[Senate Hearing 111-89]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-89
U.S.-MEXICAN BORDER VIOLENCE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 30, 2009
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin Republican Leader designee
BARBARA BOXER, California BOB CORKER, Tennessee
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
JIM WEBB, Virginia JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
David McKean, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Arabit, Joseph M., Special Agent in Charge, El Paso Division,
Drug Enforcement Agency, U.S. Department of Justice, El Paso,
TX............................................................. 19
Joint prepared statement with William McMahon................ 21
Babbitt, Harriet, former Ambassador, Organization of American
States, Washington, DC......................................... 44
Prepared statement........................................... 46
Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from Wyoming................... 8
El Paso Times article ``Hopes Rise as Violence Recedes''..... 11
Campbell, Dr. Howard, professor of anthropology, University of
Texas, El Paso, TX............................................. 51
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Carriles, Ricardo Garcia, former police chief of Ciudad Juarez,
El Paso, TX.................................................... 49
Esparza, Jaime, district attorney, Thirty-Fourth Judicial
District, El Paso, Culbertson and Hudspeth Counties, TX........ 13
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Kerry, Hon. John F. Kerry, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts,
opening statement.............................................. 4
McMahon, William, Deputy Assistant Director, Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Department of Justice,
Washington, DC................................................. 17
Joint prepared statement with Joseph M. Arabit............... 21
Reyes, Hon. Silvestre, U.S. Representative from Texas............ 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Wicker, Hon. Roger F., U.S. Senator from Mississippi............. 10
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Lugar, Richard G., U.S. Senator from Indiana, prepared statement. 65
Letter in Support of Ratification of CIFTA....................... 66
D. Rick Van Schoik, director, and Erik Lee, associate director,
North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizona State
University, Tempe, AZ, prepared statement and attachments...... 68
Executive summary of ``A Report to President Obama on
Building Sustainable Security and Competitiveness''........ 70
Cross Talk II: Building Common Security in North America--
Draft Findings............................................. 71
North America's Forgotten Agenda: Getting Development Back on
Track...................................................... 74
(iii)
U.S.-MEXICAN BORDER VIOLENCE
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MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
El Paso, Texas.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:07 a.m., in the
Tomas Rivera Conference Center, University of Texas-El Paso,
Union Building East, 3rd floor, 500 West University Avenue, El
Paso, TX, Hon. John F. Kerry (chairman of the committee)
presiding.
Present: Senators Kerry, Barrasso, and Wicker.
Also present: Congressman Silvestre Reyes.
The Chairman. This hearing will come to order, although you
are all very orderly, I must say.
It is a pleasure to be here, and without further statement,
I will reserve my comments. Let me introduce your great
Congressman Silvestre Reyes. Thank you, Congressman, for having
us here.
[Applause.]
STATEMENT OF HON. SILVESTRE REYES, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
TEXAS
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great honor to
welcome you and members of your distinguished committee here to
El Paso, although we did pick the windy season to come here.
Both Senator Wicker and Senator Barrasso commented to me that
the ride, landing in, was a little bumpy.
The University of Texas at El Paso is a mainstay for our
community, and the president, Dr. Diana Natalicio, sends her
apologies. She is on the west coast at an important academic
conference and was unable to join us. But her great staff has
done a marvelous job working with my office to put this hearing
together.
And I think this will be a very informative hearing. The
hope that we all have is that being here, you will get an
opportunity to listen to individuals from our area, from our
region, from our community that can give you firsthand
testimony about the situation here in El Paso and El Paso-
Juarez.
One of the ironies that we live with every day is that we
in El Paso live in the third safest city in the Nation, and
right across from us is Ciudad Juarez, which arguably has been
called one of the most dangerous places in the world. And for
us, the criminal activity, the violence has not spilled over
the border, but that does not mean it has not affected us. Most
of us feel like we are part of one community, the El Paso-
Juarez area. We have close friendships and family ties. We
share a common border, breathe the same air, drink the same
water. And prior to the violence escalating, it was not unusual
for people from El Paso to cross over to Juarez and shop and
eat at their fine restaurants and, in general, visit families
and friends. So that has affected us in that manner.
I was honored to lead a delegation last week to Mexico City
that included the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, the
chairman of the International Relations, your counterpart,
Howard Berman, and Ike Skelton from the Armed Services
Committee, to meet with President Calderon. The Speaker,
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sent us to get an assessment of where we
are with the Merida Initiative and also find out how we could
help even more. And I am hopeful that after you have this field
hearing, we can work together to find ways to help Mexico and
President Calderon even more than we are currently with the
Merida Initiative.
The Speaker also wanted to send a very public message that
President Calderon has a tremendous amount of support from the
U.S. Congress, and I think you being here at this field hearing
is an important statement of that support. So for us, it is a
great honor to have you here. We appreciate the fact that you
accepted the invitation to be here in El Paso and actually get
a chance to get firsthand testimony from individuals that can
testify to the committee about the impact that President
Calderon's fight against the cartels and criminal gangs has had
on our extended community.
So with that, again, welcome, Mr. Chairman and members of
your distinguished committee, and we look forward to an
informative hearing here this morning.
[The prepared statement of Congressman Reyes follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Silvestre Reyes, U.S. Representative From
Texas
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, it is a great honor to welcome you and the
members of this distinguished committee to El Paso.
I want to express my appreciation to Chairman Kerry for moving
forward with this field hearing. There was a question of whether this
hearing could proceed here in El Paso due to an initial scheduling
conflict in the Senate, but Chairman Kerry felt it was critical to
bring the members of this committee to the border region, and I
appreciate his willingness to come to El Paso despite this scheduling
challenge.
I also want to thank UTEP President Dr. Diana Natalicio and her
exceptional staff for all their help in hosting this event and making
this hearing possible. This is a wonderful opportunity for the students
of this great university to get a firsthand look at an official
proceeding of the United States Congress.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the people of this
community are neighbors to the brutal drug cartel violence that has
claimed nearly 2,000 lives in Ciudad Juarez, a city that is only yards
away from this institution. Our two cities make up one community--one
with a common history and a shared destiny. The leaders of El Paso and
Juarez have long known that we must work cooperatively if we are to
realistically address the problems that impact the people on both sides
of the border.
Last week, I led a congressional delegation to meet with President
Felipe Calderon. Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent me, as the House
Intelligence Committee Chairman, along with House Armed Services
Chairman Ike Skelton and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman
Howard Berman, Chairman Kerry's counterpart in the House of
Representatives, to assess the effectiveness of the Merida Initiative
and explore opportunities to further cooperation with Mexico. A
delegation of three committee chairmen is rare, and it underscores
Speaker Pelosi's commitment to assist the Mexican Government in its
effort to strengthen the rule of law and restore stability in Mexico.
In a courageous effort to dismantle Mexico's drug cartels,
President Calderon has dispatched about 45,000 soldiers to date to
conflict areas throughout the country and under his leadership Mexico
is taking unprecedented steps to enhance its democratic institutions
and to root out corruption. President Calderon has committed over $6.4
billion in resources to combat Mexico's drug cartels, and America must
step up its efforts to help him and the people of Mexico in this fight.
According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican and
Columbian drug trafficking organizations bring in an estimated $8-$25
billion in annual profits from the drug trade. Drug cartels can afford
to purchase guns, armor, and other weaponry that rival those of the
Mexican military.
As the largest consumer of illicit drugs and the largest supplier
of weapons to Mexico's drug cartels, we must do more to address this
very serious national security threat. Providing only $1.4 billion
through the Merida Initiative for America's third-largest trading
partner and second-largest market for U.S. exports is simply not
enough, particularly when considering our country has spent over $650
billion to date in Iraq.
Over the course of the last few months, there has been a lot of
media coverage about Mexico's violence. Unfortunately, some have
generalized the violence as occurring on the border, when in actuality
the violence is occurring in Mexico. The problem is serious enough
without being misrepresented by some in the media who sensationalize
the situation. The vast majority of Mexico's drug-related killings have
been limited to cartel-on-cartel violence.
It is important to make clear that the violence has not spilled
over into our community, as many in the media would have you believe.
For years El Paso has ranked among the safest cities in the entire
country. The men and women of our local law enforcement have done an
exceptional job of keeping our community safe. While nearly 2,000
people have been killed in drug-related violence in Juarez since
January 2008, according to the El Paso Police Department, not a single
homicide related to Mexico's drug cartels has occurred in El Paso
during this same time. For the last 4 years in a row, there have been
less than 19 homicides annually and since 1995, there has never been
more than one unsolved homicide in a given year.
Furthermore, the El Paso Regional Economic Development Corporation
(REDCo) has not seen a decline in investment from manufacturing and
distribution companies in Juarez due to the violence. In fact, the
organization is currently working with over 40 companies that are
interested in expanding or relocating to Juarez, because the
fundamentals which make it an attractive place in which to invest have
not been eliminated by the violence. These factors include globally
competitive operating costs, proximity to the U.S., and skilled labor.
Our city's low crime rate does not mean that the violence in Mexico
has not impacted our community. Although we are among the safest cities
in the U.S., we share an extensive border with the most violent city in
all of North America. Many people who used to travel regularly to
Juarez to visit loved ones, shop in a Juarez market, or dine at a
restaurant are now simply too afraid to journey over the international
bridges. Some victims of drug-related violence in Mexico have been
transported to El Paso for emergency medical treatment. And with the
large volume of drug-related cases in the border region, our local
prosecutors assume many criminal cases for the Federal Government.
It is imperative that we continue to adequately fund programs like
the Southwest Border Prosecutors Initiative, Section 1011 of the
Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003,
and Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) funding. All of these
initiatives are necessary to help ease the burden that border
communities shoulder.
With over 26 years in the United States Border Patrol, I can tell
you that the problems I dealt with as Chief are the same as today--we
need more manpower, more resources, and better infrastructure to keep
America's border secure. The United States has not done enough to stop
the flow of weapons and money smuggled from our country into Mexico.
Our failure to cut these illicit exports is helping supply the drug
cartels with the weapons and resources necessary to carry out their
ruthless acts of violence.
By manpower I do not mean U.S. soldiers or the National Guard. Our
local and Federal law enforcement officers are fully capable of keeping
us safe. What we do need are more Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
inspectors. For the past few years, the United States has increased the
number of Border Patrol agents to patrol the space between our ports of
entry. It is now time to increase the number of CBP inspectors to
address the staffing needs at our ports of entry.
We have inadequate staffing, facilities, and resources to
effectively process the volume of traffic coming through the border and
only minimal southbound inspection procedures to detect weapons and
money that are illegally transported to Mexico. A comprehensive
southbound strategy must be a part of our efforts to help Mexico reduce
the violence.
In closing, I believe that our commitment to Mexico and to ending
this violence and bloodshed must continue by: Passing an expanded
Merida Initiative; strengthening efforts on the U.S. side to curtail
the illegal transfer of weapons and money from the U.S. to Mexico; and
increasing investment in the modernization and renovation of our land
ports of entry.
I would like to once again thank Chairman Kerry and the
distinguished members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for
coming to El Paso to hear from the people who live in this community.
The violence across the border merits increased cooperation and
communication with Mexico. It also requires a firm commitment on our
part to share the responsibility for this grave situation and to
continue moving forward with strategic and comprehensive policies that
aim to strengthen our bilateral relationship.
The Chairman. Well, thank you very much, Congressman. It is
an honor to be here with you, and we are deeply appreciative
for your help and for the reception here in El Paso. And I
thank you also for your concerns and leadership on this issue.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY, U.S. SENATOR FROM
MASSACHUSETTS
The Chairman. The formal proceedings of the committee
itself will begin now, and I will make an opening statement and
then Senator Barrasso, who is serving as ranking member here
today, will make an opening statement on behalf of himself and
Senator Lugar. And then we will go right to our witnesses.
I want to thank President Natalicio and her assistant,
Estrella Escobar, and all of those who have been involved at
UTEP for their help and for all of the hospitality extended to
us. We are very appreciative, and I thank the Congressman and
his office for their help and coordination.
So why is the United States Senate Foreign Relations
Committee here in El Paso today? Because this is an issue of
global proportions and because it is an issue that involves our
relationships abroad, not just with Mexico, but through Central
America and Latin America, all the way to South Asia.
Afghanistan as we know, where we have deep interests today, is
providing perhaps 90 percent of the poppy that goes into the
heroin trafficking on a global basis. So this is an issue
between governments, between peoples, and it is an issue of
enormous consequence because of the billions and billions of
dollars spent, because of the law enforcement energies that are
expended and, of course, because of the spillover of violence
and crime into communities everywhere.
Let me say to you that I come to this issue with a fairly
significant background in this area. In the 1970s, I was the
chief prosecutor and administrator for one of the 10 largest
district attorney's offices in the United States. I was on the
front lines of law enforcement. I started a drug task force
back in the 1970s.
In the 1980s, I was chairman of the Narcotics and Terrorism
Subcommittee when I came to the Senate and I remained there
into the 1990s. And we did a tremendous amount of work looking
at the linkages between the Contras, as they were called, and
the flow of narcotics and illicit bank accounts and the ways in
which those bank accounts were linked to terrorism. In fact,
during one of our investigations where we found Gen. Manuel
Noriega's bank accounts linked to drug trafficking in a now
infamous bank called BCCI. We also found the name of a fellow
by the name of Osama bin Laden. People back then did not,
obviously, know who he was in the context of today.
But narcotics trafficking fuels insurgencies. Narcotics
trafficking fuels terrorism. It is a vital concern for all law-
abiding citizens and nations that are founded on the law to
make certain that we understand the importance of dealing with
it.
Frankly, I will tell you, even as a law enforcement person
once involved in it, I have often said that we have never as a
nation made the full commitment necessary to properly deal with
this issue. We have our own culpability in having talked about
it on political levels, but never having done all the things
necessary in education, in treatment, or in enforcement. And
many people can look at the borders and understand the debates
we have had with respect to those kinds of issues.
So we are here today in 2009, once again, struggling to
find the right policy and the right way forward. Our being here
in El Paso underscores the commitment of this committee and the
Senate to working with Mexican authorities to end the violence
that is endangering our valued neighbor to the south. We look
forward to two panels of expert witnesses who will help us
understand the problem and what the possible solutions from the
ground level on both sides of the border.
I think all of us, it is safe to say, have been deeply
shocked by the brutal attacks occurring just a stone's throw
across the Rio Grande from where we are sitting this morning.
Policemen, soldiers, and innocent bystanders are being killed
by drug cartels armed with high-powered weapons, the vast
majority of which appear to be smuggled in from the United
States.
Before we dig deeper into the issue of those weapons, let
me say that I am troubled by the suggestion from some quarters
that Mexico is in imminent danger of becoming a failed state.
We have to be very careful about the kind of rhetoric that is
used not just because it is simply untrue, but because it makes
cooperation much more difficult. Mexico is a functioning
democracy with a vibrant and open economy and stable
institutions and civil society. I commend President Felipe
Calderon for his courage and determination in challenging the
cartels. You might say it would be failed if they did not
challenge it and if it was a narcostate. But that fight is in
full-throat, and he deserves great credit.
I met with him in Washington when he was there a number of
weeks ago. We had a long discussion about this. There is no
question in my mind about the determination of President
Calderon and his government to challenge the cartels. He and
the Mexican people need to know that we stand behind them in
this fight, and we have not, and we will not, write them off.
Our response should be made in the kind of partnership that
we build with Mexicans. The idea of dispatching the National
Guard has been put on the table. Many believe it is premature
and possibly even counterproductive.
Make no mistake. Right now, Mexico's institutions are under
stress from the rising level of violence. And the fallout from
the warring cartels is visible just across the border in
Juarez, as our witnesses will describe in detail later.
Beyond those vital concerns, Americans are worried that the
cartels will turn our cities and neighborhoods into the next
front in the war. Drug trafficking and the ruthless violence
that it spawns knows no borders, as we have learned.
So far, the United States has been largely spared, but it
is in our national interest and it is our solemn obligation to
take steps today to help curtail the killing in Mexico.
Americans, we have to remember--and this is not to point
fingers of blame, folks. This is just how we have to talk about
and think about this kind of an issue. If you are not willing
to deal with facts, then you cannot come up with good
solutions. And the fact is that Americans are enormous
consumers of the drugs that pass through Mexico. As long as
there is demand, the trade will produce the billions of dollars
that fuel the cartels that corrupt public officials in Mexico
and buy the guns killing those who get in
their way. It is our responsibility to try to do our best to
curb that addiction.
And let me just say, remembering the 1980s and Nancy Reagan
and Ronald Reagan's efforts in Washington, I will tell you that
there was more public effort, more public education, and more
public awareness creation during her Just Say No Program than I
can remember at any time in recent years. So we need to think
carefully about what works and does not.
We have another responsibility. The vast majority of
weapons used by the cartels, as they fight each other over drug
smuggling routes and as they target army and police officers,
come from the United States. And they are horrific weapons,
folks. In Juarez and other battleground cities, the thugs are
not armed with Saturday night specials. The cartels maintain
well-trained paramilitary hit squads that are often better
equipped than the police. Their encrypted communications gear
is state of the art, and they have mobilized up to 80 vehicles
in simultaneous strikes against multiple targets.
Let me give you an example. A year ago, there was a
shootout in Chihuahua City, about 3 hours' drive south of here.
A squad of Mexican soldiers cornered a hit team from the Juarez
cartel that was hiding in a safe house. The gun battle lasted
3\1/2\ hours. An army captain was killed and so were six hit
men.
When the army entered the house, they found the six dead
hit men wearing level 4 body armor. This is designed to stop a
high-powered rifle round and it is a restricted export under
U.S. law.
The killers were armed with M-16 style assault rifles with
laser sights. They had hand grenades and tear gas canisters.
They also had a .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle, the weapon
used by the U.S. Army snipers. This super rifle, fires a 5-
inch-long cartridge that is accurate up to 1,500 meters and it
can cut a body in half. And yes, the safe house was set up for
a siege. There were IV bottles and other first-aid material.
The Mexican Army called in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms to trace the weapons. The trail led to two gun
sellers in the United States who have since been arrested.
Unfortunately, this is a common story. Ninety percent of
the weapons seized from the cartels and traced by our ATF
originated in the United States.
What is less common, however, is the cooperation that
occurred in this case. Only about one out of every four weapons
seized by Mexican authorities last year was actually submitted
to the ATF so they could be traced back to purchasers and
sellers in the United States. The Mexican Government should
provide the ATF with fuller access to these weapons.
Cooperation is also a two-way street. We in the United
States need to work harder to enforce existing gun laws against
exporting weapons across international borders. We should
revive the ban on importing assault rifles into the United
States. It was allowed to expire in 2004, resulting in a flood
of cheap assault rifles, and many of them find their way to
Mexico.
Stopping the guns also requires a strong United States-
Mexico partnership. Just a few miles from here, as all of you
who live here know, is the Bridge of the Americas, one of the
busiest border crossings in the country. Drivers coming north
from Mexico are stopped by United States agents and subjected
to a thorough examination for drugs and other contraband.
But it does not happen to southbound traffic. We do not
have the barriers and booths in place to stop vehicles headed
into Mexico. Four lanes of traffic from the U.S. Highway 54
speed over the border. An agent who gets intelligence about a
car carrying contraband would risk life and limb stepping into
traffic to stop the suspect vehicle.
On the Mexican side of the bridge, traffic zooms past the
checkpoint. Only rarely are vehicles stopped and inspected.
When the Mexican authorities conduct a special check, the
resulting traffic backup sends a signal and alerts smugglers
and they use a convenient turnaround a couple of hundred yards
before the border. Structural changes, obviously, need to be
made, as well as conceptual ones.
We are getting the message. That is one of the important
things we want people to know. We are getting the message. Last
week, the Obama administration announced it will send more
resources to the border, more DEA and ATF agents and mobile x-
ray equipment to check for weapons going south. That is not
going to solve the problem overnight and more is needed. I hope
these steps encourage the Mexican Government to step up its
interdiction efforts.
The drug trade recognizes no border, as I said, and neither
should law enforcement. We need to build trust in both
countries and eliminate the barriers between them. We have
improved intelligence sharing immensely, but we need to do more
to develop a combined front against the traffickers and their
networks. This means making sure that law enforcement
intelligence is combined with information picked up from
license plate readers and other surveillance systems in the
United States and passed quickly and effectively to the proper
authorities in both countries, and that those authorities then
respond quickly.
Finally, the U.S. Senate should ratify the Inter-American
Convention against Illicit Trafficking in Weapons and
Explosives. We were one of the first countries to sign the
convention in 1997, and one of the negotiators will be here to
testify on our second panel this morning. But sadly, we are
among the few countries--few countries--that have not ratified
the convention. It does not contradict any American gun laws. I
am a gunowner, and I am a hunter, and I respect and believe in
the second amendment. This does not contradict any gun law. But
ratification would send an important message about our
commitment to fight the weapons trafficking that is fueling the
violence in Mexico.
