A major force multiplier for the illegal-alien invaders who have been crossing the border at a rate of nearly 76,000 a month since October, the beginning of fiscal 2019, are large groups of more than 100 members, or smaller groups of 50 or less.
Customs and Border Protection, which caught three large groups on April 30 comprising more than 600 illegals, reported more such apprehensions last week.
The large groups are a problem not just because they waste the valuable time of U.S. Border Patrol personnel on what amounts to babysitting duties. A secondary problem is catch and release and who might be in the group that CBP routinely releases: gang members.
If undetected in these large groups and then released, those gang members must be found and removed, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement did twice on Thursday with dangerous thugs from two gangs.
ICE didn’t say the gang members came in with large groups, but the agency’s having to remove them just the same raises the question: How many are slipping by border agents and being released because a records check doesn’t divulge their gang membership?
Caught
Between Thursday and Sunday, CBP reported, agents at the Presidio, Texas station collared 251 illegals from the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
At 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, the agency reported, agents arrested 56 illegals who tried to get into the country through Presidio. The next morning, the agents locked up another 19 illegals, and on Saturday, caught another 176.
In the first 13 days of May, CBP reported, agents in that sector apprehended 648 illegals.
Meanwhile on Saturday, CBP reported, agents in the sector in Yuma, Arizona, caught an 18th Street gang member from El Salvador and six other border jumpers from Mexico and Honduras.
Agents caught all seven after they discovered footprints near the border south of Dateland. A search turned them up hiding in the brush, and a records check identified one, Santo Sorto-Sorto, 34, as the gang member.
Like so many other illegals, Sorto-Sorto is an accomplished criminal, CBP reported. He “has multiple felony convictions for possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes, and disorderly conduct out of New Jersey. He stated that he was attempting to travel to Houston, Texas to live and work.”
Undoubtedly, he was here, as open-borders advocates say, “to do a job Americans won’t do.”
Gang Removals
While CBP was doing its best to hold back the rising tide of illegal-alien invaders, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations was deporting gang members.
On Thursday, ICE reported, it got rid of 29-year-old Elda Cuadra-Torres Caudra-Torres, who faces aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder charges in El Salvador. Salvadoran authorities say she’s a member MS-13, the feral, satanic gang, and she was yet another beneficiary of weak if not frighteningly naive U.S. immigration policies.
Border agents collared her on July 2, 2016, but ICE released her in accordance with the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program. That, of course, required ICE to track her down after a judge in El Salvador issued an arrest warrant for the murder and Interpol issued a notice that she was, indeed, a gang member.
ERO caught her on October 25, 2018, ICE reported, “at her residence in Huntington Station, New York.” In fact, her “residence” is in El Salvador, but anyway, an immigration judge ordered her removed on March 12.
The other thug ICE removed on Thursday is Yimmi Jose Pereira-Ramos, 24. He is an 18th Street gang member wanted in El Salvador for aggravated homicide, aggravated robbery, and deprivation of liberty, ICE reported.
Authorities there say he shot a man in March 2017 and kidnapped a woman during a robbery in October 2017.
The report from ICE shows the typical illegal-alien history. Border agents collared him on June 21, 2013 near Abram, Texas, and ICE deported him August 29 the same year. On May 1 last year, border agents caught him again near La Joya, Texas. A court convicted him of illegal re-entry two days later and sentenced him to time served. Deporting him the second time, however, required listening to a ridiculous appeal.
On May 1, ERO agents arrested an 18th Street member in South Dakota whom border agents had caught and released. He will take a trip back home to face a murder charge.
The same day, a federal grand jury indicted three MS-13 members on charges of murder, kidnapping, and racketeering.
Photos of Elda Cuadra-Torres: ice.gov
