Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-border-czar-to-tackle-drug-violence-beef-up-security Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The administration's new 'border czar' Alan Bersin is charged with improving security and quelling drug violence along the Mexican border. Analysts assess his biggest challenges. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. RAY SUAREZ: Given the recent spate of drug-cartel violence along the U.S.-Mexican border and the hundreds of thousands of people who try to enter the U.S. illegally each year through the southwest, the Obama administration has decided to bring in some extra help: a so-called border czar.Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano named former federal prosecutor Alan Bersin to the post today in El Paso, Texas.From 1993 to 1998, Bersin led the government's crackdown on illegal immigration along the California-Mexico border. During his last three years at the Justice Department, he also served as the southwest border representative for the attorney general.Bersin's most immediate challenge is likely to be a drug war that's grown increasingly violent, with more than 6,300 killed in Mexico just last year. Napolitano said confronting the drug war was vital to the safety of the American people, as well.JANET NAPOLITANO, secretary of Homeland Security: The rest of the United States has a stake in this, too, that the drugs that come across an unsecured border, infiltrate our neighborhoods and communities across this country. There is no state of this country that does not have a stake in this border. RAY SUAREZ: The drug violence is likely to be a topic of discussion tomorrow, when President Obama meets with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City.