BROWNSVILLE, Texas – Federal agents are barely able to slow the river of American guns flowing into Mexico.
In two years, a new effort to increase inspections of travelers crossing the border has netted just 386 guns — an almost infinitesimal amount given that an estimated 2,000 slip across each day.
The problem came into sharp focus again last month when a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was killed on a northern Mexican highway with a gun that was purchased in a town outside Fort Worth, Texas.
Stopping the flow of American guns, bullets and cash has long bedeviled authorities on both sides of the border.
At a White House news conference in March 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano joined President Obama in announcing plans to better help Mexico cope with a brutal drug war that has now killed more than 34,000 people since 2006.
“You’ve got to interdict the arms. You’ve got to stop them from going into Mexico,” Napolitano said at the time.
Since then, Customs and Border Protection officers — who usually spend their days checking people and cars coming into the U.S. — have teamed up with Border Patrol agents and, sometimes, sheriff’s deputies in border communities to scrutinize travelers
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