"A Crisis Approaching: Part One"
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Book Excerpt -- Illegals: The Imminent Threat Posed By Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border
"A Crisis Approaching: Part One"
By Jon E. Dougherty
WND Books/Nelson Current
March 2004
On Sept. 13, 2002, FBI agents Sergio Barrio, 39, and Samantha Mikeska, 38, were aboard a freight train traversing the rolling hills of Mount Cristo Rey near the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. They were riding the rail for much the same reason agents from Wells Fargo, Pinkerton's, and other frontier-era security companies in the Old West rode rails – to thwart a rash of train robberies that had been taking place on that line for months.
According to federal officials, robbers in these remote areas of the U.S.-Mexico border operate by waiting for American freight trains to slow, perhaps from a steep incline, in a desolate area of track – areas which are still inside the United States but just yards from Mexico and escape. As the slow-moving cars creep around corners and bends in the track, robbers jump aboard unseen, then open the rail cars and begin to toss out it contents. Sometimes, says the FBI, the robbers would actually unhitch entire rail cars – usually those located at the end of the long, winding trains – so they can take their time removing the stolen goods later.
But on this particular day, Agents Barrio and Mikeska, who were accompanied by a third agent located in another part of the train, were hiding in one car when they noticed a suspected train robber on the roof. The two agents alerted the third agent, who then sneaked into position and managed to pull the suspect from the roof. But, according to reports, by the time he had restrained the rooftop suspect, he noticed that Barrio and Mikeska were staggering back onto U.S. soil with other suspects in pursuit.
Agents Barrio and Mikeska, the third agent soon discovered, had been beaten nearly to death by several other suspected train robbers – suspects which had boarded the train undetected by the American agents. Barrio and Mikeska were kicked and beaten and struck with large rocks, FBI officials said, noting that Barrio had suffered a severe injury over his right eye and had to undergo surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. Mikeska, meanwhile, also suffered from brain swelling and had to have surgery. Both would live, but neither would be the same.
The suspects? They were Mexican nationals, and they had been routinely crossing into the U.S. just to rob the slow-moving trains. What had been a relatively victimless crime had now turned violent, but it was an incident border policy experts and others concerned about reforming immigration issues had seen coming. In fact, violence along the 2,200-mile U.S./Mexico border, which had been escalating for years, had risen so much that in June 1997, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, said from the House floor that portions of the border were more dangerous than Bosnia. He also said that American law enforcement officials and U.S. soldiers had been fired upon by Mexico-based assailants at least 10 times in the previous 10 weeks.
"There have been more firefights on the border in recent weeks than there have been in Bosnia," Duncan said before a congressional vote authorizing President Bill Clinton to dispatch up to 10,000 troops to the border to help curb some of the violence, which stemmed mostly from illegal immigration and drug trafficking.
There were other incidents along the border that led some experts to also label it a war zone.
On April 18, 1997, a pair of U.S. Customs Service inspectors were wounded in a gun battle at the Calexico border station. Agents managed to kill the Mexican attacker, but this outbreak of violence was followed later in the day by a bomb threat to a tunnel linking Calexico and Mexicali. Meanwhile, an illegal alien smuggler attempted to run down a Border Patrol officer with 25 illegal immigrants stuffed into his van; the incident resulted in a televised chase along California freeways that ended in suburban West Covina.
1.2 – Border Patrol checkpoint along an interstate in New Mexico.
Then, on May 11, Border Patrol agents and sheriff's deputies in San Diego were fired upon after a deputy attempted to stop a vehicle for speeding. That incident was followed by another on May 17, when a Border Patrol officer was wounded by a sniper firing an AK-47 assault rifle near the San Ysidro border-crossing station. The agent was just sitting in his Ford Bronco when he was attacked; he was struck in the face and endured a lengthy medical recovery.
On May 20, a four-man Marine unit was fired upon by a Mexican-American boy on the U.S. side of the border near Big Bend National Park in Texas, while providing surveillance assistance to the Border Patrol. Marines returned fire, killing the assailant and causing a national uproar because the attacker turned out to be an 18-year-old U.S. citizen who was reportedly tending his family's goats. In January of the same year, a Green Beret soldier shot and wounded another assailant who the military said had first fired upon U.S. soldiers.
On May 23, a pair of Border Patrol agents working near Border Field State Park in southern California came under sniper fire again. The agents defended themselves, firing 50-60 shots back into Mexico, from where the sniper fire originated. Another attack was reported the next day, and at least two other gun battles between Border Patrol agents in Naco, Arizona, and assailants on the Mexican side of the border took place that same month.
Then, on June 1, Border Patrol agents were again fired upon west of the San Ysidro, California Port of Entry. Shots were also fired at Border Patrol officers – again from Mexico – in separate incidents June 17 and 18 in the same vicinity. And, a Border Patrol agent was killed June 14 when he fell down a ravine while pursuing suspects.
"These shootings coming from south of the border aimed north are something that we haven't experienced until just about a month or so ago," explains Border Patrol spokesman Jim Pilkington. Also unprecedented is the type of weapon being used: AK-47 rifles equipped with special telescopes and laser range-finders normally restricted to the Mexican army.
