Twice in less than a week, gunmen in Mexico have opened fire across the border on U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Texas.
Around midnight on Tuesday, a border patrol agent with the El Paso Sector’s Ysleta Station ducked for cover behind his vehicle after gunshots rang out, according to Border Report. CBP officials said roughly five rounds were fired toward the agent from south of the border in Mexico.
No injuries were reported.
At the time of the shooting, the agent was patrolling near the U.S. Highway 375 Midway Drive exit, which sits across from Riverside Middle School.
Late last week, gunmen in Mexico also fired 20 shots across the international border at CBP agent patrolling near El Paso, according to officials, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
CBP officials said in a statement that the agent was driving along the Rio Grande in the area of the Jonathan Rogers Water Treatment Plant when gunmen opened fire across the river from the Mexican side of the border around 3 a.m., forcing the border agent to take cover.
The attacks come less than a month after a large canvas sign that read “we will kill you” in an apparent threat to U.S. border patrol agents was hung from a bridge of Viaducto Diaz Ordaz in Juarez.
“Warning. This is for the municipal [police], state, National Guard and for the (expletive deleted) gringos of La Migra [U.S. Border Patrol]. Stop (expletive deleted) with the polleros [human smugglers] or we will kill you. Bullets also can cross the river and the [border] wall, so stop (expletive deleted) around,” the sign’s full message stated.
Juarez police removed the sign and CBP officials said an investigation into the incident is underway.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is aware of the threat and the matter has been referred to the appropriate investigative entities. As with any threat made against CBP personnel, it will be handled accordingly and not taken lightly,” the agency said in an email, according to Border Report.
The agency noted that all threats will be investigated and those responsible will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
“The referenced threat is a reminder that members of transnational criminal organizations will stop at nothing to further their exploitation of those being smuggled into the United States, to include not only harming their victims, but threatening U.S. federal law enforcement officers when their illicit activities are threatened,” the agency said.
