A Border Patrol Lie

The United States Border Patrol is lying to Americans by omission. According to the Patrol there were over 500 "violent" attacks in 2005 on Border Patrol agents along the Mexican border. That is not a lie by itself. What is a lie is the definition of "violent" attacks.

Border Patrol definition: A child throws a rock over the high fence at the border-- that is defined as a violent attack even if the rock doesn’t hit an agent or his vehicle. As long as the Agent can see the rock hit the ground, it is defined as a violent attack. A firecracker explodes on the Mexican side of the border within hearing of a Border Patrol agent – and that is defined as a shot fired at an agent. Believe it or not, if a Mexican kid flips off a Border Patrol agent with his middle finger on the Mexican side of the border, that "incident" is reported as an attack.

The Border Patrol neglects, however, to respond to a San Diego Federal judge who awarded $400,000 to a 12-year-old Mexican boy. An agent on the American side shot the boy in the back on the Mexican side. The boy’s crimes: Calling the agent names and for throwing a golf ball sized rock over a 12-foot high fence—actually, he lobbed it over in the vicinity of the agent and, most importantly, he flipped off the officer.

Despite the evidence, the Agent claimed assault by the 12-year-old five-foot tall 100-pound boy with a "boulder." The judge not only awarded the boy $400,000 American taxpayer dollars, he pointedly took judicial notice that the agent simply wasn’t "credible." In other words, like his supporting union, he lied through his teeth. Despite the award and despite the judge calling the agent a liar, the agent was not fired and he returned to duty.

A physical assault, not a verbal one, legally is defined as a violent one with force and/or a weapon. For example, three Border Patrol agents have been sent to prison for violently assaulting an unarmed Mexican national in Houston who died from his Agent-caused injuries after the agents ignored the man’s pleas for help. This week, the 5th Federal Circuit Court ruled that the convictions of the three agents were legal as were the prison sentences given to them.

Border Patrol agents are RARELY fired on with firearms. For example, as far as we know, no Mexican ever shot and killed at the San Diego/Tijuana border has been found to have had a firearm on his person or near by, by investigating police officers.

Further, there is an urban myth that Mexican drug lords have issued murder contracts on Border Patrol agents, that myth is just that, an urban myth. The Border Patrol has little impact on drug smuggling, despite its bragging. If drug lords wanted Border Patrol agents dead, they would be dead, not alive whining about imaginary contracts. Nonetheless, many Mexicans have been shot by American Border Patrol agents on both sides of the border, but where are the documented cases of Border Patrol agents being shot and/or shot and killed at the Border by illegal aliens looking for work?

Real Life…Border Patrol agent Michael Elmer and his partner were hidden in the Arizona desert on the Mexican border. ^{1 2} Two unarmed Mexican men crossed the border and walked by the hidden agents. Agent Elmer fired 14 shots from his M-16 military rifle striking one Mexican 14 times in the BACK. The other Mexican ran away unscathed. Agent Elmer dragged the wounded Mexican into a gully (arroyo) and left him unattended. He aimed his rifle at his partner and warned him that if he told anyone about the shooting he would kill the partner.

Elmer and his partner finished their shift and went drinking. While they were in a bar, the wounded Mexican bled to death, according to the Medical Examiner’s testimony in the 1992 murder trial. The partner informed his superiors the following day; he was fired for not telling them sooner. Elmer was charged with murder. Elmer convinced at least one juror that "he feared for his life" from the unarmed and unwary Mexican he shot in the back 14-times…Not Guilty. He returned to duty.

Elmer was convicted of reckless endangerment in 1994 for shooting at least 10 M-16 rifle rounds too close to an unarmed group of men, women and children as they were crossing the border illegally in 1992 shortly after he was found not guilty of murder.

No illegal border-crossing Mexican looking for work has been charged with shooting a Border Patrol agent in the front or in the back…None. Critics will point to the killing of a Park Ranger in Arizona as proof illegals have killed, but that killing was by a drug smuggler, not a Mexican looking for work. There is a difference. Besides, the killer was shot and killed by pursuing Mexican police, police asked for help by American authorities.

Veteran Border Patrol officials will tell anyone that when accosted by a Border Patrol agent, an agent working by himself, illegals, some times dozens of them, will simply sit down when ordered to by the agent and wait for transport to headquarters for processing and deportation. Do the math…Outnumbered ten, twenty, fifty-to-one and a tiny number of attacks are misreported by the agency in order to make false headlines…Do the math.

Time Magazine claims three million illegals cross the border every year, other critics claim ten million, yet the Border Patrol claims only 500 "violent attacks" by these millions. The agency would do itself much good by simply defining violent attacks as those of physical force with or without weapons. It would also be instructive if they would release the details and numbers of any agents shot, stabbed or otherwise wounded in a real violent attack or any resulting death.

I’ll wager that the total number of Border Patrol agents killed or weapon-wounded by illegals looking for work is less than the number of unarmed Mexicans shot and killed by Border Patrol agents. It is also probably less than the number of Americans killed every day on the highways of the United States (42). It appears that Border Patrol agents are safer than police officers that respond to domestic violence complaints in the good old U.S.A.

© 2006