Attacks on agents increasing!

Imperial Valley Press ^ | June 30, 2007 | DARREN SIMON, Staff Writer

[dvan]

Attacks on agents increasing!

CALEXICO — A U.S. Border Patrol agent finds a woman — an illegal immigrant — on the Calexico side just beyond the border fence.

She is tired, starting to give in to the heat and asks the agent for help.

As the agent kneels to help her, a barrage of rocks is launched from the Mexicali side of the border fence.

The agent yells out to the rock throwers to stop, telling them they are endangering the woman, but the rocks keep coming. Finally, the agent uses his pepper ball launcher to deter the rock throwers.

This incident occurred June 21, but on a border where smugglers are increasingly violent, such assaults on agents are becoming a daily occurrence.

Attacks on agents increasing

“Because our enforcements have increased so much, we are seeing the frustrated desperate methods of the smuggling organizations,” said Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Quinn Palmer.

In fact, he said, assaults against agents have risen more than 400 percent this year over last year.

One of the most violent confrontations saw one Mexican national shot and killed by an agent just west of Calexico as the man reportedly threatened to throw a large rock at the agent at close range.

SITUATION ON THE FENCE

For those whose lives are not directly impacted by the border fence, it may seem like a quiet wall between countries where little happens.

And the Border Patrol agents whose work has them posted along the border fence likely get little notice from the community.

But the effort to protect the border from terrorism, from drug smuggling and human smuggling is a 24-hour-a-day effort — one that isn’t just a cat-and-mouse game for agents.

It’s a job where there is a great deal at stake and the stakes are getting higher in wake of the increasing violence.

On a recent night, the Imperial Valley Press spent a few hours with Palmer and other agents as they patrolled the border fence throughout Calexico.

During the course of the night, there was at least one rock-throwing incident but no agents were injured. Earlier in the day, there was another incident where an agent found himself under a rock attack and had to use his pepper ball launcher to defend himself.

SUCCESS FOLLOWED BY VIOLENCE

The border fence has always been an area where violence was possible, but ask agents why violence is on a rise now and they are quick to answer Border Patrol success rates are one reason.

“We are seeing 86 percent operational success,” he said. “That’s pretty significant to where we were five years ago.

“We are seeing the backlash,” he said.

Palmer was interviewed as he took a reporter through an area that has become a hotspot for smugglers — an area east of the downtown Port of Entry smugglers are targeting to get their human cargo across the border.

That is an area with truck lots not far from the border fence serving as cover as smugglers try to avoid agents.

On this night, several illegal immigrants were nabbed in this area.

Palmer and another agent, Barbara Mandel, stopped to show the reporter just what goes on each day along the fence.

As the sun set, starting to cast a purple hue over the fence, Mandel looked through her high-powered binoculars at homes across the border and it didn’t take long for her to spot what she said likely are scouts.

Those scouts are key to smuggling operations and also key to some of the violence. Those scouts, Palmer and Mandel said, not only tell smugglers when to move people across the border, they help rock throwers target agents.

Palmer and Mandel were careful not to move too close to the border fence as they said there is a rock-throwing range along the border fence agents know to avoid and try to avoid when possible.

It isn’t always possible, as was the case when the agent stopped to help the woman only to be barraged by rocks June 21.

Palmer, when asked if the recent fatal shooting of a Mexican national by an agent was a confrontation bound to happen in a period of increased assaults on agents, said in all law enforcement there is a chance for harmful confrontations.

“With violent escalation, the potential for harmful confrontation increases as well,” he said. “That is a generalization for all law enforcement.”

The investigation into that shooting is ongoing.

What agents are attempting to do along the border, Palmer said — along with guarding against terrorism and keeping drugs out of the country — is save lives.

SMUGGLERS DON’T CARE ABOUT LIFE

Smugglers, he said, don’t care about the lives of those they are attempting to cross. They only care about the profits involved in smuggling.

“Without a doubt that part of the equation the public needs to know,” he said.

He said the Border Patrol knows what it is up against when dealing with smugglers and the Border Patrol is continuing to change its strategies to defend the border and protect lives.

“It’s an ongoing deal,” he said. “They change. We change.”

