http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4648
By Penny Starr
CNSNews.com
Three Democratic lawmakers who spoke Wednesday about alleged anti-immigrant coverage by conservative media outlets were not aware of a recent State Department travel alert http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4737 Americans about military-like “combat” along the southern U.S. border in Mexico, where Americans are being kidnapped and murdered.
“The situation in northern http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4603 remains very fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements there cannot be predicted,” said the State Department alert. “Armed robberies and carjackings, apparently unconnected to the narcotics-related violence, have increased in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. Dozens of U.S. citizens were kidnapped and/or murdered in Tijuana in 2007.”
When asked about the alert after the briefing, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) told Cybercast News Service: “I haven’t heard about the report specifically, but certainly one of the reasons we are looking at the Merida Initiative is to work with Mexico to have them meet their challenges of the drug traffickers and the violence that takes place along our border. It’s in our common interest and obviously this is a challenge of security.” (The U.S. Merida Initiative provides equipment and training to help Mexican law enforcement confront criminal activity that spills over into the United States.)The State Department’s alert was posted in April and dated as current as of May 21.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200805/POL20080522b.html