SBD
Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 1022
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 Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2005 2:45 am Post subject: Border Patrol Hired Illegal Alien!! |
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| Quote: | No bail for ex-border agent in conspiracy
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
August 6, 2005
A former Border Patrol agent accused of lying about his citizenship to get his job and then helping to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States was ordered held without bail yesterday.
Oscar Antonio Ortiz, 28, appeared in court dressed in a jail-issue orange jumpsuit and said little during a brief hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Anthony J. Battaglia.
The judge set a bail hearing for Wednesday. Prosecutors say Ortiz should remain behind bars until his case is decided.
Ortiz pleaded not guilty to lying about his citizenship and conspiracy to smuggle immigrants, felony charges that could result in up to 13 years in prison.
As in many cases, additional charges are possible as prosecutors evaluate the evidence and present it to a grand jury.
It's a crime – corruption – for public officials to violate the public trust in exchange for money.
It's also against the law for illegal immigrants to possess weapons in the United States, and all Border Patrol agents must carry firearms.
Ortiz was arrested Thursday afternoon in Escondido by agents of the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General.
Escondido police, members of the North County Regional Gang Task Force and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents assisted.
Ortiz and another agent were placed on administrative in June, about the same time Ortiz's house was searched while 33 members of an Encinitas-based drug trafficking ring were arrested, authorities said.
The investigation of the two El Cajon-based agents began after investigators heard Ortiz while listening to wiretaps in the drug investigation, said sheriff's Lt. Derek Clark, head of the North County gang unit.
"We turned that over to the Inspector General's office," Clark said yesterday. "We're not an internal affairs unit and that's where that type of case needed to be dealt with. . . . It had no direct connection to our case."
He said there may be a family relationship between the agents and the defendants in the drug case.
Ortiz was born in Tijuana, but he presented a fake copy of an Illinois birth certificate when he applied for the Border Patrol on Oct. 30, 2001, an ICE agent said in court papers filed Thursday.
Ortiz worked with another rogue Border Patrol agent to look the other way – "just clear the way," as the other agent put it – while illegal immigrants were smuggled across the border east of Tecate, according to the court filing.
The agents were paid $300 per person, according to a wiretapped conversation cited in the filing, and up to $2,000 if they smuggled the immigrants themselves.
The other agent has not been arrested or charged.
"It's embarrassing. There are no two ways about it," said T.J. Bonner, the San Diego-based president of the National Border Patrol Council, a labor union, of the apparent hiring of an undocumented immigrant to work guarding the border.
Local representatives of the Border Patrol declined to say how it was that Ortiz got past their screening processes, but provided a written statement from agency Chief David V. Aguilar.
"Any agent who defies the Border Patrol's motto of 'Honor First' and chooses to violate the trust of the citizens they swore to protect will be held accountable," Aguilar said in the statement. "There is no place in the Border Patrol for behavior that tarnishes and discredits the badge we proudly wear."
Ortiz won't wear that badge again.
"He has now resigned from the Border Patrol," Assistant U.S. Attorney Alana Wong told the judge.
It doesn't appear as though Ortiz entered the United States legally.
A review of Department of Homeland Security immigration records yesterday did not produce any record of a person with the same name and date of birth as those of Ortiz.
How Ortiz managed to scrape through the requisite background check for Border Patrol agents, who must be U.S. citizens, is still a mystery.
Union officials have pinned the blame on rushed hiring and the subcontracting of background screenings for new hires, a practice they say places a highly sensitive matter in the hands of contractors who don't have a vested interest in national security.
In the rush to hire, there have been instances in which background checks have not been completed until people have already been on board for months, Bonner said.
"We are not talking about people who are working at a 7-Eleven," Bonner said.
He said such charges are highly unusual.
"The public needs to understand that these are a few rogue agents," Bonner said. "It is not the culture of the Border Patrol. The overwhelming majority of the agents are out there risking their lives, enforcing immigration laws, doing a daunting and largely thankless task."
In April, an El Centro-based Border Patrol agent pleaded guilty to drug smuggling, admitting he used his patrol vehicle to smuggle about 750 pounds of Mexican marijuana in a duffel bag.
Luis Higareda is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 12 to at least five years in prison.
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Staff Writer Leslie Berestein contributed to this report.
Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050806-9999-7m6agent.html |
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