We often hear politicians fall back on the mantra ``we must
fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here.''
Well, when it comes to the drug cartels in Mexico, folks, this
happens to be undeniably true. We have to help our neighbors
reclaim their streets because it is the right thing to do and
also because we will keep ours safer in the process.
Senator Barrasso.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING
Senator Barrasso. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for holding these hearings today. I want to thank all
of the people who have come out today. That shows a tremendous
interest.
Thank you to the University of Texas-El Paso for the
wonderful hospitality. It is terrific to be here.
And also a big thank you goes out to Senator Cornyn of
Texas and his staff who have helped significantly with the trip
that I have taken for the last 2 days. Without their on-the-
ground contacts and knowledge, this trip would not have been
the same.
I want to give special thanks to the Texas National Guard.
Drew Dougherty is here from the Guard today. I had a chance to
fly a border patrol last night with them, using the advanced
technology that they have with the forward-looking infrared
ways to identify and detect people who are coming across the
border, carrying loads.
I also want to thank Sheriff Arvin West who hosted me
yesterday. We went down to Hudspeth County, went to the border,
to a number of places where you can see just how easy it is to
get across the border, where the fence is in various phases of
construction, where there are a number of walkways along the
river, which is not very deep and not very wide and very easy
access across the border. So I am very grateful to Sheriff West
and to other sheriffs from the area who were very helpful.
And as you said, Senator Kerry, you talked about the
northbound traffic and the long lines of cars waiting to come
across, and then the southbound traffic just kind of whizzing
south. And I witnessed firsthand what you had just referenced,
and it is also something that the people in this room see every
day.
Wyoming, my home State, is not a border State, but what I
saw yesterday is very reminiscent of my State in terms of the
topography. And in Wyoming, we have very long roads. We have
very small towns. We have vast lands that are owned by the
Federal Government. We have low-density population. And what I
saw yesterday, the open space along the southern border, is
optimal to facilitate the movement of drugs and the movement of
humans to the north. The lack of border enforcement on the
Mexican side allows for the movement of firearms and drug cash
back to the cartels.
A few weeks ago, National Public Radio was on the border
and they reported that drivers headed south toward the border
pass a welcome sign and then another sign warning both in
English and in Spanish, no firearms or ammunition. The National
Public Radio reported that the custom inspectors, talking on
the cell phones, wave the cars through and no questions and no
inspection. And as you said, when they do stop, the traffic
backs up and those trying to move illegally across the border
to the south see that and do a turnaround and go to another
location.
The lack of border enforcement on the Mexican side allows
for the movement of firearms and drug money back to the
cartels, and the problems that Mexico and the United States
face may seem simple to them, but it is not simple to all of us
who are trying to find the proper solutions. We are dealing
with a sophisticated drug trafficking organization that adapts
quickly to law enforcement methods and capabilities, and they
change their techniques and tactics quickly.
We are faced with a transnational criminal network and
multiple networks that produce, transport, and market illegal
drugs. The network operations in Venezuela, Colombia, and
Ecuador are moving the products and the violence toward the
north. We must destroy the networks, and in order for our
countries to destroy these criminal networks, we need a short-
term plan, a mid-term plan, and a long-term plan.
The short-term plan and solution is to beef up our border
sheriffs' capacity to collect and share intelligence and boost
their equipment capacity, even with unmanned aerial vehicles.
Our border sheriffs are the ones on the front line dealing with
the illegal border crossings and cartel-connected gang activity
in the United States.
The mid-term solution involves putting the Merida
Initiative to work. The initiative is not just about money. It
is, more importantly, about providing the equipment and the
training needed to deter and eventually defeat the cartels.
The long-term solution involves reforming the Mexican
judicial system and curbing the United States appetite for
illegal drugs. Mexico's justice system must send the message to
those who work for the cartels that the quick buck will put
them in prison for a long time. In the United States, we need
to deal with our addiction to drugs and cut the market off for
the cartels.
The violence along the United States-Mexican border is a
serious security challenge and it is one we cannot simply
ignore. We may have different problems on each side of the
border, but our goal is to destroy the cartel networks and that
is a mutual goal.
Some have suggested that we need to ban semiautomatic
assault weapons to help curb the violence. I oppose this
suggestion. Why would you disarm someone when they potentially
could get caught in the cross-fire? The United States will not
surrender our second amendment rights for Mexico's border
problems. More gun control in the United States will not solve
the United States-Mexico border violence problem. It will take
trust, resources, and leadership to defeat the cartels.
President Calderon has not looked the other way. He has
bravely taken the cartels head on. His bold move ought to have
the United States full support. Our strategic and economic
partnership is too important. While everyone recognizes the
safety and security issues surrounding the drug war in Mexico
or along our border, the economic implications of this fight
are just as significant. Mexico is the United States second
largest export market after Canada and it is our third largest
trading partner overall. Two-way trade with Mexico in 2008
totaled almost a billion a day. Mexico represents our third
largest supplier of crude oil behind only Canada and Saudi
Arabia, over a million barrels a day.
It is absolutely critical that we recognize that this is
not merely a drug crisis, but it could easily become an
economic crisis as well. At a time when our economy is
struggling, we cannot afford to allow the situation in Mexico
to further destabilize. Our friends in Mexico must realize--and
I visited with three members, just last week, of the Mexican
Senate, and I expressed to them that we stand willing to help.
This is not a problem we can solve without intensive
cooperation on both sides of the border. As a nation, we must
realize what is at stake.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Barrasso.
Since there are only three of us here, I am going to let
Senator Wicker also make an opening statement. We do not
normally do that, but I think it is appropriate here.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER F. WICKER, U.S. SENATOR FROM
MISSISSIPPI
Senator Wicker. Well, thank you, Senator Kerry. Yes, there
was a chance that with three members getting to talk and one
not getting to say a word, I might have gone into withdrawal or
something. [Laughter.]
Would it be appropriate at this point to submit Senator
Lugar's statement for the record? He asked that it be included.
The Chairman. Absolutely. Without objection, Senator
Lugar's full statement will be put in the record.
Senator Wicker. And I know he would like to have been here.
Thank you, Senator Kerry, my friend and colleague, for
scheduling this field hearing and for inviting the rest of us
to come and attend. It really means a lot.
Thank you to my longtime colleague, Silvestre Reyes, for
his gracious hospitality and for sticking this pin on me. I am
not quite sure what I have agreed to, but he insisted.
The Chairman. You are a major donor to the university.
Senator Wicker. It is very likely, Mr. Chairman, that the
Congress is a major donor to this university, and not only
that, to Fort Bliss, which we saw in the dark last night when
we landed, which I acknowledge is a great beneficiary of the
recent BRAC round and for which we have great and high hopes
and hope to get another quick look today on the way out.
Thank you, everyone at the University of Texas-El Paso, for
what you have done to accommodate us in this regard.
The Merida Initiative was adopted in 2007. It was funded by
the U.S. Congress in 2008. In our discussions with staff last
night, Senator Kerry and I learned that some of the funds
appropriated in 2008 are only now finding their way out to the
field. I would make the point that this program is relatively
new, and one of the things we want to find out at this hearing
is how the program is doing and whether it is succeeding as it
is and whether we need to do anything else at all.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your words of praise and
partnership with President Calderon and the Government of
Mexico. Indeed, there is a lot I do not know, but I do know
that Mexico is nowhere near being a failed state. Our friend to
the south and the leadership are to be commended for engaging
in this effort.
There are national elections for the Mexican Congress that
will be scheduled later this year. It is an open process. We do
not know who will win. The Presidential election was an open
process with three major party candidates. And Mexico is far
from a failed state, and I think we need to emphasize that to
the extent that there is some feeling to the contrary in the
United States.
Mr. Chairman, I want to ask that we include in the record
today a front-page article in the El Paso Times written by
Ramon Barcamontes entitled ``Hopes Rise as Violence Recedes.''
Might we enter that into the record.
The Chairman. Absolutely, without objection.
[The article mentioned above follows:]
[From the El Paso Times, March 30, 2009]
Hopes Rise As Juarez Violence Recedes
(By Ramon Bracamontes)
JUAREZ.--From a bar stool inside the historic Kentucky Club on the
Juarez strip, Raul Martinez Soto sees, feels and analyzes the effects
of the drug war on his business, on Juarez, on El Paso and on U.S.-
Mexico relations.
Though Soto, one of the managers of the club that opened in 1920 on
Avenida Juarez, will not be testifying Monday in El Paso before a U.S.
Senate committee, he knows exactly what he would say to the senators if
he got the chance.
``Things are improving here on a daily basis, and thanks for the
help,'' Soto said. ``Business is improving as tourists are slowly
coming back. All of the initiatives by the officials are working. There
is hope now that things will get back to normal.''
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is having a public
hearing in El Paso titled ``U.S.-Mexico Border Violence.'' Sen. John
Kerry, D-Mass., the chairman of the committee, will preside over the
hearing that will include several other U.S. senators and Rep.
Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.
The hearing, which is open to the public, is at 8 a.m. today in the
Tomas Rivera Conference Center on the University of Texas at El Paso
campus.
Kerry and his committee are key in U.S. foreign assistance
legislation, including the Merida Initiative which will provide Mexico
with $1.4 billion for its fight against the drug cartels. Kerry's
committee spokesman, Frederick Jones, said this hearing in El Paso will
help the senators get to talk to the people who have seen the violence
in Mexico up close.
Since January 2008, Juarez and Mexico have been marred by a drug
cartel war that has killed more than 6,000 people throughout Mexico.
The violence has taken the lives of elected officials, police officers
and lawyers, and has touched just about every major city in Mexico.
Juarez is among the deadliest. In 14 months, 2,000 people have been
killed. Most were executed or ambushed in broad daylight on busy
streets. Hitmen often left notes naming who was next.
The chaotic environment in Juarez prompted city, state and federal
officials to station more than 8,000 soldiers and federal police
officers in Juarez. The Juarez police department is now being directed
by retired military officials, and military vehicles with mounted
machine guns patrol the city all day and night.
On Avenida Juarez, which is the heart of the city's tourist
district, armed soldiers and federal police are permanently stationed.
Anyone walking from El Paso into Mexico is reviewed by armed soldiers.
Anyone driving from Juarez to El Paso must pass a military checkpoint
before being allowed onto the Paso del Norte International Bridge.
The huge military presence is something that has never been seen
before in Juarez. But, it appears to be working.
``The presence of the military and the federal police is having a
calming effect,'' said Tony Payan, a UTEP political science professor
who specializes in Latin American studies. ``Not only is the organized
crime down, but so are the petty and opportunistic crimes that were
taking place before.''
Since March 1 when the new soldiers arrived, the number of daily
homicides has dropped. Where there were seven to 10 killings a day
before, now there are one or two, and some of those are stabbings or
bar fights, not ambushes ordered by drug traffickers. Last week, the
city went three days without a reported murder--something that didn't
happen at all in 2008.
``The soldiers treat you nice once they know who you are, where you
work and what you are doing,'' said Isela Solis Mares, a Juarez native.
``I cross the bridge at night just about every day and they know me by
now. They have made it safer to walk back home.''
Juarez is not the only border city where the violence seems to have
ebbed.
Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos said that in the past couple of
months the violence in Palomas, Mexico, which is just across the border
from Columbus, N.M., has tempered. Columbus is about 100 miles west of
El Paso and sits on the U.S.-Mexico border in Luna County, south of
Deming.
``The Mexican authorities, by whatever means they used, have
established effective control in Palomas,'' Cobos said. ``Is there
still violence in Palomas? Yes, but we don't see the bullets flying and
bodies dropping anymore.''
``What hasn't stopped is the drug smuggling,'' he said. ``They are
still trying to cross drugs every day through the desert, on backpacks.
That is still keeping everyone over here busy.''
U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said he is glad to see that other
U.S. senators are now getting to see what life along the U.S.-Mexico
border is like.
``Those of us representing border states have seen the violence
along the border escalate and over the years have pushed for increased
funding and resources to help address the problem,'' Bingaman said. ``I
am glad Washington is now giving it the attention it deserves and is
making it a priority.''
Bingaman recently helped secure $15 million in funding that will be
used to disrupt illegal arms trafficking from the United States into
Mexico.
Texas' two Republican U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey
Hutchison, also said they have made securing the border a priority.
``More must be done, including additional Border Patrol agents and
equipment, to ensure that we can fight the drug cartels and do away
with the human trafficking and violence along our border,'' Hutchison
said.
Among those scheduled to testify before the senators is El Paso
District Attorney Jaime Esparza.
``While the violence in Mexico is bad and tragic, the violence
remains a cartel to cartel issue, and a cartel versus the Mexican
government fight,'' he said. ``The violence has not spilled over in El
Paso and Texas.''
But we do need to be realistic and see that nothing is happening on
this side.
In El Paso in 2006 there were 17 homicides. In 2007 and 2008, there
were 20 homicides each year. And so far in 2009 there has been only one
homicide in El Paso.
``There are a lot of people who are not from the border saying the
violence has spilled over,'' Esparza said. ``There are thousands being
killed in Mexico, but not in El Paso. We need to be realistic and see
that nothing is happening on this side.''
Senator Wicker. Mr. Barcamontes quotes a resident of Juarez
named Raul Martinez Soto as saying this. ``Things are improving
here on a daily basis and thanks for the help, Soto said.
Business is improving as tourists are slowly coming back. All
of the initiatives by the officials are working. There is hope
now that things will get back to normal.''
Well, if that is true, then the military and the American
and Mexican officials who have been involved so far are to be
commended, and to that, I say hurrah.
This is a fact-finding hearing. We come here with our own
philosophies and we do not check them at the door, but I hope
we do not come here with preconceived notions as to what the
solution actually should be. That is why we are having the
hearing. Those who have a preconceived notion that we need to
put the National Guard at the border may come away from the
hearing saying that is what we need. Those who would like to
expand our gun control laws in the United States might see an
opportunity in this crisis for more gun control. Those who
advocate a change in our immigration policy, either in one way
or the other--the completion of the border fence--might see
this drug violence crisis as an opportunity to advance that
preconceived agenda.
I am interested in learning whether the ratification of the
CIFTA treaty, a treaty to which we are already a signatory, but
not a ratifying partner, would do any good at all in this
regard. Of course, people who would advocate for changes in the
criminal drug laws in the United States may see this as an
opportunity to advance their preconceived agenda.
I will simply say this. I am here to listen. I do not know
what the facts are. I am looking to our distinguished panels
for suggestions, and I hope to come away from this hearing
better able to take a message back to the U.S. Congress about
what, if anything, in addition we might need to do to address
this situation.
And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Wicker. We
appreciate that.
Our first panel is Mr. Joseph Arabit, who is the DEA
special agent in charge here in El Paso; Mr. William McMahon,
the Deputy Assistant Director of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives based in Washington; and Mr.
Jaime Esparza, district attorney of the 34th Judicial District
in El Paso County. So thank you, each of you gentlemen, for
appearing before us today.
We want to try to maximize the time for some dialogue and
questions, so we would request you keep your prepared comments
to about 7 minutes. And your full statements will be placed in
the record, as if stated in full.
And I would like to ask you, Mr. Esparza, if you would go
first.
STATEMENT OF JAIME ESPARZA, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, THIRTY-FOURTH
JUDICIAL DISTRICT, EL PASO, CULBERTSON AND HUDSPETH COUNTIES,
TX
Mr. Esparza. Good morning. Senator Kerry, members of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Congressman Reyes, it is a
privilege and an honor to be here to address the distinguished
panel on a very important topic that is of concern not just to
border cities throughout Texas, but to our country as well.
I have been the district attorney for the 34th Judicial
District for 16 years. My jurisdiction includes El Paso,
Hudspeth, and Culbertson Counties.
Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, has long been referred to as our
sister city. Five international bridges connect us to our
neighbors to the south. Daily, approximately 24,000
pedestrians, 44,000 privately owned vehicles, and 2,200 trucks
cross into El Paso from Juarez.
Unfortunately, drug violence is not new to the city of
Juarez. Drug-related killings have occurred for years, but the
violence has increased. In 2008, the violence increased to
levels never seen before and alarmed not just the citizens of
Juarez, but also the citizens of El Paso.
The recent response by the Mexican Government to send
military troops to the state of Chihuahua has had an enormous
impact in decreasing the violence in the city.
Of course, given our proximity of our two countries and the
level of violence in Juarez, there was bound to be concern
about the possibility that some of that violence would spill
over into our streets. Fortunately, none of that has occurred.
Yet, speculation about spillover violence persists and at times
is exaggerated.
In spite of the disturbing events in Juarez, much like our
other United States cities along the Texas-Mexico border and
elsewhere, El Paso has not experienced spillover violence. For
example, in 2007, there were 17 murders in El Paso, and in
2008, there were 18 murders in El Paso. In Washington, DC, in
2007, there were 181 murders, and in 2008, there were 186. El
Paso is safe, and I attribute that to the excellent work of the
combined efforts of local, State, and Federal law enforcement
agencies.
I believe that these law enforcement agencies send a strong
signal to the cartel members that their conduct will not be
tolerated in this country. I also believe that these cartels
dare not risk spilling their violence into our streets and
thereby risk arrest and prosecution in our country.
In spite of these encouraging statistics, however, it is
imperative that we remain alert and vigilant. The fact that we
have thus far been unaffected by these events south of us does
not mean that we should become complacent. We should respect
Mexico's sovereignty and work with Mexico to resolve this
problem which is of mutual interest to both our countries. The
reality is that the Juarez area is one of the fastest growing
areas in Mexico, both in population and in economic growth. In
2008, trade between El Paso and Juarez exceeded $51 billion.
We should also assume our responsibility in the war on
drugs and recognize that without a consumer market, the profits
of the cartels would suffer considerably.
Contrary to news reports, I do not believe that Mexico is
teetering on becoming a failed state. Mexico is a strong
democratic country determined to defeat the drug cartels that
plague its states.
As the district attorney of a border city, I am faced with
the additional problem of fugitives fleeing into Mexico to
avoid prosecutions for crimes they have committed in our
country. With the cooperation of the Mexican Attorney General's
Office, which has an office here in El Paso, we not only pursue
fugitives through the formal extradition process with the
assistance of the Department of Justice, Office of
International Affairs, we also request Mexico arrest and
prosecute the fugitives found in their country pursuant to
article 4 of the Mexican Federal Penal Code.
As a result of this excellent relationship with Mexico, and
in the mutual interests of our two countries in capturing and
prosecuting fugitives, my office, in collaboration with the
Mexican Attorney General's Office has published a manual
entitled ``Extraditions from Mexico and Article 4 Prosecution:
A Manual for Prosecutors and Law Enforcement.'' This book sets
out procedures for filing extradition and article 4
prosecutions that have been adopted and endorsed by the Mexican
Government.
The task of locating and arresting fugitives in Mexico
could not occur without this type of cooperation from Mexico.
And in spite of the problems in the country, Mexican officials
have continued to support our efforts in extraditing fugitives.
For example, on March 25, 2009, a man who had committed a 1992
homicide in El Paso was finally located and arrested in the
State of Guanajuato, Mexico, by the Mexican Federal
authorities. We expect that he will be extradited in less than
a year.
In conclusion, I would reiterate that while no violence has
spilled over into the streets of El Paso from Juarez, we should
remain vigilant and alert. In the end, Mexico will continue to
be our neighbor to the south with whom we share not just family
and culture, but also trade and business interests.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Esparza follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jaime Esparza, District Attorney, El Paso, TX
Senator Kerry, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Congressman Reyes, it is a privilege and honor to be here and address
this distinguished panel on a very important topic that is of concern
not just to border cities throughout Texas but to our country as well.
My name is Jaime Esparza. I have been the District Attorney for the
34th Judicial District of Texas for 16 years. My jurisdiction includes
El Paso County, Hudspeth County and Culberson County.
Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, has long been referred to as ``our
sister city,'' Five international bridges connect us to our neighbors
in the south. the daily northbound crossings on these bridges are as
follows: Privately owned vehicles, 44,481; trucks, 2,293; and
pedestrians, 23,878. Drug violence is not new to the city of Juarez.
Drug-related killings have occurred for years. But as violence
increased in 2008 to levels never seen before and the streets became a
war zone it alarmed not just the citizens of Juarez but the citizens of
El Paso as well. The recent response by the Mexican Government to send
military troops to the state of Chihuahua has had an enormous impact in
decreasing the violence in the city. Although the homicide rate was
over 1,600 by the end of 2008, the current presence of over 7,000
troops in Juarez has virtually stopped the daily multiple killings that
had occurred in 2008.
