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Border Agent Said to Also Be Smuggler Feds alleging Mexican used fake birth certificate to get job
By Onell R. Soto and Leslie Berestein A Mexican man who used a fake U.S. birth certificate to get into the Border Patrol was helping to smuggle illegal immigrants, authorities said yesterday. Oscar Antonio Ortiz, 28, an El Cajon-based Border Patrol agent on administrative leave, was arrested yesterday and charged in San Diego federal court with falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen. He also is charged with conspiring with another Border Patrol agent to smuggle immigrants and is scheduled to be arraigned in U.S. District Court this morning. There is no indication in court records that the other agent, who was not identified, has been arrested. In wiretapped calls, the two agents talked repeatedly about smuggling illegal immigrants through the border area they patrolled east of Tecate this spring, according to a complaint filed in court. In one instance, they are heard talking about how to negotiate with a Mexican smuggler. In another, the other agent talks to a family member about how much money he would get if he just let the smuggling happen as opposed to smuggling people himself. The two were working with a man in Mexico identified only as "Sol" or "Soldado," which means soldier. In a May 4 wiretapped conversation, the other agent told Ortiz, "Talk numbers and don't go too low with him." "I don't know how the guy wants to work, but I'll talk with him," Ortiz said. "If he's just going to use our area, we can't ask for anything more," the other agent said. Two weeks later, the other patrol agent told a family member that he was helping to smuggle 30 to 50 immigrants at a time, according to the court filing. "We don't do anything, just clear the way and we get $300 per head," the other agent said, according to the wiretap. "But if we put in, then it's $2,000 or $1,800." Ortiz and the other agent were placed on administrative leave in early June, around the time authorities dismantled a drug ring headed by an Encinitas gang member. The agents knew some of the 28 accused drug dealers, but the two groups weren't working together, a sheriff's lieutenant said at the time. Border Patrol agents must be U.S. citizens. According to papers filed in court yesterday, Ortiz claimed to have been a U.S. citizen born in Chicago when he applied for the Border Patrol job in October 2001. He provided a copy of an Illinois birth certificate. But when investigators checked the number on that document with records there, they discovered it belonged to someone else. Ortiz, according to the court filing, was born in Tijuana and remains a Mexican citizen. The idea that someone could be hired to guard the border by using false citizenship documents is "mind-boggling," said T.J. Bonner, the San Diego-based president of the National Border Patrol Council. "I would think that would be the very first thing they would check," Bonner said. Background checks for Border Patrol agents were once done by the FBI, Bonner said. For several years, though, subcontractors have been doing them, he said. But he puts more of the blame for such security breaches on what he considers rushed hiring. "These background checks are allowed to just poke along while the person is hired," Bonner said. "They are rushed to get that warm body on board, and they neglect to thoroughly conduct a background check." Former local union president Joe Dassaro said he thinks subcontracting is a problem. "They deal in quantity, not quality," said Dassaro, now a labor relations consultant. "By the nature of their contract they need to get people into the Border Patrol, not keep people out. Ortiz shouldn't expect the union to rally behind him, Bonner said. "We don't want people smuggling or breaking any laws being a Border Patrol agent," he said. "Don't expect the union to be representing this guy in court." |