President Barack Obama called for an extra $500 million to augment the efforts of the Justice Department and law enforcement agencies to fight crime along the Southwest border.

An administration official told Politico that the funds would be used to increase “agents, investigators, and prosecutors, as part of a multi-layered effort to target illicit networks trafficking in people, drugs, illegal weapons, and money.”

The announcement came in conjunction with Obama’s decision Tuesday to order 1,200 more National Guard troops to the area along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is proposing $250 million to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops to the border.

McCain said on the Senate floor Tuesday that the White House’s proposal is “simply not enough.”

Dennis Burke, the new U.S. Attorney in Arizona, said the immigration system in the United States is “broken” and “does not reflect economic reality.”

In an interview for a cover story in Arizona Attorney magazine, Burke also said:  ”We’ve created a market for human smuggling that accompanies an already-existing drug-smuggling industry, which flourishes in Arizona. What we have here is a third-world economy next to the most prosperous economy in the world.”

Burke is a former top aide to Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor who is now the Homeland Security secretary. Burke is also chairman of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee border and immigration law enforcement subcommittee.

In Arizona, “we have a combination of very intense border issues that can be violent and drive a lot of the immigration debate in this country,” Burke told the magazine.

More from the interview:

“I’ve believed for a long time that a lot of it boils down to an immigration system that’s been broken. It’s less broke than it has been in the past, because resources have gone into it. But we have a visa system and caps on the number of individuals allowed into this country that have been arbitrary. The result is that the trade for and the smuggling of actual humans in and out of the country becomes an incredibly profitable business. And since it’s an illegal business, it ends up becoming very violent.”

Burke said he hopes his office can help advance comprehensive immigration reform. “We have an obligation to show that we can secure our border under the current system, so that reform can be achieved through Congress. I think the District can… lay a predicate for the fact that overall comprehensive reform can be accomplished because we’re doing our best to secure the border here.”

The Justice Department is eliminating 30 attorney positions from anti-drug trafficking task forces, scaling back a key program as  the U.S.  tries  to combat Mexican cartels and stem the flow of weapons and illegal drugs across the border.

U.S. Attorneys’ offices will realize the loses through attrition, and all nine Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force regions will be affected, Justice officials said. The OCDETF cuts were announced in a memo sent to U.S. Attorneys offices last month.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the memo, citing personnel matters and the ongoing budget process.

The 27-year-old program draws on federal, state and local resources and has been considered a model of inter-agency collaboration. Attorney General Eric Holder has described OCDETF as ”the strategic centerpiece of the Department’s counter-narcotics effort,” and the DOJ credits the program with dismantling or disrupting dozens of national criminal organizations.

One Justice official said that the cuts came after a review of the program, and that the department was “being smart with our limited resources.” Funding has been an issue for OCDETF in recent years, and the program has seen its workforce decline.

There are 588 OCDETF prosecutors working in U.S. Attorneys offices, the Criminal Division and the Tax Division, according to department figures. In fiscal year 2008, the department was forced to reduce OCDETF staff by 146 positions, including 77 agents and 30 attorneys. The FY 2009 appropriation left unfunded 99 positions, including 52 agents and 20 attorneys.

For FY2010, the department requested $537.5 million for the task forces, including $8.9 million for enforcement activities along the Southwest border. The funding would create a 9- to-1- ratio of agents to prosecutors in the region, bringing it in line with the national average. The current ratio is about 13 to 1.

The Senate on Thursday approved the FY 2010 Commerce, Justice, science appropriations bill, which would put aside $515 million for inter-agency crime and drug enforcement. The House, which passed its version of the bill in June, approved $528.6 million, about the same funding level as in FY2009. (We’ve got calls out to members of the appropriations subcommittees. We’ll update the post when we hear back.)

The personnel issues come as Mexican cartels are strengthening partnerships with U.S.-based street and prison gangs. Last month, the department announced the arrests of more than 300 people suspected of ties to La Familia, the newest and fastest-growing cartel, based in the state of Michoacan, in southwestern Mexico.

While the Obama administration has directed more resources to the Southwest border, the cartels have burrowed into communities across the United States, officials say. In the recent sweep targeting La Familia, dubbed “Project Coronado,” authorities made arrests in 38 cities in 19 states.

“The problem is not just along the southwest border, it is all over our country now,” said Kenneth Melson, head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, in a briefing with reporters last month.

Former OCDETF officials said the program could absorb the hit, but at a cost.