NAMI News
The latest trinational news.Monday, June 01, 2009
U.S. tightens security at Mexico border
USA Today, June 1, 2009 - “Local officials along the U.S.-Mexican border welcome a new federal crackdown against border violence despite concerns that it will create lines of idling cars through neighborhoods and deter crossover traffic. The $184 million plan installs X-ray machines on the border to scan some Mexico-bound vehicles for drugs, weapons and cash, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said at a White House briefing Tuesday. The department also will upgrade cameras that scan license plates of cars going to Mexico to find those that are stolen or linked to a crime. The initiative aims to dampen drug-related violence that killed 6,300 Mexicans last year and to keep that violence out of the USA. “We’re trying to identify vehicles that are carrying arms into Mexico that are being used in the drug war in Mexico,” Napolitano said.Trade advocates fear that searching Mexico-bound cars will slow the flow of workers and goods. People crossing the heavily secured U.S. border from Mexico are used to two-hour lines and vehicle searches but seldom face any wait or scrutiny walking or driving in the other direction. The new plan “will be very detrimental,” said Maria Luisa O’Connell, president of the Arizona-based Border Trade Alliance, which promotes trade with Mexico and Canada. “We depend a lot on the movement of people back and forth to Mexico.” The tiny border crossing in Yuma County, Ariz., has no room for an X-ray machine that scans cars driving under it, Sheriff Ralph Ogden said. An inspection station could be built in a park on the border, he said. “If the administration is serious about southbound trafficking, we’re going to have to spend some funds and do it rapidly,” Ogden said.” Read More.
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