AUSTIN (Texas Tribune) - Leaders from one end of the Texas-Mexico border to the other said Friday they want Gov. Rick Perry to tone down the scary rhetoric and get real about solving problems in their hometowns.
And, by the way, they would also like to be consulted about security plans that affect the communities where they live.
“We live on the border. We work on the border. We raise our families right here,” says Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas, a retired FBI agent. “We know what’s going on on the border. There’s a plan, and our needs were not taken into consideration.”
Perry announced Tuesday that he was activating the first phase of the Texas “spillover violence contingency plan" and said he would increase law enforcement presence on the border, put SWAT and Recon Ranger teams on standby and deploy two helicopters.
His spokeswoman, Katherine Cesinger, said last Friday that the plan was developed in 2009 with input from local and federal law enforcement on the border.
“The safety of Texas citizens is the governor’s greatest concern, and regardless of when, where or in what form any threat may pose to Texans, Gov. Perry will always proactively and aggressively address anything that would do them harm,” she said.
The activation announcement came days after three people with ties to the U.S. Consulate in Juárez were shot and killed in that crime-plagued city, including an American citizen who was four months pregnant and her husband, an El Paso jail guard.
Perry also called on the federal government to deploy unmanned aerial drones and National Guard troops to the border and repeatedly attacked Washington, as he as in the past, for not doing enough to secure it. Federal officials said Friday that they were considering the governor’s request for additional aerial surveillance.
Border mayors, sheriffs and other elected officials say Perry did not consult with them before announcing he was activating the first phase of the spillover plan.
They’re concerned not only that he didn’t seek their input but also that his strong words about the threats and violence from Mexico paint the entire border as a danger zone where bullets zing incessantly across the Rio Grande.
The situation is bad in Juárez, they agreed, but in other communities, life goes on fairly normally.
“We don’t have that here, so don’t say, ‘Throughout the border, this is going on.' It’s not going on,” says Del Rio Mayor Efrain Valdez, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition.
And for all the talk about beefing up border security, most of the border officials says they haven’t seen the increased law enforcement and helicopters that Perry promised.
“We have seen here no evidence of any on-the-ground resources from Gov. Perry,” says state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso. “We have seen TV clips.”
Border officials say what the region really needs is long-term help, like money to hire more local officers, improved port infrastructure and investments that will help bring economic and social stability to both sides of the Texas-Mexico border.
The Texas Border Coalition, a group of elected officials and business leaders, sent Perry a letter Wednesday urging him to contact them before he activates security initiatives. Valdez says only one city, El Paso, had been alerted before Perry launched the spillover plan.
“We are learning about your plans from the media, along with everyone else,” Valdez wrote. “This makes it impossible for us to coordinate with your office to create the most effective strategy to keep our border communities safe.”
Before the announcement of the spillover plan, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office had “very preliminary” information that Perry would be sending some additional resources its way, says Chief Deputy Sylvia Aguilar, though she didn’t have first-hand knowledge of what state help has been sent since Tuesday. She hesitates to characterize events in El Paso as spillover of violence from Mexico, but she says there has been a kidnapping and some threats.
“That’s what we’re having to deal with: the fear, and this feeling of 'what’s going to happen next?'”
Although the deaths in Juárez hit close to home — especially for the sheriff’s department, which lost one of its jailers in the weekend killings — Aguilar says the violence across the river has been raging for years. It sparked national news and political attention this weekend, but it has long been a sad daily reality for El Pasoans.
“It’s pretty much life and business as usual here,” she says. “I mean, we are aware of the danger in Juárez. We know it’s treacherous to go over there. But at the end of the day, we come home and pray for the best.”
Border leaders don’t necessarily object to Perry’s spillover plan, but some say they are concerned that the language he uses creates an inaccurate picture of the security situation. Valdez says there has been no spillover violence in Del Rio, just across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.
Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño says his community,
Email This
Print This
View Story on a Single Page