Violent Mexican gangs pose risk to Americans

For political reasons, both Democrats and Republicans have failed to do what is necessary to secure our borders. Homeland Security is so intent on concentrating on our sea and air ports that little has been done to stop the illegal traffic over our southern border. Private media show pictures of illegals climbing over our fences unimpeded and we all know of Mexican laborers working in our towns.

Through neglect, we are being infiltrated, not only by conscientious workers, but by drug dealers and cartel members, gangs, and, yes, most likely, terrorists. We are less safe now than we were and if our borders are not secured, and our drug appetite curbed, we will be in the same peril that Mexican citizens now find themselves.

Excerpt: For more than two years, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials have been warning that the dramatic rise in violence along the southwestern border could eventually target U.S. citizens and spread into this country. The violence posed what the officials called a "serious threat" to law enforcement officers, first responders and residents along the 1,951-mile border.

Last year, the Justice Department identified more than 200 U.S. cities in which Mexican drug cartels "maintain drug distribution networks or supply drugs to distributors" - up from 100 three years earlier.

The department's National Drug Intelligence Center, in its 2010 drug threat assessment report, described the cartels as "the single greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States." It said Mexican gangs had established operations in every area of the United States and were expanding into more rural and suburban areas.

The report noted that adding to the violence were assaults against U.S. law enforcement officers assigned to posts along the southwestern border. It said assaults against Border Patrol agents increased 46 percent from 752 incidents in fiscal 2007 to 1,097 incidents in fiscal 2008 - including the January 2008 killing of an agent by the automobile of a fleeing drug suspect and the fatal shooting of another agent in July 2009. Read Washington Times article here.