U.S. Border Patrol agents were forced to take cover Friday night after shots were fired at them from high-caliber weapons. Authorities suspect that the bullets came from the hands of Mexican cartel members, who were shooting across the Rio Grande, according to FoxNews.com.

The weapons, described by FoxNews and Border Patrol as "high-caliber," perhaps were fired at officers on the riverbank across the Rio Grande from Reynosa, Mexico early Friday evening, according to reports.

According to Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, bullets ricocheted into the area where Border Patrol agents were positioned, and according to Gohmert, there is no armor that can stop the bullets, which were suspected to be .50-caliber rounds.

"We don't have any armor that can stop a .50-caliber round, so our Border Patrol agents had to take cover when the rounds were richocheting around them," said Gohmert, who had traveled to the south Texas border area to survey the Central American immigration issues, which have been described as a humanitarian crisis.

Border Patrol sources confirmed Gohmert's account.

"When the shooting stopped, about 40 to 50 people came out on the U.S. side and turned themselves in. So clearly the rounds were being fired to suppress every effort to stop anybody intervening with anyone or anything coming across," Gohmert added. "We have no idea what or how many or whom came across with the other illegal immigrants."

According to FoxNews sources, they believe the gunfire came from members of Mexican drug cartels in the area. The border area near Reynosa has been a hotbed of cartel violence in recent years, with the turf war between the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas at its peak.

The two cartels have been at war for the last four years in Reynosa, and the violence from the bloody battle has devastated the border towns on both sides.

Reynosa, once alive with a thriving nightlife scene that attracted a steady stream of U.S. citizens is all but a ghost town at night, and cartel members roam the streets keeping tabs on cars as they search for rival cartel members entering their turf.

Border Patrol sources said the rounds were clearly identifiable because .50- caliber weapons make a distinctive noise when fired. Sources said they also believe this is the first time that Border Patrol agents have taken direct fire from the Mexican side of the river in this area.

And now, the cartel violence seems to be spilling across the banks of the Rio Grande as well.

"I don't know why we're out here like sitting ducks," one Border Patrol source said. "We need help."

Governor Rick Perry is expected to announce today his plans to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to the area in south Texas hardest hit by the immigrant crisis.