l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 Judge: DHS Complicit in Human Trafficking that Helps Fund Drug Cartels
A United States federal judge has accused President Barack Obama’s
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of being complicit in helping Mexican
drug cartels and felons inside America smuggle illegal aliens into the
country.
In a court order he signed on Dec. 13, 2013, U.S. District Judge Andrew S.
Hanen of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Texas wrote
that four times in the last four weeks he has heard troubling cases
involving the DHS’s complicity in helping smuggle people across the border
to their final destination.
This particular court opinion involved a case where Mirtha Veronica Nava-
Martinez attempted to smuggle a ten-year old El Salvadorean female, whom
Judge Hanen referred to only by her initials Y.P.S. to protect the minor’s
identity, into the country. Nava-Martinez pled guilty and has been sentenced
; Judge Hanen wrote after the case:
On May 18, 2013, Nava-Martinez, an admitted human trafficker, was caught
at the Brownsville & Matamoras Bridge checkpoint. She was trying to smuggle
Y.P.S. into the United States using a birth certificate that belonged to
one of her daughters. Nava-Martinez had no prior relationship with Y.P.S.
and was hired by persons unknown solely to smuggle her into the United
States. Nava-Martinez is a resident alien and this was her second felony
offense in three years, having committed a food stamp fraud offense in 2011.
She was to be paid for smuggling Y.P.S. from Matamoras to Brownsville,
although the identity of her immediate payor and the amount are unknown. The
details as to how Y.P.S. got to Matamoros, Mexico from El Salvador, and how
she was to get from Brownsville to Virginia, were also not disclosed to the
Court.
Hanen noted that the “conspiracy” began when Y.P.S.’s mother, Patricia
Elizabeth Salmeron Santos, “solicited human traffickers to smuggle” her
daughter from their home country of El Salvador into the United States and
onward to her residence in Virginia.
Salmeron Santos, Hanen wrote, had “applied for a tourist visa in 2000, but
was turned down," adding, “Despite being denied legal entry into the United
States, she entered the United States illegally and is living in Virginia."
Salmeron Santos admitted that she hired the smugglers for $8,500 and paid
them $6,000 in advance.
“The criminal conspiracy instigated by Salmeron Santos was temporarily
interrupted when Nava-Martinez was arrested,” wrote Hanen. “Despite this
setback, the goal of the conspiracy was successfully completed thanks to the
actions of the United States Government.”
Hanen wrote that his court is “quite concerned with the apparent policy of
the Department of Homeland Security of completing mission of individuals who
are violating the border security of the United States.”
Specifically, Hanen said, Customs and Border Protection agents stopped Nava-
Martinez at the border. “She was arrested, and the child was taken into
custody.”
The DHS officials were notified that Salmeron Santos instigated this
illegal conduct. Yet, instead of arresting Salmeron Santos for instigating
the conspiracy to violate our border security laws, the DHS delivered the
child to her—thus successfully completing the mission of the criminal
conspiracy. It did not arrest her. It did not prosecute her. It did not even
initiate deportation proceedings for her. This DHS policy is a dangerous
course of action.
“The DHS, instead of enforcing our border security laws, actually assisted
the criminal conspiracy in achieving its illegal goals,” Hanen wrote.
The Government’s actions were not done in connection with a sting
operation or a controlled delivery situation. Rather, the actions it took
were directly in furtherance of Y.P.S.’s illegal presence in the United
States. It completed the mission of the conspiracy initiated by Salmeron
Santos. In summary, instead of enforcing the laws of the United States, the
Government took direct steps to help the individuals who violated it. A
private citizen would, and should, be prosecuted for this conduct.
This case is hardly an isolated incident. In fact, a pattern seems to be
emerging with regard the DHS’s efforts to help human smugglers. “This is
the fourth case with the same factual situation this Court has had in as
many weeks,” Hanen wrote.
In all of the cases, human traffickers who smuggled minor children were
apprehended short of delivering the children to their ultimate destination.
In all cases, a parent, if not both parents, of the children was in this
country illegally. That parent initiated the conspiracy to smuggle the
minors into the country illegally. He or she also funded the conspiracy. In
each case, the DHS completed the criminal conspiracy, instead of enforcing
the laws of the United States, by delivering the minors to the custody of
the parent illegally living in the United States.”
In addition to the danger the DHS’s behavior presents in these instances,
Hanen noted that the United States taxpayers have incurred costly expenses
for the DHS to personally deliver illegal alien children to various
locations around the country.
“In all cases when the Government apprehended some of the traffickers, the
Government transported the children across the country to unite them with a
parent (or parents) who was in the country illegally,” Hanen wrote. “In
one situation," he added, "the Government flew a child to multiple locations
in different parts of the United States." He explained that "the taxpayers
of the United States suffer the expense of delivering these minors," which
is not only "the cost of paying travel, room and board for the children, but
it may also, according to the information supplied to this Court in yet
another case, include the salary and travel expenses of a guardian to
accompany them.”
Hanen argued that the reasoning the administration is likely employing here,
that children should be reunited with their parents, is “absurd and
illogical.” He argued, “The DHS could reunite the parent and child by
apprehending the parent who has committed not one, but at least two
different crimes. It would be more efficient for the Government to arrest
the individuals who are not only in the country illegally, but while in the
country illegally are also fostering illegal conspiracies."
"It would also be much cheaper to apprehend those coconspirators and reunite
them at the children’s location," he added. "Yet, it neither prosecutes
nor sports the wrongdoer.”
By engaging in such activity, Hanen said the Obama administration is “
rewarding criminal conduct instead of enforcing the current laws.”
However, what is even “more troubling,” Hanen wrote, is that the
administration is actually “encouraging parents to seriously jeopardize the
safety of their children” by attempting to have them smuggled into the
United States illegally. “While Y.P.S. was transported in a car, others are
made to swim the Rio Grande River or other bodies of water in remote areas.”
This concern for the safety of these individuals is not fanciful or
theoretical; it is a real and immediate concern. As this Court waited for
the judgment to be prepared before it released this opinion, two illegal
aliens drowned, two more are missing, and a three-year-old El Salvadorean
toddler was found abandoned by smugglers—each event occurring just outside
of Brownsville.”
Hanen pointed out that “these illegal activities help fund the illegal drug
cartels which are a very real danger for both citizens of this country and
Mexico.”
There is no doubt that the drug cartels control the “smuggling process,”
Hanen added, citing that representatives of the Obama administration and of
various attorneys for numerous defendants have testified in his courtroom
that the “cartels control the entire smuggling process.” The DHS’s
involvement in helping smuggle children into the country puts those children
at risk, Hanen argued.
“These entities [drug cartels] are not known for their concern for human
life,” Hanen wrote. “They do not hire bonded childcare providers to
smuggle children. By fostering an atmosphere whereby illegal aliens are
encouraged to pay human smugglers for further services, the Government is
not only allowing them to fund the illegal and evil activities of these
cartels, but is also inspiring them to do so.” |
|
