Meanwhile, Some Interesting Items in the El Chapo Trial Revealed

Posted on November 26, 2018November 26, 2018 by Denise Simon

First, the judge in the case had to essentially shut down one particular witness as he explained the bribes and payoffs to Mexican officials, top Mexican law enforcement officers and even the president elect of Mexico. Ruh roh….lots of money, lots of bribes and lots of denials. So…the judge had to hold and redact some testimony on sidebars to keep it from the jury.

US trial to tell epic tale of Mexican drug lord "El Chapo ...

“I’m not sure, but it was a few million dollars,” Zambada Garcia replied. “It was paid to him because it was said he was going to be the next secretary of security, and if so it would be for our protection.”

Within minutes, Gabriel Regino Garcia, a professor of criminology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, tweeted out a fierce denial.

“It’s false that during my exercise of public service, I received any bribe from on behalf of the witness Jesus Zambada,” he wrote.

Lopez Obrador is the president-elect of Mexico.

It’s not the first time Guzman’s lawyers have sought to paint Mexican politicians as corrupt, nor fought with the court over what role that alleged corruption can play in their case. Defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman was warned to steer clear of it in the second half of his opening statements last week, and Cogan ruled to curtail what Purpura could ask about corruption Tuesday in his cross-examination of Zambada Garcia.

“Individuals and entities who are not party to this case would face embarrassment and harassment if this information were made public,” Cogan told the court Tuesday morning. He ruled that the entire half-hour sidebar would be kept out of the public record, and that prosecutor’s motion to exclude such testimony would be redacted before it was entered. More here.

***

“I worked for the Sinaloa cartel,” Miguel Ángel Martínez told federal jurors in a Brooklyn courtroom. Then he identified the man he said gave him orders for moving billions of dollars in narcotics. “I worked for Mr. Joaquín Guzmán.”

Martínez outlined the cartel’s inner workings, testifying that Guzmán negotiated an ownership and profits split with Colombian drug leaders who contracted with him to fly cocaine from secret South America airstrips to similar landing spots in Mexico.

The drugs were then smuggled across the Mexico-U.S. border to Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York, Martínez said.

The defense has claimed that Martínez and other cooperating government witnesses are liars who would say anything in exchange for legal leniency.

Martínez said the cartel sought to avoid investigators by using secret codes. Talk of having a party tonight, he said, “meant get the planes ready.”

Vino — wine — meant jet fuel. Read more here.

***

Martinez said he began working for Guzman as a pilot and as a guide to other pilots on drug flights in 1987. He said one of the pilots he assisted that year, on a flight carrying 170 kilograms (375 lbs) of cocaine, claimed he had flown in the U.S. Navy.

Martinez said he was soon relieved of his pilot duties after damaging a propeller in a botched landing with Guzman on board. Guzman, he recalled, told him he was a “really bad pilot” and sent him instead to Mexico City to open an office for the cartel.

Posing as attorneys, Martinez said, he and others at the office directed bribes to government officials so the cartel could operate undisturbed. The beneficiaries included a high-ranking police official, Guillermo Calderoni, who fed Guzman information about law enforcement activities “every day,” Martinez said.

In the 1990s, Martinez said, U.S. authorities became more capable of intercepting planes, and Guzman and his Colombian suppliers largely switched to using fishing and merchant ships.

***

Blinged-out weaponry

El Chapo’s reputed extravagance extended even to his extensive collection of weaponry, the trial has heard.

Among his prized possessions were a diamond-encrusted, monogrammed pistol and a gold-plated AK-47.

328 million lines of coke

Assistant US Attorney Adam Fels said in his opening argument that El Chapo had sent “more than a line of cocaine for every single person in the United States” – in just four of his shipments.

That amounts to over 328 million lines of cocaine, said the prosecutor.

Mr Zambada said that once, in 1994, Mr Guzmán gave the order to sink a boat carrying 20 tonnes of cocaine to evade authorities.

