Obama signs $600M border security bill into law

Now 2 More Notorious Predator Drones Will Patrol The Border Along With An Additional 1,000 Agents

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gcleiR1IASV53QPzaSsB8LhaCjgwD9HIQBJG2

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1223789920100812

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday signed a bill directing $600 million more to securing the U.S.-Mexico border…

The new law will pay for the hiring of 1,000 more Border Patrol agents to be deployed at critical areas, as well as more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It provides for new communications equipment and greater use of unmanned surveillance drones…

“We want better treatment by the authorities” one banner read. “The guards are assassins” said another

(AP) – 1 day ago

TIJUANA, Mexico — Mexican police caught a prison official who spent a year on the run from charges of killing a 19-year-old inmate, whose beating death sparked riots that left nearly two dozen dead, including two American prisoners.

Marco Antonio Ibarra, the chief guard at Tijuana’s La Mesa State Penitentiary, was arrested in the northern city of Culiacan, where he was born and had been hiding for a year, said Martha Almaza, deputy attorney general for Baja California state.

Ibarra was brought to Tijuana on Friday and paraded before reporters. Authorities did not say when he was arrested.

Almaza said Ibarra ordered guards to take 10 prisoners into a storage room and beat them. She said Ibarra was trying to find out who owned drugs, cell phones and other prohibited items that had been discovered in one of the cells.

The abuse, which resulted in the young prisoner’s death, provoked two uprisings over three days in September 2008. At least 23 inmates were killed, including two of the 200 Americans held at the prison at the time.

Ibarra faces homicide and torture charges. Another guard charged in the case is still at large.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gYJaGbKevcTElz6D4FPZIQlamrogD9BQFD300

Supreme Court refuses ex-Border Patrol agents’ appeal

These border patrol cops shot a man for nothing and then tried to cover it up.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6333308.html

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a fleeing drug smuggler and trying to cover it up.

The high court refused to consider an appeal from Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

The former agents were convicted in 2006 of shooting Osvaldo Aldrete Davila near El Paso on the Texas-Mexico border. Investigators said the agents never reported the shooting and tried to cover it up by picking up several spent gun shells.

Both former agents said they thought Aldrete was armed.

Their conviction had been affirmed by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. They served two years in prison before getting their 10-year sentences commuted by President George W. Bush.

Ex-Border Patrol agents released early from prison

This man was shot by border patrol for no reason.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/17/border.pardons/

(CNN) — Two former U.S. Border Patrol agents — whose cases became flashpoints in the controversy over border security — were released early from prison Tuesday, one of their attorneys and a congressman said.

The agents were convicted in 2006 of shooting and wounding an unarmed illegal immigrant and then covering it up.

President George W. Bush issued commutations for both men during his final days in office last month. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean had received 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively.

After the commutation, their prison sentences were set to end March 20.

Ramos was released on furlough to travel from prison in Phoenix, Arizona, to his home in El Paso, Texas, where he will serve the remaining portion of his sentence under house arrest, said his attorney, David L. Botsford of Austin, Texas.

After March 20, Ramos will be on “supervised release” — similar to probation — for up to three years, Botsford said.

Compean had been incarcerated in Elkton, Ohio, said U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California.

“At last, Ramos and Compean have been rightfully reunited with their families,” Rohrabacher said in a statement. “This day is long overdue. I wish the Ramos and Compean families the best as they now try to pick up the pieces and begin to heal from this terrible ordeal.”

Both men had requested presidential clemency, and the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney was reviewing their requests when Bush made his decision, office spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said.

“The president has reviewed the circumstances of this case as a whole and the conditions of confinement and believes the sentences they received are too harsh and that they, and their families, have suffered enough for their crimes,” a senior administration official said.

The official noted that both Democratic and Republican members of Congress had supported a commutation, including President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Texas GOP Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn.

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Richard L. Skinner, in a statement posted on the agency’s Web site, confirmed that his staff wrongly told members of Congress last September that Compean had stated he “wanted to shoot a Mexican.”

