Homeland Security: “Still a Joke”
[Guest post by DRJ]
Depressing news from Homeland Security on border security.
From the Instapundit and the Washington Times:
“A Mexican national infected with a highly contagious form of tuberculosis crossed the U.S. border 76 times and took multiple domestic flights in the last year, according to Customs and Border Protection interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Times. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency was warned by health officials on April 16 that the frequent traveler was infected, but it took the Homeland Security officials more than six weeks to issue a May 31 alert to warn its own border inspectors, according to Homeland Security sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Homeland Security took one more week to tell its own Transportation Security Agency.“
The linked report is by Sara A. Carter and Audrey Hudson of the Washington Times. Sara Carter basically broke the Ramos/Compean story while writing for the Ontario CA Daily Bulletin and it seems she and Ms. Hudson are still breaking big stories at the Washington Times.
Contrast the Homeland Security story with this report from Maricopa County’s (Phoenix AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio:
“Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has ratcheted up his attack on illegal immigrants in recent weeks, using federally trained deputies to arrest dozens of undocumented day laborers and corn vendors. Word of the arrests has spread like wildfire through the immigrant population, driving some undocumented workers out of Arizona and raising concerns that crimes against illegal immigrants and others will go unreported because of deportation fears.
***
Arpaio said the crackdown has helped disrupt smuggling operations in the Valley, a major hub for transporting illegal immigrants from the border into the U.S. It has uncovered numerous drophouses and helped capture violent criminals who had been deported.
***
So far, the crackdown has netted more than 1,058 undocumented immigrants on state and federal charges. More than 200 of those arrests have come in the past six weeks.”
Local governments … doing the job the federal government won’t do.
— DRJ
Is the diseased man’s name being kept a secret so that those who have had contact with him and might have been infected won’t get themselves checked out and can pass the infection on to others?
j curtis (8bcca6) — 10/18/2007 @ 1:47 pmThose who fly first class still breathe the same air as those who fly coach — recirculated air that may be loaded with tuberculosis.
dchamil (955de8) — 10/18/2007 @ 3:19 pmGood question, j curtis.
pataz (56a0a8) — 10/18/2007 @ 4:37 pmJ Curtis,
It is quite different from the way things were handled with the Atlanta lawyer who had TB, isn’t it?
DRJ (67ced6) — 10/18/2007 @ 4:56 pmDRJ,
Can you think of any reason why they wouldn’t release the fellow’s name? Can you imagine the scandal if someone who had contact with passes the disease to someone else because they were kept in the dark as to this guy’s name?
Hotair has a very interesting interview with Sara Carter that I just listened to. The Mexican is from Juarez, where everyone has a few different names. Carter says that the diseased traveler used “a variation” of the name and wasn’t stopped because a different variation of the name was recorded on the watch list.
As I said once in one of your Ramos/Compean threads, the Juarez names are fraught with mischief and I suspect that many of these Juarez residents have multiple rap sheets under multiple names here in the US. But I digress…
The odds are pretty fair that a heavy travelling businessman from Juarez has had some dealings with Bush or people close to Bush and it’s even more probable that Mexico would order Bush not to warn the American people about a Mexican frequent visitor with a contagious disease. This for political purposes related to immigration.
j curtis (8bcca6) — 10/18/2007 @ 6:14 pmWasn’t a major purpose behind DHS’s creation centralizing functions, getting rid of bureaucratic inefficiencies, and creating intra-agency co-operation?
Sounds like it’s working just like it was intended.
kishnevi (c6cb3e) — 10/18/2007 @ 6:26 pmI think I’ve found the name. Amado Isidro Armendariz Amaya. The Washington Times article refers to him as “Armendariz”. A name I’ve never heard before. Googling “Bush Armendariz”, I find that Dubya’s father appointed someone from Texas by that name to some postition.
Which may not mean anything.
j curtis (8bcca6) — 10/18/2007 @ 9:22 pmJ Curtis,
Armendariz is a common Mexican name. Not as common as Smith or Jones for Anglos, but fairly common. Of course, this person must have some money because it sounds like he took several airline flights.
DRJ (67ced6) — 10/18/2007 @ 9:59 pmIt’s pretty much Gonzales or Lopez; you’ll play hell to find an “Armendariz” commonality.
King Pandeen (87ec7f) — 10/19/2007 @ 10:55 am