A fictitious case scenario: a bus transporting 20 alleged professional Mexicans football players had crossed the Nogales, Arizona border destined to the University of Arizona (UA) where they are going to play at the UA's stadium. However, after all 20 Mexican nationals checked in at one of the UA's dorms, a 911 call is placed to the local police department stating that the alleged 20 football players are actually ruthless drug cartel members in possession of explosives, bombs, fully-automatic weapons, are in possession of 1000 pounds of cocaine, used fraudulent immigration documents to come across, and have taken 10 students hostages. It is unknown what their demands are. Based on the above information, which law enforcement agency do you believe will be in charge in coordinating the safe release of all 10 students, the arrest of all violators and the seizure of all contraband? Actually, the FBI, ICE, DEA, ATF, the Tucson Police Department, The UA's Campus Police (if any), the Pima County Sheriff's Department, or the Arizona Department of Public Safety can be in charge and take control of the command post. Why I list all of these agencies? They all have jurisdiction over certain illegal aspects of the case.

Due to our existing turf problems among our federal law enforcement agencies, I don't believe that we are prepared to answer the above critical question. What if I was to tell you that FEMA can be brought on board and take over the case? Let's review the FEMA's mission:

FEMA Mission

"DISASTER. It strikes anytime, anywhere. It takes many forms -- a hurricane, an earthquake, a tornado, a flood, a fire or a hazardous spill, an act of nature or an act of terrorism. It builds over days or weeks, or hits suddenly, without warning. Every year, millions of Americans face disaster, and its terrifying consequences.

On March 1, 2003, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The primary mission of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is to reduce the loss of life and property and protect the Nation from all hazards, including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters, by leading and supporting the Nation in a risk-based, comprehensive emergency management system of preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation." - http://www.fema.gov/about/

We pretty much know who the major federal law enforcement agencies are. In fact we have dozens of them - every federal department or agency has its own law enforcement unit.

The well known and largest federal law enforcement agencies are: the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Each of these agencies plays an important law enforcement function in our homeland, the United States, and around the world. Our federal law enforcement presence in several countries around the world requires a separate Narco News report which I intend to produce at a later date. For now, I would like to concentrate on two issues, the main one being our gang situation and our immigration illegal alien fugitives.

If you query the above referenced agencies under, www.fbi.gov, www.ice.gov, www.dea.gov, and www.atf.gov, you will notice that all of them list a number of enforcement initiatives, press releases (padding themselves on their backs), statistics, and a list of the types of criminal investigations they are involved. When you compare all of them, you would come up with a common denominator: criminal aliens, drugs, guns, money laundering, terrorism, gangs, child sexual abuse and several others.

To be honest with you, when I reviewed a number of press releases issued by U.S. Attorney's offices, I was taken by surprise!

Now, we have the U.S. Border Patrol writing criminal cases and assisting Assistant U.S. Attorneys (AUSA) in the prosecution of criminal defendants, the U.S. Coast Guard's Office of Investigation presenting criminal cases to AUSAs, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General (DHS-OIG) and ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigating and prosecuting U.S. Customs & Border Enforcement (CBP) inspectors. Further CBP officers assisting AUSAs in smuggling criminal cases where before, ICE special agents were responsible in making the criminal case for prosecution. Thus, my question is the ICE's workload is being reduced while its manpower, resources, and budget are increasing? Why was not the ICE's Office of Investigation involved in the above referenced federal prosecutions? Is this a sign that ICE believe that they can just work immigration employment cases? I am being a little sarcastic - there are some ICE SAC offices making some very good criminal conspiracy cases involving non-employment illegal alien investigations.

One particular presidential candidate already stated that if elected president, FEMA will respond directly to him. I assume that starting in January 2009, DHS will receive a rude awakening call. I posted a July 30, 2008 conference titled Congressional Chaos: Failure in Oversight of Homeland Security below which covers more about the future of DHS. I reviewed the video and simply putting, one of the major problems facing DHS is the "turf" problem among the DHS' agencies. However, the FBI, the DEA, and the ATF are not part of DHS, so why do we still have these turf problems?

How can I prove my assertion that there are turf problems among our elite federal law enforcement agencies? Here is my answer. Recently, I was hired as a private consultant to go somewhere in the world to be part of a team of retired and former U.S. Customs criminal investigator instructors to teach Customs related criminal investigations. Because we were under the local U.S. Embassy and U.S. law enforcement agencies' radar screen, we were told to write our lesson plans for our power point presentations but not to use the following words terrorist, terrorism, drugs, narcotics, guns, and firearms. Instead, we were told to use the general term of "contraband" - when I asked why, I was told that my bosses did not want to upset anybody at the U.S. Embassy. I understood. It is why the truth need to be told.

