Border-crossers report two more confrontations

The sheriff’s office says two more groups of undocumented migrants have reported being confronted by masked gunmen in remote areas of the local border region. They are the latest alleged victims in a string of similar incidents that authorities say are so difficult to investigate, they are not even sure if they are happening in Mexico or the United States. In the first incident, deputies met with two Mexican men at the Nogales Border Patrol Station on Monday after they told agents they had fled from masked men who fired a warning shot in the air, said Sgt. Jerry Maldonado of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office. The men, aged approximately 21 and 25, told investigators that they had crossed illegally into the United States on foot when they came upon at least two men wearing black clothing and red bandanas over their faces. When the masked men gestured for the migrants to come near, they turned to flee as one of the men fired a rifle into the air. On Tuesday, two more undocumented immigrants detained by the U.S. Border Patrol told sheriff’s investigators that they were traveling in a group of seven people through an area west of Nogales the previous night when they were accosted. “They said two male subjects in camouflage clothing wearing ski masks ambushed them while they were getting something to eat,” Maldonado said. The reporting victims were both men, aged approximately 18 and 28, and one said he was robbed of about $200. “One of them says he was hit because he wouldn’t give up his rosary, and that he was threatened with a handgun,” Maldonado said...more