Posted on 11/20/2005 7:33:10 AM PST by dalereed
Border Patrol revamps hiring
Illegal immigrant was on the payroll
By Onell R. Soto STAFF WRITER
November 20, 2005
For Border Patrol officials, it could scarcely have been more embarrassing.
One of their own was an illegal immigrant.
And, investigators say, he was using his government-issued truck to smuggle other illegal immigrants into the United States.
How could this happen? How could the government agency charged with guarding the nation's borders hire someone in the country illegally? And could it happen again?
Border Patrol officials said this month that they hired Oscar Antonio Ortiz in 2002 even though a background check flagged a problem in his application, he admitted using drugs and had been arrested on suspicion of smuggling.
They said they've revised their hiring process as a result of his Aug. 4 arrest to ensure no foreigners are mistakenly hired. (Only U.S. citizens may work as Border Patrol agents.)
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Officials also ran checks on every worker within Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, looking for other illegal immigrants.
They found one other case in which they couldn't confirm citizenship and are now investigating it, a Border Patrol spokesman said. He didn't have any more information about that worker.
Ortiz is accused of using a fake birth certificate to join the Border Patrol. He's also accused of conspiracy to smuggle immigrants, lying to get his service weapon and being an illegal alien in possession of a gun.
He pleaded not guilty in San Diego federal court, quit his job and faces deportation to Mexico. If convicted, he faces more than 30 years in prison.
Ortiz was arrested after North County gang detectives investigating drug deals overheard him and another Border Patrol agent talking about smuggling on wiretaps.
Department of Homeland Security investigators took up the case and began looking into his background, according to court documents.
Navy service
They say they determined that Ortiz was born in Tijuana, not Chicago, as he claimed when he provided a copy of a birth certificate to hiring officials.
Investigators concluded the birth certificate was a forgery when they discovered its number matched someone else's records in Illinois.
It's unclear when Ortiz first used the birth certificate to claim U.S. citizenship.
Prosecutors said he went to middle school and high school in the Mexican state of Sonora.
Defense lawyer Stephen P. White said Ortiz attended schools in San Diego County, including Southwestern College in Chula Vista.
He joined the Navy in 1998 and served four years, most of that time aboard the San Diego-based Tarawa, an amphibious attack ship.
Navy buddies describe him as an honorable man who told them he was from Chicago. Navy service often qualifies foreign-born sailors for U.S. citizenship.
Background check
Seven weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Ortiz applied to join the Border Patrol, at the time part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but now part of Homeland Security.
He told recruiters that he had used cocaine and marijuana, prosecutors say.
His application, like that of thousands of other would-be agents, was forwarded to the Office of Personnel Management, which does the vast majority of background checks for federal jobs.
"We did a good investigation," said Kathy Dillaman, who oversees more than 8,000 government workers and contractors who perform 1.4 million background checks a year for the federal agency. "We forwarded the results to INS."
She wouldn't say exactly what the background investigation found.
Union officials criticize her agency for using contractors, but she said everyone who does that work gets the same kind of training as federal agents and meet the same standards.
While her agency conducts background checks, it does not make hiring decisions, leaving that up to the agencies it works for.
Salvador Zamora, a Border Patrol spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the information Ortiz provided on his application, including his name, couldn't be verified with a government database on births and deaths in the United States.
So, as part of the hiring process, Ortiz was asked to provide proof of citizenship to the INS's Laguna Niguel office.
Ortiz sent a copy of the Illinois birth certificate, Zamora said.
The worker vetting his application looked at the birth certificate, and coupled with everything else he knew about Ortiz, including his Navy service, became convinced he was a U.S. citizen, Zamora said.
"The information before (the worker) was enough for him to make a discretionary decision to move the application forward," he said. "Nothing else was a red flag."
And past drug use doesn't automatically disqualify applicants, Zamora said.
The background investigation in 2002 didn't turn up that a few months before he applied for the Border Patrol – while serving aboard the Tarawa – Ortiz was arrested in San Ysidro with two illegal immigrants in the car he was driving.
The immigrants said they each paid $200 to be smuggled into United States.
Few people caught trying to smuggle immigrants through San Ysidro are prosecuted, and no charges were filed against Ortiz.
That may explain why the arrest didn't show up at the time Ortiz was hired, Zamora said.
Wiretaps
Earlier this year, federal investigators and sheriff's gang detectives opened an investigation into a drug-trafficking ring they believe was headed by an Encinitas gang member.