If any FBI, DEA, and ATF special agent, group supervisor, or mid-level manager is reading this Narco News report, what I am going to report to you would probably upset your day: ICE is advertising positions in the www.opm.gov website for first-level supervisor positions at grade GS-1811-15, and criminal investigator (non-supervisor) positions at grade GS-1811-14. I remember working as an INS criminal investigator. During this time, I never drew my weapon. However, when working for ATF, I drew my weapon hundreds of times, got involved in a fatal shooting, and conducted the execution of numerous very high-risk search warrants for firearms (including machine-guns) and explosives. The same goes with DEA during my employment and subsequent assignment to a DEA task force as a U.S. Customs Service special agent I drew my weapon hundreds of times and participated in high-risk search warrant entries.

As to conducting undercover investigations, as an undercover operative, the only time I feared for my life was when I went undercover as an INS criminal investigator in Mexico and in Arizona in a corruption case. When involved in other INS undercover investigations, I never feared for my life because I was only dealing with non-violent illegal aliens.

I know the quality of investigative work conducted by all of the agencies mentioned. Yet, the journeymen pay level for an FBI, DEA, and ATF agent is only at the GS-1811-13, assuming DEA and ATF have changed their pay structure for their special agents to an automatic pay at the GS-13 level. One of the reasons, I felt obligated to post the following reports and press releases posted by the cited federal law enforcement agencies, and some reports from private organizations is to demonstrate that the so called "working in partnership with other federal, state and local law enforcement" statement used all of the above federal agencies is nothing but "lip service." Of all of the federal agencies mentioned in this report, ICE has taken The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 and has basically assumed that almost everything that falls within the term homeland security and intelligence reforms gives ICE carte blanche to investigate almost any federal criminal violation contained in the Act.

The above observation reminds me when I first went to my basic INS criminal investigator's academy in 1983. At the academy, I was given the INS Criminal Investigator's Handbook. After reading it, I thought that INS had an immense authority to investigate aliens involved in terrorism, drugs, guns, human slavery, prostitution, money laundering, organized crime, fraud and a number of other federal crimes. I was totally wrong! - To my dismay, the crude reality was that when we encountered anything that had to do with the above, with the exception of alien smuggling, we had to turn over a number of cases to the FBI, DEA, U.S. Customs Service, ATF, and the CIA. Soon I learned what my job was, conduct immigration employment raids, conduct jail pick-ups of convicted criminal aliens, conduct marriage fraud cases, and assist our fraud unit with their "green card" counterfeit investigations. The only time I enjoyed working for INS was when I was assigned to a long term assignment to work a corruption case and Title III in the Southern border of Arizona.

As a retired federal law enforcement officer, I had the opportunity to be employed as a criminal investigator by ICE (U.S. Customs Service), ATF and the Legacy U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service. I was also afforded the opportunity to work criminal cases with the FBI (and assign subordinates to work with the FBI's corruption unit) and also to be assigned to work in a DEA office as a U.S. Customs agent.

I don't believe the attitude and mentality of the FBI, ICE, DEA, and ATF has changed - they all want to be the LEAD agency in whatever investigation, operation or project they are involved. We all know that the FBI has jurisdiction in almost any federal criminal investigation. DEA has authority to conduct any domestic and foreign drug investigation. ATF has the authority to conduct any domestic firearms, machinegun, and explosive investigations. Thus, who do you think that it is the most appropriate agency to investigate gangs in the United States? In fact, ATF can also investigate illegal alien members of gangs for buying guns because it is a firearms federal violation to purchase a firearm if you are an illegal alien. I remember when I was an ATF special agent investigating a federally licensed firearms dealer (business) for selling mass quantities of firearms to illegal aliens. As I was reviewing the business "Acquisition & Disposition Firearms" book, the local RAC- US Customs and one of his senior agents asked me to step to the side to talk to me. After they identified themselves as U.S. Customs Service special agents, they wanted to know what I was doing. To make the story short, I told them not to waste their time because I was conducting an ATF criminal investigation. During the course of my investigation, I uncovered that the two Customs agents attempted to interfere with my investigation and a proper referral to the U.S. Attorney's office was made. In short the above example illustrate that the best federal law enforcement agency to investigate gangs and criminal violence in the United States is ATF and of course all state, local and county law enforcement agencies. This is another reason I question the ICE's attempt to get involved in almost every imaginable federal criminal investigation involving illegal aliens.

