Thread: Feds have plan if Mexico drug violence spills over

Feds have plan if Mexico drug violence spills over

Sat Jan 10, 9:16 AM EST
If Mexican drug violence spills across the U.S. border, Homeland Security officials say they have a contingency plan to assist border areas that includes bringing in the military.

"It's a common sense extension of our continued work with our state, local, and tribal partners in securing the southwest border," DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said Friday.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who described the contingency plan in an interview with The New York Times this week, said he ordered specific plans to be drawn up this summer as violence in Mexico continued to mount.

The plan includes federal homeland security agents helping local authorities and maybe even military assistance from the Department of Defense, possibly including aircraft, armored vehicles and special teams to go to areas overwhelmed with violence, authorities said.

Kudwa would not give specifics on the so-called "surge" plan, but said it does not create any new authorities.

In the last year, more than 5,000 people have been killed and police and military officials have become common targets for violent drug cartels who are fighting with each other and the government for control of lucrative drug and human smuggling routes across Mexico.

More than one-fifth of the deaths have occurred in Ciudad Juarez, the hardscrabble border city just across the Rio Grande from El Paso.

Officials in Mexico reported about 1,600 homicides in Juarez in 2007 and at least 20 people have been killed in the first nine days of this year.

To date, there has been no significant violent spillover from the drug war in Mexico, but U.S. authorities have spent a tense year watching and waiting.

In October, Hidalgo County officials issued fully automatic weapons to deputies patrolling the river in the Rio Grande Valley. Sheriff Lupe Trevino also authorized his deputies to return fire across the border if smugglers or other criminals took aim at them.

In El Paso, the country's largest border community and one of the safest metropolitan areas in the nation, Sheriff Richard Wiles said that while he doesn't anticipate the city or county being overwhelmed by border violence he applauded the DHS plan to quickly respond if the worst should happen.

"I think it's appropriate for the federal government to have a contingency plan all the way up to the worst case scenario," Wiles said.

The contingency plan was news to most border states.

"At this point, DHS has not contacted the California National Guard to bring any forces ... to support first responders, i.e. (U.S.) Border Patrol, at the border in California," California National Guard spokesman Jonathan Guibord said Friday.

He said National Guard officials in California know only "what's been publicized" about the plan, but added that state military officials routinely train and prepare to respond to any order from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or the president.

Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said Texas officials were briefed on the plan but were not consulted beforehand about a plan to fight Mexican drug cartels on the 2,000-mile U.S. border, more than half of which is in Texas.

Cesinger said the state has its own specific security plans for each area of the Texas border should violence from Mexico become an issue. She declined to give specifics of those plans.

Officials with New Mexico's Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said they are in constant contact with federal Homeland Security officials but weren't aware of any specific security plan that could include Department of Defense assets.

"We haven't seen a specific operational plan for a specific region or specific threat. The use of Defense Department resources ... would have to be an extreme situation," said Tim Manning, the New Mexico Homeland Security director.

Homeland Security officials did not respond to questions about which local or state agencies were notified about the surge plan.

___

Associated Press writer Eileen Sullivan in Washington contributed

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-na ... .Violence/

To date, there has been no significant violent spillover from the drug war in Mexico, but U.S. authorities have spent a tense year watching and waiting.

Then they haven't been looking to hard or realize the influence stretches beyong just drugs.

Originally Posted by crazybird

To date, there has been no significant violent spillover from the drug war in Mexico, but U.S. authorities have spent a tense year watching and waiting.

Then they haven't been looking to hard or realize the influence stretches beyong just drugs.

I believe that all depends on their definition of "significant". If they don't consider our BP agents being held hostage at gunpoint on our side of the border "significant" than I really would hate to see what they think is.

I believe that all depends on their definition of "significant". If they don't consider our BP agents being held hostage at gunpoint on our side of the border "significant" than I really would hate to see what they think is.

Isn't that always the case? Sadly. People are effected and is way across our border. Information has been there for awhile and unless some famous person has their head on a stick and a message attached......it's not "here" yet.

Just think how different things might be if they would have had the military at the border....lets just say since the last amnesty? They could have been their ions ago and nabbed drugs and illegal aliens and this useless war on drugs and illegal invasion might not have gotten such a strong foothold. If they had done what they said they were going to do with the last amnesty, maybe 9-11 wouldn't have happened. Even if they'd have done something strong after 9-11, it wouldn't be as out of control as it is now. This was allowed to happen because this wasn't some strange act of God where the problems weren't known or totally out of their control. They had plenty of oppertunity to do something all along before we were pushed to crisis mode.

WHY WAIT? ITS ALREADY HERE!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6204251.html

the houston chronicle has picked the story up.
85 comments so far.


i said on there

Why wasnt this done two years aago?? why now?
is it because your leaving office and just realize its time to do somehting?so now the administration care sabout the border when it hasnt cared about drugs, violence, and potential terrorists coming in???

Well if the Feds have plans, they might want to communicate them to the border states. According to this article, the states seem like they know nothing about it.

According to this article, the states seem like they know nothing about it.

LOL.....brand new news to them! Breaking news because they haven't been listening to anyone and it's not directly on their doorstep......yet.

Is there a table-- with quotas, (which seems to be a ploy of our government--quotas), that says--use the following table to decide when to call in for help.

1. Two Americans kidnapped within a one week period.
2. More than ten pounds of meth found--call then.
3. More than 6 beheadings on the Mexican side and two on ours.
4. More than 4 execution type murders in one week.
5. Over 20,000 voters who are illegal
6. etc.................

What a bunch of hypocrites.