Armored Blackhawk helicopters have arrived at the Texas border with Mexico in response to the recent attack on a U.S. helicopter from Mexican soil. A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) helicopter was participating in stopping a well-organized drug trafficking effort that involved individuals on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Shots were fired from the Mexican side on the CBP helicopter and it was forced down after sustaining damage.
Border Patrol agent Hector Garza spoke with Breitbart Texas on the matter in his role as president of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) Local 2455. He stated, “If Breitbart Texas hadn’t reported on this very serious matter, the CBP would have likely kept it from the public. Texans and other Americans would not have known that people from the Mexican side of the border had tried to shoot down one of our aircraft and kill federal agents.”
He continued, “We are very grateful to finally have armored helicopters. Our lives are at great risk and political forces often attempt to portray the border areas as safe and okay. Clearly they are not safe and this is a moment where the actions of CBP management have placed the safety of agents above the feelings of the Mexican government.”
The Mexican government acted with outrage when knowledge of the armored helicopters being sent to the border first broke. Even though the Mexican government uses Blackhawk helicopters to patrol their side of the border, the U.S. using them sparked Mexico’s foreign relations secretariat to issue a statement. As Ildefonso Ortiz reported:
Mexico’s foreign relations secretariat issued a statement expressing their disapproval of the Texas measure, stating that it hurt relations between their country and the United States. Mexico’s criticism of the measure came just hours before U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that they were sending two armored Blackhawk helicopters to the border city of Laredo.
The announcement spread like wildfire through Mexico, sparking much debate, particularly in the social media pages of that country’s news outlets, where sentiments varied from support to outrage at what they called the militarization of the border.
This is not the first instance of hypocrisy from the Mexican government on border issues. Various Mexican officials have long blamed their internal violence and corruption on the U.S. demand for drugs. They have insisted that the demand is the problem and the U.S. to blame. However, they routinely insist that their internal gun violence and their demand for firearms is a result of U.S. supply, not their own demand for firearms.
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