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The nation's border czar has concluded that Mexican soldiers who held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint in August did so after bypassing a barbed-wire fence and other clearly visible barriers to cross into the United States, contradicting claims by the State Department and the Mexican government that the soldiers were simply lost. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner W. Ralph Basham, in a private letter to the National Border Patrol Council Local 2544 in Tucson, Ariz., described the Aug. 3 border incident as a "potential lethal encounter involving four Mexican armed military soldiers north of the international...

The U.S. Border Patrol's largest union local has asked President Bush to put an end to the scores of Mexican military incursions into the United States that have put Border Patrol agents at risk of being injured or killed. "It is disgraceful that Border Patrol agents are put in harm's way and our government doesn't do everything reasonably within its power to protect us from marauding Mexican soldiers and others," said Edward "Bud" Tuffly II, head of Local 2544 of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) in Tucson. "Without a forceful response to these illegal incursions, an agent will eventually...

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) responded to reports that a Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint by members of the Mexican military in Arizona by reaffirming the necessity for border fencing and other infrastructure. According to a State Department Spokesman, the encounter “stemmed from a momentary misunderstanding as to the exact location of the U.S.-Mexican border.” "I disagree with the State Department’s characterization of this incident," said Congressman Hunter. "The fact that members of the Mexican military are routinely operating in such close proximity to the border, with no identifiable purpose, raises serious questions about their...

Mexican army soldiers invaded U.S. territory and held a member of the U.S. Border Patrol at gunpoint. "Unfortunately, this sort of behavior by Mexican military personnel has been going on for years," a statement from Local 2544 of the National Border Patrol Council said. The Tucson Sector Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint near Ajo, Ariz. Mexican military personnel crossed over the border and pointed rifles at him. Judicial Watch documented 29 confirmed incidents along the U.S.-Mexican border involving Mexican military and/or law enforcement personnel in 2007. The Border Patrol union said, "A few years ago the Mexican military...

The U.S. Border Patrol agent's union reported that Mexican soldiers crossed into U.S. territory and held an agent captive at gunpoint during a Sunday night incident. The National Boder Patrol Council Local 2544 in Tuscon reported on its website that reported that the incident occured near Ajo, Arizona. The union website reported that the soldiers returned to Mexico without further incident after reinforcements arrived to confront them. It's not clear why Mexican soldiers were on U.S. territory but union officials said in their website that Mexican soldiers have been known to protect Mexican drug gangs and migrant smugglers. "Unfortunately, this...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Tucson, Ariz. (AP) -- Four Mexican soldiers crossed into a remote area of Arizona and briefly held a U.S. Border Patrol agent at gunpoint before realizing where they were and returning to Mexico, U.S. authorities said. Border Patrol spokeswoman Dove Crawford said the incident early Sunday on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, about 85 miles southwest of Tucson, was in an area where the border likely was marked only with barbed wire.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist. Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.

KFYI Radio in Phoenix is reporting an incident that took place this past Monday morning in a Phoenix residential neighborhood. Former Congressman turned talk radio host, JD Hayworth, reports that three suspects were captured in an attempted ambush on Phoenix Police which may have turned deadly. The three suspects were captured with two AR-15 assault weapons, full body armor and dressed in black assault gear impersonating a Phoenix Police Tactical Team.

MEXICO CITY — A government-run human rights commission accused soldiers of rape and torture today and recommended the army be pulled out of Mexico's nationwide drug war. The report by the National Human Rights Commission is the first official document to back up long-standing allegations of human rights abuses by soldiers ordered by President Felipe Calderon to retake large swaths of territory controlled by powerful drug cartels. Military officials declined to comment on the report, saying any response to the allegations would come in a press statement. Calderon ordered the nationwide crackdown shortly after taking office on Dec. 1, and...

