The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

The Texas Legislature has requested that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) provide a publicly releasable summary of border incidents and a data report related to historical trends of crime along the Texas-Mexico border as well as current criminal activity in the Operation Strong Safety (OSS) area of operation. To that end, DPS has developed a Texas Border Security Dashboard and a Summary of Significant Border Incidents – both of which are unclassified and will be updated periodically.

At the direction of Texas leadership, DPS began conducting OSS on June 23, with partner agencies in a combined local, state, and federal law enforcement effort to combat the Mexican Cartels and other criminal elements operating along the Texas-Mexico border. During OSS, DPS continues to conduct around-the-clock land, air and maritime saturation patrols in coordination with law enforcement partners in the region to deter, detect and disrupt drug and human trafficking, and other related criminal activity. The Texas National Guard, at the direction of Gov. Rick Perry, has also deployed to the border and is supporting the mission of OSS.

“The goal of this data-driven, multi-agency operation in high-threat areas for a sustained period of time is to deny Mexican cartels and their associates the ability to move drugs and people into Texas between the ports of entry, as well as reduce the power of these organizations, whose success depends on their ability to operate on both sides of the border,” said DPS Director Steven McCraw. “At the request of the Texas Legislature, DPS is providing unclassified, detailed information about the trends that have been developing along the border for some time, as well as the current activity occurring in the OSS area of operation.”

Mexican cartels are the most significant organized crime threat to Texas, with seven of the eight cartels operating command and control networks in the state, moving drugs and people into the United States, and transporting cash, weapons and stolen vehicles back to Mexico. In short, an unsecure U.S.-Mexico border is a state and national security problem. DPS personnel, as well as the brave men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol, local law enforcement agencies, state partners and members of the Texas National Guard, are working around-the-clock to keep the local communities safe through Operation Strong Safety.

To view the Texas Border Security Dashboard, visit:

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/PublicInformation/documents/borderSecDshbrd.pdf and to view the

Summary of Significant Border Incidents, visit:

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/PublicInformation/documents/sumSignificantBrdrIncidents.pdf.