Our Out Of Control Borders: Who's Accountable?

As a people, we are all paying the price for our federal government's refusal to secure our wide-open and out of control southern border. And some Americans are paying the ultimate price:

GRAYS WELLS — A Yuma Sector Border Patrol agent was killed Saturday morning when he was allegedly struck by a suspected drug smuggler’s vehicle.

The incident occurred at 9 a.m. Saturday about 40 miles east of El Centro.

“We had a smuggling vehicle that we were trying to stop with a spike strip, and the vehicle swerved toward our agent that was deploying that and intentionally ran into him,” Yuma Sector spokesman Eric Anderson said.

The name of the agent killed has not yet been released pending family notification.

Anderson said an “unknown” number of occupants were inside the suspected smuggler’s vehicle, which reportedly was driven directly into the victim as he attempted to place the spike strip.

“This happened in plain view of families and everybody out there having a good time in the dunes,” Anderson said. “The vehicle made it back to Mexico before we could stop it.”

As the agent’s family begins to mourn, Anderson said the death rings as a reminder to fellow agents that their job is indeed dangerous.

“Every agent’s going to be thinking very hard in their head of their job and they’re going to be safe out there,” Anderson said. “I mean, why did they swerve toward one of our agents to try to hit him?

“We’ve got to be out there and be vigilant at all times,” he said. “It’s just a tragedy that this agent lost his life to someone smuggling drugs who has no regard for human life.”

The border officer who was murdered by the drug smugglers was Senior Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar. He left behind a wife and kids:

The U.S. Border Patrol agent who was killed in the line of duty near Andrade on Saturday was a father of two small children and husband, officials said Sunday.

Senior Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar was 32 and was assigned to the Yuma Border Patrol Station since graduating from the Border Patrol Academy on July 21, 2002, officials said. He also leaves behind a brother, a Border Patrol agent assigned to the Nogales Border Patrol Station. He was from El Paso, Texas.

The news of Aguilar’s death affected local agents assigned to the El Centro sector.

“It’s another reminder of the risks that the Border Patrol faces every day to secure our nation’s borders. This despicable act is something to remind our agents we have to be alert and vigilant at all times because things like this can happen at any time,” said El Centro Sector Senior Patrol Agent Enrique Lozano. He and other agents in the field were wearing mourning bands across their shields Monday.

Aguilar died when a fleeing suspected narcotics smuggler driving a brown Hummer ran over him as the six-year veteran attempted to deploy a tire deflation device at the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area near Andrade at about 9:30 a.m., Border Patrol officials said.

Officials are looking for the vehicle and a red Ford F-250 pickup that fled into Mexico in connection to the death.

Aguilar is the first Border Patrol agent to be killed in the line of duty in 2008.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham said Aguilar’s death will only inspire the agency to continue to secure the nation’s borders.

“We are already working today with support from many federal, state and local law enforcement agencies and the full cooperation of Mexican law enforcement and military authorities to find Agent Aguilar’s killers and bring them to justice,” Basham said in a press release late Saturday.

In spite of all the rhetoric and other pronouncements from the Central Government in Washington, the number of illegal aliens who continue to cross our southern border remains unchecked.

I know this for a fact as our family lives only ten miles north of the border and, for us, the consequences of our government's refusal to secure this broken down border isn't an abstraction, but an everyday fact of life as our schools, maternity wards, and hospital emergency rooms are overflowing with illegals aliens who are demanding (and getting) social services at taxpayers' expense.

Meanwhile, our federal government continues to do little to effectively remedy this chronic problem.

How many more of our law-enforcement officials and other citizens will be injured or killed in by these criminals (such as the vicious animal that calls himself Santana Aceves) because our government can't find the political balls wherewithal to build an effective barrier in order to help keep out unwanted and dangerous intruders?

It can be done.

If only someone in Washington can find the political will to do so.