Statistics indicate that, in general, illegal activity such as drug smuggling and the entry of undocumented immigrants is declining along the southern border.

There could be a number of reasons for this.

Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Valeria Morales said more agents on patrol -- "boots on the ground" -- the border fence and border-monitoring technology have combined to cut the number of undocumented immigrants intercepted.

"All of these factors have made it more difficult for immigrants to cross the border illegally," she said.

[continues 211 words]

FABENS -- Donna Sifford is leading the fight against terrorism and the drug trade at a quiet site surrounded by fields of cotton and pecans.

She is the new director of the Fabens Port of Entry and Fort Hancock International Crossing for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

Sifford took over the position on Oct. 24, but a formal change of command ceremony took place Nov. 23 at Fabens High School.

[continues 321 words]

Our pronounced headway into helping Mexico win its war against drug cartels may have been "spin." Little or no headway has been made.

Now we learn, through U.S. cables released by WikiLeaks, that our State Department has been frustrated with Mexico amid the government's four-year attempt to beat down drug-cartel power.

The classified and secret memos indicate the U.S. believes the $1.4 billion we earmarked for Mexico in the Merida Initiative was a bad idea; it has done little to help President Felipe Calderon's efforts.

[continues 180 words]

U.S. and Mexico editors who supervise news coverage of Mexico's drug violence agreed that reporters face dangers similar to those encountered in war zones.

Some of the hazards include being shot at, traveling through regions controlled by violent drug-traffickers, encountering "carjacking stations" posing as military checkpoints, and being used by informants with hidden agendas.

Bulletproof vests are part of the equipment the Associated Press provides to its reporters in Mexico, said Wendy Benjamin, the AP's Texas news editor and leader of the news organization's international drug war beat team.

[continues 415 words]

A prominent Mexican publisher painted a bleak picture of conditions in Mexico, while stressing that he plans to continue covering all aspects of the country with long-term improvement in mind.

Alejandro Junco de la Vega, chairman and CEO of Grupo Reforma, which publishes several major dailies in Mexico, said Mexico "is a country clouded in a grimness of its own ... Our world seems to be the stuff of nightmares."

Junco said one of his reporters in the state of Nuevo Leon recently was kidnapped but was found alive after his news organization reported the abduction to police, the military and other officials.

[continues 547 words]

Apprehensions decline 18%; drug seizures dip

The number of apprehensions by Border Patrol agents in the El Paso Sector declined during the past year, but undocumented immigrants are facing greater dangers before reaching the border.

For the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, agents apprehended 12,251 undocumented immigrants, 18 percent less than in the previous year.

Valeria Morales, a supervisory Border Patrol agent, attributed the decline to having more agents on patrol, technology to monitor border incursions and the border fence.

[continues 738 words]

When John Dahill put his El Paso house on the market two years ago, an eager young couple from Juarez looked at it the first day it was listed.

They liked the house for the same reasons the Dahill family did: It had a large, grassy lot with river irrigation and mature trees; a church was at the end of the street, and the nearby school had a sterling reputation. It was a great place to raise two young boys.

But the Juarez couple had another reason to be looking.

[continues 615 words]

Times reporter Adriana Gomez Licon spent Thanksgiving week traveling to Veracruz, Mexico. She was reporting on the thousands of residents there who were living in Ciudad Juarez but now, through a government-sponsored relocation program, had been sent back to Veracruz due to the violence on the border.

The story she produced in the four days she spent traveling through Mexico, and the work of photographer Jesus Alcazar, show up on this morning's front page.

Later today, at the University of Texas at El Paso, top editors from news organizations across the United States and Mexico will gather to talk about how to ensure the safety of journalists, like Gomez Licon, who report out of Mexico.

[continues 435 words]

Investigative reporter Terrence E. Poppa once ran around El Paso with a loaded .38-caliber pistol in a cigar box.

Mexican drug traffickers had threatened to kill him.

"I was pretty shaken up," Poppa said in a recent telephone interview.

Poppa, a former El Paso Herald-Post reporter, wrote "Drug Lord: The Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin," the classic biography of Pablo Acosta, a cocaine and marijuana smuggler in the 1980s based in Ojinaga, Mexico, a border town in northeastern Chihuahua, four hours downstream from El Paso. Poppa interviewed Acosta, plus various law enforcement officials along the Rio Grande, and tapped into official documents and other sources.

[continues 589 words]

Public confidence in Mexican President Felipe Calderon's war on drugs is plummeting quickly in that violence-torn country. As recently as March of this year, 47 percent of those questioned said the drug war that was launched in 2006 was a success.

But a poll released last week by the Mitofsky polling agency showed a reversal in that attitude, with 49 percent saying the drug war is a failure, and only 33 percent calling it a success.

It just underscores an obvious point.

