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Friday, February 14, 2020

He was a hard working American, former military, award winning Border Agent---until Immigration came and his world crumbled

Chivis Martinez  Borderland Beat  The Atlantic

The fraudulent birth certificate had come to light because Rodriguez had petitioned for one of his brothers in Mexico to get a green card. An officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that issues green cards, flagged the petition because Rodriguez’s Texas-issued birth certificate had been registered by a midwife who was later convicted of fraud.


The Undocumented Agent


One afternoon in April 2018, Raul Rodriguez was working on his computer at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Los Indios, Texas, when two managers entered the building. Somebody must be in trouble, he thought. The managers usually arrived in pairs when they needed a witness.


For nearly two decades, Rodriguez had searched for people and drugs hidden in cargo waiting to get into the United States. He was proud of his work as a Customs and Border Protection officer; it gave him stability and a sense of purpose. Even in the spring of 2018, when public scrutiny of CBP began to intensify—the agency had officially started separating children from their parents—Rodriguez remained committed to his job. Though he wasn’t separating any families at the border, he’d canceled the visas and initiated the deportations of thousands of people in his years of service.

“Hey, Raulito,” one of the managers said, calling him over. Rodriguez walked past agents who were trying to look busy on their computers. Just two years from being eligible to retire, Rodriguez says he had an unblemished record. He couldn’t imagine what the managers wanted.

Rodriguez had been crossing bridges at the border since his parents, who were Mexican, had sent him to live with relatives in Texas when he was 5 years old. He’d wanted to stay in Mexico, but his mother insisted that he go: He was a United States citizen. She’d given birth to him just across the border in hopes that he would have a better life, and it was time for him to seize that opportunity. He started first grade at a public school in Mission, Texas. From then on, he saw his parents only on school breaks.

As a child, he’d admired immigration agents’ crisp uniforms and air of authority. When he grew into a teenager, though, agents began to question him more aggressively, doubting his citizenship despite his Texas-issued birth certificate. He chalked it up to simple prejudice, no different from the white students at Sharyland High who provoked him to fistfights by calling him “wetback.” He decided he’d defy their stereotypes by one day becoming an agent himself. He would enforce the law, but without demeaning people as he did it.

Rodriguez joined the Navy in 1992. As a recruit, he cleaned floors and toilets, cooked, and drove a bus. Visiting his parents in Mexico, he wore his uniform. They didn’t say they were proud, but the looks on their faces made him feel as though growing up in Texas really had been worthwhile. And whenever he headed back across the border in uniform, he approached the agents on the bridge and thought: Now they're going to have to accept me as an American.

But on that day in Los Indios in 2018, one of Rodriguez’s managers slid an envelope across the desk. Rodriguez remembers reading:

“You are no longer a law-enforcement officer, pending further investigation.”

His gun and badge were confiscated without explanation. He left the building in a stupor.

Days later, he sat down with investigators at a federal building in nearby McAllen, Texas. They told him his career in immigration and his military service before that—his identity as a veteran, an agent, and an American—were based on a lie. His United States citizenship was fraudulent. He was an undocumented immigrant himself.

Rodriguez joined the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a CBP predecessor agency, in 2000, after five years in the Navy. Soon after he graduated from training, Rodriguez’s parents hosted a cookout at their home, in the rural outskirts of Matamoros, Mexico. His wife chatted with his mom and sisters, while their two young children, Daira and Raul Jr., played with their cousins. Corridos played on the stereo and fajitas sizzled on the barbecue in front of the adobe house. Hurricanes had flattened similar structures nearby, but his family’s home still stood, because Rodriguez had refinished the walls with mud and grass every other year during school breaks.

His father, Margarito, had tutored Rodriguez in a strict vision of right and wrong. A farmer who wore a sweat-stained cowboy hat and a polyester shirt, Margarito kept big bags of cash at home earmarked for his agricultural co-op members’ hospital bills and funeral costs. He made sure Rodriguez understood that he never skimmed off the communal funds, though he could have gotten away with it. While other members bought new cars with stolen money, Margarito walked around town on foot asking for rides. “Always do the right thing, no matter what,” he told Rodriguez. Now Margarito advised him that, as an immigration agent, he must enforce the law no matter what—no exceptions, not even for family.

“You’re migra now,” one of Rodriguez’s cousins said during the barbecue. Immigration. As boys, he and Rodriguez had spent countless hours hunting rabbits and quail in the brush, gossiping like brothers about goings-on at the ranch. But the cousin had begun trafficking drugs and carrying a gun. “We’re on opposite ends,” Rodriguez recalled telling him. He cut ties with the cousin, and with close relatives who were living in the United States illegally.