I wanted to list the names of different projects and operations that each of the above agencies are using. I gave up! - They are probably hundreds of them. Some of the names given to a particular project are rather very amusing such as "Operation Rock of Gibraltar" by ICE. It would have taken me days to compile a complete list of all of current federal law enforcement initiatives which are identified by a project or operation name.

Do you know who has exclusive federal jurisdiction over the investigation and prosecution of any and all terrorist incidents in the United States and abroad? If you answered the FBI, you are correct:

"The Department of Justice through the Federal Bureau of Investigation has the lead responsibility for criminal investigations of terrorist acts or terrorist threats and for coordinating activities of other members of the law enforcement community to detect, prevent, preempt, investigate, and disrupt a terrorist attack."

Now, may I suggest you read the following information posted in the ICE's website? To the credit of ICE, the agency did mention the FBI as being involved in the listed terrorist case related. My personal opinion, which in the eyes of the beholder means nothing, ICE attempts to embellish their numerous enforcement initiatives, which at the end becomes useless unless the stockholders, in this case, the next President of the United States and the U.S. Congress continue to keep approving future budgets for DHS:

Terrorism Related Threats And ICE's Authority

May 7, 2007 - PUBLIC EXAMPLES IN WHICH ICE HAS USED IMMIGRATION AUTHORITIES TO ADDRESS TERRORISM-RELATED THREATS SINCE JANUARY 2004 -

http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/terrorismthreats.htm

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the investigative arm of the US Department of Justice. The FBI's investigative authority can be found in Title 28, Section 533 of the US Code. Additionally, there are other statutes, such as the Congressional Assassination, Kidnapping, and Assault Act (Title 18, US Code, Section 351), which give the FBI responsibility to investigate specific crimes. For a more detailed breakdown of all of the federal crimes that are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the FBI, refer to www.fbi.gov and http://www.conservapedia.com/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation

April 3, 2007 - HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS INVESTIGATIONS - ICE Fact Sheet - A review of the ICE's fact-sheet regarding investigations of human rights violations in the United States clearly denotes that ICE has jurisdiction of this type of investigations, to include "To deny safe haven in the United States to human rights violators by utilizing all of ICE's investigative techniques and legal authorities to identify, locate, investigate, prosecute and assist in removing human rights violators, torturers and war criminals from the United States. Through proactive efforts, ICE will identify and correct systemic vulnerabilities that are subject to exploitation by human rights violators and other threats to national security and public safety." - http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/hrvc1.htm

Attorney General's Report to Congress on the Growth of Violent Street Gangs in Suburban Areas - April 2008

"Gangs are a threat to public safety in many suburban communities throughout the country, particularly violent urban gangs that have migrated from inner cities to surrounding areas. Gang migration began in the late 1980s and intensified in the 1990s. At present, more than 20,000 gangs consisting of approximately 1 million members exist in the United States. Gangs are present in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories." - http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs27/27612/index.htm

Terry Goddard Announces Arrests in Major Arms Trafficking Case

"(Phoenix, Ariz. -- May 6, 2008) Attorney General Terry Goddard today announced the breakup of a major weapons trafficking operation in Phoenix that supplied hundreds of AK-47 assault rifles, other long guns and handguns to criminal organizations in Mexico. Three men were arrested this morning, including George Iknadosian, owner of the X Caliber Guns store in north Phoenix. Search and seizure warrants were executed at the store and at his Glendale home. About 1,300 weapons were seized at the two locations today.

Iknadosian, 46, Cesar Bojorguez-Gamez, 28, and Hugo Miguel Gamez, 26, were charged with five crimes: forgery, fraudulent schemes, participation in or assisting a criminal syndicate, money laundering and illegal control of an enterprise or illegally

conducting an enterprise. Bojorguez-Gamez is a Mexican citizen living in the Phoenix area as a legal resident; Gamez is a U.S. citizen living in the Phoenix area. The arrests and seizures follow an 11-month investigation by the Phoenix Police

Department, the U.S. Marshal's Office, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Goddard was joined at the press conference by representatives from those agencies and the Mexican Attorney General's Office. "The illegal sale of weapons figures prominently in many cross-border crimes," Goddard said. "We are targeting these sales and working closely with other law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Mexico to stop them."

Iknadosian is accused of selling the weapons to straw buyers who were buying them for resale to persons he knew would transport them across the border to Mexico. Many of the guns purchased from X Caliber have been recovered in Mexico, some in the

possession of drug smugglers. In one recent seizure in Mexico, an AK-47 bought from X Caliber was found with 26 additional rifles, two grenade launcher attachments and three tons of marijuana.

