Violence Said to Increase on Mexican Border

Efforts to stop smuggling and illegal immigration have led to increased violence along the southern border of the United States as criminal organizations seek to continue their operations, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Department of Homeland Security, said today.
Testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee, Mr. Chertoff said the department planned to spend $1 billion for technology and fencing to secure borders and $778 million to hire 3,000 additional border guards to further tighten entry into the U.S.
He said the increase in violence was a natural consequence of these efforts, as smugglers of both people and drugs try to defend their businesses against the increased enforcement effort.
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Mr. Chertoff said the increased efforts to stop illegal immigration had resulted in a “decrease in the number of people seeking to cross the border.”
But he said “this is not a declaration of victory” and said smugglers would increase their efforts to penetrate the southern border.

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But the stepped-up effort to curb illegal immigration has caused Homeland Security officials to “throw away the Constitution” when it come to immigrant’s rights, said Representative Jose E. Serrano, Democrat of New York. And deportations break up families, he said, by separating immigrant parents from their American-born citizen children.
Increased security has been used by officials as “an opportunity to move against immigrants,” he said.

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