Rodriguez began putting in long hours and overnight shifts, exacerbating tensions in his already rocky marriage. He and his wife eventually separated. His son, Raul Jr., who was 10 or 11 at the time, told me his father became an intermittent presence in his life as Rodriguez threw himself into his work.

By then, Rodriguez had already met his current wife, Anita, at the training academy they attended in Glynco, Georgia. During training, they’d found that they had a lot in common. Anita had grown up in Southern California, where immigration enforcement was a part of everyday life.

As a kid, she would prank her undocumented cousins by yelling “La migra!” just to watch them run.

Later, when Anita was 17, she became homeless and lived for a time in a car outside Yuma, Arizona, with an older sister and her sister’s five kids. Unauthorized immigrants making their way into the States ran over a footbridge near where they slept. Border Patrol officers noticed the homeless family and began bringing them food, water, and even Christmas presents. “Nobody was taking care of us except those Border Patrol agents,” Anita told me. “I wanted to be like them.” Her own father had moved to the United States from Mexico, and she wanted to help facilitate immigration. “The name of your company is Immigration and Naturalization Service,” she remembered an instructor at the academy saying. “I took that to heart.”

She moved from Arizona to South Texas, where Rodriguez was already stationed. After he separated from his wife, he and Anita married and had two kids of their own.

He was assigned to work one of the same bridges he’d crossed as a teen, and an agent who had given him a hard time back then became his colleague. His co-workers told him he looked like an undocumented immigrant, and they nicknamed him “la nutria,” after an invasive aquatic rodent that swims the Rio Grande—but now he was in on the joke. After long shifts, Rodriguez and his buddies would hang out together, drinking beer late into the night in the bridge parking lot.

Sometimes, he recognized employees of a Texas furniture factory, where he’d been a security guard, as they reentered the United States. One guy was so proud of Rodriguez for becoming an agent that he sought out his inspection lane just to see him in uniform. Rodriguez knew the man worked at the factory, in violation of the tourist visa he held. “Why did you have to come through my lane?” Rodriguez asked, before canceling his visa. He revoked about 10 workers’ papers this way.
 
Awards and honors from Rodriguez’s career with CBP.
Several years into his tenure with CBP, Rodriguez was buying cigarettes at a gas station near the bridge when a woman approached to ask if he would help her smuggle a child through his inspection lane. She wrote her phone number on a scrap of paper and pressed it into his hand. The proposition was brazen, but not uncommon—corruption was rampant within CBP. In the years after 9/11, officials had lowered hiring standards so that they could quickly bring in thousands of agents. Drug traffickers tried to infiltrate their ranks, Department of Homeland Security officials have said, and rogue agents seemed to flout the rules almost as often as they enforced them, accepting millions of dollars in bribes to allow drugs and undocumented immigrants to move into the U.S. undetected. (CBP did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that Rodriguez had been employed by the agency but declined any further comment.)

Rodriguez called the woman’s phone number and set up a meeting. He agreed to accept a bribe of $300. The woman and child entered the United States through his inspection lane and were arrested immediately—Rodriguez had worn a wire and taped the encounter.

For his role in the operation, CBP flew Rodriguez to Washington in 2007 to accept the agency’s national award for integrity. “Nothing is more critical to CBP’s mission,” then-Commissioner W. Ralph Basham said at the ceremony. In a flat-brimmed hat and white gloves, Rodriguez walked across the stage to shake Basham’s hand.

Anita told me that when people of Mexican heritage become agents, their family members tend to be ambivalent. “On one hand they’re very proud of us, because to work for the government—that’s a lofty thing in Mexico,” Anita said. “But then on the other hand, traicionero—you're a traitor, because you're deporting your own people.” Rodriguez says he never let that stop him: Too much empathy could lead an agent to bend the rules. But some cases did haunt him.

In his early years as an officer, an English-speaking teenager walked up to him on the bridge from the Mexican side. Quiet and alert, the kid was not unlike Rodriguez had been at that age, except for his lack of papers. He admitted that he’d been living illegally in the U.S. most of his life; he needed to return to continue high school. Rodriguez asked why he had risked a trip to Mexico if he knew he wouldn’t be allowed back into the U.S. The boy explained that his grandmother had died and he’d gone to pay his respects before she was buried. “I wanted to see her one last time,” he said. Rodriguez told him his best hope for returning was to one day marry a U.S. citizen. But for now, Rodriguez had little doubt about the rules. He sent the teen back to Mexico.

That night, the boy attempted to swim across the Rio Grande. Agents found his body floating beneath the bridge the next morning.

