GUNFIRE EXCHANGED ACROSS RIO GRANDE

HARLINGEN, Texas - Border Patrol agents exchanged gunfire with drug
smugglers across the Rio Grande near Mission on Wednesday as they
intercepted about 800 pounds of marijuana, a Border Patrol spokesman said.

While no U.S. agents were hurt, a border official said assaults on agents
are "definitely on the rise," with smugglers throwing rocks, ramming
vehicles or carrying firearms to deter the increasing number of agents and
to get their loads through.

"Smugglers become frustrated when there is continuing surveillance on the
border, where there's no gap," said Mario Villarreal, spokesman for
Washington, D.C.-based Customs and Border Protection.

For the 2005 fiscal year ending Sept. 30, there were 566 assaults against
agents, compared to 548 in 2004 and 375 in 2003, he said.

The agents Wednesday seized nine bundles with an estimated street value of
$450,400.

"Agents working in the area saw suspicious activity," Rio Grande Valley
sector spokesman Roy Cervantes said. "They saw individuals leaving the
river carrying sacks. They ordered them to stop, and gun shots came from
across the river."

Cervantes said the individuals on the U.S. side had a pickup truck that
they used to ram the agents' vehicle in an attempt to drive from the scene.
Eventually, they swam back across the Rio Grande to Mexico.

Villarreal said violence was taking several forms, with "rocking" agents an
increasing trend.

"Smugglers get together and throw rocks at our agents," he said.
"Baseball-to grapefruit-sized rocks. These are projectile weapons that can
cause serious injury to our agents as well as to the vehicles. ... What
happens is the agent will back away from the area and call in reinforcement
- - a helicopter or additional agents."

Smugglers are equipping vehicles with heavy-duty bumpers, and tires are
filled with silicone that immediately seals punctures from Border Patrol
deflation devices, Villarreal said.

Sheriff Tony Estrada in Santa Cruz, Ariz., who is involved in a
multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional drug task force in a region where dozens
of agents have been assaulted, sees the increasing violence from drug
traffickers as the cost of the increasing federal presence.

"As a result of the tremendous seizures that are being done by agents along
the border, they're desperate to hang on to the drugs," Estrada said.
"There's a major commitment from the individuals that are moving the drugs.
They're accountable to the cartels. When they start losing too many, you
start finding dead bodies in Mexico."

He said the violence is linked not just to moving drugs but moving people,
which he said is now a cottage industry in itself, sometimes more
profitable than the drugs.

"Unfortunately the United States never seems to be able to get enough
drugs," he said. "The same thing with illegal workers."

The Rev. Daniel Groody, a University of Notre Dame researcher who just
completed a documentary on the border, said it was "sobering" to hear field
agents talk about being pinned by gunfire.