Mexican border neighborhoods on Thursday protested U.S. border Patrol agents who launched pepper spray and tear gas into Mexican border communities, a local newspaper said.
The clashes between U.S. Border Patrol agents and rock-throwing smugglers escalated after the agents launched pepper spray and tear gas into densely populated Mexican border neighborhoods, the Los Angeles Times reported on its website, quoting witnesses, Mexican authorities and human-rights groups.
The more aggressive approach reflects the tense climate in this city's most notorious smuggling neighborhood, Colonia Libertad, where U.S. agents say they have had to counter human traffickers' increasingly aggressive tactics by ramping up their own use of force, the paper said.
Agents have used pepper spray before, but usually aimed directly at the smugglers. The new tactics, which saturate large areas, have forced dozens of temporary evacuations and sent some residents to hospitals, the paper quoted witnesses as saying.
Ricardo Pineda, the acting Mexican Consul General in San Diego, about 100 km south of Los Angeles, has met with border officials to protest the aggressive use of tear gas and pepper spray, said Alberto Lozano, the consular spokesman.
"We told them the Mexican government cannot tolerate having Mexican nationals hit with these kind of devices on Mexican soil by U.S. authorities, regardless of the reason," Lozano said.
U.S. Border Patrol officials said, however, they used tear gas and pepper spray against assailants who pelt agents to divert attention while they were smuggling people into California.
U.S. border officials said since Oct. 1, the U.S. Border Patrol has counted 90 assaults against agents in the San Diego area, five times as many as in the same period a year ago. Some agents have suffered serious head injuries, according to U.S. officials.
But residents of the area's hillside shanties and muddy streets said the Border Patrol's measures neglected their welfare. Although some agents apologized for the tactics, others were defiant and continued saturating areas despite their pleas, the residents said.
In recent months, illegal crossings from Mexico into the United States and assaults have increased dramatically, the paper quoted border agents as saying.
Apprehensions of illegal immigrants in the San Diego area have increased by 7 percent this year, the only area on the southwest border that showed an increase from 2006.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article