Mexican drug wars hit Texas

Gov. Rick Perry warns of spillover violence from Mexico

Governor Perry demands stepped-up border security after bullets from a gun battle in Juarez hit a University of Texas-El Paso campus building.

AUSTIN, Texas, August 23, 2010 -- Texas Governor Rick Perry today issued the following statement regarding bullets from a gun battle in Juarez that struck a building on the campus of the University of Texas-El Paso over the weekend:

"For the second time in two months, bullets from a gun battle in the escalating drug war in Juarez have struck a building in El Paso, and I’d like to commend the swift action taken by local and state law enforcement in the area. By the grace of God, the stray bullets from these incidents have yet to injure or kill a Texan. It is unconscionable that the Obama Administration is gambling with American lives, betting that escalating violence from these cartels won't eventually shed the blood of innocent people on U.S. soil.  
           
"We must ensure El Paso and other border communities remain a safe place for people to live, work and raise a family. It's time for Washington to stop the rhetoric and immediately deploy a significant force of personnel and resources to the border to protect our homeland."

In June, several bullets from a gun fight in Juarez struck El Paso City Hall.  Nine months earlier, a building and a vehicle on the campus of the University of Texas-Brownsville were also hit by stray bullets from Mexico.

In a letter to President Obama dated August 9, 2010, Perry reported that "drug cartels and related forces are waging war in Northern Mexico, their tactics including death threats, torture, car bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and beheadings." Since 2006, this war has claimed the lives of 28,000, and "there is mounting evidence of spillover violence on U.S. soil," he wrote.

"Drug-trafficking organizations have established connections with transnational gangs throughout Texas and use them to traffic in drugs and humans, providing the cartels with willing soldiers who operate on both sides of the border and in our communities," Perry reported. "The Mexican cartels have recently added a new deadly weapon to their arsenal: Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED), which they use to attack their rivals and the police. These car bombs were used in attacks in the Mexican border city of Juarez last month and in Ciudad Victoria just a few days ago."

In early 2009, Gov. Perry asked the Obama Administration to approve the deployment of 1,000 Title 32 National Guard troops in Texas. While border security is a federal responsibility, it is a Texas problem, and Gov. Perry has not waited idly for Washington, according to a statement on the governor's website. To fill in security gaps left by the federal government, Texas has invested more than $230 million over the last several years for new technology, improved communications equipment, aviation assets, boots on the ground, and other resources. Earlier this month, Gov. Perry hand-delivered the new four-page letter to President Obama, detailing Texas' concerns about the escalating drug war threatening the state and reiterating the governor’s request for more troops.

View Gov. Perry's August 9, 2010 letter to President Obama.