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A new rotor was being brought in Wednesday afternoon to be used as a spare part for a U.S. Border Patrol helicopter brought down by a rock thrown by an illegal immigrant Tuesday, said the patrol's Yuma sector spokesman.

YUMA - A rock allegedly thrown by an illegal immigrant forced a Border Patrol helicopter to make an emergency landing after a rotor was damaged. The A-Star helicopter was two miles west of the U.S. Port of Entry in Andrade, Calif., on Tuesday when a group of immigrants began throwing rocks at the aircraft. One baseball-sized rock struck a rotor and gashed it, forcing the pilot to land the helicopter nearby, said Border Patrol spokesman Michael Gramley. Neither the Customs and Border Protection pilot nor the Border Patrol observer were injured. Gramley said he did not know how high the...

Democratic hopefuls for 2008 are sensing how vulnerable President Bush is on border control. The latest sign: New Mexico's politically shrewd governor, Bill Richardson, has made a partial about-face on the issue -- at least in words -- and is throwing money and attention at his state's southern border. If he makes a national comeback from the Energy Department security scandals that all but ruined his reputation in the final years of the Clinton administration, it will owe in part to a seeming shift on border control that mirrors the one that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made in December and...

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Traffickers of people and drugs have become progressively more violent, said Michael Gramley, Yuma sector Border Patrol public relations officer. And last weekend was no exception. Yuma-area Border Patrol agents and San Luis, Ariz., police were shot at, hit with rocks and nearly rammed with a vehicle during a weekend of violence and mayhem. An agent was injured Sunday at about 10:30 p.m. when he was struck in the back of the head with a rock. Agents were attempting to apprehend a group of 17 suspected illegal aliens near the San Luis, Ariz., sewer plant, according to the Border Patrol....

MEXICO CITY — As many as 1,000 soldiers and federal police are headed to the southern side of the Texas-Mexico border to combat rising drug-cartel violence in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, officials said Monday. The U.S. Consulate there re-opened after being closed for a week because of security concerns, and Nuevo Laredo's mayor was traveling in an armored car and using soldiers as bodyguards. As part of President Vicente Fox's ongoing Operation Safe Mexico, multiple federal agencies began deploying Sunday to Nuevo Laredo and elsewhere along the border in the state of Tamaulipas, including Reynosa and Matamoros. Federal...

Border Patrol "Civilian Auxiliary" Proposed Several Texas Congressmen are quietly circulating a proposal to approve 'deputized civilians' as an auxiliary to the U.S. Border Patrol, 1200 WOAI news reported today. The so called "Border Protection Corps" would consist of volunteers who go through a background check and receive training, and would then accompany Border Patrol officers as they search for illegal aliens and drug activity. "These would be volunteers who go through training, don't have a criminal background, who don't use firearms, and who would serve in a backup capacity to the Border Patrol," said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas),...

Group remains unsure of plans for Brownsville FALFURRIAS — The Minutemen have arrived in South Texas but major operations are still not expected to start until October, group officials said Tuesday. About 20 members of the civilian border patrol group met here last weekend to develop strategies to halt illegal immigration in Brooks and Jim Hogg counties. The group remains unsure whether it plans to patrol near Brownsville. “Right now we are in our reconnaissance and planning stage,” said Minutemen organizer and local ranch owner Michael Vickers. “We are getting our communication equipment together and we’re getting our maps ready.”...

NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO - A Nuevo Laredo policewoman was killed and a former one injured Wednesday in the latest of the gangland-style street shootings that have racked this border city for many months. Two gunmen described as "very young" by witnesses reportedly pulled alongside the women and opened fire as they were driving along a working-class residential street not far from the international bridge about 5 p.m. The dead policewoman, radio operator Adriana de Leon Martinez, had just finished her shift and was being given a ride by Maria de la Paz Rangel, who was wounded in the shoulder and...

Police arrest murder suspect who had been kidnapped in NL -A Laredo man, one of 43 hostages rescued from two safe houses in Nuevo Laredo in June, was arrested Thursday after authorities found he was wanted here for murder. According to police, the suspect used a false name while in captivity. Mexican federal authorities found the hostage was a U.S. citizen after he was questioned in Mexico City. The Federal Bureau of Investigation helped bring the man back, and he was extradited to Laredo on Tuesday. Police say the suspect, identified as 21-year-old Jorge Francisco Gamez, is one of four...

NUEVO LAREDO - A man was gunned down while walking on a downtown street in the violence-wracked border city of Nuevo Laredo on Thursday, and an assailant shot at the car of a female police officer, one day after another woman cop was shot to death. Killings and shooting sprees in Nuevo Laredo have become so bad - featuring assault rifles, heavy machine guns and even bazookas - that many residents of Laredo now avoid coming here. The United States closed its consulate here briefly, before reopening it this week. In Thursday's attack, witnesses said a 34-year-old man died in...

