Smugglers planning to kill U.S. border agents, federal memo warns

[Desertdog]

Smugglers planning to kill U.S. border agents, federal memo warns
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4343145


LOS ANGELES -- Federal officials have warned U.S. Border Patrol agents that they could be the targets of assassins hired by immigrant smugglers, according to a confidential memo.


"Unidentified Mexican alien smugglers are angry about the increased security along the U.S./Mexico border and have agreed that the best way to deal with U.S. Border Patrol agents is to hire a group of contract killers," the Department of Homeland Security said in a Dec. 21 Officer Safety Alert.

The alert states that the smugglers intend to bring members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang _ known as MS-13 _ into the country to perform the killings. Federal officials consider MS-13, with an estimated 30,000 members in 33 states, to be one of the most dangerous gangs in the country. It was formed in Los Angeles by immigrants from El Salvador.

The safety alert was based on an FBI report. An FBI spokesman in Washington said he could not comment on that report.

Michael Friel, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said he could not comment directly on the confidential memo but said agents' lives have been threatened before.

"It's no surprise that these smugglers, these criminals, would be threatening our agents," Friel said Monday. "And that would be a huge mistake on their part if they try."

Border Patrol officials say assaults on agents increased significantly during the past year.

On Dec. 30, in an incident that strained U.S.-Mexico relations, an agent shot and killed an 18-year-old man who allegedly threw a large rock at him near the wall separating Tijuana from San Diego.

Last week, agents in Texas reported two separate incidents in which they were shot at from the Mexican side of the border.

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a 6,500-member union, said the DHS alert proves agents' lives often are at risk.

"MS-13 has shown that its members have very little regard for human life," he said Monday. "Some of the atrocities they have committed are truly unspeakable, and it worries me to know that our agents on the line are now the targets."

 

[dasmi]

"Unidentified Mexican alien smugglers are angry about the increased security along the U.S./Mexico border and have agreed that the best way to deal with U.S. Border Patrol agents is to hire a group of contract killers," the Department of Homeland Security said in a Dec. 21 Officer Safety Alert.

Act of war. But don't worry, look the other way, Citizen, we've got it under control.

 

[Pilgrim]

More sensitivity training for the BP agents should help defuse this situation.

Pilgrim

 

[Biker]

I'm sure that I'll catch a whole heap of feces over this, but I say good. Let's get this dance started. Like it or not, this *is* an invasion and needs to be treated as such.I can already hear people decrying the 'plight of the immigrants', and although I don't advocate shooting illegal border crossers, they will be caught in the crossfire if they don't cross the border legally.
The choice is their's to make.
Biker

 

[gt3944]

At first sign of trouble, shoot the bastards..Ive had to deal with ms 13 before on my visit to Guatemala, and these guys are bad news.

 

[longeyes]

It's going to go where it's going to go. Even Bush won't be able to look the other way after a few of our BP guys get gunned down.

 

[Janitor]

"Unidentified Mexican alien smugglers are angry about the increased security along the U.S./Mexico border and have agreed that the best way to deal with U.S. Border Patrol agents is to hire a group of contract killers," the Department of Homeland Security said in a Dec. 21 Officer Safety Alert.

Act of war. But don't worry, look the other way, Citizen, we've got it under control.

With each and every immigrant, our country only grows stronger.


-

 

[Koobuh]

So when do we start actively buying up border land and militarizing it privately?
Oh yeah, the last time a private citizen contended with illegals on his property, his land was stripped from him and given to the illegals.

Some heads need to roll, seriously.

 

[Lennyjoe]

Hey, our Governer asked Rumsfield to invoke article 32 and have the gov pay to post the National Guard on the border until they get more BP dudes spun up. Think that will happen?

Of course, she vetoed every bill in the last 2 years that had to deal with illegal immigration.

 

[joab]

More
WASHINGTON -- From rocks hurled at government trucks to shootings in the desert, assaults on U.S. Border Patrol agents nearly doubled in the most recent fiscal year.

