Posted on 07/23/2008 12:24:31 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Agency says getting all people, legal and illegal, to safety is its top priority
The U.S. Border Patrol said today it is not checking the documents of individuals who are fleeing Hurricane Dolly, and it has no intention of using natural disasters as a pretext for rounding up and deporting illegal immigrants, 1200 WOAI news reports.
Officials in the Rio Grande Valley have been worried about Border Patrol actions ever since a reporter spotted a Border Patrol official conducting a document check during a hurricane evacuation drill in McAllen in May. Some officials had expressed concern that Rio Grande Valley residents, many of whom have relatives who are undocumented, would decline to evacuate if they knew a relative could be deported.
"Our goal is to make sure that people understand that we are not going to stop people from boarding modes of evacuation to check their citizenship or anything like that," Border Patrol Agent Lloyd Easterling told 1200 WOAI news. "We will not...will not..be impeding anybody who needs to be evacuated."
Easterling says the check points at Sarita and Falfurrias, which everybody driving north from the Rio Grande Valley have to pass through to leave the Valley, are open and are operating today, but there are no indications that any large number of people are leaving the Rio Grande Valley. Hundreds have left their homes, but they are seeking shelter inland in the Valley, in San Benito, Weslaco, and Edinburg.
"As members of that community, we are going to be out there making sure that people of all nationalities are safe and those lives are preserved. That's what our mission is."
Easterling said in the event of a major evacuation from the Rio Grande Valley, the officers in charge of the checkpoints would not impede traffic by checking documents.
But Easterling said the law enforcement aspect of the Border Patrol's work will continue. If the Border Patrol sees a 'wanted felon' or is told by another police agencies that a wanted individual is in an evacuation area, that person will be arrested. But he says the agency will not be entering evacuation busses or checking the papers of streams of evacuees at the checkpoints.
"We're going to be down there in a support role to help people get out of the impact zone, and get them into areas were they are safe, and their lives are not imperiled," he said.
Watch the population of Matamoros drop by like thirty percent after the storm. I donno, Meester Migra, mebbe dey got blew away with the storm.
Yo quiero un FEMA trailer por favor...
Exactly what I was thinking. A wonderful excuse for them to rush across the border, now that we haved tied the BP’s hands.
Yo vado a los Estados Unidos por l’amnestia! Andele, andele, arriba???
Oh, h#((, who am I kidding? They’re all here that want to be here already.
It sounds like they aren't checking for documents within Texas, but it doesn't sound like they've stopped requiring documentation to cross the border.
They aren't using the evacuation as an excuse to look for illegal immigrants that are already in the country, but they aren't just opening the border to anyone that wants to come in either, so it's not as bad as the title of the article makes it seem.
It's not like they have the time or resources to stop vehicles leaving the area and asking for proof of legal status anyway.
Valle ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
I suppose that thirty thousand illegals aren’t goign to make a run for the border during a hurricane. Well, they might, but a few thousand of them would turn up dead.
Considering that they don't seem to have a huge amount of trouble crossing in normal conditions, it seems unlikely there will be a lot of them taking the additional risk to try and cross during the hurricane.
ping
“It’s not like they have the time or resources to stop vehicles leaving the area and asking for proof of legal status anyway.”
As they return at a much slower rate they need to set up check points and check everyone returning!
I saw this story a few weeks back, but did not think it would happen so soon. This was a free-ticket for a few thousand illegals to head north.
That would take a large number of border agents over a long period of time. It would mostly inconvenience people who were forced out of their homes by the storm, and who are in a hurry to get back and see if their home was damaged, and protect their property from looters.
Not everyone would have proper identification for all their family members. There would inevitably be US citizens detained in the process until their identities and legal status could be verified.
The checkpoints could also not be kept up for long, so illegals could wait to return until the checkpoints come down.
It would take a huge amount of manpower, it would probably catch a number of illegals, but most could sneak back into the US in a short period of time. It would also greatly inconvenience a large number US citizens at a time where the storm has already caused them a lot of difficulties.
Those checkpoints would cause a storm of civil rights lawsuits, many of which would likely have merit. Is this a country where we have checkpoints and stop people traveling within the US that merely wish to return to their homes?
Yes there are going to be illegal aliens among those returning, but this would infringe on the rights of an awful lot of US citizens at a time when their lives are already in turmoil in order to catch a relatively small number, and the more seriously more criminal aliens would likely wait out the checkpoints or find a way around them.
Setting up such checkpoints would be political suicide, not just with because of the illegal alien lobby would be up in arms, but because a large number of freedom loving Texans would be up in arms over it.
Don't worry, be happy.
trained skeptic
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