Massive wildfires in eastern Arizona that have scorched 250,000 acres were probably started by Mexican drug traffickers or human smugglers, an Arizona sheriff told Fox News

Massive wildfires in eastern Arizona that have scorched 250,000 acres were probably started by Mexican drug traffickers or human smugglers, an Arizona sheriff told Fox News on Wednesday.

During a televised interview on Fox News, Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said the most recent blaze -- the so-called Monument Fire -- was "man-caused" and began about a week ago near Coronado National Forest, where the border fence ends. Dever said the 4,700-acre park had been closed for days prior to the start of the fire.

"The bottom line is, there was nobody in the park [who] would've been there legally," Dever said. "There were no vehicles, no nothing.  It's a high-intensity drug trafficking and human smuggling area. We have scouts that hang out there all the time. They light signal fires, they light warming fires because it gets cold at night … There is nothing to indicate that there was any other cause. And the highest probability -- not possibility -- is that this is how this fire started."

Federal authorities have said humans started the three major wildfires currently raging in Arizona, but it remains unclear whether illegal immigrants were involved. The second major blaze, the Wallow fire, is now 58 percent contained as of Wednesday after destroying at least 32 homes and burning nearly 828 square miles in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico since late May. The Horseshoe Two, meanwhile, is now 95 percent contained after scorching 348 square miles and 23 structures since May 8.

"It's a man-caused fire," Dever continued. "Whether it was a random campfire, a signal fire, a cigarette flung by a smuggling group, or arson, there's no way to know at this point."

An aerial photograph purportedly taken on June 12 of the area by American Border Patrol, an independent organization that monitors the border, claims the blaze actually started in Mexico and traveled upwind into the United States. Dever said that was an "accurate picture" of what occurred.

"There's really only one likely source of this fire and that's someone who was moving through the area illegally," Dever told FoxNews.com during a brief interview. "It's evidence of illegal trafficking. It's the result of illegal activity any way you look at it. It wasn't naturally caused."

Dever continued: "And this isn't the first time. This has been going on for years. I'd ask anyone to present me another logical explanation."

Jeff Olson, a spokesman for the National Park Service, told FoxNews.com that the cause of the Monument Fire remains under investigation by National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service personnel.

Dever's statements came just days after Sen. John McCain ignited a firestorm of his own by saying there is "substantial evidence" that illegal immigrants were to blame for the blazes. During a weekend news conference, McCain said undocumented aliens "have set fires because they wanted to signal others … and they have set fires because they wanted to divert law enforcement agencies."

On Tuesday, following a barrage of criticism regarding those statements, McCain told NBC's "Today" show he was "puzzled" by the barrage of criticism after his remarks.

"We know that people who come across our border illegally … that these fires are sometimes, some of them, caused by this," he said. "I'm puzzled … that there should be any controversy."

McCain said he was repeating information given to him during a recent briefing with federal officials.

McCain's statements angered Roberto Reveles, the founding president of the Phoenix-based Hispanic civil rights group Somos America.

"It's his constant refrain for everything that ails mankind," he told the Associated Press. "It just seems like we have an epidemic of, 'Blame it all on the illegal aliens, blame it all on the Mexicans.' It's amazing that the public doesn't rebel against this type of scapegoating."

The two largest wildfires burning in Southern Arizona originated in rugged, mountainous corridors frequently used by cross-border people and drug smugglers.

