Mexican Troops Allegedly Cross Into U.S. While Looking For Cartel Operatives, Encounter Americans Hiking

Two U.S. citizens walking along a trail in southwestern New Mexico were reportedly surrounded by a heavily armed Mexican military patrol that allegedly crossed into the United States earlier this week.

According to video recordings from Abbey Carpenter and James Holeman, the 18-man patrol encountered the couple south of Hachita, New Mexico, as they were looking for drug traffickers and gunrunners in the area.

But according to the couple, who described the encounter to Border Report, the Mexican soldiers believed they were still in Mexico until they were shown a GPS locator that showed them they were actually in New Mexico.

Carpenter and Holeman are members of Battalion Search and Rescue, a volunteer group that looks for lost migrants in southern New Mexico, and were hiking around the area when the heavily-armed soldiers approached them.

"I never felt threatened. When I got nervous was when I showed them that they were in the United States and I had my phone out and we were documenting they were where they shouldn't be," Carpenter told the outlet. "That's when I got nervous, like, 'Oh, we shouldn't have our phones out, taking pictures of them in U.S. soil.'"

One of the videos recorded by the couple shows a Mexican army truck approaching their vehicle while carrying large-caliber firearms, while a photograph shows members of the Mexican National Guard keeping watch of the surroundings while talking to the couple.

After talking to the soldiers, the couple told them they had seen two shot-up vehicles with Mexican license plates at another trail near the Mexican border.

Once Carpenter showed them the GPS locator proving they were in U.S. soil, they turned their vehicles around and headed back south. Although the incident did not escalate, Holeman said the couple was nervous during the encounter.

"We were like: 'Ha-ha!' 'Take a picture with me?' 'Blah-blah.' But that's because we knew we were in the U.S. If we had encountered them in Mexico, it would have been a whole different thing," Holeman said. "Threatened? I would say that, just because of our American thinking being on U.S. soil. Nervous? Yeah, bro. We were definitely nervous," he added.

According to the couple, a stretch of border in southwest New Mexico lacks steel bollard barriers that can be seen in other parts of the state.

New Mexico shares a border of approximately 180 miles with Mexico and is the shortest stretch of the southern border.

Multiple border security projects have gone underway in recent months, including the "Santa Teresa Secondary Wall" spanning 7 miles and the "16-4 Wall Project" near the community of Anapra in Ciudad Juárez spanning 1.3 miles.