Category Archives: Gangs and Crimes

Guilty Pleas, Human Smuggling Network Ft. Hood

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Primer:

BROWNSVILLE – A 51-year-old man in the U.S. illegally pled guilty to human smuggling charges.

Victoriano Zamora-Jasso is said to have supplied immigrants to 47-year-old Arnold Garcia, of Harlingen, who would then contact active-duty soldiers stationed at Fort Hood to help transport and deliver people in the county illegally further north.

The illegal operation took place from March to September of 2014.

The soldiers would conceal immigrants under their military gear to get through the immigration checkpoint in Sarita.

Garcia and all the soldiers were sentenced in 2015 and 2016.

Sentencing for Zamora-Jasso is scheduled for May 9.

He faces up to 10 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine.

*** So, here is a case of an illegal alien that was granted access and permission to join the U.S. military….you know, taking an oath and stuff and he established a network at Ft.Hood….with other illegals? ….sheesh

Former Fort Hood, Texas, soldier pleads guilty to alien smuggling

US Army soldier was also previously deported

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — A solider based in Fort Hood, Texas, pleaded guilty Jan. 29 for his role in a conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal aliens, and illegally re-entering the United States after having been deported.

This guilty plea was announced U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick, Southern District of Texas. This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) with assistance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP).

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Victoriano Zamora-Jasso aka “Tata,” 51, from Mexico living in Houston made an appearance Jan. 29 in federal court on the eve of jury selection.

According to court records, in early 2014 Zamora-Jasso began supplying illegal aliens to Arnold Gracia, 47, from Harlingen, Texas.  Gracia then made arrangements with others to transport the illegal aliens through the immigration checkpoint in Sarita, Texas.  Gracia recruited the following then active-duty soldiers stationed at Ft. Hood to transport and deliver the illegal aliens further north: Brandon Troy Robbins, 23, from San Antonio; Eric Alexander Rodriguez, 24, from Odem, Texas; Christopher David Wix, 23, from Abilene, Texas; and Yashira Perez-Morales, 27, from Watertown, New York.

The conspiracy continued from about March through September 2014. The soldiers concealed the illegal aliens under their military gear in which they made many successful trips during the course of the conspiracy.

Zamora-Jasso was indicted in 2016 and arrested after a traffic stop in Conroe, Texas, in July 2017. In court, he admitted his involvement in the conspiracy.  He also admitted that he is a previously convicted illegal alien who illegally re-entered the United States after having been deported in 2013.

Gracia and all the soldiers were previously sentenced in 2015 and 2016 with Gracia receiving a 73-month sentence; Robbins, Rodriguez, Wix and Perez-Morales received sentences of 20, 12 months, 12 months and a day, and five years’ probation to include an $8,000 fine.

Judge Rolando Olvera has scheduled Zamora-Jasso’s sentencing for May 9. At that time, he faces up to 10 years imprisonment and a possible $250,000 maximum fine. He remains in custody pending sentencing.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Oscar Ponce and Angel Castro, Southern District of Texas, are prosecuting this case.

DoJ Sessions’ Letter of Subpoena to Sanctuary Cities

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Primer: In part from the New York Times/

Over the past year, the local jurisdictions have pushed back hard on the administration’s attempts to force them to abandon their stance by cutting off federal funding to them, with some like Chicago filing lawsuits against the Justice Department.

Mr. Emanuel’s office has called the Justice Department’s actions “misguided.” And district court judges in California and Illinois have filed preliminary nationwide injunctions blocking the department from denying grant money to sanctuary cities.

On Wednesday, 15 attorneys general filed a brief in support of the Chicago lawsuit, saying that the administration’s efforts to pull federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions infringes on their right to set their own law enforcement policies.

“The Trump administration cannot strip a city or a police department of these critical funds, simply because they don’t like its policies,” Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, said in a statement. More here.

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Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Justice Department Demands Documents and Threatens to Subpoena 23 Jurisdictions As Part of 8 U.S.C. 1373 Compliance Review

The Department of Justice today sent the attached letters to 23 jurisdictions, demanding the production of documents that could show whether each jurisdiction is unlawfully restricting information sharing by its law enforcement officers with federal immigration authorities.

All 23 of these jurisdictions were previously contacted by the Justice Department, when the Department raised concerns about laws, policies, or practices that may violate 8 U.S.C. 1373, a federal statute that promotes information sharing related to immigration enforcement and with which compliance is a condition of FY2016 and FY2017 Byrne JAG awards.

The letters also state that recipient jurisdictions that fail to respond, fail to respond completely, or fail to respond in a timely manner will be subject to a Department of Justice subpoena.

“I continue to urge all jurisdictions under review to reconsider policies that place the safety of their communities and their residents at risk,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “Protecting criminal aliens from federal immigration authorities defies common sense and undermines the rule of law. We have seen too many examples of the threat to public safety represented by jurisdictions that actively thwart the federal government’s immigration enforcement—enough is enough.”

