US authorities closed the world's busiest land border crossing for several hours yesterday after a shootout between suspected Mexican human traffickers and US agents.
"The port is closed and will remain closed for several hours," a US Customs and Border Patrol spokeswoman Angelica Decima said after the incident at the congested San Ysidro crossing between the Mexican city of Tijuana and San Diego.
The suspected smugglers shot across lines of traffic at US agents who tried to stop three vans packed with about 70 illegal immigrants from crossing into the United States, the officials said.
The agents returned fire, and three people in the vans and a motorist were wounded, said a spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
She said the border crossing partially reopened yesterday evening. A Mexican border hotline for motorists said seven lanes at the crossing were open.
Mexico's violent drug gangs are increasingly moving into the lucrative people-smuggling business, but tight US border security is forcing them to take bigger risks to get narcotics and illegal immigrants into the United States.
Yesterday's brazen attempt was unprecedented at the heavily guarded crossing where helicopters circle overhead and armed agents with dogs keep watch at a series of staggered checkpoints.
All the illegal immigrants were arrested and taken into custody. The crossing, a major smuggling corridor for narcotics and illegal immigrants, was shut while police conducted the investigation.
Some 90 million people a year use the California-Mexico land border crossings, with almost half the traffic going through San Ysidro.
Reuters