Bazooka target practice

The court also heard that Mr Guzmán once used a bazooka for target practice – to relax on a family holiday.

Mr Zambada said El Chapo took the anti-tank rocket launcher with him on a trip with relatives in 2005.

He decided to “test out” the weapon after the group had finished target practice with assault rifles, according to the witness.

A $50m bribe fund

Some of the biggest news from testimony was how the Sinaloa cartel allegedly paid off a host of top Mexican officials to ensure their drug business ran smoothly.

Mr Zambada said the traffickers had $50m (£39m) in protection money for former Mexican Secretary of Public Security García Luna, so that corrupt officers would be appointed to head police operations.

Mr Zambada said he gave the money to Mr Luna in briefcases full of cash. Mr Luna has denied the allegations.

When former Mexico City Mayor Gabriel Regino was in line to become the next secretary of security, Mr Zambada says the cartel bribed him, too.

Mr Regino, who is now a professor, has also denied the claims.

‘Narco-saint’ at court

A 6in (15cm) figurine of a folk hero dubbed the narco-saint has been spotted on a shelf in a conference room used by the defendant’s lawyers at the court, the New York Post reported .

The statue of Jesús Malverde , which has him seated on a purple throne with bags of cash, appeared on Wednesday, one of El Chapo’s lawyers told the newspaper.

Jesús Malverde has been celebrated as a Robin Hood-type hero who, legend says, stole from the rich and gave to the poor in the early 1900s.

***

It could be said that two separate trials are taking place, side by side, these days in Room 8D of the Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

At the actual trial, the United States government is prosecuting Joaquín Guzmán Loera, who is accused of being one of the world’s biggest drug dealers. Widely known as El Chapo, Mr. Guzmán, prosecutors say, earned as much as $14 billion as head of the Sinaloa drug cartel — a fortune he is said to have protected with rampant payoffs and an army of professional assassins.

But at a second trial of sorts, Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers are, in essence, prosecuting the government of Mexico. By their account, the country’s police and politicians not only are corrupt, but also have conspired for years with Mr. Guzmán’s partner, Ismael Zambada García, to target El Chapo in exchange for a flood of bribes.

Facts on CARA and Pueblo Sin Fronteras

Posted on November 26, 2018November 26, 2018 by Denise Simon

In Spring 2018, hundreds of migrants from Central America approached the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum in the United States and threatening to enter illegally if their request was denied. Pueblo Sin Fronteras organized the caravan in conjunction with the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project.^[24] ^[25] The CARA coalition consists of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the American Immigration Council, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, all groups advocating for legal status for illegal immigrants and expanded immigration overall.^[26] These organizations have been funded by a number of major left-of-center grantmaking foundations, including the Open Society Foundations, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York. ^[27] The caravan eventually halted in Mexico City on April 4 instead of reaching the United States border.^[28]

In a press release released by Pueblo Sin Fronteras on March 23, 2018, the group “demand[ed]” the governments of Mexico and the United States “open the[ir] borders to us because we are as much citizens as the people of the counties where we are and/or travel.” Other demands were “that deportations, which destroy families, come to an end” and “that the U.S. government not end TPS [Temporary Protected Status] for those who need it.” ^[29] Temporary Protected Status is a status designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security which grants eligible foreign nationals protected status during “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”^[30] The demands appear to violate U.S. law, which prohibits behavior by individuals that “encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States” illegally.^[31]

Alex Mensing is an organizer and program coordinator for Pueblo Sin Fronteras and its affiliates. ^[34] Mensing has spent a significant amount of time with economic migrants in Central America and organizing illegal immigrant caravans to the United States.^[35] According to a 2016 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Mensing was a staffer for the CARA Family Detention Project, a coalition of left-of-center organizations providing legal aid and representation to illegal immigrants in the United States.^[36]

Irineo Mujica, an Arizona-based activist holding dual United States and Mexican citizenship, is a caravan organizer for Pueblo Sin Fronteras.^[37] In October 2018, he was arrested by Mexican officials in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, for his involvement in a pro-illegal immigration protest.^[38]

Rodrigo Abeja is an activist and organizer for Pueblo Sin Fronteras. He has been involved in at least two caravans from Central America to the U.S. and Mexico.^[39] ^[40] Abeja was identified in a 2013 article by the news group Vice as a representative for the Popular Assembly of Migrant Families, an left-wing organization based in Mexico which organizes migrants to the United States.^[41]

Citations found here.

