Mexico towns protest Border Patrol attacks

TIJUANA, Mexico – In an escalation of clashes between U.S. Border Patrol agents and rock-throwing smugglers, agents have begun launching pepper spray and tear gas into densely populated Mexican border neighborhoods, according to witnesses, Mexican authorities and human-rights groups.

The more aggressive approach reflects the tense climate in this city’s most notorious smuggling neighborhood, Colonia Libertad, where U.S. agents say they have had to counter human traffickers’ increasingly aggressive tactics by ramping up their own use of force.

Agents have used pepper spray before, but usually aimed directly at the smugglers. The new tactics, which saturate large areas, have forced dozens of temporary evacuations and sent some residents to hospitals, according to witnesses.

Border Patrol officials say tear gas and pepper spray rarely cause serious injury or damage. They use them against assailants who pelt agents to divert attention while they smuggle people into California. Since Oct. 1, the U.S. Border Patrol has counted 90 assaults against agents in the San Diego area, five times as many this year as over the same period a year ago. Agents have suffered serious head injuries, officials say.

The acting Mexican consul general in San Diego, Ricardo Pineda, has met with border officials to protest the aggressive use of tear gas and pepper spray, said Alberto Lozano, the consular spokesman.

“We told them the Mexican government cannot tolerate having Mexican nationals hit with these kind of devices on Mexican soil by U.S. authorities, regardless of the reason,” Lozano said.

Residents of the area’s hillside shanties and muddy streets say the Border Patrol’s measures neglect their welfare. Some agents, they say, show compassion, even apologize for the tactics. But others are defiant and continue saturating areas despite their pleas.

“I said to the agent, ‘Put yourself in my place. I have two children,’ ” said Robis Guadalupe Argumeo, whose home has been gassed three times since August, most recently after a verbal exchange with an agent Saturday. “He said, ‘I’m the policeman of the world. No one can touch me.’ “

The agent, said Argumeo, was peering over the border fence pointing his pepper-spray launcher at her house. She told him, “But this isn’t Iraq, this is Mexico,” but he continued firing into the neighborhood.

The clashes are taking place east of the San Ysidro Port of Entry along a two-mile stretch of border where Colonia Libertad, one of Tijuana’s most densely populated neighborhoods, pushes up against the frontier.

Once this was an immigrant-smuggling corridor where hundreds crossed nightly, but trafficking slowed considerably a decade ago when U.S. authorities erected two layers of fencing.

In recent months, illegal crossings and assaults have increased dramatically, agents say. Apprehensions of illegal immigrants in the San Diego area are up 7 percent this year, the only area on the Southwest border that showed an increase from 2006.

The situation has deteriorated to the point that authorities are considering whether to add barbed wire to fencing bordering Colonia Libertad, an option previously avoided because of the negative symbolism.

Agents say smugglers long ago responded to their original tactic of shooting pepper balls by wearing cardboard shields or heavy jackets to deflect the projectiles. They say the pepper balls, which explode on impact, don’t seem to affect hardened smugglers.

Using larger quantities of pepper spray and tear gas is more likely to disrupt their operations and de-escalate violence, agents say.

Throwing rocks and other objects is one way to give immigrants time to scale the fences and disappear. Agents say the attacks are highly coordinated.