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NUEVO PROGRESO — Mexican authorities refused to release details Monday of the deadly weekend shooting that sent hundreds of American tourists scurrying for cover as at least two people were gunned down. No U.S. casualties have been reported in the Saturday afternoon gun battle that erupted at the end of a city-organized celebration to welcome Winter Texans back to this popular tourist spot. While two people were reportedly killed, it is unclear whether rumors of higher death tolls are unfounded or if any bystanders were harmed in the volley of gunfire. U.S. authorities offered few details of their own, saying...

HOUSTON - Special teams of Texas Rangers will be deployed to the Texas-Mexico border to deal with increasing violence because the federal government has failed to address growing problems there, Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday. "It is an expansive effort with the Rangers playing a more high-profile role than they've ever played before," Perry said of the Department of Public Safety's elite investigative unit. The forces, dubbed "Ranger recon" teams, are the latest effort "to fill the gap that's been left by the federal government's ongoing failure to adequately secure our international border with Mexico," he said. "They'll be deployed...

SOUTH OF SAN JUAN — A group of suspected drug smugglers attacked two U.S. Border Patrol agents with rocks during a chase near the Rio Grande on Thursday evening. Agents were following a vehicle loaded with marijuana when the driver stopped at the riverbank and fled on foot, Border Patrol spokesman John Lopez said. As agents approached the vehicle to retrieve the drugs, five men emerged from the dense brush and began hurling large rocks at them. “For what reason, that’s unknown to us,” Lopez said about the group’s possible motive. “But the danger presented by a rock in that...

The weathered face and dusty garb gazed at the white metal cross stretching toward the blue-desert sky. "This should not have happened," explained Britt Craig, a Minuteman who shares his time between his home in Mission Viejo and his calling, Campo. The newly erected cross marks the spot where, officials say, a smuggling suspect gunned down Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas more than a week ago.

“Undocumented Obamanation Citizens” vs. Real Americans The Obamanation won’t even use the term “illegal alien,” let alone criminal invader, illegal immigrant or illegitimate migrant. They prefer their politically motivated term “undocumented citizen” to describe the 20 million illegal invaders already sucking the life out of the public trough, and their families yet to arrive. I will be called a “bigot” or a “racist” thug for calling them anything but “undocumented Americans,” which only proves just how insanely ignorant too many Americans really are today. So will you, if you dare to speak the truth anywhere in public, on any number...

AUSTIN — Mexican drug cartel violence is not spilling into Texas, several frustrated border mayors told a state legislative committee Monday in an effort to dispel public perceptions that their communities are under siege. “For me to believe that our cities are so endangered by all this violence that we need to send the military to the border is a knee-jerk reaction,” McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez told the House Border and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. Cortez, mayor for 19 years, said his daughter in San Antonio recently called to express apprehension about his re-election because of fears he might become an...

EL PASO, Texas -- An El Paso woman said she is lucky she made it home safely after she says she was a victim of an attempted carjacking in Juarez on Sunday. "I thank God we were able to make it because there's plenty of people who don't," Virginia Quiroz said. Quiroz and her family were in Juarez when suddenly, she said, they were blocked in by a car in front and a car behind them. Quiroz said five people tried to carjack her family, and one of them had a gun. A bullet hole was visible in the front...

EL PASO, Texas -- Texas Governor Rick Perry was in El Paso Tuesday with some stern words about the Mexican violence on our doorstep. For many people, the governor's words served as a reason to stay motivated in keeping the violence out of the United States. Perry said he is pushing for millions to further fund border protection efforts. "I called on the legislature to dedicate $135 million to our ongoing border security efforts." Perry said the money will primarily go toward "putting more boots on the ground," meaning getting more people on the border to keep the threat out....

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Gunmen killed a police officer and a jail guard in the bloody border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, today. Officer Cesar Ivan Portillo (say-SAHR' ee-VAHN' pohr-TEE'-yoh) was the fifth officer killed this week in Mexico's deadliest city. The gunmen left signs on his and city jail guard Juan Pablo Ruiz's bodies, saying they'd fulfilled a promise to kill at least one officer every 48 hours until the Juarez police chief resigns. The slayings are a chilling sign that criminal gangs are determined to control the police force in the violence-torn city of 1.3 million residents across...