During the Obama administration, Central American children and families began arriving at the border in droves, seeking protection from poverty and gang violence, and reunion with family in the U.S. Rodriguez, by then a veteran CBP officer, believed that many asylum seekers had been coached to tell the same sad stories so that they would be released into the United States to await their day in court.


Any parent could see the separations were inhumane, Rodriguez told me. Someone in Washington had taken the crackdown too far. But what could he do, as a nobody on the bridge? He told trainee officers, “Leave your heart at home.” He focused on his sense of duty and followed orders.

Rodriguez sat before a pair of investigators in a dim room with a one-way mirror, facing a crisis of his own. They showed him a document filled out in longhand with his and his parents’ names. The header read acta de nacimiento—a certificate of birth, issued in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. It was evidence, they said, that Rodriguez had been born in Mexico, not the United States. “Do you recognize this?”

Rodriguez was incredulous. He wrote in a handwritten statement that morning, “I have always believed I was a United States Citizen and still believe I’m a United States Citizen.” His mother had died in 2013, so his father was the one living witness who could clear things up. Rodriguez offered to arrange for investigators to meet with Margarito later that day. He called a nephew and told him to get his father from Mexico to the meeting spot—a Starbucks near the border—even if he had to drag him there. A few hours later, Margarito arrived to speak with Rodriguez and the investigators.

Margarito was evasive when officials first showed him the acta. “I need to know the truth,” Rodriguez told him. “Tell me the truth.” Margarito looked down at the table. Rodriguez had been born at the adobe house outside Matamoros. He explained that about two months later, one of his sisters had arranged for a midwife to register a false birth certificate.

The fraudulent document had come to light because Rodriguez had petitioned for one of his brothers in Mexico to get a green card. An officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that issues green cards, flagged the petition because Rodriguez’s Texas-issued birth certificate had been registered by a midwife who was later convicted of fraud. (According to The Washington Post, government officials have said that cases against midwives during the 1990s uncovered roughly 15,000 falsely registered babies born in Mexico.) Rodriguez now had no legal status in the country, and was fired from Customs and Border Protection for failing to meet a basic condition of employment: U.S. citizenship.

Margarito stressed to investigators that he’d always hidden the truth from his son. (When Homeland Security finished its investigation into Rodriguez, a prosecutor from the U.S. attorney’s office in McAllen declined to charge him with any crimes.) A few hours later, still stunned by his father’s confession, Rodriguez placed an urgent call to his own son from his first marriage, Raul Rodriguez Jr.

Raul Jr. was inspecting a home for insect and rodent infestations when he received his father’s call. At 27, he was working at a pest-control company in hopes of moving his three young kids out of an apartment in Los Fresnos, Texas, and had just landed an interview for a job with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

He went to his father’s house, where he found his father and his stepmother, Anita, looking ashen. They had set out a chair for him. He thought his father might have a serious illness. Rodriguez began to tell Raul Jr. about the midwife, the acta, and Margarito’s confession. Raul Jr.’s disbelief gave way to panic when his father explained that he, too, would likely lose his citizenship.

In 1990, Rodriguez’s first wife, who was a Mexican citizen, gave birth to Raul Jr. in Matamoros. Though he was born in Mexico, he was American by birth because of his father’s nationality. Raul Jr. later obtained a certificate to prove his “acquired citizenship.” But those papers were based on a fraud. “I don't even know how to describe myself,” Raul Jr. told me. “I don’t know if I'm an illegal or not.” In order to avoid making a false claim to U.S. citizenship—which could have barred him from the country—Raul Jr. returned his certificate of citizenship to the government. He put his application to CBP, and a new house, on hold indefinitely. He applied for a green card through his wife.

While he waits, he, like his father, is at risk of deportation.


Along with more than 100,000 undocumented immigrants in the Rio Grande Valley, Rodriguez and his son are geographically hemmed in. To the south is the U.S.-Mexico border, a deep-green river surveilled by thousands of federal agents and by blimps repurposed from Iraqi and Afghan battlefields. To the east is the Gulf of Mexico, where boaters are subject to immigration checks by the Coast Guard. Border Patrol checkpoints dot the major roads heading north out of the valley. Every driver must stop and answer the question: Are you a U.S. citizen?

An agent from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles deportations, set up a meeting with Rodriguez a few months after the fraudulent birth certificate was discovered. The agent said he wanted to help him by going over the details of his case. But Rodriguez, who knew the agent from work, sensed that this was a ploy to get more information out of him. He took it as a warning from ICE: We’re watching.

