Posted on 08/05/2004 6:44:18 PM PDT by Pikamax
Woman's arrest raises concerns about border security
By SUZANNE GAMBOA Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — The arrest at a Texas airport of a woman with an altered passport and muddy clothes has led some members of Congress to demand the Department of Homeland Security detain all non-Mexican immigrants caught entering the country illegally.
The lawmakers contend terrorists could be among the thousands of non-Mexican immigrants who are arrested then released into the country on their own recognizance while they await deportation hearings.
But before releasing a detainee, officers are required to confirm the migrant's identity and run a background check to ensure the immigrant doesn't pose a safety risk or threats to national security, immigration officials said.
Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed, 48, tried to board a flight in McAllen, Texas, near the U.S.-Mexico border, on July 19 with a passport missing three double-sided pages. She arrived in Mexico from London, then crossed into the United States, apparently by wading across the Rio Grande, a federal affidavit said.
She was charged with illegal entry into the United States, falsifying information and falsifying a passport. She is being held by federal authorities who are investigating whether she has any links to terror activities or groups.
A federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press that Border Patrol agents learned the FBI was interested in Ahmed after a Border Patrol supervisor called the FBI about the woman. Checks of her name in the multiple databases used by the Border Patrol did not produce any "hits."
The FBI refused to answer questions about why the woman's name was not in databases available to border agents.
"While we are thankful that law enforcement personnel prevented her from boarding that plane, the incident raises a larger issue, specifically, whether terrorists from the Middle East are using our inadequately patrolled land borders with Canada and Mexico for easy entry into the United States," Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said in a letter sent Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Tancredo, one of Congress' most vocal critics of U.S. immigration laws, was one of 12 lawmakers who signed the letter.
Nathan Selzer, an immigration advocate based in Harlingen, Texas, said lawmakers are exploiting fears of terrorism stirred by Ahmed's arrest to accomplish their political or anti-immigrant agendas.
"We're reaching the point now where prisons are being loaded with people who have committed this nonviolent, victimless crime. Yet we continue to think that by incarcerating people it's somehow going to stop illegal immigration," said Selzer, a director of Proyecto Libertad. "This wholesale branding of everyone who crosses the border as a potential terrorist is absurd."
Between Sept. 1, 2003 and Aug. 2, the Border Patrol arrested 57,633 migrants who were not Mexican, said Mario Villarreal, spokesman for Customs and Border Patrol, a Homeland Security agency. Of those, 23,322 were released on their own recognizance to await deportation hearings, he said.
Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security enough money this fiscal year to keep 19,444 immigrants a day in jails or prisons. The agency keeps an average of 21,000 to 22,000 people a day in custody, said Russ Knocke, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman.
How many people can be kept behind bars is a matter of how much money is available to contract for jail space, Knocke said.
The vast majority of the detained non-Mexican immigrants, which the agency classifies as "other than Mexican," are from countries in the Western Hemisphere, such as Canada, Guatemala, Brazil, El Salvador and Honduras, Villarreal said.
He would not provide a list of the countries of origin of the non-Mexican migrants released or how many were arrested each year from each country.
Republican U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, whose South Texas district contains 800 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border, said immigration officials in the field may not have the information they need to know whether it's safe to release a migrant.
"You never know if one or two might be programmed to beat the system. You just don't know," Bonilla said.
Laredo Mayor Betty Flores said a Border Patrol chief told her Wednesday that the government would release about 80 "other than Mexican" detainees a day until they got the prison population under control.
"Here we are deporting the Mexicans who want to work, penalizing them, and having these double standards for everybody else," Flores said. "Then there's Tom Ridge talking about security on the border. How can we have security on the border if we're turning back Mexicans, but we're not sending back people from other countries?"
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Associated Press writer Lynn Brezosky in Harlingen, Texas, contributed to this report.
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I don't know about anyone else, but this sure sounds like ethnic profiling to me. I thought we weren't allowed to do that.
What a relief to know that Mexican illegals will still get a pass, though.
This woman got caught because her passport was so messed up a 6-year-old could have caught it. How many terrorists have freely entered our country with their "papers in order"? Could be hundreds?
"Yet we continue to think that by incarcerating people it's somehow going to stop illegal immigration,"
Have you got any better ideas Mr.Nathan Selzer, immigration advocate ?
( I like this guy - he actually seems to acknowledge the concept of ILLEGAL immigrants. )
Someone please post that picture of the three monkeys - hear not evil-see no evil-speak no evil-----it shows these now screaming "lawmakers" for what they are. Those living near border towns have been pleading since 9/11 to do something about our borders. Congress - a day late and a dollar short........
We are at war...with Islamic terrorists...she was in civilian clothes sneaking into the USA
she should be shot as a spy
After a good interogation
imo
http://www.hstoday.us/HSTKimeryReport.htm
It looks like the orange alert was indeed because of this woman.
"But before releasing a detainee, officers are required to confirm the migrant's identity and run a background check to ensure the immigrant doesn't pose a safety risk or threats to national security, immigration officials said."
How can it be that we still see countless government officials and also reporters operating on the ludicrous assumption that every terrorist will appear on a "watch list"???? We constantly see this kind of statement, "Oh, we ran a background check" as though it's a sure-fire way to identify all terrorists. Don't people grasp that there are probably THOUSANDS of trained terrorists who don't appear on any of our watch lists???? What, do these people think that Al Qaeda just registers ever new trainee with us - here, Secretary Ridge, help yourself to a list of our fifty newest trainees, good luck!
Tom Tancredo is an opponent of U.S. immigration law?
Those interested in this case could be promoting an anti-immigrant agenda?
I'd say everyone should send a *polite* email to info@ap.org (politely) suggesting they get better reporters and/or editors.
Her actual quote is "[Tom Tancredo is] one of Congress' most vocal critics of U.S. immigration laws"
Seal our borders.
Moats, mines, machine guns.
Homeland Insecurity will wait until Chicago is a nuclear wasteland. Then they'll act -- at least, for the two months they'll stay in office.
ping
That's a no brainer. Of course terrorists will take advantage of our Swiss cheese borders!
We need to get started building that wall. Maybe Israel will let us borrow their blueprints. Moats aren't a bad idea either. We can utilize the alligators that Floridians are tired of dealing with.
This is a job for the Reporter's Short List!
WHO is getting in and WHO is helping them?
WHAT are they going to use and WHAT is their primary objective?
WHEN will they strike and WILL that be part of a coordinated effort?
WHERE are they hiding? WHERE are their chosen targets?
HOW do they plan to pull it off? HOW do they plan to get away?
WHY has our government allowed this situation to get out of hand?
WHICH is more important, Americans' safety or cheap labor for contributors?
This is why Homeland Security is nothing but a joke. It seems the cocaine smugglers, the drug cartels have people pretty high up paid off --- so the border with Mexico will stay very easy to get over.
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