The Federal Government Teams Up With Mexico To Thwart The Minutemen

This is absolutely unbelievable! The Border Patrol is actually teaming up with the Mexican government to try to prevent the Minutemen from stopping illegals:

While Minuteman civilian patrols are keeping an eye out for illegal border crossers, the U.S. Border Patrol is keeping an eye out for Minutemen — and telling the Mexican government where they are.

According to three documents on the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Web site, the U.S. Border Patrol is to notify the Mexican government as to the location of Minutemen and other civilian border patrol groups when they participate in apprehending illegal immigrants — and if and when violence is used against border crossers.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure meant to reassure the Mexican government that migrants’ rights are being observed.

“It’s not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be,” Mario Martinez said Monday.

“This … simply makes two basic statements — that we will not allow any lawlessness of any type, and that if an alien is encountered by a Minuteman or arrested by the Minuteman, then we will allow that government to interview the person.”

Minuteman members were not so sanguine about the arrangement, however, saying that reporting their location to Mexican officials nullifies their effectiveness along the border and could endanger their lives.

“Now we know why it seemed like Mexican officials knew where we were all the time,” said Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. “It’s unbelievable that our own government agency is sending intelligence to another country. They are sending intelligence to a nation where corruption runs rampant, and that could be getting into the hands of criminal cartels.

“They just basically endangered the lives of American people.”

…Border Patrol agents interviewed by the Daily Bulletin said they have been asked to report to sector headquarters the location of all civilian volunteer groups, but to not file the groups’ names in reports if they spot illegal immigrants.

“Last year an internal memo notified all agents not to give credit to Minuteman volunteers or others who call in sightings of illegal aliens,” said one agent, who spoke on the condition he not be identified. “We were told to list it as a citizen call and leave it at that. Many times, we were told not to go out to Minuteman calls.”

This is nothing less than a deliberate attempt on the part of the federal government to undermine our nation’s immigration laws and leave our border unsecured. For all we know, a terrorist carrying a suitcase nuke may have been allowed to walk into our country because our own government doesn’t want the Minutemen to interfere with the free flow of illegal aliens into this country.

Not only should Congress demand that the Border Patrol stop working with the Mexican government to circumvent our laws, they should launch an investigation in order to find out who signed off on this unconscionable outrage.

Hat tip to the The Corner for the story.

*** Update #1 ***: The U.S. Customs And Border Patrol is denying the allegations made in the article:

“Today’s report by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, “U.S. tipping Mexico to Minuteman patrols,” is inaccurate. Border Patrol does not report activity by civilian, non-law enforcement groups to the Government of Mexico. During a detention of a legal or illegal immigrant that produces an allegation of improper treatment, Border Patrol reports the allegation and allows the appropriate consulate to interview the individual in custody.

This is consistent with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963 that provides consular access to foreign nationals being detained by a foreign government. This is the same agreement that protects United States citizens when they travel to foreign countries.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Border Patrol continues to appreciate the efforts of civilians who contact law enforcement authorities regarding suspicious activity.”

Of course, that’s hard to square with this part of the original article:

“A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman confirmed the notification process, describing it as a standard procedure meant to reassure the Mexican government that migrants’ rights are being observed.

“It’s not a secret where the Minuteman volunteers are going to be,” Mario Martinez said Monday.”

Also, the newspaper is standing by their story.

Hopefully, we’ll get to the bottom of this over the next couple of days. Let’s hope this turns out to be an erroneous report.

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