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No security emergency on Texas border, Perry says

Officials say Arizona, NM have worse situations

Brandi Grissom
Austin Bureau

AUSTIN -- Gov. Rick Perry will not declare an emergency on the Mexico border as two other states have done in the past week, his spokesman said Wednesday.

"It's not a step he is prepared to take at this point, but it remains an option on the table," Perry spokesman Robert Black said.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano both declared a crisis along their states' borders with Mexico. They have begun funneling millions of dollars to the area to beef up security.

Black said Perry views border security as a federal obligation, which should not be shifted to the state. Officials in Texas border cities supported Perry's decision and said problems here have not escalated to the levels of those in Arizona and New Mexico.

"Every governor has to do what they think is best, and Governor Perry right now is continuing to try to make the case to the federal government that they need to do more," Black said.

The Department of Homeland Security has defended its efforts in the wake of the emergency declarations and the governors' criticism that the federal government isn't doing enough to curb violence and human and drug trafficking across the border.

"There has been extraordinary progress made over last two years to enhance border security," said Jarrod Agen, Homeland Security spokesman.

Agen said border security has been increased since September 2001. Yearly spending has increased 58 percent, Agen said, and in 2005 the federal government will spend $7.3 billion on border security.

The number of patrol officers along the Mexico border has increased, too, Agen said. There are now 11,200 officers, a 15 percent increase over 2001, and 200 more have been requested.

So far this year, those officers have made more than 1.26 million arrests, Agen said.

"We have stepped up efforts specifically in the El Paso sector," he said.

That sector, which covers far West Texas, including El Paso, and all of New Mexico, has 1,200 Border Patrol agents, and 305 of them were added this year.

Much of the violence across the Texas border has been in the Nuevo Laredo area, where drug cartels have been fighting for dominance.

Betty Flores, mayor of Laredo, just across the Rio Grande from the violence-ridden Mexican city, defended Perry's decision not to declare an emergency on the Texas-Mexico border.

"Texas is not like Arizona or New Mexico," Flores said. "The Texas border is very different, and it is a very safe border."

El Paso Mayor John Cook agreed. In fact, he said, declaring an emergency on the border could do more harm than good for El Paso.

"We're not interested in declaring a state of emergency, especially one that might encourage vigilantes like the Minutemen to come down here and interfere with the good job Border Patrol is doing," he said.

Fewer deaths from drug and human smuggling have occurred in Texas than in New Mexico and Arizona, said Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House in El Paso.

The emergency declarations in those states will make about $3 million available for law enforcement and other security measures.

Garcia said he worried that intensified security in other border states would increase the number of immigrants and the amount of violence on the Texas-Mexico border.

"If you don't take into account the flow into other areas, you'll end up with a situation no one seems to know how to control," he said.

Ruben Aguilar, a spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox, said Wednesday that it's necessary that the United States and Mexico resolve the security problems at the border. But he said the emergency declarations had not harmed the relationship between the two countries.

"From the point of view of the presidency of Mexico, the relationship with the United States is not at stake," Aguilar said at a news conference in Mexico. "There are common problems, shared by both sides, including different visions on the part of American authorities."