US/Mexican Border, Insufficient Security

I ask this…How can we have homeland security when we can’t even manage border security. I’ve said it before, how can the US allow such insufficient border security in a post 9/11 world?

Put the Marines on the border, build a big damn wall, whatever. We need some damn border security. Are they really Mexican troops acting as security for drug trafficing? Are they simply drug runners in military uniforms?

The answer is that it doesn’t matter. Our border security sucks. Period.

Bush needs to do something about it. Soon.


Mexicans crossing the line
TODAY’S EDITORIAL
January 26, 2006

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said last week’s report of Mexican military units crossing into U.S. territory was “overblown.” Insofar as the 216 documented incursions since 1996 aren’t reconnaissance units preparing for a coming invasion, Mr. Chertoff is probably correct. But Monday’s standoff between U.S. and Texas law enforcers and men dressed as Mexican Army soldiers suggests the secretary’s unenthusiastic response is a bit underblown.

The confrontation occurred along the Rio Grande 50 miles from El Paso, Texas. As state deputies pursued three SUVs smuggling narcotics, they encountered on the U.S. side of the river several men in Mexican military uniforms operating a Humvee armed with .50-caliber machine guns. When one of the SUVs got stuck trying to cross the river, deputies said the "soldiers" helped offload what appeared to be bundles of marijuana and set the truck ablaze. No shots were fired. 

This follows an incident in November, when Border Patrol agents attempting to off-load a truck stuck in the river were challenged by armed men also dressed in Mexican military uniforms.

The Mexican Embassy denies that members of the Mexican military were involved in either case. It also disputes the notion that its military has ever crossed over the border, innocently or not. Nonsense, says T.J. Bonner, a Border Patrol veteran and head of the National Border Patrol Council. “Intrusions by the Mexican military to protect drug loads happen all the time and represent a significant threat to agents,” he told reporter Jerry Seper of The Washington Times last week.

Indeed, as Mr. Seper reported, Border Patrol agents have been instructed to essentially hide when they encounter a Mexican unit in U.S. territory.

Considering the level of corruption within the Mexican government, it certainly isn’t hard to imagine a scenario in which drug lords bribe Mexican units to act as mercenaries. There’s also speculation that these brigands are former members of a Mexican anti-drug unit trained in commando tactics by the United States. Whoever they are, they’re heavily armed, apparently well-trained and pose a serious risk to U.S. agents.

Which is why the Bush administration needs to find out what's going on and who's behind it. As a matter of border security, the United States cannot allow foreign commandos to operate with impunity inside our country. That should be common sense. But apparently it's not the prevailing wisdom. "It's been so bred into everyone not to start an international incident with Mexico that it's been going on for years," Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County, Texas, Sheriff's Department told the Associated Press. 

Yet if these brigands are Mexican military, then the international incident has already happened. Under such circumstances, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should call in Mexican Ambassador Carlos de Icaza and and formally express our government’s deepest concerns. At the very least, the Bush administration must assure the public that we will not be out-gunned on our own soil.

Phoenix Az. Has had some running gun battles with Coyotes. We also have had a lot of Coyotes holding illegal immigrants hostage. Our Governor came up with a plan and funding to secure the Arizona border. Then John Mc Cain tells the Governor it is not the State?s responsibility to protect the Border. And that He and Ted Kennedy were going to fix the problem.
I was a John Mc Cain fan until this

Legalize pot and shoot the cocaine smugglers and dealers and the problem will go away.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Legalize pot and shoot the cocaine smugglers and dealers and the problem will go away.[/quote]

Got no problem with legalizing pot or shooting cocaine smugglers and dealers. No problem at all.

But I doubt these actions alone would solve the problem with our pourus borders. What this country needs is an immigration policy that courts the labor force we need while at the same time agressively securing or borders. We don’t seem to be doing either.

