Drug Cartels Cross Rio Grande To Kidnap U.S. Citizens for Smuggling Runs

By Penny Starr, CNS News Maverick County, Texas Sheriff Tomas Herrera said he does not agree with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s assessment that security at the U.S.-Mexico border is “better than it has ever been.”

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Herrera, in a telephone interview with CNSNews.com, said that not “a mile” of the 85-mile stretch of border in Maverick County, Texas, which is separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande River, is secure. He said the violence generated by Mexican drug cartels is spilling into the United States as cartel members come into Texas to kidnap teenagers for their smuggling operations. “They come in and kidnap some of our citizens in this county and take them into Mexico,” Herrera told CNSNews.com. “We’re talking about young kids.”

Arrest made in 2009 killing of Border Patrol agent

By Sandra Dibble, San Diego Union-Tribune TIJUANA — Municipal police in Tijuana on Monday announced the arrest of a second man in the ambush-murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas Jr. near Campo in July 2009. Marcos Manuel Rodriguez Perez, 26, was captured Monday in the La Mesa section of the city, said Adrian Hernandez Perez, general director of the Tijuana Municipal Police. Reading from a statement, Hernandez identified Rodriguez as the agent’s killer but did not elaborate. The arrest was announced at a news conference at a Tijuana police substation. The news media was then taken to Rodriguez’s jail cell, where he was brought out to be photographed and briefly questioned by reporters. When asked about his profession, he said he was a welder.

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