#u.s. border patrol

[saywhat-politics]

The son of a man who was brutalized by immigration authorities in Orange County, California, is speaking up after video of the incident went viral over the weekend.

The disturbing footage shows landscaper Narciso Barranco being pinned down and battered by a group of masked agents as he was picked up while working outside of a Santa Ana IHOP on Saturday.

At least a half-dozen men wearing gear identifying them as U.S. Border Patrol swarmed the man and beat him before forcing him into the back of an SUV.

Son Alejandro Barranco, a veteran of the U.S. Marines, told the Los Angeles Times his father was pepper sprayed and beaten, suffering a dislocated shoulder.

Alejandro Barranco said that he spoke to his father about 6 p.m. Sunday and was told that his dad had yet to receive medical treatment in the more than 24 hours after he was detained and sent to an immigration facility in Los Angeles.

Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to the Times that Narciso Barranco declined medical care. She also alleged that he swung a weed whacker at an agent and fought his arrest.

HuffPost also has reached out to Customs and Border Protection for comment.

Describing the agent’s actions as needlessly violent and excessive, Alejandro Barranco told the Times, “I don’t think it was just, I don’t think it was fair. I don’t think they need four 200 [pound]-plus guys to hold down a 5-6 or 5-7, 150-pound guy.”

[kwebtv]

Season 1 Episode 16

U.S. Border Patrol - Love, Death and Diamonds - Syndicated - June 30, 1959

Crime Drama

Running Time: 30 miutes

Written by Peter Barry

Produced by Samuel Gallu

Directed by Richard Whorf

Stars:

Richard Webb as Dan Jagger

Herbert Rudley as John McAuliffe

Doreen Lang as Mrs. McAuliffe

Peter Leeds as Albertini

Eleanor Berry as Rosemary Comestock

Don Kelly as Birley

Artie Lewis as Ross

Mort Thompson as Bob Jamieson

Bryan Grant as Gareth Dennison

[ultimate-healing-blog]

Border Patrol Faces Drone Attacks from Mexican Cartels Amid Security Crackdown

Breaking News article on-line: #BorderSecurity #DrugCartels #KamikazeDrones #U.S.BorderPatrol #Explosives #IllegalImmigration #CriminalJustice #TrumpAdministration #LawEnforcement #PrivateSecurity #SenateProposals #PublicSafety #MilitaryPresence #DeportationRaids #SocialMediaThreats

Threats to Border Agents: Cartels Deploy Kamikaze Drones and Explosives Recent reports indicate that Mexican drug cartels are instructing their members to confront U.S. Border Patrol agents using kamikaze drones and explosive devices, coinciding with intensified border security measures implemented by the Trump administration. An internal memo labeled “Officer Safety Alert” has raised concerns,…

[ctcnewsca]

🇨🇦🇺🇸 Canadian travel to the U.S. has plummeted by 500,000 due to an escalating trade war, impacting crossings and commerce. 🇨🇦🇺🇸 Uncover the stats, trends, and reasons behind this shift 👇🏻

[gowns]

this australian guy wrote about the columbia protests when he was a student here. he hid his substack and deleted his social media apps before he went on a trip back to the US to visit friends. he was detained, interrogated extensively about palestine by two border patrol agents, then deported back to australia.

^ that's a quick summary he wrote after the experience. the longer new yorker article is really jarring. link without paywall here

[xtruss]

Greg Abbott's Rio Grande Border Policies Condemned as 'Definition of Evil'

— By James Bickerton | July 18th, 2023 | Newsweek

Governor Greg Abbott's migration policies have been slammed as the "definition of evil" after a Texas state trooper claimed border guards had been ordered to push back migrants, including small children, into the Rio Grande, as well as denying them access to water. The allegations have been dismissed in part by the department, which insists there is no policy against handing water to migrants.

Democratic politicians have also hit out at the deployment of floating buoys in the Rio Grande, designed to impede illegal immigration, which one congress member said "are going to force people to drown."

Authorities across the U.S. are struggling to cope with a surge in unauthorized immigration, with law enforcement stopping a record 2.76 million migrants after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2022 fiscal year, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Immigration is likely to play a prominent role in the 2024 presidential election campaign, with Republican frontrunner Donald Trump vowing to end "automatic citizenship" for the children of undocumented migrants "on day one" if elected.

On Monday, the Houston Chronicle published an email from a Texas state trooper, sent to a superior, who said migrants had been pushed back into the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, causing one 4-year-old girl to pass out from heat exhaustion, and denied water.