More than 50,000 officers patrol the border and the interior of the country, according to the nonprofit American Immigration Council. They’re easy to spot at Rodriguez’s kids’ high school. Former colleagues who noticed Rodriguez’s absence but were not privy to the details of his case figured that he’d been fired for corruption. He’s always been “chueco,” a retired agent named John Garcia told me he overheard someone say at work. Crooked. Just as Rodriguez had once cut ties with his undocumented family members, agents began to avoid eye contact when they saw him in public, at restaurants or the grocery store. “They treat him like he's a pariah,” Anita told me.

Rodriguez’s integrity award sits above the TV where he watches the local news every morning from the treadmill. He spends the rest of the day tending to his sheep, cows, and chickens, rarely leaving his property, because a traffic stop could ultimately lead to deportation. “I don’t have any legal status in the U.S.,” he told me. “I’m deportable.”

Rodriguez and Anita have refinanced their house and raided the kids’ college fund to supplement Anita’s income from her job at the Department of Homeland Security. Fired just shy of retirement, Rodriguez lost his eligibility to receive a $4,400-a-month pension along with his citizenship. Rodriguez feared that the stress of his new reality could lead to divorce.

Last fall, as the evening cooled to 90 degrees, he drove to his teenage son’s football game, careful to use blinkers at every turn. At the game, the band played the national anthem before kickoff, and an announcer asked veterans to rise and be recognized. Rodriguez remained seated. Anita, adamant that his service still counted for something, nudged him in the ribs. “Stand up.”
  
He applied to become a lawful permanent resident as the spouse of a U.S. citizen, and was forthright in his interview. Yes, he told the official, he had made a false claim to U.S. citizenship, but only because he hadn’t known the truth. Yes, he had voted in a federal election as an undocumented immigrant. He expected no special treatment, just the pension, health benefits, and safety from deportation he felt he’d earned through his nearly two decades at CBP. With some patience, he was confident that he could get his status sorted out. By last fall, he had been waiting for a response for almost a year and a half.

Rodriguez says he can now see the impacts of immigration enforcement that he once preferred to leave unexamined. “I can relate to people who I turned back, people that I deported,” he said. “They call it karma.”

Still, he doesn’t regret his service, and distinguishes himself from other unauthorized immigrants. “There are a lot of people trying to do it the easier way,” he told me. “I just found out, and I’m trying to do it correctly.” 

If deported, he would live on family property in Tamaulipas. The State Department’s “Do not travel” warning to U.S. citizens says of the area: “Murder, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, extortion, and sexual assault [are] common along the northern border.” As an agent, Rodriguez had put traffickers in jail, and his face is widely recognizable from his years on the bridge. “I don’t know how long I can survive,” he told me.

Despite those risks, Rodriguez dismissed the idea that he should apply for asylum—a legal pathway to U.S. residence that the Trump administration has sought to eradicate, claiming it is rife with fraud. “I'm not going to do it that way. I'd rather get deported,” Rodriguez said. “I'm going to practice what I preach.”

Once passionate about her work, Anita told me she has “lost faith in the system.” But without a college education, she sees no other option. Her job in immigration, she said, “is what’s feeding my family.” Rodriguez “lives by the rules … and even now he says that if the government chooses to deport him, he's going to go,” Anita said, her voice catching. He would turn himself in before he would hide from ICE. “I can't let that happen. What am I going to do? What are my kids going to do? What is he going to do over there? He's a federal officer.” Anita researches Rodriguez’s case most nights and keeps a close watch on other military veterans in the news facing deportation.

In October, Rodriguez received a letter from Citizenship and Immigration Services. His green-card application had been denied because he had falsely claimed to be an American citizen and illegally voted. The letter argued that Rodriguez did not qualify for leniency, even if he did not know about his status at the time. (USCIS declined to comment on specific cases.)

In our interviews, Rodriguez said he understood that the government had to apply the rules to him the way it did to everyone else—his undocumented relatives, his former co-workers, and the boy who drowned under the bridge. But he drew a distinction between how he’d carried out his duties and how officials were handling his case. 

“I wasn’t being strict; I was just abiding by what the law says,” he told me. “And these people are not doing what the law says.” He believed that he still qualified for an exemption provided by the law for those who make a false claim to U.S. citizenship unwittingly. But in its denial letter, USCIS said it could not make an exception for Rodriguez even if he was unaware of his status at the time, citing recent precedent. Still, Rodriguez held out hope that he could convince the agency to reverse its decision. Immigration lawyers told me, however, that federal officials are granting fewer exceptions across the board. “Apply the right laws, and apply the right rules,” Rodriguez told me. He believed the agency was singling him out unfairly. “Treat me the same—that’s all I want.” His problem might be that it already is.

