US Border Patrol agents convicted in $2 million human smuggling case

Two US Border Patrol agents have been found guilty of running a profitable human smuggling ring that may have earned US$2 million.

The brothers Raul Villarreal, 42, and Fidel Villarreal, 43, were convicted of using their power for their own advantage, charging money to help hundreds of illegal immigrants enter the US from Mexico.

The two heard their verdicts after a five-week trial that was concluded by a one-day deliberation by the jury.

“They made the border work for them,” Assistant US Attorney Timothy Salel told jurors.

The Villarreals, who used Border Patrol agency vehicles to illegally shuttle Mexicans and Brazilians to the US, were convicted of conspiracy, bringing in illegal immigrants for financial gain, receiving bribes and money laundering.

Prosecutors say that Raul started the human smuggling ring and recruited his brother and fellow agent to join him. The brothers charged thousands of dollars to bring each illegal immigrant across the border. A 24-year-old Brazilian woman told prosecutors she paid $12,000 to ride across the border in what she called a “police car.”

Nearly a dozen immigrants who had been smuggled in by the ring testified at the brothers’ trial.

To catch the Border Patrol agents in action, investigators mounted video cameras on cars, installed GPS trackers and used surveillance from airplanes to gather information about the ring’s operation.

Accomplices and migrants who were caught entering the country illegally were also a source of information for the prosecution.

In 2006, the two brothers caught word of the investigation and fled to Mexico, settling in the border city of Tijuana. Two years later, they were caught and extradited to the US to face federal charges.

The brothers are facing a maximum of 50 years in prison and a minimum $1.25 million in penalties.

Between 6 and 7 million illegal immigrants in the US evaded immigration inspectors by entering the country illegally, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.  Each year, about half a million more make it across the border.

The Border Patrol agency is a mobile uniformed law enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security, established to prevent illegal immigration.

Joe Jeronimo, a special agent in charge of the professional responsibility office at the DHS, said the brothers’ actions are “atypical” of Border Patrol officials, but the case sends “a message about the serious consequences facing those who would exploit their positions and violate the laws.”

The widely publicized case of human smuggling serves as an embarrassment for an agency whose mission it is to prevent the very crime that its officers partook in.

EU plans drone network to nab illegal immigrants

The European Commission had released a proposal to deploy drones across the Mediterranean Sea to catch illegal immigrants. The surveillance effort is part of a $410 million package to bolster EU border security.

Dubbed EUROSUR, the project proposes the use of drones, high-resolution cameras, satellites and spy planes to detect migrant vessels at sea.

EUROSUR’s stated aim is to reduce the number of migrants reaching the Schengen area undetected, preventing cross-border crime and reducing immigrant fatalities. The project has yet to be officially debated in the European Parliament and Council, but some proponents of the project are pushing for it to be implemented as early as next year.

One to three million people immigrate to EU annually, and last year’s uprisings in North Africa increased the flow of immigrants to EU, with thousands attempting to cross the region’s borders. The Mediterranean is one of the central hubs for illegal immigration: Europa Press reported that 1,037 migrants on board 44 boats have been detected arriving on the Andalusian coast from 1 January 2012 to 9 July 2012 alone. With this influx in immigration, death rates have also spiked.

The UN Refugee Agency recently reported that 1500 people “drowned or went missing last year [2011] while attempting crossings of the Mediterranean Sea.” This year’s death toll has already reached 170. Earlier this month, an inflatable boat miles off the Italian coast sunk killing 54 Eritreans fleeing their country. In May, 20 were presumed dead when a small boat sank after striking a coral reef just off the French island of Mayotte.

The proposal assures that it will save migrants’ lives by detecting them at sea. “EUROSUR will help detect and fight criminal networks’ activities and be a crucial tool for saving migrants who put their lives at risk trying to reach EU shores,” said Cecilia Malmström, the EU’s Commissioner for Home Affairs.

However, many academics and thinktanks fear this unprecedented increase in surveillance and collection of personal data, and the murky potential uses of the gathered intel.

The Heinrich Böll Foundation, a green thinktank in Germany, expressed concern in its assessment of the costs and civil rights implications of EUROSUR. The thinktank argues that the project “is likely to entail the creation of at least one centralized EU database containing biometric data, to which currently unknown number of actors could have access.”

