HOUSTON - Grisly images of a drug torn Mexico have emerged from that country for several years, but now a new report from the New York Times uncovers details on an operation that places Mexican police on American soil as they battle the drug traffickers.
According to the Times, the partnership between President Barack Obama's administration and Mexico allows Mexican cops to use the US as a sort of command center.
They're landing and dispatching helicopters for drug raids and sharing information with our Drug Enforcement Agency.
Mark Jones is a political science professor at Rice University.
"At some point, they're going to be armed here in the United States before they leave for Mexico, and so that does raise a lot of questions about who is monitoring them," Jones said. "What are the conditions under which they're allowed to operate? When do they receive their arms, and when do they actually (get the arms) and by what means?"
According to the Times, authorities are not releasing too many details on the operation because of "legal and political sensitivities."
Don Clark, a former special agent in charge of the Houston FBI office, broke down the legal aspect.
"When I was an FBI agent, I could not put on my gun and go over the river into Mexico," he said. "The laws apply both for us going over and for anybody else from any other country coming into this country acting in a law enforcement capacity without the United States government being involved directly involved."
So if the DEA is involved, that would seem to make the operation legal, but what about the political part?
The report doesn't mention Texas, but if these international staging posts are in our state, did Rick Perry, our Republican governor and now candidate for president know about it?
We couldn't ask Perry because he's on the campaign trail, but Jones says Perry probably didn't know.
"I doubt he knew or if he did, he's kept it under wraps," Jones said. "I think his opinion would be mixed. On one hand, he's strong on border security so the idea of attacking the cartels and working with Mexican police forces to combat the cartels is something he'd support. By the same token, I'm not sure he'd be all that happy about Mexican police forces operating on US soil."
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