Border Patrol U S

It's a law enforcement truism. Any time you get two cops together over a cigarette you're going to hear complaints about the honchos who run things downtown. But the exchange on a recent afternoon carried more than the standard bitterness when a plug of a Fresno cop asked senior U.S. Border Patrol Agent John Crockford how many illegal immigrant lawbreakers he takes off the streets every month. Crockford, a white-haired man of 48, guessed it was between 70 and 80. "What do we do when you're gone?"

A Border Patrol agent who was slain in a rugged, remote area along the Mexican border was buried in El Centro on Friday after being remembered as a family man who dreamed that his 2-year-old son would follow in his footsteps. About 4,000 people packed a memorial service for Robert Rosas, 30, who was found dead on the night of July 23 in Campo, about 60 miles east of San Diego.

Border Patrol agents may not consider an individual's "Hispanic appearance" as a factor in deciding whether to stop motorists for questioning near the U.S.-Mexico border, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. "Stops based on race or ethnic appearance send the underlying message to all our citizens that those who are not white are judged by the color of their skin alone," the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 7-4 ruling.

Mexican authorities have detained five people in connection with last week's fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, but U.S. investigators have not said whether they are suspects in the case. The detainees were arrested within two days after Robert Rosas, a three-year agency employee, was shot multiple times by suspected smugglers near the border fence.

I am, again, on the line. I've been drawn to it my entire life, beginning with frequent childhood jaunts across it to Tijuana and back--that leap from the monochrome suburban grids of Southern California to the Technicolor swirl of urban Baja California and back. I am an American today because of that line--and my parents' will to erase it with their desire. I return to it again and again because I am from both sides.

The forbidden romance between the Border Patrol agent and the illegal immigrant began in a gym. Maria Terrazas, 31, met Jose Ruiz three years ago at LM's Body Builders in this remote border town. Terrazas, a waitress and mother of two, knew Ruiz was a catch. As a Border Patrol agent, Ruiz belonged to an elite class in town: available men with good jobs and an education. The two began dating, and their relationship continued even after Terrazas was deported to Mexico in November 2004.

David Flores, who on Sunday became the first jockey to win three races in a day at the Del Mar meeting, was arrested by Border Patrol officers Monday, accused of being in the United States illegally. Flores, a native of Mexico, was arrested in the jockeys' room and later released, but he missed his day's schedule of eight mounts. Steve Kean, a Border Patrol information officer in nearby San Marcos, said Flores had no legal documentation that would allow him to be in the country.

When they come looking for him at the shopping mall, federal drug agent Bernie Minarik slips out a back way. When his wife drops him off at work, she takes a roundabout route back home in case she's being followed. But when he discovered a highway flare that Mexican drug traffickers had planted in the gas tank of his car in an attempt to blow him to bits, Minarik nearly called it quits.

The authorities were not releasing the names of the dead. So as reporter Gloria Murillo interviewed police about the Border Patrol chase that ended on Tuesday with a crash that killed five people, she had no way of knowing the identities of two victims lying under tarpaulins about 100 yards away. They were her children. The fatal accident occurred outside Temecula Valley High School, where Murillo's daughter and namesake, Gloria, and son, Jose, known as Tommy, were students.

A Chevrolet Suburban fleeing Border Patrol agents crashed at high speed into a passing car outside a high school Tuesday, killing four students and a father driving his son to school and injuring the 13 occupants of the camper. The accident occurred just after 7:30 a.m. as horrified students arrived for classes at Temecula Valley High School.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was fatally shot while pursuing a group of people in a remote valley about 60 miles east of San Diego, triggering a manhunt by federal, state and Mexican authorities, Homeland Security officials said Friday. Robert Rosas, a three-year agency veteran, was responding to an incursion Thursday night just inside the steel border fence when one or more assailants opened fire, authorities said. He died at the scene.

Critics are protesting a Border Patrol plan to poison vegetation along a 1.1-mile stretch of the Rio Grande riverbank to eliminate dense foliage used as hiding places by illegal immigrants and smugglers. Some opponents of the action compare it to the Agent Orange chemical spraying program during the Vietnam War. The $2.1-million pilot project is due to begin this week.

A former Border Patrol officer said Thursday that constant demands to meet monthly arrest quotas led agents in the Inland Empire to cruise streets, bus stops and even medical clinics looking for illegal immigrants.

The U.S. Border Patrol vowed Monday to investigate allegations of a quota system at its Riverside office, which allegedly required agents to arrest a set number of illegal immigrants each month or face punishment. "The Border Patrol has never had a quota system and is not expected to operate on quotas," said Agent Richard Velez, an agency spokesman. "Right now these allegations are under investigation. We will soon find out what happened."

In one of his final acts in office, President Bush on Monday commuted the controversial prison terms of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting an unarmed Mexican drug smuggler who fled across the Rio Grande, away from a van loaded with 743 pounds of marijuana.

Two former U.S. Border Patrol agents who fled the country while under investigation for alleged immigrant smuggling have been arrested in Tijuana after a two-year manhunt, federal authorities announced Monday. The suspects, brothers Raul and Fidel Villarreal, were being investigated on suspicion of smuggling illegal immigrants in their government vehicles when they abruptly resigned and disappeared in June 2006.

Federal immigration officials have agreed to a compromise location for their proposed new Border Patrol checkpoint south of San Clemente, according to a letter released Friday. The new location at Horno Canyon was accepted after Camp Pendleton Marine Corps officials expressed concern about the first site chosen for the $30-million, 16-lane checkpoint--Interstate 5 at Las Pulgas Road. Horno Canyon is 2.2 miles south of the present checkpoint, between it and Las Pulgas.

Apprehensions at two of the most highly traveled Border Patrol checkpoints in Southern California have plunged so drastically in the last six years that some are questioning whether the hundreds of agents stationed there--and the checkpoints themselves--are even necessary. The checkpoints--one in San Diego County just south of San Clemente and the other in Temecula--have for years angered motorists, many of whom have to wait up to 45 minutes to pass through.

Four Mexican soldiers crossed the border and held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint before realizing where they were and returning to Mexico, authorities said. The confrontation occurred early Sunday on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, about 85 miles southwest of Tucson, in an area fenced only with barbed wire, said Dove Crawford, a spokeswoman for the Border Patrol.

Looking to snag illegal immigrants, drug runners and terrorists, the U.S. Border Patrol is staging surprise checks of travelers on domestic ferry runs in the San Juan Islands. What they are catching is heat from ticked-off locals. Border Patrol agents began conducting random checks and undercover surveillance at the Washington state ferry terminal in Anacortes this year.