cross-border bullying

U.S. Border Patrol agents on the Mexico-U.S. border are apparently the frequent targets of rocks, bricks, and bottles hurled over the reprehensible walls and fences on the border. Their response? Firing tear gas and pepper spray canisters, which are wide effect weapons, into the neighborhoods of shanties where innocent people are just trying to survive. From the AP/NY Times article:

Esther Arias Medina, 41, fled her shanty in Tijuana with her 3-week-old grandson last week in the midst of an attack. The boy had begun coughing, Ms. Arias said, after smoke seeped through the walls of the three-room home, which she shares with six others.

“We don’t deserve this,” she said. “The people who live here don’t throw rocks. Those are people who come from the outside. But we’re paying the price.”

Witnesses in Ms. Arias’s neighborhood described eight attacks since August that involved tear gas or pepper spray, some that forced residents to evacuate.

The Border Patrol claims that they have to protect themselves from these “attacks,” but come on – is the collateral damage worth it? I know that these rocks and bricks can really hurt someone, but frankly, I can’t seem to work up much sympathy for pinche Border Patrol agents. Hell, if I lived on the other side of one of those damn walls and had to look at those american brutos every day, I’d probably be throwing stones at them, too. Yeah yeah, individual agents aren’t necessarily the bad guys, yadda yadda, fuck that noise. They’re the little bully agents of the biggest bully of them all, a country that owns the lion’s share of the responsibility for the economic conditions that created those shanty towns in the first place. It’s really a David and Goliath type situation, even right down to the weapons of choice:

Mexico’s acting consul general in San Diego, Ricardo Pineda Albarrán, has insisted that United States authorities stop firing onto Mexican soil. Mr. Pineda met with Border Patrol officials last month after the agency fired tear gas into Mexico. The agency defended that action, saying agents were being hit with a hail of ball bearings from slingshots in Mexico.

Now, the US claims that the Mexican authorities aren’t doing anything about the rock-throwing and that they therefore need to act to protect themselves, but isn’t it weird that they can just fire into another country like that? Much less with chemical weapons that are banned from use in warfare? (Funny, huh, that tear gas and pepper spray can be used fairly indiscriminately for civilian law enforcement but can’t be used in an actual war.) I mean, it’s not like Border Patrol can just plod on into Mexico and start fucking shit up; why, then, are they allowed to fuck shit up from this side of the border?

United States officials say the new tactics may spare lives. In March, an agent shot and killed a 20-year-old Mexican man whose arm was cocked; that fatality occurred in Calexico, Calif., where attacks with stones have soared. And two years ago, an agent fatally shot a stone thrower at the San Diego-Tijuana border.

“Hey, Mexicans, wouldya stop complaining already? We could be shooting you instead, you know!” Just… wow.

11 Responses to “cross-border bullying”


  1. 1 Daniel Kahn Gillmor

    Ugh. The US continues to show itself as a belligerent hypocrite

    Mexico’s acting consul general in San Diego, Ricardo Pineda Albarrán, has insisted that United States authorities stop firing onto Mexican soil. Mr. Pineda met with Border Patrol officials last month after the agency fired tear gas into Mexico. The agency defended that action, saying agents were being hit with a hail of ball bearings from slingshots in Mexico.

    Basically, it’s OK for us to attack across the border (with wide-area, indiscriminate weapons, no less) because people on the other side are doing so. Under this logic, it should now be acceptable for Mexican police/military to now start gassing the US Border Patrol agents in retaliation, as long as no one sets foot across “the line”.

    Can you imagine the outrage in this country if that were to happen?

  2. 2 mmjd

    That may be true, Daniel, but its still inexcusable for the Mexicans to be throwing the bricks over in the first place. And when Jack defends their actions, is she suggesting that the US has no right to decide who gets to come into our own country? These walls (which dont cover close to the entire border) are really the only way we can restrict immigration/entry.

  3. 3 coathangrrr

    These walls (which dont cover close to the entire border) are really the only way we can restrict immigration/entry.

    For that to be true the walls would have to actually restrict immigration, which doesn’t seem to be the case.

