Driver Wanted on 9 Counts of Smuggling Arrested in Kinney County

And, Title 42 "Saved" by TRO, But don't get your hopes up.

Good Morning friends, we expected this to be a quick one for you today— after DPS caught themselves a hot one on county roads late Wednesday night (April 27th). But, as we started writing, the words kept coming. Apologies!

We’re looking at a guy already wanted on 9 counts of smuggling out of Kimble County, near Junction, who was arrested in Kinney County and accused of smuggling 3 illegal aliens from China.

On the Sheriff’s Facebook page, some have asked why this guy wasn’t already locked up— no real idea, you’d have to ask Kimble County authorities for a definite answer, but it’s entirely possible that the charges were filed without him being in custody. Or he’s out on bond. Or maybe, possibly but unlikely, someone made a mistake of some kind.

Long story short, there are plenty of reasonable explanations why someone could be out and free, even with 9 felony counts against them. Smuggling, while a felony, isn’t something like assault or murder, representing a clear and present danger. And, many folks forget, charges are just accusations, and if one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, there exists the possibility of paying bail and getting out of the lockup until trial.

Somehow over the years, many people in the US have started to adopt a sort of Napoleonic attitude toward justice.

The Napoleonic code refers to Criminal, Civil, and Military reforms instituted in the early 1800s by Napoleon. There’s a lot to it— more than we want to get into here— but for our purposes— you can sum up its attitudes toward criminal justice by saying it largely puts the burden of proof of innocence on the accused. In other words— the accused are guilty until proven innocent.

If you wonder what a legal system like that might look like, take a look at Mexican justice which is based on the Napoleonic code. Many other nations with French Colonial ties also base their systems on the code.

The U.S. code of Justice is based on what’s called English Common Law, reflecting our colonial heritage and the Magna Carta among other things.

Long story short— you really don’t want to live in a system where the state can say “No bail for you,” on a whim. And folks should be conscious of this tendency in themselves and in others to automatically question why someone is out on bail, or hasn’t already been locked up.

That said— let’s turn to perennial favorite Todd Bensman, who has a banger out— focusing on international terrorism and the Southern border.

Most immigration attorneys and associated “border experts” will tell you how capital-T-Terrorists don’t cross the border— that it’s all fear mongering, etc. It’s been a talking point since the Trump administration. It’s based on the fact that so far, no one that’s successfully carried out an actual terrorist attack in the US crossed the Southern Border.

But, one probably shouldn’t take too much comfort in a fact so flimsy.

Bensman gathers factual numbers, found via freedom of information act requests from the White House and Customs and Border Protection, and breaks down the ways the information is being shaded to make things seem more secure than they appear to be to anyone who’s been watching border activity for any length of time.

Here’s what he [DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas] said when a Republican lawmaker asked if terrorists cross the border:

“A known or suspected terrorist — KST is the acronym that we use — individuals who match that profile, have tried to cross the border, the land border, have tried to travel by air into the United States, not only this year but last year, the year prior and so on and so forth,” Mayorkas testified in an unusually candid moment about that sensitive topic. Mayorkas disclosed that the American homeland security establishment has fielded a “multi-layered security apparatus” since 9/11 to catch and neutralize land border-crossing migrants from countries of terrorism concern.

“And it is because of our multi-layered security apparatus, the architecture that we have built… that we are in fact able to identify and apprehend them and ensure that they do not remain in the United States," he said.

—Todd Bensman, Author, Reporter, & Former DPS Intelligence Analyst

It should be noted that DHS doesn’t want to reveal all the ways and means they track and identify known or suspected terrorists and catch them at the border.

But as Bensman goes on to point out, this “multi-layered security apparatus” is surely designed to work in ideal conditions. Just look at the words they use to describe it:

“Multi-layered security appratus.”

Sounds pretty dang complicated doesn’t it? How’s that going to work when the border’s falling to pieces and every enforcement arm at DHS is stripping personnel from their normal jobs and rushing them to places like San Ysidro, Yuma, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, and McAllen just to try and keep ahead of the crush that’s already present with even more on the way when Title 42 falls?

By keep ahead of the crush, we mean “process.” And by “process” we mean hold hands and make sure everyone gets on the right bus and reaches their final destinations.

This is nonsense. Insane. Unsustainable. Obviously, no one wants to hate on hard working people wanting a better life. There but for the grace of God, after all, but we must also recognize that these asylum seekers both fraudulent and genuine create a smokescreen of humanity, making it so much harder to know or even confidently identify potential threats or KST’s as DHS calls them.

At the macro level, some might be tempted to say “what difference does a few scattered potential terrorists make?” Well, remember, 9/11 was carried out by about 19 guys.

