AGAIN, AGAIN and AGAIN
"Another undocumented immigrant has been shot in Santa Cruz County."
Jose Enedion Acosta-Amaniego, 28, from Culiacan, Sinaloa, was shot in
the back by unidentified assailants as he was walking through a
canyon area west of Rio Rico on July 2, officials said.
Acosta-Amaniego suffered a non-life threatening wound from a shotgun
round and was treated at Carondelet Holy Cross Hospital in Nogales,
according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office.
Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Raoul Rodriguez said Acosta-Amaniego
told deputies that he was walking with 10 other undocumented
immigrants in a canyon west of Exit 22 on Interstate 19 when at
around 8 p.m. “they were accosted by an unknown number of assailants
who started shooting at the group.”
A similar attack occurred on June 11 when five illegal border-
crossers were ambushed by two camouflage-clad gunmen near the dead
end of Peck Canyon Drive in Rio Rico. One of the men, Manuel Esquer
Gomez, 45, was shot in the arm as the group fled.
Following that attack, Sheriff Antonio Estrada expressed concern that
someone might be targeting undocumented immigrants in the county
Reporting from Sasabe, Sonora - Law enforcement agencies from both
sides of the border say a gun battle rivaling one that took place
last week could be about to hit the mountain towns west of Nogales,
Sonora.On the U.S. side, some federal agents have expressed frustration with
the Mexican and Sonoran governments, neither of whom has appeared to
try and defuse the situation after the July 1 fight between organized
crime gangs that left 21 people dead on a rural road outside the sleepy mountain town of Tubutama. A convoy of some 25 vehicles was reported entering Nogales, Sonora late Wednesday night, and U.S. sources believe the fleet carried a group of reinforcements from the state of Sinaloa who are driving up to Tubutama to finish the fight that started last week.