Reports say 20 injured and that five who died were soldiers MEXICO CITY — Running gun battles between army troops and suspected gangsters killed as many as 10 people today in the border city of Reynosa. Another 20 people were reported injured in the firefights, which involved automatic weapons and grenades, according to local press reports. El Universal newspaper in Mexico City reported that at least five soldiers were killed There were no immediate official figures on the number of dead and wounded. An industrial hub that's home to many U.S.-owned factories, Reynosa is considered the territory of the Gulf...

<p>MEXICO CITY — Thirteen people were murdered late Friday and Saturday in organized crime and drug-related violence in Mexico, including seven in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.</p> <p>In violence-stricken Ciudad Juarez, three unidentified men killed the security director of a physical therapy and sports center, said local justice spokeswoman Daniela Gonzalez.</p>

A Texas man was sentenced to federal prison today for lying when he purchased assault rifles that were later smuggled to Mexico for drug cartel soldiers, officials said. Armando Villagomez Jr., 33, of Alamo, was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison, according to acting U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson, who is based in Houston. Villagomez admitted to buying more than 31 firearms during a hearing at the federal courthouse in McAllen, Johnson said in a statement released by his office. The case comes as U.S. and Mexican officials have vowed to work together to stem the flow of U.S. guns...

A live grenade tossed into a Pharr bar last month came from the same cache of weapons used in recent attacks on a Monterrey television station and that city's U.S. Consulate, law enforcement officials said. Investigators have traced the explosives used in each incident to a lot manufactured in South Korea and later discovered in a stash house believed to be run by the Zetas, the heavily armed paramilitary wing of the Tamaulipas-based Gulf Cartel. While authorities on both sides of the border believe the Monterrey attacks and the incident nearly two weeks ago at Pharr's El Booty Lounge are...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Mexican drug gang violence near the U.S. border ended in a shootout with the army on Tuesday and killed 21 people. At least one soldier died in the clashes in Villa Ahumada, south of the border city of Ciudad Juarez, local newspapers reported, putting the death toll at 21. The attorney general's office in Chihuahua state said a gunfight between soldiers and suspected drug gangs had left 15 people dead. The killing spree began in the early hours of Tuesday when around a dozen suspected drug hitmen drove into the farming town of Villa Ahumada in...

NUEVO LAREDO - An alleged drug trafficker was shot dead over the weekend in a gunbattle with Mexican soldiers after the Army discovered an illegal drug convoy traveling on the Anáhuac highway on the western side of the city. Pedro Méndez Rodríguez, 27, died at the scene of the battle Saturday night. Three other alleged traffickers were arrested and taken to Mexico City, according to the national Defense Department. "Members of the 21st Infantry Battalion were conducting high-level operations against drug trafficking," said a spokesman for the Army who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The traffickers opened fire against the...

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican troops today seized the municipal police headquarters in the resort city of Cancun as an investigation deepened into the slaying there of a recently retired army general. Scores of soldiers backed by two armored cars took over the offices amid press reports that Cancun's police chief and other officials may be implicated in the Feb. 2 torture-killings of Gen. Mauro Tello, his bodyguard and his driver. Cancun's public safety chief and six officers from its traffic police department were removed from their posts, the mayor's office said today. Federal investigators arrrested the public safety director, Francisco...

MEXICO CITY — Gunmen killed a recently retired army general and two other men near the resort city of Cancún before dawn Tuesday in what authorities said was the work of organized crime. The bound body of Mauro Tello, the retired officer, and those of an army lieutenant and a civilian aide were found in a pickup about 40 miles west of Cancún. The Quintana Roo state attorney general said the men had been tortured before they died. Tello, who retired Jan. 1 and was active in police work, is one of the highest-ranking officials killed during President Felipe Calderón’s...

