The Daily Mail reported last week that several hundred border jumpers were roaming the streets of Yuma, Arizona, after being released “without full processing” by Customs and Border Protection. At the time, CBP supposedly held 28,000 or more migrants in holding areas. No one knows how many migrants which had already been “processed” had been released in the area and are located in the city of 100,000 people.

And there is no more news on how many more than that 300 or so unvetted border jumpers have been released in the last week. But Yuma did make the national news this week with a “mass shooting” in which 2 were killed and 6 wounded at a party. There is no indication that the city’s hosting the border jumpers had anything to do with this incident, and at least in the past, Yuma had less crime than average for Arizona. However, we also were told recently that medical facilities in Yuma had about $26 million dollars in costs treating migrants just in the past year that has not been paid for (yet).

This, and other incidents at the Mexican-US border, remind us more and more of the situation in 1916, particularly in and around a small town called Columbus, New Mexico, like Yuma a very few miles from the border. Then, too, it was seen as an “invasion.” Was it?

That year, after years of civil war in Mexico itself, the rebel leader Pancho Villa sent a 600-man force that crossed the border and raided the town, seeking supplies to feed and support his men and horses. This raid turned into a battle, as elements of the 13th US Cavalry had been sent to Columbus against just such a potential invasion. The 13th had about 270 combat troops who, together with many of the 300 residents of Columbus and 300 or so refugees from the Mexican warfare, fought off Villa’s “troops” (or bandits) in a 90-minute battle. Although the Villista bandits made off with dozens of horses and mules and a fairly large amount of weapons and ammo (plus loot from homes and businesses which they also burned), they left behind possibly as many as 170 of their own dead. About a dozen US troops and a dozen US civilians were killed. Several bandits who were captured were later tried and executed by hanging.

Clearly, there are many significant differences between Yuma (and Brownsville and El Paso et al.) in 2023 and Columbus in 1916. And these differences are important.

Today, it is the Federal government that is facilitating the massive, if generally peaceful, mass crossing of the border by vast numbers of people. Most of the violence is happening in urban areas far from the border. Then, even the Wilson regime in DC had ordered Army troops to defend the New Mexico border. (Of course, then, the “invaders” – even the refugees from the civil war – as well as the local people were all heavily armed (at least by our current civilian standards.)

Indeed, elements of the 13th Cavalry pursued Villa and his bandit army 15 miles into Mexico to ensure they did not try again. (Villa had at least another 600-700 fighters.) And just a few weeks later, DC authorized the Punitive Expedition in which a large and modern US Army force (led by General Blackjack Pershing) to invade Mexico to try and capture Villa.

Today? Yes, there would be trials: of every US troop and resident of Columbus who might have shot and killed a “international visitor” of needy, even starving and definitely political refugees (Villa was on the losing side of the civil war). And convicted, unless they could have proven that they only killed someone in the act of actually raping or killing an American or other refugee. (Not if the only thing the dead or wounded “visitors” were doing was looting or burning a house or business, of course: that is acceptable for the unfortunate, impoverished, and disadvantaged followers of Pancho Villa.) And of course, the officer who chased the defeated raiders for fifteen miles into Mexico in violation of orders (“rules of engagement”) would be court-martialed and spend the rest of his life at Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks.

Of course, today, any US troops (federal or National Guard) would have been there, unarmed (especially without machine guns!) just to observe and haul equipment for the Border Patrol – and transport the welcome visitors (would-be migrants) to locations where they would get all the food and medical care they needed. At taxpayer expense. And to the applause of the politicians in DC and most large American cities.

And imagine the condemnation of the civilians who dared to take up arms to defend their families, homes, businesses, and towns. Anyone who wounded or killed the looters and rapists. Of course, in modern New Mexico, this is unlikely to happen. If no one in the neighborhood of Farmington (opposite end of the State) was armed and able to respond to the 18-year-old high school senior madman, most of Columbus’ residents would likely have been unarmed. And certain, that is Her Imperial Highness Michelle’s goal: to disarm ALL New Mexicans.

There are, of course, other comparisons and contrasts, but this is definitely something to ponder. As is the entire idea of just what constitutes an “invasion.” So, dear reader, is what has been going on for weeks (mostly in TX, NM, AZ and CA but also on the border with the Provinces to the north and no doubt some coastal areas) something that could be called an “invasion?” Was the shindig at Columbus, NM, back in 1916 an “invasion?” For that matter, was the Punitive Expedition that year an “invasion?” Again, something to think about.

Revised at 0900 MT 20MAY2023