Desert Invasion - U.S.

Sections of Mexican border called virtual war zone

By Dave Montgomery, Star-Telegram

March 2, 2006

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/13998002.htm

State and federal law enforcement officers appeared before senators Wednesday to paint a horrific picture of life on the Southwest border, telling of violent assaults, running gunbattles, brazen cross-border incursions and threatened contract killings of U.S. officers.

The hearing, co-chaired by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., prompted calls for a border crackdown to combat what Kyl described as "bad, nasty, dangerous people."

U.S. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar showed slides of battered agents, telling senators that his officers increasingly fall victim to attacks by assailants firing weapons, hurling rocks or pursuing the agents with vehicles. One current weapon of choice, he said, is a "Molotov rock" -- a rock wrapped in fabric then set ablaze.

Val Verde County Sheriff A. D'Wayne Jernigan, head of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition, said in written testimony that authorities have received information that Mexican drug rings plan to kill as many U.S. police officers as possible in an attempt to intimidate U.S. authorities....

The Senate Judiciary Committee meets today to begin preparing a comprehensive immigration measure to present to the full Senate, possibly by the end of the month....

The joint hearing by Cornyn's and Kyl's two subcommittees was prompted by a Jan. 23 incursion into Hudspeth County by uniformed and heavily armed gunmen. The incident fanned allegations that rogue Mexican military units are serving as escorts for drug smugglers, assertions vehemently denied by the Mexican government....

Aguilar said the Border Patrol has documented 144 incursions by Mexican government officials since 1991, but he said most appeared to be accidental....

But T.J. Bonner, a San Diego agent who heads the National Border Patrol Council, the agents' national union, said that front-line agents increasingly confront Mexican military and that he was "incredulous" that the Mexican government denied the allegations. He cited four instances since 2000 in which agents have been fired on....

Lavoyger Durham, manager of the El Tule Ranch in South Texas, about 75 miles north of the border, said between 200 and 300 [illegal criminal] immigrants move across his ranch property each night....

Other residents and ranch workers have been beaten and held hostage, he said.

"The stories are endless and are only getting worse," he said.

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