President Obama is seeking $66 million in assistance for Mexico but no specific funding for U.S. border security efforts in the fiscal 2009 emergency supplemental funding request he submitted to Congress on Friday.
That is far less than two key senators say is needed to help combat growing violence from Mexican drug cartels. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said he will seek an amendment to the supplemental that would add $550 million in border security funding, the same provision he and ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, added to the Senate version of the fiscal 2010 budget resolution this month.