Know the other operatives….

In 2015 the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the American Immigration Council, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, collectively known as CARA, joined forces in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) significant expansion of its family detention capacity. The opening of the “South Texas Family Residential Center” in Dilley, Texas – with an initial capacity of 480 beds and the potential to hold 2,400 individuals – and the detention of families at the “Karnes Residential Center” in Karnes City – with a current capacity of 532 beds and plans to double the number – reflect the Obama Administration’s continuing commitment to the flawed deterrence policy it began in June 2014 with the opening of a temporary family detention center in Artesia, New Mexico.

In early 2016, the pro bono work at the South Texas Family Residential Center became known as the Dilley Pro Bono Project (DPBP). DPBP is a collaboration of the American Immigration Council and other partners. It operates a non-traditional pro bono model of legal services that directly represents detained mothers and children who are fleeing extreme violence in Central America and elsewhere and are seeking asylum in the United States. DPBP is an Immigration Justice Campaign local partner.

The detention of children and their mothers is not only inhumane, but incompatible with a fair legal process. The project builds on the volunteer’s collective experiences providing legal services, running a pro bono project for detained families, training lawyers and BIA accredited representatives, and leading advocacy and litigation efforts to challenge unlawful asylum, detention, and deportation policies.

The volunteers behind CARA are committed to ensuring that detained children and their mothers receive competent, pro bono representation, and developing aggressive, effective advocacy and litigation strategies to end the practice of family detention.

Background

In December 2014, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) significantly expanded its detention capacity for families (i.e., women with minor children) with the opening of the “South Texas Family Residential Center” in Dilley, Texas. Dilley is a small town located approximately one hour and fifteen minutes southwest of San Antonio. That privately owned detention facility will be the largest family detention center in the United States, with a current capacity of 480 beds and the potential to hold 2,400 individuals.

A few months earlier, ICE converted a detention center in Karnes City—one hour southeast of San Antonio—from an all-male facility into a detention center for children and mothers. Its current capacity is 532 beds, but the private company that owns the facility has already broken ground on a project to double that number.

When the government opened a similar facility in 2014 in Artesia, New Mexico, over 250 individuals, lawyers and non-lawyers alike, traveled there to fight for the rights of these families during the five–month period it was open (July through December 2014). In this new model, volunteers worked in weekly shifts to represent detainees, handing off the client matter to a new attorney each week. Much to everyone’s surprise, however, not only did the model work and grow, but pro bono attorneys continued to be drawn to it. This concept of what some called “lawyer camp” captured the hearts and minds of willing volunteers. Rather than just taking over a paper file handed to them, they were taking over the legal care of a human being desperately needing their help.

The volunteers at CARA are building on the success and volunteer enthusiasm of the Artesia Project. The dedication and sacrifice of the pro bono attorneys demonstrates how open individual attorneys are to this type of service. Primarily, these volunteers hailed from small and solo firms where every billable hour is precious. They left their practices for up to 14 days to head to Artesia to fight for their clients against the unjust machine of family detention. They left their families and purchased plane tickets, paid for rental cars, hotels and meals all on their own, a cost that ran over $1,500 per week, for the opportunity to be part of this amazing pro bono effort representing women and children in the New Mexico desert.

Currently the American Immigration Council, CLINIC, AILA and Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid are coordinating pro bono representation for women and children detained at Dilley. In 2017 alone, the Dilley Pro Bono Project represented more than 12,000 detained families, with a 98 percent success rate.