Failure to comply with section 1373 could result in the Justice Department seeking the return of FY2016 grants, requiring additional conditions for receipt of any FY2017 Byrne JAG funding, and/or jurisdictions being deemed ineligible to receive FY2017 Byrne JAG funding.

The following jurisdictions received the document request today:

  • Chicago, Illinois;
  • Cook County, Illinois;
  • New York City, New York;
  • State of California;
  • Albany, New York;
  • Berkeley, California;
  • Bernalillo County, New Mexico;
  • Burlington, Vermont;
  • City and County of Denver, Colorado;
  • Fremont, California;
  • Jackson, Mississippi;
  • King County, Washington;
  • Lawrence, Massachusetts;
  • City of Los Angeles, California;
  • Louisville Metro, Kentucky;
  • Monterey County, California;
  • Sacramento County, California;
  • City and County of San Francisco, California;
  • Sonoma County, California;
  • Watsonville, California;
  • West Palm Beach, Florida;
  • State of Illinois; and
  • State of Oregon.
Attachment(s):
Download 23 Letters
Topic(s):
Immigration
Component(s):
Office of the Attorney General
Press Release Number:
18-81

Russian Trolls, DAVOS and President Trump

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So, while President Trump has again changed his schedule to attend the DAVOS World Economic Forum, there are some key items on the agenda.

With cybersecurity a top concern at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Yahoo Finance asked experts: What is the topic or topics that business and government leaders should be focusing on when it comes to cybersecurity and policy in 2018?

Jason Glassberg, co-founder of Casaba Security, responded that currently the most pressing topics are “cryptocurrency ecosystems, election security, ‘DevSecOps’ (this may sound dull, but think: IoT, cars, airline computer systems, smart homes, smart cities, Intel chips, Juniper routers, Huawei, the Internet, basically everything digital under the sun), increased regulation, cyber warfare, and attribution.”

Glassberg broke down each of these six issues:

“Cryptocurrency is obviously a major financial story these days. Everybody and their brother is looking into how to capitalize on it. These markets are notoriously murky, however – fraud and scams are rampant, as are the cyber attacks. So how do you make it safe? How do you take a Wild West gunslinging town, and turn it into the suburbs? It’s a tough issue, and I think we’ll have to look at the gambling industry as an example. The key to this is establishing better security within this ecosystem for the real players. The next step is finding a way to guarantee losses due to theft, similar to the FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] or SIPC [Securities Investor Protection Corporation].

Election security needs no introduction. But while everybody has been freaking out about voter suppression via phony Facebook ads, the reality is that the 2016 election interference was just a sample. It was a nation-state gently dipping its toe in the water, but deciding not to go all the way in. If a country wanted to get serious about election attacks, it could go much further. This is what we need to be prepared for.

It would be possible for a serious player to delete or alter voter registration databases, DDoS the servers used to run those database or the actual voting machines; not to mention, hack the voting machines themselves. The latter would definitely cross a red line, if for instance we found out that Russia had re-tabulated voting machines to directly affect the outcome of an election. But what if the attack was a little less black-and-white? For instance, what if the machines were just infected with random malware that didn’t actually do anything, other than make itself known to the IT team? That would send shockwaves through the system and call into question the voting results, even though the votes weren’t actually affected. This is what we need to be thinking about.

DevSecOps is one of those terms that causes people’s eyes to glaze over when they hear it (if they ever do), but it’s actually very relevant to our lives today. What it refers to is incorporating security into the software or hardware development process. This is hugely significant today because as we’re seeing with the Internet of Things devices that are flooding the market, and the connected cars that are rolling out onto our public streets, software security is usually not the first priority of these manufacturers.

But not to just pick on those two markets, the reality is that DevSecOps is a problem for every industry on the planet, even the security field. Businesses aren’t doing enough to bake in rigorous security into the DNA of their products from the very beginning. Too often they are relying on software updates and patches to fix the problem after the fact, and that is never an ideal solution. This will continue to become a bigger issue in the months and years ahead.

Increased regulation is another issue that businesses could face, as governments try to contend with the growing risk of data breaches and attacks on key infrastructure, whether it’s the GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] in Europe or the Singapore Cybersecurity Bill. In my own opinion, I think that companies that store consumer data (whether it’s credit card numbers or credit reports), as well as private infrastructure entities like telecom and power companies, are probably most at risk of higher costs due to regulation.

Cyber warfare is another pressing issue today, as more countries are investing in offensive cyber operations. This often puts businesses in the crosshairs and it sticks government in a tough position too because there is no easy solution for preventing or responding to these incidents. A key question when it comes to cyber warfare is do we engage in “active defense”?

