, the police would be better screened, trained and paid and therefore the force would be more professional.
This concept of police consolidation at the state level is not a new idea; indeed, Calderon sought to do so under his administration, but it appears that Pena Nieto might have the political capital to make this happen, along with some other changes that Calderon wanted to implement but could not quite pull off. To date, Pena Nieto has had a great deal of success in garnering political support for his proposals, but the establishment of Mando Unico in each of Mexico’s 31 states may perhaps be the toughest political struggle he has faced yet. If realized, Mando Unico will be an important step — but only one step — in the long process of institution building for the police at the state level.
Aside from the political struggles, the Mexican government still faces very real challenges on the streets as it attempts to quell violence, reassert control over lawless areas and gain the trust of the public. The holistic plan laid out by the Pena Nieto administration sounds good on paper, but it will still require a great deal of leadership by Pena Nieto and his team to bring Mexico through the challenges it faces. They will obviously need to cooperate with the United States to succeed, but it has become clear that this cooperation will need to be on Mexico’s terms and in accordance with the administration’s new, holistic approach.
Such rumors were certainly understandable, given the arrangement that had existed for many years between some senior members of Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party and some powerful cartel figures during the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s long reign in Mexico prior to the election of Vicente Fox of the National Action Party in 2000. However, as we argued in 2011 and repeated in March 2013, much has changed in Mexico since 2000, and the new reality in Mexico means that it would be impossible for the Pena Nieto administration to reach any sort of deal with the cartels even if it made an attempt.
Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon (L) shakes hands with President Enrique Pena Nieto (R). (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
Clearly, there is some confusion on the U.S. side about the approach the Pena Nieto government is taking, but conversations with both U.S. and Mexican officials reveal that these changes in Mexico’s approach do not appear to be as drastic as some have feared. There will need to be adjustments on both sides of the border while organizational changes are underway in Mexico, but this does not mean that bilateral U.S.-Mexico cooperation will decline in the long term.
Opportunities and Challenges
Despite the violence that has wracked Mexico over the past decade, the Mexican economy is booming. Arguably, the economy would be doing even better if potential investors were not concerned about cartel violence and street crime — and if such criminal activity did not have such a significant impact on businesses operating in Mexico.Because of this, the Pena Nieto administration believes that it is critical to reduce the overall level of violence in the country. Essentially it wants to transform the cartel issue into a law enforcement problem, something handled by the Interior Ministry and the national police, rather than a national security problem handled by the Mexican military and the Center for Research and National Security (Mexico’s national-level intelligence agency). In many ways the Pena Nieto administration wants to follow the model of the government of Colombia, which has never been able to stop trafficking in its territory but was able to defeat the powerful Medellin and Cali cartels and relegate their successor organizations to a law enforcement problem.
The Mexicans also believe that if they can attenuate cartel violence, they will be able to free up law enforcement forces to tackle common crime instead of focusing nearly all their resources on containing the cartel wars.
Although the cartels have not yet been taken down to the point of being a law enforcement problem, the Pena Nieto administration wants to continue to signal this shift in approach by moving the focus of its efforts against the cartels to the Interior Ministry. Unlike former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who was seen leading the charge against the cartels during his administration, Pena Nieto wants to maintain some distance from the struggle against the cartels (at least publicly). Pena Nieto seeks to portray the cartels as a secondary issue that does not demand his personal leadership and attention. He can then publicly focus his efforts on issues he deems critically important to Mexico’s future, like education reform, banking reform, energy reform and fostering the Mexican economy. This is the most significant difference between the Calderon and Pena Nieto administrations.
Of course it is one thing to say that the cartels have become a secondary issue, and it is quite another to make it happen. The Mexican government still faces some real challenges in reducing the threat posed by the cartels. However, it is becoming clear that the Pena Nieto administration seeks to implement a holistic approach in an attempt to address the problems at the root of the violence that in some ways is quite reminiscent of counterinsurgency policy. The Mexicans view these underlying economic, cultural and sociological problems as issues that cannot be solved with force alone.
Mexican officials in the current government say that the approach the Calderon administration took to fighting the cartels was wrong in that it sought to solve the problem of cartel violence by simply killing or arresting cartel figures. They claim that Calderon’s approach did nothing to treat the underlying causes of the violence and that the cartels were able to recruit gunmen faster than the government could kill or capture them. (In some ways this is parallel to the U.S. government’s approach in Yemen, where increases in missile strikes from unmanned aerial vehicles have increased, rather than reduced, the number of jihadists there.) In Mexico, when the cartels experienced trouble in recruiting enough gunmen, they were able to readily import them from Central America.
