July 2008

Border Patrol Faces
Booby Traps

ven though U.S. Border Patrol agents regularly save the lives of severely dehydrated illegal aliens who recklessly hike across the southern Arizona desert to steal American jobs, illegals and their smugglers are setting up booby traps to kill and maim those very same agents.

Border Patrol teams rescued 537 illegal aliens who needed medical assistance while trying to break into the U.S. between October 2006 and September 2007. And since last October through May of this year, agents saved another 190, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

But Border Patrol agents last month made a chilling discovery along a patrol road in a remote stretch of desert -- a booby trap designed to maim or kill them. The trap consists of two sections of thin wire strung tight across the road at a height of about four feet. Agents who ride on ATVs down the road at night wouldn't see the wires and could be killed running into them.

Agents patroling the area said the trap was around sunset.

"It's alarming," said Border Patrol Agent Doug Mosier. "Anytime you have a booby trap and the cover of darkness, it makes for a dangerous formula."

In February, agents in San Diego found a wire strung from the Mexican side of a border fence through a small hole and across a patrol road. The wire was set up to be pulled tight from the Mexican side of the border when an agent was approaching.

Illegals have also set up other kinds of obstacles, such as metal spikes in the roads designed to blow the tires of patrol vehicles and injure the horses ridden by agents.

Facing death and injury, the Border Patrol continues to embark on search and rescue efforts in the desert to save the criminals sneaking in.

Mario Escalante, a Border Patrol spokesman, said illegals crossing the desert have begun carrying cell phones so they can call for help. He said so far this year, most of the 911 calls reporting crossers in distress have been made by the illegals themselves.

Most of the rescued suffer from severe heat exposure.

"Some of these people are from places where they have no idea what it's like to be in 112 degrees," said Vince Hampel of the Border Patrol's rescue team.