89 comments:

  1. He was a fraud... good guy or not you cant have that kind of crap. Do it legally or not at all.

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    1. Dude that's fuck up. If it were to happen to you. You would have been crying like a bitch

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    2. I agree 100 percent

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  2. I'm a stringent border wall advicate but things like this absokitely appaul me. Your paperwork is good enough for the military but not good enough for citizenship. If you serve in the military(even the Navy) you should be a citizen for life. These stories are almost unbelievable. SMH

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    1. Obviously , if this story is accurate , he was totally unaware . Being unaware of his status as other than citizen , I believe will count for something . The problem is getting the right audiance . I believe if he could get it before Donald Trump and everything looks like it is said to be he would fix it

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    2. He will deport anyone because he will follow the book of law. Now he is on the receiving end. What’s wrong with that ?

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  3. And this is why everyone is better off being skilled in many, many, many trades. So that if the rug is ever pulled out from under our feet for whatever bullshit reasons we can hit the fucking ground running easily.

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    1. That has absolutely nothing to do with this whole article. Amazing thats what you decided to comment after reading this.

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    2. I cant believe nobody has tried to get Senators or even Trump to help out.

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    3. He is dead man walking Sol, if he is deported to Mexico. He should apply for asylum

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    4. His story is unfortunate. But being deported is not the end of world, if it came to that. I feel that his biggest problem was that he grew too complacent at his job. And any person with a brain will always be skilled in more than just 1 trade. They will also know how to network and relocate easily. If you decide to stick around in a place where you can be targeted because of your previous profession that’s up to you. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help you either.

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    5. od like to know what percentage of American workers are ready to relocate to a foreign country.
      we have ex pats feom mexico who cant even go back and are dead soon after being deported

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    6. i dont think he is a dead man walking
      cartels dont care about border agents
      border agents take a minute amount of the supply
      the confiscations are xomparable to tax write offs or projected losses like theft at a retail store

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    7. Complacent at his job? Welcome to city/government/federal employment...
      Still, weird that you came to that conclusion... Unlike the many that get deported he did nothing wrong... Just a very unfortunate story, that's it. To pile on or kick a man when his down is very inconsiderate and close minded

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    8. Sol, what good does it do to have a 1000 skills if you can't legally use them? Furthermore, you don't need skills when you're hungry for work: where there's a will there's a way.

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    9. He distinguishes himself from other illegal immigrants they do it the easy way and he is doing it the proper way. So his family committing fraud and he still thinks he is better than other immigrants when his family did it the easy way as he called it. He should not qualify for asylum he committed fraud he had no problem visiting family and even marrying a Mexican national and living other there so he should be fine.

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    10. Insensitive and ignorant comment. Stick to translations which I appreciate, but your comments are senseless. Chivis is 100 percent correct.

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    11. Oh yea Sol! He should have moonlighted as a plumber or run weekend psychologist office! Smh

      One career is enough if you want to do it right!

      What a freaking bag of screws you are!!!

      Think sometimes before you post or dont post under influence! Or just stick to translations cause you do a good job there but leave logical thinking to others please.

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    12. I am sure any cartel would like to hire him. He has the knowledge to get stuff past the border. New career option.
      El Oj
      001

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    13. Is funny to see sensitive people here crying over a comment.
      This man had a pasión for justice, his priority was to do the right thing following the book of law. Why things should be different now that he has to face justice?

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    14. The real tragedy here is timing. You say he's dead in Mexico, but do you understand in USA that would be the case? Were half of you more angry with the situation that causes "better life" immigration rather than US self interests, things might be easier for more people.

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    15. No additional comments will be posted about Sol---lets move on

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  4. Damn he cancelled friends Visa's that went through his lane. Also how stupid do you have to be to brazenly bribe a agent like that and then offer $300 stanky dollars

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    1. Unlike others he took his job seriously.
      His situation is a one of many where immigration policies are scrutinized.
      Yet,overturned due to his contributions to this country.

      Wish him well.
      E42

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    2. The woman probably desperation and probably saw him since he was always in Mexico and the 300 probably only agreed since the point was to get her to cross and arrest her. The stanky 300 was just for the charge of bribing

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    3. The woman probably desperation and probably saw him since he was always in Mexico and the 300 probably only agreed since the point was to get her to cross and arrest her. The stanky 300 was just for the charge of bribing

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  5. I am curious to find out where BB stands on the side of immigration.

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  6. As a naturalized american citizen and former Marine, I am really hard on veterans who are permanent residents, join the military, get discharged honorably and then get arrested for serious crimes. They are an embarrassment to the military and I have zero sympathy for them even if they claim PTSD and other excuses. Iv'e seen documentaries on this and the majority of them look like a bunch of gangbangers. But this story really got to me. He was unaware he was illegal and lived a good honorably life in the service of his country. I don't believe in many exceptions but I believe this should be one of those. I wish him the best.

