No, I’m not talking about the No Such Agency and their monitoring of phone calls. I’m talking about the Department of Homland (In)Security. (With a h/t to the Rottie.) This is the kind of crap that persuaded me to leave the Republican Party. Update: This earlier post of Michelle’s is even more damning.

Michelle writes:

I remind you of the jaw-dropping directive issued in August 2003 by then-San Diego Border Patrol Chief William Veal directing local Border Patrol agents to ignore suspected illegal aliens on city streets and at worksites in San Diego. The order was made in response to–you guessed it–complaints by the Mexican Consulate over Border Patrol arrests of illegal aliens seeking to obtain Mexican identification cards. In admonishing his agents to look the other way at lawbreakers Veal wrote: “We have a continuing obligation to prevent any public perception that the Border Patrol may be conducting ‘neighborhood sweeps.'”

A continuing obligation to whom?

That’s bad enough, but to make it worse…

May 2005, a dozen Border Patrol agents told the Washington Times that they had been instructed to “stand down� from arresting illegal aliens near where Minutemen protestors had patrolled in April. The agents understood that an increase in arrests would prove the effectiveness of extra manpower on the border and would credit the Minutemen’s approach. Several sources, including the President of the National Border Patrol Council, confirmed the newspaper report.

Yet that is just failure to uphold the laws of the United States of America. It’s a far cry from what is now taking place: The U.S. Government is actively assisting a foriegn power in its efforts to avoid volunteers who are working to uphold and enforce those laws.

I had a perfectly nice chat last night with DHS spokeswoman Kristi Clemens, who insisted that the Border Patrol does not share information about the Minutemen with the Mexican government–and then confirmed, twice and plainly, that the agency does identify when and where civilian volunteers are involved with illegal alien apprehensions if border-crossers call their neighborhood Mexican consular officials to complain about intimidation or harassment while sneaking into the country. (For the record, her boss told NRO’s Andrew McCarthy the exact opposite! As usual, the spinners in CYA mode can’t get their story straight.)

In short, if someone complains to the Mexican Embassy that they were harrased, the DHS will tell them if the Minutemen were working in the area.

Telephone in Mexican Consulate: Ring-Ring. Hello?
Coyote (immigrant smuggler): “Hellow, I’m…. uh, call me Jose, and I just came over the border at Brownsville this morning, and there were these guys there that accosted me, and they weren’t like, in no uniforms or nothing. . . ”
Consulate Employee: “Well sir, we don’t have any information that the Minutemen are in that area. Though El Paso is –”
Coyote, to someone else: “Hey, Diego! Brownsville’s clear — take’em through there tonight! And call off the El Paso train run.”
Consulate Employee: “Ah, will there be anything else?”
Coyote: “Nah, thanks for the tips. I appreciate it.”
Consulate Employee: “Hey, no problemas, amigo, just send your appreciation to the usual bank.”

And the Rottie points out an even more damning fact:

And our obligations under the treaty do not explain how detailed information about the Minutemen and their organization in as far away places as Illinois and Utah show up on the Mexican Consular websites.

What we have here, is the longest, most blatant, and worst failure to defend our borders in history. If the government doesn’t “fall” (i.e.: the Republicans are voted out of power) for such an egrareous failure, it won’t be anyone’s fault but our own.

Or as Gringoman puts it: El Presidente Jorge Walker Boosh, the first Mexican President of the United States.