[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16448-16449]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     BORDER PATROL AGENT JESUS DIAZ

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, in the dangerous border region between 
Mexico and Texas, in the year 2008, outlaws from Mexico were caught 
smuggling marijuana into the United States, and they were caught by the 
Border Patrol agents.
  Border Patrol Agent Jesus Diaz's actions later have resulted in him 
being sentenced recently to 2 years in a Federal penitentiary. On 
October 20 of this year, District Judge Ludham sentenced Diaz to 24 
months in prison because the agent is alleged to have been too rough in 
his handling of one of the drug smugglers who was arrested; and, also, 
Diaz allegedly later lied about the incident to investigators.
  Now, what Diaz is accused of is pulling the suspect's handcuffs back 
and pushing the suspect to the ground while pressing the suspect's back 
with his knee in order to get him to comply with the Border Patrol 
agent's orders. Prior to the incident the suspect had illegally crossed 
into Texas by boat with a large shipment of marijuana, and he was 
accompanied by a member of the notorious MS-13 gang.
  The U.S. Government had a choice to make: Prosecute the illegal drug 
smuggler or prosecute the Border Patrol agent. The United States 
Government chose poorly. The Mexican Government demanded that Diaz be 
prosecuted by our government, and he was.
  To top it off, the suspect was told he would not be prosecuted for 
illegally coming into the United States or for the marijuana he brought 
into the United States in return for his testimony against Border 
Patrol Agent Diaz.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I'm not here today to comment on whether or not 
Jesus Diaz used proper police procedure when he detained the suspect or 
whether the jury or the judge made a mistake. Those issues will be 
dealt with on appeal. However, it seems to me that this case should not 
have been prosecuted as a crime. It should have been dealt with and 
handled administratively within the U.S. Border Patrol, and the drug 
smuggler should have been prosecuted.
  The U.S. Federal Government had its priorities wrong. The National 
Border Patrol Council, which represents 17,000 of our Border Patrol 
agents, our border protectors, they agree. They argue that a situation 
like this should have been handled administratively and did not rise to 
the level of criminal conduct. But millions of taxpayer dollars and 
thousands of man-hours were expended to obtain a 24-month sentence and 
a conviction for Diaz, who had already spent 8 months in custody.
  There is more. An internal investigation by the Department of 
Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General and U.S. Immigration 
and Customs Enforcement Office of Professional Responsibility both 
cleared Agent Diaz of any wrongdoing in the 2008 incident.

                              {time}  1030

  But Mexico would have none of this and demanded and got its way.
  The U.S. Attorney's Office went after Border Patrol agent Jesus Diaz. 
And his case was tried in the western district of Texas, a jurisdiction 
that has a history of, in my opinion, unfairly targeting border 
protectors for prosecution. You remember, this is the same jurisdiction 
that prosecuted Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean for allegedly 
shooting a drug smuggler as he ran away from the agents while they 
tried to apprehend him. It took a Presidential commutation in 2009 to 
finally end the persecution of these two agents, and millions of 
Federal dollars were wasted on this case.
  Then there's a similar case where Deputy Sheriff Gilmer Hernandez was 
prosecuted for firing his weapon at a fleeing vehicle that had tried to 
run him over. Same jurisdiction.
  But the question we must ask ourselves is why the Federal Government 
is spending time and money to prosecute our Border Patrol agents who 
put their lives on the line every day down there on the border of the 
U.S. and Mexico instead of spending time and money and resources to 
enforce immigration laws in this country.
  When ICE Director Morton and Secretary Napolitano from Homeland 
Security recently testified in front of the Judiciary Committee, they 
both said they just didn't have the money or the resources to fully 
enforce immigration laws. They, in essence, in my opinion, granted 
amnesty or parole to thousands of illegals in the United States.

[[Page 16449]]

But they have the money to go after Border Patrol agents.
  Maybe they should use some of that prosecutorial discretion they're 
so proud of to prosecute people who cross the border into the United 
States with drugs over prosecuting Border Patrol agents.
  In this case, the United States Government is on the wrong side of 
the border war. The U.S. Attorney's Office should quit being the voice 
of Mexico and be the voice of America. We should secure the border and 
keep the drug smugglers from having their way, and don't give them a 
get-out-of-jail-free card. It's time to get our money and our 
priorities straight. Let's stop going after the good guys and spend 
time and money going after the bad guys.
  And that's just the way it is.

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