By KRWG News
Texas – Gov. Rick Perry says special teams of Texas Rangers supported by about 200 Texas National Guard members will be deployed to the Mexican border to deal with increasing violence there because the federal government has failed to address the problems.
Perry says the teams will be sent to "hot spots" and will be paid for with money approved by Texas lawmakers. The governor early this year asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for 1,000 National Guard troops and renewed his call last month in a letter to President Barack Obama. The request is bogged down over who will pay for the troops and how they will be deployed.
Perry's announcement has been branded as grandstanding and empty rhetoric by the campaign of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Perry's GOP opponent in the March primary.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.