Congressman warns of danger to consulates at Mexico border
WASHINGTON -- In a letter sent Thursday to Secretary of State John Kerry, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, cited the State Department's own travel warning and pointed to an "alarming" increase in violence in Mexican border towns where the U.S. has consulates.
The Republican lawmaker's letter cites 227 separate security incidents in the U.S. border region "including a carjacking at a supermarket frequented by U.S. consulate employees."
A State Department spokesman confirmed to CBS News that it received the letter and they are reviewing the requests for information from the committee.
The letter notes that State Department employees in border towns receive an extra bump in their salaries known as "danger pay" because they work in high-risk locations. However, according to the American Foreign Service Association, danger pay is being re-assessed by the State Department at various posts around the world, including Mexican consulates such as Monterey, Nogales, Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.
The State Department is currently surveying staff at these posts in Mexico to help the agency determine if danger pay is appropriate, according to the American Foreign Service Association.
In his letter, Chaffetz asks the State Department to justify why consulates in places like Guadalajara, Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo "should remain open given the level of criminal violence in the areas in which they are located."
Matamoros is directly across the border from Brownsville, Texas. The city has been plagued by serious violence including a grenade thrown this past Tuesday into a courthouse that injured four people, according to a report in the Brownsville Herald.
In February, the editor of the local paper in Matamoros was kidnapped and threatened with death if his newspaper continued its coverage of drug violence, according to local reports.