Mexicans Kill US Consulate Staff

Comment: If the war on drugs did not exist, you would not be reading this article!

WASHINGTON — Suspected drug cartel “hit teams” gunned down an American consular employee and her husband in a Mexican border city and killed a co-worker’s Mexican husband in a separate attack, a US official said Sunday.

Killed: Arthur Redelfs, 34, was killed along with his wife Lesley Enriquez, who worked at the U.S. consulate. Their one-year-old baby was unharmed

The victims — two Americans and a Mexican — came under fire in separate locations as they were driving Saturday through Ciudad Juarez after earlier attending the same social event, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The killings marked an ominous turn in the drug violence wracking northern Mexico, and prompted the State Department to announce that Americans working at six US consulates in the border area could send their families away.

President Barack Obama said he was “deeply saddened and outraged by the news of the brutal murders,” said National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer.

The victims came under fire in separate locations after attending the same social event earlier in the day, the US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Suspected drug cartel hit teams fired on locally employed staff, Consulate General Juarez, in their privately owned vehicles,” the official said.

“The attacks resulted in three fatalities — two American citizens and one Mexican citizen,” he said.

The victims included a US woman employed by the consulate’s American citizens services section who was with her American husband and infant daughter when they came under fire, the official said.

The infant, who was in the back seat, survived the attack unharmed, but the woman and her husband were killed, he said.

In the second attack, a Mexican employee of the consulate was following her husband and two children in a separate car, when her husband’s vehicle came under fire, killing him and wounding the two children, the official said.

“Both families had attended the same social event earlier in the afternoon off-post away from the consulate,” the US official said. “It has not been determined if the victims were specifically targeted.”

Shortly after the killings were disclosed by the White House, the State Department issued a travel warning for Mexico.

It said Americans working in consulates in the northern cities of Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Matamoros were authorized to send family members home until April 12 because of security concerns.

The departure authorization only affect relatives of US government personnel in those cities, the statement said.

The travel warning said that due to the “recent violent attacks,” US citizens were urged to “delay unnecessary travel to parts of Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua states.”

“While millions of US citizens safely visit Mexico each year … violence in the country has increased,” the State Department said.

“Drug cartels and associated criminal elements have retaliated violently against individuals who speak out against them or whom they otherwise view as a threat to their organizations,” it read.

The State Department travel warning was issued “coupled with the increase of violence in that northern area,” said Department spokesman Fred Lash.

“It’s not an ordered departure, it’s up to them if they want to come out or not,” said Lash told AFP.

Ciudad Juarez, population 1.3 million, is a major hub for smuggling illegal drugs into the United States. It is directly across the border from El Paso, Texas.

More than 2,600 people were murdered in Ciudad Juarez in 2009 in drug-related violence.

The war between rival drug cartels to control major border crossing points, as well as the government’s attempt to crackdown on the cartels, has killed more than 15,000 people across Mexico over the last three years, according to government figures.

The State Department warning said that some of the recent clashes “have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades.”

“Large firefights have taken place in towns and cities across Mexico, but occur mostly in northern Mexico,” the statement read. “During some of these incidents, US citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from leaving the area.”

More than 60 people were killed over the weekend in Mexico, including 38 in the southern state of Guerrero, Mexican officials said.

Drug violence: Staff at the U.S. consulate gather outside the building in Ciudad Juarez after two fatal drive-by shootings

The State Department issued this Travel warning.

Webcam Border Patrol

When John Spears gets home from his sales job in New York, he sits down at his computer with a bottle of beer and starts patrolling the US border.

And to do it, he does not need to stir from his sofa.

He is one of tens of thousands of people around the world who are volunteering to patrol the 1250-mile long (2000 km) stretch between Texas and Mexico via the web.

The controversial $4m  Texas Virtual Border Watch Program invites civilians to log on to Blueservo.net.

There they can monitor live feeds 24/7 from 21 hidden surveillance cameras placed at intervals along the border.

Supporters see the initiative as a step forward in US efforts to curb illegal immigration, drug smuggling and border violence.

