In 2016, Gerald took up the pseudonym of Tony when he joined Breitbart Texas Cartel Chronicles project. I drove through the checkpoint a few weeks ago on my way to Austin. For the first time, were starting to see these tactics where fentanyl is being smuggled between ports of entry, Chief Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez said in an interview. Were the only federal agency that does interdictions; we make the arrests and build the cases, then we turn them over to the various agencies that have jurisdiction for those particular crimes.. I should have known better. Alexandra Capelouto, 20, died when she ingested a pill she thought was Oxycodone. a mother's smile poem. EL PASO, Texas Federal agents in this section of the southern border say theyve seen a staggering 4,000 percent increase in fentanyl seizures over the last three years. In the hotly politicized debate over immigration, it shows the complexity of any search for solutions. Two years later, when I asked West about this discrepancy between his scales and the feds, he shrugged. The drug-detecting abilities of trained dogs are so reliable that the Supreme Court has blessed them time and again as sufficient for probable cause. I never saw a single one of them crack a smile. Several agents surrounded, my car and popped the trunk. Abbotts proposal faces numerous hurdles, including opposition from environmentalists, immigration advocates and some property owners along the border. The checkpoint was held in the area of Travis Blvd. Most of the increase comes from misdemeanor busts like mine, but felony arrests for pot possession have also risen dramatically, and that has resulted in a different problem for Hudspeth County. With Labor Day approaching, remember that DWI checkpoints are not authorized in Texas, even on holiday weekends. In light of the fact that no such legislative authority grants Texas law enforcement the right to conduct checkpoints, checkpoints are illegal under the U.S. Constitution. As the documentary points out, back in the Clinton administration, which was dealing with its own migrant surge, immigration officials adopted a new policy of deterrence that forced migrants into some of the United Statess most dangerous terrain. Critics of the Biden administrations policy of allowing unaccompanied children to stay in the United States argue its a primary reason that theres been a rise in migration since he took office. In the meantime, many companies are wondering how the state will enforce the new guidance. DUI and drivers license checkpoint this Friday in Fairfield Multiple companies, including CBD American Shaman, have vowed to take legal action against the state. Fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroin, up to 100 times more powerful than morphine and -- believe me when I say this because I was in these shoes -- don't think something like this cannot happen to your family.. From the state's point of view, last week's announcement was merely a clarification. It keeps our agents safe, she said. Authorities share grave concern about how CDN-Los Zetas has created a database which mimics government ones loaded with property records, license information, and other contents. WebThe infamous border patrol stop along I-10 in West Texas otherwise known as the Sierra Blanca checkpoint recently claimed its latest celebrity detainee, the rapper Nelly. Willie Nelson put the Sierra Blanca checkpoint on the map when he was busted there in November 2010, and touring musicians have been following his lead ever since. Increasingly over the past ten years, West and his dozen deputies have been overwhelmed by a steady flow of small-time potheads arrested at the checkpoint. Wests solution is to write tickets for possession of drug paraphernalia, a Class C misdemeanor that doesnt require a court appearance and imposes a fine of $500 (plus $27 in court costs). Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story listed the wrong title for John Hellerstedt. Snoop Dogg (a.k.a. Theres no checks theres no Border Patrol.. endobj According to the Center for Investigative Reportings study, the four states along the U.S.-Mexico border, all of which receive federal reimbursements for processing and prosecuting offenders, will get less than $5 million in 2013. Yall got a lotta shit here. 3 0 obj 10/26/2022 11:00:08 PM Last May, the Texas Legislature attempted to make delta-8 illegal, but the issued failed. Charlotte Cuthbertson is a senior reporter with The Epoch Times who primarily covers border security and the opioid crisis. %PDF-1.7 There are scores of similar stories, like the dog that sniffed marijuana packed in plastic and hidden inside factory-sealed number-ten cans of jalapeo peppers. CDC warns about drug resistant stomach bug bacteria. But for migrants, these are not short journeys. But the incident caused my parents and every other adult in our car to gasp in panic, which I didnt understand until they explained deportation to me. Are you sure its yours? Willie said yep, it was all his.. Originally opened in 1940 and located 70 miles north of the Rio Grande, Falfurrias station, in Brooks, is considered one of the most hi-tech checkpoints in the country. Contact us today online or by telephone at 915-219 Despite Bushs efforts, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 failed, but border security has only continued to tighten since then. He can be reached at borderscribe@gmail.com, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. As of mid-afternoon on Sept. 17, more than 12,800 illegal aliens, mostly Haitians, were camped out under the bridge waiting to be processed by Border Patrol. So many lives have been lost, including many in Brooks county, that a cottage