Border Patrol orders agents to limit patrol areas

Associated Press -- Riverside Press Enterprise ^ | 8/13/03

[Tancredo Fan]

Border Patrol orders agents to limit patrol areas

The Associated Press -- August 13, 2003

SAN DIEGO

Border Patrol agents in California have been ordered to stop making arrests on city streets and avoid questioning suspected illegal immigrants except along the border and at highway checkpoints in Orange and Riverside counties.

The directive, outlined in an Aug. 8 memo, is aimed at agents in San Diego County and southern areas of Orange and Riverside counties.

It follows protests over recent arrests in San Diego and San Juan Capistrano. Five members of a Mexican family were detained Aug. 1 as they were walking to the Mexican consulate in downtown San Diego to apply for identification cards issued by the Mexican government to its citizens living in the United States.

The memo, reported Wednesday by the Los Angeles Times, tells agents that the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is responsible for enforcing immigration laws away from the border.

"The future of Border Patrol operations" depend on eliminating the public perception that agents occasionally conduct neighborhood sweeps, wrote William T. Veal, chief patrol agent for the greater San Diego area.

A union local representing Border Patrol agents said Wednesday that the order was a response to political pressures.

"In general, broad terms, it prevents agents from doing their job to the best of their ability," said Joseph Dassaro, president of National Border Patrol Council Local 1613, a union that represents San Diego-area agents. "It basically ties their hands behind their backs."

Veal did not respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday, nor did agency spokesmen in San Diego and Washington.

Mexico's Consul General Rodulfo Figueroa filed a complaint with the Border Patrol after the Aug. 1 arrests, calling them "an act of bad faith." He didn't question the legality of the arrests but said enforcement of immigration laws so close to the consulate inhibits his ability to do his job.

The Border Patrol also has come under scrutiny for a series of vehicle stops and arrests in San Juan Capistrano. Critics say parents have reported being detained while picking up and dropping off children at school.

Veal's memo was directed to all agents in the San Diego sector, which includes San Diego County and border checkpoints in San Clemente and Temecula, according to the Times. It said agents are prohibited from initiating enforcement action in cities, residential areas, near workplaces and locations where day laborers gather.

[Tancredo Fan]

Here's the memo (PDF format). Incredible. Worthless feds.

[B Knotts]

What the #@()*$)#?!!?!?

OK...I'm about fed up with both parties right now.

[Tancredo Fan]

A 'our useless government says we're on our own' PING!

[Fitzcarraldo]

Is this PC or are other issues involved ($$$)?

[Thorondir]

Where are we going? And why am I in this handbasket?

[Khurkris]

Gee...as if the BP's are not useless enough. Maybe they should just by air time on the Mescan TV & Radio stations and ask the illegals to stop in at INS Headquaters and have a chat.

Friggin' Fed's.

[montomike]

Me too. The Republicans have been a great disappointment to me regarding borders and border jumpers.

At least the memo used the term "illegal alien".

[Khurkris]

Gee...as if the BP's are not useless enough. Maybe they should just buy air time on the Mescan TV & Radio stations and ask the illegals to stop in at INS Headquaters and have a chat.

Friggin' Fed's.

Read the PDF of the memo:

To paraphrase - If there is a doubt, don't do it. Ask for directions from hdqtrs.

Ain't it great being a FED LEO.

[Eva]

This is not new. The border patrols have been under orders not to make any arrests away from the border since the Clinton years. The same is true up here in WA State. I heard this from the mother of a border patrol officer from San Diego who was on temporary assignment back home here.

[dvan]

As a former BP Agent, the Patrol was restricted from performing routine vehicle stops and pedestrian interrogations, without probable cause, more than 50 miles away from a contiguous border(seaports not excluded). The sea coast in these areas is certainly less than 50 miles away. Iam unaware what current or recent changes have been implemented in the Law and/or regulations during the past few years, especially after 9/11.

[VU4G10]

BORDER PATROL  -   ASA HUTCHINSON   -   GEORGE BUSH

[truthkeeper]

I am totally p****d about this. John and Ken are covering it on the radio right now (KFI 64.0) and had the border agent's union rep, Sean Moran, on the air. He said morale has never been lower. The agents don't know what they're supposed to do.

This is utterly appalling and I want to know where the buck stops on this idiocy. Is this a homeland security thing or what??

[truthkeeper]

Forgive me, but I'm pinging you to this monstrosity.

[ambrose]

see?

[YoungKentuckyConservative]

Is this a homeland security thing or what??

This is a destroy the homogeny of America and make it a third-world nation thing. Just another step in the New World Order.

[c-b 1]

Well, we can't take the chance of offending La Raza, or any Mexican Government officials.

[Thorondir]

From the melting pot to the chamber pot--or is it forbidden to say that here?

[Tancredo Fan]

This is probably coming from the top. A dead fish rots from the head. Gray Davis is about to get payback for killing Prop. 187. If I were in D.C. I'd be paying attention to that situation... because they may be next. And I hope they are.

By the way, there is an article in the L.A. Times today about a bunch of illegals in that Tijuana-esque ditch called Maywood whining about getting stopped for driving without licenses and having their junkers impounded, Well, it's traitors Cedillo and Fabian Nunez to the rescue.....

[truthkeeper]

By the way, there is an article in the L.A. Times today about a bunch of illegals in that Tijuana-esque ditch called Maywood whining about getting stopped for driving without licenses and having their junkers impounded...

Interesting article. I used to work in that ditch about 25 years ago...it was the home base of Foodmaker Inc. (dba JACK IN THE BOX.) To say Maywood is an armpit would be kind. Anyway, thanks for the memory.
BTW, I'm in Whittier now. :-)

[gaijin]

However well-intentioned, sending your sons to fight in the Middle-East supports this kind of thing, you know:

We're enforcing recent borders half a world away at great expense on behalf of people who HATE us, while we ignore our own, much longer-standing, more cheaply-enforced borders in our own backyard.

DON'T DO IT.