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Ex-prosecutor picked for new US 'border czar' post
Associated Press
Issue date: 4/16/09 Section: News
EL PASO, Texas (AP) - A former Justice Department official who led a 1990s crackdown on illegal border crossings was named to the new U.S. post of "border czar" Wednesday to oversee efforts to end drug-cartel violence along the U.S.-Mexico border and to slow the tide of illegal immigration.
Alan Bersin, a former U.S. attorney who also once served as California's education secretary, was named to the job by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Bersin and Napolitano spoke to reporters on a bridge over the Rio Grande linking El Paso with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a city plagued by violence among drug cartels and Mexican authorities that has killed more than 10,650 people since December 2006.
The Obama administration has promised to target border violence and work with Mexican authorities to curb drug and arms trafficking. Hundreds of federal agents, along with high-tech surveillance gear and drug-sniffing dogs, are being deployed to the Southwest.
But Bersin, speaking in both Spanish and English, immediately cautioned against the exaggeration of the drug cartels' threat to residents of U.S. border states.
"We should be very cautious to not ... misstate the security situation," Bersin said. He noted that there had been no direct spillover of the violence seen in northern Mexico, although cartel-affiliated drug and immigrant traffickers have engaged in kidnapping and other crimes farther north of the border.
The new assistant Homeland Security secretary for international affairs also rejected calls by state officials and others to place troops on the U.S. side of the Mexican border.
"The posse comitatus have served this country well," he said, referring to laws that prevent the U.S. military from operating as law enforcement within the U.S.
Two weeks ago, Napolitano traveled to San Diego, Mexico and Laredo, Texas, to meet with officials about border enforcement and curbing violence spurred by warring Mexican drug cartels. Last year, customs officials apprehended 792,321 people who tried to get into the U.S. through the Southwest border, and immigration officials removed more than 369,000, according to Homeland Security statistics.
Alan Bersin, a former U.S. attorney who also once served as California's education secretary, was named to the job by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
Bersin and Napolitano spoke to reporters on a bridge over the Rio Grande linking El Paso with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a city plagued by violence among drug cartels and Mexican authorities that has killed more than 10,650 people since December 2006.
The Obama administration has promised to target border violence and work with Mexican authorities to curb drug and arms trafficking. Hundreds of federal agents, along with high-tech surveillance gear and drug-sniffing dogs, are being deployed to the Southwest.
But Bersin, speaking in both Spanish and English, immediately cautioned against the exaggeration of the drug cartels' threat to residents of U.S. border states.
"We should be very cautious to not ... misstate the security situation," Bersin said. He noted that there had been no direct spillover of the violence seen in northern Mexico, although cartel-affiliated drug and immigrant traffickers have engaged in kidnapping and other crimes farther north of the border.
The new assistant Homeland Security secretary for international affairs also rejected calls by state officials and others to place troops on the U.S. side of the Mexican border.
"The posse comitatus have served this country well," he said, referring to laws that prevent the U.S. military from operating as law enforcement within the U.S.
Two weeks ago, Napolitano traveled to San Diego, Mexico and Laredo, Texas, to meet with officials about border enforcement and curbing violence spurred by warring Mexican drug cartels. Last year, customs officials apprehended 792,321 people who tried to get into the U.S. through the Southwest border, and immigration officials removed more than 369,000, according to Homeland Security statistics.
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