industry of support workers have sprung up that do everything from set water jugs in remote areas of the county to locating and analyzing the DNA of those who have perished in this unforgiving region of Texas. The rationale for all this effort was later explained to me by Carry Huffman, the deputy chief patrol agent of the Big Bend sector. This is really out of nowhere. The two highest-volume checkpoints now closed are on Highway 57 from Eagle Pass to San Antonio and Highway 90 from Del Rio to San Antonio. The checkpoint is located in an 1,100-sq-mile region of desolate ranchland that is famously difficult to navigate and is patrolled by a two-person sheriffs department. DESERT HAVEN, Texas United States Border Patrol agents seize fentanyl, arrest driver on suspicion of intent to distribute a controlled substance and foil an attempted alien smuggling scheme. The main room had tan walls with bright fluorescent lights and a narrow bench with a rail behind it, to which I was handcuffed. He nodded to the Border Patrol agent standing beside my car, a stern young man in crisp green fatigues, who put his hand on his sidearm, opened my door, and said the words you never want to hear: Please get out of the car, sir., I sighed and got out. More than 2,000 pounds of cocaine and 5,285 pounds of methamphetamine were also seized. The notice said delta-8 remained a controlled drug in Texas. As of 15 December 2021 the Drug Seizures dashboard now includes seizures of all drug types. Not surprisingly, West is a regular on right-wing talk radio and a Fox News favorite. Fairfield Police to hold DUI checkpoint on Friday The checkpoints exist with complete impunity and are part of a complex strategy to give the criminal organization more control by harvesting the data of those stopped at the roadblocks. Instead, I was turned over to the State of Texas. A lock ( He can be contacted at[emailprotected]. But she said she generally supports a border barrier partly to slow down drug smugglers. Three years after federal legislation removed the marijuana extract known as delta-8 THC from the nation's list of controlled substances, Texas health officials have put it on its own list of illegal drugs, sending a shockwave through the growing CBD retail industry across the state and making the substance, essentially, illegal. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. You dont need mine, give it back.. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS x][o~hQD(hq>h1S[_fHdXo838vu_m7/Mn}~jnVjWyi?F/_H+I%Q?yFIDH@$"MhQGh{-wgWEw++'?AqA:SI"ZeF7-__GJ#e~ fe!m-'1.jkuy}O$.~4NCHuSW\L$15x-U{mJDqXL'^IF4 qRi1w0f)8S>1I. They refolded my clothes and underwear neater than Ive ever done and even put most of my CDs back in their correct cases for the first time in years. But to retailers, the notice seemed arbitrary and unfair. The documentary weaves together the rarely seen compassionate role of law enforcement as officers search for and recover bodies and the less compassionate role of camouflaged and heavily armed civilians who spend their nights wearing night-vision goggles to look for lawbreakers. The federal farm bill in 2018 made the substance legal because of its low THC content. The cartel operators reportedly can quickly clone a phone they deem suspicious for deeper data mining. THC is the active psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, responsible for the users high. While I sat on the perp bench, they dutifully searched my car and its contents, hoping to find more-incriminating evidence. Dont take your kids for granted, he said. The immigration checkpoint is called the Falfurrias border patrol station, which leads out of the busiest of the immigration agencys 20 sectors along both the Canadian and Mexican borders with the US. In some cases, the police Lawmakers had considered a bill making delta-8 illegal, but it failed to move forward after health officials informed them it had already been listed as a controlled substance by the state. Thats when things got interesting. Yes, there are many desperate women and children seeking asylum. WebThe checkpoint upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Michigan v. Sitz, was authorized by legislation. After five or six hours on the perp bench, its an easy decision. ust off US highway 281, south of a spit of a town called Encino in Brooks county, theres a cross made of wind-strewn flowers tied to a utility pole marking the spot where 10 undocumented migrants were killed last month when the speeding van carrying them. Local DUI Checkpoints Text Message & Email Location Alerts Texas DUI Checkpoints Recent Alerts Go back to State selection. In an effort to keep CBP.gov current, the archive contains content from a previous administration or is otherwise outdated. I was very confused, as well as a bunch of other companies. Agents questioned the driver and passengers regarding their nationality. Heres what you need to know about your rights at sobriety checkpoints. If you find yourself at a DWI checkpoint, you should not panic or try to flee. She promptly squatted, the signal to her handler that the vehicle smelled suspicious. Just weeks before the van accident, Lisa Molomot and Jeff Bemiss released Missing in Brooks County, a five-year odyssey for the film-makers that graphically shows the problem as the number of migrants slipping into the country has hit a 20-year high. Of the 650 agents assigned to the Big Bend sector, which is geographically the largest along the U.S.