U.S. funds for Mexico drug war frustrate Texas sheriffs

July 3, 2008, 3:30AM

They're demanding more federal help as they fight cartels along the border

By STEWART M. POWELL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle San Antonio Bureau

WASHINGTON — Besieged Texas sheriffs vowed Wednesday to press the White House and Congress to deliver emergency assistance to law enforcement officers battling drug cartels along the Mexican border to match the $400 million on its way to Mexico.

The sheriffs said they were frustrated that President Bush and Congress agreed to provide assistance to Mexico, as part of the Merida Initiative, without offering additional federal help to their departments.

The officers said they would seek direct federal assistance, as well as changes in Department of Homeland Security restrictions to permit local law enforcement departments to use homeland security funds to hire additional officers.

Regulations currently require local police and sheriff's departments to devote homeland security money to equipment, technology and paying officers overtime.

Implementation of the Merida Initiative is ''really disappointing and disheartening because Washington seems totally oblivious to what we're facing on the Mexican border," said Webb County Sheriff Rick Flores, chairman of the 19-county Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition.

''If they allocate resources and money to Mexico, they should also consider protecting our side of the border first."

Flores, who said he has faced death threats three times in the past three years, has received $1.8 million in federal assistance over the past 36 months. He said he needed $14.5 million in additional federal help over the next five years to hire 25 new deputies to join his hard-pressed department of 37 deputies.

Mexico will receive ''all the equipment," Flores said. ''They're going to be two notches above what we have. We would really like to have one of those helicopters in our neck of the woods."

The Merida Initiative calls for the United States to provide eight 13-passenger transport helicopters to Mexican security forces.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Guadalupe Trevino Jr. decried the assistance going only to Mexico.

''You would think there would be a bilateral approach to attack the problem from both angles when we're giving money to a foreign country to fight a drug problem that greatly contributes to our problems," Trevino said.

''I consider it kind of disappointing that the federal government saw a greater need for foreign aid than for helping local law enforcement."

Bush signed the Merida Initiative into law on Monday, as part of a multi-faceted emergency budget supplemental package that provided money for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through next summer. The House and Senate passed the package by wide margins with bipartisan support.

The legislation included $400 million in the first year for U.S. training, equipment and other assistance to bolster Mexican President Felipe Calderon's $4 billion campaign against drug traffickers, using 30,000 security forces against well-funded cartels that have killed more than 4,000 people over the past 21 months, including an estimated 450 security forces and local officials.

Bush's overall plan calls for $1.6 billion to be spent over three years to help Mexico, Central America, Haiti and the Dominican Republic combat drug traffickers. Of that amount, $1.4 billion is intended for Mexico.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, had added $100 million to the emergency supplemental spending bill during Senate deliberations to bolster U.S. law enforcement agencies along the 1,947-mile border. But the House knocked out the added spending in the final compromise.

Members of the Texas congressional delegation have vowed to press for additional money for border sheriffs.

U.S. drug czar John Walters defended the administration's decision to funnel assistance to Mexico without providing matching assistance to U.S. law enforcement.

Assistance to Mexico "magnifies what can be done" with the billions of dollars that the federal government already provides state and local law enforcement, Walters said. ''We don't see this as either-or."

stewart.powell@chron.com