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 News from Around the Americas | November 2006 
Border Patrol Says Agents Crossed Border
 Alicia Caldwell - Associated Press
| | A U.S. Border Patrol agent looks at the Rio Grande river with Mexico on the left and the U.S. on the right, in Laredo, Texas. (Rick Wilking/Reuters) |
U.S. Border Patrol agents crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico last week while chasing a drug smuggling suspect, Border Patrol officials said Monday.
The agents followed a fleeing pickup truck into the river "no more than 25 feet across the border" Thursday afternoon, Robert W. Gilbert, the chief patrol agent for the patrol's El Paso sector, said in a statement Monday.
The driver of the pickup truck, which was fitted with a camper shell and loaded with marijuana, ran into Mexico after the vehicle got stuck in the shallow river as he tried to elude the agents, authorities said.
A Mexican police officer in Guadalupe, about 25 miles southeast of El Paso, reported last week that the pursuit ended with a brief standoff between local officers and Border Patrol agents. Jose Luis Delgado, the Mexican officer, said that officials from both countries drew their weapons, but that no shots were fired.
The Border Patrol agents seized about 300 pounds of marijuana, while the truck and remaining marijuana were seized by Mexican authorities.
It was unclear how many U.S. agents crossed the river or what repercussions they may face. In his statement, Gilbert said, "This type of incident occurs periodically by agencies from both countries."
Border Patrol officials familiar with Thursday's incident and the investigation were not immediately available Monday.
According to a U.S. Homeland Security report made public this year in a newspaper report, Mexican authorities have crossed the U.S. border 216 times since 1996. Homeland Security officials have said many of those crossings were inadvertent. It is unclear how many times U.S. officials have crossed into Mexico. |
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