U.S. - Mexico Border: Not even friendship can bridge partisan views about border security

Not even friendship can bridge partisan views about border security | Texas on the Potomac | a Chron.com blog: "Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations, elicited testimony meant to underscore the “spillover” of violence from Mexico.

That testimony included the deaths of the American David Hartley, gunned down on a jet ski in Falcon Lake, and the assassination of Jaime Zapata, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Mexican drug cartels are implicated in both slayings. Both occurred in Mexico.

As a matter of professional courtesy, McCaul, the only Texan on the panel, opened the hearing up to other Lone Star state politicians for participation.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, whose congressional district includes Falcon Lake and Laredo, said testimony about drug killings in Mexico unfairly painted American border cities as under siege by the cartels – a distorted picture.

And Cuellar released charts that revealed that McCaul’s hometown of Austin had twice the crime of McAllen or Brownsville.

To soften the blow before releasing the charts, Cuellar told McCaul: “You know you’re my best buddy in Congress.”

McCaul admitted that his best friend was Cuellar."