National Guard on U.S-Mexico border due to end mid-July
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An upcoming deadline of July 15, when the remaining National Guard personnel on the U.S- Mexico border are due to be withdrawn, has raised fears that without them the increased drug violence in the border area could spill into the United States.
‘When the Guard was posted along the frontier in 2006 to help the strapped Border Patrol, critics warned that sending soldiers would be an insult to Mexico and that innocents could get shot by troops trained for combat, not law enforcement.’ ‘Now those worries have given way to fears that without the Guard’s help, a bloody drug cartel war on the Mexican side will spill into the U.S. and overwhelm the Border Patrol.’ Dallas Morning News
Meanwhile, conflict between Mexico’s drug cartels and law enforcement agencies continues. The Associated Press is reporting that Mexican soldiers captured at least 10 suspected members of a Tijuana-based drug cartel in a raid on a child’s baptism party in the border city.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City