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(1) Our people at FOX News insist upon using the line that the president has the Border Patrol positioned 45 miles away from the border. This is a lamentable error, and speaks to the fact that many reporters, including those in the remuda of FOX News....including Hannity himself who repeats this information as if it is a new and secret revelation....and it should be stopped.
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Sarita Checkpoint - US 77
This was captioned as 21 immigrants in a
trailer. They are not immigrants, but rather
illegal aliens. It is not infrequent to find them
seriously impaired due to heat and air quality
issues. Not long ago a trailer was abandoned
in Victoria, Texas and 20 illegals died inside. |
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| Falfurrias, Texas Border Patrol Checkpoint |
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Jim Hogg County Courthouse
Hebbronville, Texas
(101 years old) |
The Border Patrol has since time immemorial....for instance the original paving of US Highway 281 (AKA the Lincoln Memorial Trans-American) just before World War II...had a secondary checkpoint just south of Falfurrias, Texas. This highway essentially serves the population of Hidalgo County (McAllen area) that is north and south bound.
The same for US Highway 77 that connects Cameron and Willacy County to the World, Texas Highway 16 that leads to San Antonio from the western Lower Rio Grande Valley, and US Highway Interstate 35 that connects Laredo with Minneapolis.
In the first case, Highway 281 has had a checkpoint about 15 miles south of Falufurrias, Texas where vehicular traffick has always been stopped and checked for the presence of undocumented entrants. Commercial traffick is stopped there as well, including all transport tractor-trailer rigs and the like. At times the lines at that checkpoint can be over a mile long. Dogs are employed at that inspection station. Normally the time elapsed is about 2 - 3 minutes, as the inspections are fairly intuitive and approaching vehicles are frequently dogged while they are in line.
Highway 77 has a check point well south of Kingsville, Texas at a place in the ranch country (King Ranch, Kenedy Ranch, Armstrong Ranch, Yturria Ranch) and Brownsville - Harlingen et.al. with the world. This picture is from the Sarita Checkpoint.
On Texas Highway 16 the checkpoint is found at Hebronville, Texas. It is the most remote, and the most difficult to negotiate via "walk-around" whereby the illegal aliens are dumped off a few miles before the checkpoint and picked-up again a few miles after the checkpoint. The distance between has to be covered on foot, and can be brutal to the point of death. Last year over 300 illegals died attempting the walk around.
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| Hebbronville, Texas Checkpoint |
Just to the north of Hebbronville, there is a checkpoint, and although it is a place "way out in the country" like all the others, but moreso, there are huge take-downs of illegal material and people. It has been the scene of some very hairy encounters.
To the left, one can see a transporter, hauling corn silage as cattle feed. The only problem was that is was also hauling 2,400 pounds of marijuana, wrapped in such a manner as to indicate that it was cartel product. This particular take-down resulted in the fall of several big cheeses on both sides of the Rio Grande. It may have ignited a "war" between two different cartels that led to the Mexican Army's increased ability to degrade both groups to the level where they are to-day. One of the problems was, of course, that several American police officers were tangled up in the affair as well and all are in prison now....and the immediate ex-Sheriff of Hidalgo County reports to prison to serve five years for public corruption next week. He was sentenced Thursday last. The love of money is the root of all evil.
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Secondary Checkpoint
About 20 miles north of Laredo, Texas |
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Falfurrias Checkpoint - agents dogging
several thousand vehicle per day. |
This particular contribution to the Blog - A Gringo in Rural Mexico. voice from the Sierra Madre Oriental is to explain the deployment patterns of the Border Patrol. Such is as it has always been since the beginning of World War II. Before that time....back in the 1920s and early 1930s the patrol was conducted by the United States Army, and more especially by mounted cavalry units. Some were National Guard, but most were old anachronistic Regular Army, somewhat mechanised, but still 95% mounted with lots and lots of stinky old horses.
If we were to gauge and guess, it would be fair to say that 90% of the Border Patrol's assets are deployed along the Rio Grande and 10% is given over to the secondary checkpoints. We lament wasting the time of the OROGs with this somewhat mundane geographic analysis of Border Patrol deployments, but it has been left to the imagination of reasonable people based upon what Hannity, Rush, Governor Perry, and a bunch of people on our side, as they are, that the Border Patrol is only or almost exclusively deployed "45 miles away from the border". Such is not the case. Furthermore, these facilities have a long history, and they are centres of other assets, such as ready deployment helicopters, old-fashioned trackers who scour the badlands and roadsides for "sign" ....while mounted or even on foot, Indian style...looking for footprints, discard, and even illegals who have collapsed from the strain of the "by-pass" manoeuver.
(2) And finally, although I would readily support Louie Gohmer for House Speaker, it must be suggested to him, that if he hears a 50 calibre Barrett sniper rifle discharge in the dark of night, in the bottoms of the Rio Grande, then he needs to take a new job as a forensic ready-listener. I would suggest that it would be next to impossible to differentiate the sound of a Barrett 50 from almost any of the high-powered military styled or munitioned rifles. The Girand M-I is a good example of a supremely raucous weapon. A Remington .35 magnum would be another. There are scores.
While it is true that the Mexican Army has confiscated several score Barrett rifles from the cartel people, many of them are dysfunctional and almost all have not been cleaned and cared for as such fine and sensitive weapons require. The cartel people are not famous for following National Rifle Association rules for the care, cleaning, and safe operation of weapons.
