U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is warning its agents to watch out for homemade explosive devices after the Mexican military seized 10 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) during a cartel gunfight at the border.
An internal December 13th officer safety alert shared by a federal law-enforcement source with FOX Business Network warns CBP agents to be “vigilant,” the outlet reported Friday.
Agents should “exercise extreme caution and should report any possible armed subjects approaching the border with possible explosive devices,” the memo states.
(Video: FOX Business)
Mexican authorities discovered the IEDs after Tucson border patrol agents responded to gunshots at the US-Mexico border. A Tucson supervisory border patrol agent arrested an individual on the US side who was carrying a loaded AK-47, two loaded AK magazines, a handgun, and loose rounds.
According to a FOX Business source, the incident began with what was essentially a gang shootout over control of a gap in the border fence on a ranch that is known to be used to smuggle drugs Stateside.
“Now it’s a magnet for the cartel to push people through,” Hillary Vaughn told host Maria Bartiromo on FOX Business’s “Mornings With Maria.”
“Border patrol agents basically stumbled upon a cartel turf-war gunfight” near the ranch, Vaughn explained.
The arrested individual told agents that “there were eleven armed suspects nearby,” she reported.
After hearing gunfire from the Mexican side of the border, the agents “pulled back to a safer area.”
“The Mexican military responded,” Vaughn said. “That’s when they found the ten explosive devices filled with black powder and shrapnel.”
The gap in the fence was “a spot in the border wall that was never completed,” she said, citing a source.
“It also goes to show just how increasingly dangerous it is for our law enforcement agents on the border,” Vaughn told Bartiromo, “but also how lucrative human smuggling is for the cartel, that they are willing to have these gunfights over small gaps in the fence to try to gain control and use that as a way to push their people — their paying customers — through.”
Vaughn stressed that the cartel wasn’t strapping asylum-seeking migrants with explosive devices and sending them over the American border.
“This was not a situation where it was placed on a migrant, it was coming through the border,” she said. “It never made it to the US side. This is just something that the cartels had on hand. This was not something that was used against Border Patrol agents or used in an effort to carry the way across the border.”
“What it does speak to,” she said, “is, really, the operation of the cartel and how valuable and the lengths they’re willing to go to protect their business, which, a big part of their business now, is getting people through the border. So they’re willing to fight to the end to control these small gaps in the fence on the border, so that they are the only ones pushing people through to the US side, their customers.”
“CBP’s warning comes as Republicans are pushing for increased border safety measures to be included in President Biden’s $106 billion aid package for Israel and Ukraine,” FOX Business reports. “GOP border hawks have demanded that any aid package include the entirety of H.R. 2 — the House signature legislation passed in the chamber this year which ramps up border security, restarts border wall construction, brings back the Remain-in-Mexico policy and limits the use of asylum and humanitarian parole among other sweeping changes.”
President Biden and Senate Democrats rejected the bill, arguing that it would “cut off nearly all access to humanitarian protections in ways that are inconsistent with our Nation’s values and international obligations.”
“Meanwhile, Fox News reported that Tuesday saw another day in which overwhelmed officials at the border encountered more than 10,000 migrants in a single day.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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