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Zapata, who joined ICE in 2006, served on the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Unit as well as the Border Enforcement Security Task Force. He also served as a member of the U.S. Border Patrol in Yuma, Arizona. The agency didn't provide his age but said he was a native of Brownsville, Texas, who graduated from the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2005. Though Mexico is seeing record rates of violence, it is rare for U.S. officials to be attacked. The U.S. government, however, has become increasingly concerned about the safety of its employees in Mexico. In March, an U.S. employee of the American consulate in Ciudad Juarez, her husband and a Mexican tied to the consulate were killed when drug gang members fired on their cars as they left a children's party in the city across from El Paso, Texas. The U.S. State Department has taken several measures over the past year to protect consulate employees and their families. It has at times authorized the departure of relatives of U.S. government employees in northern Mexican cities. In July, it temporarily closed the consulate in Ciudad Juarez after receiving unspecified threats. Earlier this month, the consulate in Guadalajara prohibited U.S. government officials from traveling after dark on the road to the airport because of cartel-related attacks in Mexico's second-largest city.
[Associated
Press;
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