ICE and the Border Patrol - Twin Scourges of the Border with Mexico

I think the Mexican-American, Latinx and Chicanx communities owe Donald Trump a huge debt
of gratitude that will be hard to pay. He has done the larger community what many of us on the
minority side of the ledger, be we black, brown, red or yellow, already knew - and it is that the
the rot of racism infects a large segment of the general population and more - that there is some
doubt that we shall indeed be able to overcome it.
The recent spate of black killings by cops are not really recent. They have always been ongoing.
And the brown people, my people, have not been exempt. It is only that the social media have
given the murders the immediacy they deserve that allow people to react, and quickly.
And it is not only the rot of racism. It is the reality that a large segment of the population, and
make no mistake about it, it is indeed large - embraces a belief in the Bible and Christianity that
is beyond human understanding, and one that probably has God scratching His or Her head. I
speak, of course, of the situation in Kentucky and the County Clerk who sees it as her mission to
serve her god and not the public
She is totally entitled to hold such a belief.
But, she is not entitled to force that belief on the public she serves, for that has become
totalitarianism, and such cannot have any standing in a a free society. Yet, she has a considerable
horde of followers, and the word horde is well chosen, for they have managed to turn their
conception of God, Christianity and love, to something that is the engine that fuels their hatred.
A rock hard hatred of the other, the alien, the sexually not acceptable.
And so it is with the brutality that seems to be a way of life for many of the guardians of our
borders, at least for that generation of Border Patrol and U.S. Customs officers who came to the
job a stint in Viet Nam, so many of whom were, if not suffering from PTSD, pretty clever at
faking the signs and symptoms.
You don't have to be a killer to be brutal. You can just hate people, the other, the alien, the gook,
the Mexican who threatens the social fabric of your society, as you see it.
Except for the times I was away at college, in the Navy or heading the litigation branch of the
Dallas Legal Services Program, I have lived in El Paso all my life.
My earliest memories of the border are when mother would take me to the market once a week
where I would eat tunas and mangos and churros while she haggled away. She lived for the
haggling, as did her vendors of vegetables and such. This was during the years 1942-47, when I
would go with her but not so willingly as I grew older.
Later in life I would take my kids at least twice a month to eat, so I could teach them restaurant
manners and treat them to mariachi and trios music.
All during this time, the Customs people at the bridges were generally polite, and didn't view you
as the enemy.
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It was during the Nixon years that things got worse, for pedestrians and motorists both. This was
the era when the border guards started searching ladies' handbags, and long lines of cars with
their hoods and trunk open waited their turn to cross into El Paaso.
Things really god bad when the guards started having the dogs sniff at people, until a directive
stopped the practice. By this time, the guards were, to a man and woman, surly and ill mannered.
And truth to tell, they still are.
Someone must have tipped off the Homeland Security people, as the other day I saw a supervisor
who was being interviewed on television news claim that he and his superiors were aware of the
PTSD problem, which, he admitted, had gotten worse post twin towers attack. He stated that
steps had been taken to solve the problem, but refused to say what the steps were.

The They Are The Enemy Mentality

The seemingly universal police motto - to protect and serve - has become a joke on social media,
fueled by the "black lives matter" movement. But in fairness, it isn't just the police officers fault.
A huge part of the fault lies with grand juries which refuse to indict a killer cop.
It is often said that a district attorney can indict a cabbage. From personal experience, I know this
to be true. Too often the prosecutor protects the guilty officer because he has to work with cops
and he feels (I think wrongly) that he cannot afford to get crosswise with the police generally.
And just as often some grand jurors simply refuse to indict a cop. A decent prosecutor can
always seek new evidence, or, given the nature of a crime, charge the accused through an
information. Not many prosecutors have the guts to do this.
The higher, and I think beyond question, the sense of brother or sisterhood of police people, the
harder a given case can be for a decent prosecutor. This feeling can rise to absurd heights. At a
recent police funeral that took place I believe on the east coast (I came on the news program
late), I heard a police officer who was attending from across the country say that he was there
because "we are all brothers". Personally, I find this somewhat appalling. The way he looked at
the camera as he spoke was chilling. His eyes were hate filled.
All the above are fueled by the "they are the enemy mentality. Add a police union that is willing
to lie for you, to do anything to poison a possible jury pool, and it is society, not the police,
which is in trouble.
At a federal level, we often have the FBI agent which has investigated Border Patrol or Customs
missteps often lie, and lie flagrantly. This was the case in a recent murder discussed below.

