Border Patrol agents fired upon by assailant in Mexico

Border Patrol agents say someone on the Mexican side of the border shot at them on Sunday in Texas, though nobody was reported hit.

The shooting kicked off what’s already become an active week along the U.S.-Mexico boundary, with deadly high-speed border chases in California, another mini-caravan of migrants in Arizona and human remains, presumably those of illegal immigrants, found in Texas.

The shooting occurred in the Border Patrol’s Laredo Sector, and involved agents who’d been patrolling the banks of the Rio Grande. They spotted someone on the Mexican side who appeared to be sporting a long gun.

“Shortly thereafter, the agents were fired upon and took cover,” the Border Patrol said.

Neither the location nor any more details of the shooting were given.

The FBI is leading an investigation.

While violent attacks from Mexico into the U.S. are not rare, they usually involve rocks or other items hurled over a section of border fence.

Shootings, while not unprecedented, are rare.

Shots were fired at a Border Patrol agent driving his official vehicle along a border highway in El Paso in late January. Those shots struck the vehicle but didn’t hit the agent, the El Paso Times reported.

On Tuesday, Border Patrol agents engaged in two pursuits that resulted in crashes in southern California, one of them leaving two persons dead.

In that incident, a man and a woman snuck across the border about 5 p.m. and met a white Volvo getaway car, which sped off at speeds of about 100 miles per hour, looking to elude agents who were in pursuit, reported Fox 5 San Diego.

The Volvo, apparently stolen, eventually ran a red light and crashed into a trailer being towed by a semi-truck, sliding underneath and shearing off the top of the car. The driver and the male migrant were killed, and the female migrant was flown to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

At nearly the same time, agents tried to stop a Mazda minivan for an immigration check but the vehicle sped off, losing control and crashing. Four Mexican men had been piled into the back seat.

A day earlier, in Arizona, agents encountered a group of 103 illegal immigrants who jumped the border then surrendered once they were on U.S. soil.

The group included 59 children, as young as 1 year old.

The mini-caravan crossed at a point where there is no border wall, only outdated vehicle barriers that are easy to step over or crawl under. A high-speed highway runs along the Mexican side, giving easy access to the border — a factor that has helped increase the number of mini-caravans, agents say.

“In the last few months, Border Patrol agents have seen an alarming surge of large family groups crossing the border illegally at the direction of human smugglers,” Customs and Border Protection said.

The agency warned of the dangers of those crossings.

That warning was brought home in Texas, where Border Patrol agents found human remains on two ranches, one set on Sunday and another on Wednesday.

Agents reported a happier ending Tuesday after encountering a woman who claimed she’d been left behind by smugglers. Agents retraced her path and found three other illegal immigrants. All of them were given first aid, then processed.