However — and this is very significant — this holistic approach does not mean that the Pena Nieto administration wants to totally abandon kinetic operations against the cartels. An important pillar of any counterinsurgency campaign is providing security for the population. But rather than provoke random firefights with cartel gunmen by sending military patrols into cartel hot spots, the Pena Nieto team wants to be more targeted and intentional in its application of force. It seeks to take out the networks that hire and supply the gunmen, not just the gunmen themselves, and this will require all the tools in its counternarcotics portfolio — not only force, but also things like intelligence, financial action (to target cartel finances), public health, institution building and anti-corruption efforts.
The theory is that by providing security, stability and economic opportunity the government can undercut the cartels’ ability to recruit youth who currently see little other options in life but to join the cartels.
To truly succeed, especially in the most lawless areas, the Mexican government is going to have to begin to build institutions — and public trust in those institutions — from the ground up. The officials we have talked to hold Juarez up as an example they hope to follow in other locations, though they say they learned a lot of lessons in Juarez that will allow them to streamline their efforts elsewhere. Obviously, before they can begin building, they recognize that they will have to seize, consolidate and hold territory, and this is the role they envision for the newly created gendarmerie, or paramilitary police.
The gendarmerie is important to this rebuilding effort because the military is incapable of serving in an investigative law enforcement role. They are deployed to pursue active shooters and target members of the cartels, but much of the crime affecting Mexico’s citizens and companies falls outside the military’s purview. The military also has a tendency to be heavy-handed, and reports of human rights abuses are quite common. Transforming from a national security to a law enforcement approach requires the formation of an effective police force that is able to conduct community policing while pursuing car thieves, extortionists, kidnappers and street gangs in addition to cartel gunmen.
Certainly the U.S. government was very involved in the Calderon administration’s kinetic approach to the cartel problem, as shown by the very heavy collaboration between the two governments. The collaboration was so heavy, in fact, that some incoming Pena Nieto administration figures were shocked by how integrated the Americans had become. The U.S. officials who told Dana Priest they were uncomfortable with the new Mexican government’s approach to cartel violence were undoubtedly among those deeply involved in this process — perhaps so deeply involved that they could not recognize that in the big picture, their approach was failing to reduce the violence in Mexico. Indeed, from the Mexican perspective, the U.S. efforts have been focused on reducing the flow of narcotics into the United States regardless of the impact of those efforts on Mexico’s security environment.
However, as seen by the May 1 arrest of Coronel, which a Mexican official described as a classic joint operation involving the U.S Drug Enforcement Administration and Mexican Federal Police, the Mexican authorities do intend to continue to work very closely with their American counterparts. But that cooperation must occur within the new framework established for the anti-cartel efforts. That means that plans for cooperation must be presented through the Mexican Interior Ministry so that the efforts can be centrally coordinated. Much of the current peer-to-peer cooperation can continue, but within that structure.
Consolidation and Coordination
As in the United States, the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Mexico have terrible problems with coordination and information sharing. The current administration is attempting to correct this by centralizing the anti-cartel efforts at the federal level and by creating coordination centers to oversee operations in the various regions. These regional centers will collect information at the state and regional level and send it up to the national center. However, one huge factor inhibiting information sharing in Mexico — and between the Americans and Mexicans — is the longstanding problem of corruption in the Mexican government. In the past, drug czars, senior police officials and very senior politicians have been accused of being on cartel payrolls. This makes trust critical, and lack of trust has caused some Mexican and most American agencies to restrict the sharing of intelligence to only select, trusted contacts. Centralizing coordination will interfere with this selective information flow in the short term, and it is going to take time for this new coordination effort to earn the trust of both Mexican and American agencies. There remains fear that consolidation will also centralize corruption and make it easier for the cartels to gather intelligence.Another attempt at command control and coordination is in the Pena Nieto administration’s current efforts to implement police consolidation at the state level. While corruption has reached into all levels of the Mexican government, it is unquestionably the most pervasive at the municipal level, and in past government operations entire municipal police departments have been fired for corruption. The idea is that if all police were brought under a unified state command, called “Mando Unico” in Spanish, the police would be better screened, trained and paid and therefore the force would be more professional.
This concept of police consolidation at the state level is not a new idea; indeed, Calderon sought to do so under his administration, but it appears that Pena Nieto might have the political capital to make this happen, along with some other changes that Calderon wanted to implement but could not quite pull off. To date, Pena Nieto has had a great deal of success in garnering political support for his proposals, but the establishment of Mando Unico in each of Mexico’s 31 states may perhaps be the toughest political struggle he has faced yet. If realized, Mando Unico will be an important step — but only one step — in the long process of institution building for the police at the state level.
