BORDER NEWS

Three people are being questioned following the discovery of 26 Chinese nationals in a shipping crate bound for the US in the port of Hong Kong.  Officials discovered the people just before the crate was to be loaded on a ship.  They believe that the people were from the Chinese province of Fujian, and paid $50,000 each to be smuggled into the US.

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Falls County, Texas, where the city of Waco is located, is finally starting to fill its private prison with INS detainees.  The prison, which was designed to ease overcrowding at the old county jail, can house 107 people.  The prison was open for two months before getting its first detainees.  The county is depending on the prison as a cost saving device, both because it will no longer have to pay other facilities to house its prisoners, and because the county receives eight dollars a day for each INS detainee at the prison.

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Puerto Rican authorities discovered a ship carrying 22 undocumented immigrants from the Dominican Republic this week.  The boat was stopped off shore by a marine patrol unit, and the immigrants were turned over to the INS, which will return them to the Dominican Republic.

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Late this week Jose Leon Castillo had his first hearing on charges that he is a leader of an immigrant smuggling ring.  Castillo was arrested in Los Angeles earlier this month as part of a multi-national effort to crack down on smuggling in which 33 other people were also arrested.  Castillo is accused of running a smuggling ring that transported more than 300 people through Houston each week.

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Two Marines were arrested recently on charges that they tried to smuggle two undocumented immigrants from Mexico into the US.  Police in Tijuana searched their car and found a man and woman hiding in the truck.  The couple told police they paid the Marines between $2000 and $2500 to carry them into the US.  The Marines, Corporal Franklin Juarez and Lance Corporal Osman Fuller, are being held in Tijuana while their return to the US is being negotiated.

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Border Patrol agents this week encountered a group of 10 armed men in uniform near the Mexican border.  The men approached the agents, spoke with them briefly and then returned to Mexico.  The Border Patrol does not know who the men were or why they were in the US.  The FBI and Mexican law enforcement officials are investigating the incident.

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INS and FBI agents have arrested a Colombian national on charges related to the kidnapping and murder of the father in law of Colombian President Andres Pastrana ten years ago.  He was arrested near his home in DelRay Beach, Florida and taken to the Krome Detention Center.  According to an FBI spokesperson, the government of Colombia is seeking his extradition.  The murder occurred in 1991, well before Pastrana was elected President in 1998.  The man has been in the country without authorization since 1997.

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A group of 20 Haitian Tae Kwon Do athletes and their coach requested asylum in the US when their plane stopped in Miami returning to Haiti from a competition in Brazil.  Two members of the group returned to Haiti.  Those seeking asylum are being held at the Krome Detention Center while their cases are adjudicated.

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A fight last week between two boys at a Stockton, California high school has led to the deportation of one of the boys and his father.  School officials, while separating the boys during the fight, patted them down.  They discovered a green card on one of the boys, which he admitted was fake.  They also say he admitted to being in the US without authorization.  Hearing this, school officials turned him over to the INS.  They say that they did not know what would happen next.  The boy and his father were placed in deportation proceedings, and agreed to leave the US voluntarily.  Many students and parents at the school have been protesting, despite admissions from the school that they were wrong to call the INS.  Undocumented children have the right to attend US public schools.

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