Take everyone on welfare, and relocate them to the Mexican border. Pay them their welfare checks to dig a canal from the Caribbean to the Pacific, and build a retaining wall on our side at least 40 feet high. That’d be tough to cross. You’d really only have to widen and deepen the Rio Grande. Lots of work, but worth it. If you just build a wall, that would only leave a little climb to get across. It would be easier to patrol the canal with boats than it is to patrol the present border, making the Border Patrol more effective.

Zap Branigan and Spartanpower may be on the right track.

I have lived in El Paso all my life and these border violations do occur and with more frequency than anyone in either the Mex ican or American govts will admit.

Mexico is plagued with all kinds of social and economic problems. Among those are not only the rampant drug trafficing but associated assasinations due to their drug wars in broad daylight in crowded street corners with total disregard for the safety of innocents.

And then there is the killings of countless women, over 350 unsolved murders of young women in Juarez, Mexico alone. Those who live in this region know too well who is repsonsible: the Mexican military , police and drug trafficers together. This is why they reject assistance from our FBI in solving the murders.

Just yesterday, an attorney who had taken on this problem in favor of the people was assisinated in his personal car in the middle of a busy intersection in Juarez by individuals weilding AK 47s. A bystander was killed. A congregation for human rights and against violence toward women from Spain was in Juarez to address the issue of the murders and they were going to interview this attorney today. You all put it together.

The Mexican govt needs to be delt with in a very aggressive manner by our govert. They are out of control, TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY in Juarez/Mexico. Every person with any govt association in Mexico is corrupt…without a doubt. We see it first hand everyday here in El Paso.

I wouldn’t go into Juarez Mexico to take a piss. Yet, the lawless nightlife in Juarez attracts our youth and this is also a huge problem. American parents in El Paso have this worry on their minds constantly as it seems a right of passage for the young to go into Juarez to drink alcohol. They’ll serve a 5 year old if the child can pay cash.

Mexico ought to be ashamed of itself.

MasterBlaster

“Mexico ought to be ashamed of itself.”
Masterblaster

Speaking for myself, for sure I’m ashamed to hell about Juarez.

And also about some of my countrymen’s anger regarding the border wall project. Hell, it’s your country, why should we protest when you decide to build a wall to protect it?

You got no argument from this here Mexican.

[quote]masterblaster wrote:
Zap Branigan and Spartanpower may be on the right track.

I have lived in El Paso all my life and these border violations do occur and with more frequency than anyone in either the Mex ican or American govts will admit.

Mexico is plagued with all kinds of social and economic problems. Among those are not only the rampant drug trafficing but associated assasinations due to their drug wars in broad daylight in crowded street corners with total disregard for the safety of innocents.

And then there is the killings of countless women, over 350 unsolved murders of young women in Juarez, Mexico alone. Those who live in this region know too well who is repsonsible: the Mexican military , police and drug trafficers together. This is why they reject assistance from our FBI in solving the murders.

Just yesterday, an attorney who had taken on this problem in favor of the people was assisinated in his personal car in the middle of a busy intersection in Juarez by individuals weilding AK 47s. A bystander was killed. A congregation for human rights and against violence toward women from Spain was in Juarez to address the issue of the murders and they were going to interview this attorney today. You all put it together.

The Mexican govt needs to be delt with in a very aggressive manner by our govert. They are out of control, TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY in Juarez/Mexico. Every person with any govt association in Mexico is corrupt…without a doubt. We see it first hand everyday here in El Paso.

I wouldn’t go into Juarez Mexico to take a piss. Yet, the lawless nightlife in Juarez attracts our youth and this is also a huge problem. American parents in El Paso have this worry on their minds constantly as it seems a right of passage for the young to go into Juarez to drink alcohol. They’ll serve a 5 year old if the child can pay cash.

Mexico ought to be ashamed of itself.

MasterBlaster [/quote]

Wow MB, that was some good info.

I’m not sure how to tell Vicente Fox how to go fuck himself in spanish, but Bush does, and that’s exactly what he should do. The Mexican government telling us how to set our policies regarding immigration? Then they have the balls to tell us what would happen if we were to build the wall? WTF?

The US needs to seriously reevaluate our relationship w/r/t Mexico.


