The Associated Press, 4/2/2009
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday that more inspections of vehicles headed into Mexico and stepped up intelligence gathering on the U.S. side of the border would be part of an effort by both nations to choke off arms traffic into America’s southern neighbor.
“On the Mexican side, more uniform and routine collection of arms tracing done on a real-time basis” will be required, Napolitano told The Associated Press as she flew to an arms trafficking conference in Cuernavaca.
Napolitano and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder met privately with their counterparts, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora and Interior Minister Fernando Gomez-Mont, as well as other Mexican and U.S. officials to discuss tougher penalties for violating the countries’ gun laws as one way of fighting drug cartels blamed for violence on both sides of the border.