Gun-toting members of the Mexican military are crossing regularly into U.S. territory, where they are partnering with drug cartels and criminal gangs to protect sophisticated smuggling operations, according to Texas sheriffs and lawmakers. Some of the Mexican infiltrators are suspected to have been trained by the U.S. military. U.S. Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement officials operating along the southwestern border have come under attack from the Mexican side in recent months, with automatic gunfire frequently erupting, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) told Cybercast News Service. Mexican military units and drug cartels have access to weaponry and communications equipment far...

The U.S. Border Patrol has confirmed that a Mexican government helicopter crossed into the United States Tuesday evening. The unmarked helicopter crossed into the U.S. near San Luis, Ariz., at 6:30 p.m. and traveled along the Colorado River for approximately a half a mile before returning to Mexico, according to a Customs and Border Protection release. "After proper coordination and verifications with the government of Mexico, they confirmed that the helicopter belonged to the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) and had mistakenly and unintentionally crossed into U.S. airspace," the release said. PGR is the federal police force that investigates federal...

U.S. gives Mexico millions for securityBy Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES February 13, 2006 The U.S. government has sent more than $376 million to Mexico in the past decade for that country's military and police to help stop alien and drug smugglers, guard against terrorists and protect America's southern border, including $50 million due this year. The money, quietly authorized through State and Defense department programs, has been used to train and equip the Mexican military and police, drawing disagreement on whether those institutions are part of the solution for U.S. border security, or are part of the problem. Rep....

Reyes Testimony Stirs Concern For EP Dems February 8, 2005 -- El Paso County Democrats say they are in disbelief after watching the testimony of U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes before the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations. "What he was saying doesn't make any sense," said Carmen Duarte, County Chair for the Democratic Party in El Paso. Duarte says they are concerned Congressman Reyes is downplaying the seriousness of border incursions, including the January 23rd incident in Hudspeth County where Hudspeth Sheriff deputies were at a stand-off with Mexican militants during a drug smuggling operation along the Rio Grande. "He wasn't...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military should be called out to protect the U.S. border against military-style incursions from Mexico, the head of the Border Patrol union told a congressional homeland security committee Tuesday. TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Council that represents 10,500 agents, recommended active or reserve U.S. military units be stationed "on stand" at strategic locations along the border. "If the Mexican military is coming into the United States, our law enforcement agents do not have the training to deal with that," Bonner told the House Homeland Security subcommittee on Investigations. The proposal was one of several...

Some officials suggested Wednesday that the confrontation between Texas law officers earlier this week was with drug smugglers, not Mexican soldiers assisting narcotics traffickers across the Rio Grande. But a Border Patrol agent who spoke on condition of anonymity said continuous cover-ups by Mexican and U.S. officials have put many agents and American lives in danger. "I think it shows how desperate the situation has become. I think it's insulting to expect Americans to believe what (Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael) Chertoff and the Mexican government are saying," the agent said Wednesday. "Isn't it the most reasonable explanation that...

With its restrictions on everything from foreign ownership of real estate to the carrying of sidearms by American drug agents assigned there, the government of Mexico has made its touchiness about its sovereignty clear time and again. But when it comes to the sovereignty of the United States of America, Mexican contempt seems to know few limits. The latest example came at 3:15 p.m. Monday (Jan. 23), as yet another standoff between armed Mexicans and American law-enforcement officers took place in Texas at the very spot where a similar standoff transpired Nov. 17. But instead of a fleeing dump truck...

For the second time in two weeks, American law enforcement officers say men carrying high powered automatic weapons and who appeared to be Mexican soldiers violated the international boundary and crossed into the United States in Hudspeth County, East of El Paso. In the past the Mexican Consulate in El Paso had stated that their Government policy is that no armed Mexican soldiers are allowed closer than three miles to the U.S. border. The latest incident happened just before sunset on Tuesday night, as a KFOX crew was on the scene. As a Hudspeth County sheriff's deputy was describing...

