The Border Security Operations Center report also includes encounters with gang members and cartel gunmen during the same week, including:
- The Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office arrested 32 members of gangs that included the Valluco, Texas Chicano Brothers, Sureño 13, Texas Syndicate, Tango Blast and Latin Kings.
- U.S. Border Patrol agents detained a dozen suspected gang members trying to cross the border, including alleged members of the infamous Salvadoran gang MS-13.
- A homeowner called Rio Grande City police to report three men who said they’d crossed into the U.S. were at her door asking for water. When cops arrived, one admitted to being an active MS-13 gang member.
- Two Edinburg, Texas, officers were shot and wounded by a Texas Syndicate gang member wanted for murder during a multiagency, hours-long standoff in La Joya.
- American reporters were threatened by rifle-toting smugglers from across the river.
- Dozens of photos and mugshots of illegal immigrants – some of them juveniles – proudly displaying gang-related tattoos.
The report also notes significant events in Mexico. A section included reports of mass graves found; an oil pipeline explosion likely due to illegal siphoning; cartel extortion of migrants heading toward the U.S. border, imposing tolls on all those who use the highways; and the murders of Mexican law enforcement agents.
Also of note: Salvadorans riding a train called “The Beast” to the U.S. border reportedly told authorities they had been told to take the long way into America – through New Mexico, not Texas, which is the far more direct route – because they had heard that Texas Gov. Rick Perry was sending 1,000 National Guardsmen down to help secure the border.
