BORDER MONEY: FEDS SHOULD PAY EL PASO

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has it right. Congress should give
border-area law-enforcement agencies money to fight crime related to
spillover from the Mexican drug war.

In fact, as Hutchison asks, its should be $100 million a year until
2013.

We think this should include providing security and paying bills at
our county hospital, which takes in victims of the violence in Juarez.
Thomason officials have said the bill for having treating nearly three
dozen victims is at about $1.5 million. County taxpayers should not
incur this cost because control at the international border is a
federal responsibility, not a responsibility of local or state
governments.

Meanwhile, state funds have come to the border via Texas Gov. Rick
Perry, who has said it's a responsible move to protect Texans when the
federal government does not act.

Texas should not have to spend Texans' money to secure the
border.

We hope Hutchison can gain the ear of our U.S. representatives and her
fellow senators, most of whom are not at the ground zero of the raging
lawlessness in Mexico, but do feel the effects of the cartels' drug
dealing into their home states.

Meanwhile, some state lawmakers from border areas, including our own
El Paso legislators, are asking Texas to reimburse El Paso law
enforcement for providing increased security at Thomason Hospital.

We most certainly are in a serious predicament at Thomason, since the
Mexican drug cartels have been known to walk into hospitals and kill
patients they had only wounded in assassination attempts in Mexico.

State Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, said, "You've got citizens who are
in fear of going to that hospital because they're treating victims of
this drug war."

Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw sees the violence
seeping across into U.S. border areas. "... We have to presume that
they will, at one time, come over here," McCraw said.

El Paso and border areas deserve money to secure our cities. We'll
take state money, but we think that type of funding is due from the
U.S. government.