The bloody border: escalating violent crime at the U.S.-Mexico border offers a foretaste of the bloody chaos that will ensue if the Power Elite succeeds in merging our two nations.

Mexican President Vicente Fox has made it abundantly clear that any effort by the United States to enforce its immigration laws is an unbearable affront to his nation's dignity. Fox's exquisite sensitivity on that account was on display May 13, when he told an audience of businessmen from Texas: "There is no doubt that Mexicans, filled with dignity, willingness and ability to work, are doing jobs that not even blacks want to do there in the United States."

Not surprisingly, Fox's remarks provoked the indignation of self-appointed civil rights leaders in this country, who denounced the comments as racially insensitive. Fox issued a hasty "clarification" of the remarks, disavowing racist intent and reiterating his "complete commitment to protecting the human rights of the Mexican communities living in the United States."

From the perspective of the Mexican government, protecting the "human rights" of its citizens requires that the U.S. throw open its borders to as many emigrants--legal and illegal--as Mexico sees fit to send northward. But it also means permitting illegal Mexican immigrants to flee south in search of refuge after committing murder or similar violent crimes in this country.

Run to the Border

Despite a 1978 treaty with the U.S., Mexico adamantly refuses to extradite individuals accused of committing murder in this country. A 2001 decision by the Mexican Supreme Court held that it was impermissible to allow a Mexican national to face the death penalty or life imprisonment in the U.S.

Like his predecessors, Vicente Fox claims to represent all Mexicans living in both Mexico and the United States--including American citizens of Mexican ancestry. Yet Fox's anguish over infringements on the "human rights of the Mexican communities" in the U.S. has not prompted him to seek out and extradite the accused murderer of Oscar Sanchez, part of a long-established Mexican-American family in Houston.

Sanchez was on his way to work on January 18 when his Honda Civic was rear-ended. His mother, who had been talking with Oscar via cell phone at the time of the collision, heard him exit his car and greet the other driver by name. Then the connection went dead--a common annoyance for those who use cell phones. But this disconnection proved to be anything but typical.

Within a few hours, Oscar's family, which owns and operates a string of popular Mexican restaurants, received a phone call from a man who threatened to murder Oscar unless he was paid $3 million in ransom. Although it wasn't possible to round up the entire amount, the family agreed to pay what it could. But the kidnappers never showed up to collect at the agreed location in Arlington. About a week later, the body of Oscar Sanchez--a 30-year-old husband and father--was found in a wooded area alongside a road north of Dallas. Forensic tests determined that he had likely been murdered before the ransom demand had been made.

Within two days of the abduction, with the help of an eyewitness to the kidnapping, police had identified a suspect: Jose Felix, a local schoolteacher with a checkered work record. A phone trace of the ransom call led police to Felix's residence in the Dallas suburb of Duncanville, where they discovered "bloody evidence of a struggle within the home"--but the suspected kidnapper had already fled.

In addition to Felix, authorities also sought a suspected cohort described by the Dallas Morning News as "an immigrant with multiple aliases who has ties to Mr. Felix." That individual was identified by the Sanchez family as Edgar Acevedo, a disaffected former employee from the Mexican State of Zacatecas. Acevedo, who reportedly had a long criminal record, had a sister living in Chicago, where Felix was arrested trying to board a flight to Mexico. However, despite airport security protocols that have made air travel all but unbearable for many law-abiding U.S. citizens, Acevedo was able to board a plane and escape to Guadalajara.

"Acevedo may feel confident that he won't be extradited to the United States because of Mexico's stand against the death penalty," commented Marisa Trevino of the Hispanic Link News Service in a February 6 Houston Chronicle column. "And maybe he's right."

As Trevino points out, smash-and-grab kidnappings of the sort that claimed Oscar Sanchez's life take place an estimated 3,000 times a year in Mexico, and "the story is repeating itself in this country."

The Sanchezes, noted Trevino, are not "a Latino family living in the United States illegally, one who would do anything to keep a low profile and stay away from authorities. The Sanchez family may have Mexican roots, but they are an American success story."

"If ever there was a situation calling for the United States to take a stern stand on an issue and Mexico's cooperation, it is this one," she continues. "Otherwise, more will try to mimic a crime proven profitable back home. It's a crime that has turned Mexico into a private police state where broad-shouldered, unsmiling men wearing dark suits and sunglasses are hired to form human walls"--to protect that nation's corrupt but powerful elite, that is, not its long-suffering citizenry at large.

Denver police Detective Donald R. Young, the embodiment of a commitment to "protect and serve" the law-abiding public, found it necessary to moonlight in order to meet the expenses of his family, which includes three young children. He and Detective Jack Bishop were providing security for a private baptism party at Solano Ocampo, a Denver-area private meeting hall, when they were ambushed by a man identified as 19-year-old Raul Garcia-Gomez on May 7.

