Tough times on the border

While the U.S. pushes for crackdown on the border, Mexico is rife with problems.

Mexican police chief requests US asylum

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The police chief of a Mexican border town racked by smuggling-related violence fled to the U.S. seeking asylum after his deputies abandoned him, federal officials said Friday.

Emilio Perez, the chief of Palomas, Mexico, showed up at the international port of entry in Columbus, N.M., late Tuesday, saying his two deputies had left the department and that he now needed protection, too, according to Doug Mosier, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman in El Paso.
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Perez's village, just south of the border with New Mexico, was once a relatively quiet town. But violence has increased in the last few years, as it has elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border, and appears to have spiked of late.

On Thursday, the bodies of two people were found wrapped in blankets and dumped along a road near Palomas, and several other people were seen taken hostage over the past few days by heavily armed men, the newspaper El Diario of Juarez, Mexico, reported Friday.

Last month, two men were gunned down at a gas station near the international checkpoint, officials said.
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Palomas has had a spate of drug-related violence as Mexico's ongoing crackdown on powerful cartels fuels turf wars among traffickers. The area also is a common meeting point for migrants heading north.