Reading the headline of a recent article posted on the CBS Evening News website might lead one to envision scores of armed Mexicans shooting Border Patrol Agents. The headline alarmingly reads:Border Patrol Agents Under Attack Violence Against Agents In Yuma, Ariz. Up To 154 In First Six Months Of Fiscal Year. Reading further though, the weapons being used to “attack” are revealed as rocks.

Along the desert stretch where Arizona and Mexico meet, there’s more flying in the air than just dust. There are rocks flying back and forth toward the border agents, CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports.
It’s part of a nightly bombardment of Border Patrol vehicles and agents all along the southwestern border.

Of course getting hit with a rock has its potential consequences but don’t Border Patrol Agents have guns. Does this
accurately represents the locus of border violence?

Border Patrol isn’t the only armed party on the Arizona – Mexico border. Vigilante/Citizen organizations with names like The American Patrol , Minutemen and Ranch Rescue are armed, following in the footsteps of Klu Klux Klan border patrols from the 1970′s. Since at least 2002 unidentified “concerned citizens” have shot upon immigrants crossing the U.S. – Arizona border, killing many, some at close range, while U.S. law enforcement turns a blind eye. When these groups aren’t actually shooting, they are pointing their guns at immigrants, including children. To paraphrase a quote from Gen. Philip Sheridan during the U.S. genocide of Native People , the only good immigrant is a dead immigrant”.

The CBS article goes so far as to quote a senior patrol agent likening immigrants crossing to terrorists, not a new comparison, but one that remains offensive and racist at its core.

When the mainstream news continues to paint such a distorted view of power surrounding the immigration issue and as long as people continue to lap it up without question or resource, there remains little hope for an easy legal solution to the plight of those trying to make a better life for themselves in an unequal world.

Via / CBS, Colorado Progressive Coalition, ADL, Southern Poverty Law Center,