U.S.-Mexico Border Security Conference Facts and Figures

They could have been videos from the Middle East or Central Asia. But the images flashed to the crowd at Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes' annual border security conference at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) showed graphic scenes from the so-called narco war in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. After giving a content advisory, the presenter, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Alonzo Peña, started the show. In rapid succession, viewers variously saw a pre-decapitation interrogation of one presumed cartel member by rivals, a convoy of 50 vehicles with CDG (Gulf Cartel) insignias calmly passing through a highway toll booth, a squad of gunmen armed with a grenade-launcher and a rocket-launcher carrying out an attack in the town of Camargo, and the body of assassinated 2010 gubernatorial candidate Rodolfo Torre laying on the ground next to his likewise unfortunate companions. "It's barbaric and it's extreme," summed up Peña, who serves as ICE's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Operations...more