Of course, given the proximity of our two countries and the level
of violence in Juarez, there was bound to be concern about the
possibility that some of that violence would spill over into our
streets. Fortunately, none of that has occurred. Yet, speculation about
spillover violence persists and is at times exaggerated, in some
instances, to benefit other agendas.
We should focus on the real issues that have resulted from this
situation and not speculate on what might or might not occur. In spite
of the disturbing events in Juarez, much like other U.S. cities along
the Texas-Mexico border and elsewhere, El Paso has not experienced
spillover violence. For example, the crime rate in our city and in
other Texas cities did not fluctuate in accordance with what was
happening in Mexico. The statistics below attest to this fact.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Population
2008 2007 2008
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Murder:
El Paso................................... 755,157 17 18
Laredo.................................... 250,144 10 11
Brownville................................ 401,862 5 3
McAllen................................... 749,265 6 9
Austin.................................... 1,568,653 31 23
Washington, DC............................ 591,833 181 186
Robbery:
El Paso................................... 472 473
Laredo.................................... 325 311
Brownville................................ 207 173
McAllen................................... 114 135
Austin.................................... 1,543 1,403
Washington, DC............................ 4,261 4,343
Aggravated Assault:
El Paso................................... 1,827 2,666
Laredo.................................... 865 956
Brownville................................ 647 431
McAllen................................... 225 209
Austin.................................... 1,795 1,953
Washington, DC............................ 3,686 2835
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our city is safe, and I attribute that to the excellent work of the
combined efforts of our law enforcement agencies, including the El Paso
Police Department, the El Paso Sheriff's Office, the work of ATP, DEA,
ICE, the FBI, the U.S. Marshal Service, the West Texas Region of the
Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Areas Program (HIDTA) and, of
course, the work of EPIC.
I believe that the combined efforts of these law enforcement
agencies send a strong signal to cartel members that their conduct will
not be tolerated in the country. I also believe that these cartels dare
not risk spilling their violence into our streets and thereby risk
arrest and prosecution in our country.
In spite of these encouraging statistics, however, it is imperative
that we remain alert and vigilant. The fact that we have thus far been
unaffected by the events south of us does not mean that we should
become complacent. We should respect Mexico's sovereignty and work with
Mexico to solve this problem which is of mutual interest to both our
countries. the reality is that the Juarez area is one of the fastest
growing areas in Mexico both in population and economic growth. In
2008, trade between El Paso and Juarez exceeded $51 billion. The trade
between Mexico and Texas reached the amount of $211 billion, which
accounts for 76 percent of the trade between Mexico and the United
States. Nevertheless, preventive measures must continue in order to
address the violence problems in Mexico. Our law enforcement agencies
must continue to closely monitor events with Mexico and meet with their
counterparts when possible. We should also assume our responsibility in
the war on drugs and recognize that without a consumers market the
profits of the cartels would suffer considerably. To this end we should
increase our drug treatment programs. We should recognize that by
treating addiction and discouraging the consumption and purchase of
illegal drugs the illegal drug market will also suffer.
Contrary to news reports, I do not believe that Mexico is teetering
on becoming a failed state. Mexico is a strong democratic country
determined to defeat the drug cartels that plague its states. The
escalation of violence in 2008 can also be attributed to the Mexican
Government's unwillingness to succumb to the threats of the cartels and
to its intensified efforts in subduing these cartels. Even though the
conflict continues, Mexican Government offices and agencies continue to
operate as usual, and this has been very important to my office.
As the District Attorney I am charged by my duty to work with all
law enforcement agencies to prosecute state crimes. As the District
Attorney of a border city I am faced with the additional problem of
fugitives fleeing into Mexico to avoid prosecution for crimes they have
committed in our country. I highlight this issue because it is a good
example of the cooperation that has resulted between my office and
Mexico. To address the problem of these fugitives, I created a Foreign
Prosecution Unit with the assigned task of extraditing fugitives from
Mexico. Because we have received nothing but cooperation from the
Mexican Attorney General's Office, which has an office here in El Paso,
we not only pursue fugitives through a formal extradition with the
assistance of the Department of Justice, Office of International
Affairs, we also, in limited circumstances, request that Mexico arrest
and prosecute U.S. fugitives found in their country pursuant to Article
4 of the Mexican Federal Penal Code.
As a result of this excellent relationship with Mexico, and in the
mutual interests of our two countries in capturing and prosecuting
fugitives, my office organized three International Extradition and
Article 4 Conferences. These conferences included the participation of
the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, the United States Marshal
Service, the Office of the Secretary of Ministry of Mexico, the Mexican
Attorney General's Office (PRG) and Mexican Federal Judiciary. Another
example of the excellent relationship that resulted with Mexico is the
publication of ``Extraditions From Mexico and Article 4 Prosecution: A
Manual for Prosecutors and Law Enforcement'' that was endorsed by
Mexico. The book sets out procedures for filing extraditions and
Article 4 prosecutions that have been adopted by the Mexican
Government. This demonstrates how well our relationship with Mexico
continues to develop.
The task of locating and arresting fugitives in Mexico could not
occur without this type of cooperation from Mexico and, in spite of the
problems in the country, Mexican officials have continued to support
our efforts in extraditing fugitives. For example, on March 25, 2009, a
man who commited a 1992 homicide in El Paso was finally located and
arrested in the state of Guanajato, Mexico, by the Mexican Federal
authorities. We expect that he will be extradited in less than a year.
In conclusion, I would reiterate that while no violence has spilled
into the streets of El Paso from Mexico, we should remain vigilant and
alert but optimistic that Mexico, with our assistance, will defeat this
problem. In the end, Mexico will continue to be our neighbor to the
south with whom we share not just family and culture but also trade and
business interests. We will continue to work with Mexico in resolving
these issues and problems, and I am confident that we will continue to
enjoy Mexico's full cooperation and support in the coming years.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. District Attorney. We
appreciate it.
Mr. McMahon, thank you for being with us today and for the
job you do.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM McMAHON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, BUREAU
OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. McMahon. Mr. Chairman Kerry, Senators Barrasso, Wicker,
and Congressman Reyes, I am William McMahon, Deputy Assistant
Director of Field Operations for the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I am honored to appear before
you today to discuss ATF's ongoing role in preventing firearms
from being illegally trafficked from the United States into
Mexico and working to reduce the associated violence along the
border.
For over 30 years, ATF has been protecting our citizens and
communities from violent criminals and criminal organizations
by safeguarding them from the illegal use of firearms and
explosives. We are responsible for both regulating the firearms
and explosives industry and enforcing criminal laws relating to
those commodities. ATF has experience, expertise, tools, and
the commitment to investigate and disrupt groups and
individuals who obtain guns in the United States and illegally
traffic them to Mexico. The combination of ATF's crime-fighting
expertise, specific statutory and regulatory authority,
analytical capability, and strategic partnerships is used to
combat firearms trafficking both along the U.S. borders and
throughout the Nation.
For instance, from fiscal year 2004 through this month,
Project Gunrunner, ATF's strategy to disrupt the flow of
firearms to Mexico, has referred for prosecution 795 cases
involving 1,658 defendants. Those cases include 382 firearms
trafficking cases involving 1,035 defendants and an estimated
12,835 firearms.
For an example, an 11-month investigation of a Phoenix area
gun dealer revealed a trafficking schemed involving at least
650 firearms, including 250 AK-47-type semiautomatic rifles,
that were trafficked to Mexican drug cartels. One of the
pistols from this gun dealer was recovered on the person of an
alleged cartel boss. The investigation, which is pending
prosecution, resulted in the arrest of 13 defendants and the
seizure of over 2,200 firearms.
While the greatest proportion of firearms trafficked to
Mexico originate out of the United States along the Southwest
border, ATF trace data has established the drug traffickers
also acquiring firearms from other States as far east as
Florida and as far north and west as Washington State. A case
from April 2008 involving a violent shootout that resulted in
13 deaths illustrates this point. ATF assisted Mexican
authorities in tracing 60 firearms recovered in a crime scene
in Tijuana. As a result, leads have been forwarded to ATF field
divisions in Houston, TX; Phoenix, AZ; Los Angeles and San
Francisco, CA; Denver, CO; Seattle, WA; and Philadelphia, PA.
Additionally, drug traffickers are known to supplement
their firearms caches with explosives. Our expertise with
explosives has proven to be another valuable tool to use in the
fight against drug cartels. In fact, in the past 6 months, we
have noted a troubling increase in the number of grenades
seized from or used by drug traffickers. We are also concerned
about the possibility of explosives-related violence
materializing in border cities.
We have had at least one such instance in San Juan, TX,
where a hand grenade was thrown into a crowd of 20 patrons at a
bar. Thankfully, this live grenade did not detonate. ATF was
able to identify the grenade and believe it was linked to a
drug cartel. Moreover, we believe this device was from the same
source as those used in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in
Monterrey, Mexico, in October 2008.
Along the Southwest border, ATF's Project Gunrunner
includes 148 special agents dedicated to investigating firearms
trafficking on a full-time basis and 59 industry operation
investigators responsible for conducting regulatory inspections
of licensed gun dealers, known as Federal firearms licensees,
or FFLs, along the Southwest border. As the sole agency that
regulates FFLs, roughly 6,700 of which are along the Southwest
border, ATF has the statutory authority to inspect and examine
the records and inventories of licensees for firearms
trafficking trends and patterns and revoke the license of those
who are complicit in firearms trafficking.
For instance, ATF used its regulatory authority to review
the records of an FFL right here in El Paso, TX, to identify a
firearms trafficker who purchased 75 firearms that were
trafficked to Mexico. Our investigation led to the arrest of 12
individuals in November 2007, and sentences for these
defendants ranged from 2 to 3 years.
An essential component of ATF's strategy to curtail
firearms trafficking to Mexico is the tracing of firearms
seized in both countries. Using this information, ATF can
establish the identity of the first retail purchaser of the
firearm and possibly learn pertinent information, such as how
the gun came to be used in furtherance of the crime or how it
came to be located in Mexico.
Furthermore, analysis of aggregated trace data can reveal
trafficking trends and networks showing where the guns are
being purchased, who is purchasing them, and how they crossed
the border. Let me share an example of how trace data can
identify a firearms trafficker.
ATF's analysis of trace data linked the man living in a
United States border city to three guns recovered in different
crimes in Mexico. Further investigation uncovered that he was
the purchaser of a fourth firearm that was used in yet another
crime in Mexico and that he had purchased 111 AR-15-type
receivers and 7 additional firearms within a short period of
time using nine different FFLs as sources for his guns. In
April 2008, ATF seized 80 firearms from this suspect and
learned that he was manufacturing guns in his home. He sold
over 100 firearms alone to an individual who is suspected of
being linked to the cartel.
Last, I would like to briefly mention ATF's operational
presence at the El Paso Intelligence Center, EPIC, right here
in El Paso, TX. EPIC is most certainly one of the most valuable
tools for intelligence-sharing and coordination in multiagency
efforts to curb violence and firearms trafficking activities
along the Southwest border. Our main presence at EPIC currently
exists in the form of what is known as the ATF Gun Desk. The
mission of the Gun Desk is to identify and analyze all
firearms- and explosives-related data acquired and collected
from all law enforcement and open sources to include Mexican
military, Mexican law enforcement, intelligence entities, as
well as United States law enforcement assets operating across
the border and within Mexico. The information gathered by the
ATF Gun Desk is continually evaluated and vetted to determine
if violations of the Federal firearms or explosives laws have
occurred. The Gun Desk also generates investigative referrals
for ATF field agents usually in coordination with the agency
that brought the information to EPIC. The information is not,
however, necessarily limited to the Southwest border.
I want to thank you and your staff for the support of our
critical work, and with the backing of this committee, ATF can
continue to build on our accomplishments of making our Nation
even more secure. And I welcome your questions.
The Chairman. Thank you so much, Mr. McMahon. We appreciate
it.
Mr. Arabit.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH M. ARABIT, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, EL PASO
DIVISION, DRUG ENFORCEMENT AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
EL PASO, TX
Mr. Arabit. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Kerry,
Senators Barrasso, Wicker, and Congressman Reyes, on behalf of
the Drug Enforcement Administration, Acting Administrator
Michele Leonhart, I appreciate your invitation to testify today
regarding violence along the Southwest border. DEA thanks
members of the committee for your continued support of the Drug
Enforcement Administration.
Also on behalf of DEA, I would like to express our
condolences to the U.S. Marshals Service and the family of
Deputy U.S. Marshal Vicente Bustamante who was recently
murdered in Ciudad Juarez.
I come here today as the special agent in charge of DEA's
El Paso Division, one of DEA's five Southwest border field
divisions. Prior to becoming the special agent in charge here,
I was stationed in Houston and also in San Antonio. I also
spent approximately 5 years working on the ground for DEA in
Mexico, including 2\1/2\ years in Mexico City and 2\1/2\ years
in Mazatlan, Sinaloa. These experiences allow me to offer a
unique perspective here today.
The Southwest border and the security threat posed by drug
trafficking along the border is not a new issue for DEA. As the
lead U.S. law enforcement agency responsible for enforcing the
drug laws of the United States, DEA's special agents have been
on the front lines of both sides of the Southwest border for
decades gathering intelligence and conducting enforcement
operations to dismantle the most powerful and ruthless drug
trafficking organizations.
The operations of these organizations have destabilizing
effects not only in the border region, but throughout Mexico.
The Southwest border is the principal arrival zone for most
illicit drugs smuggled into the United States, as well as being
the predominant staging area for drugs' subsequent distribution
throughout the country. This area is particularly vulnerable to
drug smuggling because of the enormous volume of people and
legitimate goods crossing the border between the two countries
each day. Disrupted supply routes along the southwest border
translate into intense competition manifested in violence
between the drug trafficking organizations.
The drug trade in Mexico has been rife with violence for
decades. Incidents of violence and murder, much of which is
drug-related, have remained at elevated levels in Mexico for 3
years since the Calderon administration initiated a
comprehensive program to break the power and impunity of the
drug cartels.
The violence in Mexico can be organized into three broad
categories: Intracartel violence that occurs among and between
members of the same criminal syndicate; intercartel violence
among and between rival cartels; and cartel versus government
violence.
It is significant to note that intra and intercartel
violence have always been associated with the Mexican drug
trade. Cities like Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana in particular have
witnessed escalating violence since 2006. In 2007, the number
of drug-related killings in Mexico doubled that from the
previous year. Of the estimated 2,471 drug-related murders,
approximately 10 percent were Mexican military and law
enforcement officials. In 2008, estimates increase to
approximately 6,263 drug-related killings, with 8 percent of
those being Mexican military and law enforcement.
DEA estimates----
The Chairman. What percent?
Mr. Arabit. 8 percent, sir.
DEA estimates that approximately 95 percent of the
officials killed in both 2007 and 2008 were corrupt officials
who either failed to do the bidding of their controlling cartel
or who were targeted for assassinations by a competing cartel.
Around 1,000 people have died this year in Mexico, about 10
percent of whom are public officials.
In the past year, United States intelligence and law
enforcement agencies have worked diligently to reach a
consensus view on spillover violence and United States
vulnerability to the Mexican cartels' violent tactics. The
interagency has defined spillover violence to entail
deliberate, planned attacks by the cartels on U.S. assets,
including civilian, military, or law enforcement officials,
innocent U.S. citizens, or physical institutions such as
government buildings, consulates, or businesses. We assess with
medium confidence that in the short term there will be no
significant increase in spillover violence as the Mexican
trafficking organizations understand that intentional targeting
of United States persons or interests unrelated to the drug
trade would likely undermine their own business interests.
In response, the DEA continues to work vigorously in
cooperation with its Federal, State, local, and foreign
counterparts to address the violence through the sharing of
intelligence and joint investigations. DEA has the largest
United States drug law enforcement presence in Mexico and is
primed to mount and attack these drug trafficking organizations
at all levels with the Calderon administration. The disruption
and dismantlement of these organizations, the denial of
proceeds, and the seizure of assets significantly impacts the
drug trafficking organizations' ability to exercise influence
and further destabilize the region. Project Reckoning and
Operation Xcellerator are recent examples of this United
States-Mexico collaboration. While these collaborative
operations are intended to break the power and impunity of the
cartels, in the short term they also exacerbate the violence in
Mexico.
In short, guided by intelligence, DEA is working diligently
on both sides of the border to stem the flow of illicit drugs
and assist our Mexican counterparts in curbing the violence
associated with the drug trade. DEA recognizes that interagency
and international collaboration and coordination is fundamental
to our success. DEA will continue to closely monitor the
security situation in Mexico and ensure that rampant violence
does not spill over our border by continuing to lend assistance
and support to the Calderon administration.
Chairman Kerry and members of the committee, Congressman
Reyes, I thank you again for the opportunity to testify and I
will be happy to address any questions you may have.
[The joint prepared statement of Mr. McMahon and Mr. Arabit
follows:]
Joint Prepared Statement of Joseph M. Arabit, Special Agent in Charge,
El Paso Division, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of
Justice, El Paso, TX, and William McMahon, Deputy Assistant Director,
Field Operations, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,
U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC
Chairman Kerry, Senator Lugar, and members of the committee, we
appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the
Department of Justice's (the Department) role in addressing the
alarming rise of violence perpetrated by warring Mexican drug
trafficking organizations in Mexico and the effects of that violence on
the United States, particularly along our Southwest border. We want to
share with you the Department's strategy systematically to dismantle
the Mexican drug cartels, which currently threaten the national
security of our Mexican neighbors, pose an organized crime threat to
the United States, and are responsible for the scourge of illicit drugs
and accompanying violence in both countries.
overview of department of justice's mexico and border strategy
The explosion of violence along the Southwest border is being
caused by a limited number of large, sophisticated, and vicious
criminal organizations, not by individual drug traffickers acting in
isolation. Indeed, the Department's National Drug Intelligence Center
has identified the Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) as the
greatest organized crime threat facing the United States today. That
insight drives our response. There is much to do and much to improve
upon. But the Department's strategy--built on its proven track record
in dismantling transnational organized criminal groups, such as the
mafia in the 1980s and 1990s--confronts the Mexican cartels as criminal
organizations, rather than simply responding to individual acts of
criminal violence. Pursued vigorously, and in coordination with the
efforts of other U.S. Government agencies like the Departments of State
and Homeland Security and with the full cooperation of the Government
of Mexico, this strategy can and will neutralize the organizations
causing the violence.
The Department's strategy to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the
Mexican drug cartels has five key elements. First, the strategy employs
extensive and coordinated intelligence capabilities. The Department
pools information generated by our law enforcement agencies and
Federal, State, and local government partners, and then uses the
product systematically to direct operations in the United States and
assist the efforts of the Mexican authorities to attack the cartels and
the corruption that facilitates their operations. Second, led by
experienced prosecutors, the Department focuses its efforts on
investigation, extradition, prosecution, and punishment of key cartel
leaders. As the Department has demonstrated in attacking other major
criminal enterprises, destroying the leadership and financial assets of
the cartels will undermine the entire organizations. Third, the
Department pursues investigations and prosecutions related to the
smuggling of guns, cash, and contraband for drugmaking facilities from
the United States into Mexico. The violence and corruption in Mexico
are fueled by these resources that come from our side of the border.
Fourth, the Department uses traditional law enforcement approaches to
address spillover effects of cartel violence in the United States.
These effects include the widespread distribution of drugs on our
streets and in our neighborhoods, battles between members of rival
cartels on American soil, and violence directed against U.S. citizens
and government interests. Fifth, the Department prosecutes criminals
responsible for the smuggling, kidnapping, and violence in Federal
court. The ultimate goals of these operations are to neutralize the
cartels and bring the criminals to justice.
Attorney General Holder is committed to taking advantage of all
available Department resources to target, disrupt, and dismantle the
Mexican cartels. Last month, the Attorney General announced the arrest
of more than 750 individuals on narcotics-related charges under
Operation Xcellerator, a multiagency, multinational effort that began
in May 2007 and targeted the Mexican drug trafficking organization
known as the Sinaloa Cartel. This cartel is responsible for bringing
tons of cocaine into the United States through an extensive network of
distribution cells in the United States and Canada. Through Operation
Xcellerator, Federal law enforcement agencies--along with law
enforcement officials from the Governments of Mexico and Canada and
State and local authorities in the United States--delivered a
significant blow to the Sinaloa Cartel. In addition to the arrests,
authorities seized over $59 million in U.S. currency, more than 12,000
kilograms of cocaine, more than 1,200 pounds of methamphetamine,
approximately 1.3 million Ecstasy pills, and other illegal drugs. Also
significant was the seizure of 169 weapons, 3 aircraft, and 3 maritime
vessels.
