Border agent sentenced [for smuggling illegal aliens in South Texas]

McALLEN — A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent was sentenced Friday to 36 months in a federal prison for conspiring to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the United States through two ports of entry in Starr County and one in Zapata County.

Fabian Solis, 42, was a Customs inspector stationed at the Roma, Rio Grande City and Falcon Heights ports of entry.

According to a grand jury indictment, he worked with several other people to carry out his illegal enterprise.

A woman who has not been indicted, referred to as "Jane Doe 1" in Solis’ indictment, would leave the United States through the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge to pick up undocumented aliens in Mexico. She would then contact Solis via telephone to tell him she was arriving at the port of entry at which he was working. Solis would then wave her car, filled with undocumented aliens, through his lane without inspecting the vehicle and without checking the passengers’ immigration status.

From there, the passengers were taken to a "stash house" south of Laredo, where arrangements were made to transport them further north.

"Jane Doe 1" would then meet with Solis after his shift ended and pay him $300 per person smuggled into the United States.

The indictment lists more than 20 smuggling incidents in which Solis was involved between April 2003 and January 2004. It does not list how many undocumented immigrants were smuggled in, but at the time of his indictment in December 2004, the U.S. Attorney’s office said it would work to make sure Solis forfeited payoffs totaling about $170,000.

And on Friday, U.S. Marshals took him into custody to begin serving his 3-year sentence.

Solis is ordered to serve a 2-year term of supervised release after completing the prison term.

Cari Hammerstrom covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4424.

I like Tommy Lee Jones as an actor,(although he is pal of Al Gore), but it seems like his new movie is another Hollywood love fest for illegal aliens. Anyone seen the movie yet?

The Philly news movie review

Tommy Lee's 'Estrada' leaves questions

By GARY THOMPSON
thompsg@phillynews.com 215-854-5992

The Dorian Gray portrait that Joan Rivers keeps in her attic, or surgeon's office, probably looks a lot like Tommy Lee Jones.

Jones' face is unmarked by any work that vanity may have commissioned. What you see in his weathered visage was put there by experience, and bespeaks something other than the success and good notices the actor has accrued, deservedly, in his life - the dude is seriously bummed out about something.

Given his first theatrical movie to direct, Jones has chosen a tale as miserable and inscrutable as he often appears to be. It's the "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," a bleak portrait of pain and death and faithlessness somewhere on the Tex-Mex border (written by Guillermo Arriaga, who also gave us the side-splitting "21 Grams.").

Jones stars as Pete Perkins, a leathery ranch hand whose best buddy Melquiades (Julio Cesar Cedillo), a hard-working illegal, is shot by a hateful border patrol agent (Barry Pepper) who believes he's under attack.

"Three Burials" gives us little information about Pete and Mequiades, but plenty about the loathsome border patrol guy, who is seen molesting his bored wife, punching female illegals, stimulating himself while looking at Hustler magazine, and, worst of all, shopping for a mobile home.

I wish the movie hadn't wanted to punish Pepper's character so bad for being a redneck. It makes the last half of the movie feel like a liberal Abu Ghraib - Pepper is established as a callow racist lout, then beaten, bitten, starved, doused, and generally terrorized.

Or maybe it feels that way because the movie's racial schematics seem so one-sided - the poor Mexicans have compassion, spiritual ease and dignity. The poor Anglos are ignorant, immoral and (this is weird) sexually dysfunctional.

Even Jones' character, initially seen as a decent guy whose love of his Mexican friend morphs into revenge, is revealed ultimately to be something more troubling than an avenging angel.

But who? And what? Not the iconic, justice-seeking cowboy he first seemed, certainly. We want more information about Pete so we can make sense of the movie's ambiguous conclusion, but by then it's too late. Turns out Pete was buried somewhere in act one, along with Melquiades.
Produced by Michael Fitzgerald, Luc Besson, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam and Tommy Lee Jones, directed by Tommy Lee Jones, written by Guillermo Arriaga, music by Marco Beltrami, directed by Sony Classics.

"I would bet the guy is hispanic.... and even possibly have a bunch of Mexican relatives living in the USA. "

I'd bet that the man was an American, and I would win the bet.Shame, isn't it. There are traitors of every race and ethnicity, Timothy McVeigh and John Walker Lindh comes to mind.
There are thousands of brave, loyal, all-American Border Patrol and law enforcement officers trying their hardest to protect us on this southern border. Like Jose Garza II. You can read about his experiences here:
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/CustomsToday/2004/May/purpleCross.xml

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