BORDER IS NO MATCH FOR SOME FAMILY TIES

The border does not provide an easy dividing line for those who have
relatives on both sides. The saying is you can choose your friends but not
your relatives, but the border presents its own complications.

On Sept. 12, two El Paso FBI agents were seriously injured during a
law-enforcement operation at Sunland Park-Anapra that targeted suspected
train robbers.

Juarez politicians, activists and others made a big stink over allegations
that FBI agents either stepped onto Mexican soil to arrest suspects, or
Juarez city police and Mexican federal customs officers yanked suspects
from their Anapra homes and turned them over to U.S. federal agents.

One of the injured FBI agents is related to Francisco "Pancho" Barrio, the
first Chihuahua state governor from the National Action Party. He now
serves as President Vicente Fox's anticorruption czar. Fox and the Juarez
mayor also belong to PAN.

Border Relations

A couple of years ago, a Mexican federal document made its way to El Paso's
federal court during an extradition case. Among other things, it said a
former jeweler and accountant of the Carrillo Fuentes cartel had alleged
that former Gov. Barrio took protection money from Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
The cooperating witness was assassinated a short time later in Mexico City.

Barrio, through full-page ads in Juarez newspapers, denied the allegations.
Fox stood by Barrio, and defended his reputation. Local people who know the
anticorruption czar swear he's incapable of such misdeeds. His defenders
believe he was extremely naive and didn't know what was going on, which is
possible.

Still, someone collected all that money in the governor's name.

According to another federal investigation, officials who worked in the
Barrio administration during the mid-1990s allegedly were involved in the
disappearances of young women who later turned up dead. Again, Barrio
didn't know.

A Small Circle

Eduardo Gonzalez Quirarte, an alleged top capo in the Carrillo Fuentes
cartel, attended El Paso's Jefferson High School. U.S. officials allege
he's in charge of delivering big payoffs to high-level officials. Although
U.S. federal agents claim he's a most-wanted fugitive, a former school chum
of Gonzalez bumped into him last week -- in El Paso.

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the new cartel leader, had a daughter here. The
mother, feeling U.S. federal agents were snooping on them too much,
recently left their West El Paso home and took off for Mexico.

Francisco "Venado" Estrada, a Chihuahua state fugitive who was arrested
over the weekend in Durango state, was charged with killing a state
policeman and escaping from prison. He had been hiding out temporarily with
cousins in El Paso.

Some border families must have the most interesting dinner conversations.