Since the opening of Karnes in August 2014, RAICES and a team of local and national pro bono attorneys, advocates, and faith-based community members have been representing the women and children at Karnes. In addition to providing significant legal representation and pro se assistance, the Karnes Pro Bono Project created a bond fund that has raised nearly $200,000 in donations to enable women and children to bond out of detention, has met released women and children at the local bus station to assist with transportation to final destinations throughout the United States, and has provided basic supplies (clothing, food, and hygiene products) to families for their journeys outside of Texas.

CLINIC is the supporting organization for the nation’s largest network of nonprofit immigration service providers. Among its activities, CLINIC’s attorneys conduct training and provide technical support on all of the immigration-related legal problems faced by low-income immigrants. The Training and Legal Support Section is staffed with eight attorneys who specialize in a range of subject areas, including asylum, the credible fear standard, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), release from detention, and other relief for those in removal proceedings. CLINIC has authored the seminal book in this area, Representing Clients in Immigration Court, published and sold by AILA. CLINIC staff played an important supportive role in responding to the need for representation of families detained in the Artesia facility. CLINIC staff collectively spent over two months at the facility last summer, immediately after it opened, interviewing clients, coordinating the work of volunteer attorneys, and reporting on conditions.

CLINIC has developed several immigration courses and integrated them into an online format. Last year, in response to the sudden need for representation for minors apprehended at the Mexican border, CLINIC developed and conducted a four-week course, “Representing Unaccompanied Children: What to Do and How to Do It,” and offered it free to over 400 attorneys and BIA-accredited staff. The course is now housed on CLINIC’s website and is available using recorded webinars as an “independent study” for those wanting to learn more about this subject area and improve their skills.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) is the national association of more than 14,000 attorneys and law professors who practice and teach immigration law. AILA member attorneys represent U.S. families seeking permanent residence for close family members, as well as U.S. businesses seeking talent from the global marketplace. AILA members also represent foreign students, entertainers, athletes, and asylum seekers, often on a pro bono basis. Founded in 1946, AILA is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that provides continuing legal education, information, professional services, and expertise through its 39 chapters and over 50 national committees.

Ending family detention is a national priority of AILA. The CARA pro bono project is part of AILA’s work to end the inhumane treatment of children, women and men seeking asylum in the United States.

RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services) was founded and incorporated in 1986 under the name of the Refugee Aid Project. During this time, Central Americans flooded into Texas after fleeing the civil wars and social upheavals of El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Several churches and religious orders answered the needs of the new arrivals by providing food, clothing, language classes, housing, medical and legal referrals. The agency provided a forum for San Antonians to meet the new arrivals and learn first hand about the situation in Central America. In 2008, RAICES enlarged its office in order to keep pace with its growing staff and programs. Located five minutes from the San Antonio Immigration Court and in the heart of the city’s historic Five Points neighborhood, RAICES continues to provide counsel and representation in a full range of defenses against deportation before the Immigration Court, as well as representation before United States Citizenship and Immigration Services in family-based immigration cases, visas and other affirmative applications.

In its third decade, RAICES has a dedicated team of attorneys, accredited representatives, and legal assistants, in addition to volunteers, student interns and partnering pro bono attorneys.

The American Immigration Council is a non-profit, non-partisan, organization based in Washington D.C. Our legal, education, policy and exchange programs work to strengthen America by honoring our immigrant history and shaping how Americans think and act towards immigration now and in the future.

The American Immigration Council exists to promote the prosperity and cultural richness of our diverse nation by educating citizens about the enduring contributions of America’s immigrants; standing up for sensible and humane immigration policies that reflect American values; insisting that our immigration laws be enacted and implemented in a way that honors fundamental constitutional and human rights; working tirelessly to achieve justice and fairness for immigrants under the law.

The Council’s motto is: Honoring our immigrant past; shaping our immigrant future.

