Increase in drug and people traffic: Drug smugglers fired at BP agents Sunday, Monday

COCHISE COUNTY -- Since the beginning of the year, U.S. Border Patrol agents have recorded an increase of both illegal immigrant and drug smuggling traffic along the border and signs are that those bringing in marijuana are becoming more dangerous, a spokesman for the agency's Tucson Sector said this morning.

On Sunday and Monday, agents in Cochise County were fired at by drug smugglers, Rob Daniels said.

Sunday, Naco Station agents attempted to stop a white Chevrolet Z-71 truck heading east on Border Road, Daniels said. The driver headed back toward Mexico, but the vehicle became stuck. The driver fled and made it back into Mexico where the drug smuggler fired at the agents. Agents found 1,165 pounds of marijuana inside the truck.

Monday morning's incident happened at Cattleman Road near Douglas, he said. As agents approached the fence to stop some people from crossing the border, someone in the group fired at them. After the incident, agents found 168 pounds of marijuana on the American side near where the shots were fired.

Within the entire Tucson Sector there have been a number of incidents where people involved in marijuana smuggling have been found to be carrying loaded weapons, Daniels said.

Two incidents in the past week in Nogales resulted in the arrest of armed Mexican nationals found to be smuggling drugs, he said. Another incident involving the discovery of 157 pounds of marijuana on Saturday also included picking up a loaded semi-automatic handgun along Geronimo Trail Road northeast of Douglas, Daniels said.

From Jan. 1 to midnight Monday, Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents found 22,498 pounds of marijuana. For the first 13 days of 2002, the total amount was 12,035 pounds.

For the first 13 days of this month, 7,951 pounds of marijuana were confiscated in Cochise County, with agents from the Douglas Station seizing 6,146 pounds, Naco Station, 1,623 pounds and Willcox Station, 182 pounds, Daniels said. Last year, the same 13-day period saw 1,192 pounds confiscated in the county.

Daniels noted there has been a 1,333 percent increase in marijuana discovered by Douglas Station agents this year compared to last year's 429 pounds.

As for illegal immigrant traffic, he said that too has increased during the first 13 days of this year, compared to the same period in 2002.

"After the 6th (of January) we started to see increased activity," Daniels said. Many illegal immigrants from Mexico try to return to the United States after the traditional Feast of Three Kings, which celebrates the arrival of the three wisemen's visit to Christ. Many illegal immigrants return to Mexico for the Christmas holidays.

So far this year, 8,325 illegal immigrants have been apprehended, compared to 7,703 for Jan. 1 through Jan 13, 2002, he said.

Douglas Station agents have apprehended 2,195 people this year compared to 1,755 last year. Naco Station reports 1,769 people apprehended this year compared to 1,392 last year and those working for the Willcox Station have apprehended 111 this year, down from the 191 last year.

The total for the three stations in Cochise County is 4,075 apprehensions this year, or nearly half of all taken into custody in the Tucson Sector, which includes more than 260 miles of the border, compared to 3,338 last year during the first 13 days of January. Cochise County shares about 86 miles of border with Mexico.

While the numbers of drug confiscations and illegal immigrant apprehensions are up, Daniels said it is a little early to say if the trend will continue.

Is America Still a Country?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
August 8, 1997

How did they get in? That question quickly came to mind on reading that two illegal aliens had been arrested in New York hours before they allegedly were going to blow themselves up, along with a few dozen unsuspecting commuters, at a subway station.

As for Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Maizar, we know how he got in. As Timothy Egan of The New York Times writes, he "followed a typical pattern for illegal immigrants. ... He hiked into the Cascade Mountain woods from Canada last year and simply walked into the United States." Caught, he was sent back. He then strolled across the border again, was caught again and was tossed back again. Then, he rode in by bus, was arrested and requested asylum.

Why did he need asylum? Because, he said, the Israelis had him marked down as a terrorist, so he could not go home to the West Bank. How about going back to Canada? Nope, the Canadians refused to take him. So, the United States gave him 60 days to leave and turned him loose. He headed for New York.

But is the question really open? Our government concedes that there are 5 million illegal aliens here. It is a near-certainty that enemies of this country have seeded that population with agents -- for purposes of espionage, terror, assassination or reprisal.

The Times' story of our unpoliced northwestern corridor raises the real question: Is America ceasing to be a nation?

A nation has been defined as a country of recognized borders, with people of a common heritage, history, language, faith, culture, customs and heroes. That was the America we grew up in. We all spoke the same language, believed in the same concepts of right and wrong as taught in the Old and New Testaments, learned, whether in parochial or public school, the same glorious history.

But the features that made Americans a distinct people, and the fences that made America separate, are disappearing. Ours are the most porous borders on Earth, though not porous enough for The Wall Street Journal, which champions a constitutional amendment to declare, "There shall be open borders!"

With 30 million immigrants since 1965, almost all now coming from Asia, Africa and Latin America, our European ethnic core -- 90 percent in 1965 -- is shrinking fast -- to the delight of our president, who looks to the day soon when we are a nation of "minorities." We no longer worship the same God, share the same ideas of morality, admire the same heroes or celebrate the same holidays.

"Do you realize that there are 200 languages spoken in the Chicago school system? That's an asset, not a liability," Newt Gingrich recently burbled to Joe Klein. Oh. I thought the scattering of the peoples at the Tower of Babel, when the Lord confused their languages, was a punishment, not a blessing.

How much "diversity" can we tolerate before we cease to be one nation and one people? What do we have in common anymore?

"I am an American!" was once a boast every bit as proud as "Civis Romanus Sum!" -- I am a citizen of Rome. In the early '60s, there was a debate over whether Churchill should be declared an honorary U.S. citizen; only Lafayette had been accorded the honor. Such was the reverence in which citizenship was held. Last year, the Clintonites swore in 180,000 people as citizens, without even a check for a criminal record, so they could vote for Bill Clinton.

Not to worry, we are told, we Americans are held together by a Constitution and a belief in democracy. But the quarrels over what the Constitution says -- about gay rights, school prayer, abortion, quotas, the right to burn a flag -- are the cause of our culture wars. As for a belief in democracy, is there anybody you know who would die to keep democracy alive in Marion Barry's Washington, D.C.?

"Providence has been pleased to give this one unconnected country to one united people ... descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs ... " So exulted John Jay in The Federalist Papers, No. 2. Jay would today be charged with a hate crime against diversity.

PJB

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