White House plan also calls for improving surveillance technology
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano speaks during a news conference at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego on Wednesday. In the foreground are bales of marijuana confiscated at the entry point.
SAN DIEGO – The Obama administration plans to spend more than $400 million to upgrade ports of entry and surveillance technologies to help thwart drugs and arms smuggling along the U.S-Mexico border.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that the projects will help keep violence from spilling across the border.
“Working together at all levels, we take them on and we take them out. That is our goal,” Napolitano told reporters after an aerial tour of the border area near San Diego.
In her first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking office two months ago, Napolitano toured a customs and border protection facility at Otay Mesa, Calif.
The spending outlined by Napolitano is part of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package approved by Congress.
Included in the border spending is $269 million to upgrade ports of entry, including San Diego’s Otay Mesa – a busy crossing for trucks – Antelope Wells, N.M., and Nogales, Ariz.
The plan calls for $42 million for high-tech inspection equipment and $50 million for a high-tech surveillance systems along Arizona’s border with Mexico.
Napolitano heads to Mexico City on Thursday and Laredo, Texas, on Friday.