At Least 21 Dead After Mexican Shootout Violence Erupts Near Texas Border
During the Democratic debates this summer, the candidates were asked where they stood on illegal border crossings. They were, unsurprisingly, lenient. Surprisingly, some of them actually wanted to actually decriminalize the act.
According to The Washington Post, of 16 major Democrat candidates polled (major might be stretching it, given that woo-woo expert Marianne Williamson and the recently exited Montana Gov. Steve Bullock were included), eight said they favored decriminalizing the criminal penalty for crossing the border under Title 8, Section 1325 of the United States penal code.
That’s half the field and includes some major names — including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders.
It’s worth noting it doesn’t matter who was crossing the border or for what reason. They’d just strike the provision. Given that so many of those crossing aren’t just families or individuals looking for a better life, but human traffickers or drug mules, this isn’t a minor issue.
I mention this only because of the fact that just this weekend, in an area by the border, 21 people died in a hail of gunfire in a shootout between law enforcement and suspected members of drug cartels.
The move came as the president was moving to classify drug cartels as terrorist groups.
According to Fox News, the hour-long gunfight took place in Villa Union. That’s a small town in Coahuila State.
If you were wondering what cartels were doing there, here’s something that might not shock you: The town is about an hour from the border crossing at Eagle Pass, Texas.
Four police officers were among nearly two dozen people killed after security forces engaged in an hour-long gunbattle with suspected cartel members Saturday in a Mexican town near the U.S. border, days after President Trump said he was moving to designate Mexican drug cartels as terror organizations.
The shootout happened around noon in the small town of Villa Union, a town in Coahuila state located about an hour’s drive southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas, where there’s a border crossing.
According to Coahuila state Gov. Miquel Angel Riquelme, four police officers were killed in the shootout. Several municipal workers were also reported missing.
After a standoff, seven more members of the cartel were killed on Sunday.
Death toll now up to at least 21 after suspected Northeast Cartel members – a Zetas faction – in #Mexico stormed into Villa Unión & battled security forces in Coahuila state just south of US-Mexico border. Trucks were set ablaze and city hall was riddled with bullets, via @AP. https://t.co/qBftnVklAv pic.twitter.com/kFi4xF5uvN
— Parker James Asmann (@PJAsmann) December 1, 2019
“The armed group of suspected cartel members stormed the town of 3,000 residents in a convoy of trucks, attacking local government offices and prompting state and federal forces to intervene. Ten alleged members of the Cartel of the Northeast were initially killed in the response,” Fox News reported.
“Riquelme told reporters the state had acted ‘decisively’ to take back the town, as videos of the shootout posted on social media showed burned-out vehicles and the facade of Villa Union’s municipal office riddled with bullets.”
Lawmen aided by helicopters still were chasing remnants of the force that arrived in a convoy of pickups and attacked the city hall of Villa Union on Saturday, the Coahuila state government said in a statement. https://t.co/5MiHAK1vE7
— KSLA News 12 (@KSLA) December 2, 2019
I’m curious where you think that this cartel’s money is coming from. Mexico isn’t the most lucrative market for drugs, after all. People don’t want to be smuggled into Guadalajara. These are cartels that generally exist to get illicit substances and human beings, inter alia, into the United States.
No, people who had drugs on them or who were trafficking humans in the United States certainly wouldn’t get a pass if they crossed the border illegally. However, if you decriminalize crossing into the country illegally, exactly what’s the reason for law enforcement to make securing the border a priority?
President Trump has said that Mexico needs to “wage war” on drug cartels. The country has thus far resisted any cooperation on the matter, even though Attorney General William Barr is going down there this week to try and secure cooperation. If it doesn’t happen — and every indication is that it won’t, at least not to the satisfaction of the Trump administration — the key is going to be border enforcement.
Decriminalization of border crossing — creating a de facto open border, just so long as you manage to slip by — isn’t going to do the trick. Dare one suggest a physical barrier, perhaps — say, a wall?
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