[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5838-5839]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            MEXICAN MILITARY HELICOPTER INCURSIONS INTO U.S.

  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. I bring you news from the third front, that being 
the southern border with our neighbor Mexico, the first front being 
Iraq, the second front being Afghanistan. We are engaged in three 
conflicts, three wars. And the third front is the conflict on our 
border, the border war with the drug cartels.
  The $40 billion-a-year illicit drug trade in Mexico has resulted in a 
vicious wave of violence in northern Mexico and the United States. 
President Calderon of Mexico has said in the

[[Page 5839]]

last few years 23,000 Mexicans have been killed and murdered on the 
streets of Mexico. To put it in perspective, that is over twice the 
murder homicide rate in the United States.
  Recently, there were two incursions by Mexican military helicopters 
across the Texas-Mexico border into the United States, and their 
intentions are still unknown. Those incursions were about 3 weeks 
apart. Some here in Washington questioned whether these astonishing 
reports of Mexican military helicopters actually were true.
  Well, here is a photograph, Mr. Speaker, that was taken by some 
individuals in Zapata County, Texas. That is on the border with Mexico. 
This is an RV park. And this is one of those Mexican military 
helicopters. It is a Russian-made, built helicopter. It has the word 
``Marine'' on the side, that being the Mexican Navy's helicopter. And 
this photograph was taken by more than one individual. Photographs of 
the first incursion were also taken. And the question remains why is 
the Mexican military helicopter coming into the United States, and why 
is our government silent about their intention? We do not know.
  The international criminal drug cartels are just that: they are 
international. They are connected to terrorist organizations worldwide, 
and they make money selling drugs to fund their narcoterrorism. Which 
begs the question, Why are Americans allowing Mexican military 
helicopters to invade our airspace? I wish we had an answer from our 
government. Are they protecting drug shipments into the United States? 
We don't know. Are they doing something else? We don't know.
  This photograph, by the way, this helicopter is over two miles into 
the United States. The Texas-Mexico border is not like Arizona and New 
Mexico and California. There is a river in between. It's hard to miss 
the river when you fly over it. So it's obviously not a mistake on the 
part of whoever is flying this helicopter.
  You know, the primary duty of government is to protect the people. 
But the Federal Government, our government, has gotten so big and stuck 
its nose in so many places it doesn't belong it's no longer, in my 
opinion, performing its primary duty, protecting the people. Congress 
seems to be a little bit more concerned about steroids in baseball than 
they are concerned about protecting our border from people who come 
across without permission.
  At the El Paso sector of the Border Patrol in Texas, our agents now 
are being targeted by the Azteca hitmen of the Juarez drug cartel. What 
that means is this: the Juarez drug cartel is bringing dope into the 
United States. Our Border Patrol is doing an excellent job, best that 
we will let them do, of preventing that from occurring. So they have 
hired their own hitmen, the Azteca hitmen to target our Border Patrol 
agents. Our Border Patrol agents have a $250,000 bounty on their heads 
for being Border Patrol agents, for trying to do their job. And they 
are being targeted for kidnappings or murder. It makes no difference. I 
think that ought to upset some of us here in Washington, D.C.
  You know, the Azteca gang works for the Juarez drug cartel. They 
protect drug shipments that are brought into the United States. It gets 
bad down in Texas on the Texas-Mexico border. I recently asked a Texas 
Ranger, I said, What's it like after dark on the Texas-Mexico border? 
And he made this comment: It gets western. That's right, Mr. Speaker, 
it gets western. It's like the old West shootouts. You know, we have 
heard about all the shootings in northern Mexico. And it's only a 
matter of time before they shoot their way across the border into the 
United States.
  This is serious. This is violent. And it's being perpetrated by the 
drug cartels against Americans both in Mexico and the United States, 
but it's also being perpetrated against Mexican nationals that live in 
Mexico.
  You know, we shouldn't wait until something worse happens before we 
do something about it. It's important that we protect the dignity of 
our Nation because it's the first duty of government to protect the 
people of the United States. We should be sending the National Guard 
down to the border. This has been talked about before, yet nothing has 
happened. The Texas Governor and other State Governors have asked that 
the National Guard be deployed on the border. Why not?
  It's interesting, Mr. Speaker, we protect the borders of other 
nations with our military, but we don't protect our own border with the 
National Guard. The question is, Why not? You know, it's time that we 
act, otherwise we delay at our own peril, Mr. Speaker.
  And that's just the way it is.

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