CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In July 2006, border patrol agents observed a Mexican police vehicle escort five people to a gate on the all-American canal near Calexico, California, on the U.S. side of the border. The five illegal aliens were apprehended by U.S. authorities while the police vehicle returned across the border. It’s just one of 20 incidents involving armed Mexican military or law enforcement officers illegally crossing our southern border in 2006, according to documents obtained by the conservative group Judicial Watch, under the Freedom of Information Act.

CHRIS FARRELL, JUDICIAL WATCH: There’s been a history of incursions by both Mexican military and police officers into the United States Often armed. And that these incursions are intentional. That the Mexican military and police are entering the United States for purposes other than pursuing bad guys.

WIAN: The Department of Homeland Security document reports 253 incursions by Mexican military or police between 1996 and 2006, including incidents of Mexican military helicopters entering U.S. air space. Not counted as an incursion but rather a Mexican military encounter is this January 2006 incident in Hudspeth County, Texas, which we previously reported.

Now for the first time we have video of the high-speed pursuit that preceded the encounter. Texas public safety officers chased a Cadillac Escalade and two other vehicles near the Rio Grande. One of the vehicles escaped across the border. Another became stuck in the river.

Whereas these photos show, men in fatigues unloaded bales of marijuana under the protection of a Humvee armed with a 50 caliber machine gun. The Escalade’s driver escaped but the SUV was seized and it contained nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana. At the time Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said this.

MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I think to create the image of somehow there is a deliberate effort by the Mexican military to cross the border would be really to traffic in, you know, kind of scare tactics. I don’t think that we have any serious problem with official incursions.

WIAN: Some border patrol agents have told CNN the threat from well-armed Mexican military and police officers working with smugglers is both real and serious.

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