The two largest wildfires burning in Southern Arizona originated in rugged, mountainous corridors frequently used by cross-border people and drug smugglers.
And the U.S. Forest Service has determined that both fires were human-caused.
So even though the investigations remain open, speculation is ablaze that illegal immigrants or smugglers are responsible for the Horseshoe 2 Fire northeast of Douglas and the Murphy Complex Fire northwest of Nogales.
"It's definitely not caused by somebody on a picnic whose wiener overcooked," resident Brad Titcomb said about the Murphy Fire, which came within a mile of his house in the Aliso Springs neighborhood west of Tubac. "This is illegal traffic one way or another."
At a press conference last week, Coronado National Forest supervisor Jim Upchurch said causes of fires include ricocheting bullets, campfires, welding equipment and possibly ignition by smugglers or illegal immigrants. But when asked specifically about the Horseshoe 2 and Murphy Complex fires, Forest Service officials say only that they are human-caused and under investigation.
The Horseshoe 2 Fire has burned 128,652 acres in the Chiricahua Mountains - including three homes and six buildings. The Murphy Complex Fire has burned 68,033 acres in the Tumacácori and Atascosa mountains - including the historic Atascosa Lookout.
Both rank among the top 10 largest wildfires in Arizona since 1990, shows information from the Southwest Coordination Center, which manages firefighting activities in the Southwest.
Don't expect definitive answers on who set the blazes - many human-caused fire cases are never solved.
Finding the culprit is daunting for fire investigators, said Pat Schneider, an assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona for the past 20 years who has experience on cases stemming from wildfires including the well-known Rodeo-Chediski Fire of 2002.
More than 70 percent of Arizona is federal land and the number of law enforcement officers is limited, he said. And wildfires believed to be caused by people are frequent - 142 fires of more than 100 acres in Arizona from 2003 to 2010, show data from the Southwest Coordination Center.
"Many times, the cases we are able to make and prosecute are when the suspect is caught in the act or soon thereafter, or because someone from the public helps as our eyes and ears," Schneider said. "The problem with fire, depending on how it burns, is that many times fire destroys a lot of evidence that was there."
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona has handled just a few wildfire cases each of the past two years, he said. He didn't recall any prosecution of illegal immigrants in connection with wildfires.
Pinpointing a cause
Annual fire reports from government agencies focus solely on how many fires were caused by people versus lightning, said Carrie Templin, spokeswoman with the Bureau of Land Management.
The Horseshoe Fire, which started on May 31, 2010, and burned 3,400 acres in the Chiricahua Mountains northeast of Douglas, remains under investigation, said Coronado Forest spokeswoman Heidi Schewel.
Like the Horseshoe 2 Fire, there was no lightning in the area, so both are classified as human-caused.
With fires presumed to be started by people, the focus is on finding a specific cause - not on determining where the people were from, said Mary Zabinski, fire information officer at the Southwest Coordination Center.
Cause of fires in Southeastern Arizona include sparks from electrical equipment and tailpipes, matches and cigarettes and sometimes strange occurrences, such as a bear getting electrocuted on a power pole and falling to the ground on fire, Zabinski said.
But the most common cause of fires, in Arizona and nationwide, is abandoned campfires, Zabinski said. Officials often see a rash of them on holiday weekends.
The Murphy Complex Fire was started on May 30 - Memorial Day. That was not lost on Jim Cumming, who lives in a house west of Rio Rico built by his family in 1946.
"If you are betting odds, it was probably caused by illegal immigrants," Cumming said about the Murphy Complex Fire. "But being that it was caused on Memorial Day, it could have been caused by a camper. It's anybody's guess who started it."
Hot spot for crossers
The Murphy Complex Fire is burning west of Nogales, stretching from south of the international border to about 18 miles northwest of Tubac. It is the combination of two blazes that met up: the Pajarita and Murphy fires.
The flames are raging right in the heart of a smuggling corridor commonly used by drug runners and rip crews.
Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was fatally shot in the same area during a shootout between agents and suspected border bandits on Dec. 14, 2010. The corridor has been a hot spot for confrontations between smugglers and criminals dating back to 2007.
Hikers, hunters and outdoor enthusiasts sometime go up there, but the area is primarily used by drug smugglers and illegal immigrants, said Lt. Raoul Rodriguez of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. That's why he believes it's fair to speculate they started this most recent fire.
Cumming doesn't believe the fire was started intentionally, whether by illegal immigrants or U.S. citizens.
"It was definitely human-caused," Cumming said, "but by human error."
Smugglers don't generally set fires purposely as diversions, said Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman Mario Escalante.
But they regularly make fires to cook, or to keep warm during the colder months, said Brandon Judd, president of Local 2544 of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing agents in Arizona. In the areas where the Murphy Complex Fire and Horseshoe 2 Fire started, the only people agents encounter are illegal immigrants or drug smugglers, he said.
"We definitely believe that the majority of these fires are started by illegal aliens," Judd said.
At the height of the Murphy Complex Fire, firefighters laid a fire retardant 100 yards from area resident Titcomb's ranch-style house he's owned for 15 years in Aliso Springs.
"This really hit home, I thought we were going to lose the house," said Titcomb, a native of Nogales, Ariz. "For what, so some guy can smuggle pot or meth?"
Titcomb is frustrated that officials only report such fires as human-caused and ignore the reality that some are likely started by smugglers and illegal immigrants. The political sensitivity of border issues scares politicians from talking about the truth, he said.
One theory percolating in the Tubac/Rio Rico area is that the Murphy Fire was started by two illegal immigrants in distress.
But Titcomb finds that theory hard to believe because all somebody would have to do to get help is walk down from the mountains to the numerous houses nearby. And since it was set in late May, it also seems unlikely it was to keep a group warm.
He believes it's more likely that drug smugglers set a fire in the area to burn Border Patrol sensors, a theory he heard from several firefighters. Most of the Border Patrol agents he sees in the area say they are responding to sensors, he said.
Border Patrol officials declined to discuss the cause of the Murphy Fire, citing the ongoing Forest Service investigation. Judd, of the union, said he hasn't heard of smugglers burning sensors, but said it might be a new tactic.
"It could be effective, sure," Judd said.
Focus on loss, not culprit
The Horseshoe 2 Fire started May 8, about 35 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border in the Chiricahua Mountains of Southeastern Arizona.
The mountain range and the valleys surrounding it are commonly used by those smuggling drugs and people. Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz was killed in March 2010 on his property south of the fire. The case is still unsolved but authorities believe he was shot by a cross-border smuggler.
The Burro Springs area where the fire started is a popular staging area for smugglers, brimming with backpacks and trash left behind, said Ed Ashurst, who manages the 10X Ranch in the valley east of the Chiricahuas. There are propane tanks used to cook up there, he said. It's rugged, mountainous terrain only accessible by foot or horseback.
"It's frequented by nobody except illegal aliens," Ashurst said. "Virtually everyone down here believes an illegal alien started it (the fire). Who else started it?"
He said he believes the first Horseshoe Fire in 2010 was also started by illegal immigrants but he doesn't expect Forest Service officials to admit that. The Obama administration doesn't want to say it was an illegal immigrant because that would bring into question its claims that the border is more secure than ever, Ashurst said.

