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...plan's goal is to dampen U.S. demand for illicit drugs by beefing up programs like drug courts that waive sentences in exchange for mandatory rehab. In addition, it doubles the number of joint local, state and federal border-enforcement security teams and ratchets up intelligence resources to track Mexico's increasingly chaotic mix of drug organizations, at least three of which are fighting for control of Juárez. "Adding resources to fight the weapons flow, the bulk currency shipments, and strengthen intelligence are all welcome moves," says John Bailey, an expert on Mexican drug-trafficking at Georgetown University...
Although the cartel violence has largely left U.S. border towns like El Paso untouched - mainly, say analysts, because the Mexican narcos don't want to provoke Washington into even more severe crackdowns on their lucrative trafficking corridors there - local police say it has begun to leapfrog the border into Sunbelt cities like Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona and even Atlanta. That has set off political alarm bells in Washington, where earlier this year the Pentagon issued a hyperbolic report that called Mexico a "failed state" along with the likes of Pakistan. Nevertheless, says Bailey, "the general feeling is that...
Washington will have at least started that process when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Mexico today for a two-day visit. In response to growing fears both in Washington and along the border that Mexican drug violence is spilling over to U.S. soil - Attorney General Eric Holder recently called the cartels a "national security threat" - the Obama Administration on Tuesday unveiled a border-security plan that will put more than 500 federal agents in border states. More significantly, the plan calls for stronger measures to reduce U.S. narco-demand, cut off weapons-smuggling into Mexico and lasso more...
...along the border at least, the plan is being largely applauded by law-enforcement officials who feel their region was neglected during both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies. "This was a long time coming," says Richard Wiles, the Democratic sheriff of El Paso County, Texas, which sits across the Rio Grande from Juárez, Mexico - a city that has seen almost 2,000 drug-related murders since the start of 2008, with many of the victims being police officers, not to mention the epidemic of kidnappings and extortion. (Nationwide, Mexico had almost 7,000 narco-killings...
...Border sheriffs like Wiles (who says it's no coincidence the plan was crafted in part by Napolitano, a former border governor) are particularly gratified to see Washington sending 100 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents to help intercept the deluge of assault rifles, automatic pistols and grenades moving south. Until now, the El Paso sector had only seven ATF agents. The Obama plan will also place more federal antidrug and immigration and customs agents along the 2,000-mile-long frontier. Those cops, moreover, will be equipped with new X-ray technologies to detect contraband cash...