Desert Invasion - U.S.

Document says Mexican soldiers crossing border into United States

By Sara Carter, LA Daily News

January 14, 2006

http://www.dailynews.com

The Mexican military has crossed into the United States 216 times in the past nine years, according to a Department of Homeland Security document and a map of incursions obtained by the Daily Bulletin.

U.S. officials claim the incursions are made to help foreign drug and human smugglers into the United States. The 2001 map, which shows 34 of the incursions, bears the seal of the president's Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The document states that since 1996, Mexican military personnel have crossed into the following sectors:

San Diego County, 17 times

El Centro, Calif., 58

Yuma, Ariz., 24

Tucson, Ariz., 39

El Paso, Texas, 33

Marfa, Texas, eight

Del Rio, Texas, three

Laredo, Texas, six

Rio Grande Valley, Texas, 28.

..."We've had armed showdowns with the Mexican army," said a border agent who spoke on condition of anonymity. "These aren't just ex-military guys. These are Mexican army officials assisting drug smugglers."

In one 2000 incident, more than 16 Mexican soldiers were arrested by border agents in a small town west of El Paso, in Santa Teresa, N.M., after Mexican soldiers fired on the agents, said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

None of the agents was injured in the gunbattle, and U.S. State Department officials forced the border agents to release the soldiers and return them to Mexico with their weapons, Bonner added.

"If (Mexico) is going to put military across our border to threaten our guys, and if their own government can't control it, then we should be treating this as an act of war," he said....

"That number is 20 times larger than even the Minuteman Project organizers are aware of," Gilchrist said, referring to the 216 documented incursions. "But I'm not surprised at that number. There are significant drug and human cargo cartels involving Mexican military threatening Americans at the border. But our Congress has turned a blind eye to it because what the American people don't know won't bother them - that's how our representatives think."

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