An escalating turf fight between warring drug cartels in Mexico is spreading into the United States with federal officials warning that deadly shootouts and ambushes along the southwestern border pose a serious threat to both U.S. law enforcement and American citizens, according to a confidential multi-agency government report.

The men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol guarding the Southern land border come into constant contact with drug and human smugglers, criminals and migrants. Every so often, they even encounter Mexican military personnel making unauthorized incursions across the border into the United States. The most recent Mexican military incursion occurred last week on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in Arizona. According to reports, the Mexican soldiers crossed the border in a military vehicle and held a Border Patrol agent at gunpoint before escaping back to Mexico. While the agent who was temporarily detained by the Mexican soldiers was...

MEXICO CITY — Assassins gunned down a senior police official in the border city of Ciudad Juarez early Saturday as Mexico's gangsters pressed their counteroffensive against the country's security forces. Municipal Police Chief Juan Antonio Roman was shot about 2 a.m. in front of his house on the outskirts of the city, which is across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Another of Roman's police commanders was shot shortly before he was killed. Roman's was one of more than 100 deaths, including those of at least 20 police officers, attributed to organized crime last week across Mexico. Among those killed...

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VALINDA - County officials Wednesday sealed a dilapidated home, which had underground tunnels and fortified rooms that might have housed illegal immigrants. Authorities cited several building code violations for the home's closure, including insufficient plumbing, exposed electrical wires and gas lines, windows that were not up to code and illegal structures. A Los Angeles County nuisance and abatement team - comprised of officials from the sheriff's, fire, public works and health departments - red-tagged the home as unliveable last week. More than a handful of people were evicted from the residence. Six months ago, several children were taken into custody...

Violence spikes in Mexico By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer Fri Jan 18, 7:01 PM ET Rosalba Padilla thought the first shots were nothing but construction in her quiet, upper-class Tijuana neighborhood. It wasn't until she looked out her window and saw a sea of police that she realized the noise was gunfire. Down the street, at the Preschool of Happiness, director Gloria Rico activated the school's alarm, prompting police to rush into the building, their guns drawn. Rico said the children were terrified by the chaos. "Some were crying, one vomited and another wet his pants," she said Friday,...

Shooting outside downtown restaurant left 6 dead, 3 wounded RIO BRAVO — The Mexican army cordoned off Rio Bravo early Friday, one day after a shooting outside a downtown restaurant left three hospitalized and six dead, including prominent political figure Juan Antonio Guajardo Anzalduá. Soldiers searched vehicles leaving and entering the city, which sits in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas across the Rio Grande from Donna(Texas). Some residents of the city said the incident has frightened them, and the residents fear violence in the city could escalate. “We are afraid. We are very scared,” one Rio Bravo woman said in...

ABRAM -- A man who shot at a U.S. Border Patrol agent this weekend remains at large, federal authorities said Sunday. No injuries were reported in the Saturday attack, the details of which are still under investigation, local FBI spokesman Jorge Cisneros said. The incident occurred in the small border community of Abram, near Penitas, where an agent attempted to pull over a suspected smuggler around 10 a.m. The man attacked the agent, who fired at least two shots in self-defense. At some point during the stop, the alleged smuggler fired back but missed the agent. How many shots were...

HIDALGO COUNTY, Texas — Texas border sheriffs who won repeated praise from Gov. Rick Perry during his re-election bid for their front-line battles against violent crime now say they feel like they're on the back burner. Only a small portion of about $110 million approved by lawmakers this year for border security will go directly to border counties for day-to-day operations. Instead, about $93 million is going to state police and state-run operations, the big winners being the Texas Department of Public Safety and the governor's Department of Emergency Management. There are no guarantees that any additional law enforcement officers...