White House slams Mexico for aid maps
By Nicholas Kralev and Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 26, 2006

The Bush administration yesterday accused the Mexican government of facilitating illegal entry into the United States after Mexican officials said they would distribute maps of dangerous border areas and posters with safety instructions and other tips.

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said the maps, which would provide details of the terrain, cell-phone coverage and water stations set up by the U.S. charity Humane Borders, would help to save lives. 
"We oppose in the strongest terms the publication of maps to aid those who wish to enter the United States illegally," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. "It is a bad idea to encourage migrants to undertake this highly dangerous and ultimately futile effort. 

"This effort will entice more people to cross, leading to more migrant deaths and the further enrichment of the criminal human trafficking rings that prey on the suffering of others," he said. 
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would "take whatever steps it deems necessary to protect its own borders." 
[b]"No government, including the government of Mexico, should facilitate or encourage its citizens to try to enter the United States outside established legal procedures,"[/b] he said.

Rafael Laveaga, spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, said the NHRC is an independent body and receives no government funds. He said the commission is working with Humane Borders in distributing the maps. 
Hundreds of Mexicans die every year while crossing the southern U.S. border illegally in search of a better life in the United States. They sometimes walk in temperatures that exceed 110 degrees.

The NHRC said it would distribute about 70,000 posters beginning in March, mostly in border towns and villages, as well as bars and restaurants frequented by emigrants. 
The commission also said the posters show the estimated time it takes to walk or drive to nearby cities, note with red dots where migrants have died in the past and mark the location of water stations and emergency beacons set up by U.S. authorities. 
"This is going to give people a false sense of security," said Shannon Stevens, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Border Patrol in Tucson, Ariz. "This is going to give them the idea that they are better educated so they can cross the border easier."

But Mexican officials disagreed, saying that illegal border crossing by thousands of people each year is a fact of life and that they are simply trying to prevent tragedies. 

“Without a doubt, these maps will enable many lives to be saved,” Mauricio Farah, an inspector with the NHRC said in Mexico City. “We are not trying in any way to encourage or promote migration. The only thing we are trying to do is warn them of the risks they face and where to get water, so they don’t die.”
Mexican officials also said that the posters would warn potential emigrants not to believe promises of an easy journey from smugglers. “Don’t Do It,” the posters say. “It’s Hard. There’s Not Enough Water.”

At the same time, they advise migrants to travel with someone they trust and bring enough water and food, phone numbers of relatives, identification, and shoes adequate for a long and difficult journey. 
[b]Last year, the Mexican government issued a comic-style book as a guide to migrants on how to cross the border and avoid detection.[/b] It included "practical advice" on when and where to enter and what to wear and other instructions, including a tip to avoid sending children with strangers. 
Illegal migration has become a thorny issue in the U.S.-Mexico relationship.

Mexican President Vicente Fox has called for a "status of regularization" for Mexicans illegally in the United States, which would allow them to remain as long as they were employed. He also has criticized recently approved legislation in the House authorizing the construction of 700 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border and the designation of illegal entry as a felony. 
"What is not resolved by intelligent policies and by leaders is resolved by citizens. That is how the Berlin Wall fell and that is how this wall will fall," he told Reuters news agency Tuesday. "I hope it isn't even built because, if it is, it will fall." 
[b]Migrants working in the United States are a huge source of revenue for Mexico, sending home an estimated $16 billion a year -- Mexico's second largest source of foreign currency after oil exports.[/b] 

The Mexican government has vigorously lobbied U.S. lawmakers and civic leaders for a guest-worker status for millions of illegal aliens in the United States, working through a coalition of U.S.-based immigration rights groups. 
Part of the Fox administration's effort to assist Mexican nationals in this country has included a move to adopt the consular or "matricula" identification cards issued to its citizens in the United States. The cards assist Mexican nationals in sending money home. 

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
I’m not sure how to tell Vicente Fox how to go fuck himself in spanish, but Bush does, and that’s exactly what he should do.
[/quote]

Ve te a la chingada Presidente Fox (this is the one of many variants of the phrase I learned growing up).

