[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14569]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              BLAZING GUNS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, news from the second front: The border war 
continues. It sounds like a scene from Lonesome Dove or some other 
western movie. Hundreds of shots were ringing out over the Rio Grande 
River, piercing the night for a period of minutes. But movie villains, 
this was not. These are real outlaws that are shrouded in darkness and 
shooting at Americans, just like in the old days.
  The gunfire belongs to the border, the U.S.-Mexican border. Just last 
week, in the moonlight, was a scene of machine gun madness. It could 
have been a fatal barrage of bullets.
  Last Wednesday night, Border Patrol and Hidalgo County, Texas, 
sheriff's deputies patrolling the Rio Grande River, the international 
border between Mexico and the United States, stumbled upon two boys 
from Mexico that were running from outlaws on the Mexican side. They 
had just raided their ranch and kidnapped their father and killed a 
ranch hand, so they were fleeing these criminals.
  They were swimming to the safety of the United States. They were 
hiding in the cornfields of Mexico for several hours while machine gun 
carrying killers were looking for them.
  But violence did not end on the Mexican side of the river where it 
started. The victims swam across the river to their escape into the 
hands of U.S. law enforcement officers. Seconds after stumbling on the 
boys, law enforcement officers on the border and sheriff's deputies 
were engulfed in a barrage of bullets.
  The bad guys on the Mexican side of the border, these thugs who were 
lying in wait, would wait no more, and they decided to fire on American 
peace officers from their side of the river. As many as 10 men with 
machine guns turned their guns to fire 200 to 300 rounds of ammunition 
at law enforcement officers on the American side of the river.
  Luckily, the Americans had built a levee on the American side, just 
like a fortress, and they were protected from these kidnappers who 
would shoot their automatic weapons as if they were on the Israeli-
Lebanon border. Their bullets ricocheted off this dirt wall. The 
deputies dove behind it, but they never returned fire to the Mexican 
side.
  This gang-style rural warfare you hear about on battlefields is in 
our own American backyard. In just the last year and a half, this is 
the fifth time Border Patrol has been shot at.
  Former Texas Ranger Doyle Holdrige put it best. He said, ``After dark 
on the Texas-Mexican border, it gets western.''
  You won't even normally find Hidalgo County deputies in that area of 
the border. Their sheriff doesn't allow them to go there. He said it is 
too dangerous to patrol that portion of the river. Instead, the sheriff 
only reacts to calls for help, spending the rest of the time trying to 
make their presence known in neighborhoods that are in fear living on 
the border.
  Sheriff Lupe Trevino says the Federal Government has left the gate 
wide open, allowing thugs, plain criminals, to do damage on the 
American side of the border. He says drastic cuts have washed away 
homeland security funding and drained funds from community policing 
from this border area in South Texas.
  Sheriff Trevino says a lack of enforcement, lack of funding and lack 
of Federal support has left local authorities to stand by, while 
guerillas fire machine guns at them, invaders take over their 
neighborhoods and leave local law enforcement in harm's way while on 
border patrol.
  Mr. Speaker, this shootout of 200 to 300 rounds barely made the news 
last week. We hear all about the border shootings on the Israeli-
Lebanon border, but, Mr. Speaker, our government should be as concerned 
about the gunfire on our border as we are about blazing guns in the 
Middle East.
  And that's just the way it is

                          ____________________