Similarly, the Department's Project Reckoning, announced in
September 2008, was a 15-month operation that severely damaged the Gulf
Cartel. It was one of the largest and most successful joint law
enforcement efforts between the United States and Mexico. Project
Reckoning resulted in over 600 arrests in the U.S. and Mexico, plus the
seizure of nearly 20,000 kilos of cocaine, tens of thousands of pounds
of marijuana, thousands of pounds of methamphetamine, hundreds of
weapons and $71 million in currency. Perhaps most importantly, Project
Reckoning led to the indictment against a triumvirate of Gulf Cartel
leaders.
Operation Xcellerator and Project Reckoning were tremendous
successes in the U.S. Government's battle against the Mexican cartels
and illustrate the strengths of the Department's strategy. These
operations applied the classic law enforcement tools that the
Department has successfully wielded against other large and
sophisticated criminal enterprises to target the largest threats from
the cartels. Neither would have been possible without the development
and effective sharing of tactical and strategic intelligence between
and among Federal agency partners and the Government of Mexico and its
law enforcement and special military components. They reflected
multiagency, multinational efforts. Although both were led by the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department worked closely with
the Department of Homeland Security and included the active
participation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the U.S. Marshals
Service (USMS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs
and Border Protection (CBP), and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In
all, more than 200 Federal, State, local, and foreign law enforcement
agencies contributed to the success of Operation Xcellerator and
Project Reckoning. And these multiyear investigations will result in
Federal prosecutions in numerous States by various U.S. attorneys'
offices and the Criminal Division's Narcotics and Dangerous Drug
Section.
We believe that we have the right strategy for stopping the
violence spawned by the cartels. But despite recent successes, we also
recognize that we have much more work to do to implement it
effectively. The cartels remain too powerful and able to move too many
drugs into the United States. Too many guns and too much cash are
moving south across the border into Mexico, where they fuel the cycle
of violence. As a result, the Attorney General is working to allocate
additional resources to address this threat.
the dimensions of the current threat
The Mexican drug cartels pose a national security threat to Mexico
and an organized crime threat to the United States. Drug-related
violence, including kidnappings and increasingly gruesome murders, has
skyrocketed in recent years in Mexico, particularly along the border
with the United States. Drug-related murders in Mexico doubled from
2006 to 2007, and more than doubled again in 2008 to 6,200 murders.
Almost 10 percent of the murders in 2008 involved law enforcement
officers or military personnel. Mexican drug traffickers and their
enforcers are also engaging in other violent crimes, including
kidnappings and home invasion robberies--primarily in Mexico but
increasingly in U.S. communities as well. Although violence in Mexico
has existed over the years, the bloodshed has escalated in recent
months to unprecedented levels as the cartels use violence as a tool to
undermine public support for the government's vigorous counterdrug
efforts. Traffickers have made a concerted effort to send a public
message through their bloody campaign of violence by leaving the bodies
of their tortured victims out for public display to intimidate
government officials and the public alike.
A significant portion of this increase in violence actually
reflects progress by the Governments of Mexico and the United States in
disrupting the activities of the drug cartels. After President Felipe
Calderon and Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora took office in 2006,
and with support from the United States, the Government of Mexico
undertook a comprehensive program to break the power of the
narcotraffickers, making record seizures of drugs, clandestine
laboratories, and cash. Mexican law enforcement agencies have arrested
many high level drug cartel members who are then being extradited to
face prosecution in the United States in record numbers. This
unprecedented pressure from the Government of Mexico has led to the
increased violence directed at Mexican law enforcement and the Mexican
Government as a whole. As the Department and our Federal agency
partners have worked with Mexican authorities to disrupt and dismantle
successive iterations of the most powerful cartels, their successors
have escalated the fighting among themselves for control of the
lucrative smuggling corridors along the Southwest border.
The violence in Mexico has direct and serious effects in the United
States. According to the ``2009 National Drug Threat Assessment
(NDTA)'' by the Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican
drug trafficking organizations represent the ``greatest organized crime
threat to the United States,'' with cocaine being the leading drug
threat. Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking organizations generate
and launder between $18 billion and $39 billion in wholesale drug
proceeds in the United States annually, a large portion of which is
believed to be smuggled in bulk across the border back into Mexico;
this cash further fuels the drug trade and its attendant violence.
Similarly, firearms trafficking from the United States to Mexico
contributes to escalating levels of violence on both sides of the
border, as groups armed with military weapons and U.S.-based gangs
serve as enforcement arms of the Mexican drug cartels. According to
ATF's Tracing Center, 90 percent of the firearms about which ATF
receives information are traceable to the United States.
intelligence-based targeting is the foundation for a successful
response
For more than a quarter-century, the principal law enforcement
agencies in the United States have recognized that the best way to
fight the most sophisticated and powerful criminal organizations is
through intelligence-based, prosecutor-led task forces that leverage
the strength, resources, and expertise of the complete spectrum of
Federal, State, local, and international investigative and
prosecutorial agencies. It was this approach, for example, that fueled
the ground-breaking Mafia prosecutions in the United States and Italy
in the late 1980s and 1990s. The Department is applying these same
intelligence-driven tactics that broke the back of the Mob to fighting
the Mexican drug cartels.
The Department works through several programs to develop a full
range of strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence against the
Mexican cartels.
First, since 2003, the Department has worked with the drug
enforcement community to develop the Attorney General's Consolidated
Priority Organization Target (CPOT) list of international ``Most
Wanted'' drug kingpins. Of the approximately 50 worldwide cartels
currently on the list, 19 of them are Mexican enterprises. This list
helps the Department and our Federal agency partners focus critical
resources on the greatest threats.
Second, the Department leads two multiagency intelligence centers
and an operational center that provide tactical and operational support
in targeting the largest and most dangerous Mexican cartels and
focusing law enforcement resources. The El Paso Intelligence Center
(EPIC) is led by the DEA with participation of more than 20 agencies.
It provides critical, case-specific tactical intelligence. For example,
if a highway patrol officer stops a vehicle in the middle of the night,
EPIC may have information about the vehicle, driver, or passengers that
can be provided in real time. EPIC focuses specifically on the
Southwest border but tracks broader tactical data. The ATF's ``Gun
Desk'' at EPIC serves as a central repository for all intelligence
related to firearms along the Southwest border. The FBI will shortly
join the facility through a Southwest Intelligence Group (SWIG), which
will be used to coordinate information and intelligence relating to the
Southwest border and to better disrupt and dismantle the ongoing
violent criminal activity.
The Special Operations Division (SOD) is a DEA-led multiagency
operational center, but its functions go beyond the gathering and
processing of intelligence. The SOD provides strategic support and
coordination for long-term, multiagency investigations. It passes leads
that have been developed from intelligence sources to field
investigators and coordinates the resulting investigations. It targets
the command and control communications of major drug trafficking and
narcoterrorism organizations. Special emphasis is placed on those major
drug trafficking and narcoterrorism organizations that operate across
jurisdictional boundaries on a regional, national, and international
level. Operation Xcellerator was initiated as a SOD investigation. The
transnational nature of narcotics trafficking results in numerous
agencies from Federal, State and local departments involved in the
fight to stop the flow of narcotics into our communities. Working
through the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Fusion Center,
SOD serves a critical role in the deconfliction of investigative
efforts to prevent the occurrence of law enforcement from targeting one
another.
The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Fusion
Center, an intelligence center colocated with SOD, is a comprehensive
data center containing drug and related financial data from DEA, ATF,
FBI, IRS, the USMS, the U.S. Coast Guard, National Drug Intelligence
Center (NDIC), EPIC, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN),
the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs, and other key
players in the international drug enforcement world. Like the SOD, it
provides critical support for long-term and large-scale investigations.
It conducts cross-agency and cross-jurisdictional integration and
analysis of drug-related data to create comprehensive pictures of
targeted organizations. The Fusion Center passes actionable leads to
field investigative units.
focused law enforcement initiatives
The Department's efforts are focused on three underlying aspects of
the problem: Drugs, guns, and cash; and are part of an integrated and
coordinated operational response from Department law enforcement
components in coordination with one another and Federal agency
counterparts.
1. Movement of Drugs
DEA has the largest U.S. drug enforcement presence in Mexico with
11 offices in that country. DEA Mexico primarily focuses its resources
at the command and control infrastructure of the Mexican cartel leaders
with the goal of removing the top layers of cartel leadership, who are
essential to the operation of these criminal enterprises. To achieve
this goal, DEA Mexico supports and/or facilitates operations by both
the Mexican Federal Police and Military Special Forces to locate and
capture cartel leaders and their associates. Project Reckoning and
Operation Xcellerator are recent examples of this successful
partnership. DEA also sponsors the Sensitive Investigative Units (SIU),
elite vetted units of Mexican law enforcement and military which
undergo robust background investigations and polygraph examinations,
resulting in trusted counterparts throughout Mexico.
DEA also targets the cartels through its ``Drug Flow Attack
Strategy'' (DFAS), an innovative, multiagency strategy, designed to
significantly disrupt the flow of drugs, money, and chemicals between
the source zones and the United States by attacking vulnerabilities in
the supply chains, transportation systems, and financial infrastructure
of major drug trafficking organizations. DFAS calls for aggressive,
well-planned and coordinated enforcement operations in cooperation with
host-nation counterparts in global source and transit zones around the
world.
Department law enforcement components cooperate with the Department
of Homeland Security and other Federal agencies on EPIC's ``Gatekeeper
Initiative.'' A ``Gatekeeper'' is a person or group whose role is ``to
facilitate the taxation and protection of contraband loads (including
illegal aliens) and to enforce the will of the cartel through bribery,
intimidation, extortion, beatings, and murder.'' These Gatekeepers
control territory along the border and are key to cartel smuggling
operations in both directions. The Gatekeeper Initiative, combines the
statutory expertise and authorities of its multiagency members--DEA,
FBI, the U.S. Marshals, IRS, ICE, ATF, and CBP to: (1) Establish
multidistrict investigations of the Gatekeepers and their organizations
operating along the Southwest border, including the identification and
investigation of corrupt law enforcement officials on both sides of the
border; (2) identify additional activities of the Gatekeepers in other
regions and pass investigative leads to those jurisdictions; (3)
disrupt drug trafficking patterns along the Southwest border by
attacking the smuggling of major cartels; and (4) target the illegal
purchase and distribution of firearms by Gatekeepers.
Within the United States, DEA has worked with the Department of
Homeland Security to implement its ``License Plate Reader Initiative''
in the Southwest border region to gather intelligence, particularly on
movements of weapons and cash into Mexico. The system uses optical
character recognition technology to read license plates on vehicles in
the United States traveling southbound toward the border. The system
also takes photographs of drivers and records statistical information
such as the date, time, and traffic lane of the record. This
information is then compared with DEA and CBP databases to help
identify and interdict vehicles that are carrying large quantities of
cash, weapons, and other illegal contraband toward Mexico.
2. Trafficking of Guns
Given its statutory mission and authority, ATF is principally
responsible for stopping the flow of weapons from the United States
south to the cartels. Merely seizing firearms through interdiction will
not, by itself, stop firearms trafficking to Mexico. ATF, in
collaboration with other law enforcement entities, seeks to identify,
investigate, and eliminate the sources of illegally trafficked firearms
and the networks for transporting them.
Since 2006, Project Gunrunner has been ATF's comprehensive strategy
to combat firearms-related violence by the cartels along the Southwest
border. It includes special agents dedicated to investigating firearms
trafficking on a full-time basis and industry operations investigators
(IOIs) responsible for conducting regulatory inspections of Federal
Firearms Licensees (FFLs) along the Southwest border. Since 2007, ATF
has inspected approximately 95 percent of the FFLs in the region.
Congress has recently allocated an additional $15 million in
support of Project Gunrunner. These funds will allow ATF to open five
new field offices staffed with Special Agents and IOIs. With these
additional resources, ATF can identify and prioritize for inspection
those FFLs with a history of noncompliance that represents a risk to
public safety, as well as focus on primary retailers and pawnbrokers
who sell the weapons of choice for drug cartels. In addition, the funds
will be used to send additional Special Agents to consulates in Mexico.
The tracing of firearms seized in Mexico and the United States is
an essential component of the strategy to curtail firearms trafficking
along the Southwest border. When a firearm is traced, specific
identifying information--including the make, model, and serial number--
is entered in the ATF Firearms Tracing System
(e-Trace), which is the only Federal firearms tracing system. Using
this information, ATF can establish the identity of the first retail
purchaser of the firearm and then investigate how the gun came to be
used in a crime or how it came to be located in Mexico. Furthermore,
analyses of aggregate trace data can reveal trafficking trends and
networks, showing where the guns are being purchased, who is purchasing
them, and how they flow across the border. Without tracing data,
Federal officials would be forced to rely solely on interdiction
efforts to gain investigative leads, an often ineffective use of
Federal resources. As part of the Merida Initiative, discussed below,
ATF received $4.5 million to initiate a Spanish version of ATF's e-
Trace to Mexico. ATF is working with Mexican officials to increase
their current usage of the gun-tracing system, with deployment to nine
U.S. consulates in Mexico set for December of this year.
3. Bulk Currency Shipments and Money Laundering
The spike in violence in Mexico among the cartels stems from fights
over market share and profits as the Mexican and U.S. Governments have,
by working together, succeeded in applying greater pressure against
them. In addition to removing, the leadership ranks of the cartels, the
Department is waging a war to take their assets too. Again, as with any
other criminal enterprise, the Department places a high priority on
attacking and dismantling the financial infrastructure of the Mexican
drug trafficking organizations.
For example, the Department has established a ``Bulk Currency Money
Laundering Initiative,'' which investigates bulk currency movement
along transportation routes in the Southwest. Although we do not know
the exact amount of bulk cash flowing back across the U.S. border to
the Mexican DTOs, the National Drug Intelligence Center estimates that
Mexican DTOs generate approximately $17-$38 billion annually in gross
wholesale proceeds from their distribution of illicit drugs in the
United States. State and local agencies, which encounter the vast
majority of currency seizures on the highways, often lack the resources
necessary to conduct followup investigations that will lead to the
identification and prosecution of the major drug organizations that own
the smuggled cash. Again we have worked in partnership with the
Department of Homeland Security, the component agencies of which have
primary responsibility for securing the U.S. border. This Strategic
Initiative is designed to enhance all the Federal, State, and local
agencies' efforts through coordination and cooperative investigation.
Federal agencies currently participating in this initiative include
ATF, DEA, FBI, ICE, IRS, the USMS, and the U.S. attorneys' offices.
Between 2007 and 2008, $2.9 billion were forfeited under the
Department of Justice Asset forfeiture program. Under the National
Asset Forfeiture Strategic Plan, asset forfeiture is integrated into
every appropriate investigation and prosecution, recognizing that asset
forfeiture is a powerful law enforcement tool that strips criminals of
their illicit wealth.
Finally, under the Merida Initiative, discussed below, the
Department is sharing its expertise with Mexican investigators and
prosecutors to strengthen Mexico's own asset forfeiture laws and
authority.
federal prosecution along the border
The U.S. attorneys have over 540 prosecutors in the five Southwest
border districts, handling national and district-level priorities
involving narcotics trafficking, gun-smuggling, violent crimes, and
immigration offenses. Each of the Southwest border U.S. attorneys'
offices works closely with Federal, State, and local investigative
agencies on the initiatives described above. The U.S. attorneys'
offices are on the front lines of the national effort to prosecute both
large-scale criminal enterprise cases involving significant trafficking
organizations as well as other criminal offenses arising at the border
with Mexico. The U.S. attorneys also coordinate with Mexican
prosecutors to share evidence in appropriate cases to ensure that
justice is achieved either in U.S. or Mexican courts.
During the past 3 years, U.S. attorneys' offices and the
Department's Criminal Division have seen a significant increase in the
number of international fugitives returned to face justice in the
United States through international extradition. Colombia and Mexico
have extradited fugitives to the United States during this time in
unprecedented numbers. Some of those extradited were significant cartel
leaders, including major figures of the Tijuana and Gulf Cartels. For
example, Osiel Cardenas Guillen, leader of the Gulf Cartel, was
extradited in January 2007. Last December, Mexico extradited Juan Diego
Espinosa Ramirez, ``El Tigre,'' a Colombian associate of the Sinaloa
Cartel wanted by the DEA. Last month Mexico extradited Miguel Caro-
Quintero to the United States to face Federal narcotics trafficking and
racketeering charges brought by the Department; Caro-Quintero is the
former head of the now-defunct Sonora Cartel and was responsible for
trafficking thousands of metric tons of cocaine and marijuana to the
U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. (Caro-Quintero is also the younger brother
of Rafael Caro-Quintero who was the mastermind behind the kidnapping,
torture, and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique ``Kiki'' Camarena in
1985.) Just last week, the Mexican Government announced the arrest of
Vincente Zambada, a top Sinaloa Cartel leader, who has been indicted on
Federal narcotics charges in the United States.
To build on these successes, and to handle the growing number of
cases involving international extraditions and foreign evidence more
effectively, the Department is in the process of establishing an OCDETF
International Unit within the Criminal Divisions Office of
International Affairs (OIA), which will focus on mutual legal
assistance to other countries. The Unit will expand the current level
of cooperation with our foreign counterparts in the arrest,
extradition, and successful prosecution of cartel leaders and their
subordinates.
responding to the threat with additional resources
Although the elements of the Department's proven prosecutor-led,
intelligence-based strategy are in place, we have much work to do to
implement it effectively to combat the Mexican cartels. The Department
has taken the following steps to buttress our law enforcement resources
along the Southwest border.
Increased DEA presence on the border. DEA is forming four
additional Mobile Enforcement Teams (METs) to specifically
target Mexican methamphetamine trafficking operations and
associated violence, and anticipates placing 16 new positions
in its Southwest border field divisions. Twenty-nine percent
(1,171) of the DEA's domestic agent positions are now allocated
to the DEA's Southwest border field divisions.
Reallocation of 100 ATF personnel to Southwest border within
the next 45 days. ATF is redeploying 100 employees, including
72 agents, under Project Gunrunner, primarily to Houston and
south Texas based on ATF intelligence on drug trafficking
patterns. The FY 2009 budget and Recovery Act include
additional new funding for Project Gunrunner as well. In
particular, $10 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act funding is being used to hire 37 ATF employees to open,
staff, equip, and operate new Project Gunrunner criminal
enforcement teams (in McAllen, TX; El Centro, CA; and Las
Cruces, NM), and to assign two special agents to each of the
U.S. consulates in Juarez and Tijuana to provide direct support
to Mexican officials on firearms-trafficking-related issues.
ATF will also open new Gunrunner field offices in Phoenix, AZ,
and Houston, TX, under the FY 2009 budget and will add 30
additional ATF personnel in those areas.
OCDETF is adding to its Strike Force capacity along the
Southwest border. OCDETF is expanding the staffing of its joint
interagency Strike Forces along the Southwest border (in San
Diego and Houston); within the last year, OCDETF has also
established two new Strike Forces, one in Phoenix and one in El
Paso. In addition, OCDETF is adding one full-time financial
analyst contractor for each of the Strike Forces and placing an
intelligence analyst team from the National Drug Intelligence
Center with each Strike Force, following a model currently in
place with the Houston Strike Force. The Department intends to
roll out additional teams across the Southwest border.
Increased FBI focus. The FBI is enhancing its efforts to
disrupt drug activity and to dismantle gangs that may have
connections to the violent Mexican drug cartels by
participating on Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task
Forces. In addition, to address the surge in kidnappings, the
FBI is working closely with Mexican police officials on a
Bilateral Kidnapping Task Force. This task force investigates
cases along the border towns of Laredo, TX, and Nuevo Laredo,
Mexico. Aside from operational task forces, each of our border
offices has Border Liaison Officers who travel to Mexico on a
weekly basis to liaison and coordinate with law enforcement
partners. These tools provide local law enforcement on both
sides of the border with a rapid response force to immediately
pursue, locate, and apprehend violent crime fugitives who
commit their crimes and flee across the international border to
elude capture.
Increased funding to combat criminal narcotics activity
stemming from the southern border. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act includes $30 million, to be administered by
the Department's Office of Justice Programs, to assist with
State and local law enforcement to combat narcotics activity
along the southern border and in High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Areas, including the $10 million that is required
by statute to be allocated to Project Gunrunner.
