Border Wall Battle Heats Up
December 19th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Apparently, (big surprise) good fences do not make good neighbors after all. In California, Border Patrol agents are regularly lobbing tear gas and firing high-powered rifles filled with pepper spray bullets over the border fence into Mexico. And they may do the same in Texas once the wall gets built here.
In San Diego, Border Patrol agents have fired the tear gas and pepper spray bullets into neighborhoods in Tijuana in an escalating battle with smugglers. Families, including elderly grandparents and children, are caught in the crossfire, according to a December 17th Associated Press story. Residents of Colonia Libertad have evacuated their homes several times because of tear gas and pepper spray explosions.
Border Patrol agents complain that smugglers are pelting them with rocks, sticks and other debris from the Mexican side of the fence.
Since October, Border Patrol agents in San Diego and Arizona have been using the FN303 Less Lethal System manufactured by FN Herstal, a Belgian arms manufacturer. The FN303 is a high-powered air rifle that can shoot a pepper spray bullet up to 328 feet.
Andrea Zortman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency in Washington D.C., says the agency bought between 750 and 1,000 of the FN303’s which cost about $800 each from FN Herstal.
Zortman says they’ll expand the use of the FN303s at a later date in Texas. “We plan to roll them out to the Southwestern region,” says Zortman. “But we don’t have a set date yet.”
The tear gas is still lobbed (the old fashioned way) over the fence rather than shot with any type of projectile device, according to Zortman.
Is it our imagination, or is the U.S.-Mexico border increasingly starting to feel like the West Bank?
December 20th, 2007 at 10:01 am
“Is it our imagination, or is the U.S.-Mexico border increasingly starting to feel like the West Bank?”
A frightening, yet true observation.