 BORDER NEWS
An INS detainee being held in Pennsylvania is now facing criminal assault charges. Rafael De Los Santos, a native of the Dominican Republic, was indicted on charges of assaulting a police officer by ramming his car during a chase. According to prosecutors, De Los Santos was attempting to evade the INS. He is suspected of entering the country under a fake name following deportation.
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The INS is reminding holders of Border Crossing Cards that they will expire on September 30, 2001. Border Crossing Cards are issued to Mexican citizens who make frequent trips to the US. When the old cards expire, people must obtain a new one, which will be a laminated card looking like a credit card. The INS hopes to have all the cards replaced by the expiration date, but in the event that a person’s card has not been replaced, they will be given temporary evidence of their right to enter the US.
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An agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency has been indicted on charges that he arranged for four Nigerians to fraudulently obtain US visas. Eric Newton was an attaché with the DEA office in Lagos, Nigeria at the time, and told the State Department that the four Nigerians were members of the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency and were coming to the US for training. Three of the Nigerians said that they paid him ,000 for his help in getting the visas.
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Five alleged immigrant smugglers were arrested last week in Los Angeles on charges that they kidnapped 61 immigrants who could not pay the smuggling fee. According to authorities, the immigrants were kept in the garage of a house in South Los Angeles. Similar incidents involving smuggled immigrant who are then help until a ransom fee is paid have become increasingly common in recent months.
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The INS is seeking a court order to allow it to sedate Musa Fofana so that he can be deported. He is scheduled to be deported to Gambia, but fights so violently that INS agents cannot get him aboard a plane to leave the US. Fofana’s attorney says that he is a citizen of Sierra Leone, and that he fled to Gambia to escape Sierra Leone’s civil war. In Gambia he bought a fake passport he used to enter the US. He says that if he is returned to Gambia, he will be arrested for the passport.
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Trial began this week in the case of a Texas rancher who is accused of shooting a migrant to death. Samuel Blackwood, a 75-year-old retiree from Arkansas, is alleged to have shot Eusebio de Haro, a Mexican citizen, after a confrontation last May. Blackwood claims that he was acting in self defense. However, prosecutors believe that the shooting occurred off of Blackwood’s property, and de Haro was shot in the back. If Blackwood is convicted of the charge of deadly conduct, he could face up to ten years in prison. He is also being sued by de Haro’s family.
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This week, a US Coast Guard vessel discovered 234 immigrants off the coast of Guatemala. All but nine of the passengers were from Ecuador (the others were from Sri Lanka). The passengers were turned over to authorities in Guatemala. Officials say that they planned to land in Guatemala and from there travel through Mexico and on to the US.
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