El Paso Times: Sen. José Rodríguez sticks up for El Paso

Top state officials, starting with Gov. Rick Perry, are doing a disservice by continuing their sensationalist and erroneous statements on border violence.

The latest attempt at these scare tactics came via Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, who appeared before a Texas Senate homeland security hearing Thursday in Austin.

We applaud state Sen. José Rodríguez, D-El Paso, for standing up at that meeting and denouncing a Staples-commissioned report that the Texas border is a war zone.

Perry has also told a national audience that a drug-cartel car bomb exploded in Downtown El Paso. The bomb he was referring to went off in downtown Juárez.

This kind of rhetoric hurts border communities, which all data show are some of the most crime-free in the nation. El Paso has long been known as one of the safest large cities in the nation, according to FBI data that are collected annually.

Perry has long said he feels the federal government is not doing its duty, financially, regarding border security. He has been using some state resources.

We have agreed the border is a federal responsibility — including the ports of entry we argue are understaffed with Customs and Border Protection agents.

However, we take exception to Perry and now Staples hurting the image of border communities with these charges.

It may be true there is some cartel traffic crossing borders, and we understand the concerns of ranchers in outlying areas.

But El Paso has been, and remains, one of the safest cities in America.Perry and Staples should use different tactics in when it comes to their state vs. Washington battle for border security funding.

Do not give others false impressions of what we are. It is not only a disservice to El Paso citizens, but it also hurts our ability to attract new business.

We agree with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano: The U.S. border with Mexico has never been more secure.

Rodríguez said it well: “None of us can deny that there are incidents occurring on our side of the border. It is just the broad brush that is used to declare that we are in a war zone. I walk the streets of El Paso every day and the whole county of El Paso. I don’t feel I am in a war zone.”