Describing a situation of escalating violence, Sen. John McCain of Arizona invited President Barack Obama to visit the U.S. border with Mexico to see for himself how much the security situation has deteriorated.
”I’d love for the president to come and visit the border. Unfortunately, he hasn’t had time to do so,” Sen. McCain told “Fox News Sunday.” He said people who have not seen what’s going on in Mexico and in U.S. communities along the border were “oblivious to the terrible, terrible struggle that’s going on down there.”
The Obama administration is ignoring violence spilling into the U.S. from Mexico and the growing insecurity along huge stretches of the border, said McCain. That violence, which has killed 28,000 Mexican citizens, is a threat to U.S. security, McCain said.
"The people who live in the southern part of my state do not have a secure environment. To wit, there are signs that the government put up that say, 'Warning. You are in a drug smuggling area and a human smuggling area,'" McCain told "
Fox News Sunday."
"The police chief of Nogales, Arizona, has been told that his police officers will be murdered if they interfere with the drug cartels. And that funnel is coming up through the state of Arizona," he said.
McCain said the high level of violence is the chief reason to put up a fence, add surveillance capability and beef up the National Guard presence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Anybody who "hasn't seen what's going on south of our border, they have been oblivious to the terrible, terrible struggle that's going on down there," McCain said. "The incredible violence down there is spilling over onto our side of the border if we don't get our border secured."