Public relations campaign. ATF is doing a public education
campaign in Houston and San Antonio, TX, this summer on illegal
straw purchasing. This will include press conferences, radio,
TV, billboards, and seminars with people who have Federal
licenses to sell firearms.
the merida initiative
Let me conclude with a brief mention of the Merida Initiative. The
Department strongly supports the Merida Initiative, which provides an
unprecedented opportunity for a highly coordinated, effective bilateral
response to criminal activity on our Southwest border. The Department
has been and continues to be actively involved in the Merida Initiative
planning and implementation both on an interagency and bilateral basis.
One of the first Merida Initiative programs in Mexico is a ministerial-
level Strategy Session on Arms Trafficking, funded by the Government of
Mexico and the U.S. State Department, and developed and designed by the
Department in conjunction with DHS and the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City,
to be held in Mexico on April 1 and 2. Attorney General Holder and
Secretary Napolitano are scheduled to attend, joining their Mexican
counterparts for the second day of the conference.
The Department's Criminal Division and law enforcement agencies
already are working with our Mexican counterparts to enhance and
strengthen Mexico's operational capacities to effectively combat
narcotrafficking, firearms trafficking, and other organized criminal
enterprises, including trafficking in persons. The Merida Initiative
provides increased support for our joint efforts with Mexico in these
and other areas of mutual concern. These efforts have focused on the
development of intelligence-based targeting and prosecutor-led
multiagency task forces, collection of evidence, and extradition. The
Department has been and continues to be an active participant and
partner in the Merida Initiative interagency planning and
implementation both in Washington, DC, and as an integral member of the
country team at Embassy Mexico City.
conclusion
Thank you for your interest in the Department's efforts to combat
the alarming rise of violence in Mexico along the Southwest border, as
well as our views about the most effective ways to address the current
threat. In order to attack the full spectrum of the drug cartels'
operations--drug trafficking, kidnapping, bribery, extortion, money
laundering and smuggling of profits, and trafficking and use of
dangerous weapons--we must employ the full spectrum of our law
enforcement agencies' resources, expertise, and statutory authorities.
By continuing to work together, building on what we have done well so
far and developing new ideas to refresh our strategies, we can rise to
the current challenge. Again, thank you for your recognition of this
important issue and the opportunity to testify here today. We will be
happy to answer any questions you may have.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Arabit. We, indeed,
will have a lot of questions of all of you. We want to get
right at it.
Mr. Esparza, as the district attorney--and you have been
there now 16 years?
Mr. Esparza. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. This is a problem that has been ongoing. How
would you describe it today relative to where it was 5 years
ago, 10 years ago, and when you began?
Mr. Esparza. Well, it is night and day. It has never been
like this before. I think the reality of the drug trade is that
there is violence, and we have seen that in the past and we
have seen that not just in Mexico but also in the United
States. But what has happened recently is extraordinary. The
number of deaths and murders in Juarez is extremely high.
The Chairman. And what is it that has suddenly prompted
this in your judgment? Is this just intercartel, intracartel
warfare, or is it more than that?
Mr. Esparza. Well, I do think that it probably started as
the result of the efforts of President Calderon to push the
cartels, but now we see violence within the cartels and cartel
to cartel, and now we see cartel versus the government. And
that whole triangle is a result of the increase in violence.
I am very happy to tell you, as I told you in my opening
statement, that the violence has not spilled over, but I do not
see--at least at the moment, we see a decrease. But I have to
wonder, as a State official on this side, how long will it
last. We are in the early phases of this. It is good news that
the violence has decreased, but will it stay at this level?
The Chairman. Well, let me ask you and any of the witnesses
on this panel. Is this increase in violence the result of the
trade becoming so much more lucrative because the demand is so
much higher and therefore they are willing to go all out, or is
it because it has diminished and they are fighting for a
smaller pot? What is the reason that all of a sudden the
cartels are going at each other with such ferocity?
Mr. Arabit. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman.
DEA believes that the reason that the cartels are fighting
the way that they are is that they are vying lucrative
corridors. The Mexican Government has done a phenomenal job of
shutting down some of the corridors on the Mexican side and
putting pressure on the cartels. Therefore, the existing
corridors are what is being contested.
All the while, we still have the intracartel violence, and
the intracartel violence is being caused by some of the upper
echelon members of these organizations getting arrested and
extradited.
Aside from that, we have got the pressure on the U.S. side.
U.S. law enforcement is doing a very, very good job of
containing these drug cartels and affecting their trade on the
U.S. side.
So when you have all these forces simultaneously occurring,
it makes for a very volatile situation.
The Chairman. To what degree--when you pointed out, I
think, some 6,000--we went from 2,400 to 6,200-plus murders
last year. Is that correct?
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. That is correct.
The Chairman. What percentage of those were innocent
civilians caught in either a cross-fire and/or targeted?
Mr. Arabit. Sir, I do not have that number. I think it is
safe to say that it is a very small percentage.
The Chairman. So most of the people who were victims were
themselves involved in the trafficking. Is that what you are
saying?
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. That is correct. Many of these
killings are targeted killings. They are very well planned out,
very well executed killings.
The Chairman. If they are fighting that hard over the
corridors and they are fighting that hard in Juarez, it seems
to suggest that more is getting through and this is more
worthwhile to them and worth fighting for.
Mr. Arabit. Well, what is worthwhile to them, sir, is the
actual corridors. They want the corridor. That is exactly what
they are fighting for.
The Chairman. I understand that, but what I am saying is it
seems to suggest that that is mighty worth the fight.
Therefore, they know that that is valuable because a high level
of drugs are coming through.
Mr. Arabit. That could be one way of looking at it, sir.
The Chairman. The other way is to suggest that less is
getting through and therefore it is worth fighting for? I mean,
what is the----
Mr. Arabit. Well, sir, I can tell you that we are in a 24-
month sustained period of higher prices and lower purity on
cocaine, and so that is encouraging. That means that there is a
limited amount of cocaine actually hitting the streets of the
United States.
The other point I would like to make is that 90 percent of
the cocaine that comes out of Colombia to the United States in
the past has passed through Mexico. Within the last year, 47
percent of that 90 percent is actually stopping in Central
America, and what that indicates to me and to DEA is that the
Calderon administration is truly having an impact.
The Chairman. From the law enforcement perspective, after a
while, if your intel is good enough and your groundwork is good
enough, you get a pretty good bead on who the bad guys are. And
mounting the proper kind of law enforcement effort--we have the
tools today to really go after them. Does this absence of a
targeted prosecution effort and capture effort by the
government indi-
cate that there is a gap in their intelligence or simply
difficulties and/or inability to go after them after this
period of time? As you said, you have been at it for 2 decades.
I think you said that, Mr. McMahon.
Mr. McMahon. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. So I mean, after 2 decades, you ought to have
a pretty good bead on who they are.
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. I believe it is safe to say we have a
good bead on who they are.
The Chairman. So what is the restraint on appropriately
being able to go after them and make life pretty miserable?
Mr. Arabit. Mr. Chairman, I believe that in collaboration
with the Mexican Government, we are, in fact, going after them.
DEA currently has 100 employees in Mexico, 62 of whom are
special agents. We have 11 offices in Mexico. We work hand in
hand day by day, oftentimes hour by hour, with the Mexican
Government in order to go after these major drug trafficking
organizations.
Mr. Esparza. I would add that the infrastructure--I do not
hear this very often in the public discussion, but the
infrastructure along the southern border--and I know that
Congressman Reyes is very aware of this--is very well developed
over the years. I mean, we have a high-intensity drug
trafficking area which is all the southern border of the
country, and there are five parts to it. You sit in the west-
Texas high-intensity drug trafficking area. It was one of the
first HIDTAs that was funded by the Federal Government quite a
few years ago. And that infrastructure allows for Federal,
local, and State officials to work together.
In order to continue to protect us, I think you have to be
smart about how you use your resources, and that HIDTA effort,
which not only gathers operational intelligence, also works so
that the agencies work together as they protect us along the
southern border.
HIDTA is not usually a term that I hear very often in the
national discussion, but the Federal Government has invested
lots of money in order to ensure that Federal, local, and State
agencies work together to protect us. As DEA was saying, I
mean, we are working hard to protect us on this side and chase
them at the same time, and that infrastructure is here.
The Chairman. Well, our Latin American partners in these
efforts sometimes ask us why we are able to show them charts
about how these guys operate right under their noses, but we
are not able to show them charts about how they are operating
here in our country under our noses. What is the deal?
Mr. Arabit. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question.
What I would say to that, sir, is the two most recent
examples of how we are able to demonstrate how these vast
networks operate in the United States are Project Reckoning--
along with our Mexican counterparts, the DEA and the
interagency made over 600 arrests. That was back in September.
And then more recently under Operation Xcellerator, there were
about 700 arrests and millions upon millions of dollars seized.
Most of the people that were arrested in both of those
operations were the domestic networks of the Mexican drug
trafficking organizations.
Now, there were some folks arrested in Mexico as well as a
result of the extensive collaboration with the Mexican
Government, but we are able to demonstrate how the Mexican
cartels are operating in Mexico and then how their distribution
networks are operating in the United States. Again, I would
submit that Operation Xcellerator and Project Reckoning were
two perfect examples of how we were able to disrupt and
dismantle Mexican drug trafficking organizations on both sides
of the border.
The Chairman. I am going to turn to Senator Barrasso, but
what is your greatest frustration now? You are a law
enforcement officer. You are struggling to make this work. What
do you say when you wake up in the morning? God, I wish we
could do this or I wish we had more of this or this is
frustrating me because we actually get in our own way. What are
the things we have to do to make this work more effectively so
citizens on both sides of the border can feel more confident
that we are on top of it?
Mr. Arabit. Sir, I think the first thing we have to do is
that we have to manage our expectations with respect to Mexico.
Mexico right now is in a national security crisis, and they are
in the process of trying to take that crisis and transform it,
if you will, into a traditional law enforcement situation where
law enforcement can deal with it. So I think that we have to be
patient with the Mexican Government. I think that we have to
stand by them as they make this transformation.
With respect to what we can use more of, obviously, vetted
units and better trained Mexican police would be something that
would certainly enhance how we do our jobs. And I know that the
Merida Initiative addresses those particular points.
The Chairman. I will come back to that. I want to follow up
on that in a minute.
Mr. Esparza.
Mr. Esparza. I do not get that question asked very often,
and I am very glad that you asked me that.
I can tell you that on this side of the border, obviously,
as a State official, my jurisdiction ends at the river. But one
of the busiest Federal courthouses in the country is in this
city. You have four Federal judges, but it has three additional
judges just recently. Forever, you had one Federal judge here
handling the volume of work, and we have a judge now taking
senior status. So hopefully, that position will be filled soon.
I can tell you that we have a very good partnership between
the Federal prosecutors and my office. The problem is that that
responsibility on the border is a Federal responsibility, and
we are glad to be partners in that effort. We gladly take cases
that the Federal prosecutors are unable to handle due to volume
or because the threshold level is low, and thus we take those
cases.
Congressman Reyes has been extremely helpful and Senator
Hutchison was extremely helpful in gaining money so that we
could keep that partnership, that relationship going. I think
that needs to be relooked at because the amount of money--the
fund, I believe, is at $30 million, which frankly is, I think,
a drop in the bucket. But that allows Federal prosecutors to
send State prosecutor cases that are lower, not as serious, and
allow the Federal prosecutors to handle really the more complex
cases. And I am hoping that you take a look at that initiative,
which allows us to keep that partnership going because the
Federal prosecutors ought to be handling those complex cases.
The Chairman. Well, I can promise you we will do that, and
it is important. But certainly, part of my reaction to that is,
that is shutting the door after the horses are out. It is good
to prosecute and I think it is very important for the system. I
believe this as a former prosecutor and lawyer. You have got to
have deterrence and that comes by enforcing the law. And people
have to know there is a consequence. So it is very important.
But we need to do a better job on the upfront, earlier law
enforcement pieces of this with both the interdiction and the
prevention of it flowing and reduction in the cartels' ability
to traffic. And we need to talk about that a little more.
Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Following to the district attorney, 16 years you said. You
have obviously done a great job keeping this community and El
Paso safe. You know district attorneys around the State from
your friendship over the years. You go to meetings around the
State and around the country. What about spillover violence in
other communities that are not right on the border? If you talk
to your colleagues from other communities, what are they seeing
related to this, as you hear about this cartel and this network
and this pipeline that is now spreading out all across the
Nation?
Mr. Esparza. Senator, I am the former president of the
statewide Association of Prosecutors, and I know my border
colleagues from Brownsville to El Paso very well. I recently
was in Austin with them and others. We are not seeing the
violence increase that, frankly, I hear on the national TV.
What I reported to you on El Paso I believe the prosecutor in
Laredo would say the same thing and in Brownsville would say
the same thing. And when you look further up in Austin,
Houston, and Dallas, I do not hear their numbers increasing at
a rate that you would say is comparable to what is happening in
Mexico in Juarez.
Senator Barrasso. I do not think you are going to see
anything comparable to what is happening in Mexico. I just
wondered, are they seeing their numbers up, though, as you look
at----
Mr. Esparza. They are not seeing their numbers up, which is
only several weeks ago when we met as a group and this topic
came up. Their numbers are not going up.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. McMahon, you talked about the Project
Gunrunner and the 12,000 firearms. You also talked about trace
data. Is Mexico sharing with you the information that you need
on trace data to help give you additional information? Are you
getting everything you need there?
Mr. McMahon. Well, that is something we are definitely
working on. We know we are not getting access to all of the
firearms that are recovered down there, and we know it is
important. Gunrunner is an intelligence-driven investigative
tool. Tracing is a big part of that. We had a big seizure in
Reynosa recently where we had access within a couple of days,
and we were able to put leads together of guns that were within
a month being purchased in the United States and then being
recovered in Reynosa. So the quicker we have access to the
recoveries in Mexico, the quicker we can put investigations
together here in the United States.
Senator Barrasso. What suggestions would you have in terms
of the border heading south with the guns? Obviously, people
trying to traffic these are sophisticated. You come up with a
technique to detect, and then they can come up with a technique
to try to circumvent, whether it is an extra gas tank under the
truck which is loaded with 40 or 50 firearms. What
recommendations do you have for us when we try to look at ways
to police the border heading south?
Mr. McMahon. Obviously, more southbound inspections will
help a great deal. What we are seeing is you do not see large
shipments of firearms being secreted in a tractor-trailer, let
us say. You are seeing what we call in-trafficking where you
might have one or two individuals with one or two firearms on
them sneaking across the border that way. But I think
southbound inspections would help a great deal.
Senator Barrasso. It seems, at least from what I have been
able to see, that the movement of the drugs and individuals is
coming up not through the border checks but cross-country,
whereas the movement of money and drugs heading south is going
right across through the regular highways. Is that your
impression?
Mr. McMahon. That is what we are seeing. That is exactly
what we are seeing.
Senator Barrasso. So if they did more to slow things down
at the border crossings, that may just move that problem more
to the open fields, but it is a smaller number of weapons and
bundled cash that would move.
Mr. McMahon. Yes, it could. I know ATF's focus is more--we
try to make our case before they even get to the border, but we
have been pretty successful. But yes, I think the tighter you
put on the roads, yes, it could spread out to other parts
because, obviously, it is a large border.
Senator Barrasso. From the DEA standpoint, you talked about
the violence within a cartel, as you said, as arrests are being
made. So has it been a struggle or a fight within the cartel
for leadership of that cartel and for the profits? That is No.
1?
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. That is correct.
Senator Barrasso. And then cartel versus cartel, looking to
control some of the pathways, if you will, or the ways that
people who move the drugs into this country, so you have fights
there. And then the cartels versus the country of Mexico.
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. That is correct.
Senator Barrasso. How large are the troops? I mean, I heard
numbers yesterday going as high as cartels having 50,000 armed
soldiers working for the cartel. Is that a real number? Is
there some kind of a number that you would put on it? How big
is the army, if you will, of the cartel that is fighting the
Mexican Army--the major cartels?
Mr. Arabit. The numbers are in the thousands, sir. It would
be very, very difficult to say whether it is 10,000, 20,000, or
30,000, but I think it is safe to say the numbers are in the
thousands.
Senator Barrasso. And they are well-armed with things that
you do not necessarily just find. I mean, we hear these numbers
of the number of guns coming from the United States into
Mexico, but from what I have been reading of some of the things
they are armed with, those are things you get from an
international arms dealer maybe coming from Korea, coming from
Israel, Russia, wherever that are not things that are
necessarily going across from the United States. Are you seeing
some of that in the interactions in the cartel versus the
country of Mexico military violence?
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. We are seeing that they are using
military-grade weapons.
Senator Barrasso. And then that is made possible by the
money heading south?
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. We believe so.
Senator Barrasso. The Governor of Texas has asked for 1,000
troops to be sent in terms of the National Guard. Is that the
right number or is it the wrong number? How do you determine
what kind of additional help you need to be able to continue
with the success that you have been able to generate over the
last 2 years?
Because it seems that you need to actually interrupt the
drug trafficking organization. If you cannot take down the
network, if they are not moving drugs which, as you said, are
now less pure and higher money, which shows that you are
interrupting that flow, are those same kind of bad guys not
heading into the kidnapping, holding people for ransom,
extortion of businesses in Mexico, holding up those folks
because they are going to go to try to get money illegally. If
they cannot do it in drugs, they are going to try for something
else.
Mr. Arabit. Well, many of these armed gangs--they are very
opportunistic. If they see an opportunity to kidnap someone,
rob someone, they will do that. That is a small percentage of
the havoc that they wreak in Mexico, but they do that because
they are very opportunistic.
Senator Barrasso. And then what about the total number of
additional--the manpower that the Governor has asked about?
Mr. Arabit. Sir, I do not know that we are there yet at
this point. I can tell you that in El Paso the numbers are very
telling. There has been approximately 413 murders in Juarez for
this year, and there have been 2 in El Paso. And so I think it
is safe to say that right now the violence has not spilled
over.
Senator Barrasso. Do either of you want to comment on any
of those?
Mr. Esparza. I actually agree. I do not believe we have
reached the point where the National Guard is necessary.
I frankly think that the smart approach is that we have a
coordinated response like we have had over the years. We have
been fighting this drug battle for many years. HIDTA is a well-
developed, coordinated system so that we can attack the drugs
and interdict the drugs coming into the country. And I would
make sure, with the use of EPIC, the intelligence that we get
from EPIC, and the operational intelligence that we gather from
HIDTA, and the coordinated efforts of the Federal, local, and
State agencies, I think that effort has had a real effect in
keeping the violence from spilling over. And I would continue
to fund that effort before we got to the extreme measure of
bringing the military to the border.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. McMahon, anything else to add on
that?
Mr. McMahon. No, sir.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. Chairman, I would just ask unanimous
consent that statements both from Senator Cornyn, as well as
from Sheriff West, be included in the record.
The Chairman. Absolutely. Without objection, they will be.
[Editor's note.--The statements for the record of Senator
Cornyn and Sheriff West were never submitted to the committee
and therefore could not be included in this printed hearing.]
The Chairman. Senator Wicker.
Senator Wicker. Thank you and thanks to all three of you.
First to Mr. Esparza, you have been district attorney for
how long?
Mr. Esparza. I am in my 17th year.
Senator Wicker. Great. OK.
And I think your testimony, if I could summarize, is that
there has always been drug-related violence across the border
in Mexico.
Mr. Esparza. I believe that to be true, yes, Senator.
Senator Wicker. And that you have never seen it as bad as
you did in 2008.
Mr. Esparza. That is true.
Senator Wicker. But that it has gotten a little better
recently. Is that also your testimony?
Mr. Esparza. That is true.
Senator Wicker. Could you sort of explain what you mean
there? When did you notice that it was better?
Mr. Esparza. Well, just within the month. When the troops
came in, when President Calderon sent the troops to Juarez, and
the number of troops that came--I am certainly not privy to the
effort that they have ongoing in Juarez, but I can tell you,
just if you look at the numbers, the number of killings has
dropped dramatically. And so as a result, we now see some
progress in trying to reduce the violence in Juarez.
Senator Wicker. So the article that I quoted from, ``Hopes
Rise as Violence Recedes''--the quote from Mr. Raul Martinez
Soto is relatively accurate in your opinion.
Mr. Esparza. I think it is accurate. I think the caption is
more accurate. I think hopes do rise, but I think the long-term
effect of the decrease in violence is a story still to be told.
Senator Wicker. Right, and that is where we hope to help.
And then also, with regard to spillover violence, we have
not seen it in El Paso, and from your conversations and the
statistics that you have seen from your colleagues in Texas,
there has not been one bit of increase of spillover violence
anywhere in Texas.
Mr. Esparza. I can tell you that along the southern border,
Brownsville to El Paso, we have not seen the spillover
violence. And that was a really good question. I do not, from
my colleagues around the State, see any indication that the
violence has increased as a result of the violence between the
cartels.