rip crew is a rival drug smuggling gang that steals drugs and cash from other smugglers

The Sonoran Desert National Monument, about 60 miles southwest of Phoenix, contains more than 487,000 acres of the most beautiful and biologically diverse desert in North America. This national monument includes a saguaro cactus forest, three distinct mountain ranges and wide, lovely valleys. It is home to many archaeological sites and historic trails and landmarks.

Because of its vast beauty, the Sonoran Desert monument beckons thousands of visitors every year. People come to sightsee, horseback ride and hike its many trails. Backpacking and primitive camping were until recently quite popular.

No longer. Nearly 80 miles from the Mexican border, the rampant crime taking place today within the monument is so out of control that the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management website warns: "Visitors should be aware that narcotic smuggling activities occur within this national monument. If you see any activity that looks illegal, suspicious, or out of place, please do not intervene."

The website warns people not to travel off well-marked roads or pick up hitchhikers — and to avoid all contact with distressed people asking for water or assistance. For those hardy souls still willing to visit, signs have been placed throughout the area warning starkly of the dangers from active drug- and human-smuggling activities.

In a June 1 guest editorial in the Sonoran News, Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Ariz., noted that last year 219,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in one section of Arizona alone — and the U.S. Border Patrol estimates another 400,000 made the journey successfully. The sheriff discussed the dangers our porous borders pose, and he noted that many of those apprehended have had "troubling ties to terrorism."

He should know. Recently in his jurisdiction, a man was found dead and another wounded after a group of drug smugglers was attacked by a rival gang. The injured man told deputies that he was traveling through the desert with 14 other illegal immigrants when they were attacked by a rip crew that opened fire on them. (A rip crew is a rival drug smuggling gang that steals drugs and cash from other smugglers.)

And it's not just in Arizona. According to the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Steven McCraw, in Texas alone there have been 22 murders, 24 assaults, 15 shootings and five kidnappings linked to Mexican drug cartels since 2010.

 
From California to Texas, county and small-town law enforcement officials have sounded the warning that the drug wars and bloodshed that have plagued Mexico have begun to spill over into the United States. And the cartels responsible for drug smuggling have expanded their activities into the grim business of human smuggling.

Trafficking humans has become a $20 billion-a-year business for Mexican drug cartels. That has made immigrating illegally into the U.S. a very dangerous activity for desperate migrants. Having commandeered the human-smuggling business from independent coyotes, drug cartels often charge outrageous sums of money for transportation across the border.