The Innovation Law Lab is a Portland, Oregon-based non-profit that provides the technology and data management systems at CARA and offers a limited number of supplemental stipends for individuals traveling to Dilley through its Applied Scholars program. The Law Lab creates innovative strategies that advance the rights, protections, and modes of integration of immigrant communities in the United States by creating capacity within immigrant legal service providers, developing scholarship and research into emerging legal theories, and providing education about the law’s impact on immigrants in the United States.

400 Left the Caravan and Arrive in Tijuana

Posted on November 13, 2018November 13, 2018 by Denise Simon

Defense Secretary Mattis will spend Wednesday visiting the border. Customs and Border Patrol said it will close lanes at the San Ysidron and Otay Mesa crossing to allow the Department of Defense to install barbed wire and position barricades and fencing in the Tijuana region of Baja, California.

The lead or first caravan is expected to arrive in an estimated two weeks with at least three other caravans are making progress heading north in Mexico. More details here.

Meanwhile, Ami Horowitz who is an onsite investigative journalist is traveling with and reporting on the real facts of the caravan. Horowitz has a vast resume of these kinds of investigations on his resume that include corruption at the United Nations and he also travel by boat with Syrian refugees arriving in Greece.

During this adventure by Ami Horowitz he found the following facts:

90-95% are males in the caravan.

There is a substantial logistical transportation operation aiding the migrants with trucks and buses.

Food, water, shelter, medicine, mobile hospitals, doctors and nurses are at each base camp along the way.

Mexican police are often found escorting the caravan.

Mexico is actively working with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and with UNICEF per the UN contact named Maria Rudi.

It is admitted there are violent and gang member people within the caravan. It takes work to keep them separated from the other members of the caravan daily.

The largest support comes from Pueblo sin Fronteras. This organization has hundreds of volunteers traveling with the caravan as noted in the video. The volunteers hold countless learning sessions with the migrants to teach them about applying for asylum, what a refugees and what their rights are according to U.S. law. United Nations workers are also traveling with the caravan and they along with the Pueblo Sin Fronteras wear vests noting who they are and some also wear badges.

Pueblo sin Fronteras has been reaching out to immigrants and migrants for more than 15 years aiding them to the United States demanding their human rights.On their website they even have a graphic that reads Otay Mesa Detention Resistance for Los Angeles and San Diego.

As tensions build over a new caravan, Mexican officials seize the man who helped organize the last one https://t.co/ipwsyldi9R

— Adolfo Flores (@aflores) October 19, 2018

The leader of Pueblo sin Fronteras is Irineo Mujico. From Phoenix, Mujico was arrested in southern Mexico in October in Cuidad Hidalgo. He was there not as a leader but more as a coordinator of humanitarian assistance. He has been released but he did forfeit documents under the demand of the Mexican police. Mujico is a dual citizen of the United States and Mexico.

Birthright v. Jurisdiction

Posted on October 31, 2018October 31, 2018 by Denise Simon

Let’s begin with the 39th Congress shall we?

1865-1867, it was a time of reconstruction. For context, scan this summary of the activity of Congress.

On the matter of ratification of the 14th Amendment, a year long study was completed by a 15 member committee. Much of the debate was on citizenship for slaves. For reference, the Joint Resolution was H.R. 127.

Of particular note is the text in the middle column under ‘Reconstruction’. This document is found in the Library of Congress. This matter has been debated often over many decades and there is no law defining natural born v. foreign ownership, loyalty or jurisdiction. Hence the reason the debate continues and proposed legislation in addition to President Trump considering an Executive Order. Frankly, the common existing definition on birthright gives an additional argument to chain migration, somewhat in reverse.

Here is a cogent presentation on the case against birthright.

Need more?

Claremont Senior Fellow Matthew Spalding

Spalding raised the question in “Should the Children of Illegal Aliens Be U.S. Citizens?” and his U.S. News & World Report op-ed: “14th Amendment Doesn’t Make Illegal Aliens’ Children Citizens”

Others

Frequent Claremont Review of Books contributor and summer fellowship faculty member Richard Samuelson provides more historical and legal context in his essay for The Federalist: “Birthright for Whom?”