HIDALGO — The U.S. Border Patrol turned over a fugitive believed to have ties to a powerful Mexican paramilitary group to agents in that country Thursday, federal authorities said. Miguel Angel Hernandez Barrón was wanted for deserting the army and separate gun charges, said Reynosa-based Judge Ayala Santos, with the Instituto Nacional de Migración, a federal immigration court. Hernandez Barrón is believed to be the brother of Victor Manuel Hernandez Barrón, a top member of the Zetas and the purported personal bodyguard of alleged Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cárdenas, authorities said. Federal agents detained Miguel Hernandez Barrón on Wednesday in...

MEXICO CITY — Mexican police rearrested a former governor Thursday as he was released from prison with the intent of extraditing him to the United States to face cocaine-trafficking charges. Mario Villanueva, 58, who governed the Yucatan Peninsula state that includes the resorts of Cancun and the Riviera Maya from 1993 until 1999, was arrested at dawn, moments after finishing a six-year sentence here for money laundering. He faces federal charges in New York of taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle as much as 200 tons of cocaine into the United States while governor of Quintana Roo state. Much...

ORO VALLEY, Ariz. - A power struggle between drug cartels in northern Mexico is "an outright war" and its bleed-over into Arizona is a major concern, law enforcement officials attending an annual Arizona-Sonora police conference say. Three weeks ago, some 50 gunmen arrived in a convoy in Cananea in northern Sonora and killed seven people, including five police officers, before Army troops and police pursued them, killing 16 according to Mexican authorities. The shootings have remained a prime topic of discussion among lawmen on both sides of the border, including at the 23rd conference of Policia International Sonora-Arizona meeting here...

Mexican soldiers jailed in killings ASSOCIATED PRESS June 6, 2007 MEXICO CITY – Nineteen Mexican soldiers have been sent to a military prison after troops allegedly killed two women and three children whose vehicle didn't stop at an army checkpoint, the Defense Ministry said yesterday. Advertisement The family was traveling to a funeral in a van Friday when it was ordered to stop at a checkpoint near the village of La Joya in Sinaloa state, local media said. When the van failed to stop, soldiers reportedly opened fire. Police identified the dead as Alicia Esparza Parra, 17; Griselda Galaviz Barraza,...

NUEVO LAREDO — Nearly 200 additional soldiers and AFI agents descended on the Sister City on Sunday, barely two days after four men — including a federal highway patrol officer — were found executed with warnings from one drug cartel to another.Neither the Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (known as AFI, an agency similar to the United States’ FBI), nor the federal Defense Department would provide information about the operation, but new checkpoints were seen in various parts of the city. Witnesses saw military vehicles rumbling into the city Sunday afternoon as they crossed the 26-kilometer marker of the National Highway....

Can a new film help derail the current push for amnesty for illegal aliens? Chris Burgard’s new movie “Border” is so good that it could dramatically affect the public debate. But because you can’t expect the major media to cover this shocking and poignant film, the challenge will be to make sure millions of Americans get a chance to see it. It tells the story of a war—a war just as important, if not more so, than the one in Iraq. On April 23, 2007, as part of the Hold Their Feet to the Fire rally of 2007, an event...

Work is under way on the construction of a security wall that will surround a parking lot used by Cameron County state district judges and the district attorney. County workers on Monday used a backhoe to break up the concrete in the parking lot at the Cameron County Courthouse on Harrison Street as they readied it for rebar. The construction will take from 60 to 90 days depending on the weather, said County Administrator Pete Sepulveda Jr. Although the estimated cost of the wall is $240,000, Sepulveda anticipates it will be “much less than that” because the work is being...

MEXICO CITY — Federal police said Friday they have arrested two drug smugglers who strained Mexico's relations with the United States by disguising themselves as Mexican soldiers and confronting Texas sheriff's deputies and state police. Oscar Alonso Candelaria Escajeda and Ivan Gandara Trejo, were detained Thursday in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, according to a news release from the federal public security secretary. It said that the two disguised themselves as Mexican soldiers and crossed the Rio Grande into Hudspeth County, Texas, in January 2006. Texas state police and sheriff's deputies spotted three vehicles, including...