Also, wild shots taken across the Rio Grande by drunks, criminals, dumbasses, etc. are nothing new. Twenty years ago or so, a couple was talking to a fellow on the deck of a really nice riverside saloon / restaurant there south of McAllen - Mission. While they were talking the single fellow's head blew up. It was safe to say that whatever hit him did not hurt for long, because he was dead before he hit the deck, with larger and smaller parts of his head being distributed in various parts of the dining area.
And who shot him? Some dirty stinking Meskin? Well, not so much. It was a Southern Mafia hit man who had been waiting for a shot, due to the fact that his target was known to frequent the particular, really nice, family-style riverside saloon and restaurant just across the Rio Grande....a 250 yard shot, one shot only, and a clear hit. Professional. His spotter was a person whom I cannot identify in any way because with the slightest description 100,000 people in the Lower Rio Grande Valley would know about whom we speak.
Further on this topic, El Zorro and El Gringo Viejo moved around on the Rio Grande in various places at various times during our latter Huckleberry and Tom days and we had the clikittyclacker snapping of bullets-through-the-twigs, followed by a rifle detonation on few, but several, occasions while camping on the Rio when it still possible. Enchanting places, little known to most LRGV people even, scenes that looked like mountain streams in Pennsylvania or Tennessee, with really fine fishing, Indian artefact hunting, or just lounging on the riverbank watching the panoply of bird species.
So while I really do not like the term, allow El Gringo Viejo to Sedge-way into these further two sub-points. There are two reasons why there is this particular rush to Reynosa - McAllen. (A) Obama constructed, purposely and purposefully, by word and deed the impression and reality that children, children with mothers only, and children with mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and cousins to the 3rd degree could cross the Rio Grande and climb onto the north bank of said Rio and deliver themselves to the Border Patrol. They were of the opinion, and had full faith and confidence that, once on-shore and under the detention of the Border Patrol they would be released with a "permiso" and told when to report for their immigration status hearing. I will assure everyone that this was being declared as fact on very popular, well produced and AAAA to major league-quality hosting, radio and Central American television programmes beginning in 2012 and becoming more intense in 2013. Admittedly, much of my direct knowledge comes from speaking with a few Central Americans and from listening to Guatemalan overnight radio and Mexican overnight radio while staying at our little mud hut on the side of the Sierra Madre Oriental in Mexico.
And (B) one of the reasons the Reynosa - McAllen corridor was chosen was because the word was out that the Mexican central government had essentially taken the last step and militarised the entire State of Tamaulipas, sending in more troops than had been seen there, including the Revolution of 1910 period. While Central Americans and Mexicans are stupid and ignorant, and Americans informed by the Obsolete Press are smart and informed, some thing funny happened. It was realised by the Central Americans that the Mexican military is generally a source of order and good works. When the degradation of the cartels had broken down the structures to the point where operations are essentially being conducted by one-tenth of the number of cartel members, and being led by people with the strategic comprehension of a drunken corporal the Central Americans knew that they had a good chance to make it to the edge of the Rio Grande without coyotes.
Imagine the joking going around in the saloons in Reynosa when someone observes, ''I saw Juan trying to sell jet-ski and rubber-raft Rio crossing passages to some
Centroamericanos the other day for 20 pesos each. You remember when he was strutting around with that brand new Ford 150 they had stolen from the dealership when he was jefe in the cartel's local cell?" And people laugh. It is no longer a nervous laugh.
A CAVEAT: This is certainly not to say that there is nothing left to do in Tamaulipas, Mexico, or Texas. There is much to do. There is a long way to go. To relate it to World War II, it would be my estimate that we are right around 16 June 1944. Normandy is not quite pacified, but reconnaissance is detecting retreat formations within the badly damaged German army.
And to finalise, finally....the massive free movement and resurgence of night-time activity, and the generally attitude of the populace at all levels in Tamaulipas has continued to improve. It began around the time that your humble commentator detected the linkage between increased military presence and greater social confidence about 18 months ago. The people are welcoming of the essentially martial law in the State now, and many wish that it had been imposed long ago. But...every effort by the Calderon Hinojosa administration to convince the Governor(s) of the State of Tamaulipas to yield soveignty was rebuffed by the Partido Revolucionario Institutiocional (PRI) governors. The Presidential party became PRI in the last election, then the incompetent, lethargic PRI governor of Tamaulipas finally invited the all-but-total militarisation of his State.
And that is why we have the massive numbers coming into Reynosa - McAllen. The Centroamericanos are not afraid of the Mexican military. They are not even afraid of the not-as-corrupt-as-they-used-to-be Mexican Immigration...they will receive neutral to decent treatment from the military, and slightly crummy to adequate treatment by Customs and Immigration.
And, from Obama, they will be notified of the date and time of their immigration status hearing.
This is why the Marine Sergeant is
still incarcerated in Tecate, Baja
California. Until people
are thrown into prison, up to
and including the above pictured
marxist thug, Mexican arrogance
and posturing will supersede the
arrogance and posturing of Barry
Soetoro and Comrade Eric.
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Thanks for your patience. FOX is still more accurate than most. Beck and his posse are doing a good thing, but much of the edge of his commentary is popular perception that is inaccurate. Remember above all else that this, just like the efforts to shut down coal and power plants and the oil and gas business is being intentionally done to drag America in to third world status.
El Gringo Viejo
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