The investigators eavesdropped as a member of the ring talked in a phone call to a relative, a Border Patrol agent who worked with Ortiz, about immigrant and drug smuggling.
A second investigation, which also included wiretaps, yielded recordings of Ortiz and the other agent talking about smuggling, authorities said.
The other agent, who has not been identified, has been put on administrative leave but has not been charged with a crime.
In the wiretaps, they talked about smuggling immigrants in their work vehicles, prosecutors said. Other times, they talked about being paid by smuggling rings to look the other way while immigrants were brought through the area they were supposed to be patrolling east of Tecate.
"We don't do anything, just clear the way and we get $300 per head," the other Border Patrol agent tells a family member during one conversation in May.
Ortiz's arrest prompted some political commentators and union officials to lash out against the Border Patrol's hiring practices.
But it also prompted the agency to look at itself.
"We recognized that there was something (wrong) based on the circumstances of this case," said Ronald Vitiello, senior associate Border Patrol chief, based in Washington, D.C.
Before Ortiz's arrest, the onus was on candidates to prove they were worthy of the badge.
"The hiring process always allowed for folks to validate that they could work in the United States and also that they had a clear criminal record," he said.
It is now up to the Border Patrol investigators to answer those questions directly, Vitiello said.
Border Patrol candidates are now subject to much more thorough inquiries than when Ortiz was hired, he said.
That includes more detailed questions than most federal job applicants face about their past drug use and that of relatives.
"We're confident," Vitiello said, "that we're not going to see an issue like this again."
Carolyn Martin, a Carlsbad investigator, said that since Ortiz was arrested, all prospective hires for the Border Patrol have to provide birth certificates that are then checked independently with the issuing agency or a federal database.
"If anything good came out of this, it is that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is taking care of this," said Martin, president of the American Federal Contract Investigators Association.
And while she's satisfied with efforts within the Border Patrol, she said she's concerned that other federal agencies aren't getting the background investigations they need because of the way the Office of Personnel Management does business.
Background investigators can't explore problems they suspect outside the area they were asked to investigate, she said. For instance a drunken driving conviction that surfaces during an examination of financial issues isn't reported back to the agency that requested the background check, she said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
Sounds to me like Ortiz had a plan all along.
Government stuidity at it's highest.
Suspended with pay ?
This is a black eye for the immigration service to be sure. I guess it's not really to be unexpected that they'd have one or two bogus agents out of the thousands they have.
You know what bothers me as much as any of the rest of it. This little comment burried in the middle of the article really angers me.
"Few people caught trying to smuggle immigrants through San Ysidro are prosecuted, and no charges were filed against Ortiz." And what's the excuse for this?
Some of the things you find out about the immigration service burried in these articles combine to produce a lousy image for the service. It seems rotten from the top to the bottom.
Yep. To get rich doing a job most americans will not do to get rich.
"And past drug use doesn't automatically disqualify applicants, Zamora said."
Incredible!
"And past drug use doesn't automatically disqualify applicants, Zamora said."
You know what's really disgusting is the fact that he can probably go to a major airline and get a job loading planes while a dangerous former drunk driver can't be trusted to do the same job.
Ya never know when I might take money from AQ to look the other way while they kill my countrymen.
Placed on leave. No charges filed.
Chertofs department soaks up billions of dollars so he can tell us the it's too expensive to do the job.
Strykers on watch at Winds of Change
This is a time of war. The military should be more involved in securing the borders.
"Union officials criticize her agency for using contractors.."
Union guy to union officials. Your member is a fuc%$$# criminal for smuggling illegals and he is an illegal himself. He used forged papers to get his job.
You don't represent him you dopes.
My reaction also. With the tsunamis of drugs flooding across the border, this policy is akin to letting an alcoholic run a liquor store.
Very good point.
Exactly!!
Ortiz quit his job. I didn't see in the article if he was released on bail or not. I hope they didn't turn him loose.
The other agent has been put on administrative leave but has not yet been charged.
Ortiz is accused of using a fake birth certificate to join the Border Patrol. He's also accused of conspiracy to smuggle immigrants, lying to get his service weapon and being an illegal alien in possession of a gun.
He pleaded not guilty in San Diego federal court, quit his job and faces deportation to Mexico. If convicted, he faces more than 30 years in prison.
We've got a humdinger with this one!
ping
Everybody in the BP from supervisor on up needs to be fired including that sucophant Chernoff!
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