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msnbc.com SAN DIEGO – The Border Patrol says its agents were attacked nearly 1,000 times during a one-year period along the Mexican border, typically by assailants hurling rocks, bottles and bricks. Now the agency is responding with tear gas and powerful, pepper-spray weapons, including firing into Mexico. The counteroffensive has drawn complaints that innocent families are being caught in the crossfire. The Border Patrol’s top official in San Diego, Mike Fisher, said his agents are taking action because Mexican authorities have been slow to respond. When an attack happens, he said, American authorities often wait hours for them to come, and help usually never arrives. “We have been taking steps to ensure that our agents are safe,” Fisher said.
Mexico’s acting consul general in San Diego, Ricardo Pineda, has insisted that U.S. authorities stop firing onto Mexican soil. He met with Border Patrol officials last month after the agency fired tear gas into Mexico. The agency defended that counterattack, saying agents were being hit with a hail of ball bearings from slingshots in Mexico. U.S. officials say the violence indicates that smugglers are growing more desperate as stepped-up security makes it harder to sneak across the border. The assailants try to distract agents long enough to let people dash in the United States.
“When you get that close to the fence, your agents are sitting ducks,” said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. Border Patrol agents were attacked 987 times along the U.S.-Mexico border during the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, the agency said. That’s up 31 percent from 752 attacks a year earlier, and it’s the highest number since the agency began recording attacks in the late 1990s.
Frankly, I am surprised the Border Patrol response isn’t more aggressive. They should not have to put up with this nonsense. When will our limp wristed politicians confront Mexican authorities and lay down an ultimatum? Either do your job, arrest the offenders, or suffer the consequences of retaliation.
We won’t rest ’til we have our very own Palestine…
Shoot to kill.
#21 You? won’t you mean them?
I know….
Just convince everyone Mexico is full of drug dealers and terrorists and INVADE them. That will teach them, and you might even get low priced oil from the deal.
#15… it is true. That is no assumption. The Mexican gov’t publishes guides for Mexicans trying to slip in to the US. They started it last year.
Maybe Mexico can send over some teachers so many of you can learn how to spell!
If you’re presumably American and want English to be the official language, learn how to use it!
Eric it doesn’t work if the illegals get papers showing they are legal. Most employers don’t knowingly hire illegals.
So much xenophobia.
Ah, Angel, you won this argument. It’s all xenophobia.
So you want to kill the brown people because they are looking for money to better their family or just a better life… I believe that the hispanic people are bettering our economy if anything…none of these lazy ass white men will get out here and do the jobs that they do for what the hispanics are doin it for… this is suppose to be the land of the free… so the point that was trying to be made was that the immigrants tring to cross the border were attacking… just imagine what these ruthless-ass white men are doing to those brown people… I guess americans will always think there shit don’t stink compared to the other colored people… and we think we’ve changed, hmMM!!!!!!