EL PASO REMAINS UNSCATHED BY VIOLENCE ACROSS THE BORDER

As Ciudad Juarez, known as Mexico's Murder City, continues to bleed,
those lucky enough to live across the border can take comfort that the
violence hasn't reached them yet.

The danger has yet to spill over into El Paso, which has had only one
murder this year.

"We're extremely proud of this," said El Paso Mayor John
Cook.

"In Juarez there's been a culture of corruption. On the El Paso side
of the border, we have a lot of respect for law enforcement."

That may not be the only reason, scholars said. Drug cartels need to
keep their homes and port of entry safe from the violence and safe
from demands to shut down the border.

Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1 million caught up in deadly drug wars, has
reported more than 1,300 murders so far this year. In 2009, there were
about 2,700.

In El Paso, with more than 700,000 residents, the total was 13 in
2009. Similar in population, Baltimore had 238 slayings.

Dallas, with 1.2 million residents, had 166 murders in
2009.

Dallas has had 61 murders through May. In the previous five years, El
Paso has reported between three and seven murders through May, said
Darrel Petry, spokesman for El Paso Police Department.

The one murder this year occurred in January. Police reported it as a
murder-suicide after they found a husband and wife dead at the scene
with gunshot wounds from a small-caliber handgun.

Scholars who study immigrant communities have noticed a pattern, said
Jack Levin a sociologist and criminologist at Northeastern University
in Boston.

Cities such as Laredo and El Paso, border towns with high foreign-born
populations, are the cities with the lowest murder rates, he said.

"Part of the reason is that immigrants are afraid of exposing
themselves to police," Levin said.

"They don't want to be deported. They want desperately to achieve
economic success."

Cook agreed. "These people are new to the country so they're very
respectful of the laws," the mayor said.

But Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration
Studies, said the belief that immigrants are hard-working, law-abiding
residents may be only half the story.

Cartels want to keep border cities like El Paso neutral in order to
have a safe place to live or to cross the border.

"If the violence spilled over, they know that there would be an
antibody response," Krikorian said.

"They can't alienate the border environment since it is so important
in their business."