Gunshots Exchanged at Border

Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector near Roma, Texas, were fired upon Wednesday from across the Mexican border. No one was injured, and the agents returned fire.

The area where the incident occurred lies across the river from the Mexican city of Ciudad Miguel Aleman, where rival cartels are fighting for dominance. Reportedly, the shooting happened as Mexican military were engaged in a shootout there with cartel gunmen. During the melee, one apparent cartel member jumped into the Rio Grande in an effort to flee into the United States. A Border Patrol agent was fired upon while attempting to intercept the man.

Heavily armed groups are becoming a more common sight along the border. Last month a Border Patrol car was fired upon, and back in the fall, Texas National Guardsmen encountered suspected cartel gunmen wearing body armor and carrying AK-47 rifles. Fox News correspondents at that time witnessed machine gun fire aimed at the U.S. side from Mexico.

Many areas of Mexico are now in a perpetual state of low-intensity warfare. As the cartels grow ever more wealthy through the drug and migrant smuggling made easy by our porous border policies, they are becoming more and more sophisticated in their choice of weaponry. Drones are frequently being used for surveillance and for smuggling drugs into the U.S., and even weaponized drones, armed with small bombs and grenades, are now being employed.

In 2020, a video surfaced on Twitter purportedly showing a large, heavily armed contingent of cartel “troops” alongside numerous armored vehicles. The footage was allegedly shot in the state of Jalisco, in western Mexico.

Last year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called upon Joe Biden to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations. The measure has long been opposed by the Mexican government, said to be concerned about its “sovereignty,” which it in fact has already lost to the criminal gangs. Abbott received no response from the White House. Meanwhile, the Biden administration crows triumphantly about the suicide deaths of an ISIS leader and his family half a world away in Syria, but ignores the growing threat of terrorism a hundred yards across the Rio Grande.

For more, see Fox News.