Senator Wicker. And your principal request of us, from the
Congress, at this point is that there is a partnership program
which Senator Hutchison and Mr. Reyes have helped fund, and you
believe some additional funds for that partnership program
would be your No. 1 request of this panel today.
Mr. Esparza. Actually, I have two requests. I think that
the coordinated effort that happens through HIDTAs--there are
many HIDTAs throughout the country. There is one in Houston.
There is the Southwest border HIDTA which El Paso belongs to.
The effort along the southern border--that effort I think is a
well-coordinated effort. It has history. It has discipline.
There are protocols on how we spend money, making sure it is
budgeted and people are accountable for what they do. And I
think that program should be looked at as one way to continue
the fight and to protect us.
And I also think there should be--my other request is the
initiative that allows Federal prosecutors really to work on
those crimes that require long-term investigations. As State
prosecutors, we do not really have the tools available to us to
do that. And I think a better partnership would allow them to
do more in that area.
Senator Wicker. What do you say to people who are looking
to visit Ciudad Juarez? What do you say to potential tourists?
Mr. Esparza. Unfortunately, today I would say you need to
be careful. We see our tourist dollars here in El Paso dropping
as a result of the violence. I also think the rhetoric has been
escalated and exaggerated to the point that it is not really
true. I mean, I can tell you, as you sit here, you are safe. If
you go to visit Juarez this afternoon, I think you should be
careful. Violence has occurred. I think you have to be smart
about where you go and what you choose to do. But we are safe
here in El Paso. It is a safe city, and we are hoping Juarez
will get back to that.
Senator Wicker. And you are not asking that the U.S.
Congress act to bring the National Guard into this area of
Texas.
Mr. Esparza. I do not think that bringing the military to
the border is actually the solution at this time. Maybe if
things were to break down and we see a radical change, I would
tell you differently, but based on our history, based on our
numbers, knowing the violence that occurs on this side versus
in Juarez, I think bringing the military one, would be unsafe.
What a soldier does is different than what a police officer
does or a Federal agent does, and I think bringing that
combination to the border I think would actually make things
more dangerous at this time.
Senator Wicker. It would make it more dangerous.
And I have not heard you advocate additional gun control
laws in the United States. Do you have an opinion about that?
Mr. Esparza. Well, I think that the inspections of vehicles
going south into Mexico--that is an effort that I think we
should proceed on. We need to actually expand that effort and
make sure that we do our part because we see not only weapons
going south, we also see money going south. And checkpoints--if
we were to stop the traffic going south, if we were to examine
that, I think that would help Mexico's effort in their fight
against the drug cartels.
Senator Wicker. OK, inspections at the border. But I do not
hear you advocating additional gun control laws on U.S.
citizens inside the United States.
Mr. Esparza. You do not.
Senator Wicker. The other two witnesses can jump in if they
would like, but let me ask Mr. Arabit and Mr. McMahon. The
chairman has mentioned this treaty and the ranking member in
his prepared statement, which was not read in its entirety,
also shares that opinion. Mr. Lugar says we should consider
ratifying during this Congress the Inter-American Convention
Against Illegal Manufacturing and Trafficking of Firearms,
Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Material, which is a
mighty long name for a treaty. They are calling it the CIFTA
Treaty.
The chairman and the ranking member have considered this
for years. People will tell you that the NRA was at the table
when this treaty was negotiated and signed by the United
States. That is, the officials of the National Rifle
Association. And yet, for whatever reason, we have not ratified
this.
You may not be here able to advocate. I do not mind if you
do. But we are a signatory to this treaty already. Would there
be any practical effect for how you two gentlemen do your job
if we went ahead and ratified this treaty, or are we already
abiding by the terms as a signatory? Either one of you can jump
in there.
Mr. McMahon. Well, ATF has worked very closely with the
State Department on this treaty. We are already in compliance
with it. We mark our firearms and that helps us trace firearms.
Obviously, if other countries were to mark their firearms the
same way, it would help us to trace them even better.
Senator Wicker. But what you do would not change in any
respect.
Mr. McMahon. No, it would not, sir.
Senator Wicker. Mr. Arabit, is that correct?
Mr. Arabit. Sir, I do not know much about the treaty, so I
just would not be qualified to answer that.
Senator Wicker. OK. Mr. Arabit, let me ask you what you are
qualified to tell me then. You say there is less illicit drug
volume overall in the United States today. Is that correct?
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. What I said, sir, is that the price
of cocaine is up and the purity is down, and that is----
Senator Wicker. When the price is up, it is harder for
Americans to buy it and fewer purchase it. Is that correct?
Mr. Arabit. That is correct, sir.
Senator Wicker. And what is the effect of the purity being
down?
Mr. Arabit. What the purity being down signals is just the
cocaine's availability on the streets of the United States, and
to some degree in Mexico. For example, a couple weeks ago,
there was a search warrant executed in Ciudad Juarez where the
police found--I do not want to call it a laboratory, but they
found a room where cocaine was being repackaged. It was being
diluted with some vitamins in order to repackage it and resell
it. And that is an indicator of the availability being down,
and I think it is real important to note that, along with the
price increase and the purity reduction.
Senator Wicker. That is in Juarez itself.
But the reason I am asking about availability inside the
United States, as a whole is there this sort of feeling among
many Americans that, OK, we may stop it in Colombia or we may
stop it from Mexico, but it is going to come in from somewhere,
and so we just should throw our arms up in resignation. But
what I am hearing you say is that from all sources inside the
United States, drug volume is down. Therefore, the price is up.
Therefore, it is harder to get, and the quality is not as good.
Therefore, it is not as desirable for Americans who might want
to experiment with this to do so. Is that your testimony?
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. That is accurate.
Senator Wicker. And so we must be doing something right in
our overall international drug control policy, and to that
extent, the Federal officials such as you and Mr. McMahon
should be commended for that.
Is it fair to say that there are fewer drug users in the
United States today than in recent years?
Mr. Arabit. I believe in certain categories, sir, in
certain drugs, that would be accurate. But I do not have that
specific data in front of me now, but I could certainly provide
that for the record.
Senator Wicker. OK, please do that.
And then finally, any of the three of you, why have there
been no massive refugee flows, and because there have not been,
can we feel relatively confident that there is unlikely to be
huge refugee flows because of the drug violence situation
across the border?
Mr. Esparza. I do not really know the answer to that, but I
am glad you asked the question because, as I monitor what the
national news is saying--and we recently had a visit from an
expert who said that the Mexican Government was a failed
government and that soon there would be mass emigration. We
have not seen that. Now, that probably has to do a lot with the
economics and the stability of Mexico, and it may have
something to do with what we do in protecting the southern
border. But the reality is that--I am certainly not the person
smart enough to tell you that answer other than we are not
seeing it.
Senator Wicker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator.
Let me follow up a little bit on a couple of those tracks,
if I can, because I think it is important to try to clarify the
record a little bit.
Mr. Arabit, I trust you are qualified as DEA Chief down
here to have a sense of the trend patterns. But it is my
understanding, having followed this, as I said, since the 1970s
when I started a task force and used to prosecute it, that we
have seen fluctuations in price. Sometimes it is up; sometimes
it is down. But as a general rule, over the last 35 years, we
have seen a continued flow of demand and a continued flow of
narcotics coming into the country. Is that accurate?
Mr. Arabit. That is accurate, yes, sir.
The Chairman. And the price may be down a little bit right
now because there is a small interruption, et cetera, but they
have usually found a way to meet the demand at some point.
Mr. Arabit. That is accurate, yes, sir.
The Chairman. Furthermore, the supply of heroin is at an
all-time high on the streets of the United States, and it is
very cheap. Is it not?
Mr. Arabit. That is correct, sir.
The Chairman. Methamphetamine usage among our young people
is at record-high levels, and meth labs across many parts of
our country are still being uncovered, discovered, and
prosecuted.
Mr. Arabit. Meth use is high, sir. Meth labs are being
discovered, but there is a lot less meth labs being discovered
today than there were, say, 2 years ago.
The Chairman. Agreed. And that is partly because other
drugs have been available and people are moving into various
usages, including marijuana. I mean, there are various things
available.
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. I think the DEA would say at a national level
that drug use as a whole in the United States has not abated in
any kind of significant manner. In fact, it is up because the
population is higher.
Mr. Arabit. That is correct, sir.
The Chairman. So here we are at 30 years later, 35 years
later after we are all sort of struggling with this issue--and
I am asking this--again, I have always been troubled that we
have had the rhetoric of the war on drugs and we have not
really had the resources and commitment to a, ``comprehensive,
legitimate war on drugs.''
I mean, just last year I tried to add an additional 1,000
border agents here. For various reasons, that particular
legislation was blocked. But I think most of us know we do not
have enough people on the border. Is that not accurate? Do you
want to speak to that, both of you?
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir. That is accurate.
Mr. McMahon. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. So we have got a problem, but we are not
addressing it fully. We are doing it sort of piecemeal, a
little bit here, a little bit there. But if this is a war and
if it has all the implications that we say it does, it seems to
me we have never stepped up, either party, either
administration, no matter who it is. This is not partisan. We
just, as a country, never made a full commitment.
Do you want to speak to that? I mean, you must have some
resource frustrations in your jobs.
Mr. McMahon. Sir, for ATF, I know for 10 years, we have
been the same size as we are now. Over the past 3 years, we
have doubled our agent population and tripled our investigator
population along the border out of our own budget. It is a
flat-line budget.
The Chairman. So what has suffered to do that?
Mr. McMahon. Well, obviously, we are pulling resources from
other parts of the country that, obviously, are in need of them
as well.
This year is the first time that we have actually gotten
some direct funding for our Gunrunner initiative. We received
$10 million in the stimulus money to open up three new offices
along the border, plus four new positions in Mexico, and then
we also received another $5 million in our 2009 budget for two
additional groups, one in Phoenix and one in Houston, to focus
on gunrunning.
The Chairman. Mr. Arabit.
Mr. Arabit. Sir, with respect to DEA's situation, in the
2009 budget, we received four mobile enforcement teams
comprised of eight agents per team. We are going to place those
teams in El Paso, in Phoenix, in Chicago, and in Atlanta;
Chicago and Atlanta because they have such a connection to drug
trafficking organizations in Mexico.
We also have an additional 16 positions that are under
consideration right now in terms of where they are going to be
placed along the Southwest border, but they will be placed
along the Southwest border.
So we are getting a plus-up on resources. We will be
looking to do the same thing in 2010 with your support.
The Chairman. Well, if I were in the business of trying to
move that stuff from another country, I would sort of be
laughing at our efforts, to some degree, because they have got
to know that they can find the weapons, they can terrorize
people. They are moving with a relative level of impunity, and
it is worth the price. Some of the lower levels get caught, you
know, the mules, the folks that they hire to do the border
crossing and so forth. They do not care about them. And then
they find five other ways to bring the load in. Is that not the
way it works?
Mr. Arabit. Yes, sir, to some degree, it does work that
way.
The Chairman. So in your judgment, Mr. District Attorney
and Mr. Arabit, what would make you feel like, wow, we are
really going at this?
Now, it seems to me we have got to do more on the Mexican
side, and not just Mexico, Central America, Colombia. Plan
Colombia is doing pretty well. President Uribe has also been
very courageous, and Colombia has taken them head on and I
think we have made a little progress there. But we still have a
distance to go.
Do we need to do more intertraining? Do we need to do more
joint operations? Do we need to do better intelligence-sharing?
It seems to me there is a lot of buildup here yet to be done.
Mr. Esparza. Well, Senator, I do think you are right that
the effort requires many more resources and it takes a
coordinated effort. I also think that when you send Federal
agents down to the southern border, you need to send the full
complement, which means an agent comes with whatever staff it
requires for them to completely do their job and not just
Federal agents.
I also think that if we are--as you say, the challenge and
the struggle has been ongoing for many years and as a result,
we have to continue the education and we have to be smart about
whether or not we are going to spend money in the drug
treatment area, an area that I think is lacking when the
Federal Government decides to spend money on the drug war.
I mean, for instance, you have a real success in those drug
courts. We have a drug court here in El Paso in the State
court. Those drug courts are an excellent program. The Federal
Government has done--I can tell you the one in El Paso has been
well trained, and their success is documented. And somebody
watches exactly what that judge does and what that team does in
order to make sure we have some success in the drug treatment
area. And I think we are going to have to spend more in that
area.
The Chairman. I appreciate that.
Congressman, you wanted to just make a comment?
Mr. Reyes. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Again, thank you for bringing
this hearing here because you get an opportunity to hear from
the experts here, and I think you know that before coming to
Congress, I spent 26\1/2\ years on border enforcement in the
Border Patrol.
The comment I wanted to make was it is important to
separate facts from fiction. Over the course of my tenure as
the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, we have
investigated a number of reports that have been debunked, that
there were al-Qaeda training camps in the northern part of
Mexico. That was debunked. That there were military groups that
were actively smuggling north into our country. That was also
debunked.
I think when we hear figures like the drug cartels have
armies of 50,000, that to me is an incredible statement to make
and one that I think will be easily refuted.
When we talk about Mexico being potentially a failed state,
that has huge implications not just as a trade partner, but for
the rest of the world as well.
When we are talking about the interdictions and the price
of narcotics on the street, there are a couple of things that
we have to remember. One, President Uribe from Colombia has
done a great job in taking on the FARC and putting pressure
there, and second, President Calderon with his efforts against
the cartels.
The Governor of Texas asked for 1,000 troops. We met with
him in Washington, DC, and I asked him, What are you going to
do with those thousand troops? He did not know. He just wanted
to have a request out there for 1,000 troops. First of all,
troops are very expensive. Second, they bring along
consequences because they are trained for combat, not for law-
enforcement-type duty. And we should not put them in that
position.
Finally, when we hear the experts here, which they have
been asked repeatedly about not only troops on the border, but
what is the ultimate solution, we need to remember that to be
successful, not only do we need to focus on resources, which we
have not--and you are right--anybody that is in that business
looking at us with the capability to spend almost $700 billion
in Iraq and Afghanistan and helping Mexico with $1.4 billion--
that sends a very bad message about our seriousness to help our
second market and third trade partner.
So the solution is to look at it as a three-legged stool.
Do enforcement, which we all agree we need to focus on.
Education and treatment. And that is why you bringing this
hearing here to El Paso is so valuable. So thank you once
again.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Congressman.
We are going to wrap up this panel and move to the next
panel in a minute. But I am going to come back to a couple more
questions from colleagues and just finish up one thing.
What kind of guns are you tracking and finding that have
been illegally taken over to Mexico?
Mr. McMahon. Sure, Senator. The weapons of choice that we
are finding for the drug traffickers are your high-caliber,
high-capacity rifles, semiautomatic rifles, as well as your
high-caliber, high-capacity handguns, your AK-47 variants, your
AR-15 variant rifle.
The Chairman. Those are what we call assault weapons. Are
they not military weapons basically?
Mr. McMahon. They are semiautomatic rifles that resemble
the AK-47 and the M-16, yes, as well as your high-capacity
handguns, the 5.7 millimeter, the .40 caliber to .45 caliber.
The Chairman. And they are being sold by--are they sold
under the table or by dealers?
Mr. McMahon. We are seeing a variety. Obviously, we have
almost 60,000 Federal firearms licensees across the country.
The majority of the guns that were being trafficked into Mexico
are by straw purchasers, individuals with a clean record that
will walk into a----
The Chairman. You are not seeing bulk? You do not see bulk
transfers?
Mr. McMahon. No. Our investigations reveal, as I said in my
testimony, that over a period of time, an individual will maybe
buy 50, 60, maybe up to 100 firearms, get them across the
border.
The Chairman. One individual.
Mr. McMahon. One individual.
Obviously, if we uncover a corrupt dealer which, as I said,
in Phoenix--they have access to a large number of firearms, and
they can put a lot of guns on the street in a very short time.
But we are seeing, as I said, straw purchasers come in buying
two or three guns at a time, maybe three or four of those, and
then trafficking them that way.
The Chairman. Senator Wicker.
Senator Wicker. Well, I am just not sure, Mr. Chairman, if
Mr. Arabit and Mr. McMahon had a chance to answer a very
important question that you asked at the very end of your
followup, and that is this, that the chairman suggested that
maybe the people were fighting in these cartels or sort of
laughing at us because we are not serious. And as I understood
the question, what--and I know you cannot speak for the
Department. So I think we are asking you yourselves--and you
might want to think about this and put it on the record.
But what Federal action by the House and Senate would make
you say now they are getting it right this time? They really
are serious. Wow, they are giving us what we need.
Mr. McMahon. As I said earlier, we did recently receive
some funds this year for the first time in quite a long time
directly at our Gunrunner initiative. That is key.
As I said earlier, we doubled our agent population and
tripled our IOI population along the border over 3 years, but
we are still talking 148 agents and 59 IOIs.
The Chairman. What does the agency demand? What has been
asked for? Have you gotten what has been asked for?
Mr. McMahon. I know in different hearings they have asked
for an additional 1,000 agents and additional 400 IOIs.
The Chairman. And that has not come through.
Mr. McMahon. Not yet, sir, no.
Mr. Arabit. Sir, simply stated, with additional resources,
we can all do more. That is the bottom line with respect to
that.
One thing that I would stress just to sort of follow up on
what Mr. Esparza said is just the coordination. Gosh, we can
get so much done if there is interagency and international
coordination. And as Mr. Esparza pointed out, we have the high-
intensity drug trafficking area task forces based throughout
the country, and that is an outstanding venue for coordination.
We also have the organized crime drug enforcement task force
strike forces, and we have one here in El Paso. And that is
also a perfect venue for coordination. We have got the entire
interagency participating in that.
With respect to our coordination with our Mexican
counterparts, as I mentioned earlier, DEA has 100 people on the
ground in Mexico. So we have been coordinating with the Mexican
Government for decades. I would ask that the Merida Initiative
be fully supported and that we get the money and the endgame
tools that they need to them as quickly as possible. And
specifically what I am referring to with regard to the endgame
tools are the helicopters, the x-ray machines, you know, the
pieces of equipment that are truly going to make a difference.
The institution-building, the training for the police and the
judicial reform and the training for the prosecutors. That is
all in the works right now.
So I think a couple years from now, we are going to see a
totally different Mexico in terms of their judicial reform and
their police agencies and services than we see today. And I
would just ask the committee to continue to support that
effort.
The Chairman. Well, I am sure we will, and I appreciate
your candor. I think it has been very helpful to have you sort
of lay out what is real here and what we need to do.
Just one final question. On the corruption issue within
Mexico that we read about and hear about, are there specific
things that we could do to help them with respect to that?
Mr. Arabit. Sir, I think that Plan Merida specifically
addresses that. As soon as President Calderon took over, he
initiated a program called ``operacion limpieza,'' which
translates into Operation Clean Sweep, and he went in and
started doing a number of things to address corruption.
The Chairman. He has changed a lot of personnel, has he
not?
Mr. Arabit. He absolutely has.
The Chairman. He has moved a lot of people in and out.
Mr. Arabit. He absolutely has, sir, and he has taken a very
proactive approach in order to root out the corruption himself
within his own government.
The Chairman. Well, once again, I want to emphasize our
respect for the efforts that President Calderon and others are
undertaking. I know personally in Colombia, for instance, how
really difficult it was for a government to stand up at the
height of the power of the drug dealers and to take on FARC and
the drug dealers simultaneously. It took a lot of courage. This
is a place where one day, I think about nine or a significant
number of members of their Supreme Court were all assassinated
in one fell swoop. They have had unbelievable attacks on the
institutions of government.
So we need to stand with Mexico. We do stand with Mexico.
There is more that we can do, and that is one of the reasons
why we have come down here is to hear your firsthand testimony
as to what would make a real difference.
And we respect what you are doing in the field. We want to
thank you and your officers, the people in the district
attorney's office, the folks at ATF, and the folks at the DEA,
particularly some of those agents who are working in
cooperation in Mexico. That can be very, very dangerous duty,
and we have great respect for their efforts. So thank you for
being here today.
And we will move, hopefully seamlessly, into the next
panel, if the next panel could come forward. We are going to
have an opportunity now to hear about the convention from one
of the people who negotiated it, Hattie Babbitt, and other
experts. We look forward to their testimony.
While they come up, let me introduce them. Ambassador
Hattie Babbitt was the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of
American States from 1993 to 1997, and she was our lead
negotiator on the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit
Arms Trafficking. And she and former OAS Assistant Secretary
Luigi Einaudi organized an unprecedented bipartisan letter
urging ratification of the convention, and we will put that
letter in the record.