I don’t know if our president actually does know how to say this in Spanish though, have you heard him attempt to speak spanish briefly in some of his speeches? But this is neither here nor there, there are plenty of translators in the white house who could help out, and I don’t doubt that Fox knows enough english to understand a good old fashioned fuck you.

[quote}
The US needs to seriously reevaluate our relationship w/r/t Mexico.
[/quote]

Sadly, I doubt this will ever happen given the structure of our country’s international trade at this point in time.

[quote]BigPaul wrote:
I don’t know if our president actually does know how to say this in Spanish though, have you heard him attempt to speak spanish briefly in some of his speeches? But this is neither here nor there, there are plenty of translators in the white house who could help out, and I don’t doubt that Fox knows enough english to understand a good old fashioned fuck you.[/quote]

I have heard him speak spanish, but I wouldn’t know good spanish from poor spanish if my life depended on it. I would like to learn however. Had too many hispanic patients who couldn’t answer questions.

Bigflamer: Sir, why did you call for help today? what’s hurting right now?

Spanish speaking patient: Really fast spanish that leaves bigflamer with a dumb look on his face.

Maybe Bush could just give Fox the finger?

[quote]bigflamer wrote:
I have heard him speak spanish, but I wouldn’t know good spanish from poor spanish if my life depended on it. I would like to learn however. Had too many hispanic patients who couldn’t answer questions.
[/quote]

In California you learn purely by virtue of osmosis, weather you like it or not.

They say Nuevo Laredo is the worst area. 60 minutes also did a segment on a town in New Mexico that is mostly vacant except when drug Dealers or Coyotes use it to lay over.

The latest regarding this issue: Mexico’s foreign relations secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez insinuated that the military garb clad individuals (with 50 caliber guns on Hummers) who confronted the US Sheriff in Hudsepth County Texas as drugs were being crossed into the US were actually US Military service men assigned to protect the drug runners. The sheriff, Alvin West responded “The guy just confirmed that he is a complete idiot”; “There’s no doubt about it, it was the Mexican military”.

This is par for the course over here on the US/Mexican border; these are the issues and problems we face DAILY.

Again, I believe our govt has to take on a much more aggressive stance toward the Mexican govt and their shananigins.

MB

[quote]pittbulll wrote:
They say Nuevo Laredo is the worst area. 60 minutes also did a segment on a town in New Mexico that is mostly vacant except when drug Dealers or Coyotes use it to lay over.[/quote]

That’s right Pitbull, the town in New Mexico is Columbus which is separated from Mexico by barbed wire…high security there huh?!

Also, in Anapra, New Mexico, another small town separated from Mexico by barbed wire, US Border Patrol agents were attacked by bandits (yes, bandits) robbing the train (yes, robbing the trains) and were severly hurt, requiring extensive hospital care. They hop on the slow moving trains who have to navigate a sharp turn at that point and they take HD TVs, stoves, washers, dryers, audio equipment etc.

I can go on and on but I hope you all get the dirty picture.

[quote]masterblaster wrote:
The latest regarding this issue: Mexico’s foreign relations secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez insinuated that the military garb clad individuals (with 50 caliber guns on Hummers) who confronted the US Sheriff in Hudsepth County Texas as drugs were being crossed into the US were actually US Military service men assigned to protect the drug runners. The sheriff, Alvin West responded “The guy just confirmed that he is a complete idiot”; “There’s no doubt about it, it was the Mexican military”.

This is par for the course over here on the US/Mexican border; these are the issues and problems we face DAILY.

Again, I believe our govt has to take on a much more aggressive stance toward the Mexican govt and their shananigins.

MB[/quote]

You’re damn right we do.

Here’s an interesting article I found on www.worldnetdaily.com.

Mexican standoff

Posted: January 26, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joseph Farah


? 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

I’m ashamed of my country today.

I’m embarrassed that America allows itself to be pushed around by a corrupt tinpot oligarchy in Mexico.