Something has to be done to slow this down. Yanking the NGO funding that’s sustaining this kind of mass migration might help. More consistent enforcement of already existing laws would probably also make a difference. As we’ve reported in the past, several lawsuits are pending, trying to force certain changes that might compel such enforcement, but even when a judge has made an affirmative ruling, the White House seems able to slow walk measures and otherwise frustrate things.

Folks who’ve been keeping up with the news are probably already muttering at their screen: “A judge is telling Biden to keep Title 42, Benacci— get with it.”

This is true. The news broke Tuesday on the website Politico.

But one wants to caution readers, as we just mentioned— the White House seems to have all manner of ways to make compliance noises in the wake of such rulings, without anything actually changing. Weird.

In fact— let’s just take a closer look:

"If and when the court issues the TRO [temporary restraining order] the department is planning to comply with that order," the official said, going on to complain about the decision. "It really makes no sense to us that the plaintiffs would demand, and the court would order, that [Department of Homeland Security] be stopped in its use in expedited removal, which is going to prevent us from adequately preparing for the aggressive applications for immigration law when public health expires."

—Fox News.com, Reporting Wednesday

What’s really being said there is far from the unequivocal “Yes” that it is pretending to be. It’s more like a “Yeah, maybe we will.” Even the complaint about the court’s action is a bunch of two-faced jail-house lawyering word trickery.

The unnamed spokesman is talking about some kind of “expedited removal,” as if DHS and the White House has been raring to give all kinds of people the boot, with or without Title 42, and gosh-darn it, this ruling is going to hold them back from really doing what they’ve been wanting to do all along, which is kick some people out!

Anyone taking a second to consider the prospect must necessarily be filled with a certain amount of loathing for the sheer disrespect and buffoonery that statement exhibits. “Expedited Removal” is just some Orwellian newspeak, right up there with “double-plus ungood.”

In these times, it becomes ever more important to pay attention to what your own eyes and plain old horse sense are telling you— when even the language that’s reaching your ears has been so tortured and wracked and stretched that it fails to even bear an emotional resemblance to truth.

Comic Stephen Colbert coined the term “truthiness” some years ago, describing something of the phenomenon. It’s a good one. And what we’re seeing right now isn’t even meeting the “truthiness” standard, let alone the actual truth.

But never mind all that. Let’s talk about that sportsball. MmmmMM. I like the team on the right. They’re much better than those dirty rats on the left. Yay Team.

“Panis et circenses” or “Bread and Circuses” is the figure of speech most frequently used as shorthand to express this notion of a populace being distracted by spectacle and free crap, and has its roots in Ancient Rome, as indicated by the Latin.

We’ll talk some more about it, maybe in a second. Right after clicking this link in the other tab where Megan Fox is talking about her hot new relationship. They drink each other’s blood, she says.

Ooh. Look over there. That Kylie Jenner. She’s so hot right now.

Here at the Dispatch, we’ve had our moments of being hard on Texas Governor Greg Abbott, recently accusing him of various cynical stunts and tricks and cheap headline grabs.

We should probably point you towards the man’s own words— published online in an op-ed, laying out how he views his own actions.

Recommend reading the whole thing. There’s an argument to be made that he’s being a bit abusive with the truth himself. But it is a factual statement that no U.S. Governor in history has ever done more to try and prevent illegal immigration.

It speaks to the unprecedented times we are living in, one supposes, that one can do more than anyone else ever has, and still be coming up so dang short.

Something we sometimes forget, is how long folks in Kinney County and Del Rio, and Uvalde have been living with this deluge of out-of-control illegal alien smuggling.

A checklist of advice making the rounds on facebook and other places has caught folks living elsewhere completely off guard. One here reads it, and says “Eh— yeah— that’s how it is.”

The checklist is verified from Kimble County— Junction, Texas— the same place that suspect smuggling the Chinese mentioned at the top of this newsletter was wanted by.

It includes a lot of basic suggestions that many in Kinney County are already aware of— but it bears repeating. Kimble County’s dealing with much the same stuff. Hat tip to some of our readers who wanted to make sure we were aware of it. Thank you.

There are reports that hundreds of thousands of people are staging throughout Central and South America, from Mexico to Brazil, with the intent to unlawfully enter the United States through any means available. Considering this, we expect a very large increase in illegal immigration and human smuggling attempts that will inevitably impact Kimble County.