Today's arrests come less than two months after Attorneys General from the United States and Mexico announced at the end of a three-day meeting in Phoenix "a new era of binational cooperation to fight organized crime in both countries." Arms trafficking

was identified as one of four principal areas of increased law enforcement cooperation. Illegal arms sales figured prominently in the death last year of some 2,000 Mexican law enforcement officers. Phoenix has been identified as one of the top five metropolitan

areas in the country where weapons and ammunition are obtained and illegally smuggled into Mexico."

http://www.atf.gov/press/2008press/field/050608pho_ariz-ag_announces_arrests.pdf

ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO R. GONZALES ANNOUNCES EXPANSION OF JUSTICE DEPARTMENT EFFORTS AND PROPOSES NEW LEGISLATION TO HELP PREVENT AND COMBAT VIOLENT CRIME

"WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales today, speaking before employees at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), unveiled new cities designated for targeted federal violent crime task forces and announced new comprehensive legislation that strengthens federal laws targeting violent criminals as part of the Department's expanding efforts to fight violent crime.

"Keeping America's neighborhoods safe is one of the central functions of government at all levels," said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "Today's new task forces are a part of our expanded efforts and commitment by the Department of Justice to support state and local law enforcement in the fight against violent crime. The legislation we have proposed today will make it easier for federal investigators and prosecutors to take dangerous criminals off the streets and put them behind bars for longer."

New Cities Designated for Violent Crime Task Forces

Today's announcement expands the Violent Crime Impact Team (VCIT) initiative to an additional four cities, including Mesa, Ariz.; Orlando, Fla.; San Bernardino, Calif.; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, bringing to 29 the total number of cities where the successful program has helped combat violent crime.

The VCIT initiative uses innovative technology, analytical investigative resources and an integrated federal, state and local law enforcement strategy to identify, disrupt, arrest and prosecute the most violent criminals in select cities across the nation. Modeled after Project Safe Neighborhoods' (PSN) successes, the VCIT initiative's primary goal is to reduce the number of homicides and other violent crimes committed with firearms in targeted communities throughout the country. Since its launch in 2004, VCIT partners have arrested more than 9,800 gang members, drug dealers, felons in possession of firearms, and other violent criminals, including 1,650 identified as "worst of the worst" criminals, and recovered more than 11,100 firearms.

"ATF looks forward to taking the success we and our partners have achieved to these additional VCIT cities," said ATF Acting Director Michael J. Sullivan. "This is a program that works and brings the best resources of federal, state and local law enforcement to bear on violent crime."

Attorney General Gonzales today also announced the expansion of the FBI's Safe Streets Task Force program to include Orlando, Fla. The FBI has more than 180 Safe Street Task Forces nationwide that focus on gangs and violent crime. The task forces are comprised of local, state, and federal investigators representing more than 500 law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. By targeting and dismantling violent organized gangs that wreak havoc in cities and towns across the country, as well as investigating violent criminals involved in federal robberies, carjackings, murders and kidnappings, FBI's Safe Streets Task Forces are helping keep America's cities and neighborhoods safe.

"Fighting violent crime is deeply rooted in the FBI's nearly 100-year history," stated Assistant Director Kenneth W. Kaiser of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division. "Key to success is the FBI's formula for combating violent crime and gang activity, which includes leveraging our law enforcement partners, sharing intelligence, and preparing investigations for prosecution. The FBI is pleased to announce the establishment of its most recent Safe Streets Task Force in Orlando, adding to the more than 180 Task Forces engaged in disrupting violent crime and dismantling gangs nationwide."

New Legislation to More Effectively Fight Violent Crime

As part of today's announcement, the Department of Justice proposed the Violent Crime and Anti-Terrorism Act of 2007, a comprehensive package including violent crime legislation that amends and strengthens existing laws to ensure that federal law enforcement agencies are able to successfully investigate and prosecute many types of violent crime. The proposed bill will improve existing criminal laws to close gaps and strengthen penalties, provide greater flexibility in the penalties that could be imposed on federal firearms licensees who violate the Gun Control Act, and restore the binding nature of sentencing guidelines. The bill also includes provisions that strengthen laws pertaining to drug enforcement, terrorism and child pornography.

Improving Violent Crime Prevention and Strengthening Anti-Gang Measures:
The proposed bill amends several criminal statutes to close gaps and strengthen penalties and existing tools used to combat violent crime, including firearms and gang violence. Specifically, these provisions:

• • trengthen the statutory prohibition on illegal firearm transfers by doubling the maximum penalty for transferring a firearm that will be used to commit a crime of violence or drug trafficking offense;
  • Increase the maximum penalty for the general federal criminal conspiracy statute, making the conspiracy statute more useful in prosecuting conspiracies to commit offenses, such as firearms offenses, and bringing the maximum penalty for conspiracy in line with the sentencing guidelines;
  • Amend the armed career criminal statute to create a tiered penalty approach for felons with prior drug trafficking or violent felony convictions;
  • Extend the statute of limitations for violent crimes and for terrorism-related crimes to 10 years-from five years for violent crimes and eight years for terrorism-related crimes; and
  • Create a new statutory prohibition against crimes of violence by illegal aliens.

