While the White House continues to deny proper funding and support for the men and women working for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the battle against drug smuggling south of the border rages on.
Off the coast of Puerto Rico, a CBP agent was fatally shot in a shootout with a group of suspected drug smugglers.
The shooting took place in what is known as the Mona Passage, a straight in-between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Mona Passage is a known high-traffic drug smuggling route, according to AP News.
As CBP agents patrolled the waters on Thursday morning, they saw a vessel that they deemed to be suspicious.
It fit the bill for a drug smuggling boat so the agents approached.
Then, according to officials, shots were fired from the vessel toward the CBP agents, who then returned fire.
During the exchange of gunfire, one CBP agent and one of the suspected drug smugglers were killed, while at least two other CBP agents were also wounded.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was testifying in front of a senate committee when he announced the death of the agents and spoke about the bravery of these Americans in a quote shared by AP News.
These are brave members of our Air and Marine Operations within U.S. Customs and Border Protection. So the difficulty of this job cannot be compared to the difficulty that our frontline personnel face every day. Their bravery and selfless service should be recognized.
These brave men with CBP do not get enough recognition for the work that they do for this country. While some politicians and media outlets paint CBP agents in a negative light, those same agents risk their lives on a daily basis to enforce the laws of the United States and to keep its citizens safe.
The Air and Marine Operation division of CBP is tasked with stopping illicit drugs and other items from reaching U.S. shores and acting as an early line of defense of our country’s borders.
The AMO has seized massive quantities of cocaine and fentanyl that smugglers are trying to squeeze past American security measures.
According to CBP’s website, in the fiscal year 2022, the agency stopped 656k pounds of drugs that smugglers attempted to funnel into the US.
In a quote shared by Fox News, even DHS Secretary Mayorkas admitted that agents at the Southern Border are beginning to be overwhelmed by the constant influx of migrants.
We are seeing a significant challenge at the southern border, as we are setting it throughout the hemisphere.
This is a bit of a change of pace from Mayorkas who has spent all of this year saying that concerns regarding the border are blown well out of proportion.
He even went so far as to say that he will begin fighting for more equipment and personnel to be sent to the border, to deal with this rise in immigration.
By: Goose
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