The Militarization of the Border

For those of us who live on the border with Mexico, crossing over to visit friends or to go to the
Cathedral for a special Mass was difficult after the twin towers fell. Back in the day, Border
Patrol people were not peace officers, in the legal sense of the word. Their role was limited to
immigration issues. With the growing problem of drugs being smuggled across the border, the
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Border Patrol officers finally won certification as peace officers. They were put to work from
time to time alongside ICE people to decide who was eligible to cross and if not, one could be
held and interrogated. It is a given that the Constitution at the border is what the officer says it is.
One can complain about it later.
The University of Texas at El Paso has for several years held a "border security" program on
University grounds. ICE, the CIA, the Border Patrol, retired Generals and Admirals, all have
come to El Paso to warn us about the enemy just next door. On balance, the programs have
failed. They have done so because they have instilled a fear of the dread alien, of the other, that
generalizes and dehumanized people who seek to enter the country.
Frankly, in El Paso, most sentient people are sick and tired of Congressmen and women who
have come to these events and who wind up conflating the terrorist with the every illegal alien is
a potential terrorist mentality. We have been stuck with a horrid fence built by a Likkud firm
from Israel, There are every conceivable electronic devices down to mounted patrol officers. ,
The only terrorists we have had in these parts are the Mexican Army thugs who did a job of
social cleansing in the Jurez valley, the Mexican Federal Police who opened fire on University
of Jurez students on their campus who were demonstrating against the Merida Initiative, and the
Border Patrol agents who have murdered two young people, one in El Paso, and one on the
Mexican side. This is truth that needs to be stated.

A Pattern of Violence and Lawlessness

In the early 1980s, I put together a lawsuit and invited others to join when the Border Patrol
people were going into bars, and mostly, those that also sold food, and making Mexican
American patrons stand up against the walls while they were examined re their right to be in the
country. Of course, most were citizens. The officers were not gentle, and roughed up several
people who questioned their right to do this.
We won an injunction from the Federal Court in El Paso, and government vehicles were required
to display on their rear bumper a number where complainants could call in.
Fifteen years later, after I had retired, one of my brother lawyers had to win another injunction
when agents picked up some baseball players from Bowie High School, along with their coach,
and loaded them into their BPO van at gunpoint. It is my information that a settlement was
ordered sealed.
It's as if they don't learn.
For purposes of this brief discussion, I want to focus on two murders. The first occurred in El
Paso, when Border Patrol agents shot and murdered a young man.
His name is Juan Patricio Peraza Quijada.
Over a decade before a young black man named Michael Brown put the suburb of
Ferguson on the map of history, Juan Patricio crossed the southern border as an
undocumented migrant from Mexico. Twelve years ago this February, he was taking out
the trash one morning behind Annunciation House when he was stopped and questioned
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by members of Border Patrol. He panicked and ran. Five Border Patrol agents chased
him, called in reinforcements, got him surrounded. Then a sixth agent arrived on the
scene. This officer would later testify that he shouted at Juan Patricio, who then ran at
him in a threatening manner, forcing the officer to shoot to protect himself. The other
Border Patrol agents who were present agreed with this account in court; other
eyewitnesses disputed it. What is certain is that within six seconds of this agents arrival,
Juan Patricio had been shot dead. What is certain is that neither the agent himself, nor the
organization that trained him and put a gun in his hand, faced any sanctions whatsoever
for causing the death of this nineteen-year-old youth.*
I am told that one of the agents resigned after the shooting, sickened as he was by it.
The second murder, and I use the words advisedly, took place under the bridge when a trigger
happy Border Patrolman shot and killed Sergio Hernndez Guereca, who was 15 years old, as he
stood on the Mexican side of the border.
In a thoughtful article published on June 17, 2010 in Foreign Policy in Focus,, a publication of
the Institute for Policy Studies and picked up by Common Dreams, Counterpunch and David
from Molly Molloy's list at Frontera Norte-Sur over at New Mexico State University in Las
Cruces, Laura Carlsen wrote:
"Sergio Hernandez Guereca's short life revolved around the U.S. - Mexico border that ultimately
led to his death. On June 7, at approximately 6:30 p.m., a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot the 15year-old Hernandez in the face in Mexican territory between Ciudad Jurez, Chihuahua, and El
Paso, Texas.
"Most of the facts are not in dispute. A cell-phone video aired on Univision shows four people
crossing into U.S. territory over the dried-up riverbed of the Rio Grande. When one is captured
by a Border Patrol agent, the others begin to run back to the Mexico side. The Border Patrol
agent opens fire across the border.
"Sergio fell dead under a bridge. The Chihuahua medical examiner's autopsy revealed that he
died from a gunshot wound to the head. Witnesses stated that the boys threw rocks at the agents,
and the Border Patrol agent let loose with at least three direct shots.
Initial U.S. Defensiveness
"Reactions came swiftly from both sides. The U.S. government responded defensively, even
before the facts were known. An FBI statement released June 8, entitled 'Assault on Federal
Officer Investigated,' announced an investigation into the 'assault,' although there were no reports
of any injuries to U.S. agents. The statement asserts that the agents responded to 'a group of
suspected illegal aliens being smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico.' It further states that 'the
subjects surrounded the agent' - a contention in no way borne out by the video.
"In an almost offhand manner, it adds in paragraph three: 'The agent then fired his service
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weapon several times, striking one subject who later died.'