I’m mortified that a country that spends more on defense than any other in the history of the world permits armed incursions into its sovereign territory by bands of thugs supporting drug-running and human smuggling operations.

I’m angry that we make the security of foreign borders a higher priority for the U.S. military than we make control of our own.

I’m speechless that this is happening more than four years after foreign aliens entered the country illegally and killed 3,000 Americans.

That’s how I’m feeling today after reading the reports of outgunned, outmanned Texas law enforcement officers and Border Patrol agents being involved in an armed standoff with Mexican military personnel and drug smugglers inside our country, north of the Rio Grande.

The Mexican military vehicles, with mounted machine guns, were, according to the American law enforcement officers, towing thousands of pounds of marijuana into our country.

If this were an isolated incident, I guess we could all afford to brush it off as some sort of anomaly. But it is not. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security, whose main job seems to be downplaying border security issues, reported there have been hundreds of documented incursions into our territory by Mexican soldiers.

“Our government has to do something,” said Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Department. “It’s not the immigrants coming over for jobs we’re worried about. It’s the smugglers, Mexican military and the national threat to our borders that we’re worried about.”

This latest incident, while alarming and illustrative of the problems we face at the border, can hardly be called surprising.

Just consider some of the recent headlines from the border:

Border Patrol warned: Brace for violence

Feds to border agents: Assassins targeting you

Armed standoff on Rio Grande

Border sheriff warns: We’re overwhelmed

Mexican drug commandos expand ops in 6 U.S. states

It’s war between cops in Mexico

The threat from Mexico

‘It’s a war’ along Mexican border

Mexican commandos seek control of border

Mexican commandos new threat on border

Wars have certainly started with less provocation than this.

Despite what President Bush says or may believe, Mexico is not our friend. It is a country that oppresses its own people. Blessed with great natural resources and climate, Mexico is an economic basket case. Wealth is amassed by politicians and criminals ? and often they are one and the same.

I don’t blame ordinary Mexicans for trying to flee the dreadful conditions with which their leaders have enslaved them. But I do blame U.S. leaders for following policies that will, eventually, make America indistinguishable from Mexico. I also blame U.S. leaders for their appeasement of the organized crime syndicate that seems to run Mexico. I also blame U.S. leaders for inviting terrorists to take advantage of the out-of-control border.

These are not problems that will be solved through negotiations. These are not problems that will be solved through economic agreements. These are not problems that will be solved through diplomacy. These are not problems that will be solved through weakness.

Bush has failed in many ways as president. But in no area has he been a more profound failure than in his handling of the border and illegal immigration issues. He has disgraced this nation. And what we saw happen a few days ago in Texas, his home state, is just the latest example of his abdication of responsibility.

It’s time to get tough with Mexico ? and I don’t mean with just words.

We need to put our neighbor on notice that the next incursion into our territory by any military or paramilitary force will be considered nothing less than an act of war. Military vehicles will be blown up on sight. Soldiers or those masquerading as soldiers will be shot on sight.

Of course, such a sensible policy requires that we have more troops and better equipped soldiers than the invading enemy. We need to do it now. It’s time to militarize the border while we build an impregnable barrier from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico.

Problem is the Mexican government doesnt do anything to the problem

Place some American manufacturing companies south of the border, cheap labor =cheaper products for American consumption=less Mexicans crossing the border.

Chingada

Oh yeah and legalize marijuana

[quote]Vasalli Vallius wrote:
Problem is the Mexican government doesnt do anything to the problem[/quote]

Of course not…that would be the equivelant of shooting themselves in the foot. Mexican govt officials (I would venture to say that it goes all the way to the top) are the crimminals, either as a part of the crimminal enterpises or on payoff for turning the other way; they are all one and the same and this includes their law enforcement agencies… plural sense here…from city police to state police to the federal cops, they are all on the take and I would also add their judicial personnel to the list; a top drug deraler convicted in Mexico? Shit no, money talks, bullshit walks; to the Mexican govt, fair justice is bullshit.

MB