EL PASO, Texas -- Suspected drug runners dressed in Mexican military-style uniforms who were involved in an armed confrontation with Texas lawmen were using a Mexican military-issue Humvee and weapons, the Hudspeth County sheriff said Friday. "It was military," said Arvin West, whose officers were involved in the standoff. "Due to the pending congressional hearings I can't comment further." West said the determination that the equipment was military-issue came from the federal government, but he wouldn't elaborate. A U.S. Army spokesman said he could not confirm West's statement, and the Mexican Foreign Relations Department said it would have no comment....

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's foreign secretary suggested Thursday that uniformed men using a military-style Humvee to help drug traffickers on the border could have been U.S. soldiers or criminals disguised as Mexican troops.

A day after as many as 20 armed men in military fatigues crossed the Rio Grande into Texas before being chased back by U.S. authorities, the Mexican government ordered its troops not to come within 2 kilometers of the border. While the Mexican Foreign Affairs Ministry and Defense Ministry denied their military had a role in providing protection for Monday's marijuana smuggling operation into Hudspeth County, the government said its military wouldn't be permitted in the border zone without authorization.

Minutemen release video of Mexican Army incursion of U.S. Border (SCOTTSDALE, AZ) January 20, 2006 – The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (“MCDC”) announced the release today of video footage of an incursion by a unit of the Mexican army across the U.S. border in Arizona. Chris Simcox and a group of Civil Defense Corps volunteers encountered a squad of approximately eight armed Mexican soldiers about 500 yards inside American territory. The Mexican soldiers started running back through the brush to Mexico when they realized they had been spotted. The video shows a uniformed Mexican soldier climbing through a barbed wire...

The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions into the United States by Mexican soldiers "trained to escape, evade and counterambush" if detected -- a scenario Mexico denied yesterday. The warning to Border Patrol agents in Tucson, Ariz., comes after increased sightings of what authorities described as heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border. The warning asks the agents to report the size, activity, location, time and equipment of any units observed. It also cautions agents to keep "a low profile," to use "cover and concealment" in approaching the Mexican units, to...

<p>Troops help drug, people smugglers and will be shot, says leader of armed patrol in Douglas.</p> <p>DOUGLAS - Rhetoric along the Mexican border here is rising, with a heavily armed group of residents declaring war on the Mexican military, and the mayor thinks chances are rising that someone will get hurt.</p>

Trainees at a Mexican police academy march in formation. Law enforcement in the country has been repeatedly cited for human rights violations. Eduardo Jaramillo, Notimex Report accuses Mexican police and military of rights abusesEFE - 11/10/2002 Mexican police and military personnel systematically use arbitrary arrests of civilians in an effort to dissuade the detainees from carrying out their protests against social ills, a report by a local human rights organization charges. Over the past three and a half years, 830 people have suffered abuses of authority by the police, justice officials and military personnel, according to the report by...

SAN DIEGO -- A vehicle carrying 23 illegal immigrants across the Mexico-U.S. border was shot at Friday, injuring eight men inside, authorities said. Three of the men were hospitalized in stable condition Friday with gunshot wounds. The sport utility vehicle was in a desert wash in northern Mexico when it was first attacked. It came under fire again after crossing into the United States, authorities said. Mexican and U.S. officials were investigating one man's claim that the shots may have come from a Mexican military unit, said Sgt. Manuel Garcia of the Imperial County Sheriff's Department. A spokesperson for the...

TUNE in to FOX NEWS TONIGHT TO SEE CONGRESSMAN TANCREDO LIVE on GRETA VAN SESTEREN'S, "ON THE RECORD", at 8:30PM MDT (10:30PM EDT). TOPIC IS TODAY'S WASHINGTON TIMES ARTICLE BELOW: Other guests (at this time) include: Keith Weeks, patrol agent and vice president of Local 1613 of the National Border Patrol Council in California (quoted in article below). Mexican soldiers in border crossings By Steve Miller THE WASHINGTON TIMES Heavily armed Mexican soldiers and police are crossing the U.S. border repeatedly, provoking charges from Capitol Hill that they are providing cover for drug smugglers and illegal immigrants. Last year, there...