That is more commonly referred to as hack-back, but it’s a more complex concept than simply tit-for-tat cyber retaliation. Active defense can mean anything from advanced investigative techniques to disabling the servers behind an attack or turning a city’s lights off for 30 minutes in order to send a message to a rival nation. How we deter and respond to cyber warfare tactics will be a key question for policymakers and businesses over the next five to 10 years.

Attribution is another ongoing issue for governments and businesses, and it’s related directly to the cyber warfare question, although it also encompasses cybercrime as well. What’s also key with attribution is that the pressure to solve these cases could lead to encroachments on digital privacy. In fact, I’d be very surprised if that did not happen. Potential targets here include Tor, VPNs, and encryption tools in general.”

Over 500 criminal ‘dreamers’ ordered deported are still in U.S.

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WE: In the latest blow to the pure image portrayed by their supporters in Congress, newly released statistics show that over 500 illegals stripped of their “dreamer” status due to crime and gang charges remain on the streets.

A new analysis of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services statistics found that 2,127 individuals had their amnesty status terminated for criminal activity and/or gang activity as of November 22, 2017.

Of those booted from the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival amnesty program, 562 were deported.

But, said the analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies, a near equal amount — 535 — were released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“While it is reassuring that USCIS is revoking DACA benefits for criminal gang members it identifies, it is concerning that almost as many criminal alien DACA beneficiaries have been released as have been removed to their home country,” said the report’s author and CIS Policy Studies Director Jessica M. Vaughan.

Her report reviewed USCIS data provided to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.

While a tiny portion of the overall DACA population of nearly 700,000, the report and other portraying the illegals as more prone to crime and low-pay employment challenge that painted by liberals that most are high-achievers.

The fate of DACA is at the center of the current budget crisis. Democrats want a deal to preserve their amnesty as part of a budget deal, while Republicans want them included in a larger immigration bill that would grant a path to citizenship in exchange for President Trump’s key demands, including funding to build a southern border wall.

Her numbers:

  • Removed from the United States: 562
  • In ICE Custody: 90
  • Released from ICE Custody: 535
  • No Record of Removal, Detention or Release by ICE: 940
  • Total: 2,127

Trump has put a focus on deporting gang members and Vaughan highlighted what USCIS had to say about those criminal organizations. She wrote:

USCIS also provided a list of more than 45 gang affiliations of the ex-DACA criminals. It includes some of the most violent and dangerous gangs in the United States, such as MS-13, 18th Street, the Latin Kings, and the Trinitarios. It includes some lesser-known gangs as well, with names like Last Generation Korean Killers and Maniac Latin Disciples.

USCIS has not released information on where these gang members were living, but the gang names sometimes identify their location: Oakland 30 Nortenos, Orange County, Angelino Heights Surenos, East San Diego, Inland Empire, Pacoima Van Nuys Boys, and West Merced Nortenos, all of which are presumably in California.

*** Dreamers versus DACA

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Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act or the Dream Act was originally introduced in 2001 by Dick Durbin and Orin Hatch. The proposed bill failed several times. Members of Congress have introduced several forms of this bill in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Members in the House passed one such bill on December 8, 2010 by a vote of 216–198;[13] Senators debated a version of the DREAM Act on September 21, 2010. A previous version of the bill, S. 2205, which required 60 votes to gain cloture, failed on a 52–44 vote in 2007, eight votes short of overcoming a filibuster by senators opposed to the bill.

In 2011, California passed their own version of the Dream Act. Continued edits and iterations of the Dream Act have been introduced in both houses of Congress, yet no version has advanced. So, Barack Obama used his executive authority to declare the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, DACA.

Both issues must be debated in together and they have been for at least 17 years. What is rarely discussed is those under DACA protections do drop off monthly for various reasons. So we are still challenged with what the real numbers include.

Trump has urged Congress to pass legislation by March 2018 that would give legal status to unauthorized immigrants enrolled in DACA, and some members of Congress have said they plan to propose legislation along those lines. (DACA enrollees whose benefits expire after March 5, 2018, will be the first to be dropped from the program.)

Although roughly 800,000 unauthorized immigrants have ever received benefits through DACA, about 110,000 of this group are no longer enrolled in the program. About 70,000 former DACA participants did not renew their benefits or had their renewal applications denied. Another 40,000 have adjusted their legal status and obtained green cards, which grant lawful permanent residence. (Some unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. can obtain legal status by marrying an American citizen or lawful permanent resident, obtaining asylum, or receiving certain types of visas such as those given to victims of a crime, among other ways.)

To qualify for DACA, enrollees must meet certain conditions, such as being enrolled in high school or having a high school diploma or GED equivalent, and not being convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more other misdemeanors. For more key facts and details, go here.