Migrants wave as they walk near concertina wire in the water along the Rio Grande border with Mexico in Eagle Pass, Texas, on July 16, 2023. Reports of border guards being ordered to push migrants back into the river, and refuse them water, have sparked outrage online. Anne Cordeiro/AF/Getty

The trooper wrote: "Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well...I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane."

In response Travis Considine, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said law enforcement hadn't been instructed to deny water to migrants.

The unverified claims caused fury on social media, with progressive social media activist Jack Cocchiaretta sharing a post on Twitter blaming Abbott, who he described as "the definition of evil," to his 348,000 followers.

Nessa Diosdado, a Texas-based "Gen-Z activist," called on the president to intervene. She said: "Migrants are human beings. What Greg Abbott is doing at the border with children and babies is not what this country stands for. He must be stopped. We need President Biden to step in."

There was anger at Abbott from Democratic lawmakers at the placement of buoys in the Rio Grande, in a bid to deter illegal migration.

Speaking to CNN, Texas Representative Joaquin Castro said: "What he [Abbott] intends to put out are drowning devices. Those things are going to force people to drown. Children, disabled people, mothers, and others."

Representative Veronica Escobar, who also represents the Democrats in the House, tweeted: "The buoys being deployed by Greg Abbott in the Rio Grande will not stop desperate people; they pose a danger to Border Patrol agents and put migrants at risk of drowning."

In a statement sent to the Houston Chronicle, Abbott's press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, defended the governor's policies.

He said: "Texas is deploying every tool and strategy to deter and repel illegal crossings between ports of entry as President Biden's dangerous open border policies entice migrants from over 150 countries to risk their lives entering the country illegally.

"President Biden has unleashed a chaos on the border that's unsustainable, and we have a constitutional duty to respond to this unprecedented crisis."

In a statement sent to Newsweek,Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa and Maverick County Democratic Party Chair Juanita Martinez called for federal intervention in response to claims migrants had been denied water and pushed back into the Rio Grande.

They said: "Greg Abbott and his political cronies in the DPS [Texas Department of Public Safety] reached a new level of depravity earlier this summer with their floating buoys in the river, intended to deter asylum-seeking migrants with the threat of drowning rather than legal repercussions.

"But today's uncovering of the borderline torturous activity against migrants—including all but intentionally drowning babies—deserves a swift and thorough investigation by the federal government.

"In addition, with this state-sanctioned violence against migrants, it's time for federal authorities to assert their constitutional duty and shut down Greg Abbott's unconstitutional rogue 'law enforcement.'"

Newsweek has also reached out to Abbott's press office for comment via telephone and voicemail message.

In June, Abbott said Texas had "bused over 23,500 migrants to sanctuary cities," including Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles.

[mysharona1987]

[zvaigzdelasas]

Vice President Kamala Harris’s new campaign ad features a deep voice speaking over images of Border Patrol agents, the border wall, and seized pills and guns. It describes Harris, the former attorney general of California, as a “border state prosecutor” who “took on drug cartels and jailed gang members,” and says that Harris, if elected President, will hire thousands more border agents and crack down on fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking.[...]

She is playing up her law enforcement record and saying Trump wanted to worsen conditions on the border to help his chances of getting elected when he told Republicans to back out of a deal that would have added Border Patrol agents and immigration officers. “Donald Trump does not care about border security, he only cares about himself,” she said on July 30.[...]

In recent months, Harris has been part of an effort by the Biden administration to take tougher measures on the border to stop illegal migration. In May, Biden moved to restrict the number of asylum cases that will be heard at the border, a rightward shift by his administration designed to slow the high numbers of people being brought to the southern border of the U.S. by smugglers.[...]

The new campaign ad finishes with the line: “Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.”

9 Aug 24

[argumate]

news reporting on the rationalist murder cult is picking up steam; it's a wild story, still fewer deaths than the Manson cult but more deaths than the Unabomber!

incredible and tragic that people convinced of effective altruism (!) and saving lives at any cost would end up arguing themselves into shootings and stabbings, it really displays the limits of rationality as an individual practice and the difficulty of truly guarding against hostile actors and preexisting emotional prejudices.

[victusinveritas]

More from Rebecca Solnit under the cut (you should read, but I'm not going to inflict it on your weekend dash).