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  7. I read this a few hours ago on msn, if anyone deserves a pardon it should be him. Give him his pension n right to live here.even if they dont hire him back. Hes a vet on top of being cbp

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  8. lol, that is so sad. you only see things this horrific in the US. fix your country already.

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    1. Bullshit...Bs like this happens everywhere. Your comment should say how SHOCKED and SUPRISED this would happen is the "Greatest" country ever to exist on any planet in the universe in the history of the world.

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  9. I don’t wish anything bad against this person who was trying to be legit, but I wish cbp would follow up on ALL their applicants because I’ve seen old school traffickers working at our ports of entry who are about to get pensions. Unbelievable.

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  10. Yo estoy con el sol nada gana con llorar si ya la cago es mas es Mexicano y debe sentirse Mexicano para que besarle el culo a los gabachos como mucho cabron agarre la pala y pongase a trabajar y se acabo. Ami tambien me deportaron despues de 20 años y aqui ando saliendo adelante conti mas ese wey debe tener su buena lana y si no pues nimodo el mundo sigue rodando!

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    1. Gracias primo. Uno de todos modos le tiene que seguir chingando pase lo que pase. El dinero no puede parar de llegar le a uno. Con eso uno come y se mantiene.

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  11. I am navy veteran U.S. citizen. I feel very sorry for this guy, not is fault his parents lied. I call him U. S. CITIZEN

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  12. Laws are laws. But I agree w 8:15. Surely his service and record mean something. Trump should pull some strings.

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  13. I am U.S. born citizen, he has served U.S. U.S. military well. My opinion he is U.S. citizen, he has my support

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  14. I wonder how many Immigrants this guy put away. His parents should of told him, send him back to Mexico. They only shot themselves in the foot. They did it to themselves.

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  15. ...too long to read it all, but after the part of the young man on the bridge saying adios to his abuela & his souless response ... i'd like to think he should be PROUD to be deported, along w/ his son.

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  16. This is the funniest shit ever, fuck him. he choose to be a pig and now he has to suffer the consequences. Im pretty sure he sent back people who were looking for the same chance opportunity he had.
    i hope he is deported and the cartels wait for him out there

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    1. U need help. Actually medications for your retardation.
      Offensive as this word may be for many. This definition of the word applies to this individual.
      No mommy or daddy to instill good morals or behavior practices.

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  17. Man i don't even feel sorry for him😒 dude said he cut off family cause of their status what kind of bullshit is that 😂😂 smh kinda sucks but he was paid back in full for all the shit he did to other people thinking o its just my job blah blah.. ive known cops to be a lil lenient with petty crime this guy acting like the gestapo ....

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  18. The only one to be blame is the father. It’s crazy to see this guy facing the same thing he used to enforce with so much pride.

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  19. 10:52 I agree with you needing more then one skill
    I Dont know this man But I do know a few retired BP and the ones I know are Not completely honest they got away with alot I am not saying this about him Just that temptation to even once to turn and look away is hard to believe I really would like alot more facts from both sides

    Its to bad his Family lied and broke the law to fall on his shoulders this late in his life He should be glad his wife is working and children are taken care of
    Best of luck

    Thanks for the story BB

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  20. He's a victim. The law is the law but you would think there are mitigating issues here. A lawmaker could forward a bill to exempt persons as Mr. Rodriguez who led his life on good faith. His military service alone should qualify for citizenship. if Trump heard this story he would personally intervene. Good luck Agent Rodriquez and thank you for your service.

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  21. a very satisfying story . . . every time a sellout gets deported, an angel gets its wings

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  22. esto paso varios aňos back,En wisconsin un hijo (american by birth ) de una familia se les murio , y un primo (mexican like raulito) uso su identidad y se graduo de policia y despues de muchisimos años lo descubrieron ke usaba identidad de un difunto,no ablaba mucho español y lo deportaron a guadalajara pero el si agarro buen trabajo x ke la misma policia de jalisco ya le tenian un buen puesto , pinche raulito se echo al mundo En contra.

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  23. Anyone not law-enforcement such as Border Patrol is jailed immediately after being charges with a crime, so why the seemingly selective handling of this alleged crime? Now don't come back to complain that he didn't know of the crime because "not knowing" is never allowed as an excuse for ordinary USA citizens pending arrest; it smacks of an totalitarian government (at the least highly arrogant) where law-enforcement and their families are often always given preferential treatment. (So much crime committed by law-enforcement and civil servants including murders and corruption such as here at Laredo Texas.) With all the years of experience that this gentleman had, I expect that he perhaps already somehow knew, and then beforehand set up a scenario/plan with his family if ever caught, possible if not probable. Still, it all seems unfortunate as many Mexican families have been caught unfortunate. As a Mexican-American USA citizen living in Mexico at the border for many years you come to observe a palpable hostility for our "gringo" friends that cross the border to visit, which anger has heightened over the past few years due to the current state of affairs at the border, but this poor man might be hated even moreso when/if he returns. The border is a madhouse just now. The Border Patrol here itself seems to be staffed by lunatics evidenced by all the murders committed by some officers at Laredo Texas. Well, just another sad day in Chinatown, Jake.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I feel strongly that any alien serving the U.S. honorably and has not committed crimes should get a path to citizenship.

