Posted on 03/16/2002 2:15:46 AM PST by JohnHuang2
A U.S. Border Patrol officer has encountered four heavily armed Mexican army soldiers on the U.S. side of the border near San Diego.
The soldiers, armed with three submachine guns and one M-16 rifle, 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, said officials.
A Border Patrol agent, who was not identified in the SanDeigoChannel.com report, 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.
Their identities were verified by the Mexican consulate and other U.S. officials before they were returned to Mexico via the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The report did not say whether their weapons were confiscated.
"This could easily have escalated into a real tragedy," Jacques told reporters. "Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed."
The Border Patrol's Washington, D.C., headquarters did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.
The March 10 incident signals a growing trend of Mexican military forces crossing into the United States.
In March 2000, WorldNetDaily reported that a group of Mexican soldiers fired on Border Patrol officers.
On March 14, 2000, "two Mexican army Humvees carrying about 16 armed soldiers drove across the international boundary and into the United States near Santa Teresa, New Mexico," said a statement issued at the time by the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing about 8,300 "non-supervisory" Border Patrol personnel.
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," the union said.
The lead Mexican army vehicle, said the council, 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 Mexican army 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."
Then, in November, 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, according to L. Keith Weeks, vice president of the National Border Patrol Union Local 1613 in San Diego, Calif.
The second incident reportedly occurred Oct. 24 in Copper Canyon, about eight miles east of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry.
About eight shots were fired, Weeks said. "Once other Border Patrol agents neared the scene, the soldiers retreated to Mexico and drove off in a minivan," he added.
News of the incursion comes as President Bush earlier this week convinced the House leadership to attach an amnesty bill to a series of other non-controversial bills that usually don't require much debate. The measure was passed.
Critics of Bush's bill say the granting of amnesty to millions of illegals rewards illegal behavior, worsens domestic security and demoralizes the Border Patrol and other law enforcement agencies charged with enforcing immigration laws.
On Wednesday, Bush signed into law the "Family Sponsor Immigration Act of 2002," which, the White House said, "allows an alternative family member to sign the necessary affidavit of support for an alien in the event of the death of the relative who initially filed a petition for permanent resident status for the alien."
Why do you think Vicente Fox doesn't want them there?
I wouldn't prefer to think it, but I would prefer a more conventional assault over the slow cancerous incursion of millions of hispanics into this country.
You tell me?...would you rather have 8 million [Men, Women, Children] low income, uneducated people burdening our social system, or 2 million Mexican army regulars massing south of the border?
I would prefer the latter.
It would be so easy to smuggle a WMD into the US. I have sailed in and out of this coutry on yachts of various sizes...It would be a piece of cake.
The land border is not going to be the source of incursion. It will be a 50 sailboat coming in under the Golden Gate and pulling up to the pier near downtown San Francisco. You know how easy it would be to sail 100 miles off the coast and rendeveux with a larger vessell, load a nuke and return? I could do it 100 times and never get checked.
I was just trying to make the point that threat from the south is not incursions or small fire fights...That it is the massive cancerous invasion that has been going on for the last 30 years...
Ridiculous, false and inflamatory...as usual.
I do think there is a concerted Mexican effort to gain back the land they lost in the 19th Century. I don't have the blueprints of their plan, but massive influxes of people are certainly a part of it. I also think that it is possible that there are officials on this side of the border who know and approve of their plans.
Business wants the cheap labor and the socialist left wants more drones....
Its a short sighted view to be sure, as both groups move to fulfill their own self interest.
Meanwhile those that see themselves as stewards of freedom and the Constitution grow more muted...The rightwing proponents brand us as isolationists, and left paints us as insensative....
And it appears as if 9-11 had little if any effect on the current paradigm
Well, it enabled them to pass more restrictive laws, the arms makers are making big-time money, more of our troops are out of the country, and the national budget has increased which I suppose is good for the economy. We spent our way finally out of the depression with the onslaught of WWII.
Extremely good words to remember. We stand at the dawn of a new age, but you and I are not supposed to know this. We should be watching sports programs, the soaps, etc. We should be guzzeling beer, and trusting our wonderful elected officials with the future of our country, but we can't.
George Washington was right. Government is force. But, to the socialists among us, government is their friend, their mother and daddy, and their caretaker. They trust their elected officials implicityly.
Honest Conservatives know full well that no politician can be given full trust. Our entire system of government is designed to limit corruption and the abuse of power. Why? Because our founders did not trust man. They knew his heart was vile, and selfish, but today, we are supposed to bury our heads and ignore the obvious, and don't dare question the long range outcome of these policies.
No! Trust, my friends. Trust your leaders to do the right things, and if they don't, and if they sell off your sovereignty, hope for a better outcome from the next election.......Yeah, Right.
You apparently have never been fired upon by soldiers with automatic weapons.
Where I live, taking fire justifies returning fire. It's an old-fashioned concept called "self-defense."
Any federal agent ordered not to return fire when fired upon should resign. He/she is a sitting duck on a suicide mission.
Yep. The situation is critical but the Bush Administration instead of defending our borders and rolling back illegal immigration in this country is leaving our borders OPEN in these days of TERRORISM and to add insult to injury is perversely ENCOURAGING MORE illegal immigration. Combined these are the actions of a TYRANNICAL government. If Bush does not get the message soon and starts upholding his SWORN constitutional duties to protect this nation I believe it is time to initiate impeachment proceedings. Enough is enough. We CANNOT endure another 3 years of this unchecked invasion and expect to remain a sovereign country.
Notice that the BP agents union had to leak this story. The government wants to hide these little "indiscretions"-wouldn't be good for the "open border" folks in D.C. ya know.
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