Gov. Perry Requests More Troops at Border
Governor Rick Perry of Texas has formally requested more troops to be sent to help guard the Mexican border:
AUSTIN, Texas – Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White may be avoiding President Obama during his Monday visit to the Lone Star State, but Republican Gov. Rick Perry was there to personally ask him to deploy additional National Guard troops to the Texas border.
In a three-page letter he hand-delivered to Obama, Perry criticized the number of troops that have been sent to Texas – 286 – to help secure the 1,200-mile border the state shares with Mexico. He dubbed the number “clearly insufficient” for combating drug cartel violence that he said has killed 28,000 people since 2006.
“I respectfully but urgently request that the federal government quickly deploy 1,000 troops to the Texas-Mexico border, as well as additional law enforcement tools and technology,” Perry wrote. “We must show the cartels that Washington will no longer tolerate their terrorizing and criminalizing the border region.”
This year the Obama administration announced the deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. Deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton defended the administration’s actions on border security.
“The president has put more assets on the border to secure the border than has ever previously been there,” Burton told reporters aboard Air Force One. “That includes National Guard troops, technology, things he has done on enforcement. That’s something that he is working very hard on.”
Perry, who applauded as Obama descended the stairs from Air Force One, gave him the letter during a brief meeting with him on the tarmac at Bergstrom International Airport in Austin. They shook hands and chatted for a moment, as Perry pulled the letter out of the pocket of his tan suit. The president handed it to Valerie Jarrett, one of his senior advisers.
The letter asks Obama for additional surveillance equipment and resources, as well as troops, and lists several incidents of drug cartel violence spilling across the border into Texas.
“The purpose of this letter is to reiterate the dire threat amassing on our southern border in the form of international drug cartels and transnational gangs, and to again request sufficient federal resources to combat the increasing violence,” Perry wrote. “In Texas, just as in our nation as a whole, border security affects our safety, job creation our quality of life. America cannot have a rational discussion of immigration reform without real, effective border security. The federal government must step up and finally do what is needed to secure our borders.”
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