For the Border Patrol, that has meant changing the way it stations agents along the border, creating strike teams to target specific hotspots, and it has meant expanding its use of technology.

Ninety-six percent of the Valley’s border with Mexico is under continuous observation from cameras posted atop towers placed along the border.

If there is an illegal crossing, the Border Patrol will see it.

Clearly, the efforts are working, as illegal immigration apprehensions are down, meaning fewer are crossing through the Valley, and drug seizures are up — meaning more drug loads are being stopped.

“We’re the finger and this is the dike,” he said of the border.

[dvan]

Just give them the promise of Amnesty and step back out of the way! /sarcasm off We can thank Kennedy, Bush and McCain. Chertoff says he can't enforce the immigration laws and blames some of the Senate for acting responsibly. Perhaps it is time for him to step down?

[Texas_Jarhead]

"In fact, he said, assaults against agents have risen more than 400 percent this year over last year."

Build the wall/fence/barrier.

[bolobaby]

Pepper ball thrower?

So let me get this straight... they are trying to stone a border agent to death and we respond with a pepper ball thrower?

How about well aimed .308?

[Enterprise]

I’m shocked! I thought a whole section of the CIR they tried to ram down our throats was devoted to giving the Border Patrol Agents the right to defend themselves against assaults! /s

[television is just wrong]

like it or not we are at war with Mexico.

[samtheman]

Finally, the agent uses his pepper ball launcher to deter the rock throwers.

Remember when Zell Miller predicted that the Democrats will reduce our military to using spit balls?

Well, it's not the Democrats, it's still W, but we're already down to pepper balls.

Spit balls are only a single election away.

[Anti-Bubba182]

"Attacks on agents increasing!"

Johnnie Sutton blowback.

[Islander7]

...How about well aimed .308?...

How about an RPG!?

[ozzymandus]

The illegals know they can get away with it and geraldo will defend them. Build the fence and give the Border Patrol MP-5s and permission to use them.

[angelsonmyside]

“Remember when Zell Miller predicted that the Democrats will reduce our military to using spit balls?”

Thanks for the reminder, I really had forgotten about that one.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

“We are seeing 86 percent operational success,” he said. (”he” being Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Quinn Palmer)

THERE is the nugget the anti-fence lobby will seize upon....I wish Palmer had defined “operational success”, because I am sure it isn’t preventing 86% of border-hoppings....

[Paperdoll]

There is only one answer to this particular problem. Border Patrol must be armed with machine guns to be used upon any opposition threat at all times! PERIOD.

[goldfinch]

A wall might work better than a fence in those areas where rock throwing is a frequent problem...

[rockabyebaby]

Arm the agents to the hilt, permission to fire at anything that moves, problem solved.

[Daaave]

"It would cost too much!"

"Immigration Bill Has New Life In Senate"
"That $4 billion (For security, enforcement.) is a tremendous help," said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla)." washingtonpost.com

"President Proposes $5 Billion Plan to Help Developing Nations"
"the United States provides more than $10 billion a year for development assistance for food and for humanitarian aid." President Bush. whitehouse.gov

PROMOTING PEACE AND STABILITY
"Since 1993, Palestinians have received more than $1.7 billion in U.S. economic assistanc." usaid.gov

[umgud]

We should never indescrimanantly shoot at border crossers, but we should shoot every one of them that threaten us.

[MacDorcha]

Hell, fill the Grand River with petrolium and light it up!

Just start dumping it upstream, and let it wind it’s way across...

[no-to-illegals]

if bodies only count in which side is winning....
we in heap big trouble.....

[television is just wrong]

Yes we are.

[no-to-illegals]

I’m at this point ready to declare the necessity for ‘machine gun nests’ along the southern border of the US. This ‘invasion’ should it continue will alter the complete makeup and society of the United States. Think the politicians are working to stop this invasion? or eventually the politicians are going to have a change of thought and actually do something to stem the tide of this ‘invasion’. Think again, America. I personally am becoming more and more tired of waiting on my tax dollars to be spent (wisely) by protecting Americans. Where did my Congress go, and who are these guys who now walk those hallowed halls?