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<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - California communities will be reimbursed for the hundreds of millions of dollars they have spent on security since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge pledged during an appearance before the state's fire and police chiefs.</p>

RANCH RESCUE BACK IN THE SADDLE, GOING BACK TO JIM HOGG COUNTY ! http://www.ranchrescue.com/texas.htm#falcon From what I see on the Operation Ranch Rescue website they have regrouped and are going back in strength.  It is my understanding that the usual number of participants is 50.   This time they are putting together about 200 (sounds like FReeping to me!) and are headed back at the end of the month.  It looks like there will be a LOT of documentation going on, I suppose County Sheriff E-Raz-Mo is gonna have some `splanin to do. GO TEAM! Check out the site link and...

Four U.S. Marine Corps reservists stationed at Fort Bliss died late Wednesday when their AH1W Super Cobra helicopters crashed while providing night-time support to a Border Patrol counterdrug mission in South Texas. The Cobras, working with Joint Strike Force Six and carrying two-person crews, went down near Falcon State Park on the U.S.-Mexican border about 9:30 p.m., according to a press release from Armando Carrasco, spokesman for Joint Task Force Six. The site is about 700 miles from El Paso, midway between Laredo and McAllen. Carrasco said the crews were part of Detachment A Helicopter Marine Light Attack squadron 775....

AUSTIN — A Rio Grande Valley lawmaker in whose district six men were shot to death early Sunday has called for more federal and state dollars to fight the war on drugs. State Rep. Aaron Peña, who lost a son of his own to drugs in 2001, said the Texas-Mexico border region was rapidly becoming a war zone due to the proliferation of cocaine and marijuana, and associated violent crime. The claim was not disputed by Edinburg Chief of Police Quirino Muñoz or Hidalgo County’s drugs task force commander Lupe Treviño Monday, even though the massacre on Monte Christo...

Charles Bowden's engaging new book, "Down by the River" (Simon & Schuster, $27), is about a part of the border that many people like to pretend doesn't exist: the underworld ruled by drug lords and their corrupt accomplices. It pulls back the veil on scenes that ought to shame authorities on both sides of the border into action. The way Bowden tells it, the corruption propelled by drug money is so extensive that it has reached into El Paso's financial and law-enforcement communities. According to Bowden, the Drug Enforcement Administration had information in the 1990s that the late drug lord...

Fabiola Ochoa holds up her new Laser Visa Crossing Card at the US Port of Entry in Nogales, Ariz., on Tuesday. NOGALES - Despite new requirements that Mexicans carry new high-tech border-crossing cards to make short visits to the United States, federal authorities do not have enough machines in place at U.S. border checkpoints to read the encoded information encrypted on the cards.The computer equipment at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexican border also are still unable to read biometric information - digital photographs and fingerprints - that appear embedded in the card, Marie Sebrechts, an Immigration and Naturalization Service...

Mexico Migrants Risk Death to Cross U.S. Border Sat Aug 10, 9:11 AM ET By Deborah Tedford TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION, Mexico (Reuters) - Less than 2 miles from the U.S. border, a mishmash of trash and personal effects hangs in a tangle of thorn bushes, marking a makeshift camp where each day 1,500 migrants prepare to walk the "Devil's Path" into the United States. Under a stand of scrubby mesquite, job seekers from impoverished regions of Mexico and Central America sit on fallen branches to swig electrolyte solution in preparation for a dangerous sojourn in the Sonoran Desert. Scattered among...

TERRORISM: The Danger Beneath August 7, 2002; Since the first of the year, the US Border Patrol has found two elaborate tunnels under the US-Mexican border. One of them had a rail system, electric lights, and forced air ventilation. Such tunnels begin and end in buildings, so they are hard to spot. The Border Patrol estimates that many new tunnels have been built since last September due to increased border security.--Stephen V Cole

<p>Don't miss The Pulse this Thursday evening, July 11 on the FOX network at 9 p.m. ET/PT.</p> <p>Hosted by Shepard Smith from the pulse of New York city, we've got a great show in store for you this week.</p> <p>Are Muslim extremists still getting into the U.S. nearly nine months after September 11? The people who want to bring terror to our 50 states are being smuggled over the Mexican border. And they're getting some help from the most unlikely people. This week award winning correspondent Geraldo Rivera breaks the chilling story of Terror On Our Doorstep. The results of this investigation will shock you to your core.</p>

Wednesday, March 20, 2002 Senators Say Arm Border Troops By Miguel NavrotJournal Staff Writer     A bipartisan group of senators concerned over the safety of 1,700 National Guard troops recently deployed to the Mexican and Canadian borders is calling on President Bush to let them carry weapons.     Lawmakers, including Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., are circulating a letter to the president, asking that the administration's decision keeping Guardsmen unarmed be reviewed. The deployment, which began earlier this month, is scheduled to last 179 days. It includes 16 New Mexico National Guard troops stationed at the Columbus and Santa Teresa entry...