Horne to Congress: Put more troops, fencing on border


by KTAR.com (May 11th, 2011 @ 10:30am)

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WASHINGTON -- Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne has told a congressional committee that federal law enforcement resources need to be significantly increased to address the growing menace of Mexican drug cartel violence in the U.S. and Mexico.

Horne testified Wednesday before the U.S. House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management.

"There are people in the U.S. and Mexico living in fear," he said. "They are victims of our nation's appetite for drugs; victims of the Mexican cartels' thirst for power fueled by innocent blood; and they are victims of negligence by the federal government at the border. This must end."

In testimony, Horne called for the continued presence of National Guard troops on the border; added fencing along the border, especially in the Tucson Sector, and the establishment of Forward Operating Bases every 12 miles.

Horne said the Yuma Sector of the Arizona-Mexico border received "substantial resources" in 2006 under the Bush administration and, as a result, apprehensions of illegal immigrants dropped 96 percent from 134,000 in 2005 to 7,200 in 2010.

"But, in the Tucson Sector, since 2009, well over 400,000 people have crossed illegally into the United States," he said. "That is the equivalent of an invasion, from various countries, of 20 divisions."

Not only is border crime increasing, but Horne said, "Criminal enterprises based in Mexico are bringing a degree of brutality to crime in the United States that we have never experienced before. They are bringing techniques they have used in Mexico, where attacks on police headquarters, assassinations of high governmental anti-organized crime law enforcement officials, murders of journalists, mass jail breaks, and ultimatums stating that a criminal enterprise will unleash terrorists acts unless the government gives its members amnesty for their crimes, all signify assertion of power unchecked by the rule of law."

He said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has confirmed Mexican drug organization presence in 230 U.S. cities and towns and that the drug groups are expanding from drug smuggling to all kinds of criminal activity.

"In October, the Phoenix area experienced its first beheading, where someone walked into a Chandler apartment and found a head in one part of the room and the body in another," Horne testified. "Two months ago, in Casa Grande, midway between Phoenix and Tucson, 15 cartel members had a fire fight with bandits in an attempt to steal their drugs. Just a few weeks ago, one of my special agents in the Attorney General's Office was shot by a suspected cartel operative in the Phoenix area.

"In the United States, it is widely understood that marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine come largely from or through Mexico. It is also common knowledge that Mexican drug organizations are engaging in atrocities, murders, and wide-spread corruption."

Horne said that Mexico is not the only concern for the border.

"In addition to the massive invasion of illegal aliens, and the extremely serious problem of criminal enterprises invading through the Tucson Sector and the rest of the border and spreading throughout the United States, there is the problem of terrorism from the Middle East. A terrorist seeking to enter the United States to do mass destruction could get to Mexico and blend in among the 400,000 people crossing illegally every year through the Tucson Sector."

Horne told the committee that the best plan he has heard is an 18-point plan prepared by the Arizona Cattle Growers Association.

"It includes additional technology and infrastructure, an additional 3,000 Border Patrol field agents in Arizona, and forward operating bases immediately adjacent to the U.S. border with Mexico, approximately one every 12 miles."

The number of National Guard troops on the border should be increased, not removed as planned by the Obama administration, Horne said.

"Removing the Guard from its role on the border is the exact wrong thing to do. It will leave a gaping hole in law enforcement efforts and put more innocent lives at risk, and it sends a message, whether intentionally or not, that the administration is not serious about border security."


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