-Mexico border, perhaps 40 were on duty at the checkpoint during my stay on the bench. Smithhart v. The city has been dealing with a spike in vehicle pursuits through town, as well as burglaries. Like the vast majority of the people who land on the checkpoint bench, I wasnt wanted by any of the cop computers and my crime was too minor for the feds to care about. The interior border checkpoint located 20 miles south of Falfurrias, Texas is one of 18 permanent interior checkpoints in Texas located 25-75 miles north of the Mexican border. A lock ( Your charges will likely be fully dismissed as long as you have a strong defense team who can prove that the stop was a DWI checkpoint in disguise. Please use another browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge) to view. Between 2006 and 2011, the Border Patrols budget grew by 67 percent, and the number of agents in the field skyrocketed, from 12,000 to 21,000 (and the immigration bill recently passed by the Senate includes a plan to double the number of agents). The whole idea of setting up checkpoints that stop every car that goes through has been I told them if one of those other guys said the dope was his, then Willie could walk. 4 0 obj A middle-aged couple was cuffed to the rail a few feet down from me. Because individuals can be searched and assessed without probable cause at sobriety checkpoints, Texas lawmakers determined this to be unconstitutional. To this day, routine school activities such as a field trip or even a high school sports event to cities such as Corpus Christi or San Antonio, which are not too far from Hidalgo, can cause anxiety among school administrators who know the chances are good that some of their students are undocumented and may encounter problems at these checkpoints. They dont always get things right at that checkpoint, he said. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. They referred all media inquiries to the sheriff, who was happy to field them. On some levels, it seems a fairly innocuous exercise to have to declare yourself American before being waved on your journey. Unless one of the federal agencies takes custody of the offender, nearly everyone charged with a felony at the checkpoint is transferred to the county jail in When using a mobile device, the charts are best displayed in landscape mode. The surge in border security has been an effective deterrent to illegal immigration (in 2011 the number of apprehensions of undocumented immigrants was lower than in any year since 1972), but its also accounted for a jump in the number of drug seizures. Updated: 9 AM Central. Who among us can ever be sure we havent pissed off a government computer somewhere? We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This is not an uncommon occurrence, since the dogs can smell the residual odor of drugs, and the officers were about to declare a false alert. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 1325 legalizing any hemp product with less than 0.3% THC. According to Carry Huffman there are fifty K-9 unitsa dog and handlerassigned to the Big Bend sector, enough for several to be nosing around the checkpoint every day and night. He can be contacted at[emailprotected]. He co-founded Breitbart Texas Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Border Patrol Checkpoints Demonstrate Effectiveness And Valuable Tool. The DEA agents wore Dockers and sneakers and looked like frat brothers compared with the sober, smartly uniformed Border Patrol agents. I had two beautiful marijuana buds in a plastic vial in my shaving kit inside a suitcase in the trunk of the carand the nosey mutt sniffed them out from ten feet away. The county seat, Sierra Blanca, is a wan relic of better times, with two gas stations and no stoplights, and the last surviving adobe courthouse in Texas, a visible reminder that this was the frontier not so long ago. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Mayor of Uvalde Agents identified the driver and two passengers as U.S. Citizens. Two years ago, Matt Capeloutos daughter, Alexandra, was a sophomore at Arizona State University studying sociology. At secondary inspection, a Border Patrol canine alerted to an odor in the front passenger door, where a red bag was located. Four years ago, in a notorious case, a 10-year-old girl who was being rushed by ambulance from the border city of Laredo to a hospital in Corpus Christi for emergency surgery was temporarily detained by border patrol agents because she was undocumented. Authorities from both sides of the border But every bad guy is a pothead. By detaining people for a couple of joints, the Border Patrol, which since 2003 has been part of the Department of Homeland Security, is able to investigate everything about them, and this can occasionally lead to catching some genuinely bad guys. % At some point in the continuing investigation of Willies crime, it was discovered that the very same stash that had weighed almost seven ounces at the checkpoint weighed less than half that on the jailhouse scales. During the 2021 fiscal year, agents have found 41 pounds so far a dramatic rise that experts attribute to the increasing role in drug cartels producing the illicit drug themselves with raw materials from China. (I) UVALDE, TexasBorder Patrol has been forced to close down several highway checkpoints near the border to free up more agents to deal with the crisis unfolding under the international bridge in Del Rio, Texas. The perp bench, its an easy decision a controlled drug in Texas, even on holiday.! Organization in the meantime, many companies are wondering how the State of Texas with a spike in vehicle through!, it shows the complexity of any search for solutions Seizures of all drug types talk radio and Fox... Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge ) to view experience visit our site on browser. Remained a controlled drug in Texas 0.3 % THC vehicle pursuits through town, as as. 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