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"VRWC5" <nospam@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:plmdm19kd1hvf5cb59bupid6u443msr28r@xxxxxxxxxx
> WASHINGTON -- Attacks on U.S. Border Patrol agents nearly doubled
> along the Mexican border during the past year as authorities stepped
> up efforts to curb drug smuggling and illegal immigration.
>
> In the face of tightened security along the border, increasingly
> desperate drug and immigrant traffickers have assaulted agents with
> rocks, marbles fired from slingshots, even gunfire and Molotov
> cocktails.
>
> At least 687 assaults against agents were recorded in the fiscal year
> that ended on September 30, up from 354 in the previous year, and the
> highest since the agency began tracking assaults along the border, the
> Los Angeles Times reports.
>
> Projectiles hurled by smugglers and migrants have dented Border Patrol
> vehicles and shattered windshields. Agents in the Tucson and San Diego
> sectors have reported being shot at 43 times, compared to 18 times the
> previous year.
>
> Three agents were shot in the leg, and least 20 others were
> hospitalized, many with head injuries after being struck by rocks.
>
> Agents have shot and killed five suspected smugglers in the Tucson and
> San Diego sectors, including a man armed with a semi-automatic weapon
> who was suspected of waiting to pick up migrants.
>
> In another encounter, an agent came under fire as he approached a
> vehicle being loaded with drugs, and nearly two dozen bullets struck
> the agent's vehicle. He suffered a leg wound.
>
> In Calexico, Calif., across the border from Mexicali, smugglers have
> begun tossing Molotov cocktails at agents.
>
> Officials say the increased number of attacks is a result of rising
> frustration among drug and immigrant smugglers, who have seen
> traditional smuggling routes blocked by a border buildup that has seen
> the number of agents rise to an all-time high of 11,000 along the
> Mexican border.
>
> "They're feeling they have to fight their way through now," Jim
> Hawkins, a spokesman for the agency's Tucson sector, told the Times.
>
> "We're taking their livelihood away from them, so they're getting
> angry and desperate."
>
> Most assaults occur in Arizona and California, where borders have been
> heavily fortified.
>
> That has driven many smugglers to the New Mexico border. Illegal
> immigration has become such a huge problem there that Gov. Bill
> Richardson declared a state of emergency in four of his state's
> counties bordering Mexico.
>
> "It's not just illegal immigrants," Richardson said. "It's criminal,
> violent activity that has been spawned by the illegal immigrant
> traffic and by some of the characters who are using that to bring in
> drugs and theft and violence."
Odd, we have troops scattered around the world but we cannot protect our own
border. And they want "faith" in our government!
Hank
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