Congressman wants more U.S. attention on Mexico

BROWNSVILLE - Life for residents of the Rio Grande Valley was once characterized by its symbiotic flow with sister cities in Mexico, whose separation was outlined by little more than a river twisting through the landscape.

But as drug cartel violence swept across Northern Mexico, border communities that shared a uniquely intertwined history became distant neighbors, and according to one border politician, a way of life began to erode.

“We have generations of bi-cultural life that has deteriorated to a point where a majority of people in the Rio Grande Valley won't go to Mexico any more,” said U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville. “At the same time, more people move north of the border out of pure fear for life.”

While Texas border communities are among the safest in the country, the frequent extortion, kidnappings and murder in Mexico pose a direct and growing concern to the Rio Grande Valley, Vela said. On Christmas Eve, as thousands of South Texas families prepared to visit relatives in Mexico, the U.S. Department of State issued a warning of violent conflicts between rival criminal gangs, and especially of kidnappings in Tamaulipas.

In response to the heightened risks, Vela is pressing the Obama administration to take a more active security role in the troubled state of Tamaulipas, starting with an extradition request for the former governor of Tamaulipas, Tomas Yarrington, who was indicted in December 2013 on a variety of conspiracy charges, including money laundering.

Vela followed with a letter to the administration before Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s recent visit to Washington, noting the economic and social impact of violence in the region, underscored by the murder last October of three siblings from the small border town of Progreso, killed while visiting their father in Mexico.

“Our State Department has gone to great lengths to secure places in Iraq and Afghanistan that are seemingly more dangerous than the Reynosa-Matamoros corridor,” Vela said. “As dangerous as things have become, this has to be fixed.”

In the face of widespread criticism of his handling of rampant narco-violence and institutional corruption, Peña Nieto announced in late November a plan to overhaul local police forces and to create special economic zones in the poor southern areas of the country.

As Vela sees it, a similar plan could be adapted for Tamaulipas, which already has hundreds of maquiladoras and employs thousands of workers, many of them who live in Texas.

“We owe it to the people who are currently working there,” Vela said. “I’ve got to imagine that if we did make it a lot safer manufacturing would only be a lot more productive.”

But even as the Mexican government has increased efforts to reduce violence in other areas of the county, Tamaulipas has witnessed a rapid escalation in violent criminal activity, weakening the border economy.

Meanwhile, Vela said it was telling that the Obama administration sought neither his advice nor input during bi-lateral meetings in Washington.

“We're at a crossroads,” Vela said. “Are we going to turn a blind eye, or are we going to do something so that all of us who live on the border can have our life back?”

anelson@express-news.net