 BORDER NEWS
A Mexican immigrant who claims that Florida police partially blinded him during a beating last summer has been released from detention, following the intervention of the Mexican government. Federico Aragon Herrera was released from the Krome Detention Center outside of Miami last week. He was detained by the INS after being arrested for assault and resisting arrest after a barroom fight. Herrera’s mother, who lives in Dallas, Texas, contacted the Mexican consulate in Miami, requesting assistance in avoiding his deportation. All of his family, including his parents, siblings, wife and children are legal US residents. The consulate requested he be released pending the outcome of the criminal case against him, arguing that he was not a flight risk because of his family in the US.
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The Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, in southern Arizona on the border with Mexico, is the most dangerous national park in the US, according to a survey of park rangers. The primary reason for the ranking is the number of migrants attempting to enter the US through the park, which is primarily desert.
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A Chinese national who pled guilty to smuggling 54 people aboard a cargo ship has been sentenced to 44 months in prison. Immigration inspectors found the smuggled immigrants in the front hold of a ship docked in the Port of Long Beach in October 1999. They reportedly paid as much as ,000 for the trip to the US, which took a total of three months.
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Over the past several days, improved weather in the Florida Straits has led to an increase in the number of Cuban migrants arriving in South Florida. Over this period, nearly 80 migrants were discovered, in several different groups. Border Patrol agents believe a number of them were already present in the US and staged their new “arrival” so that they could be processed by the INS. During this period the Coast Guard also apprehended a number of Cubans still at sea. Under the US policy known as wet foot/dry foot, Cubans who make it to US soil are allowed to stay permanently, while those caught at sea are repatriated to Cuba.
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This week Border Patrol agents rescued an undocumented migrant with a broken leg who had spent a week crawling through mountains east of San Diego with a broken leg. He was flown to a local hospital where he was treated for the broken leg and for severe dehydration. Finding a migrant in such condition is rare, as the area is very remote, and injured migrants often die before they are discovered.
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Eleven of the survivors of an attempted border crossing that killed 14 others will be allowed to stay in the US and work if they agree to cooperate with prosecutors. Officials are attempting to prosecute a twelfth survivor, Jesus Lopes-Ramos. Lopez is accused of abandoning the group of migrants he was guiding through the desert. It is believed that there were three smugglers, one of whom returned to Mexico and another is believed to have been among the dead. Lopez is charged with 25 counts of immigrant smuggling.
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Following the tragic deaths of 14 migrants in the Arizona desert last month, a number of government agencies have begun considering providing funds to assist groups in their efforts to erect water stations in the area. The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to provide ,000 to Humane Borders, a group that is leading the effort to establish the water tanks. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is also reconsidering its decision to not allow the tanks in the Arizona wildlife refuge where the migrants were stranded.
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