Vida en el Valle
Rumors of Immigration Raids Disrupt Agriculture Industry
Wed Jul 7, 2004 16:20
64.140.159.58

Rumors of Immigration Raids Disrupt Agriculture Industry

Vida en el Valle, News Analysis,
Juan Esparza Loera, Jul 06, 2004
FIREBAUGH, Calif.-- The fears voiced by many undocumented immigrants who live and work in the nation's richest agricultural belt are very real, enough so that many are changing their daily routine or staying away from work at peak harvest time.

"The people are traumatized," says businessman Javier Márquez. "Even people who rent houses from me are talking about the redadas [raids]."

Rumors have spread like wildfire of U.S. Border Patrol raids along Highway 33 through the middle of California's agricultural Central Valley, where cars share the road with trucks carrying tomatoes, cantaloupes and other produce:

Undercover agents were stationed at the three main entrances to Firebaugh last week, forcing many people to stay away from work.

Five men at a local packing plant were picked up by an undercover officer who whisked them away in an unmarked van. As many as 27 Firebaugh residents have been picked up, and another 18 were detained in Dos Palos.

An entire family was picked up in a grocery store parking lot in Los Baños.

A man working on Nees Avenue just outside of Fresno was stopped and asked to produce documents. When he couldn't, he was asked to pay a fee to resolve the problem.

There are similar reports throughout the area, which explains the real emptiness of Maldonado Park or growers grumbling about people not showing up for work.

The problem is that only the last incident is probably true. No raids are being conducted in the area, according to federal immigration officials. What is going on, say law enforcement officials, is a scam by people posing as undercover agents who are shaking down unsuspecting immigrants for money.

"I haven't seen anything," admits Márquez. "But the fear is there with people. They are staying home and not coming out."

A college student, who refused to be identified, although she is a legal resident, fears for the safety of her fiancé, who is undocumented. "He doesn't want to go out and work for fear he'll be picked up."

Eliseo Gamiño, director of the West Hills Community College North District Office in Firebaugh, has been deluged with calls from area residents, who say some people report being asked for money to keep from being detained and deported.

"Something is happening," he says, referring to fewer customers he sees at area businesses.

Such is the delicate balance in the cat-and-mouse game between immigration officials and undocumented residents. Experts say as many as half of the people working in Valley fields are undocumented and have broken immigration laws, yet agriculture depends on these workers to do the jobs that few legal residents will take.

This game plan has worked for decades, as long as a wolf doesn't come along and ruin everything. Thus, whenever that balance is tipped -- such as is currently happening with the bogus agents -- growers cry foul, and undocumented workers play hide and seek.

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=bee001a8bc05170ebc4a9844d879c948
============================================

US Customs and Border Protection Announces Hellenic Republic Joins ...
Department of Homeland Security (press release) - Jun 25, 2004
... As part of the CSI program, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will deploy a team of officers to the port of Piraeus to work with host government personnel ...
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=3785





David Aguilar Takes the Helm as the Chief of the Border Patrol for U.S. Customs and Border Protection
07/01/2004


Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT)
In order to develop, enhance, and maintain effective security processes throughout the global supply chain, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continues to accept applications in various international supply chain categories.
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/commercial_enforcement/ctpat/

U.S. Customs & Border Protection | 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20229 | (202) 354-1000
http://www.cbp.gov/
======================================

Immigrant Detentions on US-Mexico Border Soar

Minors recruited to smuggle on US - Mexico border
Reuters AlertNet, UK - Jun 24, 2004
... crossed one of the four bridges linking the city with Mexico. In another case, a 15-year-old boy was caught driving undocumented migrants across the border. ...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24332811.htm

By Tim Gaynor

LAREDO, Texas, June 24 (Reuters) - Criminal gangs are increasingly recruiting adolescents and children as young as 14 to smuggle drugs and illegal immigrants into the United States from northeast Mexico, law enforcement authorities said on Thursday.

Prosecutors in Laredo, Texas say recent cases include one involving a 14-year-old girl apprehended with cocaine as she crossed one of the four bridges linking the city with Mexico. In another case, a 15-year-old boy was caught driving undocumented migrants across the border.

"We are seeing an increase in juveniles as young as 14 smuggling people and narcotics over the Rio Grande. These kids see the ability to earn money and they think that it's an easy option," Alan Robbins, assistant border patrol agent in charge of the Laredo North Station, told Reuters.

Latino prison gangs in the United States with ties to criminal networks in Mexico's Tamaulipas state are often behind the rise in juvenile crime.

In Tamaulipas, criminal activity is linked to drug smuggling groups affiliated to the so-called Gulf Cartel.

No figures for the number of juveniles detained at the border were immediately available. But police and jailers say the growing trend to use youngsters is leading to a boom in youth crime in both Texas and Tamaulipas.

Police in Laredo say they have recorded a 30 percent leap in juvenile crime each year for the last two years, and complain that they lack the detention facilities needed to hold the soaring number of juvenile detainees.

The director of Nuevo Laredo's juvenile detention facility, the Centro Tutelar de Menores, said that during the first six months of 2004 the number of detainees held for narcotics offenses outstripped the total for the whole of last year, as crime spiraled among the under 18s.

"In the year to date we have had 49 minors held here on drugs offenses, while we had just 44 in the whole of 2003," Carlos Suarez said. "It's because the drug gangs are increasingly using them as couriers for the cross-border trade, because the law is much less tough on them," he added.

Drug trafficking offenses carry lengthy sentences for adults in both the United States and Mexico, but prosecutors say gangs are exploiting the fact that minors are generally given short sentences aimed at rehabilitation within the youth system, or are released into the care of their families.

Northern Mexico is a main transit routine for marijuana, cocaine and other drugs into the United States.