"In an interview with CNN, FBI Special Agent Andrea Simmons noted that she did not know the
Border Patrol's policy on use of deadly force, which was not in any case the FBI's concern. She
dismissed the relevance of the boy's murder, stating, 'This is not a civil rights investigation.'
Simmons then went so far as to spin out a purely hypothetical situation in which the immigrants
'could potentially overpower him (the agent) and take his gun and shoot him,' a situation that was
not even remotely the case.
"The next day the State Department responded to a question saying only that 'an agent
discharged his firearm, killing one of the suspects' and affirming that the only investigation
ordered pertained to the assault on the federal agent. The U.S. government has to date refused to
identify the agent, stating that he is currently placed on paid leave."
The article goes on, but the salient points have been made. As I see them, they are three:
One. The Border Patrol agent was not hit by any rock, real or virtual. He suffered no
injury.
Two. Truth continues to be a low, if not the lowest, priority when the FBI investigates a
crime committed by a federal law enforcement type. Dehumanizing the victim normally
follows.
Three. A crime committed by a federal law enforcement type and/or the consequences
suffered by the victim, including death, are apparently irrelevant vis-a-vis the safety and
public image of the perpetrator.
All three observations have proven to be correct with the passage of time. In fact, and a stunning
one, at that, the agent suffered no disciplinary measures, so far as I know. He is back on duty.
What is true is that no one was throwing any rocks. At no time was the agent in trouble. At no
time did Sergio pose any threat to the agent.
It was, and continues to be, a cold blooded murder
A civil lawsuit brought by the family was dismissed by U. S. District Judge David Briones who
failed to apply the proper standard of inquiry set out in the relevant Boumediene Supreme Court
case which the Judge felt to have no bearing on the factual situation.
More troubling was the Court's failure to even consider the murder to be such as to shock the
conscience, which an appellate court panel found to be the case. In turn, that finding was
reversed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in an en banc unanimous decision which has been
roundly criticized.
An appeal to the Supreme Court is pending.

Why? One is almost tempted to ask, why not? when the FBI has your back? When truth is
secondary? When the Brotherhood-Sisterhood is of prime importance? Because They're The
Enemy? Because They Are Terrorists?
Take your pick. Am I angry? You bet. Do I see a brighter future? In all honesty, no.
The only answer I see is to have a Federal Civilian Review Board to oversee any act of physical
violence. Time and again the FBI has demonstrated that it simply cannot be trusted.
* http://annunciationhouse.org/2014/12/04/who-will-defend-us-from-the-self-defenders/
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which had commissioned the review, has tried to
prevent the scathing 21-page report from coming to light.
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/27/nation/la-na-border-killings-20140227

Human Rights Watch

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/US925.PDF

of interest:
Keeping an Eye on the I.N.S.: A Case for Civilian Review of Uncivil Conduct
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=blrlj

Houston Journal of International Law

http://www.hjil.org/articles/hjil-21-1-trevino.pdf