Three National Guardsmen Nabbed on Immigrant Smuggling
Monday , June 11, 2007
EL PASO, Texas —
A trio of National Guard soldiers assigned to help stop illegal immigration in South Texas instead ran an immigrant smuggling operation using cell phone text messages, according to court records filed Monday by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Laredo.
In a series of text messages uncovered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after Pfc. Jose Rodrigo Torres was arrested on Thursday, the three soldiers allegedly negotiated the details, price and number of people who would be smuggled north, the complaint said.
"tell them ill only do 1 run @ no more than 20 people @ $150 a person and i want 2 leave @ 1930 hrs and ill go 2 San Anto if they want," Torres typed to Sgt. Clarence Hodge Jr. hours before Torres was arrested along Interstate 35 near Cotulla, Texas, about 68 miles north of the border, according to the complaint.
A message later that day from Sgt. Julio Cesar Pacheco instructed Torres that a trip was a go, with a promised payment of $3,500 for the delivery of 24 illegal immigrants.
"24 will b tuff 2 fit but ill try," Torres wrote in response, the complaint said.
The 24 immigrants, at least five of whom were Mexican nationals, did fit in the van that was waved through a Border Patrol checkpoint before later being stopped along the highway.
Torres, 26, of Laredo, told federal investigators that it was his seventh immigrant smuggling trip. Torres implicated 36-year-old Hodge, a Fort Worth resident, as the soldier who waved his van through the checkpoint.
According to interviews immigration authorities conducted with some of the immigrants, Torres told the group to stay down and be quite inside the vehicle. One woman, a Mexican national, told investigators she paid $1,500 to be taken to Dallas.
Investigators say Hodge pointed to Pacheco, 26, of Laredo, as the man who recruited and paid him. Hodge told investigators he had been paid for helping smuggle a load of immigrants in May but the men had not worked out payment for the most recent load.
Pacheco, in an interview a year ago with The Associated Press when he was first deployed to the border, said he was eager for the assignment in his hometown of Laredo.
"That's why we're here, to help them out," said Pacheco, who has served in Iraq and Europe. "I'm very lucky because they're (fellow soldiers in Europe) going back to Iraq and I get to serve here in my hometown."
In another text message exchange Thursday allegedly between Hodge and Torres, Hodge allegedly asked Torres to make a trip on Friday, and said "they suplyin da van," according to the court records.
All three soldiers, who were arraigned Monday in Laredo on charges of conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants, are assigned to border duties as part of Operation Jumpstart, President Bush's initiative to place Guard troops at the border to help local and federal authorities with immigration enforcement. All the soldiers are volunteers.
Pacheco has been accused of recruiting soldiers to transport the migrants for $1,000 to $3,500 a trip. He and Hodge were arrested Friday.
The trio are not the first Operation Jumpstart troops in Texas to be accused of illegal activity. In September, three other soldiers were arrested on charges that they opened fire in a neighborhood near Eagle Pass. According to local police, the soldiers claimed that boredom was at the heart of a joyride with two cases of beer and a loaded 9 mm pistol.
Torres, Pacheco and Hodge were each being held Monday by civilian law enforcement authorities on $75,000 bond. It was unclear if the men had hired lawyers.
A man who answered the phone at Pacheco's house said no one would be talking to reporters. Attempts to reach the other Guardsmen Monday were unsuccessful.
Texas military forces will determine whether the men will be charged under military justice as well, according to a statement issued by the Texas National Guard. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for June 19 in Laredo.
Texas Adjutant General Lt. Gen. Chuck Rodriguez said he was extremely disappointed to learn of the arrests.
"Our military service members have an affirmative obligation to be actively supportive of our law enforcement partners at every level of government," Rodriguez said. "This is our duty. Any breach of the public's trust and military law by our soldiers will be thoroughly investigated."
Smugglers' have been successful at recruiting U.S. agents in the past. In California, at least nine border agents have been arrested or sentenced in the last 18 months on corruption charges. In Texas, at least 10 agents, including four Border Patrol agents, have been charged or sentenced in border corruption schemes.
For Lee Morgan, a retired Customs agent from Arizona, the statistics, including last week's arrest, at-*test*-('") to how difficult the job has become.
"Any time the money is easy, you are going to find someone," Morgan said.
One woman, a Mexican national, told investigators she paid $1,500 to be taken to Dallas.
Where do the poor starving unemployed or $5.00 a day mexicans get the money :?: from the ones who already got here and where hired by scum bags. They are sending the money back home to mexico to fund the smuggling of more illegals. So in effect we are footing the bill for the smuggling.