There are some real unanswered questions which include monthly costs to the taxpayer, enforcement of those conditions, reporting of crimes versus those protected under DACA and most of all, how long does ‘deferred’ last?

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The Obama White House stated:

Today, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting requests for consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals. Deferred action is a discretionary determination to defer removal action of an individual as an act of prosecutorial discretion. Under this process, USCIS will consider requests on a case-by-case basis. While this process does not provide lawful status or a pathway to permanent residence or citizenship, individuals whose cases are deferred will not be removed from the United States for a two year period, subject to renewal, and may also receive employment authorization. 

There are key words in that text. They include: accept, requests, consideration, discretionary, defer, case by case, subject to renewal. None of the actions under DACA is rubber-stamped with approval something all the Democrats and many Republicans have overlooked as well as the media.

DoJ Official Explains the Terror and Immigration Report

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Politico published an item regarding the White House press briefing on 1/17/2018 where a Justice Department official, Ed O’Callaghan explained several terror cases inside the United States had connective tissue to chain migration as well as illegal immigration in an effort to give rise to the whole debate on Capital Hill as it relates to DACA, funding the border wall and shutting down the Federal government if no deal is reached. The only paragraph that did not have some bias slant to it is:

The report’s release, part of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last year, comes as the White House is pushing for changes in the U.S. immigration system that would end the diversity visa lottery program — through which a terrorist who killed eight people with a rented truck entered the U.S. — and chain migration, the practice of legal immigrants sponsoring family members’ entry into the country.

So, what is in this report?

 

Executive Order 13780 Section 11 Report – Final by zerohedge on Scribd

Most of the critical national security enhancements implemented and effectuated as a result of Executive Order 13780 are classified in nature, and will remain so to prevent malicious actors from  
exploiting our immigration system.
However, to “be more transparent with the American  people and to implement more effectively policies and practices that serve the national interest,” Section 11 of Executive Order 13780 requires the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, to collect and make publicly available the following information:
(i) Information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been charged with terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; convicted of terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; or removed from the United States based on terrorism-related activity, affiliation with or provision of material support to a terrorism-related organization, or any other national-security-related reasons;
(ii) Information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been radicalized after entry into the United States and who have engaged in terrorism-related acts, or who have provided material support to terrorism-related organizations in countries that pose a threat to the United States;
(iii) Information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women, including so-called “honor killings,” in the United States by foreign nationals; and, (iv) Any other information relevant to public safety and security as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Attorney General, including information on the immigration status of foreign nationals charged with major offenses.
According to a list maintained by DOJ’s National Security Division, at least 549 individuals were convicted of international terrorism-related charges in U.S. federal courts  between September 11, 2001, and December 31, 2016. An analysis conducted by DHS determined that approximately 73 percent (402 of these 549 individuals) were foreign-born. Breaking down the 549 individuals by citizenship status at the time of their respective convictions reveals that:
1. 254 were not U.S. citizens;
2. 148 were foreign-born, naturalized and received U.S. citizenship; and,  
3. 147 were U.S. citizens by birth.
 8 specific cases were listed in the report with a summary of each case. The Boston bombers were not listed in this report. They went from a tourist visa, to asylum status, to green card and one got citizenship. We also have the San Bernardino killers that arrived on a marriage visa and a cultural visa. Both of those have stay limits. The argument here in both cases they are in the spirit of chain migration.
Diplomatic favors? How about that Christmas Day bomber? How was he granted a visa?

The Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had initially had his visa denied in 2004, four years prior to his 2008 application. In 2004, he applied again, and the initial denial was overturned because a supervisory consular officer decided Abdulmuttalab’s father was too prominent in Nigerian politics and finance to upset the U.S. diplomatic applecart in that country and deny his son a visa. Ironically, this was the same father who four years later visited the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and sought to help the U.S. keep his son out of the U.S., only subsequently to have the U.S. decide he was not important enough to listen to.

The legal kicker in this visa story is that on Abdulmuttalab’s 2008 application, he lied and said he had never received a prior denial, enough to deny him a visa under law and keep him out of the country. As the matter was “considered resolved,” State Department did not look again at the 2004 denial when the young Al Qaeda operative sought another visa in 2008. Instead, he was granted the multi-year visa he used to attend an Islamic convention in Houston in 2008 and again for airline check-in on Christmas Eve.

This is incredibly embarrassing to the State Department. Despite State’s spin on this “new” fact, what this makes clear is that: (1) the intelligence community was not primarily to blame after all for failure to revoke the visa, as it should never have been issued in the first place; but (2) raises – once more – a larger issue of the State Department’s policies regarding visa issuance; and (3) whether State should continue to be responsible for the visa process. More here.

The Democrats are in a pre 9/11 mentality. After the 9/11 Commission Report, recommendations and solutions were drafted of which the congressional leaders all approved. In particular, go to page 24 of the summary as it relates to immigration.