U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez: Drug violence hasn't spilled over into US

FORT HANCOCK — The solitude of West Texas towns like Fort Hancock is what attracts drug smugglers to the area, border law officials said Friday while visiting with residents concerned for their safety.

The rural towns stretch 50 miles southeast of El Paso. They are bound by farming towns on the Mexican side, where many killings, arson attacks and kidnappings have occurred in the past few weeks. The area, called the Valley of Ju?rez, had more than 50 murders in March.

U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas, told frightened residents of Fort Hancock that the narco violence has not spilled over to the U.S. side yet.

“In terms of crime, we don’t have any evidence to show that,” he said.

Rodriguez held a community meeting Friday at Fort Hancock High School to hear the concerns of residents and border law officers.

The FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Border Patrol did not comment on the situation in the Valley of Ju?rez, but they recognized the concerns of U.S. residents that have surfaced in the past two weeks.

Debbie Brenzovich attended the meeting to let officials know she fears for her safety.

“We heard a machine gun fire on Easter Sunday,” she said.

Fort Hancock Independent School District Superintendent Jose Franco said many Mexican families arrived last weekend, and the schools received 10 new students coming from the valley in one week.

“I welcome the students,” he said. “The concern is that some of the people coming over are people who instigated all of the violence.”

Rodriguez, Franco and Hudspeth County sheriff’s officials told Fort Hancock residents to remain calm but to watch for suspicious activity.

During the past two years, the area bound by the valley on the Mexican side and West Texas towns on the U.S. side became a hot corridor. It was the motive for combat between two rival drug-trafficking organizations — the Ju?rez cartel, led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, and the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaqu?n “Chapo” Guzm?n.

As the U.S. government built the border fence halfway and beefed up its inspections mostly at the large cities’ ports of entry, the remote West Texas region has become a strategic point for the drug cartels and their contract-based gangs. Some of these areas go miles and miles without a fence.

On the Mexican side, the rural areas’ police are not equipped to prevent violence.

Criminal organizations in the United States have historically chosen smaller towns for the drug trade. Detroit gangs, for instance, handled their crack-dealing operations in smaller towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Rodriguez said Gov. Rick Perry has directed away from the border areas the money the state receives from the Department of Homeland Security. He also said the federal government should add $15 million to the $60 million Operation Stonegarden, which has already beefed up law enforcement in West Texas.

As remote as it seems, Border Patrol Agent Valeria Morales said, Fort Hancock has stepped up its efforts. She said the agency has doubled the number of agents in that area in the past couple of years.

“Our agents are much more vigilant,” Morales said.

Border Patrol officials at the meeting said the number of apprehensions in the agency’s El Paso sector have dropped significantly because criminals and non-criminal immigrants arrested are now prosecuted in federal courts. The drug seizures also have declined, officials said.

“The activity level here is very, very low,” Border Patrol Deputy Chief Michael Pryzbyl said. “But it is an area of concern because of the level of violence.”

The violence in the Valley of Ju?rez has prompted the increase in vigilance.

On Thursday, the Mexican army took over the patrolling of the towns inhabited by few er than 18,000 people, said Facundo Rosas, the federal police chief.

Last weekend, two federal police helicopters began flying over the valley, and police increased their presence along the Ju?rez-Porvenir highway.

Chihuahua Gov. Jos? Reyes Baeza traveled to the area Monday and promised to dispatch state police to the valley.

At El Porvenir, gang members gave residents deadlines to leave the town or face consequences, such as death or kidnapping.

Francisco Gonz?lez, 19, found a threatening note outside his one-bedroom home in El Porvenir about a month ago.

“It said they gave me 24 hours to leave or they would kill me,” he said.

In distress, the ranch worker fled Mexico and crossed into the United States with a tourist visa to settle in Fort Hancock. He said gunmen had already killed one of his friends in a multiple shooting.

Now Gonz?lez lives in a trailer and receives financial help from his family in Mexico. He does not feel like a stranger on the U.S. side because, he said, many people of El Porvenir have ties to Fort Hancock.

If the influx of immigrants continues, Fort Hancock school district’s Franco said, public safety could soon become a concern.

“The newcomers are going to let this die down first,” he said.

Rodriguez said he will go back to Fort Hancock in August to follow up on the law- enforcement efforts. His district stretches from eastern El Paso to San Antonio, where he lives.

Rodriguez is up for re-election in November. Republicans Will Hurd and Francisco “Quico” Canseco are competing in next Tuesday’s Republican primary runoff to challenge him in November.

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