On Dec. 7 last year, a New Mexico ranch hand was taken hostage by stranded Mexican drug runners who loaded his truck with their drugs and drove to Willcox, Ariz., before releasing him with a warning not to go to the police.
Tricia Elbrock, who employed the ranch hand, said, “This is still pretty raw … They did rough him up, but we got him back. It’s a mess … We have got to have help down here.”
This and other recent border incidents have sparked a public meeting between cattlemen and public officials in Animas, N.M., this week. Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association, told the Albuquerque Journal, “The folks down there have never gotten any relief from illegal crossings, and things have ramped up. People are desperate.”
The Journal reports that the Border Patrol’s Lordsburg station is down about 50 agents from its budgeted total of 284.
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