*** Is it okay that there are actually birthing hotels in California where Chinese woman take full advantage?Federal agents raided several maternity hotels in January of 2018 where these pregnant women paid between $40,000 to $80,000 to give birth in the United States. This has been the case for many years. There was/is a list of sites for birthing tourism for California.

How about pregnant Russian women making the long trip to Miami just to give birth? Birthing tourism is a thriving business for Russians in Miami. It is all for dual citizenship. If the mainstream media complains about President Trump authorizing an Executive Order, the text is most important. He cannot alter any Constitutional amendment but he can issue an order to stop birthing tourism. Even NBC News is quite aware of the issue.

“for a growing number of Russian women, the draw isn’t sunny beaches or pulsing nightclubs. It’s U.S. citizenship for their newborn children. In Moscow, it’s a status symbol to have a Miami-born baby, and social media is full of Russian women boasting of their little americantsy.”

*** If President Trump signs an Executive Order it will be legally challenged with a lawsuit before the end of the day. Perhaps this is a good thing to begin a final legal opinion on the matter.

Offensive Details in Response to the US Mexican Border

Posted on October 29, 2018October 29, 2018 by Denise Simon

In April, the Trump White House and the Pentagon authorized and deployed 2100 National Guard personnel to the Southern border region to provide support to Border Patrol. Most states complied with this order.

Just last week, the Department of Homeland Security requested 800 military personnel from the Pentagon for additional support. That request was granted. Most will come from Ft. Stewart and include, engineers, communications, logistical personnel, aviation, medical and intelligence personnel.

Since it was reported in the last few days, some migrants from the caravan broke through the barriers between Mexico and Guatemala and there is at least two more emerging caravans being mobilized.

The United States is not taking any chances of migrant cells breaking off and scattering to other barrier locations that would allow them to advance to the United States border with Mexico.

Immigrant caravan sets up camp along the Mexican border | Daily Mail Online

There are several envoys, media and intelligence operations occurring in at least four countries, including Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. The mission is to perform checks and balances on human rights violations, human trafficking, mules and drug cartels as well as gangs. Additionally, information is being gathered on the organizers of the caravans and the money flow as well as the operations for meeting places, brochures and planning.

The Trump White House along with the Department of Justice and the lawyers at the Department of Homeland Security are meeting to determine the legal moves that can be authorized to close the border, stop all asylees and refugees for a time period. An announcement is pending on this order.

Just breaking is the Pentagon has authorized with the President another 5000 US troops to be deployed to the Southern border. The deployment package is for support personnel and NOT combat troops. This translates to more medical personnel, aviation operations and engineers. Truck loads of vehicles, barriers, tents and other national security threat operations gear.

This is purely an offensive posture and not a military hostilities operation.

You can bet progressive organizations have teamed with lawyers and are ready to strike with lawsuits filed in the 9th Circuit. So far however the Supreme Court has upheld Trump’s previous similar actions.

“The administration is considering a wide range of administrative, legal and legislative options to address the Democrat-created crisis of mass illegal immigration,” a White House official said. “No decisions have been made at this time. Nor will we forecast to smugglers or caravans what precise strategies will or will not be deployed.”

But hold on….the UN wants to interfere too.

UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic told VOA his agency has alerted countries along the caravan’s route that it is likely to include people in real danger.

“Our position globally is that the individuals who are fleeing persecution and violence need to be given access to territory and protection including refugee status and determination procedure. And, if the people who are fleeing persecution and violence enter Mexico, they need to be provided access to the Mexican asylum system and those entering the United States need to be provided access to the American asylum system,” he said.

Mahecic said the UNHCR is very concerned about the developing humanitarian situation along the migratory route. He said there are kidnapping and security risks in the areas where the caravan may be venturing.

Notice the UNHCR never did a blasted thing then or now in those countries where instability and peril is common, including Venezuela.