A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.

Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.

It was unclear what the soldiers were doing in the United States, but U.S. law enforcement authorities have long said that current and former Mexican military personnel have been hired to protect drug and migrant smugglers.

“Unfortunately, this sort of behavior by Mexican military personnel has been going on for years,” union Local 2544 of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) said on its Web page. “They are never held accountable, and the United States government will undoubtedly brush this off as another case of ‘Oh well, they didn’t know they were in the United States.’

Washington Times

For the life of me I cannot imagine why anyone in their right mind would want to be a border patrol agent for the United States of America.  These guys should be treated like gold and instead the Federal Government spits on them like dirt.  They throw them in jail for doing their job and don’t back them up and allow their lives to be unnecessarily put at risk and turn their heads the other way.  The Bush Administration has been one of the absolute worst offenders.

This is one rare occasion where I would support a union strike by all the border patrol agents to send a strong message to the Feds they aren’t going to put up with this treatment any longer.

This guy was lucky that other agents showed up for backup otherwise he may have been killed.