Rep. Tancredo
Mexican Army and Law Enforcement Agencies make "incursions"
Fri May 9 00:57:22 2003
208.152.73.177

Mexican Army and Law Enforcement Agencies routinely make "incursions" into the U.S
http://www.house.gov/tancredo/Immigration/incursions.html

Incursions

During his travels along the border, Rep. Tancredo learned that the Mexican Army and Law Enforcement Agencies routinely make "incursions" into the U.S. A total of 23 were confirmed by the U.S. government in 2001, and there have been over 115 since 1996. The purpose of these incursions is not totally understood, but U.S. officials have speculated that they are designed to help facilitate the flow of illegal drugs into America, either by creating a diversion or by providing cover for the traffickers.

When Rep. Tancredo sent a letter to the Mexican government, the Embassy in Washington, DC sent a curt response to his inquiry, implying that the troops were merely getting lost. Not a single U.S. law enforcement agent on the ground in the southwest has agreed with that explanation.

Rep. Tancredo’s office has begun documenting new incursions as they take place. Most recently, two disturbing incursions have taken place. On May 17th, a Mexican Army unit led an incursion near Ajo, Arizona that ended with a shot being fired at a Border Patrol Agent. The agent was not hurt, but had two of his vehicle’s windows shot out. On June 14th, the Mexican Army opened fire (with high-powered .308 rifles) on a vehicle with 20 people packed into it. Six of the passengers were injured, two critically.

Despite Rep. Tancredo’s efforts to draw attention to them, each incident received only spotty coverage. You can read the accounts of each incident by following these links:

May 17th Incursion:
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020513-27549872.htm  http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020523-865103.htm

June 14th Incursion:
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020615-91529269.htm

The issue of incursions needs to be confronted by the U.S. government before a catastrophic incident involving the loss of life occurs. If you have specific information about an incursion by Mexican military or law enforcement, please contact Rep. Tancredo’s office at (202) 225-7882 or tom.tancredo@mail.house.gov . You will remain anonymous.

=============================================
Unbelievable But True Immigration Stories
http://www.house.gov/tancredo/Immigration/unbelievable.html

Do you have an unbelievable story or fact to report? Report it anonymously to tom.tancredo@mail.house.gov