They arrested two Democratic judges yesterday, not one. Everyone heard about the one in Milwaukee, hardly anyone about the judge in Las Cruces, New Mexico (former judge; he'd just stepped down under pressure). A lot of the reporting is sloppy/ taking the administration allegations as legit or even true, despite their history of lies, and these reports are full of loaded words like hid and harbored.

The charges are that Joel Cano and his wife hosted a young undocumented Venezuelan who the admin. alleges is a member of a gang, but they deported tons of Venezuelan men they alleged were members of that gang, many of whom seem not to have been, and no evidence has been offered, and terms like "harboring" use worst-case scenario language to describe what seems to have been someone--a refugee?-- who did some work around the house for them and then was allowed to stay in a guesthouse somewhere on the property.

The best reporting I've found is in the Albuquerque Journal: A complaint alleged that Cano had committed willful misconduct in office by allowing them to live on his property, and had permitted them access to firearms.

The search warrants resulted in a federal weapons charge against Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, 23, based on social media posts showing him holding and firing various weapons, including a video where Cano is present and holds a rifle that is passed to him.

The three men are all accused of being members of the transnational gang known as Tren de Aragua, an accusation that has been the basis for hundreds of men being rendered to an El Salvadoran prison by the Trump administration.

As in many of those cases, the men arrested at Cano’s home are accused of gang affiliation on the basis of their tattoos, apparel (including Chicago Cubs sportswear), emojis and alleged gang signs displayed in social media posts.

Additionally, a search of Ortega-Lopez’s phone uncovered text messages and a photograph of human corpses prosecutors say point to gang involvement.

Cano disputes evidence, describes raid

“I find these allegations to be highly sensationalized and without merit,” Cano wrote in his March 19 response.

Cano disputed references to the men as “known members” of the gang, arguing that they were fulfilling immigration procedures with federal agents, had undergone routine airport security procedures for travel, were frequently interviewed by Border Patrol officers at highway checkpoints and were pursuing authorization to work while their immigration cases were pending — all without ever being detained as gang members.

The first time Cano had heard of any association with Tren de Aragua, he wrote, was when “at least 45” agents, whom he described as wearing ski masks and sunglasses without badges or other visual identification, raided the two homes.

He denied that he had permitted the men to possess firearms, which would jeopardize their legal status in the U.S., admitting only to accompanying them on a December trip to a firing range.

Cano wrote that “the boys” had presented him and his wife, Nancy, with documentation about their pending immigration cases after initially meeting them in 2024, when they performed handyman work at their home. The Canos later allowed the trio to live in a detached studio apartment on their property and assisted them in complying with legal procedures and travel for court dates.

The response included details the men had presented about their journey to the U.S. over thousands of miles of terrain, including the notoriously dangerous Darién Gap at the Columbia-Panama border, where they said travelers were vulnerable to theft, rape and murder and claimed they had seen the bodies of murder victims out in the open.

Their relationship deepened as the guests participated in holidays, community events and volunteer work, becoming “a meaningful part of our extended family,” Cano wrote. “There is no way in the world that I would have allowed my grandkids to have any contact with the boys if I sensed danger.”

Cano argued the gang ties were speculations motivated by the Trump administration’s promise to execute mass deportations — a policy Cano criticized in blistering terms in his response.

https://www.abqjournal.com/news/article_68cdcdbd-d97b-4e4f-88e4-f6d0b5279daa.html

Here's the version from Newsweek: "The arrest followed a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) probe launched in January, which uncovered that Ortega-Lopez, who entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico in December 2023, was living with other undocumented migrants and had access to firearms.... Investigators learned that he originally met Nancy Cano while performing handyman work. After being evicted from his apartment, he moved into a guesthouse on the property.

During a detention hearing on March 14, U.S. Magistrate Judge Damian L. Martinez questioned the federal prosecutor's familiarity with Judge Cano, remarking, "I don't think he would just let anybody live on his property," according to Fox News."

It quotes Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council in a post to X on Thursday: "Yet ANOTHER internal component of the federal government that acknowledges the reality; Tren de Aragua is not an arm of Venezuela and it's not 'invading' the country. Trump's lawless Alien Enemies Act declaration cannot stand." https://www.newsweek.com/who-joel-cano-judge-resigns-after-migrant-found-his-home-2062284

And I'd assume that most of what Pam Bondi says is a lie and should be treated as such and if the news media could get over its credulous deference to people in high office, we'd be a better country. https://www.newsweek.com/pam-bondi-new-details-judge-accused-harboring-gang-member-2064424

[mariacallous]

A California judge has issued a preliminary injunction against Border Patrol’s practice of conducting warrantless immigration stops and arrests, denouncing the practice and its alleged targeting of “people with brown skin.”

