Mexican military incursions into U.S.

On January 15, the Daily Bulletin of Ontario, California, reported that the Border Patrol has recorded 216 incursions by Mexican military and police into the United States since 1996, including incidents of armed confrontation, where U.S. citizens and law enforcement came under fire from the uniformed Mexicans. When the Daily Bulletin's report received national attention, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff dismissed mounting congressional concerns, stating, "I think the stories are overblown." According to Chertoff, most of the incidents were innocuous events involving Mexican forces that had unintentionally strayed across our ill-defined border. Then, on January 24, another "overblown" event occurred, when Texas state and county law enforcement officials came face-to-face with men in Mexican military uniforms, armed with heavy machine guns on Humvees, escorting drug smugglers across the Rio Grande.

Hudspeth County Sheriff deputies and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers chasing a convoy of drug smugglers in SUVs on the U.S. side of the border were forced to back off after realizing they were seriously outgunned. Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department said that Mexican army personnel had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border. One of the three Mexican SUVs was left behind in the U.S., while a second became mired in the Rio Grande while trying to cross back into Mexico. The military Humvee then appeared and attempted to pull the vehicle out. When that failed, the men unloaded the drugs from the SUV and then torched the stuck vehicle.

Yielding to the overwhelming firepower and an ongoing U.S. policy that instructs them to avoid U.S.-Mexican border confrontations "no matter what," the state and county law enforcement officers could only watch as the bad guys got away.