1. NY Daily News: Iraqis Targeted W Ranch
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/71009p-65986c.html
2. CNS News: Latest Immigration Slip-Up Leaves Experts Divided
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPrint.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200212/POL20021231a.html
3. Report: Local INS office to blame for lost Pakistanis
http://www.pilotonline.com/news/nw1231jum.html
4. World Net Daily: Mexico bypassing U.S. sovereignty?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30212
5. Seattle Post: 'Don't ask' immigration policy urged for city workers, police
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/99388_ins11.shtml
6. Fox News: Critics Slam Mexican ID Card
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,76908,00.html
7. Washington Times: Mexico’s ID card for aliens in U.S. prompts a validity bill
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030130-25449798.htm
# Washington Times: Court won't block INS alien tracking
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20030111-57651114.html
# eFreedom News: Murder at EL AL - Will America Respond?
http://www.efreedomnews.com/News%20Archive/Attack%20on%20America/LAX7402/MurderatElAl.htm
# Washington Post: Mexican medics take sick to U.S.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021212-24428688.htm
# Feds Paying Muslims to Immigrate, while 3 of 4 Americans want less Muslim Immigration
http://www.worldviews.org/
# Washington Post: Noncitizens Should Get Vote, Too, Mayor Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24986-2002Sep30.html
# Code Red For Homeland Security and Presidential Power
http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1999/gv3100102.htm
http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1999/gv092502.htm
# Human Events: No Plan to Deport 'Deported' Aliens
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/articles/10-22-01/dagostino.html
# Fred Alexander, a deputy district director for the Immigration and Naturalization Service publicly told a group of "undocumented" day laborers that "It's not a crime to be in the U.S. illegally, it's a violation of civil law."
# The Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General did not find any evidence that the INS is capable of locating visa violators still in the country. See 11/7/2001 Washington Times page A6.
# New Times Broward-Palm Beach: Admitting Terror - The immigration service's own describe how America failed to protect its borders from the September 11 terrorists
http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2001-10-18/feature.html
# The Greyhound bus attacker was on a 30-day visa that had expired 2 years ago.
# Until passage of the PATRIOT act, political ideology was not grounds for deportation or inadmissibility. The language in the PATRIOT act alone may not even go far enough to fix this problem, though. Court cases have extended the First Amendment outside the country to the point that consular officials do not have the authority to stop someone who makes threatening statements from obtaining a visa.
Human Events: U.S. Law Says Membership in Terrorist Group, Or Advocacy of Terror, No Bar to Immigration
http://humaneventsonline.com/articles/10-08-01/barnett.html
# The INS spent $31.2 million on a computer system to track whether visaholders overstay their visas. The system still does not work, and the INS says that it needs an additional $57 million for the system.
# According to several universities, the INS routinely takes 6 mos. to respond to notifications from their registrars that foreign students are not attending classes.
# One of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers was given legal status in the 1986 amnesty.
# Each of the 19 hijackers had Social Security numbers, which they obtained legally. See 11/2/2001 Chicago Tribune, page 4.
# The News Mexico: Former INS official talks up gradual immigration reform
http://www.thenewsmexico.com/noticia.asp?id=17695
# According to the non-partisan Center for Immigration Studies ( http://www.cis.org  ), "In a newly released report, the Census Bureau estimated that perhaps 115,000 people from Middle Eastern countries live in the United States illegally."
# The INS brought a psychologist to its Newark, NJ office to try to resolve problems in the "dysfunctional" office that employees nearly unanimously declared "poorly led" and "very unhealthy." Employees described the office’s climate of "conspiracy and secrecy," and believed that awards and promotions were based on favoritism, not job performance. See 01/13/2002 New Jersey's The Record.
# Border Patrol agents at the Juarez/El Paso border sometimes ask border crossers to step through the "drug sniffing door," which is simply a wooden door frame on wheels.
# Human Events: 7,000 Men Recently Entered from Al Qaeda 'Watch' Countries
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/articles/12-17-01/dagostino.html
# From the founding of our nation until about 1965, the average annual number of immigrants and refugees to the United States was about 200,000 people. Since 1990, this number has been running at about one million people each year – and that does not include the annual population gain from illegal aliens.
# There are a total of 4 political appointees at the INS.
# Human Events: U.S. Encourages Immigration From Terror-Sponsor States
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/articles/10-01-01/dagostino.html
# Four states – Utah, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee – have a policy of issuing drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants with no questions asked. Read how at least five of the hijackers used their Virginia licenses to remain in the U.S. undetected.
Human Events: Suburban Washington's Terror Trail
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/articles/11-05-01/cover.html
# NewsMax: Bloomberg - I Won't Enforce Immigration Laws
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2001/11/19/151620
# Washington Post: 15 Hijackers Obtained Visas in Saudi Arabia - Most Citizens of That Country Seeking to Visit U.S. Are Approved Without Interviews
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14788-2001Oct30.html