Immigrants are often forced into prostitution or held captive until family members can raise the required ransom. Countless numbers of immigrants have been raped, abandoned along the way or murdered.

In March, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano spoke in El Paso, Texas. She stated that security on the southern U.S. border "is better now than it ever has been," and she denied that serious violence from neighboring Mexico had spilled over into the U.S. Napolitano stressed that border towns are safe for travel, trade and commerce.

Last month — again in El Paso — President Obama delivered a policy speech on immigration. Full of praise for his administration's efforts, Obama's speech was notable mainly for his snide comments about Republicans. In a speech that did absolutely nothing to help foster a bipartisan attempt at border security, he told the crowd:

"So, we have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. But even though we've answered these concerns, I suspect there will be those who will try to move the goal posts one more time. They'll say we need to triple the border patrol. Or quadruple the border patrol. They'll say we need a higher fence to support reform. Maybe they'll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That's politics."

Who is correct? Napolitano and Obama or the local sheriffs and residents living in border towns?

Is Amy Pope, a U.S. attorney general deputy chief of staff, correct in saying there hasn't been a crime spike of any significance on the U.S. border, or do we believe the Burns family of Brooks County, Texas, who packed up and left their 38,000-acre ranch because the drug cartels are just too much of a threat?

Do we ignore the pleas of the family of murdered rancher Richard Krentz for military troops to be stationed on the border? Or do we believe the president when he says the border has never been safer?


Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl have introduced a 10-point plan to tighten the border. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, has introduced legislation seeking to designate six Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Such a designation would limit their financial interests and travel abilities and inflict harsher punishments on those who seek to provide them financial support.

There is no easy answer to border security. Mexicans and Americans living along the border towns share histories and bloodlines that go way back. Families who have crisscrossed the border for years, visiting back and forth, should not have to be cut off from one another. On the other hand, Americans should not be forced to sacrifice their safety on our roads and in our cities and national parks.

Sheriff Babeu may have summed it up best in his editorial: "Mexico is not our enemy. The cartels are the enemy of Mexico and America. They have brought their violence here to America. Local sheriffs can't fight them alone. We can address this growing threat, or we can make jokes, laugh and believe the border is more secure than ever."

Serbian and Macedonian citizens 'risk' losing the freedom to enter the European border-free Schengen area without a visa because their governments are failing to curb an exodus of bogus asylum seekers,

Serbian and Macedonian citizens 'risk' losing the freedom to enter the European border-free Schengen area without a visa because their governments are failing to curb an exodus of bogus asylum seekers, Belgium warned Thursday.
Since visas were dropped in December 2009, Belgium and Sweden have repeatedly complained of being swamped with asylum requests from Serbians and Macedonians who they claim try to abuse the system.
'Yes, we still have a lot,' Belgian Migration Minister Melchior Wathelet told the German Press Agency dpa on the margins of a meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg.
One diplomat told dpa that Wathelet received backing from a number of countries, including Sweden, Germany and France, during the closed-door meeting.
Wathelet said Macedonia posed a greater problem. 'Less than one per cent' of asylum requests from the two Balkan countries were found to be admissible, he said.
Swedish Migration Minister Tobias Billstrom recognized there was 'an increased number of manifestly unfounded asylum applications' and said 'that problem has not yet been solved.'
'The countries of the Western Balkans need to take responsibility for their citizens,' Billstrom told dpa, stressing that countries hoping to join the EU cannot have people claiming to be escaping from persecution.
In Luxembourg, the European Commission presented a report on how Serbia and Macedonia have made use of their Schengen visa freedom.
Wathelet said it was 'not very positive' for Serbia, and 'very, very negative' for Macedonia, as figures for bogus asylum seekers from that country 'remain very bad.'
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom only told journalists that there was 'a problem,' which was being raised with Belgrade and Skopje.
She said most failed asylum applicants were Roma, and suggested both countries should do more to improve the community's living conditions.
EU countries can reintroduce visa controls as a way to pressure Serbia and Macedonia - but the procedure is cumbersome.
'The risk (to reintroduce visas) is there ... we asked for a monitoring, there were a certain number of conditions which seemed to have been fulfilled in 2009 and which are no longer today, especially for Macedonia,' Wathelet said.
Malmstrom said, 'There was no suggestion today that there would be a suspension (of the visa-free regime), but (there was) expression from certain countries of their concerns.'
The commission recently proposed fast-tracking the procedure for reintroducing visas for non EU-countries that abuse the Schengen system.
EU interior ministers backed the draft reform, which still needs to be discussed with the European Parliament. But, even under the new set up, visas would be reintroduced only as a 'very last resort,' Malmstrom said.

