Last week a delegation of US Senators, including Crapo, travelled to Mexico City to meet with President Calderon to discuss the secretive 'Merida Initiative' described as the 'most important step since NAFTA'. Most important step towards what? Further integration with Mexico.

It has already been reported that our border patrol agents have been under attack and outgunned by mexican army troops ( who, by the way, were trained with US taxpayer dollars as well as given all sorts of military hardware ) are working with mexican drug cartels. Now Jorge Boosh wants to give mexico another 1.4 billion, and if a plan isn't working, why throw more money into it?

What hasn't been reported is that the DHS has outsourced US Security along the southern border to mexico who are to catch islamists, not illelgal aliens or gang members. And all this while US Border Patrol are imprisoned for doing their jobs. The result has been devastating for our country. The crime wave now affects 2500 communities and is getting worse. 'Every state and every town has now become a border town & a border state'.

That 1.4 billion needs to go to our border patrol and the fence.

an excerpt:

Shannon O’Neil, CFR’s Mexico expert, says that although many members of Congress are upset at not being consulted on the details of the $1.4 billion multiyear initiative to bolster Mexico’s crackdown on drug and criminal rings, she believes that it will get congressional approval. “There is political will on both sides to help Mexico out,” she said.

Officials in Washington said the aid plan is unprecedented.
The Merida Initiative is a proposal by the Bush Administration to spend over $1.4 Billion to aid Mexico in the drug war that is raging on our border, including supplying the Mexican military with helicopters and advanced surveillance equipment. According to local American police forces, they are receiving next to nothing despite all the DHS talk about funds for frontline responders in the war on terror.

Skeptics and fatalists are already balking and can be expected to cite past failures. During the mid-1990s Clinton Administration effort to equip Mexico to fight the drug war was poorly thought out, and the Vietnam-era Army surplus that was sent to Mexico (with no accompanying training and maintenance) was eventually returned to the United States with a massage thanks bit no thanks.

It is being touted as an anti-drug assistance program, by the American government and they claim the Merida Initiative also includes measures for tighter border security and action against terrorism.

The Mérida Initiative's bland name was chosen to avoid comparisons with "Plan Colombia" and to deny Calderón's opponents--such as López Obrador and other Hugo Chávez sympathizers--the chance to assert that the United States is attempting to diminish Mexico's sovereignty.

This Merida proposal is set to go before congress soon for approval. It should be rejected in total! Not only that, but that same $1.4 Billion dollars should be immediately put to use in securing our border by adding more agents, upgrading the training and firepower of local law enforcement, and most importantly, by deploying American combat troops along the border. Combat troops by the way, does not mean National Guard personnel. The Guard has been overused in Iraq, and its members are folks who have jobs at home to return to. Our military should be assigned this task, as this is now a national security issue.

http://www.lagunajournal.com/secret_merida_initiative.htm

http://mexidata.info/id1638.html

CONTACT CRAPO HERE, and tell him our US Border Patrol needs those funds:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=ID