The European Commission assures that there is no chance for abuse with EUROSUR. “The situational pictures will, as a general rule, not involve personal data but rather the exchange of information on incidents and depersonalized objects, such as the detection and tracking of vessels,” the Commission’s proposal states.

Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether this data will be stored indefinitely or deleted after a set period of time. Another concern with EUROSUR is that it will enable authorities to spot immigrants’ preparatory activities on the ground, such as a gathering of vehicles or boats on African beaches.

Critics of the plan argue that EUROSUR is a preemptive measure designed to solve the problem of illegal immigration before it reaches EU shores, rather than lowering death rates and providing humanitarian assistance.

“Drones are very expensive and they don’t help,” German member of the European Parliament Ska Keller told Global Post. “Even if a drone detects a vessel, it can’t do anything for them. You need to have actual people there, and having a drone doesn’t guarantee that.”

One possible unintended consequence of EUROSUR is that some refugees seeking asylum from their native countries could be prevented from reaching the EU.

“It’s horrendously expensive and the benefits aren’t clear,” said Keller. In her opinion, the money would be better spent on search and rescue teams: “We should save money in an economic crisis, not spend it on something with no clear benefit apart from to the defense industry.”

Seeds of hatred sprout in soil of Greek crisis

Gangs are attacking immigrants all over Greece – a fact ignored by authorities, says Human Rights Watch. Some are allegedly linked to the far-right Golden Dawn party. Migrants are blamed for crimes and for eating into shrinking government subsidies.

­Moreover, police often discourage victims from filing complaints and sometimes even threaten them with detention if they insist on an investigation.

“Migrants and asylum seekers spoke to Human Rights Watch of virtual no-go areas in Athens after dark because of fear of attacks by often black-clad groups of Greeks intent on violence,” says Tuesday’s report by the advocacy group, as cited by Reuters. “While tourists are welcome, migrants and asylum seekers face a hostile environment, where they may be subject to detention in inhuman and degrading conditions, and risk destitution and xenophobic violence.”

The report is based on interviews with 59 people who experienced racist attacks between August 2009 and May 2012. In two of these cases, the attacks were directed against pregnant women.

Human Rights Watch says certain facts suggest that perpetrators attacking migrants are associated with local vigilante groups and the far-right Golden Dawn party. It had no evidence, however, that the group directed such attacks.

The party itself, which campaigned on a pledge to clear Greece of all immigrants, denies any connection with violence directed against migrants, as well as denying its ideology is neo-Nazi.

Greece is a major gateway for illegal migrants from Asia and Africa flocking to the European Union for a better life. The issue has become particularly painful as the country goes through its fifth straight year of recession and record-high unemployment is fuelling anti-immigrant sentiment.

Lawmakers of the extreme-right ultra nationalist Golden Dawn party are sworn in during the inaugural session of the Greek parliament in Athens on June 28, 2012. (AFP Photo/Louisa Gouliamaki)

Lawmakers of the extreme-right ultra nationalist Golden Dawn party are sworn in during the inaugural session of the Greek parliament in Athens on June 28, 2012. (AFP Photo/Louisa Gouliamaki)

­Scapegoating as new national ideology

­Meanwhile, violent clashes between supporters of the Golden Dawn party and groups of anarchists shook the western city of Agrinio on Monday night. Police reports say that the fighting caused considerable damage to cars and shops, leaving the city's streets in a mess.

Yanis Varoufakis, an economist and lecturer at Athens University, says that “the serpent’s egg” of hatred begins to hatch whenever people lose hope and those spreading the hatred end up as the only winners.

“It should act as a warning for all of us that whenever a social economy implodes, as opposed to just going to a recession, scapegoating becomes the order of the day,” he told RT.

Greece’s authorities themselves are infiltrated by this kind of mentality, says the economist.

“We have, unfortunately, an extremely cozy relationship between neo-Nazis and police, and we have neo-Nazis in Parliament. And we have the breakdown, effectively, of the consensus that prevails since World War II in Greece, where fascism and Nazism were simply not on,” he explained.

“The only people who win are the ones who spread the [seeds] and narratives of hatred,” Varoufakis concluded.

The ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party, whose flag closely resembles the Nazi swastika, got around 7 per cent of the vote, which launched it from obscurity to win 21 seats in Greece’s Parliament in the May 6 election – the first time it had passed the threshold to enter the legislative body. More than half of the country’s police officers voted for Golden Dawn.