[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 11, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H3298-H3299]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ASSAULT ON THE BORDER PATROL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. It's National Police Week, where we honor the 
lawmen and the women who protect this great Nation. As we pause to 
recognize the service and sacrifice of all U.S. law enforcement 
officers, we also need to remember the men and women who work on the 
border, our Border Patrol agents. Some have sacrificed their lives 
putting themselves between the bad guys and us. We owe their families a 
great debt for those sacrifices, like U.S. Border Patrol Senior Patrol 
Agent Luis Aguilar, who was killed in the line of duty in 2008. Agent 
Aguilar was attempting to deploy a set of road spikes to stop a narco-
terrorist drug smuggler. The drug smuggler attempted to evade our 
agents and escape back into Mexico across the Imperial Sand Dunes in 
the Yuma sector of Arizona. The suspect, driving a Hummer, accelerated 
his vehicle and intentionally hit Officer Aguilar, and he was killed.
  Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas of the Campo, California, Border 
Patrol Station was murdered in 2009 while performing his duties. Agent 
Rosas was responding to suspicious activity in the area notorious for 
alien and drug smuggling when he was shot and killed by unidentified 
assailants. The murder occurred in a remote border area near Campo, 
California, where Agent Rosas was shot several times in the head, 
execution style. Agent Rosas was 30 years of age.
  Even our U.S. Park Rangers aren't safe from these terrorists. In the 
wake of 9/11, Kris Eggle protected his country by intercepting weapons, 
thousands of pounds of illegal drugs, and hundreds of illegal 
lawbreakers from foreign countries. He guarded a 31-mile stretch of our 
Nation's southern boundary. Kris was shot and killed in the line of 
duty at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on August 9, 2002. He was 
pursuing members of a drug cartel hit squad. They fled into the United 
States after committing a string of murders in Mexico. Kris was 28 
years of age when he was mowed down by these narco-terrorists in 
Arizona.
  Our Border Patrol agents are under constant assault. Not counting the 
murders, Madam Speaker, I have a chart here that illustrates just in 
the last few years assaults on our Border Patrol agents. These are the 
men and women on the border, protecting us from people crossing in. 
Going back to 2004, there were about 300, almost 400 assaults on our 
border agents. In 2005, about 680. 2006, 750. And then 2007, 2008, and 
2009, all about a thousand assaults on our border agents. Most of these 
assaults, Madam Speaker, are committed by people crossing the border 
into the United States illegally and committing assaults on our Border 
Patrol agents. For some reason, we don't hear much about it in the 
national media. They seem to be concerned about other issues.
  Madam Speaker, we have here what the Border Patrol agents call the 
``war wagon.'' This is called the war wagon because they modify their 
Border Patrol vehicles, their pickup trucks, and they put wire mesh 
screens over the front windshields, over the side windows. They even 
protect the lights on top because when they get close to the border, 
people from foreign countries that are trying to come into the United 
States pelt our Border Patrol agents with rocks, and they destroy their 
vehicles. They also happen to harm our Border Patrol agents. So they 
have to improvise these war wagons to protect themselves from assaults.
  During this Police Week, Madam Speaker, when we remember peace 
officers in this country that were killed, we need to remember the 
Border Patrol agents that do their duty every day trying to protect our 
porous border, because they don't get the resources the Federal 
Government should give them, including the National Guard. They are 
constantly under attack. A thousand assaults a year against our Border 
Patrol is a bit much, don't you think, Madam Speaker? We in this House 
of Representatives owe them the duty to make sure they are protected, 
and we do that by protecting the border and making sure that people who 
come into the United States are stopped at the border if they are here 
and trying to cross illegally.
  Madam Speaker, our borders are a war zone. As a Texas Ranger once 
told me, he said, After dark, Congressman Poe, the border in Texas and 
Mexico gets Western. It gets violent. Our law enforcement officers are 
out-manned, out-gunned, and out-financed. We need

[[Page H3299]]

the moral resolve as a Nation to secure the dignity our borders, to 
protect the lawmen that are down there doing the job that we let them 
do, we ask them to do, and they are trying to do the best they can. 
They need more resources, more boots on the ground, and that includes 
sending the National Guard on the border, as requested by State 
Governors, because it is the first duty of government to protect the 
country and the people that live in it. And that includes Border Patrol 
agents.
  And that's just the way it is.

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