Thread: Border agents change tactics after assaults

http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/feb/08 ... -assaults/

Border agents change tactics after assaults
Arthur H. Rotstein/Associated Press
Thursday, February 8, 2007


SASABE, Ariz. — A recent incident in which National Guard troops withdrew from a border observation post when approached by armed men only underscored what authorities and residents have known for years: That violence and danger have been common along the 377-mile Arizona border since long before politicians from across the country began to focus on it.

The Border Patrol has regularly pointed that, and Agent Sean King said agents gird themselves for it when they head out on patrol every day and night.

Heavily armed smugglers bringing in drugs, rock-throwing immigrants and bandits who prey on the border crossers themselves are all part of the mix. Smuggling vehicles traveling at high speeds also pose a risk to border residents and motorists.

"We're definitely expecting the worst and prepared for it," King said. "No agent should go out without wearing a (bulletproof) vest and without a long arm, either a shotgun or rifle, because what we're going up against is a smuggler with an AK-47. We need to match their firepower."

Guardsman Steve Hammann of Buffalo said the soldiers who are on the border - as part of the Bush administration's plan to back up the Border Patrol - know they're constantly being watched by smugglers' scouts.

"They see us, we see them," he said. "They know we're here."

Assaults on agents, from rockings to shootings to attempts to run them down, climbed from 146 in the 2004 fiscal year to 213 in the 2006 fiscal year, in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which covers 261 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border.

Ten agents in the Tucson sector were shot at in fiscal 2006, though none were hit. The year before, two agents were shot in their legs near Nogales after jumping a group of drug "mules," or backpackers.

In Arizona's other Border Patrol sector, assaults on agents, including shootings, went from 119 in the 2005 fiscal year to 148 in the last fiscal year.

This year is also off to a violent start.

The Jan. 3 National Guard incident, in which four Tennessee Guardsmen withdrew from their border observation post after being approached by six to eight armed men, has drawn the most widespread attention.

But since then, a Border Patrol agent fatally shot a Mexican migrant who allegedly attacked him with a rock near the border community of Naco.

Then two Mexican men were killed and two injured 20 miles north of the border as they were smuggling marijuana, assaulted by men wearing camouflage and armed with assault rifles.

Most recently, unknown assailants threw rocks at a Guard border observation post, breaking two windows on a Guard vehicle. No one was injured.

Law enforcement officers and migrants aren't the only ones touched by the danger.

Crossings by illegal immigrants and drug smugglers remain a way of life for people living and working near the border.

On the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation, which shares 75 miles of border with Mexico, officials agreed to allow the federal government to put up vehicle barriers because of the dangers posed by smuggler vehicles that barrel through tribal villages.

Tribal Chairwoman Vivian Juan-Saunders said people have said they need additional security.

"Over the course of the last 10 years or more, we've seen an increase in violence against our members, homes broken into, food stolen, members being harassed late at night. Wood is put across the road, they have to stop and they're surrounded by individuals desperate for transportation," Juan-Saunders said.

But some residents like Alice Knagge, who has lived in Sasabe for more than 75 years, said that things have been safer because of the presence of the Border Patrol agents and National Guard troops. "It's really not as bad as they say," said Knagge.

Most migrants heading through are going north for jobs, she said.

"A few of the bad people transport drugs, but they won't bother you if you don't bother them," Knagge said. "If I was out there as a civilian and tried to interfere, they would hurt me."

invasion

SYLLABICATION: in·va·sion
PRONUNCIATION: n-vzhn
NOUN: 1. The act of invading, especially the entrance of an armed force into a territory to conquer. 2. A large-scale onset of something injurious or harmful, such as a disease. 3. An intrusion or encroachment.


February 8, 2007
Violence Said to Increase on Mexican Border
By JOHN HOLUSHA

Efforts to stop smuggling and illegal immigration have led to increased violence along the southern border of the United States as criminal organizations seek to continue their operations, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Department of Homeland Security, said today.

Testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee, Mr. Chertoff said the department planned to spend $1 billion for technology and fencing to secure borders and $778 million to hire 3,000 additional border guards to further tighten entry into the U.S.

He said the increase in violence was a natural consequence of these efforts, as smugglers of both people and drugs try to defend their businesses against the increased enforcement effort.

Representative John Abney Culberson of Texas talked of a “dangerous and lawless” border area. He said it was like the old-time Indian country “except the Indians have machine guns and satellite phones.”

He said some smuggling organizations had established observation posts on hill tops within the United States to spot law enforcement activities, including watching National Guard units deployed along the border. Some police units were reluctant to turn their lights on at night because of the observers and armed smugglers.

Mr. Chertoff said the increased efforts to stop illegal immigration had resulted in a “decrease in the number of people seeking to cross the border.”

But he said “this is not a declaration of victory” and said smugglers would increase their efforts to penetrate the southern border.

He also told the subcommittee that by the end of the year virtually all the containers coming into American ports would be screened for the presence of radioactive material that could be used in dirty bombs. He said rail shipments would also be screened for the presence of radioactive materials “starting with New York city.”

But the stepped-up effort to curb illegal immigration has caused Homeland Security officials to “throw away the Constitution” when it come to immigrant’s rights, said Representative Jose E. Serrano, Democrat of New York. And deportations break up families, he said, by separating immigrant parents from their American-born citizen children.

Increased security has been used by officials as “an opportunity to move against immigrants,” he said.

Border agents and guardsmen are not allowed to protect themselves from assults. Look at what happened to agents who try to protect themselves. It is time that they be allowed to protect themselves and the American people. those who believe that they should be allowed to should go out and try to enforce our laws instead of giving away america.

i have a new tactic.

MOD EDIT

NO talk of violence of any kind permitted on the boards please!

and the hell with the mexican government being able to tell the US what we can and cant do on our own soverign national lands

I say put armed marines on the border and give them the authority {mod edit} , that would probably stop the illegal aliens and [mod edit], its going to be the only way to get rid of them. This is a game to them and we look like cowards.

I say lets put Bush down there unarmed!

Please remember that talk of 'violence' is not allowed.

Right, but the best way to get rid of the smugglers is if people would please not use drugs. The powerful of the drug lords is fueled by U.S. demand for drugs and it is just terrible.