Border Patrol Sees Increasing Violence

With the US government cracking down on illegal immigration at the border, would-be smugglers and other immigrants are becoming increasingly violent. This is testiment to the type of immigrants that have been plaguing our borders for some time now. The criminals cannot get through as easily and their profits are dropping. I feel this simply re-enforces the idea that a stricter border policy was long overdue.

MSNBC News

"The increase in violence comes amid a renewed government security crackdown on the border launched just last month. That effort, known officially as the Arizona Border Control Initiative Phase II, “is nothing less than a full court press,” said Richard Bonner, commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection unit, promising the effort would gain control of “what is the weakest part of our border with Mexico.”

A major cause of the violence, say Border Patrol officials and agents, is that crackdown efforts are making people more desperate. Drug smugglers and human traffickers have become increasingly aggressive as their losses mount, border patrol officials said.

The violence “is indicative of the desire by the type of people coming here” to protect their illicit cargo, said Shawn Moran, a border patrol agent and San Diego local union official. “[President] Bush likes to say just good hearted people are trying to come across our borders,” Moran said, “but a number of them are hardened criminals with a criminal past and they are willing to do anything it takes.”

The State Department also is warning U.S. citizens about the violence, alerting the public about “the continuing unsettled public security situation” along the border. The warning says there is “violent criminal activity fueled by a war between criminal organizations struggling for control of the lucrative narcotics trade” and that the “criminals are armed with an impressive array of weapons.”

To think we used to just allow these people to come and go at will is ludicrous, to say the least.