Border fears downplayed

MEXICO CITY – The new head of Mexico’s federal police force said Monday he doesn’t see the U.S.-Mexico border as a terror target and that while terrorists may try to use this country to sneak into America, there’s no evidence they have yet done so.

Speaking at a news conference eight days after he took the reins of the country’s largest federal police force, Adm. Jose Luis Figueroa said anti-terrorism efforts were his highest priority.

And although he remarked that “at any moment terrorists could use Mexico as a passage to the United States,” he said recent jitters sweeping the U.S.-Mexico border were unfounded.

“Up until now, we have not detected one terrorist in this country,” he said, later adding, “I don’t think the border is a place, a target, for fundamentalist Islam movements.”

Figueroa said nothing came of two recent terrorism scares, one involving two Jordanian nationals arrested in Central America, and the other a woman who crossed from Mexico into Texas with a South African passport that had been altered.

In September, Costa Rica deported two Jordanians who tried to enter the country with false, but well-crafted European travel documents. The pair bounced around Central America and spent time in Mexico before being sent back to Jordan. The incident sparked probes throughout the region.