# The INS has a processing backlog of approximately 4.5 million immigration applications.
# State Department form DS-156 – the official nonimmigrant visa application – asks the following question: "Do you seek to enter the U.S. to engage in export control violations, subversive or terrorist activities, or any other unlawful purpose? Are you a member of a terrorist organization as currently designated by the U.S. Secretary of State?" The footnote to the question states that "A YES answer does not automatically signify ineligibility for a visa." Read the application at http://travel.state.gov/DS-0156.pdf
# Studies estimate there are approximately 350,000 people who have become illegal immigrants by overstaying their visas. Because of its failure to implement an entry-exit system as required by a 1996 law, the INS has no way to identify or locate them.
# Since September 11th, no action has been taken to tighten up the "visa waiver" program – a program that permits people from 29 countries to enter the U.S. without a visa or an interview.
# The GAO found that the INS wastes around $100 million per year by not efficiently managing the deportation of criminal immigrants.
# The renewal of Section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality act in 2001 legalized approximately 900,000 illegal immigrants in just four months.
# 91% of the respondents to an October 2001 CNN.com "quick vote" poll responded that "the U.S. should tighten immigration laws."
# New INS field officers quickly learn an unofficial creed: "Big cases, big problems. Small cases, small problems. NO cases, NO problems." This claim, made by an INS whistleblower who testified before the Congressional Immigration Caucus, has been confirmed by several other INS agents who have contacted Rep. Tancredo to assure him that it is true.
# INS whistleblowers have come to live by another widely understood maxim: "You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free… to look for another job."
# Immigrants who are detained on deportable offenses are often released with a summons to appear at a deportation hearing at some point in the future. The summons has become sarcastically known as a "run letter," because it simply prompts the criminal alien to run from the law and disappear back into the community undetected. See 1/14/02 Buffalo News, page B4.
# Fraud within the H-1B (high-tech) non-immigrant visa system has become so rampant that an entire industry of "body shops" has sprung up in America. The body shops sponsor foreign workers’ visas and then place them in jobs with American companies, typically working for a significantly lower wage than American high-tech workers.
# The best place to buy fake documents in order to get into the U.S. from Mexico – just blocks away from the border crossing in Juarez. The best person to ask for help in getting them – the Mexican official guarding the gate! U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo recently asked a Mexican official at the border crossing how to get phony papers, and was given directions and advice about how much he should pay for them.
# Government Executive Magazine: Despite a deluge of resources, the Immigration and Naturalization Service's management systems don't deliver
http://www.govexec.com/gpp/0299ins.htm
# Companies who are laying off H-1B visaholders frequently inform the INS that the person’s status has changed to "unpaid leave" rather than "unemployed." The H-1B worker is then free to search for another job indefinitely (and compete with American workers in the high-tech job market) without fear of deportation.
# A teenager was arrested in California for stealing an elderly woman’s purse and breaking her arm. He told the police he was in the country illegally and wasn’t carrying any identification. An immigration judge ordered him deported. Once across the border, he picked up the phone and asked his mom to drive down with his U.S. passport so that he – a U.S. citizen – could re-enter the country, having successfully gotten away with a felony.
# Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: INS' goal shouldn't be to track visa violators, ex-official says
http://www.jsonline.com/news/attack/sep01/immig25092401.asp
# During the summer of 2001, the Mexican government distributed "survival kits" to Mexicans near the border containing granola bars, water, first aid supplies, and condoms – presumably to make their upcoming (illegal) journeys into America easier. This story was widely reported, but see the 7/8/01 edition of the Baltimore Sun, page 1C
# The INS used a motel room in Durango, Colorado to detain a group of illegal immigrants from Central America after their arrest. The room was left unguarded overnight, and the illegal immigrants "escaped" through the windows. See 5/20/01 Denver Post, page A1
# The H-1B program (for high-tech temporary work) admits about 500 "fashion models" visas for employment in the U.S. every year.
# Walter Cadman, the former INS District Director in Florida was caught deceiving Congressional investigators looking into the functioning of the INS and then lead a coverup. The Justice Department investigated the scandal – "Kromegate" – and recommended that Cadman be fired for hiding evidence that the facilities he oversaw were grossly mismanaged. Cadman was briefly demoted and a year later, in 1998, was promoted to the head of the INS National Security Unit.
# Confusion as to the true point at which the U.S. ends and Mexico begins has grown to the point that on March 14th, 2000, a Mexican Army unit crossed the U.S. border, mistakenly chased U.S. Border Patrol Agents and shot at them.
# Juan Hernandez, head of the government’s Office of Mexicans Living Outside Mexico, told U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo that the North American southwest "is not two countries; it’s just a region."
# In Houston, after September 11th, an INS task force was established to help search for some of the most dangerous immigrant fugitives in the region. The more than 20 officers were expected complete their task with between two and four cars. One officer, who was forced to remain at his desk due to a lack of transportation said, "There are thousands of [fugitive] files, and we’re pushing paper." See the 1/11/02 Houston Chronicle page A1.
# Between six and eight million people living in America are dual-citizens – implying that they share their political and ideological loyalty between America and some other country. A series of court decisions dating back to 1980 have weakened expatriation laws to the point that being elected to office in another country or serving as a high ranking officer in a foreign military are not sufficient grounds for losing U.S. citizenship. A report on the implications of this can be found at http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/renshontoc.html
# Illegal immigrants who enroll in the University of California system are charged in-state tuition.
# Speaking to a gathering in Milwaukee in July of 2001, President Vicente Fox of declared that "Mexico extends beyond its borders."
# INS Commissioner James Ziglar’s only law enforcement experience is serving as the Sergeant-at-Arms for the Senate.
# Although the law says that H-1B visaholders must leave the country immediately after being laid off or fired, the INS has told them that no one will be forced to leave, and to keep looking for new jobs.
# A