“At the time my staff made that statement, they believed it to be true, although we later learned it was inaccurate,” Skinner said. “In fact, Mr. Compean had stated in a sworn statement that ‘my intent was to kill the alien … and I think Nacho [Ramos] was also trying to kill the alien.’ “

Critics of U.S. immigration policy have been campaigning for a pardon for the two agents, arguing they were just doing their jobs.

The shooting happened February 17, 2005, on the U.S.-Mexico border southeast of El Paso, Texas.

During their trial, Ramos and Compean said that the illegal immigrant, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, had brandished a gun while actively resisting arrest.

Aldrete-Davila said, however, that he was unarmed and trying to surrender when Compean attempted to beat him with a shotgun.

Aldrete-Davila was shot while fleeing toward the Rio Grande. Ramos and Compean were convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon, lying about the incident and violating Aldrete-Davila’s Fourth Amendment right against illegal search and seizure.

After receiving immunity to testify in the case against the two agents, Aldrete-Davila was arrested in 2007 on charges of bringing more than 750 pounds of marijuana into the United States.

The case became a political flashpoint, with advocates of tighter border controls defending the agents and civil liberties groups saying that the agents had used illegal and excessive force against Aldrete-Davila.

Bush granted 189 pardons and 11 commutations during his eight years in office, far fewer than Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan in their two-term administrations.

A commutation reduces a convict’s prison term, but the conviction remains on the person’s record. A pardon wipes the slate clean by erasing the record of the conviction.

A president has the sole authority to grant clemency to whomever he chooses, although a Justice Department office usually reviews applications and makes recommendations after considering such standards as a person’s degree of remorse and ability to lead a responsible and productive life after release.

Those applying for a pardon through the Justice Department are required to wait at least five years after their conviction or release from confinement.

MEXICO CITY — Nineteen prisoners were killed and a dozen wounded in the second riot in less than a week at a jail in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, local officials said on Thursday.

Nineteen prisoners have been killed and a dozen wounded in the second riot in less than a week at a jail in the Mexican border city of Tijuana

Some 500 prisoners’ relatives gathered outside the jail, throwing rocks. Police responded by firing into the air and tear-gassing the crowd

“We want better treatment by the authorities” one banner read. “The guards are assassins” said another

Soldiers and police surrounded the building, and a helicopter clattered overhead

Family members trying to find out information on those inside gathered at police cordons and clashed at least twice with security officials

After three hours of rioting, authorities managed to regain control of the prison

“Up to the last count, there are 19 dead and 12 wounded,” Daniel de la Rosa, Baja California’s state police chief, said in a televised news conference following the riot on Wednesday at one of Tijuana’s main jails.

Authorities have regained control of the prison and transferred 200 dangerous inmates to other facilities, Baja California Gov. Jose Osuna said at the news conference.

On Sunday, four prisoners were killed and a large part of the same jail destroyed in a clash between guards and inmates.

Family members of inmates housed in the overcrowded jail had complained of prisoner abuse and local media said the death of an inmate could have sparked the violence.

Tijuana, just south of San Diego, is a major corridor for drug trafficking and has seen violence soar in recent months even as President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of troops to the city and across the country to crack down on warring cartels.

More than 2,700 people have been killed in drug violence this year in Mexico.

The sign by the classroom door reads ”Video Library Fidel Castro.” Inside, a painted five-point red star with a black hammer and sickle at its center covers one wall.

On the adjacent wall, posters with images of a young Fidel Castro, Argentine revolutionary Ernesto ”Che” Guevara and a militant Zapatista promote meetings and marches.

The furniture: a wooden desk, metal shelves, a shabby couch.

Welcome to the home of the Colectiva Lucio Cabañas, one of the dozens of leftist movements operating within the sprawling National Autonomous University of Mexico, known by its Spanish acronym, UNAM.

The existence of Lucio Cabañas, located in the School of Political and Social Sciences, and other leftist organizations on the UNAM campus has been the subject of heated debate here since four students belonging to the groups were killed in a Colombian army raid on a FARC guerrilla camp in March. Lucía Morett, a fifth student, survived the attack in Sucumbíos, Ecuador, and is now in Nicaragua as a government guest.

