Border Patrol union disagrees with Napolitano’s assertion that area is safer now
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2011/03/29/border-patrol-union-blasts-napolitano/

Quote:
The U.S. Border Patrol union says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s comments reassuring Americans that the U.S. border with Mexico is safe and open for business are “wrong and give citizens a false sense of security.”

“It is time for the political games to stop for fear of insulting the government of Mexico,” the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) said in a statement. “U.S. citizens are being kidnapped and killed while our Border Patrol agents fight a war at home that no one will allow them to win.

“Not one more Border Patrol agent should fall or citizen be victimized because our government fails to act,” said the NBPC, which represents all 17,500 non-supervisory U.S. Border Patrol agents. “Mexico is hemorrhaging violence, and we are being hit with the splatter.”

Ms. Napolitano told border-area mayors and business leaders in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday that the U.S.-Mexico border is safer than ever, adding that perceptions that the border area is at its most dangerous right now are false.

She said that the Obama administration is dedicated to ensuring that the Southwest border remains open for business amid drug cartel violence in Mexico, and that increased security should not come at the price of trade, travel and tourism.

“The Obama administration has dedicated historic levels of manpower, technology and infrastructure to the Southwest border to ensure the safety of border communities, and these resources have made a significant impact,” she said. “Some of America’s safest communities are in the Southwest border region, with border city crime rates staying steady or dropping over the past decade.”

But the NBPC said the violence that has occurred along the border in recent years shows that crime is spilling over from Mexico, noting that Border Patrol agents, ranchers and citizens have been killed, kidnapped, shot at and targeted, and that the Phoenix area has become a “cartel-related crime hotspot.”

“If the border was better now than it ever has been, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry would not have been brutally murdered by heavily armed Mexican criminals operating over 13 miles inside the United States,” the NBPC said. “In some countries, that is construed as an act of war, but here we get words not deeds when Napolitano terms events like this as evidence ‘there is much to do with our colleagues in Mexico with respect to the drug cartels.’ “