REGION: Details of border reinforcement plan vague

Homeland Security chief to visit region this week

By EDWARD SIFUENTES - Staff Writer

Saturday, March 28, 2009 7:33 PM PDT

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

Members of the region's congressional delegation say they were not told of the president's plan to deploy massive resources to the southwestern U.S. to keep Mexico's drug-war violence from spilling over the border.

And they said they had only sketchy details about how those resources will be used.

Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security in San Diego, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano plans to visit San Diego this week to talk about the operation announced Tuesday by President Barack Obama's administration.

There was no information about what additional manpower or equipment might come to the county, she said.

"The bottom line is, I don't have any details at all," Mack said.

Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, said he spoke with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials who told him they would send some agents to San Diego County, along with scanning equipment to detect guns being smuggled into Mexico.

Bilbray said he did not know how many ATF agents would be coming to the area. And some details of the operation probably would be kept secret, he said.

"Sometimes, it's better not to let the bad guys know what you're doing," Bilbray said.

More needed?

Thus far this year, more than 1,000 people have been killed in an ongoing conflict that involves the Mexican government, drug cartels and rival factions of drug cartels, according to the Trans-Border Institute, a research center at the University of San Diego. In Baja California, more than 30 people have been killed this year.

Bilbray said he has long advocated bolstering enforcement along the border. He sent a letter to Obama in late February urging him to help Mexico fight the cartels.

"As a member of Congress who grew up along the border with Mexico, I am extremely concerned about the increased violence and its long-term effects on the region," Bilbray wrote in the letter.

Bilbray said that while he welcomed the effort, he worried it might divert resources from interior immigration enforcement because Napolitano had not requested additional funds for the border operation.

The president's initiative is well-intentioned, but falls short, said Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-El Cajon, whose district includes parts of North County and dips down to the border in some areas of East County.

"Part of this effort needs to focus on improving coordination between our federal agencies," Kasper said. "We need a strategy far beyond what has been proposed by the Obama administration that secures the border once and for all."

Kasper said Hunter had not been briefed on the details of the plan, but he said those specifics would probably come soon.

Frederick Hill, a spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, said the congressman had not been consulted, either.

A local problem?

Since he was elected in 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has fanned troops across the country trying to go after organized crime. But Mexican soldiers and police are outgunned and outnumbered.

The cartels have responded with unprecedented brutality.

Some of the violence already has spread into the United States in areas such as Arizona, which has become a major corridor for illegal immigrant and drug smuggling.

San Diego County is another problem area due to its proximity to Tijuana, where warring drug cartels are fighting over control of the lucrative traffic route that leads to Los Angeles, officials say.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said last week that the city has seen some spillover violence, noting at least four murders in San Diego during the last two years have been attributed to drug cartels.

There also have been 44 kidnappings of U.S. citizens in the San Diego-Tijuana region, said Sanders' spokesman Darren Pudgil.

In September, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department received a $5.6 million grant from the federal government to help fight border-related crime under a program called Operation Stonegarden.

Since receiving the grant, the department, along with partner agencies in South Bay, has arrested 36 people on felony offenses, including a Mara Salvatrucha gang member, and seized nearly $50,000 in cash, according to the Sheriff's Department.

The president's plan would boost funding for the Stonegarden program by $59 million, which would be used for grants to be awarded to local law enforcement agencies along the border. The plan also includes $700 million that Congress approved to help Mexico's efforts to fight the drug cartels.

A shift in strategy

Chappell Lawson, a professor of Latin American Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes on Mexican politics, said the president's plan marks a significant shift in U.S. involvement in Mexico's fight against drug smugglers.

The plan has its roots in the Merida Initiative, a cooperative agreement between the two countries signed into law last year, he said.

"The Merida Initiative and related (funding) is 5 percent of Mexican law enforcement budget, but probably 50 percent of equipment purchases and training. Not a small deal," Lawson said.

Another shift is the comments made by administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that drug cartels exist largely because of a demand for drugs in the U.S., Lawson said.

"Open acknowledgement of shared responsibility on drugs and arms is also important," he said. "It has been offered before, but not so explicitly and not accompanied by real actions like these on the guns front."

Victor Clark Alfaro, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana, agreed.

"The fight against organized crime should be a responsibility shared by the two countries," Alfaro said. "And given the levels of violence in Mexico and the expansion of demand for drugs in the U.S., there had to be a more global approach in the fight."

Mexican officials have long criticized the U.S. for not doing more to disrupt the flow of guns, which are used by drug gangs to battle Mexican law enforcement and rival gangs.

To address the problem, the administration plans to send 100 more people from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the border within 45 days. The agency says more than 7,700 guns sold in America ended up in Mexico last year.

Too late?

Cartels turn to the U.S. for weapons because Mexico's gun laws are much stricter ---- gun buys must be pre-approved by the Mexican defense department and are limited to light weapons, no higher than the standard .38-caliber. Larger calibers are considered military weapons and are off-limits to civilians.

Some border experts worry about the effect the plan might have on border commerce. Business leaders blame the long waits to cross from Mexico in the U.S. for falling revenue on both sides of the border.

If inspections on southbound traffic which have increased in recent years intensify, Shirk said the gridlock will worsen with very little benefit.

"The worst part is that, while these measures could dramatically impact legitimate cross-border commerce, greater interdiction at the border is likely to have little significant impact on overall flows of guns and money headed south," said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute.

Shirk said that increases in infrastructure, technology and personnel along the border over the last decade has done little to decrease the flow of guns, drugs or illegal immigration.

Those problems have to be addressed long before they get to the border, he said.

"If we wait until they get to the border, we're too late," Shirk said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-3511 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.



Mexican soldiers stand at attention behind a display of weapons seized at a house where a shoot-out occured between the army and suspected members of organized crime in 2008. One soldier and four assailants were killed. The man in the center was detained during the shoot out in. (Photo by David Maung -for the North County Times)




Ammunition for a .50 caliber sniper rifle and other weapons are on display that were seized in 2008 at a house where a shootout occured between the army and suspected members of organized crime. (Photo by David Maung -for the North County Times)

Among the moves the government is making:

-- Sending about 350 additional personnel from the Homeland Security Department for a host of border-related work, including doubling the border enforcement security teams that combine local, state and federal officers.

-- Adding 16 new Drug Enforcement Administration positions in the southwestern region. The DEA currently has more than 1,000 agents working in the region.

-- Sending 100 more people from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the border in the next 45 days.

-- Boosting the FBI's intelligence and analysis work on Mexican drug cartel crime.

-- Increasing the inspection of rail cargo heading from the U.S. into Mexico and putting X-ray units in place to try to detect weapons being smuggled into Mexico.

NORTH COUNTY TIMES