Lawmakers expect revised border violence plan from Calderon visit

Lawmakers are expecting the White House and Mexican
President Felipe Calderon to announce a revised two-country plan aimed at
addressing the increasing drug violence along the border region when the two
heads of state meet this week.

The meeting comes as several members of Congress say
they’ve heard rumblings that Obama is inching closer to
sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border region, though none
could confirm that.

{mosads}A spokesman for the White House said Obama was still considering
whether to send National Guard troops. He emphasized that “the administration has
dedicated unprecedented manpower, technology and infrastructure resources” to
the region.

“The president is firmly committed to ensuring
that our southwest border is secure,” said Nick Shapiro, a spokesman
for the White House. “The
administration continues to evaluate additional law enforcement options
as well
as the use of the National Guard, as needed, along the southwest
border.”

In the midst of a renewed focus by Congress on the issue of
border violence, a bipartisan group of 17 House lawmakers from the southwest region
sent a letter late last month to Obama calling on him to deploy National Guard
troops to their home states to combat the growing violence. 

This week Congress is planning to continue its heavy focus
on the escalating levels of violence, drug smuggling and illegal gunrunning
along the U.S.-Mexico border with hearings flanking Wednesday’s state dinner in honor of Calderon. 

The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the
Law starts the week Tuesday with a hearing on drug enforcement and the rule
of law in Mexico and Colombia.

And the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight follows with a hearing Thursday that
will look at the State and Defense departments’ management of large contracts
that supply counternarcotics assistance to governments in Latin America.

The subcommittee plans to look at the details of each
contract – including pertinent audits and legal analysis – and the cost-benefit
effectiveness of contracts the U.S. holds in Mexico, the Dominican Republic,
Guatemala, Haiti, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia to combat illegal
narcotics trafficking over the past 11 years, according to committee officials.

The hearings come as Calderon plans to meet with Obama and
address a joint session of Congress Thursday; he is expected to ask for
the continued assistance of the U.S. in battling the drug cartels.

Rep. Eliot Engel
(D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the
Western Hemisphere, said he expects the two presidents will announce a new
strategy for the two countries.

“I would not be surprised to see the two presidents announce
a bold new step,” he told The Hill. “We don’t want Mexico to lapse into
anarchy. We have a real stake in it. I can’t think of another country where we,
the United States, have more at stake in than Mexico. So we need to do
everything we can. And if that involves putting [National] Guard on the border,
I think that’s the president’s decision.”

Engel plans to co-chair a joint hearing with his
subcommittee and the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime
and Global Counterterrorism on May 27, which will look at the levels of
cooperation around security issues between the U.S. and Mexico.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland
Security Committee, said the U.S. already has a number of programs
under way aimed at decreasing violence in Mexico, and if any new
commitment is needed, it should come from Calderon.

“I don’t know what more you can do,” he told The Hill.
“Maybe some enhanced use of drones or something like that. We really need 100
percent effort on the part of the Mexican government to address the border
violence. We haven’t been able to get the numbers down. We’ve done a lot, like
training their people, but the violence is still there.”

“Mr. President, if we don’t get our arms around this monster,
we’re going to have an even bigger problem,” said Thompson.

Congress’s renewed attention to the violence followed the
recent slayings of a U.S. consulate worker in Mexico and an Arizona border
rancher. More than 22,700 people have been killed since Calderon took power in
2006 and began an all-out war against drug cartels in his country.

This past week, members of a drug cartel are suspected of
killing a mayoral candidate from a Northern region of Mexico that partly
stretches along the Texas border. The politician was a member of Calderon’s own
National Action Party.

In joint testimony before the Senate Caucus on International
Narcotics Control last week, officials from the DEA and the FBI called the
levels of violence seen recently “unprecedented” and said they anticipate
the violence in Mexico to get worse before it gets better.

But, the officials added, the violence is a sign of the
success of the war Calderon has been waging with America’s assistance.

“Anecdotal evidence from around the country and closer to
home here in the District of Columbia, including intercepted communications of
the traffickers themselves, corroborates the fact that President Calderon’s
efforts are making it more difficult for traffickers to supply the U.S. market
with illicit drugs,” they said.

Calderon has deployed 45,000 army soldiers to dangerous
cities and regions throughout Mexico – including 7,000 to Juarez, where more
than 4,500 people have been killed in the past two years.