The Chairman. Ricardo Garcia Carriles is a corporate
security expert who served as head of the Public Security
Secretariat in Juarez in 2005, and he also served as Internal
Affairs Director for the city from 2001 and 2002 and then 2004-
05.
Dr. Howard Campbell is an anthropology professor at UT here
in El Paso who has done groundbreaking research into the impact
of violence in Mexican cities.
So we request again that you keep your opening comments, as
the first panel did, to the time limit of 7 minutes, and then
we will have a chance to ask some questions.
Thank you very much for being here. Ambassador Babbitt, if
you would lead off. Thank you so much.
STATEMENT OF HON. HARRIET BABBITT, FORMER AMBASSADOR TO
ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES, WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Babbitt. Thank you very much, Chairman Kerry,
Senator Barrasso, Senator Wicker, Congressman Reyes. I am very
pleased to have been asked today to testify about this treaty,
and I welcome the opportunity for various reasons.
I grew up on this border in Brownsville, TX. I went to
college in Mexico, and I lived for 25 years in the border State
of Arizona. As a teenager growing up in Brownsville, TX, guns
to me meant the 20-gauge shotgun I used to go white-wing dove
hunting with my father. It had none of the meanings of these
high-caliber rifles and high-caliber arms that the preceding
witnesses testified about, which are used by drug cartels to
kill each other and terrorize border communities.
My engagement with Mexico has continued all of my adult
life. I serve as the special adviser to the United States-
Mexico Bar Association, and until recently I chaired the
American Bar Association Rule of Law Committee with regard to
Latin America and the Caribbean.
Both the United States and Mexico are in need of enhanced
mechanisms with which to face unprecedented levels of violence
perpetrated with illegally obtained arms in the hands of
organized criminal gangs. I am here today to urge the
ratification of an important tool in our common fight. Senator
Wicker is right. It has a very long title, and that is why we
refer to it, as I will today, with the Spanish acronym of
CIFTA.
It was during the time that I was privileged to serve as
the United States Ambassador to the Organization of American
States that this treaty was negotiated and signed. The treaty
was signed by 33 countries in the hemisphere and ratified by
29. The United States was one of the original signers in 1997.
In the mid-1990s, the member countries of the OAS developed
a consensus about the need for additional hemispheric tools to
combat crime, corruption, narcotrafficking, and the illicit
trafficking of firearms. Following a conversation between the
then-President Zedillo of Mexico and President Clinton, the
United States and Mexico together entered into a multilateral
negotiation which resulted in the treaty that we now know as
CIFTA.
There were three major principles advocated by the United
States negotiating team in the course of the negotiations which
became embodied in CIFTA.
The first principle was that every country should mark for
identification all weapons at the time of manufacture and at
the time of import from another country.
The second principle was that every exported weapon had to
be legal in the place of origin, legal in the places of
transit, and legal in the recipient country to lawfully cross
borders.
And the third principle was that every country had a
responsibility to help other cooperating countries in
investigating the violations of firearms laws of those
countries.
The United States had long had in place systems under our
national law which embodied each of these three principles.
The U.S. negotiating team stood firmly for the principle
that each country has the sovereign right to enact its own
domestic laws and regulations, but that every country should
help others in enforcing the laws against criminals who violate
their laws. What CIFTA did was to bring on board the other
countries in the hemisphere to the same approach, making
possible a new level of cooperation.
When we entered into these negotiations, we understood that
the convention would affect a broad range of interests in the
United States, and accordingly we put together an interagency
negotiating team which included the Department of Justice,
including the FBI and the DEA, representatives of Treasury,
including the Secret Service and ATF--the ATF witness just
testified about the impact at a certain level of this--which
included U.S. intelligence and national security agencies and
included diplomats and lawyers of the Department of State.
The administration also understood that this treaty would
be of interest to various domestic interests, and we were
instructed to consult widely with affected domestic interests.
We had consultations with Congress and outreach was undertaken
with the National Rifle Association.
The NRA had very strong views on the negotiation of the
convention and took the position that no international
instrument should require the United States to change its laws
regarding the ownership or sale of firearms. And this is a
sentence I would like to underscore here. U.S. officials
involved in the negotiations strongly agreed.
In the course of the negotiations, representatives of the
NRA were repeatedly consulted and repeatedly confirmed that
CIFTA commitments did not violate any of the NRA's own core
principles.
As Senator Kerry has pointed out, there is a consensus
among those involved with both diplomacy and with regard to
security in the hemisphere that this is a very important time
for the ratification of CIFTA. CIFTA sets consistent standards
for the hemisphere--those are U.S. standards that it sets--the
implementation of which will be extremely helpful in tracking
weapons and illicitly diverted shipments. Greater cooperation
in the hemisphere is something which is sorely needed and is
the bottom line, in effect, of CIFTA.
The convention is a convention, but it will complement the
very important commitment and resources approved by Congress
last year under the Merida Initiative.
Just 2 weeks ago, a letter with 27 signatures urging
ratification of CIFTA was delivered to you, Senator Kerry, and
to Senator Lugar. With the exception of one Assistant Secretary
currently back in Government service, the signatories include
all former Assistant Secretaries of State for the Western
Hemisphere since 1976, nearly all the Ambassadors to the OAS
since 1989, all Chairmen of the Inter-American Defense Board
since 1989, and two-thirds of the commanders of SOUTHCOM, the
U.S. Southern Command, since 1983. Mr. Chairman, it is not a
common occurrence to have such letters signed by so many
civilian and military officials with such an extraordinary
depth of experience.
Ratification now will signal to President Calderon and to
the Mexican people that this new Congress and this new
President are committed to cooperating with the fight against
organized crime and the related violence in a very concrete
way. It would also enable both countries to send an important
message of this commitment at various upcoming hemispheric
meetings.
I thank you for inviting me to be part of this hearing
today, and I would be pleased to respond to any questions that
you have.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Babbitt follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Harriet C. Babbitt, Former Ambassador to
Organization of American States, Washington, DC
Chairman Kerry, Senator Corker, members of the committee,
Congressman Reyes, I am pleased to have been asked to testify today on
the Inter-American Convention on the Illicit Trafficking in Firearms. I
welcome the opportunity for various reasons.
I grew up on the border in Brownsville, Texas; I went to college in
Mexico; and lived for 25 years in the border State of Arizona. As a
teenager growing up in Brownsville, ``guns'' meant the 20-gauge shotgun
I used to hunt white wing doves with my father, not the massive
arsenals of illegal heavy weapons used by drug cartels to kill each
other and terrorize communities all along the border.
My engagement with Mexico has continued throughout my adult life: I
have traveled regularly to Mexico professionally, both as a diplomat
during my time at the Department of State and at USAID, and more
recently in a nongovernmental capacity.
I currently serve as a special advisor to the United States-Mexico
Bar Association and until recently chaired the American Bar
Association's Latin America rule of law program.
Both the United States and Mexico are in need of enhanced
mechanisms with which to face unprecedented levels of violence
perpetrated with illegally obtained arms in the hands of Mexican drug
cartels and organized criminal gangs.
I am here today to urge ratification by the Senate of what can be
an important tool in our common fight, the Inter-American Convention
against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms,
Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials. This convention is
commonly referred to by its Spanish acronym, CIFTA, and I will refer to
it as CIFTA today.
It was during the time that I was privileged to serve as the United
States Ambassador to the Organization of American States that CIFTA was
conceived, negotiated, and signed. The Convention has been signed by 33
countries in the hemisphere and ratified by 29. The United States was
one of the original signers in 1997.
In the mid-1990s, member countries of the OAS developed a consensus
about the need for new hemispheric tools to combat crime, corruption,
narcotrafficking and the illicit trafficking of arms. Following a
conversation between President Clinton and Mexico's President Zedillo,
the U.S. and Mexico entered into the multilateral negotiations which
lead to the agreement now known as CIFTA. Three major principles
advocated by the United States interagency team charged with the
negotiation became embodied in CIFTA.
the three major principles of cifta
First, the principle that every country should mark for
identification all weapons at the time of manufacture and at the time
of export to another country.
Second, the principle that every country put into place a system to
ensure that no weapons be exported, transited, or imported to that
country if such export, transit, or import is in violation of any the
laws of the countries involved. A weapon had to be legal in its place
of origin, legal in the transit countries, and legal in the recipient
country to lawfully cross those borders. Thus, each country signing
onto the Convention would be helping itself and helping the other
countries enforce its own laws first, and other countries' laws in the
process.
Third, the principle that every country should help others in
investigating violations of firearms laws of the other countries. Like
the first two principles, this third principle was designed to help
each country better enforce its own laws through processes of
reciprocal, mutual cooperation when laws involving firearms are broken.
cifta's respect for and support of u.s. law
The United States has long had a system in place under our national
law embodying each of these three principles. The U.S. negotiating team
stood firmly for the principle that each country has the sovereign
right to enact its own domestic gun laws and regulations, but that
every country should help other cooperating countries in enforcing laws
against criminals who violate their laws.
The U.S. already required the marking of firearms at manufacture
and at export. The U.S. already prohibited exports of weapons to other
countries in violation of their laws. And the U.S. already had in place
mutual legal assistance agreements allowing for bilateral cooperation
to make cases against criminals. What CIFTA did for the first time was
to bring on board the other countries in the hemisphere to this same
approach, making possible a new level of cooperation against criminals
involved in firearms trafficking. CIFTA united countries in protecting
one another's sovereignty, and also provided new practical tools to
combat such threats as cross-border weapons shipments to terrorist
groups in countries such as Colombia and Peru.
an open, transparent, and consultative process
When the Clinton administration worked at the OAS to develop an
agreement embodying the three principles, it recognized that such a
convention could affect a broad range of interests in the U.S.
Accordingly, an interagency negotiating team was put together which
included representatives of the Justice Department, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and Drug Enforcement Administration, of the Treasury
Department, including the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol,
Firearms and Tobacco, consultants with U.S. intelligence and national
security agencies, and diplomats and lawyers from the State Department.
The Clinton administration instructed this team to consult widely
with affected domestic interests. Consultations were carried out with
Congress, and outreach was undertaken to the largest domestic
association representing firearms owners, the National Rifle
Association (NRA).
participation of the national rifle association
The NRA had strong views on the negotiation of the Convention and
took the position that no international instrument should require the
U.S. to change its laws regarding firearms. Officials involved in the
negotiation on behalf of the United States agreed with the NRA's
position and took steps to ensure throughout the negotiating process
that no convention would emerge that compromised in any way the ability
of the U.S. to decide for itself how to treat domestic ownership and
sale of firearms.
In the course of the negotiations, representatives of the NRA were
repeatedly consulted, and expressed appreciation to the U.S.
negotiating team for taking NRA concerns into account in designing the
three principles. Throughout the process, the NRA repeatedly affirmed
that CIFTA commitments did not violate any of its own core principles.
impact of ratification now
Ratification will bring diplomatic benefits with genuine practical
consequences.
CIFTA sets a consistent standard for the hemisphere in marking
weapons--the U.S. standard--the implementation of which will be
extremely helpful in tracking weapons and illicitly diverted shipments.
It is the cross-border violations of our law pertaining to the shipment
and tracking of weapons that is exacerbating this most serious
situation, here in El Paso and all along the border. Greater
cooperation is what is sorely needed, and is the bottom line of CIFTA.
The Convention will amplify current methods of cooperation to
combat gun-related violence along the United States-Mexican border and
will compliment the important commitment and resources approved by
Congress last year under the Merida Initiative.
Just 2 weeks ago, a letter with 27 signatories urging ratification
of CIFTA was delivered to you, Chairman Kerry, and to Senator Lugar.
With the exception of one currently in government service, the
signatories include all Assistant Secretaries of State for the Western
Hemisphere since 1976, nearly all Ambassadors to the OAS since 1989,
all Chairmen of the Inter-American Defense Board since 1989, and two
thirds of the Commanders of U.S. Southern Command since 1983. Mr.
Chairman, it is not a common occurrence to have one letter signed by
civilian and military officials who served over 30 years.
There are many reasons why those officials most directly
responsible for our diplomatic and security relationship with the
hemisphere believe ratification will enhance our national security and
that of our neighbors:
Mexico and almost every other nation in Latin America and the
Caribbean have repeatedly asked us to ratify, both bilaterally and at
the related OAS meetings. Once our neighbors see that we are prepared
to join them in CIFTA, it makes clear that cooperation against illegal
trafficking in firearms is not a favor to the U.S. or to any one
country, but a common international commitment to the rule of law.
The U.S. will have added standing to challenge parties to implement
enforcement measures in the Convention. Many have signed and ratified
but are not yet implementing the measures as effectively as they could.
Extradition is one of the most effective tools we have in the
battle to control illicit arms trafficking. CIFTA extradition
provisions will bolster old list extradition treaties.
Many countries in the region need significant legal assistance to
comply with CIFTA. The Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) provisions may
provide for MLA where none now exists.
Ratification now will signal to President Calderon and the Mexican
people that this new Congress and this new President are committed to
cooperating in the fight against organized crime and related violence
in a very concrete way. It would enable both countries to send an
important signal of that enhanced security cooperation at a series of
upcoming hemispheric meetings.
Thank you again for inviting me to be part of this hearing. I would
be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.
The Chairman. We look forward to that. I know there will be
some.
Mr. Carriles, can you go next, and then I would like you to
wrap up, Mr. Campbell. Thanks. Thank you for being with us, Mr.
Carriles. We appreciate it.
STATEMENT OF RICARDO GARCIA CARRILES, FORMER POLICE CHIEF OF
CIUDAD JUAREZ, EL PASO, TX
Mr. Garcia. Mr. Chairman, distinguished Senators and
Congressman, El Pasoans, Juarenses, Juarez used to be a port
through which an important quantity of drugs were introduced to
the U.S. market. Local drug consumption was fairly incipient. A
little more than a decade, Juarez became a big consumer of
drugs. There are more than 1,500 local drug points of sale at
this point, besides X number of pushers in every manufacturing
and assembly plant, city streets, and bars.
Violence had not really been a big issue in Juarez, even
counting drug-related violence. There used to be no more
violence than there is in any city around the world that
happens to have a half-million-plus population.
Extreme violence started a little more than a year ago when
compromised policemen and gangs, guardians for cartel
territories who started taking over local drug points of sale
suddenly found themselves being part of the different crime
organizations, now at odds with each other. The war started
with the armies used before as guards for their turfs and later
joined by gunmen brought in from outside Juarez.
For the first 11 months, the joint efforts at the three
levels of government, which started last March 27, 2008, failed
terribly. In complete contrast, after 12 months of public
security department strong and determined corrupt police weed-
out operation, solicited by Juarez mayor which, by the way, is
not completely over, was greatly fortified this February 2009
by the deployment of 5,000 more Mexican Army troops added to
the 2,000 existing soldiers already patrolling Juarez.
Violence has been reduced dramatically, and judging from
the polls, fear has all but left the city for now. The
remaining fear is what is going to happen when the soldiers
leave.
In my opinion, troops should be reduced gradually according
to results of a well thought-out short-, medium-, and long-
range plan to fight corruption, drugs, arms, and ammunition
traffic, crime, as well as the violence that derives from them.
Also in my opinion, a plan that can accomplish the desired
needs besides the sufficient funding, its accountability, and
its proper surveillance. It needs the funding to acquire
adequate high-tech communication interception devices; drug and
money, weapons, ammunition and explosive devices detection
equipment; and dogs that can perform the same such tasks;
personal protective armor equipment and vehicles; sophisticated
means available in order to deplete the remaining corruption at
local, State, and Federal police departments, as well as the
corruption that exists in certain judiciary areas. Immunity is
at 90 percent at this point.
The means to perform through background check and training
of every element that will replace those weeded out will also
be needed.
All the aforementioned is without any doubt indispensable
to acquire success, but not more important nor by itself the
integral solution needed for a long-range successful outcome.
The budget should also contemplate the expenditure for an
external, functional, and strict performance accountability
based not on the number of arrests in each policeman's
individual areas of responsibility, his patrol zone, but
instead on the number of criminal citizen complaints filed:
Stolen car dismantling outfits, ammunition and drug warehouses,
and points of sale, stolen goods dealers, as well as people
smuggling and kidnapping safe houses in the individual
officer's area of responsibility. As an example, there should
be two policemen per each hour-shift on each of the 156-plus
patrol zones which would be the minimum police patrol force
needed.
Check and balances should also be done for each sergeant in
charge of X number of patrol zones. For each area, it should
contain Y number of quadrants, one lieutenant per shift per
area, for each police station coordinator and his two relief
coordinators, and finally for the chief of police and his
superior, the secretary of public safety.
Changes should be proposed by the city council and approved
by the state congress in the existing public security
department's regulations in the sense that any policemen,
regardless of rank, can not only be suspended and demoted, but
also fired from the force based on the performance in his
individual area of responsibility, patrol zone, quadrant, area,
station, whatever, as well as cannot be promoted only because
of his service longevity and recertification courses.
Nevertheless, they should not be put aside but should be
established also that an indispensable decision factor also be
having a good performance in his present and past individual
areas of responsibility.
Records should be kept not only in the police department
but also stored by the external intelligence network. Records
have been known to get lost.
And finally, said budget should contemplate a very strong,
well-trained and funded external human high-tech intelligence
network to assure a trustworthy check and balances evaluation.
Check and balances evaluation, internal check and balances
evaluation, have been shown to be lost.
To obtain thorough periodic background checks of existing
and prospective individuals who are and will be in any area of
public security or judiciary branches responsible for keeping
law and order and administering justice so that the dangerous
criminals--also the intel network--so that the dangerous
criminals and other situations can be geographically located
and pointed out to specialized riot and/or assault teams with
the proper sophisticated training and arms and protective
devices who can many times act without having to risk less-
equipped and capable policemen and because, by being smaller
groups, will require less volume of specialized weapon and
protective equipment for such difficult situations. And a more
thorough video and audio monitoring of each individual can be
done to be sure in each operation of his noncompromised
actions.
Each operation strategy should be made known to members of
said groups only on their way to the side in question and then
an armored vehicle also blocked to any kind of outside
communication. Most of the time when the operations get there,
when the groups get there, they will not find either the
criminals nor the drugs.
Other. No communication other than strictly necessary to
the central operations centers in order to avoid leaks. In said
central operations center bunker, there should be an anonymous
judge on duty full 24 hours, same who would pass sentence on a
flagrant situation after having viewed all actions performed in
the case in question through the closed circuit TV system and
for better judgment having received the arresting policemen
reports. This way we will let regular police take care of
regular police work and crimes to avoid them becoming victim
or, even worse, compromised and protectors of organized crime
business, be it because of fear or greed.
Permanent external parallel police emergency phones and
street surveillance cameras monitoring and recording should be
implemented. And I will repeat, external surveillance. Since
many calls have been purposely lost and none of the criminal
acts committed where cameras exist have been detected, nor
recorded. Every time cameras were supposedly not working or
pointing in the wrong direction.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Garcia. I appreciate
it.
Dr. Campbell.
STATEMENT OF DR. HOWARD CAMPBELL, PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY,
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, EL PASO, TX
Dr. Campbell. I have a statement about the impact of drug
violence on Mexican border communities. I would like to read
this statement about the impact of drug violence on Mexican
border communities.
First, I thank the committee for inviting me to testify on
these important issues. I speak as an American who loves both
the United States and Mexico.
A cooperative, binational approach is the only way to deal
with the complex drug problem.
That said, clearly Mexico has suffered the worst
consequences of the illegal drug trade. More than 1,600 people
died in Juarez drug violence in 2008. The violence continued at
this pace until the recent Mexican military surge.
These homicides, the result of a power struggle between the
Juarez and Sinaloa cartels, have occurred in broad daylight.
They included acts of horrific torture, decapitation, and
mutilation. Policemen, laborers, lawyers, college students,
journalists, housewives, and children are among the victims.
Massacres have taken place on main streets, in bars and
restaurants, and close to the international bridges between El
Paso and Juarez. Dozens of El Pasoans, that is, American
citizens, have died or disappeared as a result of the drug war.
The damage to Mexican society is profound. The cultural
trauma is equivalent to that experienced by residents of war
zones in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Day after day, average Juarenses have been exposed to
shootouts, piles of bodies and severed heads left on street
corners, and cadavers hanging from bridges.
The drug war completely disrupted law and order. Cartel
criminals and other organized crime groups exploited the
situation by:
Kidnapping hundreds of people, including even working-class
border residents. Large ransoms were paid and some victims were
tortured or killed.
Extorting large and medium-sized businesses and medical
doctors.
Torching night clubs and other businesses of those who
would not pay extortion money, and threatening or attacking
schools, international factories known as maquilas, and drug
rehab centers. Moreover, armed commandos robbed and kidnapped
people in the streets and even made off with ATM machines.