    It is harsh that he had to conduct himself in a way that hurt undocumented persons, but it was his job. That is the caliber of person you want in those positions.

    I am in Texas and writing to our senator cruz and trump

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1:25 his job was to stop immigrants NOT hurt them u dumm ass n write another letter to them punks in my behalf tell them I said fuck u..

      Delete
  25. I thought if you serve in US military you can apply for citizenship. This man needs a good lawyer. Someone to stand up for him, tell his story. What a tragedy. Not right.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are many veterans that have been deported

      Delete
    2. Shouldn't be surprising to anyone when immigration policies are being tested.
      Especially now when immigration policies are at the forefront.
      Disputing ones patriotic sacrifice for political reasons has become transparent for many.
      However, I feel his situation will be resolved with due diligence due to his service.

      Delete
    3. It doesn’t apply on his case. And you don’t need to be on the military to apply for citizenship. After a few years on green card you can apply for citizenship. Obviously it doesn’t matter on his case.

      Delete
    4. Thank you....yes, many vets are already deported and none of them set anyone up or wore a wire...

      Delete
  26. Acaban de llegar a michoacan 40 camionetas del cartel de sinaloa para ayudarle a los viagras a pelear en contra del cjng

    ReplyDelete
  27. He thought he was better than all those people he deported. What goes around comes around. He destroyed countless lives. He had part in separating families. He could've helped that kid out. He died on his watch. He could've helped that woman or just say no. He chose to take her 300 dollars and allow her to believe he was gonna help her. He knew he was illegal. Now he's gonna not get his pension and his son lost his citizenship. I feel sorry for his son. But that's what that man gets.

    ReplyDelete
  28. If anyone deserves amnesty it is this man.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No it was all under fraud he does not if he does than then all the deported veterans should too

      Delete
    2. No they should not. Deported veterans got deported because they WILLINGLY and KNOWINGLY committed serious crimes. Thinking these two examples are the same thing is asinine.

      Delete
  29. Replies
    1. A little dose of the medicine he prescribed while leaving his heart at home patriotically doing his job.
      What goes around comes around...

      Delete
    2. 6:30
      If he honestly did not know about the fake birth cert
      He didnt do anything wrong
      I really dont know
      But the way the story was told he did not
      So the comment about what goes around comes around is out of line in my eyes
      My heart is in another state
      But Cant afford to live there that dosent mean I deserve bad karma
      We dont know if he did wrongs or was tempeted to and did on the sly
      In this world now Its hard to give him benifit of doubt to.
      But I really dont know

      It would be great to have him come here and explain or add comment

      Delete
    3. i concur... its hard to feel sorry for the guy. he may not have been able to avoid turning in his undocumented friend that came down his line but he could have ignored the bribe attempt on the street...instead he got himself an attaboy from his masters. now hes out his retirement and looking at a poss divorce, i bet he feels stupid

      Delete
    4. Yup.... I'm doing like he did, leaving my heart at home...Why doesn't he just go back to Mexico if he believes in upholding law like he said he was before he found out that dirty little secret

      Delete
  30. I call that he didn't know. Funny how his dad was all rightous until it came to lying on the birth certificate.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Omg this country is the worst. Please fix it before trying to get involved in other countries.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Ray Zambada and ”chapodiputada“ got released from prison.

    https://zetatijuana.com/2020/02/eu-libera-a-el-rey-zambada-a-chapodiputada-y-colombiano-que-testificaron-contra-el-chapo/

    ReplyDelete
  33. A little taste of his own medicine. I’m sorry for him but now he will be on the receiving end of what he practice with so much pasión.
    I have a cousin who cane here on a tourist visa back in the 70s he over stayed and got his green card. Then he became a US citizen and many of his friends are Border Patrol. Now he sees illegal immigrants as enemies. He forgot that he was an illegal immigrant for more than a few years.

