Patterico's Pontifications

7/16/2010

Burying the Border Dead (Updated)

Filed under: Crime,Immigration — DRJ @ 1:22 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Yesterday a car bomb in downtown Juarez ambushed and killed 2 federal police officers, 1 local police officer and injured 7 federal police officers and 1 camera newsman. Reports say this is the first time Mexican law enforcement has been successfully targeted by a car bomb.

It’s just a matter of time before the violence moves across the border, although it’s already being felt in the border communities. For instance, Juarez victims may be buried in Texas cemeteries — a fact that brings an increased threat of violence to American communities and citizens. As a result, cemetery officials have started enforcing a rule that only people who lived in town or had a relative there could be buried in the Fort Hancock Cemetery. Of course, as we learned in the Ramos/Compean trial, most Mexican families also have relatives living in Texas, New Mexico or Arizona.

Juarez isn’t the only place seeing increased violence. Near McAllen, Texas, the Mexican city of Reynosa was recently the site of a gun battle. Across the Rio Grande, the poor farming communities in the valley of Mexico have seen more than 75 people killed in the past year — a per capita rate 30 times higher than the death rate in New Orleans, where the 2009 death rate is the highest in America, and the ripple effect is pervasive. Read the whole thing and then tell me why we don’t need a massive fence … or two.

H/T A Friend.

— DRJ

UPDATE: In an El Paso Times‘ article, the Mayor of Juarez provided more details today about yesterday’s car bomb terrorist attack on the police. Commenter ng4779 adds a link to a KVIA report that has video of the attack.

25 Responses to “Burying the Border Dead (Updated)”

  1. A real fence would be a start. But we should be planning for how we are going to handle the occupation of north Mexico. The only question in my mind is whether in 10 years Mexico will be our own continent’s Afghanistan, or if it will look more like the IDF occupation of South Lebanon.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  2. DRJ

    you are such a racist. (yes, kidding. i just went three rounds with one of these kinds of idiots on another blog.)

    Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (e7d72e)

  3. I understand that Gov Arnold has sent 224 National Guard troops to babysit at the border. They aren’t supposed to enforce anything.
    http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/jul/15/national-guard-troops-will-go-border/

    imho, this is a ticking time bomb

    ng4779 (a4a12d)

  4. One of the reasons that I find Obama’s disregard of the situation so indicative of his basic incompetence is that he and his fraternity boy advisors seem oblivious to the fact that one single big splashy violent cross-border incident, and they will completely loose control of the immigration debate.

    Completely oblivious.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  5. The next time ‘racist’ is used or abused, ask yourself about its’ origins.
    http://penetrate.blogspot.com/2010/01/racist-word-invented-by-ussrs-leon.html

    Time to realize we’re in a war of words, and to be careful what we’re using to whose advantage.

    nbpundit (861dec)

  6. With news like this I’m glad that we have Janet Napolitano in charge. She just assured us that the border has never been so secure as it is now. She even rattled off some numbers so it was clear she knew what she was talking about.

    Plus, how bad could the border be when the feds don’t want Arizona to help them catch illegals? I am sure if illegal immigrants and border violence were a problem Obama would welcome any help he could get from the states.

    Illegals must be good for us or else Pete Stark wouldn’t joke about starting a ladder business selling ones that were one foot taller than any fence on the border. I mean a congressman would not joke about something this serious would they?

    MU789 (37319a)

  7. SPQR

    I agree

    I also agree we need a wall

    However, to end this problem we have to approach drug abuse as a serious crime – that getting high getting loaded, is a felony

    otherwise they will cause even greater violence as drug use prices will soar making every city a battle ground front line

    got to stop drug use and crime in America

    EricPWJohnson (cedf1d)

  8. yes. A wall. Not a fence. Something in warm stucco maybe with southwestern tile accents.

    happyfeet (71f55e)

  9. AW,

    I tip my hat to you. Surviving 3 internet rounds on immigration/the fence is like 10 rounds of anything else.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  10. Lord how I wish D.C. bordered Mexico – maybe then they would give a flying fig.

    A whole new meaning to “not in my backyard” (suckas).

    em (017d3c)

  11. The drug cartels grow weed in the Los Padres Nat’l Forest.
    One of their operations cost us millions when one of their cooking fires burned 200,000 acres.
    On another grow, a suspected snitch was grabbed and executed in a vineyard.
    Yesterday a body was found in a small brushfire in a secluded area adjacent to US 101 up by the NF land near Buellton…. without knowing the facts on this one, my instinct would be to wonder if it isn’t a weed cartel related murder.
    We will see over the next few days.