Aside from the political struggles, the Mexican government still faces very real challenges on the streets as it attempts to quell violence, reassert control over lawless areas and gain the trust of the public. The holistic plan laid out by the Pena Nieto administration sounds good on paper, but it will still require a great deal of leadership by Pena Nieto and his team to bring Mexico through the challenges it faces. They will obviously need to cooperate with the United States to succeed, but it has become clear that this cooperation will need to be on Mexico’s terms and in accordance with the administration’s new, holistic approach.
By Scott Stewart, Vice President of Analysis at Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence firm
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May 28, 2013 Sent from a border rancher..
Last week one of our neighbors in the Portal area was robbed by 3 Mexicans that entered his house in the middle of the night while he was sleeping. $$ and items were taken.
Sleep well, Jaunet Nopolito says the border is secure.
Oh did I mention that the house that was broken into by the group of 4 Mexicans a few months ago where they took cameras and shot photos of each other, (I made up a funny story to go along with the recovered photos). There house was broken into again a few weeks ago, north of Rodeo, NM 2 custom Anderson windows were broken, things stolen...
Sleep well, Obama says the border is secure...
May 29, 2013 - "Dept. of Home. Sec. to be granted total....power in immigration..." from Ed Ashurst (border rancher)
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(NaturalNews) There has been a lot of rhetoric on both sides of the issue regarding the current "immigration reform bill" that the Senate has taken up, but one thing you likely haven't heard about at all is the scope and breadth of power the massive 850-page-plus measure contains. Simply put, if it becomes law, it will give the Department of Homeland Security near-dictatorial powers.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, has entered a letter into the congressional record from
law enforcement personnel around the country who are warning S.744, officially titled the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act," would grant sweeping, discretionary powers to "political appointees" - bureaucrats - while stripping law enforcement of authority.
'Virtually unlimited discretion'The letter, from the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council of the American Federal of Government Employees Affiliated with AFL-CIO, states:Congress can and must take decisive steps to limit the discretion of political appointees and empower ICE and CBP to perform their respective missions and enforce the laws enacted by Congress. Rather than limiting the power of those political appointees within DHS, S. 744 provides them with nearly unlimited discretion, which will serve only to further cripple the law enforcement missions of these agencies. The members warn that the bill conveys to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano "virtually unlimited discretion to waiver" prohibitions on getting legal status, such as previous deportations or criminal activity: This same section (Section 2101 of S. 744) gives the Secretary of Homeland Security virtually unlimited discretion to waive any manner of crimes that would otherwise make an individual ineligible for legal status - for such expansive reasons as family unity, humanitarian purposes, or what the Secretary believes is in the public interest. ICE agents would become 'powerless'The letter continues:At least two of these standards appear undefined by S. 744 or current law, providing political appointees with broad authority to establish their own definitions of these terms and pardon criminal acts under almost any circumstance.The bill states that individuals who have previously been deported or otherwise removed from the country are ineligible to apply for legal status. However, the Secretary is given the 'sole and unreviewable discretion' to waive that ineligibility for large classes of qualifying aliens. CNSNews.com noted that in seven instances, the measure grants "unreviewable" powers (see them here). "Congress can and must take decisive steps to limit the discretion of political appointees and empower ICE and CBP to perform their respective missions and enforce the laws enacted by Congress. Rather than limiting the power of those political appointees within DHS, S. 744 provides them with nearly unlimited discretion, which will serve only to further cripple the law enforcement missions of these agencies," the letter continues. Crafters of the letter went on to conclude that ICE agents would essentially become "powerless" to protect the general public, or be able to perform their duties as required, if the bill passes the House. "If this legislation were enacted tomorrow, ICE officers would continue to be powerless to effectively enforce our nation's laws and provide for public safety as S. 744 does nothing to end these dangerous agency- and department-level directives," the letter said. Oh, and there's a privacy concern as wellUPDATE: Here's another reason to oppose the measure, according to Wired:The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system. As you probably guessed, this little Fourth Amendment violation is buried in the hundreds of pages of text and innocuously named (in this instance, the requirement is called a "phone tool"). The provision called for "a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver's license or other state-issued photo ID," Wired reported. No agency of the U.S. government deserves or should have this kind of unchecked power. And along that line, our laws should not be several hundred pages long. The founders believed laws should be simple and straightforward, not so complex they couldn't be read and understood by regular citizens who then have to live under them. Sources for this article include: http://cnsnews.com http://www.govtrack.us/ http://cnsnews.com http://www.wired.com/ http://cnsnews.com |
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