Border walls

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Ousted chief accuses border agency of shooting cover-ups, corruption

 

 

James F. Tomsheck, seen in 2009, was chief of internal affairs with U.S. Customs and Border Protection for eight years. He was removed in June.


Credit: Alex Brandon/Associated Press

 

More than two dozen people have died in violent clashes with U.S. Customs and Border Protection since 2010. Despite public outrage over some of the killings, no agent or officer has faced criminal charges – or public reprimand – to date.

Yet at least a quarter of the 28 deaths were “highly suspect,” said James F. Tomsheck, the agency’s recently removed head of internal affairs. In a sweeping and unauthorized interview with The Center for Investigative Reporting, he said the deaths raised serious questions about whether the use of lethal force was appropriate.

Instead, Tomsheck said, Border Patrol officials have consistently tried to change or distort facts to make fatal shootings by agents appear to be “a good shoot” and cover up any wrongdoing.

“In nearly every instance, there was an effort by Border Patrol leadership to make a case to justify the shooting versus doing a genuine, appropriate review of the information and the facts at hand,” he said.

Those comments and others represent the most scathing public criticism ever lodged against Customs and Border Protection from a high-ranking official at the nation’s largest law enforcement agency. Although Tomsheck was removed from the internal affairs office, he is assigned to the Border Patrol as its executive director for national programs.

 

Source: beta.cironline.org

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The Real Death Valley: The Untold Story of Mass Graves and Migrant Deaths in South Texas

 

Video: Graphic Warning

A Weather Channel Original Documentary

Producer’s Note, by Solly Granatstein

In “The Real Death Valley,” we tell the story of Fernando Palomo, a 22-year-old Salvadoran who happened to be a talented artist, and who was beaten within a centimeter of his life when he refused to design a gang’s tattoos. He and his older brother, like tens of thousands of others, fled their homeland and journeyed north to what they saw as the relative safety of the United States. They made it across the Rio Grande into Texas, but that hardly put an end to their troubles.

 

– Click through to read more –

 

Source: soboco.org

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KKK calls for ‘shoot to kill’ policy against undocumented immigrants [VIDEO]

Hate group voices concern and anger over the growing number of migrants illegally crossing into the United States

Source: america.aljazeera.com

 

These KKK people are real. It only takes a couple bad apples to cause massive harm. And there are others who think like them but don’t wear the hood.

 

The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps track of how many hate groups there are in the U.S. – it’s a lot.

 

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785 of this year’s unaccompanied child migrants were under 6 years old

 

Little kids, including a troubling number of children age five or younger, make up the fastest-growing group of unaccompanied minors apprehended at the US border in fiscal year 2014. So far this year, nearly 7,500 kids under 13 have been caught without a legal guardian—and 785 of them were younger than six.

 

Source: www.motherjones.com

 

I’m guessing that the parents of these little kids were murdered.

 

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The Alarming Rise of Migrant Deaths on U.S. Soil—And What to Do About It

 

More migrants’ lives could be saved with a few inexpensive adjustments in water availability, rescue beacons, and search-and-rescue capability. A directive by the Department of Homeland Security for the Border Patrol to establish water drums, particularly alongside rescue beacons, would be an important step to avoid preventable deaths on U.S. soil. Increasing the number of rescue beacons, as well as providing additional funds to expand Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue Unit teams (BORSTAR), particularly in southwest border sectors with high numbers of migrant deaths, could also help to assist migrants in distress.

Many of the recovered remains of migrants, which now number in the thousands, are unidentified. Local officials in Brooks County, Texas, estimate that the costs of dealing with the unidentified dead, including mortician fees and autopsies, amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. No unified procedure exists to process remains and DNA samples of bodies found in the border region. Many remains have not had their DNA sampled, and there has been no consolidated effort to match the DNA of unidentified remains with family members searching for missing loved ones.

Measures such as the following would greatly contribute to identifying these remains and provide answers to family members of missing migrants about the whereabouts of their loved ones:

  • Providing federal funding to counties and tribal governments for the handling and DNA analysis of migrant remains;
  • Creating a Missing Migrants program within the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs); and
  • Encouraging genetic laboratories receiving federal grant monies to process samples from unidentified remains and compare the resulting genetic profiles against samples from the relatives of missing migrants

Immigration reform legislation currently before the U.S. Senate (S. 744) includes billions of dollars in new funding for border security. It makes no mention, however, of steps to prevent needless deaths of migrants on U.S. soil, or to help cash-strapped counties identify the dead. The current bill offers an important legislative opportunity to stem the rise of this alarming human tragedy on the U.S. side of the border.

 

Click through to read more.

 

 

Source: www.wola.org

 

Texas recently sent 1000 National Guard to the border. That should prevent some deaths. But we need to prevent all the deaths.

 

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Lives in limbo: A guide to who’s waiting for immigration reform

 

Immigration policy is leading to broken families, children in crisis and border deaths.

 

Since border security has increased, deaths of (im)migrants and refugees has escalated.

 

The data: This year, an average of 31,410 captives were held daily in U.S. detention facilities. In 2012, 478,000 foreign nationals were detained — an all-time high. Officially, 2013 saw the second-highest number of migrant remains found on the U.S.-Mexico border.

 

Click through to read more.

 

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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Rush to Deport Could Trample Asylum Claims – The Boston Globe

HARLINGEN, Texas — The first time her aunt in Mexico took her out at night, the young teenager was told they were headed to a party. It was no party. “It was trafficking people, drug dealers,” she recalled. “I just saw a lot of guys. They had guns. I was in shock. I was shaking. The more I was saying no, the more they treated me badly.”

Source: www.bostonglobe.com

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Border Agency Chief Opens Up About Deadly Force Cases

Gil Kerlikowske, head of Customs and Border Protection, tells NPR that he is reviewing scores of incidents. “We need to be better at admitting when we’re wrong or where we’ve made a mistake,” he says.

Source: www.npr.org

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VIDEO – Luis Gutierrez about children at the border

 

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., says the “border is secure,” and he warns against demonizing the undocumented children arriving at the U.S. from Central America.

 

Source: www.cbsnews.com

 

Does anyone think that Central American has been manipulated in order to provide a new source of low cost labor to the U.S.?

 

How is it that Central American countries used to be livable but now are too dangerous to live in?

 

What international politics have cause this chaos?