Thugs, Drugs and Coyotes on the U.S.-Mexican Border

“In response to testimony that violence along the U.S.-Mexican border is at an all-time high — and getting worse — the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to recommend that the United States increase the number of Border Patrol agents on the job from Texas to California. Even if Congress were to approve the biggest and fastest increase discussed — as many as 12,000 more agents over two years — the move is unlikely to stem the wave of humanity and associated violence surging into the United States.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar told the committee that assaults on his agents increased 108 percent between 2004 and 2005, mainly because drug smugglers and “coyotes,” those who help illegal immigrants enter the United States for a fee, are more willing than ever to fight agents when confronted, rather than run. The increase in assaults indicates not only that the stakes are getting higher in the smuggling business on both sides of the border, but that a new, more violent group of coyotes is vying for control of the human-smuggling operations in northern Mexico: Central American street gangs known as Mara Salvatruchas, or MS-13.”

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Marta and Juan