    SteveG (ce5f07)

  12. –maybe with southwestern tile accents–

    Yes feets, sharp, jagged, shards of tile.

    elissa (40cbc5)

  13. “Mexican Army officials say initial forensic studies reveal 10 kilos (22 pounds) of C-4 which were detonated via cell phone in the deadly attack on federal police in Juarez Thursday night, according to Notimex news agency in Mexico.”

    http://www.kvia.com/news/24285438/detail.html

    Narcoterrorism

    ng4779 (4d2079)

  14. I think they usually use broken glass… which deters no one. I’ve seen little boys with bare feet throw a rug onto the top of a glass shard topped wall and be up and on the roofs of house (running from one to the next throwing rocks down at rivals) in about 2.5 seconds.
    So the wall might as well look good, because it really isn’t going to do more than slow them down a little bit.

    I will say this though… by walling off the easy spots, we can force the illegals to cross into increasingly inhospitable territory (which has been the strategy anyway…. don’t let the illegals disappear into neighborhoods on the border)
    As much as that deters most Americans, my experience with Mexican illegals is that they tough it out. I’ve heard of guys who have packed into the back of a tractor trailer; standing shoulder to shoulder for 48 hours who have done this 3 times (they go home for Christmas and smuggle back in for the work season)
    I’ve heard of others who smuggle in through the desert again and again because it works for them… they know how the drill goes and they realize if you can’t carry your own water and can’t keep up you will be left to die… I’ve heard of women who have been alone in drop houses with up to 70 men; they barricaded themselves in a closet and hope the coyotes don’t turn them out… and they have done this 2-3 times.

    My wife is Mexican, she has relatives and people she knew back in Mexico who are here illegally and she tells me their stories (granted some pay to be walked across past the paid off Border Patrol guy too)
    But over all, I have always found Mexicans to be a very resourceful and inventive people. A wall won’t stop them, it’ll just make them work a little harder to defeat it.

    SteveG (ce5f07)

  15. I updated the post with a link to an El Paso Times article on yesterday’s car bomb attack.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  16. A tangent on the topic. As far as the feds suit against Arizona, I have a question. Since the Fed’s main point is that we can’t have multiple versions of immigration law in different areas, it would seem reasonable to think that areas where local laws contradict federal law should be the first to be challeneged, in other words, “sanctuary cities” and the like. Since such conflcts have existed for years with no effort by the feds to end the practice, can AZ bring that up? I believe inconsistent enforcement of law/regulations raises the question of selective persecution rather then principled opposition.

    Back to the topic at hand, how long will it take someone to complain about the US smuggling C-4 into Mexico??

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  17. MD in Philly, or the Obama administration’s explicit choice to not enforce drug laws in the US states with “medical marijuana” statutes.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  18. DRJ, you’re one of the best and more level headed border bloggers. Thanks and keep this up.

    Dustin (b54cdc)

  19. Texas is a big state with a big border and a wealth of Hispanic heritage that makes it one of the finest places to live in the 48.

    I can’t speak for other southern border states, but native Texans have a rather low tolerance for disruptions that may upset our friendly and heartfelt camaraderie with the Mexican states across the Rio Grande.

    But I can say that politics and the American propensity for illegal drugs is leading to the point that fair-minded Texans may have to make a choice between a war with the drug cartels and a soft federal government more interested in potential votes than the safety of its citizens.

    Ag80 (363d6e)

  20. @6 MU789 — Heh!

    Pons Asinorum (7bcd43)

  21. There’s video of the Juarez car bomb attack in the updated link, and it reminds me of how insurgents videotaped and released videos of their attacks on American troops in Iraq. I wonder if that’s happening here, too. On the other hand, the video could have been taken by a security camera in the area.

    DRJ (d43dcd)

  22. I’m sorry this is happening, but I suspect it will be used to pressure the US into accepting “refugees.”

    Patricia (358f54)

  23. “Juarez isn’t the only place seeing increased violence. Near McAllen, Texas, the Mexican city of Reynosa was recently the site of a gun battle.”

    Having lived in McAllen for the better part of the last 3 decades, this “war” is the main reason we never travel to Reynosa anymore, and that is a shame.

    GM Roper (5f13e9)

  24. The sad thing I see here is that President of Mexico went to Washington and addressed a join congress and blamed the USA for all his problems. Worst yet he got a standing ovation for it. I live in New Mexico and we see drugs coming through here too. It is not only the immigration laws our government is not enforcing, it seems that anything relate with the border is ignored.

    savage24 (1032f1)

  25. “Everywhere we go, we’re stopped,” he says. County Commissioner Jim Ed Miller says agents have repeatedly torn up his farm property by driving through it. And though he’s lived here for decades, farming cotton and alfalfa in the now majority-Hispanic town, agents regularly pull him over and ask if he’s a citizen. “I was stopped for making a ’suspicious turn,’” he says. “Seven units put the habeas grabbus on me.”

    Well, it sounds like the USBP is not racially profiling; they are asking even obviously white people what their citizenship is. I hope the Arizona police enforce 1070 like this.

    But, pray tell, how are USBP agents supposed to know you lived there all your life? As opposed to the illegal aliens like the 54 now enrolled illegally in schools? Why isn’t the USBP arresting those illegal aliens?

    Federale (325bd5)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0870 secs.