Border News Update

Regular readers know I work in Laredo, Texas, a town on the Texas-Mexico border. There's been a few things going on down here that may have been overshadowed by the political conventions, so I thought I'd provide an update.

First, the good news.

Mexico makes arrest in killing that sparked 'Fast and Furious' probe

Mexican authorities say they arrested a man wanted in the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, whose death led to the public disclosure of the botched "Fast and Furious" gun-smuggling sting.

Leonel Sanchez Jesus Meza was arrested in Puerto Penasco, about 60 miles south of the Arizona border, the Ministry of Public Security said Friday in a statement.

The investigation into Terry's killing revealed the existence of Operation Fast and Furious, which sought to build arms trafficking cases against drug cartels and smuggling networks.

Robert Heyer, Terry's cousin and chairman of the Brian Terry Foundation, said the arrest marked a milestone in the case. The family also is awaiting a pending U.S. Inspector General's report, he said.

"This is a long-awaited arrest and a great development in the murder investigation of Brian. To the extent closure can ever be realized this is an important part of the process," Heyer said in a statement.

"However, the key issue of government accountability remains. Why was the operation that killed Brian authorized and who will be held to account? These questions must be answered no matter how high we must look to get them," Heyer said.

Yes, they must be answered. But with Eric Holder's so-called Justice Department investigating Eric Holder's so-called Justice Department, don't hold your breath.


Now the bad news.

Mexico's Violent Zetas Cartel Sees New Leader Emerge

A new leader is emerging at the head of one of Mexico's most feared drug cartels.

A split in the leadership of Mexico's violent Zetas cartel has led to the rise of Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, a man so feared that one rival has called for a grand alliance to confront a gang chief blamed for a new round of bloodshed in the country's once relatively tranquil central states.

Trevino, a former cartel enforcer who apparently has seized leadership of the gang from Zetas founder Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, is described by lawmen and competing drug capos as a brutal assassin who favors getting rid of foes by stuffing them into oil drums, dousing them with gasoline and setting them on fire, a practice known as a "guiso," or "cook-out".

This guy is seriously bad news. Even other cartel leaders fear him.

The rise has so alarmed at least one gang chieftain that he has called for gangs, drug cartels, civic groups and even the government to form a united front to fight Trevino Morales, known as "Z-40"...

(As part of Z-40's rise to power) he orchestrated a series of killings on the U.S. side of the border, several by a group of young U.S. citizens who gunned down their victims on the streets of the American city. American officials believe the hit men also carried out an unknown number of killings on the Mexican side of the border, the U.S. official said.

Trevino is from Nuevo Laredo, which is a key port of entry for the cartels drugs into the U.S. As such, violence has become part of everyday life over there. It's having far-reaching effects.

Cities on both sides of the border struggle as Mexico's drug war rages

Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, are often referred to as "Los Dos Laredos," or the two Laredos. The two cities sit on opposite sides on the U.S.-Mexico border, separated by the Rio Grande River. With their economies closely intertwined, both cities have suffered from the Mexican drug war.

Business on both sides of the river is bleak. Around half of the small businesses in downtown Nuevo Laredo are closed. Frequent shootouts, occasional grenade attacks and even car bombs have turned the city into an urban war zone.

The dangerous conditions ... have also affected tourism, another important source of revenue for both cities ... The big attraction for Americans was the ability to cross over into Mexico for quick trips: eating, souvenirs and nightlife.

I used to cross over frequently for eating (*margaritas*) and what the story euphemistically calls 'nightlife', but that was years ago. There's nothing over there worth my life.

And last week we had this incident take place.

US feds investigate reported fatal border shooting

The FBI and Border Patrol are investigating after the Mexican government said a Mexican citizen was killed when a U.S. agent patrolling the Rio Grande fired his weapon across the border, a Border Patrol spokesman said Thursday.

Border agents were aboard a boat near Laredo when a group of people began throwing rocks at them Monday, Border Patrol spokesman Bill Brooks said. One of the agents fired shots across the border toward Nuevo Laredo.

FBI spokesman Erick Vasys said his agency is investigating the rock-throwing as an attack on federal officers ...  "We normally and regularly open investigations when a federal officer is assaulted," Vasys said. "Especially if gunfire is involved."

Border agents are generally allowed to use lethal force against rock throwers.

It's a narrow river, the banks can be fairly high, and some of those rocks are the size of volleyballs. A big rock like that thrown from a substantial height can be fatal. People on both sides know this.

Bottom line: gun trumps rock.

I started off this post with a reference to an ill-conceived government program - Operation Fast and Furious. To bring things full circle here's another ill-conceived government program. Let's call this one Operation Bullshit.

Resistance as USDA considers Mexico inspections

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering sending federal veterinarians in Texas across the border into Mexico to inspect cattle, a practice that ended years ago over safety fears.

Government workers have come out against the plan, confounded as to why they would be required to work in a Mexican state under a travel warning by the State Department because of carjackings and robberies.

The USDA wants to send the vets to a newly constructed facility called the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS.

The closest major city to the facility is Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, a place known for the drug cartel violence that has been recorded there.

A lawyer for the government veterinarians along the border said the federal workers are unwilling to work there because of fears of being kidnapped or killed.

Until March 2010, cattle inspections were routinely done in Mexico, but due to the rise in drug cartel violence along the border, U.S. authorities transferred inspections to U.S.-based facilities. During inspections veterinarians are tasked with clearing the cattle for fever ticks, hoof and mouth disease and other illnesses.

"The real question is, why would (the) USDA even be taking a chance? How much risk is acceptable to place its civilian employees into for even the slight convenience of having the animals inspected in Mexico?" Hughes said.

Why would the feds do something that stupid, you ask? Well, for some reason -- pride? bribes? kickbacks? -- Mexico built a brand new facility that more closely resembles an underground bunker than a cattle inspection station.

APHIS officials in Washington and Austin have declined to talk about the issues that have them at odds with their own veterinarians and technicians.

One veterinarian, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, doubts that even an escorted visit to the bunkerlike inspection facility in Mexico will persuade anyone to work there.

“If I go over there and see armed guards all around the fences, I'm not going to feel it's a safe facility. If it were, why would they have the guards there?” he asked rhetorically.

In the past, he said, veterinarians earned hazard pay for working in Mexico, and some also wore tracking devices that they could activate in the case of an emergency or to report their safe return to the U.S.

The United States imports between 10,000 and 20,000 cattle from Mexico each month, and each animal must be inspected for fever ticks, hoof and mouth disease and other threats to domestic herds.

Until drug violence convulsed northern Mexico several years ago, inspections were routinely done in Mexican pens, but now most are done on safer U.S. soil.

But for reasons that remain unexplained, APHIS decided that inspections now being done at Laredo would be moved back across the border to a large new facility that reportedly includes an underground safe room.

William Hughes, a lawyer for the veterinarians association, said he thinks the stakes are too high for APHIS to give a reprieve to its reluctant veterinarians by canceling the inspections in Mexico.

“I think the die is cast. They seem to have told the Mexicans that if they build this facility, it will be used,” he said.

“No one builds a $3 million to $4 million facility unless they have assurances that it will be used,” he added.

That 'assurance' is called La Mordida. Literally translated, it means "the bite." In actuality, it's an informal transaction fee paid to any official in Mexico, from the highest ranking politico to the lowliest rural cop.

In other words, it's a bribe.

It's an ingrained part of Mexican culture that's been around for generations and isn't going away anytime soon. Most of the time it's relatively harmless (go here for an amusing little story).

But in this case it could cost someone his job - or his life.

So the question needs to be asked and reasked until we get a satisfactory answer.

Why?