At any given hour of the day, we have fewer than 5,000 Border Patrol agents on patrol on over 6,000 miles of land borders with Mexico and Canada. These brave men and women put their lives on the line daily to protect this country.
Down in Gov. Perry’s backyard in west Texas, where they supposedly have the Mexican border under control, another Border Patrol agent has been prosecuted and sentenced to prison for doing his job in arresting drug smugglers. His name is Jesus Diaz, and if you rely on the mainstream media for news of the border region, you have never heard of him.
In October of 2008, Diaz, a seven-year veteran of the Border Patrol, was part of a team of border agents who apprehended a small group of young drug smugglers. They had crossed the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, carrying backpacks filled with marijuana.
In questioning one of the apprehended smugglers, officer Diaz allegedly tugged or lifted the young man’s handcuffed wrists and caused the smuggler some discomfort. Later that day, while being processed back at the Border Patrol station, the smuggler lodged a complaint with the Mexican consul, which resulted in prosecution of Diaz over a year later by the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas. According to the Mexican government’s written complaint, the man had been “beaten,” yet photos taken at the time showed no bruises, cuts or other signs of abuse.
Now, it is important to interject here a bit of information not routinely shared with the public by our enterprising news reporters. Smugglers caught with less than 75 pounds of marijuana are seldom prosecuted by the local U.S. attorneys in border regions because that “small amount,” which has a street value in Denver of over $300,000, does not meet their “threshold test.” They are simply put back across the border.
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