The problems – and the danger to American citizens and law enforcement personnel – have only worsened. By March 2000, Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS] agents began to voice what many believed were legitimate concerns about "armed incursions" into the United States from Mexico-based assailants. They reported that heavily armed Mexican army units and federal police, called federales, had infiltrated U.S. territory and fired upon them, in some cases because – federal agents would later discover – Mexican drug lords had put prices on the heads of American law enforcement agents strung out along the border.
The National Border Patrol Council, a nationwide union that represents all 8,300-odd non-supervisory Border Patrol employees, said that on Mar. 14, 2000, shortly after 10 p.m. local time, two Mexican army Humvees carrying about 16 armed soldiers drove across the international boundary and into the United States near Santa Teresa, New Mexico. There the vehicles pursued a Border Patrol vehicle, which was "outfitted with decals and emergency lights (that were activated for much of the pursuit) over a mile into the United States," according to a statement put out by the NBPC.
The lead Mexican army vehicle, the Border Patrol council said, contained nine soldiers "armed with seven automatic assault rifles, one submachine gun, and two .45 caliber pistols," and was eventually apprehended by other Border Patrol units. The second Humvee, however, "pursued a Border Patrol agent on horseback and fired a shot at him. The soldiers then disembarked their vehicle, fired upon one more Border Patrol agent and chased another agent before fleeing [back] to Mexico in their vehicle."
At the time the NBPC said the incident was the most serious of its kind, adding "it is but one of hundreds of incursions that have been reported over the past several years."
Why would Mexican army units intentionally pursue Border Patrol agents, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officers, Customs officials and INS agents? Some federal border and law enforcement agents believe it was because of bounties up to $200,000 placed on their heads by a few of Mexico's rich and powerful drug cartels. Border Patrol officials in March 2000 confirmed that at least one drug gang - the Juarez cartel, one of Mexico's largest – had implemented a bounty on U.S. lawmen.
"A good trafficking organization has a larger budget than we do," said DEA agent Bernie Minarik, one of 600 U.S. agents working the southwestern border. "They know who we are," he said, adding that more drug busts along the border usually means more attention from drug lords. The attention can be deadly, he noted. "[The drug lords] consider it a cost of doing business."
In June 2000, Fox News reported that that violent assaults against federal agents along the southwest border increased from 156 in 1994 to 500 by 1999. By October 24, 2000, another border shooting occurred – the second such shooting incident that year. Mexican army soldiers reportedly crossed into the United States and fired on U.S. Border Patrol agents, according to L. Keith Weeks, vice president of the National Border Patrol Union Local 1613 in San Diego, Calif. Weeks said two border patrolmen who had just disembarked from a "clearly marked Border Patrol helicopter" immediately came under fire from a 10-man unit of what appeared to be soldiers with the Mexican army. Weeks said the incident occurred in Copper Canyon, about eight miles east of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.
"It happened," he said. "These agents departed their helicopter and were immediately fired upon." He said about eight shots were fired, and described the assailants as a Mexican military unit dressed in military-style uniforms with tactical vests and carrying "high-powered military rifles with bayonets."
As they began to receive fire, Weeks said the BP agents identified themselves in Spanish, but "were nonetheless pursued by some of the soldiers," who crossed into the United States by entering through a well-maintained barbed-wire fence. As the Mexican soldiers came after the border agents, other soldiers set up a pair of sniper positions - one inside Mexico and the other inside the U.S., "pointing their weapons in the direction of the [agents]," said Weeks. The soldiers, in Spanish, ordered the agents out of the brush, but they refused. Instead, the agents re-identified themselves and ordered the soldiers to return to Mexico. "Once other Border Patrol agents neared the scene," Weeks said, "the soldiers retreated to Mexico and drove off in a minivan."
In March 2002, a Border Patrol officer near San Diego once again encountered four men who appeared to be Mexican soldiers; they were armed with three submachine guns and one M-16 rifle, and crossed the border near Tecate, Mexico, while on a counter-drug mission, Border Patrol spokesman James Jacques said. They were all dressed in camouflage fatigues.
The Border Patrol agent, who was not identified in press reports, said he was following footsteps left by the Mexican patrol. When he encountered them, one of the Mexican soldiers had his sidearm unholstered. The agent then unholstered his sidearm and identified himself. He told superiors the Mexican troopers then realized they were inside the U.S. and cooperated with the Border Patrol agent, who took them to a nearby Border Patrol station.
"This could easily have escalated into a real tragedy," Jacques told reporters. "Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed."
In May 2002, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., demanded an in-depth investigation after yet another incident in Arizona in which at least one shot was fired at a Border Patrol agent. In what Tancredo labeled "another Mexican military incursion," and what the Border Patrol agent on the scene called "an act of war," the incident was serious enough to cause the INS to issue a statement indicating the U.S. government had asked Mexico City to explain what happened.
This attack occurred along the U.S.-Mexico border near Ajo, Ariz. According to Border Patrol sources, the Tohono O'odham [Indian Reservation] Police Department encountered a Mexican army unit about 8:30 p.m. local time, along the Santa Cruz trail inside the Papago Farms border patrol area, just south of Forest Road 21. The area is between five and 10 miles inside Arizona.
"Everyone keeps claiming that these 'incursions' don't take place, that people are just getting lost, and the whole idea of incursions is erroneous," Tancredo complained. "Unless we open our eyes and recognize that what's happening along the U.S.-Mexico border is real, one of our guys is going to get killed."
In the months that followed, that's just what happened.
Go to Part II