WASHINGTON — A conference of U.S. circuit court judges is recommending that Congress approve three permanent judgeships along the Texas-Mexico border to handle an increase in immigration and drug trafficking cases. The Judicial Conference is asking for 38 new permanent jurists nationwide, and 14 temporary positions to alleviate a backlog of cases. Ten of the permanent judgeships would go to Southwest border states, where immigration and drug trafficking cases exceed 50 percent of all criminal filings. The Judicial Conference also recommends four permanent and one temporary judgeship in Arizona, and one permanent and one temporary judgeship in New Mexico. "The...

ACAPULCO, Mexico — A video purportedly showing the beheading of a drug cartel hit man appeared on video-sharing Web site YouTube, and its makers called on Mexicans to kill more members of the gang. The video appeared as the rival Gulf and Sinaloa gangs wage a bloody battle for trafficking routes and President Felipe Calderon is taking on organized crime with thousands of troops sent to drug-plagued areas. "Do something for your country, kill a Zeta!" read a written message opening the five-minute video posted Friday. The Zetas are believed to be ex-army operatives serving as hit men for the...

MEXICO CITY — Nearly 500 people have been killed in Mexico's drug wars so far this year, according to media reports here, despite a crackdown on the illicit trade by President Felipe Calderon. The dead include dozens of police officers, the daughter of a retired Army general, and a suspected cartel hit man in the northern city of Monterrey left with a knife sticking out of his chest and a message to local officials affixed to his body. "Attorney General: Don't be a fool," the note said. It accused local officials of protecting Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa...

A bank robbery at the IBC at Wal-Mart South Saturday night ended with the suspects shooting a police car, then racing to El Portal where they escaped into the brush along the Rio Grand and swam to the Mexican shore carrying bags of cash.Tow trucks pulled out a dark-colored Toyota Tundra out of the river late Saturday while a Border Patrol helicopter, Webb County Sheriff’s deputies, Texas Rangers, and other law enforcement officials oversaw the scene. When the car was pulled out it was surrounded by law enforcement officers in full protective gear. Police say at least two men with...

MONTERREY, Mexico — In another assault suggesting that organized criminals have declared war on area law enforcement, two police officers were killed by gunmen late Wednesday in an industrial suburb near here. Ramiro Calvillo Hernandez and Martha Delia Guillén Moreno, both in their early 30s, were ambushed while attending to a stranded motorist. The killings brought to three the number of officers killed on duty in the Monterrey area in the past 10 days. The incident happened just hours after President Felipe Calderón, speaking at a factory inauguration in the same part of town, said his government "is doing everything...

BISBEE — The State Department on Wednesday confirmed receipt of a diplomatic note from the Mexican government protesting the shooting death of an illegal border crosser near Naco, but said it was withholding response pending the outcome of an investigation. “It’s something that I understand the FBI is conducting an investigation into and obviously, we’d leave it to them and to the Border Patrol to determine what, if any, response is appropriate based on that investigation,” Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said after being asked about the note at a daily press briefing. The note, presented by the Mexican Embassy in...

MEXICO CITY, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Mexican drug gangs are armed with assault weapons bought at gun shows in the United States and smuggled across the border, a report says. AK-47s and similar weapons have shown up in greater numbers since the U.S. Assault Weapons Ban expired in 2004, the Arizona Republic reported. "There is a direct relationship between the flow of these weapons and the explosion of violence," Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexican deputy attorney general for organized crime, said. At a gun show in Tucson, sellers told the Republic that as private individuals they do not have to...

McALLEN — The voice on the phone demanded that a large sum of money be wired to a Mexican bank account number. There was no name attached to the voice, but its owner had clearly done his research. “Basically, he said he was a professional hitman and he knew who our family was and where we lived,” said a relative of the prominent McAllen businessman who had picked up the phone. The family has asked to remain anonymous out of concern for their safety. “Unless he was paid within three hours, one of the family members would be ‘picked up,’...

