Border Crises

A couple stories I saw on Drudge that were notable to me:

First, as many of you probably have heard, a Mexican military helicopter recently crossed into the U.S. and open fire on Border Patrol agents. However, this recent report indicates that the Mexican government is now denying that any shots were fired or that the helicopter crossed the border.

Border Patrol agents in Arizona were reportedly fired upon by a Mexican military helicopter that traveled across the border. 

Mexican authorities were conducting a drug interdiction operation when the incident happened early Thursday morning on the Tohono O’odham Indian Nation. The Mexican chopper fired at the agents and then flew back into Mexico. 

However, Mexican authorities have denied shooting at agents and say they were under attack during a mission to find smugglers on the border. 

Tomás Zerón, the director of the Mexican attorney general’s office investigative office, said that Mexican military and federal police who were conducting an operation on a ranch in Altar, Sonora, were shot at by criminals. Mexican authorities never fired any weapons and in fact never crossed into the U.S. side of the border, he said.

This isn't the first incursion of Mexican military across the border, and it won't be the last.

The second story is from Investors Business Daily:

 But while the political debate has focused on U.S. immigration enforcement, a key economic factor has been lost in the clamor. Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, which are supplying three-quarters of the latest cross-border flood, are bucking a trend in Latin America toward stronger local economies based on sound reforms and security. 

Those three Central American countries are dependent on their diaspora to prop up their own woeful economies. Immigrants send back billions of dollars to their families. 

Remittances have risen to 16.5% of El Salvador's GDP, 15.7% of Honduras' and 10% of Guatemala's, according to World Bank data. Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Bolivia rely on remittances for 4.1% to 9.7% of GDP. 

But the figure drops precipitously for every other country in Latin America.

Not mentioned is that the U.S. soaks up a significant portion of the "surplus" population of those countries, reducing social welfare spending and increasing political stability. Yes, illegal immigration is just another form of "international aid."

J.R. Nyquist has some thoughts on the border crises at his blog:

It appears we are witnessing a diversionary operation targetting the U.S. border with Mexico (flooding it with people). Anyone with strategic sense should be alarmed at the way this is progressing. It is an objective fact, like it or not, that somebody has gone to a lot of expense to mess with our border. And now the border patrol has to switch personnel from Arizona to Texas. But the main drug pathways into the U.S. come through Arizona. And as we know all too well, these are the same pathways marked out by Moscow for smuggling WMDs past our security services. So there is reason for concern, especially as Russia has resumed its heightened state of alert, with further troop mobilizations and exercises. At the same time, Iraq is being lost to some kind of terrorist blitzkrieg. It is all very disconcerting, though Washington continues with its usual silliness. While the enemy maneuvers on every front, our leaders in Washington are like blind kittens -- helpless and doomed. They do not know what they are doing, failing to recognize the leathal threat that is building.

 Read the whole thing.