Neither officer was able to return fire. Bishop, who was wearing a bullet-resistant vest, suffered minor injuries. Detective Young, who was shot point-blank to the back of the head, died several hours later at Denver Health Medical Center. The suspected assailant was an illegal alien employed at the Cherry Cricket, a restaurant owned by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.

On several occasions, Garcia had been stopped by police for traffic violations. A resident of Denver for 10 months, he had never acquired a valid Colorado driver's license, despite the fact that state law required he do so within 90 days. But because Denver--like New York, Chicago, San Diego, Houston, Austin, and other major cities--has designated itself a "sanctuary city" for "undocumented" aliens, police weren't permitted to inquire or act upon Garcia's status as an illegal alien.

Immediately after the crime, according to a May 14 Rocky Mountain News account, Garcia confessed his crime to live-in girlfriend Sandra Rivas, the mother of his three-week-old daughter. He then "worked his complete shift at the Cherry Cricket, then vanished." He apparently fled to Los Angeles, where his sister reportedly bought the accused cop-killer a bus ticket for Mexico.

Run Up the Mexican Flag?

"What happened was that an illegal got across our border, like tens of thousands do every day, and made it to Denver because he knew that Denver was a sanctuary city," declared Fred Elbel of the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform. And because of the Mexican government's refusal to honor its extradition treaty, Garcia may never stand trial.

Another possibility, notes Denver-area immigration reform activist Terry Graham, is that the State of Colorado would consent "to Mexican standards of justice, and ... have Garcia-Gomez tried in a Mexican court"--a scenario suggested by Colorado Attorney General John Suthers. In April, Suthers estimated that one out of every four homicides in Colorado is committed by an illegal alien who flees to Mexico. This would be enough to keep Mexican courts busy if Suthers is serious about his proposal. Of course, it would also mean delegating to a foreign government the State of Colorado's most important responsibility--protecting its citizens and punishing crimes committed against them. "Time to put Old Glory away, fellas, and run Mexico's [flag] up the flagpole of all Denver courts, jails, and the Capitol building," wrote Graham despairingly.

Young is just one of many U.S. law enforcement officers who have been assaulted or murdered by illegal aliens from Mexico. In April 2002, Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff David March was murdered by Mexican national Armando "Chato" Garcia, a suspected drug dealer who was in our country illegally. During an altercation at a traffic stop, Garcia pulled a weapon and shot Deputy March in the side and the head, in order to avoid hitting the officer's flak jacket. Garcia had been deported from the U.S. on three previous occasions. After murdering Deputy March, he returned to Mexico for good.

Shortly before President Bush's March 23 meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox, the Los Angeles Police Protective League sent him a letter urging him to pressure Fox into extraditing Garcia for trial in California. Mr. Bush is certainly aware of the case. Referring to Garcia during a 2003 Peace Officers Memorial Service in Washington, Mr. Bush promised the slain deputy's widow, Teri, "We'll get him back." But thus far Mr. Bush has done nothing to disturb Chato's tranquility.

"President Bush's repeated refusal to pressure Mexico to return accused killers of police officers to the United States is a silent way of giving these vicious killers an executive pardon," insists League President Robert Baker. "Bush is sending a dangerous message to criminals in the U.S. and abroad, and he cannot allow Mexico to proudly harbor dozens of criminals who have killed in America and fled to Mexico to evade prosecution."

"Most Americans simply don't understand the magnitude of this problem," commented Barbara Coe of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform to THE NEW AMERICAN. "I keep a careful eye on crime reports in the newspapers here in California, and there are several incidents of this kind every single week--crimes ranging from child abuse to murder that involve illegals who flee to Mexico. It happens over and over again; it's just incredible. It's quite likely that every year more Americans die at the hands of illegal aliens than have been killed to date in Iraq."

In the Spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Madeleine Pelner Cosman reports: "In Los Angeles, 95 percent of outstanding homicide warrants are for illegal aliens, as are 66 percent of fugitive felony war rants." Literally tens of thousands of illegal Mexican immigrants have been organized into ultra-violent street gangs, such as the 20,000-member 18th Street Gang and the Lil Cycos Gang, the latter of which is deeply involved in murder, racketeering, and drug trafficking.

This is more than commonplace violent crime. The Mexican government's refusal to honor its extradition treaty makes this a form of state-sponsored terrorism that has probably claimed more American lives than the 9/11 attacks. Yet rather than using its considerable power to induce Mexico to fulfill its treaty obligations, the Bush administration is treating that regime as a "partner" in a grandiose plan to build a common "security perimeter."