Local officials challenge Perry’s statements on border violence

By Dave Montgomery | Fort Worth Star Telegram | PoliTex | September 16, 2009

AUSTIN — A coalition of municipal and county officials along Texas’ 1,200-mile-long border is challenging Gov. Rick Perry’s statements that property owners and local law enforcement are being overwhelmed by smugglers and gangs from Mexico.

“Your remarks, if accurately reported, create a public impression of lawless hordes overrunning the border region and do not reflect our collective experience,” Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, said in a letter to Perry. “While each of our communities has their own unique issues, being overwhelmed by criminal elements from Mexico is not one of them.”

Foster made the remarks in response to Perry’s announcement last week that he planned to deploy the Texas Rangers to work with the Texas National Guard in a beefed-up border enforcement effort. Perry said the teams would be dispatched to “high traffic, high-crime areas along the border” to help stem increased crime spilling over from Mexico.

“As county and municipal officials on the Texas-Mexico border, we strongly suggest improved coordination with local officials in your efforts,” said Foster. “If you are devoting additional law enforcement personnel to our region, we would appreciate you and your staff taking the time to make sure that our efforts to secure the border are complimentary and coordinated.”

Foster said that crime on the border is “on the way down” after decreasing by 65 percent over the past several years. Apprehensions of illegal border crossers, he said, have dropped by 40 percent. El Paso, which Foster described as the third safest city in the United States, has seen a 60 percent drop in arrests of illegal border crossers, said the mayor.