Aug 06

Aftermath of Hurricane Alex and the floods of 2010

By PMC Border News, For your information, Headlines, The Border View Comments
Canacar and the Federal Transport Police estimated more than 11,000 trucks were stranded between Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo

It’s been a helluva month here on the border in the aftermath of Hurricane Alex and the several tropical storms that followed.

At one point, all roads between Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey were closed for several days resulting in a backup of an estimated 11-22,000 trucks.

Parts of Reynosa are still underwater as the Rio Grande is slow in returning to normal there.

Laredo Texas looks as if a tsunami hit the banks of the Rio Grande where at one point, the water was lapping at the side beams of the international bridge, 60 feet above the river.

Freight in the area is still slow in getting back across the border as the maquillas in Monterrey and elsewhere are slowly recovering and gearing back up to full capacity.

Continue with the post below the break to view photos of the disaster.
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Jun 28

Deputies seize $45 million in drugs in Rancho Cucamonga California

By PMC Headlines, Smugglers Brew View Comments

One of the largest seizures of drugs in US history was made in San Bernardino County by Deputies with Drug Interdiction Task Force

Sheriff’s deputies found a tractor trailer packed with $45 million in drugs during a routine traffic stop in Rancho Cucamonga on Wednesday.

The bust was one of the largest ever made in San Bernardino County, and included thousands of pounds of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine, San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials said.

The sheriff’s Hi-Intensity Criminal Interdiction Unit stopped a big rig on the eastbound 10 Freeway for a traffic violation at 11 a.m.

The driver, Fernando Luevano, 32, of Los Angeles, did not have proper paperwork for his load. He gave deputies permission to search the trailer.

When deputies opened it, they smelled what they described as an “overwhelming odor of marijuana,” officials said in a press release.

The trailer was filled to capacity with large cardboard containers on pallets, holding thousands of heat-sealed packages of drugs.

Deputies seized about 38,000 pounds of marijuana, 2,700 pounds of cocaine and 67 pounds of methamphetamine.

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Jun 18

American trucker busted with 48 illegals in trailer

By PMC Headlines, ICE & CBP, Smugglers Brew View Comments

Inland BP check

Like the majority of truckers caught hauling contraband, American trucker Wayne West of Balch Springs Texas was doing it to make a few extra bucks

LAREDO — Border agents found 48 illegal immigrants in the back of a tractor trailer during a routine stop at a checkpoint in south Texas.
The trailer was refrigerated, according to the driver’s attorney, and all of those in the trailer declined medical treatment, immigration officials said.

The driver, Wayne West of Balch Springs, was charged with transporting illegal immigrants, according to court documents filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Laredo. He’s scheduled for a detention hearing on Friday.

His attorney, Russell Jordan, said he couldn’t say much about the case because the investigation is still being done, but he noted that the trailer was refrigerated and no one was injured.

An inspection dog alerted border agents to the presence of people or drugs in the trailer during the stop, authorities said.
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Apr 24

Some truckers plan boycott over Arizona immigration law SB-1070

By PMC Border News, Immigration Reform, The Border View Comments

Some Mexican American truckers plan boycott of Arizona in protest to the passage of SB-1070, a draconian and illegal law that sets civil rights back 50 years.

Some Mexican American truckers plan boycott of Arizona in protest to the passage of SB-1070, a draconian and illegal law that sets civil rights back 50 years.

WASHINGTON — Two or three times a week, truck driver Jesus Serrano hauls loads of Mexican-grown produce from warehouses in Nogales, Ariz. , which is just across the U.S.- Mexico border, to distribution centers in Los Angeles .

Serrano plans to stop making the trip now that Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a stringent anti-illegal immigration bill into law, however, and he’s recruited other truckers to join him.

Serrano, the independent owner-operator of a Los Angeles -based trucking company, said that about 70 drivers based in California and Arizona had agreed to stop moving loads into or out of Arizona in protest of the new law. He hopes to get 200 truckers on board for a five-day boycott that will start within 48 hours of the bill’s signing.
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Feb 19

US – Mexico Joint effort targets border crime

By PMC Border News, ICE & CBP Comments Off

In the 1990s, the Border Patrol worked closely with Grupo Beta, an elite Mexican police unit. After a promising start, the unit faltered under allegations of wrongdoing and functions today as an unarmed humanitarian agency.

In a politically sensitive operation at the Arizona- Mexico border, U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican federal police officers are training together, sharing intelligence and coordinating patrols for the first time.

The goal of the historic partnership: a systematic joint attack on northbound flows of drugs and migrants, and southbound shipments of guns and cash. It is part of a major, unannounced crackdown started in recent months involving hundreds of U.S. and Mexican officers in the border’s busiest smuggling corridor.

The initiative appears likely to expand. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Mexican Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna will sign a declaration Thursday in Mexico City agreeing to replicate the experiment. Eventually, officials say, joint operations borderwide could lead to the creation of a Mexican force serving as a counterpart to the Border Patrol — an agency once regarded with nationalistic aversion in Mexico.
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Jan 31

Along the Border – Immeasurable fear overrules reality

By PMC Fear Factor, The Border View Comments

MATAMOROS — Violence in this border city, residents say, is often left unreported by authorities yet exaggerated when caught on tape by the media, making it difficult to measure.

But if there is some certainty in the muddle of misinformation, many say it is this: Fear is ravaging the public perception of Matamoros. People no longer cross as frequently into the Mexican border city as they did in the past, and its retail businesses and restaurants are hurting.

“It is not to say that there have not been dangerous incidents, but we can say the same for this side of the border,” said Susan Ritter, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Texas-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College. “These things (crimes and violent acts) get reported on and repeated and exaggerated, and on and on they go until everybody thinks it is gospel.”

Regardless of the case and regardless of where it occurs, Ritter says, “Generally, the fear is larger than the crime.”
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