Two Americans fatally shot at the border had moved to Mexico for economic reasons, bo

[Angelhair]

The commute from Tijuana to San Diego had become routine for friends Sergio Salcido Luna and Kevin Joel Romero. The two Californians, who had moved south of the border to save money according to their employer, thought they would beat the crush of traffic at the border crossing by arriving before 3 a.m.

But Monday morning they never made it to their jobs in San Diego.

As they sat in their Mazda truck at about 2:40 a.m. in the line of cars at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, a gunman ran up and fatally shot both men with a 9-millimeter weapon, according to Baja California authorities. The gunman fled, and authorities said they have not determined a motive for the crime.

Luna, 25, and Romero, 28, both U.S. citizens, were on their way to work at a beer equipment maintenance company in San Diego. The owner, Matt Pelot, said they were hard workers who endured the sleep-depriving commute for family and economic reasons.

Luna, an aspiring mixed martial arts fighter originally from Bakersfield, was training for a bout in June. Romero had moved to Tijuana to live with his girlfriend because she didn't have a visa to enter the U.S.

"They would come up and greet you with a handshake and a ton of respect. They were just good guys," said Pelot, owner of West Coast Beverage Maintenance, a company that services draft beer equipment for bars and restaurants.

Baja California Atty. Gen. Rommel Moreno Manjarrez said that a small amount of drugs was found in the pocket of one of the men. Investigators, he said, would probe to see whether the murders were drug related.

Pelot said he didn't think his employees were drug users or dealers. Luna, he said, would train regularly and Romero was a "family man" who had just finished the process to adopt his girlfriend's son.

The men were killed about a half-mile south of the San Ysidro crossing as they inched their way forward in one of the lanes approaching the checkpoint. U.S. authorities are assisting in the investigation.

"We are working closely with Mexican authorities to ascertain all the facts," said Joseph Crook, a spokesman for the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana.

Two Americans fatally shot at the border had moved to Mexico for economic reasons, boss says - latimes.com

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - dey streamin' across the border like a plague o' cockroaches an' bringin' dat drug cartel war up here...

Not ‘A Mile’ of Border Secure, Texas Sheriff Says
Monday, April 11, 2011 – Texas Sheriff Tomas Herrera said he does not agree with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s assessment of security at the U.S.-Mexico border as being “better than it has ever been.”

Herrera, in a telephone interview with CNSNews.com, said that not “a mile” of the 85-mile stretch of border in Maverick County, Texas, which is separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande River, is secure and that the violence of Mexican drug cartels is spilling over into the United States as cartels come into Texas and kidnap teenagers for their smuggling operations. “They come in and kidnap some of our citizens in this county and take them into Mexico,” Herrera told CNSNews.com. “We’re talking about young kids.”

“These are high school kiddos and junior high kids that are used by the cartels to smuggle drugs into the United States,” said Herrera, who has been in law enforcement for 37 years and sheriff of Maverick County for five. Herrera, who was honored last week by the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition “in recognition of significant law enforcement leadership in protecting the State of Texas and its citizens,” said he could not provide details about any of the cases, as the investigation into the alleged crimes is ongoing.

But the local paper in Eagle Pass, Texas, The News Gram, published a story on March 31 about a press conference held by the Eagle Pass Police Department and an official from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s regional office. “It is perhaps one of the dirtiest secrets in Eagle Pass,” the article stated. “Young men and women kidnapped in our area and taken across the border, held for ransom or simply made to disappear.

“The whispers echo in high school gymnasiums, restaurants and churches and they all tell a sobering story – it happens and it happens often,” the article stated. The law enforcement officials warned parents to tell their children about the dangers of associating with drug cartel members. In one case, still under investigation, a 17-year-old boy was picked up “and held captive in Mexico while his family collected enough money to pay a ransom,” the article stated.

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Government’s Border Security Approach Is ‘Ineffective and Expensive,’ Texas Judge Tells Senators
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 Washington (CNSNews.com) - Judge Veronica Escobar of El Paso, a Texas Democrat, told CNSNews.com that the federal government’s border security approach is “ineffective” because it involves building fences that are “pushing border crossers” to “more dangerous, treacherous crossings” or inspiring them to build tunnels.

The judge said the federal government should invest more money in modernizing ports of entry. “While federal law enforcement has gone on the record to praise the border wall, it is to me and others an example of considerable federal dollars being spent on a rusting monument that makes my community look like a junkyard,” Judge Escobar told a recent hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "We are indeed on the front lines, and a safe border means a safe nation," she added. "But vilifying immigrants, building expensive, ugly walls, and encouraging hysteria and xenophobia only hurt our border communities, our commerce and the economy of the nation."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a committee member, and Judge Escobar sparred over the value of border fencing. “I must say I respect your view about ugly fences and junkyard things and all that, but it certainly doesn’t apply to my state, nor the citizens of my state,” McCain told the judge. “I certainly don’t view the ranchers who live in the southern part of my state who are subject to repeated home invasions as xenophobic,” he continued, “and I hope that you were not including citizens of my state in your comments about people who practice xenophobia.” CNSNews.com asked Judge Escobar to elaborate on her comments following the April 8 hearing.

“The approach to immigration and to drug trafficking by the federal government, I think, has been … ineffective and expensive,” she said. “So instead of policies that evaluate the drug trafficking and the insatiable appetite that Americans have for illegal drugs, we build a wall and we build a wall where we’re pushing the border crossers -- 85 percent of whom are not criminals, 85 percent of whom are wanting to come and find work in American companies, American jobs that lure people here -- and so they’re just getting pushed out to more dangerous treacherous crossings or building tunnels.” Escobar said that border crossers will “always” find a way around, under, or above a border fence.

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