Critics say it is encouraging vigilantism and stoking anti-immigrant sentiments.

Value for money?

Since the site went live in November 2008, it has received more than 50 million hits, and more than 130,000 people have registered to become ” virtual deputies”. They are located as far afield as Australia, Mexico, Colombia, Israel, New Zealand and the UK.

The increased focus on the border comes amid concerns that drug-related violence is spilling over from Mexico into the US.

So far, some 21 arrests have been made under the programme which is operated by the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition (TBSC). The majority were for drug smuggling, leading to the seizure of 4,720lbs (2,140kg) of marijuana.

Critics say this does not represent value for money. State Senator Eliot Shapleigh, a Democrat from El Paso, described the scheme as a waste of money.

He argues that border cameras will “invite extremists to participate in a virtual immigrant hunt”.

The Bush administration tried to curb illegal immigration and drug smuggling by erecting a wall along parts of the US-Mexico border.

The surveillance cameras are focused on those stretches not protected by the wall or border guards.

Controversial measure

The website tells users what to look for: groups crowded into boats trying to cross the Rio Grande, individuals carrying backpacks or packages, cars parked in isolated areas and people crawling through the undergrowth.

If the virtual deputies spot anything suspicious, they click a button on the website and send a message to the sheriff’s office in the corresponding location.

The sheriff’s office will then decide whether to investigate or to refer the sighting to the US Border Patrol.

“Having those extra pairs of eyes makes a big difference,” says TBSC executive director Don Reay. “If we can prevent crime by our mere presence then that is a very good thing.”

The scheme has drawn criticism from politicians and civil liberties groups, who say patrolling the border is the responsibility of the US government, not volunteer citizens.

Federal backing

Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union says that while it is “legitimate to protect the country’s border, we would be concerned that the cameras might encourage vigilantism. That people would think they saw an illegal immigrant and then jump in their truck with a gun.”

But the administrators of the site maintain the primary goal of the initiative is to tackle crime, not illegal immigration.

The criminal justice office of Texas Governor Rick Perry awarded the programme $2m in federal funds in its first year and has provided an additional $2m to fund another year. More cameras will also be added in the months ahead.

Governor Perry has been criticised locally for pandering to the right-wing fringes of the Republican Party, and the scheme has been mocked on national television. Governor Perry’s office did not return calls for comment.

Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence at the global intelligence company Stratfor, says cameras are not the solution for the border, but that they are a tool.

According to the TBSC, the surveillance cameras act as a powerful deterrent to potential drug traffickers and illegal immigrants.

Mr Reay says that it is “impossible to quantify how much criminal activity we are deterring but we’ve seen a high volume of ‘turn-backs’, where people come right up to the border then turn around again.”

Like real police work, online border patrolling seems to consist of hours of tedium punctuated by minutes of high excitement.

Despite this, Deanna Blythe spends about an hour a day logged on the site. The housewife from Athens, Ohio, says that it gives her a feeling of doing her civic duty and helping to keep the borders secure.

Virtual deputy John Spears says it is more than that. He actually gets “a kick out of coming home from a day in the office and playing border guard. It’s more interesting than TV”.

Another Mexican Drug Tunnel

Increased law enforcement along the U.S. border with Mexico is aiding efforts to combat drug smuggling as well as illegal immigration.

Recently federal agents in California uncovered the latest of 56 cross-border tunnels found in the Southwest since the government increased the number of border guards and added fencing, The New York Times reported Friday.

The newest tunnel, discovered Dec. 3 in Tecante, Calif., is believed to have been constructed as a major route for smuggling drugs from Mexico.

The newspaper says the tunnel, 50 feet below ground, bears signs of engineering skill and professional drilling tools.

The 1,300 ft.-long tunnel was carved through solid rock. Compact fluorescent bulbs wired to the Mexican side of the border provide light while two pumps keep the tunnel dry.

Shrink-wrapped bundles of marijuana worth $5.6 million on the street were found at the end of the tunnel in a shipping container, indicating that it was intended to serve as a major smuggling corridor.