ROMA — A day after a member of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang was arrested in connection with the beating death of an immigrant smuggler north of here, Roel Ramirez said he feared for his family’s safety. He also worries about leaving people alone at his cattle and wildlife ranch nine miles north of here, where people from all over the world come to view and photograph birds. "It’s very, very scary," said Ramirez of the possible presence of the El Salvadoran gang, also known as MS-13. "I spend a lot of time at the ranch. (On Tuesday), my ranch...

HIDALGO — A bomb threat shut down the bridges to and from Reynosa in both Hidalgo and Pharr for more than an hour Friday night. "We don’t know if (the threat came from) the bridge in Texas or Reynosa; we are reviewing both," said Carlos Hernández Gallardo of the Reynosa fire and rescue team. Shortly after 8:30 p.m., when the anonymous phone threat was made to both bridges, port officials decided to close the bridges and the surrounding area as a precaution, said Rick Pauza, a Laredo-based spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Officials at the bridge said they...

Some people might describe Roy Lasley as an exclusionist, a racist or a term even less printable. But the way the retired Midland, Texas truck driver sees it, his volunteer activity with the Minuteman Civil Protection Corps is the obligation of a patriot. Lasley is the president of the Midland/Odessa chapter of the controversial Minuteman organization. He and another member of the group, Tony Faller, were in Del Rio Friday. Lasley said his trip is part of an evaluation the Minuteman group is undertaking to scout locations for an October border watch event in Texas. In an interview Friday, Lasley...

Deaths mounting on Mexico’s border security watch MEXICO CITY, August 14, 2005 — A multimillion-dollar border security program launched in June has realized measurable results, but critics say it has failed to prevent more than 100 deaths since its inception as rival drug cartels fight for dominance along the country’s northern border. Mexican President Vicente Fox initiated the Mexico Seguro or Safe Mexico program June 11 to address public safety concerns along the U.S.-Mexico border. Since January, more than 800 have been killed in drug-related violence on the Mexican side of the border with almost daily killings and no arrests...

Gang violence has left its mark on Nuevo Laredo Raul Llamas inspects the gaping holes gouged in the wall of a house in Nuevo Laredo by a rocket-propelled grenade. "It's like Iraq, isn't it? We are in the middle of a war here. Two narco-trafficking gangs are trying to get control," the Mexican radio journalist says. He used to report on the cartels for a local radio station. But one of his colleagues was killed earlier this year. Now he does different stories. "It's very difficult to be a reporter here," he says. "People are too scared." Police deaths The...

LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- Hispanic leaders say the Arkadelphia community was traumatized by the deportation last month of poultry plant workers who had to leave young children behind, but that hasn't stopped some of the immigrants from returning. A pregnant woman who was separated from her husband and two small children and deported to Mexico on July 26 has already returned to Arkadelphia, and she is just one of several trying to reunite with family back in Arkansas. Cesar Compadre, a physician at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and head of the Hispanic aid organization La Casa, said...

COLUMBUS, N.M.- Kirk Zachek's chili pepper and wheat farm is in the middle of nowhere. To the north is a winding two-lane, bumpy strip of asphalt known as state Highway 9. To the south is Mexico and the vast expanse of the Chihuahua Desert. Nearly every day, Zachek spots illegal immigrants crossing his fields on their way north. But calling a law enforcement agency to report them isn't an option, he said. Cell phones don't work in this remote stretch of desert. The nearest land line can be almost an hour away when Zachek is working on his 5,000-acre spread,...

PHOENIX – A volunteer border patrol group discovered the body of a woman suspected to be a border crosser less than a mile from a water aid station maintained by a humanitarian group. The woman was one of at least two people found dead near the border over the weekend. The U.S. Border Patrol confirmed that they were told about the woman's body on Saturday, though agents declined to identify the reporting party. However, a news crew from KVOA-TV was with the Minutemen volunteers and said the group quickly reported the body to federal authorities. Minutemen volunteer Fred Puckett said...

MEXICO CITY - Mexico promised to tighten security on its U.S. border on Tuesday after Washington closed a consulate in the lawless city of Nuevo Laredo because police have failed to curb spiraling violence. President Vicente Fox's spokesman said tougher measures would soon be taken in the fight against warring drug cartels along the border. "Yesterday there was a Cabinet-level security meeting and the president gave instructions to radicalize the operation and raise its efficiency," said spokesman Ruben Aguilar. He gave no details, except to rule out a curfew in Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas. Still,...