Word: rios
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...chilly South Texas afternoon, 20 federal and state lawmen sporting flak jackets and semiautomatic rifles descended on a secluded bungalow near the Rio Grande in Starr County. They arrested three men who were darting out the back. Inside, the cops found giant trash bags of marijuana. Suddenly the ceiling gave way from the weight of other people hiding in the bungalow. All told, 14 Mexicans were charged with drug possession, and 2,000 lbs. of dope were confiscated...
...raid last February was one of a mounting number of armed encounters along the Texas border between lawmen and well-organized, well-financed narcotics rings. As authorities have cracked down on smuggling in Florida, the Rio Grande valley has emerged as the hot corridor for drug runners. One-third of all the cocaine, marijuana and heroin now entering the U.S. from Mexico is believed to come across the valley...
Nowhere is the traffic heavier than in Starr County, a remote, Rhode Island- size expanse of gentle hills that flanks the Rio Grande southeast of Laredo. From heavily armed safe houses in tiny riverfront hamlets, smugglers oversee the packaging and shipment of drugs by truck and plane into the U.S. interior...
...federal estimate, 40% of all the drugs crossing South Texas move through Starr, sometimes amounting to 15 tons of marijuana and 1,000 lbs. of coke a week. Confiscations in the Rio Grande valley doubled last year; arrests this year by the Drug Enforcement Administration shot up from...
...chief elements of the bill have been floating around Capitol Hill since 1982. But pressure for action did not crest until this year, when the deteriorating Mexican economy increased the already heavy flow of illegal aliens across the Rio Grande. U.S. border patrols are expected to apprehend some 1.8 million illegal aliens this year, 500,000 more than in 1985. By some estimates, for every person caught, another will get through. Meanwhile, public outcries against terrorism and drug traffic translated into a fear of open borders to the south. "It was a combination of things," said Representative Leon Panetta...