Chertoff predicts “surge” in border violence
Mexico has announced an arrest in the Jan. 19 http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3069 of U.S. Border Patrol agent Luis Aguilar. According to reports, Jesus Navarro Montes, aged 22, was arrested in Sonora and admitted that he ran down and killed Aguilar with his vehicle. The killing took place in remote Imperial County, California, near the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area. Investigators believe that the death vehicle was one of a pair smuggling either drugs or people from Mexico. The area where the crime occurred is popular with smugglers allied with gangs in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff used the death of Aguilar to claim that his agency is having an effect on stemming border crime. He also predicted that the endemic violence is only bound to increase. “The sad, tragic fact is that the increase in violence is very consistent with other metrics we’ve had that show we’re getting increased success with stopping the flow across the border,” Chertoff said.
Some are claiming that Aguilar’s death was partly a consequence of lax support for border enforcement in Washington. “Obviously, Aguilar didn’t know if he could use his gun to shoot at this car coming at him,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R Huntington Beach) said.Border Patrol agents have attacked the lack of backing they get from the top. In a case that still angers activists, the government jailed two Border Patrol agents for shooting a drug smuggler from Mexico.
Powerful political forces, led by the White House, have only begun to enforce border measures, like a fence, in the face of the overwhelming public pressure that also resulted in a successsful grassroots campaign that defeated attempts to “legalize” the presence of millions of illegals in 2007.