WASHINGTON – The Obama administration plans to send reinforcements to the Southwest border to help contain the rampant violence of the Mexican drug cartel wars.
Thirty-seven agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are being sent to the region. An official familiar with the plan said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is considering the reassignment of at least 90 officers to the border.
The official requested anonymity because the plan has not yet been announced.
The deployments are part of President Obama’s first moves to boost federal security forces on the U.S. side.
The additional immigration agents would double the size of an ongoing ICE task force that has been working with other federal agencies to fight the criminal organizations contributing to the border violence.
The U.S.-Mexico border has been a different problem for Obama than it was for his predecessor, George W. Bush. While Bush sent National Guard troops to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, Obama’s first moves are designed more to keep violence from spilling across the border.
Mexican officials say the violence spawned by warring drug cartels killed 6,290 people last year and more than 1,000 this year.
Warring drug cartels are blamed for more than 560 kidnappings in Phoenix in 2007 and the first half of 2008, as well as killings in Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., and Vancouver, British Columbia.