BORDER SECURITY BILL: SURVEILLANCE DRONES, RADAR KEY PARTS OF $300M PLAN

EL PASO - Sen. John Cornyn wants to take control of the border with
Mexico by filling it with military technology like drones, radar and
night-view cameras.

Cornyn, R-Texas, on Wednesday proposed the Southern Border Security
Assistance Act, a $300 million grant program for border law
enforcement officials.

Under the proposal, state, county, city agencies and sheriff's
departments would be able to apply for expedited grant funding to buy
monitoring equipment, communications technologies, night-view
cameras, laptops, vehicles, drones and helicopters.

They would also be able to use the money to hire and train staff in
prosecuting drug cases; hire additional judges; provide
administrative support, dispatchers and jailers; and cover overtime expenses.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is working with Cornyn to
get the proposal approved. Both also are trying to get Federal
Aviation Administration authorization to operate a drone at the
Texas-Mexico border.

"The FAA has been dragging its feet on this," Cornyn said during a
news conference Wednesday. "There are only five drones available for
border security. Three of them are on the northern border, and
neither of the two in the southern border is for Texas."

He said he and Hutchison plan to speak to high-level FAA officials to
find out what is delaying the approval.

Hutchison said, "For communities along the border with Mexico, the
threat of violence is becoming all too real, but the federal
government has yet to fully step up and do what is necessary to take
on these challenges."

Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles that the military has used for
surveillance and attacks. They also have nonmilitary applications,
such as checking the state of pipelines.

When Cornyn was in El Paso last week, he received private briefings
from ICE, ATF, FBI, U.S. military and the U.S. attorney's office. He
crafted his proposal based largely on information he received from
briefings about the situation at the border.

Cornyn said he is looking into whether the Air Force-Army JSTARS can
be deployed in the fight against the Mexican drug cartels.

The U.S. military has used the air-to-ground Joint Surveillance and
Target Attack Radar System in Iraq and Afghanistan.

JSTARS can determine the direction, speeds and patterns of activity
of ground vehicles, helicopters and groups of people, and it can
operate in all kinds of weather.

Cornyn, however, indicated that he is reluctant to share U.S.
military technology with Mexico, because of fears that drug dealers
will infiltrate government agencies and jeopardize the
intelligence-gathering operations.

The senator said the Merida Initiative, which earmarked $1.3 billion
in assistance for Mexico to fight the drug cartels, may not be the
best solution.

As of last September, only $26 million of the money had been spent.
After that was made public, $113 million worth of equipment had
arrived in Mexico by March, "but implementation challenges remain,"
according to an April 19 Congressional Research Service report.

U.S. lawmakers are considering a modified version of the Merida Initiative.

Other lawmakers are renewing calls to use the U.S. military to assist
with border security.

Texas state Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, and a group of bipartisan
lawmakers, called on President Barack Obama on Wednesday to grant
requests from border governors, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to
assign National Guard soldiers to the border.

In a letter to Obama, Poe and the others asked that the soldiers be
armed, be allowed to defend themselves if fired upon while assisting
the Border Patrol and other law officers, and be given clear rules of
engagement.

"As you know, the level of violence along the border continues to
increase," the letter said. "Since January 2008, nearly 5,000
homicides have been committed in Juarez, Mexico, making it one of the
most violent cities in the world."

Poe said the murders in Juarez of Lesley Enriquez, a U.S. Consulate
employee, and her husband, Arthur Redelfs, a 10-year veteran of the
El Paso County Sheriff's Office, and the slaying of long-time rancher
Robert Krentz at the Arizona border, brought the issue of border
security to the national forefront.

He also said the Border Patrol reported a 46 percent increase in
assaults to its agents along the border, from 752 in 2007 to 1,097 in
2008, and that the El Paso Sector Border Intelligence Center also
warned of possible retaliation against law officers in the border region.

[sidebar]

Mexico slayings

How drug violence in Mexico breaks down:

100,000: Estimated members of major Mexican drug cartels; rivals size
of Mexico's military.

9,635: People killed in Mexican gang or cartel-related violence in
2009, more than triple that of 2007.

5,000: People killed in Juarez since 2008.*

3,365: Lives lost in first three months of 2010 as a result of
drug-related violence.

522: Mexican military and law enforcement officials killed in 2008.

$25 billion: Estimated annual sales of Mexican drugs to the United
States. Source: U.S. Sen. John Cornyn; *El Paso Times research.