Political activism, particularly the left-leaning variety, has been a tradition for decades at UNAM, the largest public university in Mexico, with about 100,000 students at the Mexico City campus alone.

After a year-long strike in 1999, several of the groups became more radical, taking over dozens of rooms and other spaces at the university. About 70 rooms have been permanently occupied.

The takeover is a peaceful one, and presumably the government could take back the commandeered portions of the school. But there is no political will to do so. Mexico retains fresh memories of 1968, when over 300 protesting students were gunned down by the army in the Square of the Three Cultures.

And so the occupation goes on, despite opposition from some faculty members and students.

”Our social struggle is a lifestyle. We dedicate to it as much time as we can,” said Roberto, 28, a sociology student and member of Lucio Cabañas — named after a Mexican populist revolutionary — who asked that his last name not be used.

Other groups that have set up shop in the School of Political Sciences without formal permission include Rebeldía (Rebellion), El Brigadista (The Brigade Member), Conciencia y Libertad (Conscience and Freedom), Frente de Lucha Estudiantil-Julio Antonio Mella (Front for Student Struggle-Julio Antonio Mella) and Ernesto Guevara. The names echo Latin American political rhetoric of the 1970s.

Across campus, in the School of Philosophy and Letters, even the auditorium is under student control. Officially the Justo Sierra auditorium, it is now known as the Che Guevara auditorium. It houses a soup kitchen with low-cost food, supported with donations.

Other groups active at that school include Carlos Marx and the Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana, which supports Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution.

Beyond the groups with secured real estate, there are myriad associations and representatives of Mexican and non-Mexican movements that roam the halls preaching leftist ideologies and building networks both openly and in secrecy.

WHAT THEY DO

The students who belong to the groups say they are engaged in cultural activities, such as movie clubs and peaceful social projects.

”We work with an Otomí Indian community in Hidalgo, a marginalized group,” said Roberto, the sociology student. “We help them build houses and petition for roads and clinics.”

It’s unclear which groups limit themselves to cultural or social activities and which have established international links with violent organizations, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Most students said they see nothing wrong in showing solidarity with self-declared revolutionaries like Chávez or even with guerrilla movements.

”The focus of their solidarity was to understand the why of the FARC,” said Héctor, 24, a political science student who asked that his last name not be used, referring to the students killed at the FARC camp.

Juan González, one of those students, was working on a thesis about the role in the insurgency of the folkloric music style vallenato, according to Adrián Ramírez López, president of the nonprofit Mexican League for Human Rights.

Critics contend UNAM student organizations are hotbeds of dangerous guerrilla ferment and that the students who died in the camp were probably involved in criminal activities.

Colombian military intelligence has tied the FARC to the Mexican rebel group Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR), according to press reports. Morett, the surviving student from the Sucumbíos attack and a member of Revolucionario, allegedly had links to the EPR, say other press reports.

SOME TROUBLED

”The Mexican citizens who want to meet because they sympathize with the FARC have a right to do it, but it must be well known that groups exist that adore the terrorism of the Colombian guerrilla,” wrote Pablo Hiriart, a columnist for the newspaper Excelsior. Roberto and Héctor dismiss the arguments against the dead students as “media manipulation.”

José Narro, the dean of UNAM, told the newspaper Reforma that the notion that guerrilla groups are operating in the university is ”absurd” and “outrageous.”

UNAM officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

For Raúl Trejo, a professor of sociology at UNAM, the inability of the university to control these groups’ activities is troubling.

”The fact that these students take over meeting rooms and classrooms is not so much a sign of pluralism and tolerance as it is of fear and negligence” that harms both students and professors, he said. Trejo added that the university has not been strong enough in its condemnation of the FARC and similar organizations.

Martín Iñiguez, a professor of international relations at UNAM, said that the students killed in Colombia were simply misguided by the arguments of representatives of international groups who visit the campus to link with the student groups.

”They were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.

Iñiguez worries about the lack of political will by school administrators to control the situation and regain control of the classrooms.

”The UNAM is a reflection of the microcosm of the Mexican political system: extreme tolerance because of a reluctance to pay the political cost,” he said.