Gov. Rick Perry says feds must deal with border security

By Chris Roberts
El Paso Times
10/15/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT

EL PASO -- Criminals are using some spots along the Texas-Mexico border as their personal playgrounds, and the federal government is failing to deal with the problem, Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday during a visit to El Paso.

Perry, who returned to El Paso for a fundraiser after visiting four days ago, said he is forced to use resources the state cannot spare to try to plug the holes. He provided few details, though, about his plan to send Texas Rangers to the trouble spots.

"I wish we weren't having our Rangers pulled away from some of the work that they're doing to come and engage, but they're pretty good at multi-tasking," Perry said after a tour of the Lucchese boot factory near Biggs Army Airfield. "We'll continue to surge into areas, and again, we're not going to tell the bad guys where we're going to be. But we're going to be there and we're going to shut them down.

"The fact is the federal government needs to be addressing our requests for additional boots on the ground," he said.

Perry declined to pin a cost on his "Ranger Recon" program or say how many Rangers were involved, citing concerns that the answers could endanger lives.

A spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety said there is a total of about 134 Rangers, but wouldn't say how many are involved in the program.

Because equipment and personnel still are being mobilized, it is too early to determine the program's cost, said Katherine Cesinger, a Perry spokeswoman. Ce singer said Rangers are already in place along the border.

"There are places along the Texas border where we have some criminal elements that are using that border as pretty much their own playground, if you will," Perry said.

It wasn't clear whether Perry was speaking of urban areas or the vast open countryside in between.

El Paso law-enforcement officials have said there is no increase in violence in the city despite two high-profile cartel cases this year, a murder on the East Side and a kidnapping in Horizon City that ended in a slaying when the victim's body was found in Juárez. Thirteen murders have occurred in the city and county of El Paso so far this year, officials said.

Perry was in the city for an evening fundraiser to support his re-election campaign. Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican like Perry, is alsorunning for the office in the Republican primary.

Asked whether he thought Hut chison was doing enough in Congress to secure the state's international border, he said, "I don't have any idea."

"I hope she stays in Washington, D.C., and continues to stop the Obama health care and the (anti-pollution legislation) and the other assaults on our freedoms," he added.

Hutchison said earlier this week that the debate on health care was vitally important and that she had not decided when she would resign, according to an Associated Press report.

Perry was on the campaign trail during his boot factory tour. He posed for pictures with many of the workers and shook hand after hand with fingers wrapped in tape. One worker explained he preferred the tape to gloves because it protected his hands without taking away the sensitivity required for his craft.

Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136

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