NUEVO LAREDO – Unknown attackers ambushed two officers in the Mexican Army Intelligence Service in the southwest part of the city, killing a captain and injuring a colonel, officials said Thursday.The attack occurred near 7 p.m. Wednesday night as the two Army officers were driving on the highway to the airport near its intersection with Avenida Dr. Mier. Civil authorities identified the deceased as Capt. Agustín Moisés Salazar, but did not give the officer’s hometown. Meanwhile, the injured colonel was taken to a military hospital in Mexico City. His name was not released. A rare official report of the attack...

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales toured the World Trade Bridge on Wednesday, announcing a new effort to fight drug traffickers on the border.“We’re concerned about violence in Mexico spilling into the U.S.,” Gonzales said. Gonzales announced $300,000 would be spent on a new federal drug taskforce that would fight drug cartels. Cuellar said the money is a good start, but we need to do more, like adding federal prosecutors to handle the border’s busy drug and immigration dockets. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said he asked Gonzales in September to visit because of recent increases in border violence, and he...

In a story that should have rang alarm bells in every newsroom across the nation, armed Mexican entered the United States and attacked unarmed National Guard troops working at a border patrol post near the US-Mexican border. The troops had to retreat to safety. Not surprisingly, the news story received scant coverage by the mainstream news media and hardly a mention on the Fox News Channel. It's a story that should outrage all Americans including President George W. Bush. Unfortunately, President Bush and his Administration did not even comment on this vicious attack on unarmed US troops as well as...

LAREDO — In the face of the impunity under which Mexican drug cartels operate along the border, police here secured an arrest warrant for Miguel Treviño Morales, identified as a high-ranking regional Gulf Cartel leader, in connection with a 2006 double homicide. A police official confirmed Treviño was a wanted man after his name appeared in a probable cause affidavit for another defendant in the same case. Juan "Cordless" Ramos, 24, was arrested Tuesday in Laredo in connection with the April 2, 2006, shooting deaths of Jesus Maria Resendez, 36, and his nephew Mariano Resendez, 15, just inside the city...

REYNOSA, Mexico — A popular regional entertainer, whose lyrics about love and drug trafficking were backed by blaring horns, was killed in gangland style with two colleagues here Saturday, about a 100 yards from the stage he had just performed on at an annual fair. Unknown assailants unleashed a barrage of gunfire into two sides of the 2007 black Suburban the victims were leaving in around 3 a.m., causing passers-by to run for cover in this large city across the border from McAllen, police said. Valentin Elizalde, a "banda" singer in his mid-20s from the western state of Sinaloa, his...

CORPUS CHRISTI - A former Corpus Christi police officer has strong words of caution for anyone planning a holiday trip to Mexico. Retired Corpus Christi police Sergeant O.V. Morales and his wife were the victims of a violent carjacking last week in Nuevo Laredo. The federal government continues to warn travelers about the dangers along the border and the warning is for good reason. Morales is constantly helping others to protect themselves. Now, he's doing that by sharing a story from across the border. The black belt was driving to a wedding in Monterrey last Wednesday night. When he and...

Border Patrol agents, “trapped” between two layers of border fencing could be sitting ducks for Mexican drug smugglers and coyotes, warns T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council. A 700-mile double-layer fence approved for construction along the U.S.-Mexico border, including a Brownsville-to-Laredo stretch, makes patrolling agents vulnerable to attacks. “The agents get trapped,” Bonner said, adding that the gates to exit the fence corridor are about a quarter-mile apart. “You can see where the gates are. It’s very clear. The smugglers know that there is no exit for our agents.” The agency does not keep statistics on incidents...

MONTERREY, Mexico - A lawyer who defended four alleged drug traffickers was shot to death Wednesday, a day after he announced he was leaving the case for lack of payment. Carlos Martínez Gracia was shot seven times and died instantly around 8:30 a.m. local time as he arrived at his downtown office, police said. Witnesses told reporters a lone gunman shot Martínez Gracia at least five times. According to Agencia Reforma, an autopsy performed on Martínez Gracia revealed that he died of at seven bullet wounds, including two shots to the head. Martínez Gracia's body was found face down next...