“You just can’t walk up to people with brown skin and say, ‘Give me your papers,’” U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston said in court on Monday ahead of her ruling, according to Cal Matters.

Her order, which was signed on Tuesday, states that Border Patrol agents must abide by federal law while conducting stops throughout the Eastern District of California, which includes Fresno, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Redding and Yosemite.

This means there must be reasonable suspicion of illegal presence to stop someone, as required under the Fourth Amendment. Arrests must also involve a warrant unless there’s probable cause to believe that a person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

Thurston’s order follows the American Civil Liberties Union filing a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Border Patrol in February after federal agents were accused of breaking car windows and slashing tires to detain and arrest individuals, including a U.S. citizen, over several days in Kern County, which includes Bakersfield.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of United Farm Workers, alleges that agents participating in a sweep dubbed “Return to Sender” specifically targeted people of color who appeared to be farmworkers or day laborers, “regardless of their actual immigration status or individual circumstances.”

“The person’s perceived race, ethnic background, or occupation cannot justify a detentive stop. Nor can a person’s refusal to answer voluntary questions,” the suit states.

[dostoyevsky-official]

Inside the Bakersfield raids that showed how Trump’s immigration policies will sow chaos

On Jan. 7, the phones of immigration advocates in Bakersfield began lighting up with calls from immigrant farmworkers. The messages said the U.S. Border Patrol was conducting an indiscriminate dragnet in the area, pulling over vehicles presumed to be carrying immigrants to work and taking dozens into custody.

[...] Rather than “targeted” enforcement, the Border Patrol conducted “random stops of vehicles exclusively founded on racial profiling of individuals,” Ambar Tovar, director of legal services for the UFW Foundation, told me.

The officers raid locations where they knew they would find farmworkers gathering — such as at a Home Depot, where immigrant laborers come to seek day work, and along California Route 99, the highway traveled by immigrant farmworkers heading to their jobs. At some spots, where they were asked to show warrants naming targeted individuals, the officers simply drove away without answering.

[...] One aspect of these raids elicits broad agreement: Their effect was to sow fear.

[...] Creamer estimates that about 25% of immigrant workers in the area stayed home from work in the first day of the raids, and 75% afterward. That continued until Jan. 10, when word spread that the Border Patrol had left the county and gone back to El Centro.

Until then, he said, “the raids sent shock waves through the entire Central Valley,” the breadbasket of California and of the entire country. [...] It’s hard to overestimate the impact that raids like these could have on California agriculture, which, like other states, is highly dependent on immigrant labor. The raids occurred as the harvesting of California oranges, mandarins and lemons was entering a peak period for fresh fruit. California accounts for about 90% of the domestic supply of oranges, mandarins, lemons and grapefruit.

About 20% of the estimated 24,000 citrus farm employees in California work in Kern County, Creamer says. In this case, he adds, the immediate impact was muted because the raids occurred over only four days and the schedule of citrus harvesting can be somewhat flexible.

[...] What struck immigrant advocates about the raids was the sheer thuggishness of the operation, which dovetailed neatly with the uncompromosing rhetoric about immigration sounded by Trump during his campaign and in his inaugural speech Monday.

Agents transported detainees from Bakersfield to El Centro, a drive that can take as long as six hours, instead of processing them locally, where they would be available for local legal advice and representation. Detainees said they were released in El Centro without transportation home.

[...] Agents in an unmarked car pulled over Ernesto Campos, the owner of a Bakersfield gardening service who was naturalized as a U.S. citizen more than 10 years ago. According to a video Campos shot on the scene and that was aired on Bakersfield TV station KGET, the agents demanded that Campos’ passenger, an undocumented employee step out of the truck. Campos informed them that the passenger already had an asylum hearing scheduled. Campos shut off his engine and gave the agents his driver’s license.

Nevertheless, according to an exchange captured on the video, an agent slashed Campos’ truck tires, which can be seen deflated on the video. When Campos asked why the agent had immobilized his vehicle, the agent replied, “I’m not going to argue with you, bro. You did what you did, I did what I did.” He verified that Campos was a U.S. citizen, but he was arrested on suspicion of “alien smuggling.” Campos was released about four hours later. The border Patrol didn’t respond to my request to identify the agent and explain his conduct.

[mysharona1987]