Remember when Nancy Reagan turned the casual user of drugs into the bad guy for indirectly supporting all the violence involved in illegal drugs. That's what needs to be done in this case, turn the people who think they aren't hurting anyone giving some poor mexican peasant a job into the bad guys.
http://www.katu.com/news/7980037.html
The worthless mayor of the city I live in......
'
No Drug Smuggler Left Behind!'
By Ann Coulter
Legal Affairs Correspondent, Human Events
President Bush was so buoyed by the warm reception he was given in Albania that he immediately gave all 3 million Albanians American citizenship, provided they learn Spanish. The offer was withdrawn when Bush found out most Albanians haven't broken any U.S. laws.
Bush keeps claiming he's dying to enforce the border, but he just can't do it unless we immediately grant amnesty to 12 million illegal aliens.
Rest of Column
-HERE-
May I also let it be publicaly known that I would like to sexually assault (flying love leap) and perform perverted and unusual sex acts upon this young woman... :P
One woman, a Mexican national, told investigators she paid $1,500 to be taken to Dallas.
Where do the poor starving unemployed or $5.00 a day mexicans get the money :?: from the ones who already got here and where hired by scum bags.
The drug trade in interior Mexico most likely.
so if we legalize drugs, they won't be able to afford to make the trip, BEDSPREAD for president, he can solve problems
Serving Sense at Dunkin' Donuts
Dunkin' Donuts is setting an example that corporate America should be following: it's intensifying the company's efforts to make sure its franchises do not hire illegal aliens.
Dunkin' Donuts is suing two of its franchises in New Jersey for deliberately hiring illegal aliens and now the company wants to terminate the franchise agreements. The New Jersey Star-Ledger says the stores in question knowingly accepted false documents, false social security numbers, and paid employees in cash.
Dunkin' Donuts in a statement to CNN said:
(Stephen Horn, chief legal officer for Dunkin' Brands)
"As of June 1, 2006 Dunkin' Brands has required all franchisees to use the Basic Pilot Program to ensure that new hires are legally authorized to work. We believe this is the right thing to do for our franchisees."
The Basic Pilot Program is a voluntary program by the Department of Homeland Security that allows companies to verify that employees are eligible to work.
Dunkin' Donuts also wants to sever ties with franchises in Boston, Atlanta and Florida for their hiring of illegal immigrants. Dunkin' Donuts has more than five thousand locations in the United States.
NOTE: The above is from the Lou Dobbs Tonight website, which is recommended reading if you don't watch the program.
...so if we legalize drugs, they won't be able to afford to make the trip, BEDSPREAD for president, he can solve problems
Actually Zig, drug legalization is alive and well. We have an open border(s) and ports for a number of reasons. One can buy any drug of choice openly on any street corner or corporate board. It is all a dog and pony show.
Somebody at the top is being bought out and this is why there are open borders and easily accessible narcotics available. The only real sufferers are the little guys that go to jail for simple possession.
What pisses me off is the occupation of Afghanistan and the poppy fields keep growing. There is no War On Drugs. Just the fight among many to rake in the profits.
This government is not only inept, it is treasonous.
It's all a plot for corperate america to weed out the rebels. under the current system only totally passive people will make it out of college with a clean police record and good grades, they are willing to submit to the bullshit they have to go through to get a better job so will make good employee's.
The country is nothing more than a giant mill town, good team players are allowed to bid on the better company housing units and allowed to bid on the better company cars. Just a big brown nose system like in trucking. It's nothing more than what trucking companies do by telling Bubba he owns the truck. Just the country does it on a larger scale and convinces Biff & Muffy they own stuff. If they stop busting their asses, they won't own the shit for long do to property taxes.
They have all sorts of people believing they are self employed, but they are either puppets of the supplier of what they peddle or puppets doing work for the big guy.
Even Joe Blow the electrician, he is just an installer for whoever makes all the stuff he uses. He is an indepenant contractor for the supply house he buys stuff from and they are independent retailers for the people who make the stuff.
Both the installer & retailer are really just glorified employee's of General Electric or whoever makes most of the electrical stuff.
kinda like prime drivers eh?:lol:
kinda like prime drivers eh?:lol:
not much different for all dwellers, they eat all the time their company fails to keep them productive while away from home, prime just has a different pay package and more paperwork involved
why anyone would make fun of a Prime driver while also getting screwed is baffling.
The job should pay like $2,000 a week, nothing to jump for joy about if somebody is only getting screwed out of $800 to $1200 a week while prime is getting screwed for something like $1500 a week.
The differance between a moron dweller and a total moron is a lease purchase, they are both morons if they can't comprehend they are grossly underpaid, just one has managed to excel at being a bigger moron than the other one.
The country is nothing more than a giant mill town
GOOD ANALOGY!
"I OWE MY SOUL TO THE COMPANY STORE... er...COMPANY LEASE-PURCHASE" :P