Chertoff pledges to nab killers of Border Patrolman

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that the United States and Mexico are working aggressively to track the killers of a Border Patrol agent.

The 32-year-old agent was slain over the weekend in what Chertoff described as an extensive surge in violence against federal agents along the Southwest border.

"This is outrageous, killing a Border Patrol agent," Chertoff said in a joint interview with three news organizations, including McClatchy. "We're committed to bringing the people who did this to justice."

Luis Aguilar, a father of two, was killed Saturday when he was struck by a vehicle speeding through the Imperial San Dunes Recreation Area near Andrade, Calif. Aguilar was assigned to the Yuma Border Patrol Station, just across the state line in Arizona. Chertoff said the agent apparently was "killed deliberately" when he tried to stop the vehicle with a device that deflates tires.

Chertoff was joined by high-ranking officials of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a branch of the Homeland Security Department, as they mourned the death of the first agent killed in the line of duty since 1998. All wore gold badges affixed with black tape.

Chertoff said Border Patrol agents are virtually under siege by violent drug cartels retaliating against toughened enforcement that has made it harder to ferry drugs into the United States. Assaults on Border Patrol agents have increased 44 percent from October through December, compared with the same period a year ago.

"When you turn the screws on them, they start to fight more viciously to protect their dwindling business," Chertoff said. But he added: "Anybody who thinks they're going to back us down — whether it's with rocks or guns or vehicles — is going to find out that we don't back down."