But law enforcement officials are wary of how this new burst in violence will play out, especially because the enemy is better armed and more sophisticated than ever. Among their concerns are budget cutbacks in some agencies -- including a hiring freeze in the Drug Enforcement Administration -- and community opposition to the surveillance towers.
Johnny Sutton, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said he would need at least 20,000 new Border Patrol agents in El Paso alone to hold back the tide. But that is the total number of agents that Washington hopes to have along the whole border by the end of 2009.
In six years, Sutton's office has tried 33,000 defendants, about 90% of them on drug and immigration violations. "We're body-slamming them the best we can," he said.
In Phoenix, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said there were 10,000 inmates in his jail and overflow tents; 2,000 of them are "criminal aliens" from the border, he said. His deputies are investigating the deaths of 13 people executed in the desert.
Jennifer Allen, director of Border Action Network, a Tucson nonprofit that supports immigrants' rights, said Washington and Mexico City need fresh approaches. "The smugglers are no longer mom-and-pop organizations. Now it's an industry," she said. "So the violence increases. That's incredibly predictable."
Raul Benitez, an international relations professor in Mexico City who also taught at American University in Washington, blames both countries for the crime wave. As long as Americans crave drugs and the cartels want money, Benitez said, "security in both directions is jeopardized."
Nestor Rodriguez, a University of Houston sociologist, said people on both sides of the Rio Grande viewed themselves as one community.
"People say, 'The river doesn't divide us,; it unites us,' " he said. "When you're at ground zero at the border, you see yourselves as one community -- for good or bad."
Rodriguez knows. His first cousin, Juan Garza, born in the United States but trained by criminals in Mexico, ran his own murder-and-drug enterprise out of Brownsville, Texas. He was executed in 2001 by the United States.
"Of course there is a spillover of violence into this country," Rodriguez said.
"It's pouring across our border, and anybody can get caught up in it."
