Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

At the Senate Judiciary Committee on “Southern Border Violence: Homeland Security Threats, Vulnerabilities and Responsibilities,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that “incidents of transnational violence are, unfortunately, not a new phenomenon,” when looking at issues relating to the southwest border. She warned, “What is occurring in Mexico now is violence of a level that we have not seen before.”

Asked by Chairman Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) whether, as Secretary of Homeland Security, she considered Mexican drug cartel violence a real threat to the homeland security of the United States. Secretary Napolitano agreed with this statement.

In a prepared statement Mr. Ogden said, “The explosion of violence along the Southwest border is being caused by a limited number of large, sophisticated and vicious criminal organizations, not by individual drug traffickers acting in isolation.”

Mr. Ogden added that the Department for Justice aimed to “identify, disrupt and dismantle the Mexican drug cartels,” including “extensive and coordinated intelligence capabilities...prosecuting criminals responsible for the smuggling, kidnapping and violence in federal court.”

In a prepared statement Mr. Steinberg said, “drug related assassinations and kidnapping have reached unprecedented levels.”

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) called the current situation of growing violence on the border “a sad state of affairs.”