TribBlog: Perry Pleads Again for Drones, National Guard on Border

With the violent Mexican drug war creeping ever closer to the Texas side of the border, Gov. Rick Perry is calling again for the federal government to put unmanned aerial vehicles and National Guard troops on the Texas-Mexico border.

"Over the weekend, more innocent people fell victim to the increasingly ruthless Mexican drug cartels, including the murder of a pregnant American woman and her American husband in Juarez," Perry said. "How many Americans will have to die before our federal government takes serious action along the Texas-Mexico border?"

Perry has for months called for the feds to put a drone on the Texas-Mexico border. Though U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, says the unmanned aerial vehicles have been conducting training operations all along the border for about a decade, Perry says the drones are used only in Arizona. Perry has also been asking for Guard troops to no avail, though the U.S. Border Patrol has added thousands of new border agents to their ranks, which has spurred increasing concerns about corruption and drug-gang infiltration as the agency hurries to hire officers.

In his press release today, Perry urged Texans to stay away from Mexico during spring break, and he said additional state troopers would be on patrol.