Newsclipping summary:

FEAR-List Bulletin posted by Ralph Binford, 3-31-96
 

You are returning from a shopping trip in a Mexican border town. You clear the Port of Entry and are headed for your home twenty minutes away. As you pull out of the Port you notice a young man hitchhiking at the side of the road; he clearly has just walked over the border from Mexico through the Port of Entry. You feel generous and pull over to give him a ride; however,
being a resident of the border area you are cautious: you ask to see his papers. Since he has just come through the Port he has his "green card" out and he shows it to you. Every thing being in order you ask the young man to get into your car.

Suddenly you are surrounded by INS agents in uniform with drawn guns. You are ordered out of your car and taken back into the Port. After you have been strip searched and had a "body cavity" check for contraband, you are advised that the hitchhiker's papers were a forgery and you had been caught transporting an illegal alien. Since the INS agents were feeling kindly today they would not charge you with transporting an illegal alien, a felony punishable by up to five years in a Federal Penitentiary, but would let you go, of course your car will have to be forfeited.

What you didn't know was that in a recent meeting of Justice and Treasury department officials, Janet Reno, our beloved Attorney General, had berated them because the forfeitures statistics were down. All were urged to return to their jobs and bring the forfeitures up to snuff.

This story is fictionalized but based upon actual occurances at the Columbus, NM -- Palomas, Chih. Port of Entry during the past month (March, 1996).