  4. 4 Patti Jo

    It shouldn’t require the constant guard of American Border Patrol agents to ensure that immigrants are not crossing our border illegally. EVERY other country in the world does it and if you think American penalties are severe… try crossing over in Gaza.

    Please do not blame America for the sad state of Mexico. Yours is notoriously one of the most corrupt governments in the world, the most willing to sacrifice its people for profit. We have companies in Mexico using Mexican labor at a fraction of the cost that they are worth… and guess who signed that contract??? YOUR government. Your government advocates and profits from the drug trade as much as our does… I’ve buried 6 siblings because of the drug trade. I think ANY who profits or supports profiting from the drug trade should have their brains blown out in a public square. Please, clean up your own backyard before bitching about ours.

    I don’t advocate violence on any front for any reason… (except those guys I just mentioned) particularly when it victimizes women and children.

    It’s just a shame that people… no matter what soil they stand their feet on… are fucked up.

  5. 5 Ed Borden

    While I can understand where your philosophy comes from, I do not agree with it. The fence is necessary and needs to be strengthened. The economic difficulties of the US and the rising unemployment rate can be attributed (at least partially) to the influx of illegals from the southern front (border). While the left wing media wants to attribute anti-illegal protests, political action and legal action to racism, the intelligent and thoughtful can see through that. Some Pro-illegal immigrant groups engage in protests that are proclaimed to be “pro immigrant”(leaving out the word “illegal”). I do not know anyone who is against immigration, but most educated people, including hispanics, are against the illegals who are driving down wages and bringing crime to our neighborhoods.

    Sure, there should be a “path to citizenships”, but not without some sort of reparation to the US people, such as a fee.

    As far as the smoke or gas canisters over the fence. Don’t throw stuff over and nothing will come back. If neighborhoods would drive out the hoodlums who are throwing the rocks, then gas would not come their way. This is the way of the world. By looking the other way, they are aiding and abetting the rock throwers.

  6. 6 Jack

    Patti Jo: So, as long as our anti-immigrant policies aren’t as harsh as those of the notoriously oppressive Israeli occupying forces, we’re A-OK? (Though you didn’t actually say that you had a problem with the Israeli tactics, either.) Is this really the scale on which we want to measure ourselves? Aside from addressing the rest of your comment, I’m confused as to what you’re saying “your” about; I’m not Mexican, I’m Puerto Rican, thereby unfortunately American, and am quite more concerned with cleaning up the U.S.’s immensely toxic backyard than criticizing the government that, while certainly complicit with America’s misdeeds, is not the one wielding the true power here.

  7. 7 Jack

    Ed Borden, you wrote:

    I do not know anyone who is against immigration, but most educated people, including hispanics, are against the illegals who are driving down wages and bringing crime to our neighborhoods.

    Er… do you have any factual evidence to back up any part of this statement? By which I mean, the “most educated people” part as well as the claim that undocumented immigrants are driving down wages and increasing crime. Those statements sound like conservative rhetoric to me, not actual demonstrated fact.

  8. 8 amanda

    “Most educated people” ought to have included an economics class or two in their education, so that they would be better equipped to challenge the assertion that undocumented immigrants are responsible for driving down wages. Oh wait: econ 101 is actually responsible for this particular gross over simplification of supply and demand. Nevermind that the reason that undocumented immigrants work for lower wages is because they don’t know that they are entitled to object to illegally low wages and dangerous working conditions. Nevermind that waging war on immigrants doesn’t do much to encourage workers who are in the country illegally to stand up to employer abuse.

    Sadly, the American educational system is focused entirely on testable skills at the expense of teaching people to think for themselves, so it should come as no surprise that most narrow minded people presume to speak for educated people everywhere. Most educated people got a crap education and had it drilled into their heads that public policy is an outlier better suited for an advanced economics class.

    Most educated people ought to recognize that picking up rocks and throwing them back would be childish, and that the border patrol ought to be able to rise above rock throwing, not by taking it up a notch, but by ignoring it. Americans want the moral high ground, but we can’t ever seem to let something go and so we rush to the defense of people who’ve combined petty childish bullshit with power and abrasive chemical compounds to torment our neighbors.

  9. 9 Jack

    @amanda: Thanks for this great response.

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