Finland is introducing new measures to combat illegal immigration and human trafficking from India.

Finland is introducing new measures to combat illegal immigration and human trafficking from India. In July, the Finnish embassy in New Delhi will get a new staff member who will verify the authenticity of documents submitted by visa and residence permit applicants.
Illegal immigration from India to Finland is on the rise, and sometimes Finland is used as an entry point to Europe as a whole. The Foreign Ministry, the Finnish Border Guard and the Finnish Immigration Service are planning to address the problem by sending a border guard to the Finnish mission in New Delhi.
According to the Finnish embassy in India, the border guard will have plenty of work. The mission in New Delhi handles residence permit applications in numbers only exceeded by the consulate in St. Petersburg.
The embassy also processes visa and residence permit applications from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives.
It is seen as a great advantage that the new staff member specializes in investigating document forgeries, since that will be among the border guard’s tasks.
Finnish embassy attaché Anne Myllymäki says that the mission currently spends a lot of time trying to verify the authenticity of documents.
The Finnish authorities already have an employee carrying out similar tasks in the embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The authorities are considering establishing a similar post at the mission in Nigeria.

Corruption on the U.S. side of the Mexican border rose sharply in recent years as drug cartels targeted border agents as part of illicit drug and human trafficking

Corruption on the U.S. side of the Mexican border rose sharply in recent years as drug cartels targeted border agents as part of illicit drug and human trafficking, senior Obama administration officials told a Senate hearing on Thursday.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commission Alan Bersin said the overwhelming majority of border patrol officers and agents are honest, “but the reality is that CBP employees have been and will continue to be targeted by criminal organizations or may otherwise seek to exploit their position of public trust for illicit gain. …”

Charles Edwards, Department of Homeland Security acting inspector general who appeared with Mr. Bersin, said corruption has come in the form of monetary bribes, sexual favors and other gratuities to border agents to ignore trafficking, provide information or assist traffickers.

“Gangs such as Los Zetas are becoming involved increasingly in systematic corruption to further alien and drug smuggling, including smuggling of aliens from designated special-interest countries likely to export terrorism,” Mr. Edwards said.

The two appeared at a hearing Thursday of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on disaster recovery and intergovernmental affairs.

Over the past six years, 127 CBP agents were arrested or indicted for corruption, the officials testified. Investigations of additional complaints rose to more than 4,500 cases last year.

Thursday’s hearing focused on the increase in these cases and the need for greater cooperation between the DHS inspector general and CPB, which in the past have not closely cooperated.

“As we continue to see successes in our efforts to secure our nation’s borders, our adversaries continue to grow more desperate in their attempts to smuggle humans and illegal contraband into this country,” Mr. Bersin said. “Our most valuable — as well as in some rare cases our most vulnerable — resources are our employees.”

The issue of corruption has slowly come to light in recent years as a result of several high-profile cases of U.S. officers who were caught helping cartels smuggle illegal contraband and humans across the border.

Last year one CPB officer, Martha Garnica, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a sting operation showed her involvement with a Mexican crime syndicate called La Linea. And her story was not an isolated case.

Also in 2010, the inspector general opened 870 investigations related to CPB employees, a 48 percent increase from the previous year’s 595 cases. The cases included investigations into CBP employee corruption, civil rights abuses, and suspicious activity, Mr. Edwards said.

As a result, Congress passed the Anti-Corruption Border Act last year to put measures in place that would check new employees’ integrity. Under the act, the CBP must run background checks and polygraph tests on every new employee. So far, the organization has a backlog of 15,197 cases that need to be completed. Mr. Bersin said the CBP was on track to catch up with all cases by 2013.

Initial results were a cause for concern, Mr. Edwards said, noting that recent polygraph tests showed that up to 60 percent of CBP employees showed deception when asked questions about having a criminal record.

The Department of Homeland Security has struggled with targeting corruption because of confusion within its organizational structure. The 1978 Inspector General Act gave the inspector general authority for holding the agency accountable.

Mr. Bersin said the confusion often led to “outright confrontation” between CPB and the IG office.