Report: Border Patrol confirms 29 incursions by Mexican officials into U.S. in 2006

By Olga R. Rodriguez

ASSOCIATED PRESS

3:33 p.m. January 9, 2008

MEXICO CITY – The U.S. Border Patrol confirmed 29 recorded incursions into the U.S. by Mexican military or other government agents in the last 12 months, according to a report made public Wednesday by a watchdog group.

Judicial Watch, a conservative, U.S.-based public interest group, said in a news release that Mexican officials were armed in 17 of the 29 incursions during the fiscal year between October 2005 to October 2006.

The group obtained the information through a request under the Freedom of Information Act. The report includes a description of a January 2006 confrontation between Texas officials and several armed men in military uniforms who were seen in a military Humvee near Fort Hancock, Texas. No shots were fired and the suspects fled back into Mexico.

Mexican authorities denied that any Mexican soldiers were involved but the confrontation heightened already tense relations between the U.S. and Mexico over border enforcement.