THE ZAPATA TIMES | Wednesday, January 17, 2018 |
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FROM THE COVER El Cuarenta’s niece arrested in connection with slaying By Jason Buch SA N A NT ONI O E XPRE SS-NEWS
The niece of the Zetas cartel leader who is wanted in the U.S. for allegedly ordering a string of assassinations in South Texas has been arrested in connection with the slaying of a Mexican prosecutor. Mexican marines arrested Sofía del Carmen Monsiváis Treviño on Jan. 6 in Nuevo Laredo, according to officials in the state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas from Laredo to the Gulf of Mexico. She was initially arrested on federal orga-
DACA From page A1 repeatedly was the demand to end “chain migration” — an unflattering term embraced by critics, including Trump, for family migration. Family-based immigrant visas have been a pillar of the U.S. system since 1965, the instruments by which citizens and legal permanent residents bring family members to the United States. The visas are regulated by a quota system both for countries of origin and categories of relatives, ranging from children and spouses of citizens to their parents and siblings. They are widely used, and as of Nov. 1, 3.9 million people were waiting in line. Air Force veteran John Del Toro of San Antonio relied on the visas to gain legal status in the U.S. for his wife and four stepchildren. His 18-year-old stepdaughter became a lawful permanent resident last week. Del Toro, 59, met his wife, a British citizen, in the United Arab Emirates, where he was stationed and later worked as a defense contractor.
nized crime charges, but now faces state charges related to the January 2017 killing of the chief state prosecutor in Nuevo Laredo and four other officials. In a news release that identified Monsiváis Treviño only by her first name, the state said she’s the leader of the Cartel de Noreste, the Nuevo Laredo-based splinter of the once-powerful Zetas drug cartel. She’s accused of being behind the killing of Ricardo Martínez Chávez a year ago. Tamaulipas officials said more than 200 rounds were fired when he and four other
employees of the state prosecutor’s office were gunned down on a Nuevo Laredo street. In a 2016 hearing in Waco, a federal agent testified that the Cartel de Noreste is run by the family members of Miguel Treviño Morales, the Zetas’ former leader who is accused of being behind mass killings in Mexico and homicides in Texas. Known as “Z-40” and “Cuarenta,” Treviño Morales is wanted in Texas on charges that he ordered five killings in Laredo during 2005 and 2006. During a 2016 trial in San
Antonio of the Zetas’ leader in the border city of Piedras Negras, witnesses described a 2011 massacre that they said Treviño Morales ordered and took part in. One former trafficker said he watched as Treviño Morales presided over the execution of dozens of people, many of whom had no connection to organized crime. Gilberto Limon Jr., who at the time was a deputy special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in Laredo, testified in the Waco proceedings that the Zetas,
which had started as a group of former Mexican special forces soldiers working for the Gulf Cartel, had split into a faction controlled by some of the gang’s original members and a rival group loyal to Treviño Morales, who was arrested in 2013. He was succeeded by his brother, Omar, who was arrested in 2015. Both are in Mexico facing extradition to the U.S. “And once the cartel split … the Northern Cartel, Cartel de Noreste, was originally from Nuevo Laredo,” he said. “Since Mr. Treviño, Miguel Angel
Treviño Morales … his home base you would say is Nuevo Laredo … he put in charge people for the Zetas cartel that are from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.” Limon’s testimony came during a detention hearing for Juan Francisco Treviño Chávez, a nephew of Treviño Morales who was arrested in 2016 near Houston on drug conspiracy charges. Treviño Chávez at the time was the leader of the Cartel de Noreste, Limon testified. Treviño Chávez, a U.S. citizen, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The process was difficult, he said, but he succeeded thanks to good legal counsel, assistance from Homeland Security officials in San Antonio and a family migration system that he believes should not be significantly altered. “I’m sure our system can be better, but it’s definitely better than I’ve seen outside of the United States,” he said. Nonetheless, organizations pressing to restrict immigration have long targeted family migration. A report last fall by the Center for Immigration Studies asserted that over the past 35 years, 20 million of 33 million immigrants admitted to the U.S., or 61 percent, entered on family-based immigrant visas. The report said citizens of Mexican heritage use the visas most liberally, each sponsoring more than six additional legal immigrants. “The ability to reside and work permanently in the United States is probably the most valuable commodity, or status, in the world and is one that the United States should be very selective in granting,” said Andrew Arthur, a Center for Immigration Studies lawyer.
Arthur’s organization and others believe that a change in the family system must be coupled with a new system in which applicants are judged by their capacity to contribute to the U.S., financially or with special skills. The demand to overhaul the system picked up steam last month when a Bangladeshi immigrant in New York, who had entered on a family visa, strapped on a homemade pipe bomb, reportedly hoping to kill morning commuters at a Times Square subway station. He injured himself and three others. Trump seized on the incident to demand immigration reform, and he has stepped up his rhetoric since last week, tweeting Monday: “Honestly, I don’t think Democrats want to make a deal.” Immigrant advocates contend that the words “chain migration” offend and distort. “It is misused to make it sound as though one person, like rabbits, can reproduce hundreds of family members and lead to exponential growth of immigration. In fact, the system has lengthy backlogs and quotas that prevent this,” said Greg
Chen, government relations director at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he brought up family visas at the meeting in which Trump is said to have made his crude remarks. “When it came to the issue of, quote, ‘chain migration,’ I said to the president, ‘Do you realize how painful that term is to so many people? African-Americans believe they migrated to America in chains, and when you talk about chain migration, it hurts them personally.’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s a good line.’” On Monday, Trump referred in a tweet to “Senator Dicky Durbin,” adding that “Durbin blew DACA.” A State Department report this month illustrated the challenges in gaining entry via family visas. It said that for most countries, family visas are just being issued for brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens who applied in 2004. According to the State Department, for unmarried Mexican sons and daughters of U.S. citizens, green cards are being made available for those who applied with spon-
sorship in 1996 — 22 years ago. Despite the restrictions, the family system is under attack on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Legislation introduced in the House this week by leading GOP conservatives would end categories for family visas except for spouses and minor children. At the White House meeting Thursday — when Trump is said to have made his vulgar remarks — a bipartisan proposal from a halfdozen senators to restore DACA protections was rejected in part because it didn’t go far enough to rein in family migration, said Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a Republican in the Oval Office meeting. The “agreement in principle” offered to prohibit family visas for parents of DACA recipients. But despite the president’s assurance two days earlier that he would sign any DACA-related legislation Congress sent to him, the White House signaled Thursday that any bill would need to restrict categories of family-based visas for all future immigrants, not just Dreamers.
That demand makes it increasingly likely that Democrats won’t support proposals being aired and may withhold votes this week on legislation to keep the government funded. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-San Antonio, said bipartisan efforts are needed to resolve thorny issues beyond a DACA fix, among them reauthorizing the Children’s Health Insurance Program. “Despite Trump’s racist outburst, efforts are still underway to secure a more certain future for our Dreamers,” he said. Cuellar, a moderate in his party, said he believes that Democrats will need to make concessions on family migration to achieve a DACA fix. But, he noted, “emotions and passions” on both sides of the issue are making it difficult to get a deal. “Some of us in the middle believe we need to have border security and a few immigration changes in order to have DACA,” he said. “I support having families united. But does somebody bring in just their immediate family? Their father and mother? The question is, how do we address this issue?”