Posted on 04/12/2010 6:36:17 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Along the border, fears are growing that the escalating drug violence in Mexico will spill into the United States.
Last month, a well-known rancher was murdered in southeastern Arizona. Authorities suspect an illegal immigrant did it.
The murder prompted governors in New Mexico and Texas to send forces to the border. This week, the Mexican government sent dozens of police and soldiers to the Juarez Valley to restore order.
For many on both sides of the border, the fear is very real.
'Arm Yourselves'
Last week, residents held a town-hall meeting in Fort Hancock, Texas — a sleepy agricultural town on the border, about an hour southeast of El Paso, that looks like the bleak set of No Country for Old Men.
A couple hundred people crowded into the grade-school gym to hear a chilling message from Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West.
"You farmers, I'm telling you right now, arm yourselves," he said. "As they say the old story is, it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by six. Damn it, I don't want to see six people carrying you."
His warning was prompted by the killing of the Arizona rancher, and the spiraling violence a couple of miles away in Mexico in a region known as the Valley of Juarez. The notorious smuggling territory is being fought over by the Sinaloa and the Juarez cartels.
"One of the men that works for me had five people killed in front of his house over there [in Mexico] this past weekend," says Curtis Carr, who is a farmer and county commissioner. "And he's moving his family over here this week. It's serious over there. Whether or not it's gonna spill over here, I don't know."
Nobody knows.
'They Poked His Eyes Out'
The sheriff warned citizens to be alert and report strange vehicles on their streets. But at the same time, he said, don't succumb to fear.
"We haven't had anybody kidnapped here yet, but it could come," he said. "We haven't had anybody killed here, but that could come."
The violence in the Juarez Valley directly affects this little Texas town.
A couple of weeks ago, gunmen in the Juarez Valley killed the Mexican relative of a Fort Hancock high school student. When the student's family in Fort Hancock heard about it, they crossed the border at 10 a.m. to see the body, and took the student with them.
"By 10:30, they had stabbed the relatives that went with him, which included his grandparents, with an ice pick," says school superintendent Jose Franco. "My understanding is that the gentleman is like 90 years old, and they poked his eyes out with an ice pick. I believe those people are still in intensive care here in a hospital in the U.S."
Franco says the boy has isolated himself from other students so they won't ask him about the gruesome attack that he witnessed.
Tactics To Drive Out Rivals: Arson, Murder
The Valley of Juarez has a long history of human and drug trafficking. There's lots of open farmland for illicit activity. It's close to the city of Juarez, a major smuggling point. It's right across from Texas, with Interstate 10 only a few miles to the north.
And the river, the Rio Grande, is no deterrent.
Veteran Border Patrol agent Joe Romero stands on a levee overlooking the international river — which this time of year is but a trickle.
"You can literally walk across the river — and some times of the year not even get wet," he says. "And with the ease with which you can literally cross the border here from one side to the other, this made it very lucrative and appealing to anybody trying to smuggle in whatever contraband they had."
In recent years, the Department of Homeland Security has put up 44 miles of tall fencing across from the Juarez Valley, and doubled the number of Border Patrol agents. As a result, marijuana seizures in this area have fallen 97 percent in the past four years.
But none of this has dampened the drug mafias' vicious competition to dominate the Juarez Valley.
Farmers In Esperanza Flee To Juarez
Esperanza is one of several farm towns in the Juarez Valley terrorized by the narco-war. Last week, traffickers are believed to have torched two houses there and killed the occupant of one. A large bloodstain on the back door of one house marks the spot where the owner was executed.
More than 50 people were killed in the Juarez Valley in March.
Arson and murder are the tactics being used to drive out rival traffickers, as well as the general population.
Along a highway, eight members of the Villareal family stand, their bags packed, waiting for the bus. They say they're all afraid because of the killings. There's no security, no work anymore, and farmers have abandoned their fields.
You know it's bad when people are fleeing for safety to Juarez — the most murderous city in the hemisphere.
Really? I have no doubt that they would.
I'm willing to bet they will. Even armed Zetas can vote Democratic, so they'll be the good guys.
Forgot about Waco, already......Hmmnnn
</kibitz>
Nice collection.
Blessed to have my few acres of desert in the same county as Sheriff West...who has always been pushing for border security. Hudspeth County has been overrun for years by illegals....and Hudspeth does not have the money to combat the problem (only 3,500 people in a county stretching over 4,000 sq mi)
He has done good work asking awkward questions about the games the Fed and Treasury have been playing, but he's got no stroke with which to extract real answers, and he's been very unhelpful about anything to do with foreign policy and defense issues -- w/ respect to defense, he's a throwback to Sen. Borah and the '30's defense budget cutters who had the Army practicing dropping flour sacks on stake-trucks carrying signs saying "TANK". Call them "wooden-gun Republicans".
In a day and age when Iran is trying to get the bomb and Pakistan has got it, we can't afford having people like Ron Paul in office.
Some people might like to make Republican Ron Paul go away ..... his isolationist activists are becoming a real pain in the butt.
Actually...its the Liberal Globalist ideas of those critical of Ron Paul that have made this border situation a real mess....and I doubt that Paul, or any of his supporters, have any issue with individuals defending themselves along the border
It is the Liberal Globalists, not the “isolationists” (the Liberal Globalist perjorative term for people who value the UN and the WTO over the USA), that allow the Mexican border to become so dangerous.....it was Liberal Globalists that allow Illegal Aliens to have more rights than American citizens do
That should have read....”who value the USA over the WTO and UN”....that clarification needs to be emphasized.
Ping!
Some people might like to make Republican Ron Paul go away ..... his isolationist activists are becoming a real pain in the butt.
I’m afraid we are stuck with Paul. He had three opponents in the primary and still got over 79% of the vote. I’m not sure who could take him on and defeat him but that said I’m not familiar with the people in the district.
Redistricting in the 2011 legislative session could possible rearrange the district lines so that he’s not as entrenched.
Will Hurd in District 23 - met him last week and was very impressed. His opponent, Quico Canseco, appears to be running (his THIRD campaign, first two unsuccessful) on the “I have a hispanic surname and that’s the only thing that’ll win” ticket. Pissed me off. Gimme the former CIA operative for the current problems of this district.
Colonel, USAFR
Well, yes, of course, and I carry no portfolio for the globalists, let me make that clear. I don't carry water for the Bohemian Club and other people like that.
Still, is it too much to ask of a Republican that he act to defend the country and appropriate proper funding for our prophylactic worldwide engagements? Washington's advice is no longer operative in a world where hostile thermonuclear warheads are at most 30 minutes away by Loral-improved, AT&T-systems-controlled, Slick-Willie-W88-Warheaded ICBM.
Only if you're assuming that the military will be used against American citizens protecting themselves and their property and not the invaders.....I guess....
Could you be any dumber? It isn't legal here, and as long as there is a market here (where the Mexicans and other drug lords have always marketed their wares) then there will be crime chasing the illegal drug dollars. Legalize it HERE and the crime will drop down to a whisper. It won't stop entirely, just as bootlegging never stopped altogether, but it will almost unnoticeable.
Did you learn nothing from the history of prohibition? Are you really that dense?
Not even a little bit.
No and since you have been here since 2004 you clearly don’t get sarcasm so I guess we will need to continue to use /sarc for you.
“the smackdown of Ramos and Campeon by the feds”
That’s when I knew something was rotten in Denmark. And I blame Bush most of all for not releasing them.
As much as I miss gout.
If Will Hurd makes it through the runoff, ask him to respond to the voter guides before the November election.
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