May 23, 2009
By: Tom Fitton
Judicial Watch President
If you've been reading this Weekly Update for any length of time, you know that Judicial Watch has been tracking the deteriorating situation on our nation's southern border very closely. Judicial Watch has led the charge to uncover government documents detailing hundreds of intentional incursions by Mexican government operatives into the United States in recent years.
This week we learned that the situation is getting worse.
On Tuesday, we released a U.S. Customs and Border Protection report titled, BorderStat Violence, FY 2008 Year in Review, which documents a sharp increase in violence on the U.S. border with Mexico. Judicial Watch forced the allegedly transparent Obama administration to release this document through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit we filed against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on January 27, 2009.
Here are the headlines:
- There were a total of 147 incursions at and between the Ports of Entry for all Customs and Border Protection (CBP) components for FY 2008 when compared to 32 incursions for FY 2007, an increase of 359%.
- There were 1,325 incidents of violence occurring at or between the Ports of Entry against CBP Agents and Officers, resulting in a 23 percent increase from 1,073 in FY 2007.
- 97 percent of all incidents of violence against CBP Agents and Officers occurred on the southwest border.
- The San Diego sector sustained the largest increase in assaults, 48 percent, for FY 2008 when compared to FY 2007. The Yuma sector experienced the largest decrease, 56 percent.
- There were 227 assaults against CBP Officers at the Ports of Entry in FY 2008 as compared to 85 in FY 2007, an increase of 167 percent.
In the face of what is obviously an indisputable crisis on our border with Mexico, what has been the Obama administration's response?
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano recently turned down an offer for increased funding from the Senate Committee on Homeland Defense to address the problem of violence on the southern border. The Obama administration also rejected an appeal from Texas Governor Rick Perry and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to help quell border violence. Instead, the Obama administration announced a plan to temporarily send 360 federal agents to the border, a plan which has little chance of succeeding.
The Obama administration has been tone deaf on the issue of border security. Our Border Patrol agents are being attacked and our sovereignty violated at alarming rates. The symbolic gestures offered by the administration are virtually meaningless in light of these numbers. When will the Mexican government be held to account for its purposeful incursions into our sovereign territory?
It can't be soon enough.
In the meantime, we think there may be more documents that are being illegally withheld by Obama's DHS. So it looks like our court fight will continue.