Additionally, the international criminal gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, has been taking full advantage of the wave of illegal immigration and has been hiding its members within groups of other non-gang-affiliated aliens illegally entering the US. The leader of MS-13 has also spoken publicly to news outlets in Mexico and claims to be moving MS-13 members into Northern Mexico to play a larger role in the manufacture, smuggling, and distribution of narcotics for larger cartels/drug trafficking organizations. The leader has also stated that many members are harder to identify since many new members no longer receive or display identifiable gang tattoos. Kimble County Sheriff’s Office interdiction deputies have apprehended numerous cartel and gang members attempting to blend in with migrant groups to enter the country illegally. We have also arrested human smugglers contracted by MS-13 specifically to transport MS-13 gang members further into the US; however, details of incidents like these are not shared publicly due to the involvement of multiple Federal agencies in the investigations.

Finally, cartels/drug trafficking organizations have not slowed in their organized criminal activities and the violence associated with the cartels has not diminished. Cartels/drug trafficking organizations are using the diversion of law enforcement resources to move even more narcotics into and through the US.

With all of this in mind, we want to encourage Kimble County residents and visitors to do the following:

1. Be aware of your surroundings keep your safety and that of your loved ones in mind.

2. Do NOT leave firearms or other valuable personal property in vehicles and make sure your guests/visitors are aware of this list of common sense practices.

3. Lock all vehicles and secure the keys inside your homes, even the old ranch/hunting trucks and ATV’s.

4. Lock all doors and windows on residences, cabins, barns, and outbuildings.

5. Report suspicious activity, vehicles, and persons on your property and try to be as descriptive as you can when reporting the circumstances/persons/vehicles/direction of travel.

6. Be aware that Kimble County patrol and interdiction deputies will be very busy during this time but we will still respond to other calls as quickly as we can. We will continue to implement countermeasures and aggressively pursue enforcement actions for these challenges; additionally, deputies will be staged along high traffic smuggling routes to intercept as much as we can.

7. Be aware of patrol vehicle sirens and overhead lights that may be associated with a vehicle pursuit and do not place yourself in danger just to see what is happening. Law enforcement may stop traffic in certain areas to reduce the risk associated with a vehicle pursuit or to direct the vehicle being pursued. Your attention and cooperation is critical to accomplishing this, so please follow the directions of law enforcement directing or stopping traffic. Active foot and vehicle pursuits are NOT the time to exit vehicles, homes, and businesses to catch cell phone footage and we strongly recommend against putting yourself in danger to do so.

While there is no guaranteed safe way to conduct law enforcement operations, we are taking steps to improve public safety and keep people informed. We understand that critical situations can be a point of curiosity; however, the percentage of smuggling incidents involving firearms has doubled since this time last year. Criminal organizations are even instructing smugglers to fire upon law enforcement on-view; so, with this in mind, we strongly encourage people to seek cover if they see law enforcement with firearms out on a traffic stop. Suspects firing from moving vehicles is another reason we encourage you to stay in a place of relative safety during these incidents. When appropriate, Kimble County dispatch/communications will implement a Code Red mass notification process to warn people in areas where critical incidents are taking place.

Despite all of the countermeasures, notifications, and best practices, law enforcement is still dangerously unpredictable work and we cannot anticipate every potential action of a suspect or outcome of a critical incident. So, I’ll revisit the first point: Be aware of your surroundings and keep your safety and that of your loved ones in mind.

—Sheriff Allen Castleberry, Kimble County, TX

Read the thing. The man’s cautioning his voters to be mindful of the possibility of drive-by shootings and telling them to lock up anything that isn’t already nailed down.

That’s how it is. There haven’t been any drive-bys that we know of, yet, but one would be a fool not to acknowledge the possibility. All it takes is some nuts with more bullets than sense who think they can shoot their way out of going to jail.

As for the theft— that’s one of the big differences between the current border crisis and the illegal immigration of yesteryear.

These days, in Kinney County at least, illegals are ripping shingles off of roofs and tearing through subroofs in order to get into locked up but unoccupied ranch houses.

Deputies and Border Patrol catch up to them miles down the trail, trudging along with binoculars, winter coats, and other crap they’ve looted along the way. Experienced border hoppers and old hands at the smuggling game know better and don’t waste their time. One imagines that the Haitians and others new to the game just can’t help themselves and take stuff with an eye toward selling it somewhere later on.

Why are we picking on the Haitians? Well, it gives us an excuse to link to our past coverage of conditions in Haiti— a piece from the early days of the newsletter, one we’re still very proud of. Forget everything you’re hearing on the news about conditions in Haiti. Presidential assassinations— earthquakes— all bad stuff, sure. But to really understand why Haitians are bailing out, all you need to know about is the bonbon te’.

Poverty In Haiti

And on that note, we’ll have to cut it short. There’s more to talk about— including new information on the Cuban angle & “weaponized migration” that one of our associates has been staying on top of.

We’ll save it for another dispatch, hopefully tomorrow.