From E-Trucker
The Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee is having two public sessions to discuss guidance for implementing a new cross-border trucking program between the United States and Mexico.
President Obama has asked the Department of Transportation to work with the U.S. Trade Representative, the Department of State, Congressional and Mexican officials to propose legislation creating a new trucking project that will meet Congressional concerns and North American Free Trade Agreement commitments.
FMCSA has invited all interested parties to participate, such as motor carriers and drivers.
The meeting will be held by conference call. To participate, contact Shannon Watson at (202) 385-2395, or via e-mail at shannon.watson@dot.gov by May 13, to receive information on how to access the call.
People can also submit written comment to the committee, along with the Federal Docket Management System Docket Number FMCSA-2006-26367 using any of the following methods:
• Federal eRulemaking Portal: www.regulations.gov.
• Fax: 202-493-2251.
• Mail: Docket Management Facility; U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Ave., SE., West Building, Room W12-140, Washington, D.C. 20590.
Me wonders just how ridiculous and off point the comments will be this time around. I remember when comments were opened on 2007-28055, of the more than 2400 comments, fully 98% of them were off point, as the FMCSA noted in it’s Federal Register announcement of the original Cross Border Program.
The 18 month that the original program was in place showed us that the Mexican carriers are fully capable and qualified to operate in our regulatory environment, a point made early on in this forum.
The comments from 28055, from the nativists, the mexenophobes and others who were convinced that allowing a few more Mexican trucks in the country would result in catastrophic accidents, increased smuggling of contraband, and introduction of the terrorist elements into this country were totally unfounded and the result of the fear mongering tactics of the opposition.
I’m sure we can expect more of the same this time around, and with the same predictable result.
Former U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jose Compean embraces his daughter Patricia Compean following a hearing at the U.S. Federal Courthouse in El Paso on Wednesday
A US District Judge today resentenced Former Border Patrol Agent Jose Alonso Compean to 10 years for his conviction of using a weapon in the commission of a felony, plus two years for assault and other charges.
Compean and former agent Ignacio Ramos were convicted in 2006 of shooting admitted drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila and trying to cover it up.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out some convictions against Ramos and Compean earlier this year, prompting Wednesday’s resentencing, but the court upheld the majority of the case. Ramos is due to be resentenced Thursday.
Compean’s lawyers said Wednesday they are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. One of his attorneys, Bob Baskett, didn’t immediately respond to calls seeking details on the review Wednesday.
Supporters, including members of Congress, have asked President Bush to pardon the men or at least commute their sentences.
Crews work to move the charter bus off of U.S. Highway 75 near Sherman.
The violations discovered in the bus belonging to Angel Tours that crashed in Sherman Texas Friday morning points to the stupidty and ignorance of a small percentage of people obsessed with ending the Cross Border Pilot Program, which has operated safely for the past 11 months, while ignoring American common carriers who flaunt and ignore the laws and rules thinking it does not apply to them, the bus crash Friday in Sherman Texas that claimed 16 lives is a prime example.
The owner of Angel Tours, 59-year-old Angel de la Torre, should be arrested and detained WITHOUT BAIL and charged with 16 counts of NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE! The idiot bus driver also!
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Ramos and Compean – “It's the end of the road for them, They had their day in court. They had their due process of law, the same due process that they tried to deprive a person who they shot in the back.”
A federal appeals court refused today to throw out lengthy prison sentences for a pair of jailed U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted two years ago of shooting an unarmed illegal immigrant and lying about it.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld most of the convictions against former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean.
But the appeals court threw out their convictions for tampering with an official proceeding, even the three-judge panel refused to reverse the convictions that resulted in their lengthy sentences.
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How ironic is it that one of the anti immigrant groups, Americans for Legal Immigration, whose agenda, despite their seemingly innocent name, is to force upon the American public their protectionist, racist and nativist agenda, have allegedly been doing the very thing, they wrongly accuse illegal immigrants of doing, EVADING TAXES!
And the trolls that ALIPAC sends forth to spew their hatred around the internet are strangely silent on the subject. Indeed, their website doesn’t mention anything about the situation. How strange!
We can thank a member of Hispanic Business Forums for bringing this alleged malfeasance to light.
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And no closer to a cause for the Salmonella SaintPaul outbreak
McALLEN — The Food and Drug Administration’s attempt to target a source for the nationwide salmonella outbreak has effectively shut down Texas border tomato traffic — and that of cilantro, jalapeños, other peppers and other produce — even as tainted ones have yet to be found in Mexico.
Industry losses, estimated at $250 million for the initially implicated tomatoes alone, are mounting as the FDA widens its probe. The standstill at the border is spreading through a distribution chain that reaches from the fields of Coahuila, Mexico, to wholesale markets in cities such as Atlanta and Chicago.
It’s evident in the rows of packing sheds here that normally bustle this time of year with northbound shipments of tomatoes and peppers.
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How appropriate is it that on July 4, 2008 we are freed from the hateful thoughts and rhetoric of this vile excuse for a human being.
Former Sen. Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled liberals, Communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the Fourth of July.
He was 86.
Helms died at 1:15 a.m., said the Jesse Helms Center at Wingate University in North Carolina. The center’s president, John Dodd, said in a statement that funeral arrangements were pending.
This is the man that led the opposition in the Senate during the debates to create a federal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.
This is the man who clashed frequently with President Clinton, whom he deemed unqualified to be commander in chief. Even some Republicans cringed when Helms said Clinton was so unpopular he would need a bodyguard on North Carolina military bases. Helms said he hadn’t meant it as a threat.
Like so many other not-so-fine wines, Jesse Helms may have mellowed as he aged but his various changes in positions on social issues did not and cannot change the fact that he stood against so many and supported the denial of protections and rights under the Constitution to so many.
He will probably join Jerry Falwell and so many others who took this country down the wrong path. And I doubt it will be in Heaven.
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AUSTIN — Truckers who smuggle drugs or people into the U.S. are now risking not only prison time but also the loss of their commercial driver’s licenses as Texas uses a longstanding law in a new border crime crackdown.
“Up until today, when those lawbreakers had their trucks apprehended, they were convicted in federal court, they typically paid a small fine or served a brief sentence, then it was back to business as usual. Well, starting today, that all changes,” Gov. “Slick” Rick Perry said Thursday at the Texas Capitol with U.S. Border Patrol sector chiefs.
“If you are a commercial trucker who is involved in the illicit transportation of drugs or humans and you get caught, our effort’s going to be to stop you from being able to drive a truck again for the rest of your life,” he said.
The “Texas Hold ‘Em” initiative is meant to ensure the Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees driver’s licenses, gets documentation of federal smuggling convictions so it can suspend or revoke commercial driver’s licenses under existing law. In the past, there was a gap in convictions being reported, said Judy Brown, chief of the DPS driver license division.
The Texas initiative already has resulted in suspension of commercial driver’s license privileges in Texas in five cases, DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange said. Two are Texas licenses, and the other three states — Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina — will be notified so they can revoke those licenses, Mange said. One Texas case was for smuggling drugs; the rest involved smuggling people.
Under state and federal law, people convicted of transporting illegal drugs face a lifetime disqualification of their commercial driver’s license privileges, Brown said.
The disqualification for smuggling unauthorized immigrants is a year’s license suspension for a first offense and a lifetime revocation for a second offense, she said. That’s on top of criminal penalties.
Another feel good initiative from the offices of “Slick Rick” which I doubt will have any deterrent to the problem. If they want to tackle the problem head on, why not do something about the leeches, like “Cadillac Man” in El Paso, “Doc” in Laredo Texas, who facilitate the relationship between smugglers and truckers.
“Alien- and drug-smuggling organizations are aggressively recruiting truck drivers using the promise of easy money, sex and drugs,” said Carlos Carrillo, chief of the Border Patrol’s Laredo Sector.
In these tough economic times, this is an attractive way to make a few extra bucks, but now, unlike in years past, the chances of getting busted are almost 100%. I see it weekly at the CBP checkpoints around Laredo, American trucks in impound having been caught with illegal cargo.
We’ll see how this “Texas Hold Em” Initiative pans out, but I wouldn’t get too excited about it. Only if you are licensed in Texas.
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