Obama Sends National Guard to Patrol Border

HOUSTON - The Obama administration is sending in the National Guard to help patrol our border with Mexico.

The move comes amid escalating bloodshed and danger.

Less than three weeks ago, half a dozen rounds from a gunfight in Juarez hit El Paso’s City Hall.

And last Thursday, narco-traffickers in Juarez set off a car bomb, after luring in their victims by staging the scene with a phony “officer down.”

Three were killed, including a cop and a doctor.

It’s the first documented use of a car bomb by the drug cartels and it has El Paso’s mayor worried.

“Any time we see an escalation in violence,” said Mayor John Cook, “we become a little more concerned on this side.”

The body count is approaching 25,000 in Mexico’s three-and-a-half year old drug war.

The cartels don’t share a philosophy with Al Qaeda or Hezbollah.

But the car bomb shows they’re not above borrowing tactics from terrorists, said security expert Issy Boim.

“They have no gods to believe,” said Boim. “They have a target to reach. And they could care less what the price would be.”

Boim applauded the feds for putting more boots on the border.

“(Homeland Security) Secretary (Janet) Napolitano announced the active deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops on the southwest border,” said Alan Bersin with US Customs and Border Protection. “And that will begin on August 1.”

Almost two-thirst of the US border with Mexico is in Texas.

But the Lone Star State is getting just one-fifth of the troops: 250 out of 1,200.

That’s not enough, says conservative radio host Michael Berry.

“With November looming and the narco-trafficking deaths increasing,” said Berry, “they're having to show, okay, we're trying to do something. They didn't want to do this. They are reluctantly enforcing the borders. They're not really doing anything.”

Almost half the 1,200 National Guard troops are going to Arizona, whose new law targeting illegal immigrants is being challenged in court by the Justice Department.

According to Homeland Security, that’s because the Tucson area is the principal point of illegal entry and smuggling.