Flexible Penalties for Firearms Dealers' Violations of the Gun Control Act:
The proposed bill provides additional flexibility in the penalties that can be imposed on federal firearms licensees (FFLs) that violate the Gun Control Act. Specifically, the bill will:

• • Establish additional, graduated sanctions for certain violations of the federal firearms laws, including suspension of federal firearms licenses and imposing civil monetary penalties. Such lesser sanctions will enable ATF to more effectively address violations of the Gun Control Act and provide greater incentives for licensees to comply with the law.

Restore Binding Nature of Sentencing Guidelines:
For every federal crime, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines provide a range of punishments in which a criminal convict's sentence should fall. In U.S. v. Booker, the Supreme Court held that the Sentencing Guidelines are advisory, freeing federal courts to go below the guidelines range when they deem it reasonable to do so in specific cases. The proposed Sentencing Reform Act will:

• • Restore the binding nature of the guidelines by making the bottom of the guideline range for each offense a minimum sentence that must be imposed when the elements of the offense are proven; and
  • Provide rights of appeal to both the United States and the defendant to challenge the sentencing determinations made by the district court.

Other Important Provisions:
In addition to helping law enforcement combat violent crime, the proposed legislation also amends and strengthens laws targeting terrorists, sexual predators, and drug traffickers. Specifically, these provisions will:

• • Strengthen laws against sexual predators by establishing a minimum sentence of two years for possessing child pornography;
  • Provide technical improvements to the federal narcotics laws;
  • Clarify the process for obtaining cell phone location orders in the context of an investigation;
  • Amend terrorism-related authorities to close gaps in the law; and
  • Provide additional resources and strengthen existing tools for law enforcement to combat terrorism.

Today's announcement comes two weeks after Attorney General Gonzales unveiled the framework for a new violent crime strategy to assist federal, state and local law enforcement in combating violent crime. The new strategy was developed after the Attorney General launched the Initiative for Safer Communities to investigate the increase of certain types of violent crime in 2005 and to devise solutions to help communities struggling with violent crime. The strategy calls for additional prosecutors, new training, more funds, enhanced prevention efforts and a crackdown against America's most violent offenders. The new efforts announced today supplement the work of federal, state and local law enforcement already combating violent crime through this strategy.

In addition to the programs mentioned in today's announcement, the Department of Justice continues to provide assistance to state and local law enforcement through existing efforts, such as the FBI's National Gang Intelligence Center, the U.S. Marshals Service's (USMS) Regional Fugitive Task Forces and district fugitive task forces, the Criminal Division-led National Gang Targeting, Enforcement & Coordination Center (GangTECC), Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), and the anti-gang strategies that are already in place in each judicial district across the country." - http://www.atf.gov/press/2007press/060107doj_ag_vcit-expansion.htm

ATF-LED VIOLENT CRIME IMPACT TEAMS INITIATIVE

"Purpose

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is the lead federal law enforcement agency in the Violent Crime Impact Teams (VCIT) initiative, which uses innovative technology, analytical investigative resources and an integrated federal, state and local law enforcement strategy to identify, disrupt, arrest and prosecute the most violent criminals in 29 U.S. cities. The VCIT concept was modeled after Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) successes with additional ATF resources redirected from across the United States to target specific areas that had an unacceptable level of violent crime, particularly gun related homicides, as compared to the national average.

Goals

VCIT's primary goal is to reduce the number of homicides and other violent crimes committed with firearms. The positive results of reducing a community's incidents of homicide and other violent crimes committed with firearms, through the removal of those responsible, will have a lasting effect in making that community safer.

Cities

The 29 cities are: Albuquerque, N.M.; Atlanta, Ga., Baltimore; Baton Rouge, La; Birmingham, Ala., Camden, N.J.; Columbus, Ohio; Fresno, Calif.; Greensboro, N.C.; Hartford, Conn.; Houston; Laredo, Texas; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Mesa, Ariz.; Miami;

Milwaukee, Wis., Minneapolis; New Orleans; Orlando, Fla.; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Richmond, Va.; San Bernardino, Calif.; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Tampa, Fla.; Tucson, Ariz.; Tulsa, Okla.; and Washington.

Strategy

VCIT takes a six-point approach to reducing violent crime: