Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks about U.S.-Mexico border security at a Sept. 10 news conference in Houston.

Many local officials on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande are panning Texas Gov. Rick Perry's latest initiative to stem illegal activity along the U.S.-Mexico border, complaining that the governor is wrongly painting their region as a lawless no man's land.

Last week, Mr. Perry said he is sending special teams of Texas Rangers to the border because of "the federal government's ongoing failure to adequately secure our international border." The Rangers, a state force that dates back to the 19th century, will focus on remote areas where smugglers are overrunning ranches and farms, the Republican governor said.

But views on the level of crime along the border vary, and in the mostly Democratic communities the Rangers are supposed to be helping, their arrival hasn't been cheered. For example, Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada, a Democrat, blasted the deployment as "an extremist and alarmist reaction to incidents that are happening in Mexico" and "the wrong signal to send to the nation and the world."

Mexico's northern border has been plagued with violence over past months as President Felipe Calderón tries to uproot powerful drug cartels. As the murder count mounts, American officials are becoming increasingly worried that the violence will spill into the U.S.

The Texas Border Coalition, a group of border mayors and county executives, told the governor in a letter that "while each of our communities has their own unique issues, being overwhelmed by criminal elements from Mexico is not one of them."

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, Matt Chandler, said a request from Mr. Perry for 1,000 National Guard troops is under review, but he added that the Obama administration "has moved a significant amount of resources to the border."

Increased presence of law enforcement at the border has curbed illegal crossings, allowing officials to better detect and confiscate the smuggling of illegal drugs, according to a July report by Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Homeland Security Department. Its officials intercepted more than 2.7 million pounds of illegal drugs from October of last year through June at or between ports of entry, up more than 50% from the same period in previous years. Most of the agency's operations are carried out along the southern border, according to a spokesman.

The law-enforcement presence at the southern border also includes local sheriffs, the state highway patrol and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

While federal and state authorities wrangle over resources, border leaders complain that help their communities really need -- like beefing up local police departments -- is being overlooked. "We were not consulted," said Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas, a Democrat.

Mr. Perry, who is facing a primary challenge from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, has been increasingly critical of Washington on a wide range of issues.

Some Democratic border officials think that staking out an anti-Washington primary position is behind Mr. Perry's decision to send in the Rangers. "This is built around a Republican primary, not effective security," said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, an El Paso Democrat.

A spokeswoman from the governor's office, Katherine Cesinger, said the Ranger deployment is part of a broader program to secure the state's 1,245 mile border that the governor established some time ago. Texas officials haven't disclosed the size of the Ranger deployment; the total Ranger force has fewer than 200 members. "Anyone who knows Gov. Perry knows this is nothing new," she said.

Chad Foster, an independent mayor of Eagle Pass, southwest of San Antonio, and chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, said crime along the border has fallen significantly in recent years and that state resources would be better used to curb arms and money smuggling into Mexico.

But Don Reay, executive director of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition, said the criticisms from border officials ignore a real threat of violence spilling over from Mexico. "There's always the need for more help when you look at the overall security issues in the border," he said.