CBP Press Release Highlights Two Trump Priorities

Border Patrol photo showing agents carrying the wounded hiker to a helicopter for evacuation.

CBP issued a press release last week, dateline Jacumba, Calif., captioned “American citizen shot in Jacumba Wilderness north of the U.S.-Mexico Border”. It recounts how Border Patrol agents rescued an American hiker and his Canadian companion who were robbed and attacked while hiking 1,000 feet from the U.S.-Mexico line in the California wilderness. More importantly, however, it underscores two Trump priorities: “the terrorist activities” of Mexican drug lords; and the need to finish “the wall”. Now that the muzzle is off the agents, the truth is coming out.

Attacked and Robbed. Around 11:00 AM PST on Wednesday, Border Patrol agents received a call from the Imperial County (Calif.) Sheriff’s Office, informing them that an individual had been shot and needed help in the Jacumba Wilderness, federally managed land under the jurisdiction of Border Patrol’s El Centro sector.

Agents responded, and 1,000 feet from the international boundary with Mexico encountered a group of hikers, who stated that they had been attacked by armed individuals.

According to CBP:

Two of the hikers, one U.S. citizen and one Canadian citizen, were approached by two armed individuals and were commanded to come toward the armed men. When the hikers refused to follow the armed subjects’ commands, the assailants fired a volley of shots toward the hikers, striking one victim in the leg. The assailants advanced on the downed hiker and his Canadian companion, robbing them of their cell phones and backpacks.

Agents stabilized the victim who had been shot, and CBP Air and Marine Operations units flew him out, transferring him to an air ambulance that ferried him to a hospital in San Diego.

Meanwhile, agents from Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) and Border Patrol Search Trauma, and Rescue (BORSTAR) established a perimeter around the crime scene, tracking the assailants back to the border, where they escaped into Mexico.

“I Told You So Moment”. Crime is not unheard of in Jacumba Wilderness (there are safer places to take a hike), but this is not simply a story about how violence can strike anywhere at any time.

Which brings me to a quote in that press release, from Gregory Bovino, chief of El Centro sector:

The wounded hiker is an ‘I told you so moment’ highlighting the importance of adequate infrastructure the Border Patrol has been championing for years now. … Suspected cartel terrorists, however, are fixing to learn this type of conduct will be an end game type of activity here in the Premier Sector. All threats, anywhere, or at any time throughout this sector will be addressed vigorously.

Note the two highlighted portions of that statement.

“Adequate Infrastructure”. When Chief Bovino talks about “adequate infrastructure”, he’s referring to what’s known as the “border wall system”: the fencing, roads, lights, cameras, and fiber-optic cable along the Southwest border that serves as an impediment to illegal traffic and as a force-multiplier for agents trying to access remote areas — like Jacumba Wilderness.

Trump championed border infrastructure construction on the 2016 campaign trail and during his first term, and although “walls” used to be a bipartisan topic, once he made clear that he was for it, his political opponents turned against it.

In fact, Trump’s opponents had such a visceral reaction that on his first day in office in January 2021, President Biden issued a “pause” on additional construction, in direct opposition to the wishes of the agents on the line who understand how important infrastructure is to their success — hence Chief Bovino’s use of the word “championing for years now”.

Trump’s now back at the helm, and on January 20 he issued a proclamation, “Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States”, which — among other things — directs the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to “take all appropriate action, consistent with law … to construct additional physical barriers along the southern border”.

“Suspected Cartel Terrorists”. While I could attempt to go back through years of CBP press releases and state this dispositively, I am reasonably sure that the agency has never used the words “suspected cartel terrorists” in a publicly issued statement.

As I explained on January 23, however, the Trump administration is exploring whether Mexican cartels — Sinaloa, CJNG, and Gulf, among others — should be designated “foreign terrorist organizations” (“FTOs”) and/or as “specially designated global terrorists” (SDGTs).

There are any number of statutory requirements that various departments must satisfy before such designations are made, but ask any agent who has dealt with cartel members and they will tell you that those goons use many of the same tools as ISIS or al-Qaeda to achieve their goals, including murder (even beheading), torture, extortion, and rape.

Both objectify human life as a matter of course in pursuit of their illicit goals, and both seek to seize and hold “territory” to use as a base of operation.

You can tell how Chief Bovino comes down on the question of whether cartel members are terrorists, and while robbery was the clear goal of the attackers in Jacumba Wilderness, if they were cartel members who were directed by their capos to seize money and assets, those money and assets were going to support the goals of the organization — one more thing the cartels have in common with ISIS and al-Qaeda.

For the last four years, Border Patrol agents have been muzzled by the Biden administration, prevented from saying publicly what they see and believe is occurring at the Southwest border. With Trump back, the muzzle is off — and the truth is finally coming out.