    ReplyDelete
  34. I had offered a fairly decent opinion and wanted to be a part of the conversation. I offered it here but it wasn't posted.
    More often now I put together a comment, send it and it does not appear.
    If a website or blog asks for comments but then ignores publishing a well written comment then why bother composing a comment? Why visit the site?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Reading is the most rewarding experience. Along with knowledge of what is officially reported & not obstructed by political reasons.
      Comments vary from advantageous content to jibberish nonsense. Moreover, with distaste from having a constructive conversation of opinions.

      This site is more worthy of its articles than that of other.

      Delete
    2. 7:42 Chivis has explained, "some comments are too precious to share"
      I am convinced your comments live on in Chivis private collection.

      Delete
  35. It’s a sad story. But that’s the way the cookie crumble.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Act like a heartless robot and a bunch of heartless robots will judge you.

    ReplyDelete
  37. I have hundreds of comments...sorry no way to even look at all of them. But I will post a couple hundred at this time

    ReplyDelete
  38. IMO He knew e every documents would be scrutinized every which way when sponsoring someone to immigrate. I am in the process right now and it is endless and must be certified copies.

    That is why I believe his story, no one would take the chance and there were other family members that could.

    Secondly, this happened to an aunt by marriage of mine, she had a mid wife certificate that later she found out was fraud and she was actually born in Jalisco. Did not matter as she returned to Jalisco after marrying my uncle. My great uncle was American born in California. He could have applied for her green card and did assure their 3 kids had citizenship but they liked living in Jalisco and chose to stay there.

    Many of the DREAMERS didn't know they were not american.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lots of people take that chance and it's been documented.

      Delete
    2. I found out I wasnt american when I wanted to get a drivers license.

      Delete
    3. I'd tell him man up and get a lawyer, a couple of them. You lived a good life full of benefits and rewards. All those awards he has then he should know a few influential people. I dont feel anything for this mans situation, if anything with his sense of loyalty he should take it all the way to the supreme court, good luck boomer.

      Delete
  39. Mexicans can be Mexicans worst enemies lol
    I'm mexican American and my wife's brother got a green card after he beat the sh!t out of his wife and he came out from immigration hold and eventually got his green card after droped charges and paid money to immigration. That guy looks down on his whole family now and thinks he's better than them and now doent even come around.. People are STUPID
    This guy reminds me of him
    That guy ones laugh on my face and told me flat out "you got no papers huh?" I told him I'm a citizen and he got a straight face... SAD BUT TRUE

    ReplyDelete
  40. This is a prime example of why we need immigration reforms. If he’s having this much trouble after serving his country, imagine how much trouble people have trying to come here legally?

    ReplyDelete
  41. I fail to understand why so many people here believe this is a story of what goes around comes around. He was unaware of the fraud and was just doing his job. It seems it's not that they actually hate this man but hate the border patrol and also have anger against friends/family members who became permanent residents or citizens and now have become racist against Mexicans.

    Let me explain something to you in case you didn't know. When you become a U.S. citizen, you take an oath that any loyalty you have to any other country does not exist anymore and your loyalty is to the U.S. My mom is someone who still votes and makes her decisions on what will benefit her family in Mexico instead of what is best for the country. This is treason in my opinion and I get mad at her for this.

    It is true that many people who become residents/citizens feel they are better than people who are illegal. This is bullshit and I have no respect for those people. You can do the right thing and carry out your duties, such as this man did, without being disrespectful/offensive and/or abusive. And for people that complain about racism in the US, which obviously does exist, I have never seen such horrible racism as I have seen in Mexico. The way people with money or even the middle class treat the poor over there is absolutely disgusting. I have lived in both countries and visit Mexico a lot so I have first hand knowledge of this. So if Mexicans want to complain about racism then we (since I was born in Mexico) need to check our own backyard first. If we want to blame people about that then well then, I am sure we all own a mirror.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Sooooo.... those deportations were also fradulent?

    ReplyDelete
  43. I know this former officer. We worked at the same port of entry and I worked alongside him on many occasions. He always seemed like an honorable and decent man to me. I also know his wife but haven't seen them in a good long while. I feel really bad for him and if I saw him I wouldn't know what to tell him. I would still shake his hand and not shun him. After all, he grew up believing he was a USC. Only his parents are to blame for his predicament. He should be given a chance to stay and become legal. He served his country well. If others that entered illegally, like the DACA people, can be allowed to stay and work, why not my former coworker? I also want to clarify something. At a port of entry, aliens are not deported, they are removed when found to be inadmissible. Aliens previously admitted are deported if they committed a deportable offense. Also, CBP is not rife with corruption! Very few CBP officers are fired for corruption and in one year more are lost to retirements and transfers to other agencies than illegal activity.

    ReplyDelete
  44. I Googled “Illegal Border Patrol Agent” and I was amazed to see a few cases. So this guy is not the only case in the USA. There’s more than one.

    ReplyDelete

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