From Oct. 1, 2004, to Sept. 30, the Border Patrol registered 687 assaults on its agents, up from 349 the year before, according to statistics obtained by Gannett News Service.
Government officials say the increase reflects the growing influence of organized crime syndicates in border trafficking -- and the higher profit margin involved in smuggling immigrants across the border for as much as $2,000 per trip.
"Smuggling organizations have now shifted resources to areas that are very rural and isolated, and with that, the prices that the smugglers are charging the aliens now rivals drug smuggling," said Mario Villarreal, a spokesman at the Border Patrol's national headquarters in Washington. "It's a big business."
Drug cartels from Mexico have gotten much more aggressive in smuggling drugs and people across the border, hiring local gangs on both sides of the international line and arming members with AK-47s, grenades and other heavy weaponry, federal law enforcement officials told Congress last week.
Patrolling the nation's borders always is a dangerous job, as agents have been aware. Still, the sharp and sudden spike in violence has taken them by surprise.
"That's always going through the back of your mind -- even if they don't kill you with the rock, they could knock you out and take your weapon," said Jim Hawkins, a Border Patrol agent in the Nogales, Ariz., station.
Hawkins said he has had rocks thrown at him so often on patrol that the incidents seemed routine.
"Every day you put that uniform on, you really got to have it in the back of your head that you have to take care of yourself if you want to make it home," he said.
Officials called the increased violence a side effect of the Border Patrol's successful effort to crack down on illegal crossings. They said the crackdown has pushed frustrated smugglers to lash out violently, using attacks to create diversions to open up easier paths into the country.
But the president of the union representing Border Patrol agents blamed the Border Patrol's tactics for the attacks and dismissed the notion that the violence means the government has better control of the frontier.
"They have adopted a strategy of placing us in very close proximity to the border, where essentially we're sitting ducks," said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents about 10,000 agents.
The agency has put more officers on the border in the past few years, though the increase in violence far outpaced the increase in hiring. Agents frequently are deployed right next to the border, in fixed positions in some sectors, in an attempt to deter smugglers.
Assaults of all kinds increased last year. Only one attack occurred outside the Southwest: a shooting involving an agent from the Grand Forks, N.D., sector.
In the Yuma and Tucson, Ariz., sectors, agents faced an average of one assault every day in fiscal 2005. In the San Diego sector, assaults increased nearly 89 percent last year, from 134 to 253, and agents already have logged 40 assaults in less than two months this fiscal year. In Texas, agents are shot at from across the Rio Grande as they patrol the line.
Agents also routinely report being targeted by grapefruit-size rocks thrown at their trucks from the Mexican side of the border. Trucks carrying drugs or illegal immigrants have tried to ram Border Patrol vehicles as agents attempted to stop the trucks.
Shootings are becoming more frequent as well. In the Tucson and Yuma sectors in fiscal year 2005, there were 45 shootings, up from 15 in 2004. Two agents from Nogales were hit in an ambush as they tracked drug smugglers through the desert on June 30 in one of the year's most serious assaults. Both are recovering. Neither is back on duty.
Agents increasingly use "war wagons," heavy-duty trucks designed to protect against rocks, and carry small plastic capsules filled with pepper powder and fired from special guns as a nonlethal alternative to shooting at their attackers. Officials acknowledge the violence is unlikely to end anytime soon.
"It is a very, very dangerous job," Villarreal said.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Hey, come on, eh? They're just doing jobs Americans don't want to do.

 

[71Commander]

With each and every immigrant, our country only grows stronger.


-

Jammer, you got a new screen name?

 

[FallenAngel]

Call me heartless and overreactive, but I think we should take a peice of land one mile wide all along the border, post our military, and shoot anything that moves unless it is at designated border crossings.

If Mexico does not like it, they can try to invade.

I do not get it? Why is it we should let people freely walk across our borders illegally when no other country is that stupid?

For the people who say they do not support shooting illegals trying to cross the border ... I disagree.

 

[longeyes]

The Marines went in once before; they will again. Only a matter of time the way things are developing.

 

[Kodiaz]

excuse me for going of topic but what is ms 13 I've never heard of them

 

[Zedicus]

excuse me for going of topic but what is ms 13 I've never heard of them

Google is your Friend

 

[Ridge]

I agree with Biker on this one,we should start gearing up for a war.

If the government won't handle it then it's going to come down to the Citizens of the U.S. taking these guys out,they've basicly declared war on us so why not give back what they've been all to happy to dole out.

 

[Janitor]

Interesting related thread that started this morning -

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=176153

 

[captain obvious]

If we had heeded these kinds of warning a couple of years ago, a few thousand lives might not have been lost.

Why isn't this getting more press - oh wait, that's right :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

All I can I say is bring back the militia system, with or without federal help.

 

[Waitone]

Lemme see if I got it right.

--Bush says border jumpers are good hardworkin' people who do the work 'Murican won't do.

--BP sends out a memo saying Mexican hit men will go after our BP.

--I find it suspicious the US can't find a single hitman willing to work at wages so low that we have to get 'em from Mexico. See what happens when you start bringing in cheap Mexican labor. Pretty soon the only people willing to kill BP agents will be those the agents want to round up.

It has gone too far. I demand our government raise the price of a hit to the level that 'Muricans can afford to work at.

All seriousness aside. See what happens when the US pushes back ever so gently? I wonder what the reaction would be if the US gave Mexico a true all-American "Welcome to the NFL" moment.

 

[walking arsenal]

Let's get this dance started.

Agreed. I'd even volunteer myself for that one. If you want somthing done right......................

I think we should take a peice of land one mile wide all along the border, post our military, and shoot anything that moves unless it is at designated border crossings.

Yeah, but lets make the mile wide strip on their side. No sense wasting more of this country than we need to.

 

[longeyes]

creative destruction

Brewing just below the surface is the class struggle of the American taxpayer (The Many) versus the elites (The Few). Our Government is, of course, part of that second group. Does anyone here really believe that with the current crew in power that we are going to take on Mexico and the people who run it? The first time the American people try to solve this problem on their own, the U.S. .gov will be all over us. Now, long run, that is probably just fine, however, because it is going to take something like that to make clear to the majority that their interests are no longer listened to, much less represented by the people in D.C.

MS-13 is the ugly reality that gives the lie to the sentimental myths about illegal immigration being spread by everyone from Mainstream Media to the President himself.

 

[shecky]

This sounds like the result of the criminalization of immigration. Just like the war on drugs, if you criminalize something that people want, a black market arises run by the worst of criminal elements.

 

[rick_reno]

Hopefully, the Presidents plan regarding guest workers from Mexico will be in place soon and this violence will stop. Where would we be without President Bush and his plans?

 

[azredhawk44]

MS-13 is the ugly reality that gives the lie to the sentimental myths about illegal immigration being spread by everyone from Mainstream Media to the President himself.

MS13 is a gang from Central America that is heavily involved in drug running, human smuggling and assassination of federal agents and local police.

Trash.

Guys, join the Minutemen. They don't like to call themselves Militia, but they really are in essence. They don't go down and shoot at Mexicans or anything, but they are a civilian core of volunteers that regulate themselves to actively protect the country against foreign forces.