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Thugs working for Mexican drug cartels kidnapped the 12-year-old daughter of a ranch foreman in New Mexico, holding the girl for ransom until her family and neighbors came up with $80,000 for her release. They didn’t dare call law enforcement for help because of very real fears their calls would be monitored by the kidnappers using sophisticated communications relay stations erected on U.S. public lands. That was one of the most shocking stories four congressmen heard last week while visiting hot spots along the New Mexico, Arizona and Texas border, where specific American law enforcement officers are being targeted for...

With 48 slain in first 6 months of 2010, 2009 toll of 80 may be exceededForty-eight Americans were killed in Mexico during the first six months of 2010 — a deadly pace that appears likely to exceed any previous year of homicides on record, according to the Houston Chronicle's analysis of the U.S. State Department's death registry. The tally doesn't include two Texans reported killed Sept. 30 in separate incidents in isolated areas of Tamaulipas, where the terrorist group known as the Zetas has been warring with their Gulf Cartel rivals in communities all along the Southeast Texas border. A...

Zapata County's sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez has told CBS News he has blood evidence from the lifevest of Tiffany Hartley, the wife of David Hartley, that supports her account of a pirate attack on a lake that straddles the Texas-Mexico border. CBS News correspondent Don Teague reported on "The Early Show" this evidence is in addition to witness testimony that supports Tiffany Hartley's story that her husband was shot in the head by pirates on Mexico side of Falcon Lake. David Hartley is presumed dead, and officials on both the U.S. and Mexican sides of the lake are searching for his...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican marines found the dumped bodies of 72 people at a rural location in northern Mexico following a shootout with suspected drug cartel gunmen that left one marine and three suspects dead, the Navy reported late Tuesday. The cadavers of 58 men and 14 women were found at a spot near the Gulf coast south of the border city of Matamoros. It appears to be the largest drug-cartel body dumping ground found in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug trafficking in late 2006. "The federal government categorically condemns the barbarous acts committed...

Two sources inside the Laredo Police Department confirmed the incident is unfolding and they would continue to coordinate with U.S. Border Patrol today. “We consider this an act of war,” said one police officer on the ground near the scene. There is a news blackout of this incident at this time and the sources inside Laredo PD spoke on the condition of anonymity.

ROMA — Texas Department of Public Safety officials didn’t know Jose Arturo Santa Cruz Cruz was a suspect in a recent slaying when they arrested him. DPS took the Mexican national into custody Sunday on a charge of unlawfully carrying a weapon and then handed the man over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, said Roma police Capt. Francisco Garcia. It wasn’t until Monday morning that investigators in Roma were able to put the pieces together and identify Cruz as the prime suspect in a fatal shooting that occurred last week. Cruz, 21, allegedly shot Lauro Gonzalez several times...

Once again a violent crime - the murder of another Hispanic male in Phoenix -- and once again, another illegal alien attempts to kills Phoenix cops.

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico - Dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks targeting two army garrisons in northern Mexico, touching off firefights that killed 18 attackers. The attempts to blockade soldiers inside their bases -- part of seven near-simultaneous attacks across two northern states -- appeared to mark a serious escalation in Mexico's drug war, in which cartel gunmen attacked in unit-size forces armed with bulletproof vehicles, dozens of hand grenades and assault rifles. While drug gunmen frequently shoot at soldiers on patrol, they seldom target army bases, and even more rarely attack in the force displayed during the confrontations...

FORT HANCOCK, Texas (AP) - When black SUVs trail school buses around here, no one dismisses it as routine traffic. And when three tough-looking Mexican men pace around the high school gym during a basketball game, no one assumes they're just fans. Fear has settled over this border town of 1,700, about 50 miles southeast of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, epicenter of that country's bloody drug war. Mexican families fleeing the violence have moved here or just sent their children, and authorities and residents say gangsters have followed them across the Rio Grande to apply terrifying, though so far subtle, intimidation....