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 Americas & Beyond | May 2008 
Violence in Mexico Spills Across US Border
 Eileen Sullivan - Associated Press
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| | A federal police officer stand in front of a banner with a message, allegedly written by drug traffickers, that reads in Spanish 'Tin soldiers, federal officers made by straw, this is Arturo Beltran's territory' in Culiacan, Sunday, May. 4, 2008. Mexico has suffered a wave of organized crime and drug-related violence that killed more than 2,500 people last year. (AP/Fidel Duran) | | |
Washington Three Mexican police chiefs have requested political asylum in the U.S. as violence escalates in the Mexican drug wars and spills across the U.S. border, a top Homeland Security official told The Associated Press.
In the past few months, the police officials have shown up at the U.S. border, fearing for their lives, according to Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.
They're basically abandoned by their police officers or police departments in many cases, Ahern told AP.
Ahern said the Mexican officials whom he didn't name are being interviewed and their cases are under review for possible asylum.
In the most recent high-level assassination, a top-ranking official on a local Mexican police force was shot more than 50 times and killed. Drug-related violence killed more than 2,500 people last year alone in Mexico.
It's almost like a military fight, Ahern said Tuesday. I don't think that generally the American public has any sense of the level of violence that occurs on the border.
As the cartels fight for territory, this carnage spills over to the U.S., Ahern said from bullet-ridden people stumbling into U.S. territory, to rounds of ammunition coming across U.S. entry ports.
U.S. humvees retrofitted with steel mesh over the glass windows patrol parts of the border to protect agents against guns shots and large rocks regularly thrown at them. At times agents are pinned down by sniper fire as people try to illegally cross into the U.S.
Mexico's drug cartels have long divided the border, with each controlling key cities. But over the past decade Mexico has arrested or killed many of the gangs' top leaders, creating a power vacuum and throwing lucrative drug routes up for the taking.
President Felipe Calderσn, who took office in December 2006, responded by deploying more than 24,000 soldiers and federal police to areas where the government had lost control. Cartels have reacted with unprecedented violence, beheading police and killing soldiers.
In general, violence along the U.S. border has gone up over the years. Seven frontline border agents were killed in 2007, and two so far in 2008. Assaults against officers have also shot up from 335 in fiscal 2001 to 987 in fiscal 2007.
There have been 362 assaults against officers during the first four months of 2008, according to Border Patrol statistics. The pattern has been that when more security resources are deployed along the U.S. border, violence against officers spike in response.
Most assaults are along the San Diego and Calexico, Calif., border, as well as the Arizona border near Yuma and south of Tucson.
Now, about 14,000 U.S. border agents work on the southern border, up from more than 9,000 in 2001.
The Bush administration has requested $500 million to fight drug crime in Mexico. is currently considering the proposal.
A look at Recent Mexican Drug-War Violence
Associated Press
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A look at recent Mexican drug war-related violence:
May 10 The No. 2 on the Juarez police force was shot more than 50 times and killed near his home. The Juarez police chief resigned that same day.
May 9 Four gunmen in a truck shot and killed a former commander of Mexico City's anti-kidnapping unit. The former commander was shot seven times in the head in front of his apartment. At the time he was working for the Honor and Justice Council of Mexico City's police, which is similar to the internal affairs units in U.S. police forces.
May 8 Mexico's acting federal police chief opened the door to his Mexico City apartment and was shot nine times and killed.
May 6 The Ciudad Juarez Police captain was shot four times with an AK-47 and killed a block from his police station.
May 5 A state police officer was shot and killed in front of her Ciudad Juarez home. A group of attackers spoke to her briefly before they shot her.
May 2 The director of the Public Security Secretariat General staff was shot and killed as he left his Mexico City house.
May 1 The head of the Organized Crime Department at the Federal Secretariat of Public Security was shot in the head by two men. The shooters ran off with the victim's car, and authorities found a .380 caliber weapon with a silencer. |
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