Two news items have popped up in the last day or so, and both involve our (largely ignored) problems on the Mexico/U.S. border.

First, the Mexican government announced yesterday that it would be distributing over 70,000 maps to potential illegal immigrants gathering near the U.S. border. The maps illustrate where, for example, highways and water stations exist in Arizona. They also warn Mexicans where not to go in Arizona.

But don’t worry—none of this will promote illegal immigration into the U.S.!

The National Human Rights Commission, a government-funded agency with independent powers, denied that the maps—similar to a comic-style guide booklet Mexico distributed last year—would encourage illegal immigration.

``We are not trying in any way to encourage or promote migration,’’ said Mauricio Farah, one of the commission’s national inspectors. ``The only thing we are trying to do is warn them of the risks they face and where to get water, so they don’t die.’‘

I like what Mark Krikorian—executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies—had to say:

``What’s next? Are they going to buy them bus tickets to Chicago?’‘

In another slightly-related incident, a standoff in Texas between the U.S. border patrol and Mexican smugglers has drawn a fair amount of attention despite the national media’s virtual cover-up of the story.

A West Texas standoff along the Rio Grande between U.S. law enforcement officers and heavily armed Mexican drug smugglers in military-style clothing prompted congressional demands Tuesday for an international investigation and a call for deployment of U.S. troops to the border.

The incident, which occurred Monday on U.S. soil at an isolated river crossing about 50 miles east of El Paso, is the latest involving armed incursions along the U.S. border with Mexico.

And it comes less than a week after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called a California newspaper’s account of such border incursions “overblown.”

The incident Monday involved an encounter between two Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Department deputies and three Department of Public Safety troopers and 10 heavily armed drug smugglers at an area about 50 miles down the river from El Paso.

Let’s see if President Bush will actually do something about the border now.

La Shawn Barber and Michelle Malkin both have done quite a bit of blogging about the subject.