[continues 288 words]

WikiLeaks, a whistleblowing online site, obtained 2,836 U.S. documents related to Mexico and 8,324 documents related to narcotics -- both areas of great interest to the border region.

However, the public will have to wait to learn what most of those cables contain because WikiLeaks does not plan to release all 251,287 of its leaked documents at once.

The site is coordinating the release of documents, mostly U.S. diplomatic cables, with selected major U.S. and international media partners. As of Monday, only 272 cables had been released.

[continues 546 words]

Texas Gov. Rick Perry would support sending in U.S. troops to quell violence in Mexico if Mexico asked for a U.S. military presence.

Since there won't be such an invitation, Perry might do well to turn his attention to matters that can and should be addressed, such as the deficit facing his state.

Ricardo Alday, a spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., said, "Mexico has reiterated on repeated occasions that the presence of U.S. troops on Mexican soil is not and will not be an option.

[continues 326 words]

Re: "Perry backs drug war troops - Military should be an option if Mexico approves, he says, because stronger tactics needed," Friday news story. Gov. Rick Perry wants to send American kids to Mexico to risk being seriously injured or killed fighting drug gangs.

The reason for this fight is largely to keep these same kids from smoking a plant that has never killed anyone in 5,000 years of recorded use. In contrast, Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 and put the money saved on law enforcement into education and medical treatment.

[continues 55 words]

Without leaving American skies, remotely piloted surveillance drones, outfitted with cameras that provide real-time video, fly along the Texas border searching U.S. territory for drug smugglers, undocumented immigrants and potential terrorists.

They also are fully capable of peering into Mexico, where narco terrorists eviscerate the rule of law.

But does the U.S. government ever risk the international fallout of using the aircraft's high-tech surveillance abilities to take a peek south of the border "" or share what they see with Mexican counterparts fighting for their lives?

[continues 664 words]

Harmish McKenzie pokes a good hole in the myths of the drug war in his excellent Nov. 20 column, "How to wage a successful war on drugs."

When the "land of the free" becomes "the land of the most incarcerated," we have erred grievously. When the results of the drug war are examined, we find a situation more racist in its present state than in its founding: We now incarcerate young black males at a rate seven times greater per capita than did South Africa under their universally condemned policy of apartheid.

Prohibition will always fail. We must re-legalize all drugs in order to remove the cartels' grasp on the golden-egg-laying goose of prohibition.

- - Allan Erickson, Eugene, Ore.

[end]

As a retired police detective, I heartily agree with Harmish McKenzie that ending our drug prohibition is the path to reducing crime, death, disease and, probably, drug use and abuse. I can certainly attest to the fact that after 40 years of efforts and the wasting of a trillion dollars, drugs are cheaper, stronger and readily available to Texas youths.

- - Howard Wooldridge, Dallas

[end]

Texans, take note now: Our approach to border security will have to change after the Mexican presidential elections in 2012.

Texas politicians hopped on the border security bandwagon during the recently concluded campaigns. Enforcement approaches are necessary but might be insufficient to stem either the flow of illegal immigrants or drugs. Texas policymakers should be prepared to adopt a variety of approaches to resolve its border problems.

Gov. Rick Perry hints that the escalating narco violence might warrant a stronger U.S. military option - perhaps even sending troops into Mexico.

[continues 673 words]

During the past 15 years, I've visited El Paso frequently to gain a first-hand understanding of our nation's border infrastructure and security challenges.

With Mexico serving as the United States' third-largest trade partner, one of the greatest issues facing Texas's border and transportation systems is the ongoing challenge to enhance border security while providing safe and efficient movement of people and goods across the border.

While the violence in Mexican border communities and states has surged in recent years as the Mexican government mounts a full-court press against powerful drug cartels, El Paso and other U.S. towns along the border have been spared from significant spillover violence.

[continues 455 words]

Gov. Rick Perry said deploying U.S. soldiers to Mexico should be one option to curb drug cartel violence in border cities, but only if Mexico invites the Americans.

"I think we have to use every aspect of law enforcement that we have, including the military," Perry said during an interview Thursday with MSNBC. "I think you have the same situation as you had in Colombia."

Perry, the new chairman of the Republican Governors Association, has been touring the country promoting his anti-Washington book, "Fed Up!"

[continues 675 words]

On a quiet November morning, Trooper Johnny Hernandez patrolled the dusty back roads along the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County. In the back seat, his M4 rifle sat within arm's reach. In the trunk, he stored a bulletproof vest.

Trooper Hernandez, a 15-year veteran of the Department of Public Safety, has been in so many high-speed pursuits that he cannot remember the first one, and he doesn't know which has been the scariest.

There is so much going on, he said, "your thoughts are going 100 miles per hour."

[continues 1155 words]