(January 14, 2008)--Deadly gun battles in two Mexican border cities last week are causing jitters in their sister U.S. communities in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

They're just hoping that the brutal cross-border violence plaguing Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, for years hasn't spread across the downstream permanently.

Five people died in fierce gunfights between suspected Gulf Cartel gunmen and Mexican troops and federal agents in Rio Bravo and Reynosa in Mexico.

Those cities sit just across the Rio Grande from lucrative havens for so-called Winter Texans.

That sets the multibillion-dollar drug trade on a collision course with a growing tourism industry.

Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas says local U.S. officials are "concerned that the Mexican military controls its violence."

As for himself, Salinas says he "stopped going across to have lunch years back."

Salinas says he now routinely declines invitations from his counterpart in Reynosa to attend events there.

On the other hand, an average of about 18,000 passenger vehicles crossed bridges from Reynosa into Hidalgo and Pharr every day last year.

More than 5,500 people walked across those bridges daily.

A spokeswoman for the Mexican consulate in McAllen says it's too early to tell if the recent violence would affect cross-border traffic in the area.

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