NOTE: I received this information at first from a person
with direct inside knowledge of the order to allow illegals into the
United States in May 2005 without arrest, to make the Minuteman Project
in April 2005 look ineffective. Note also that the "authorities,"
in denying the report, do not indicate the arrest numbers, as they otherwise
typically do. This news was reported by the Drudge Report and WorldNetDaily,
but so far, mainstream news has avoided it -- interferes too much with
their utopian world view I suppose. It is, afterall, hard to imagine
that our leaders would so such a thing. Alan.
[Presented here for fair-use, non-profit, educational purposes only,
as part of an examination of blatant high-profile news-media bias.]
U.S. Border Patrol agents have been ordered not to arrest
illegal aliens along the section of the Arizona border where protesters
patrolled last month because an increase in apprehensions there would
prove the effectiveness of Minuteman volunteers, The Washington Times
has learned.
More than a dozen agents, all of whom asked
not to be identified for fear of retribution, said orders relayed by
Border Patrol supervisors at the Naco, Ariz., station made it clear
that arrests were "not to go up" along the 23-mile section
of border that the volunteers monitored to protest illegal immigration.
"It was clear to everyone here what was
being said and why," said one veteran agent. "The apprehensions
were not to increase after the Minuteman volunteers left. It was as
simple as that."
Another agent said the Naco supervisors "were
clear in their intention" to keep new arrests to an "absolute
minimum" to offset the effect of the Minuteman vigil, adding that
patrols along the border have been severely limited.
Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar at the
agency's Washington headquarters called the accusations "outright
wrong," saying that supervisors at the Naco station had not blocked
agents from making arrests and that the station's 350 agents were being
"supported in carrying out" their duties.
"Border Patrol agents are the front line
of defense against terrorism," Chief Aguilar said, adding that
the 11,000 agents nationwide are "meeting that challenge, head-on
... as daunting a task as that may sound."
The chief -- a former head of the agency's Tucson
sector, which includes the Naco station -- said that with the world
watching the Arizona border because of the Minuteman Project, agents
in Naco "demonstrated flexibility and resilience in carrying out
their critical homeland security duties and responsibilities."
But Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican,
yesterday said "credible sources" within the Border Patrol
also had told him of the decision by Naco supervisors to keep new arrests
to a minimum, saying he was angry but not surprised.
"It's like telling a cop to stand by and
watch burglars loot a store but don't arrest any of them," he said.
"This is another example of decisions being made at the highest
levels of the Border Patrol that are hurting morale and helping to rot
the agency from within.
"I worry about our efforts in Congress
to increase the number of agents," he said. "Based on these
kinds of orders, we could spend the equivalent of the national debt
and never have secure borders."
Mr. Tancredo, chairman of the Congressional
Immigration Reform Caucus, blamed the Bush administration for setting
an immigration enforcement tone that suggests to those enforcing the
law that he is not serious about secure borders.
"We need to get the president to come to
grips with the seriousness of the problem," he said. "I know
he doesn't like to utter the words, 'I was wrong,' but if we have another
incident like September 11 by people who came through our borders without
permission, I hope he doesn't have to say 'I'm sorry.' "
During the Minuteman vigil, Border Patrol supervisors
in Arizona discounted their efforts, saying a drop in apprehensions
during their protest was because of the Mexican government's deployment
of military and police south of the targeted area and a new federal
program known as the Arizona Border Control Initiative that brought
manpower increases to the state.
The Naco supervisors blamed the volunteers for
unnecessarily tripping sensors, disturbing draglines and interfering
with the normal operations of the agents. They said that their impact
on illegals was "negligible" and that civilians should leave
immigration enforcement "to the professionals."
Several field agents credited the volunteers
with cutting the flow of illegal aliens in the targeted Naco area, saying
the number of apprehended illegals dropped from an average of 500 a
day to less than 15 a day.
More than 850 volunteers, in a protest of the
lax immigration enforcement policies of the White House and Congress,
sought to reduce the flow of illegal aliens along a popular immigration
corridor on the Arizona-Mexico border near Naco by reporting illegals
to the Border Patrol as they crossed into the United States.
Their goal was to show that increased manpower
on the border would effectively deter illegal immigration. Organizers
said the protest resulted in Border Patrol arrests of 349 illegal aliens.
Area residents, in a half-page ad in the Sunday
edition of the Sierra Vista Herald, told the volunteers: "Thanks
for doing what our government won't -- close the border to illegal aliens.
It was the quietest month we've had in many years ... You made us feel
safe because the border was closed."
