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BORDER AND DEPORTATION NEWS
During a 12-hour period on March 1, the U.S. Border Patrol picked up 33 Cubans and 10 Indians on South Florida beaches. The largest group was 25 people including 9 men, 7 women and 7 children. The rash of landings was attributed to rough seas that had hindered travel for the few days proceeding. The Indians will be treated as all other arrivals from Cuba and sent to Krome Detention Center for further processing.
A Peruvian woman died while she was attempting to sneak into the U.S. at Niagara Falls. She and five other people were riding in a flatbed train car when spotted by the U.S. Border Patrol. When she jumped, trying to escape, she fell beneath the wheels of the train. One of her legs was severed and the other crushed; she died shortly after the accident at a local hospital. None other the others suffered any injuries. Agents apprehended three of the other people, one of whom is the victim’s brother. Two others escaped.
Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Mexico are united in opposition to the INS strategy of bussing undocumented migrants found in the Nogales area to Douglas, where they are then sent across the border to Agua Prieta. According to the INS, the system is useful in breaking the ties between the migrants and the smugglers with whom they are familiar, making it harder for the migrants to find their way back across. Following pressure from Mexican officials, the Border Patrol has agreed to give at least 30 minutes notice before deportees arrive, and says it will no longer bus pregnant women, families with children, or the sick and injured across the border. Local Mexican officials say over 800 people a day are being bussed to Agua Prieta; the INS claims the number is less than 100.
The family of an 18-year-old Mexican paralyzed after being shot by a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officer has filed a claim seeking $ 25 million. On January 25, Monje Ortiz was shot in the back as he fled capture. Ortiz claims he was seeking work and had only a jug of water with him. The area in which the shooting occurred is designated as a "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area" and is the center of multi-agency efforts at drug interdiction. It is also where, less than two years ago, another young person, a U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by a U.S. Marine while tending to his family’s goat herd. Following that incident, military patrols of the border were suspended. 
A manager of a Miami fruit and juice stand and two other men been convicted of conspiracy to smuggle Cubans into the U.S., but were acquitted of charges of trying to profit from the smuggling effort. The U.S. prosecutor explained the result as a compromise by the jury, noting that given the current political climate, any conviction is a victory, and an indication that people may be beginning to realize that smuggling is done not for the benefit of the immigrant, but for the financial gain of the smuggler. Then men face three to four years in prison on the conspiracy.
The U.S. Coast Guard has caught 16 undocumented Mexicans trying to sneak into California by boat, an attempt agents describe as "absolutely rare." At the end of a search and rescue training demonstration, one of the Coast Guard officers noticed a boat with a name that had recently appeared on a list of suspect vessels. After boarding the boat, the Coast Guard found 16 people, extra fuel and 150 gallons of drinking water. The Coast Guard turned the people over to the INS and called U.S. Customs to search the boat for drugs that may have been smuggled.
One of two Cuban men who escaped from Krome Detention Facility in January has been captured after being a fugitive for over one month. The tip of an anonymous informer led to his recapture, not more than 30 miles from Krome. The escapee was in ‘permanent detention’ following imprisonment for robbery and kidnapping, because Cuba will not accept criminal deportees. He is now being held in detention in Miami awaiting charges of escape and conspiracy to escape, and will not be returned to Krome. The other escapee remains at large.
Advocates of tough laws against immigrant smuggling are sure to be bolstered by two separate incidents recently uncovered by agents in the McAllen Border Patrol sector in Texas. In one incident, a pickup truck carrying 17 people crashed into an irrigation canal after speeding away from a Border Patrol car. When the Border Patrol arrived on the scene, the victims told them the driver and his companion got out of the truck before running it into the canal. In the second incident, Border Patrol agents using dogs to check a railyard discovered eight people hidden in a train car, buried beneath waste rags soaked in solvents and other industrial waste. 
The INS has released two Cubans being held in detention at the INS’ Krome deterntion center in Miami, citing health concerns. Jorge de Cardenas, a Miami area lobbyist who spent a year in federal prison following a city government kickback scandal, was released following a federal judge’s statement that he would order de Cardenas’ release if a more appropriate facility than Krome was not found for treatment of his medical conditions – diabetes and Bell’s palsey. Officials say he would have been released in early May, after serving the 90-day period of mandatory detention even without a judge’s order. The second, Domingo Perez, suffers from cancer and spent 21 months at Krome after being released following a sentence for cocaine possession and assault. He was in the hospital when the INS decided to release him, ordering the guard outside his room to leave. Perez is free now, but too sick to leave the hospital. 
Operation Rio Grande, an INS project aimed at making it more difficult to cross into the U.S., has come under fire from environmental groups who claim the plan will destroy the last remaining habitats of some critically endangered species. Operation Rio Grande calls for the construction of fences, roads, lighting systems and boat ramps, as well as the burning of vegetation, along a 100 mile strip of land adjacent to the Rio Grande. The Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society have filed a notice of their intent to sue for violations of the Endangered Species Act. The area in question is home to over 2,200 species, making it one of the most biologically diverse areas in the U.S. Four species in particular, already found on the endangered species list, are especially threatened: ocelots and jaguarundi (both species of cats), Aplomado falcons and piping plovers (both species of birds).
An illegal immigrant who wandered on to a U.S. shooting range in southern California was shot in the leg as the U.S. Navy Seals conducted live ammunition exercises, despite the presence of red flags and warning signs. A spokesperson for the Navy says the live ammunition exercises will be halted at both this location and others where high brush decreases visibility until an investigation is completed and new procedures are instituted to prevent another such shooting. The shooting victim was treated at a local hospital and released into the custody of the INS.