OUR BORDER PATROL.... OR MEXICO'S
Who does the U.S. Border Patrol work for? Apparently, not for us.
If you have high blood pressure, don't read on. The Daily Bulletin reports:
While Minuteman civilian patrols are keeping an eye out for illegal border crossers, the U.S. Border Patrol is keeping an eye out for Minutemen -- and telling the Mexican government where they are.According to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site, the U.S. Border Patrol is to notify the Mexican government as to the location of Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups when they participate in apprehending illegal immigrants -- and if and when violence is used against border crossers.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure meant to reassure the Mexican government that migrants' rights are being observed.
"It's not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be," Mario Martinez said Monday.
"This ... simply makes two basic statements -- that we will not allow any lawlessness of any type, and that if an alien is encountered by a Minuteman or arrested by the Minuteman, then we will allow that government to interview the person."
Minuteman members were not so sanguine about the arrangement, however, saying that reporting their location to Mexican officials nullifies their effectiveness along the border and could endanger their lives.
"Now we know why it seemed like Mexican officials knew where we were all the time," said Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. "It's unbelievable that our own government agency is sending intelligence to another country. They are sending intelligence to a nation where corruption runs rampant, and that could be getting into the hands of criminal cartels.
"They just basically endangered the lives of American people."
Officials with the Mexican consulate in Washington, D.C., could not be reached for comment Monday.
To top it all off, Border Patrol agents are reportedly being told to ignore reports of illegal alien sightings--or to omit credit to Minutemen when they file such reports with DHS:
TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing more than 10,000 Border Patrol agents, said agents have complained for years about the Mexican consulate's influence over the agency."It worries me (that the Mexican government) seems to be unduly influencing our enforcement policies. That's not a legitimate role for any foreign nation," Bonner said, though he added, "It doesn't surprise me."
Border Patrol agents interviewed by the Daily Bulletin said they have been asked to report to sector headquarters the location of all civilian volunteer groups, but to not file the groups' names in reports if they spot illegal immigrants.
"Last year an internal memo notified all agents not to give credit to Minuteman volunteers or others who call in sightings of illegal aliens," said one agent, who spoke on the condition he not be identified. "We were told to list it as a citizen call and leave it at that. Many times, we were told not to go out to Minuteman calls."
Not a surprise, of course, when the nation's own president considers overwhelmingly peaceful supporters of immigration enforcement "vigilantes."
I'll keep updating my first post on this subject with reader feedback. Meantime, the Minutemen Blog has details not reported by the Daily Bulletin:
Sara Carter, a reporter with the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, reports today that she found documentation on Mexican government websites that show higher ups in the United States Border Patrol have been tipping off the corrupt Mexican government as to the locations of the Minutemen along the border.This article does not report information told to the MCDC media offices that the Border Patrol chiefs have also been passing along intelligence reports to the government of Mexico on the activities of Minutemen not only at the borders, but in locations such as Utah, Nevada, Illinois, Massachusetts and Tennessee. Perhaps a follow-up story is coming tomorrow or an over zealous editor took the info out?
Part of a report distributed last August to the Mexican government from Border Patrol bureaucrats read over the phone to the MCDC media offices contained not only numbers (estimated chapter membership) of Minutemen in Illinois, but a statement on their activities and that they didn't seem to know any politicians there, indicating that the Illinois Minutemen didn't yet have any political clout.
That is not a report on the location of Minutemen at the border, but political intelligence from our government to a foreign nation about the activities of American citizens petitioning our own government for redress of grievances.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps media offices will contact the reporter to inquire about copies of the documents and the timing on a follow-up story with the reports to the Mexican government of activities of Minutemen in INTERIOR states, as if reports of our locations in the border states weren't bad enough.
If the ACLU weren't so busy demonizing the Minutemen, you would think they might be on the side of law-abiding Americans being surveilled by their government. Where are the privocrats now?
