Thread: Mexican Official: U.S. Ready to Help

http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impr ... abla=miami

Official: U.S. ready to help

NATALIA GÓMEZ QUINTERO AND JOSÉ CARREÑO/EL UNIVERSAL
June 28, 2005

OTTAWA The U.S. government is waiting to hear from its counterpart in Mexico City as to how it can help to re-establish law and order in the nation's crimeridden northern border areas, said Robert Bonner, commissioner of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In comments made to EL UNIVERSAL on Monday at the conference of NAFTA nations, Bonner praised the recent work of the Mexican government to fight crime along the border, and pointed to a recent operative that saw federal troops take control of the troubled border towns.

"The Mexican government has taken very strong action in some of the cities along the border such as Ciudad Juárez and Nuevo Laredo," he said. "And if there are ways in which the United States can be useful, well, we want to be useful in this effort."

Mexico and the United States, he said, are already "working extensively on a bilateral level in regard to this theme," but that the U.S. government is "waiting to hear more from the Mexican government regarding things that we can do to help."

Bonner added that authorities on the two sides of the U.S.-Mexico border have a great working relationship that can be improved further by the three-nation Security and Prosperity Partnership initiative. "We're not just reinventing the wheel here," he said.

Now this should be interesting. Let's see maybe we could help by "sending money". I doubt very seriously Mexico will say, "you can help by securing your side of the border." Let's also see how Canada will help.

Yes, of course. Forty or fifty billion of taxpayer monies should handle this little problem nicely.



RR