Call centers of crime emerged, and this is a real
innovation. Thousands of people received phone calls from
criminals claiming to be Zetas, a ruthless hit squad linked
with the Gulf Cartel, who threatened kidnappings and demanded
money.
The Juarez economy suffered terribly. Maquilas laid off
thousands of workers. Hundreds of businesses closed. Others
fired staff and shortened working hours. Juarez streets were
empty after dark. People stayed home. Tourism died.
Restaurants, bars, and hotels were empty. Shopping centers
withered.
As the bodies accumulated in the Juarez morgue, thousands
of Mexicans fled to the United States.
The impact on the psychology of border people witnessing
daily violence, threats, and terror is a kind of collective
post-traumatic stress disorder.
In addition to the actual violence, the warring cartels
have waged a propaganda battle--again, there is a certain
innovation to this--involving threats to the mayor, governor,
and police force and the placement of intimidating signs and
banners along major streets, also the wide distribution of
graphic, threatening YouTube videos, narcoblogs, and procartel
musical ballads. It is important to note that for the cartels,
this is not only a kind of violent struggle for control of drug
markets, but it is a struggle to control the hearts and minds
of people. So it is a kind of intellectual, ideological
campaign that is waged especially through YouTube videos. In
this aggressive media campaign, the cartels claim to be the
legitimate rulers of Juarez.
This is the bloody context in which the Mexican Government
sent 9,000 troops to the city. Previously, 3,000 soldiers did
little to quell the violence. So far, the current surge has
dramatically lessened the homicide and general crime rate.
But the military takeover of Juarez, though the lesser of
two evils, has brought its own share of problems such as, one,
human rights violations. Hundred, if not thousands, of people
have been picked up apparently by the military and
interrogated. Some claim to have been tortured; some have
disappeared.
Two, there are numerous reports of soldiers stealing from
local residents or bullying them.
Three, there have been a few cases of the military killing
individuals that they wrongfully suspected of being drug
traffickers or other types of criminals.
The military has taken control of the Juarez police
department and will eventually run the local prisons and
enforcement of traffic laws.
The growing power of the military in Mexican society,
though reducing drug homicides, is harmful to Mexican
democracy. Military control of border cities like Juarez is not
a long-term solution to the United States-Mexico drug trade.
When the military leaves Juarez, what will stop the cartels
from returning to business as usual?
The most effective ways the United States can help Mexico
with the drug problem are by, first of all, cutting our demand
for illegal drugs; second, slowing the flow of guns from the
United States to Mexico; third, fighting drug organizations
within the United States; and fourth, we can also make it
easier for poor Mexicans to work legally in the United States
and thus help them avoid the Faustian bargain of working for
drug cartels.
Fifth, I would also like to add that we need to consider
ending prohibition of marijuana. At this university, we are
trying to organize a conference for September of this year to
discuss the 40 years of the war on drugs' policies and discuss
the successes and failures of those policies and specifically
try to open up new terrain for new policies that may be more
effective.
I just want to add to end my testimony by saying that the
Mexican Government faces major challenges. They can best attack
their drug problem and our drug problem by, one, strengthening
the formal economy; two, reducing corruption in the political
system; three, furthering the reform of law enforcement and the
judicial system; and four, cutting the growing drug consumption
in Mexican cities.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Campbell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Howard Campbell, Professor, University of
Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX
First, I thank the committee for inviting me to testify on these
important issues. I speak as an American who loves both the U.S. and
Mexico. A cooperative, binational approach is the only way to deal with
the complex drug problem.
That said, clearly Mexico has suffered the worst consequences of
the illegal drug trade. More than 1,600 people died in Juarez drug
violence in 2008. The violence continued at this pace until the recent
Mexican military surge.
These homicides--the result of a power struggle between the Juarez
and Sinaloa Cartels--have occurred in broad daylight. They included
acts of horrific torture, decapitation, and mutilation. Policemen,
laborers, lawyers, college students, journalists, housewives and
children are among the victims. Massacres have taken place on main
streets, in bars and restaurants, and close to the international
bridges between El Paso and Juarez. Dozens of El Pasoans, i.e.,
American citizens, have died or disappeared as a result of the drug
war.
The damage to Mexican society is profound. The cultural trauma is
equivalent to that experienced by residents of war zones in Iraq or
Afghanistan. Day after day, average Juarenses have been exposed to
shoot-outs, piles of bodies left on street corners, and cadavers
hanging from bridges.
The drug war completely disrupted law and order. Cartel criminals
and other organized crime groups exploited the situation by kidnapping
hundreds of people including even working-class residents of the border
(huge ransoms were paid and some victims were tortured or killed);
extorting large and medium-sized businesses and medical doctors;
torching bars and restaurants of those who would not pay extortion;
schools, international factories (known as maquilas), and drug rehab
centers were all threatened or attacked.
Virtual Call Centers of copycat crime emerged. Thousands of people
received phone calls from criminals claiming to be Zetas (a ruthless
hit squad linked with the Gulf Cartel) who threatened kidnappings and
demanded money.
The Juarez economy suffered terribly. Maquilas laid off thousands
of workers. Hundreds of businesses closed. Others fired staff and
shortened working hours. Juarez streets were empty after dark. Tourism
died. Shopping centers withered and thousands of Mexicans fled to the
U.S.
The impact on the psychology of border people witnessing daily
violence, threats and terror is a kind of collective post-traumatic
stress disorder.
In addition to the actual violence, the warring cartels have waged
a propaganda battle involving threats to the mayor, governor, police
force and the placement of intimidating signs and banners near body
dumps and along major streets; burned, beheaded and otherwise mutilated
cadavers left in public plazas and roads; the wide distribution of
graphic, threatening YouTube videos, narcoblogs and musical ballads.
In this aggressive media campaign, the cartels proclaimed
themselves the legitimate rulers of Juarez. This is the bloody context
in which the Mexican Government sent 9,000 troops to Juarez.
Previously, the arrival of 3,000 soldiers did little to quell the
violence. So far the current surge has dramatically lessened the
homicide and general crime rate.
But the military takeover of Juarez--though the lesser of two
evils--has brought its own share of problems, namely: (1) Human rights
violations--hundreds if not thousands of Juarez residents have been
picked up (apparently) by the military and interrogated (some claim to
have been tortured, some have disappeared); (2) there are numerous
reports of soldiers stealing from local residents or bullying them; (3)
there have been a few cases of the military killing individuals that
they (wrongfully) suspected of being drug traffickers or other types of
criminals.
The military has taken control of the Juarez police department and
will eventually control the local prisons and enforcement of traffic
laws. The growing power of the military in Mexican society, though
reducing drug homicides, is harmful to Mexican democracy. Military
control of border cities like Juarez is not a long-term solution to the
United States-Mexico drug trade. When the military leaves Juarez, what
will stop the cartels from returning to business as usual?
The most effective ways the U.S. can help Mexico with the drug
problem is by cutting our demand for drugs, slowing the flow of guns
from the U.S. to Mexico, and fighting drug trafficking organizations
within the U.S.
The Chairman. Well, thank you for that crisp clarity.
[Applause.]
The Chairman. Let me pick up, if I can, with your
testimony, which is very important in a lot of regards.
First of all, you seem to describe a very different Juarez
from the one that was in the newspaper or even that we were led
in the first panel to sort of an assumption that it is quieting
down a bit. What you describe is a Juarez that is under siege.
I want to try to understand that a little bit better, if we
can. Is that Juarez you described several months ago presurge
or is this battle with the cartels themselves and that kind of
violence still as ongoing? It may have been reduced somewhat,
but is it ongoing?
Dr. Campbell. It is presurge, but I believe it is ongoing
in the sense that the cartels have pulled out of Juarez
essentially. They are waiting. They are watching the Calderon
administration. They are watching the Obama administration.
They are waiting to see what happens next, but the business
itself has continued essentially unabated. I think that in the
long term the cartels will continue to be strong, and that is
why we need to seek long-term solutions.
The temporary solution of sending the military has worked
in this month that 9,000 soldiers have been in Juarez, but the
problem with that is the Mexican Government does not have the
resources to do that in every hot drug point such as Sinaloa,
such as Nuevo Laredo, such as Michoacan. There are just so many
places in which the cartels are strong. We need to think about
a long-term solution to these problems. The short-term military
solution looks good, and there is a lull in the action, but I
do not think the drug war is over.
The Chairman. Well, nobody does but you have to first gain
control, if you will. I mean, you cannot allow--the lawlessness
that you described earlier was a campaign of terror, and left
to its own devices, that would have been a city in total ruin.
So I think sending the military in in order to stop the carnage
and begin to rebuild is critical.
The rebuilding is now the challenge. Would you agree with
that? It seemed to me that you were a little light on the
Mexican side of what might be done to try to rebuild here
because the key is not only that you build an institutional
capacity in Juarez to prevent that from resurging, but also
that you build--or that we help Mexico to be able to deal with
these cartels that you say are just in waiting.
Dr. Campbell. Right, and I think that is the problem. If
essentially the drug war is not over, the cartels are still
very strong, sending the military is a very short-term
temporary solution. So clearly, the long-term solution involves
lowering drug consumption in both countries. As one of the
previous speakers mentioned, Juarez has as many as perhaps
1,500 tienditas, drug-selling spots. Every major Mexican city
has those as well. That has not changed. The cartels' capacity
to bring drugs to the United States has not changed. So what
Mexico needs to do is continue to reform its institutions and
try to weed out corruption, but also think about the source of
the problem, which is drug demand in the United States and
Mexico. So we need to work on those problems and we need to
think about is it possible to change the laws to, for example,
legalize or decriminalize marijuana and try to take the
organized crime elements out of this business.
So I agree with your point that, yes, the military has been
successful, there has been some progress. And you made comments
earlier about how for 35 years we have been doing this, but we
do not see much change in the supply or demand. And that is why
I really think we need to study this and think about, to some
extent, radical changes in current policy and not think that
these little increments, such as what happened right now in
Juarez, are basically in some ways the definitive action.
The Chairman. Well, I agree.
[Applause.]
The Chairman. Folks, if we could ask everybody not to be
demonstrative at the end of questions. We want to just kind of
probe the facts here.
There are about four or five major issues that are laid on
the table, one of which would consume the rest of the day if we
began to sort of really debate it or explore it here.
But part of addressing that debate, which I have been
involved in for all of the time I have been in Congress, goes
to this question of the seriousness of purpose. We have changed
behavior dramatically in the United States with respect to
smoking. Smoking is an addiction. And we got serious about it
because we did a cause and effect. We connected the dots and we
did a major effort at education and the law and so forth.
We have also changed behavior with respect to drinking.
Drinking habits have changed dramatically in the United States.
Drinking is a drug and it is addictive.
So the question remains, Why have we not succeeded in
perhaps changing behavior with respect to other addictive
possibilities in life? And I am not going to take us down that
journey right now because it is not where we want to spend all
our time, but many people believe it is the lack of
concentrated effort in a comprehensive way on the demand side,
on the treatment side, as well as on the enforcement side that
has precluded us from reducing it to the kind of effort that
does not tear your fabric of society apart the way it is in
Mexico and in some other places.
That said, let us come back for a moment. The reducing of
consumption is a longer term effort. It seems to me the more
immediate steps that we can and should think about which would
have a dramatic impact are going after folks, as well as
dealing with enforcement with borders and with transit routes,
et cetera. Those can have perhaps the most immediate
significant return, as you resolve those other issues.
We once had organized crime running crazy in parts of
America, and it was not until law enforcement and the FBI and
others stepped up and we began to weed out corruption--and we
had corrupt police officers and we had corrupt law enforcement
people and we had politicians on the payroll too. This is not
new to a lot of countries. But they fought back and they
changed the structure.
And the question here for me, to get the fastest return on
investment is, What can we do in your judgment to empower the
Mexican Government to be able to go after the known leaders of
these entities and the cartels themselves, as well as to
continue weeding out the corruption, while we strengthen our
side of the affairs, which are the transit of weapons and the
borders themselves. Is that a fair bargain, do you think?
Dr. Campbell. I think as you have laid out the situation,
it is extremely complex. I would just advocate that we support
democratic elements in Mexico that are trying to strengthen the
economy and weed out the systemic corruption.
I do not think that in the long term we are ever going to
stop drug cartels exactly. That is, you knock off Chapo Guzman
or some other top leader and someone else will take his place.
I think in Colombia what happened was they knocked off Pablo
Escobar and other big people and then the drug business
diversified. I would expect something like that to happen in
Mexico.
That is why I think, yes, we need to go after the top drug
cartel leaders, but the larger problem is fixing the corruption
and the problems in the Mexican law enforcement system and
strengthening the economy such that people have options to not
go into cartels.
The Chairman. But the difference is that it is not running
rampant and as wildly loose and as forcefully as it was
previously. It has, as you said, diversified. But so is
gambling in America. So is prostitution. So are a lot of other
crimes. We have not been able to, ``stamp them out,'' but we
reduced the balance in our society to a point where they are
not tearing at the fabric of it and the spillover violence is
not ripping apart lives. The question is whether or not you can
at least move to get to that place and then you can resolve
some of these other questions.
Dr. Campbell. Yes, and I think it is terribly complicated
and there has to be a compromised solution going after the key
cartel leaders, but not assuming that you are going to wipe out
the drug trafficking business. So the longer term focus needs
to be on strengthening the formal economy, lowering consumption
of drugs in Mexico, and trying to attack this endemic problem
of corruption in the very weak law enforcement authorities that
they have.
The Chairman. Mr. Garcia, you have laid out some very
specific ways. And we appreciate the detail, and those are very
solid recommendations, which we are certainly going to forward
to our ATF and DEA folks and others as we think about the
relationship with Mexico and how we talk about this.
But share with us on a personal level. You were the
director of security there for a year, and you have been an
internal affairs director for the city. So you have got a very
good sense of the power of these cartels and their ability to
move. Do you believe that if we have a cooperative effort in
doing many of the things you recommended and more, can you make
life very difficult for the ability of the cartels to have as
direct a negative impact as they have?
Mr. Garcia. I believe you can, sir.
The Chairman. And the key to that is?
Mr. Garcia. I believe you can because the greatest part of
the armies that the cartels are using are the policemen. In
this case, 700 policemen have been weeded out. It is about half
the force of Juarez, and it is still not finished.
The Chairman. How do you stop the next policeman from being
corrupted? There is a lot of money on the table.
Mr. Garcia. Well, as I said in my presentation, what you
need to do is have external check-and-balances evaluation of
each and every individual.
When I started for a very short time as a chief of
policemen, the first thing we did is say, OK, which one of the
stations did not go down in crime this month. So of the five
stations there were, one of them had gone up 10 percent and the
others had gone down 2, 3, 4 percent. So what we did, we
brought down the chief of that station, which really made a big
scandal out of it. But that was only in a way to show his
lieutenants, his captains, his sergeants, and his agents that
everybody was going to go. Everybody was going to be measured
and not on the number of arrests that they made because,
anyway, most of them are let go.
The Chairman. Why were you only the chief for the 1 year?
Mr. Garcia. That is a very hard question to answer
publicly, sir.
The Chairman. OK, fair enough. I can understand that.
Ambassador, could you share with us--and this will be my
last question. Then I will turn to Senator Barrasso. What is
the value added--I saw you writing a note when the issue was
being asked by one of the Senators about we are following this
routine now, why would we have to do the--is there a difference
with the ratification. And I wondered if you could speak to
that.
Ambassador Babbitt. I would be happy to. I do not know that
I can speak for all 27 signatories on this letter because they
include, of course, commanders from SOUTHCOM and people
involved directly from various levels of various agencies. But
I can tell you that there are many reasons why the officials
who have been most directly responsible for both the diplomatic
and the security relationships with the hemisphere have joined
in this effort.
Mexico and almost every other country in Latin America and
the Caribbean have repeatedly asked us to ratify this
convention. They have asked us in a bilateral context, and they
have asked us in the ongoing OAS committee that deals with
CIFTA.
Part of it simply is that our neighbors see our joining in
ratifying CIFTA as meaning that the United States takes
seriously its obligations in a hemispheric-wide context; that
is, that the cooperation that we seek is not a favor to a
certain nation, but that we are part of a common international
commitment to the rule of law.
Another reason is that ratifying would give us standing to
say to other countries--and this is a hemispheric convention.
This is not just a Mexico convention. It gives us added
standing to talk to other countries about their sometimes very
ineffective ongoing commitment to implementing CIFTA.
The main element of CIFTA with respect to the issue with
which we are dealing today is an enhancement of the marking for
identification, that is, that every country will mark for
identification all weapons at the time of manufacture and at
the time of import. That is a very important tool. The
identification of the arms is a very important tool, as we
heard from the ATF colleague who testified earlier.
The Chairman. And that is not happening now?
Ambassador Babbitt. It is happening but it is not happening
nearly broadly enough. And it is a key tool to managing the
flow.
If I could interrupt here to say, again, from the policy
standpoint, from the diplomacy standpoint, one of the points
that caused us to enter into this negotiation in 1996 or 1997
was that the hemisphere said to us--we had a unilateral drug
certification law in the United States. And the hemisphere came
back and said to us, we understand your concern about the
amount of drugs flowing into your country. You need to
demonstrate to us that you understand our concern about the
arms that are flowing into our countries and about the
laundered money that is flowing back.
There are many more people more qualified to testify about
the money with respect to both the bulk transfers that have
been alluded to and with regard to the electronic transfers of
money. But that money, of course, fuels--I mean, that is why
the drug cartels are in this, is for the money. If the money
did not flow back, the incentive to traffic the drugs would not
be there.
CIFTA does not deal with money laundering, but it does deal
with a very important issue to other countries in the
hemisphere and that is illicitly trafficked arms. We have a
very mature democracy with a very mature set of institutions
that still struggle with dealing with the illegal sale of arms
across borders. And certainly Mexico and also most of the
countries in the hemisphere have many fewer institutions and
many fewer mature institutions. And so they really said to us,
we want to help you with regard to the drugs flowing north, but
you really need to help us more with arms flowing south.
Some of the signers, I think, feel that the extradition
part of CIFTA--to continue with the signatories to the letter
that you Senator Lugar recently received, some of the signers,
I think, believe that our current, old-list extradition
treaties would be bolstered by the extradition portion of
CIFTA. Many countries--I would say all of the countries in the
hemisphere, but certainly many need significant legal
assistance to comply, and this would provide perhaps some
mutual legal assistance in areas where it currently does not
exist.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just in following up, Ambassador Babbitt, if I could, in
Wyoming, as well as in Texas--you talked about your time
growing up going hunting with your dad. We have a lot of folks
who do reloading of ammunition and have gone to the range
picking up the shells afterward.
I had concerns with CIFTA, the Article 1, illicit
manufacturing, the manufacture or assembly of firearms--
ammunition is listed right there--without a license from the
government. My reading of this says that for the people that
reload at home without a license from a competent governmental
authority, that that would then be illegal or a violation of
CIFTA.
Ambassador Babbitt. My best answer to that--and I think,
sir, it is a good answer--is that when we entered into these
negotiations, we understood that the National Rifle Association
was the largest and most influential representative of folks in
the United States who cared particularly about the second
amendment and their rights under the second amendment. So the
range of consultations with the NRA was immediate and ongoing
and repeated. The day-to-day negotiations consisted of
consistent consultations with NRA representatives to make
certain that the language that went into CIFTA was language
that was consistent with their understanding of Americans'
rights under the second amendment.
I am a lawyer, but I am not a second amendment lawyer and I
am not the person who has the most credibility in terms of
analyzing each section and the long history of interpretations
of that constitutional amendment and those issues.
Senator Barrasso. And I am just bringing it to you from the
standpoint of what I am hearing at home and what I know local
concerns are specifically of that part of this for lots of
folks who are members of the NRA but focus on this as an issue,
kind of how it affects the person back home in our State.
Ambassador Babbitt. Certainly.
The Chairman. Is there a way, just if I could interrupt, to
get some clarification so that that is not--I mean, is there
some way just to simply have an understanding or a formal legal
opinion rendered so that we can eliminate that kind of a worry
that some people may have?
Ambassador Babbitt. I think that would simplify everybody's
life certainly and would bring some clarity to the situation.
The representative of the NRA who was most involved with this
and with whom I have not spoken about this--and Senator Kerry's
idea is a good one, that it would be useful to have some kind
of update, if you will--was a man named Tom Mason who was a
longtime, very experienced representative of the National Rifle
Association and who worked on a regular basis with the full
negotiating team.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
If I could go now to Professor Campbell. I was fascinated
by your comments on the propaganda battle, the threats, the
billboard, the YouTube, to control the hearts and the minds of
the people. Could you talk a little bit more about that and
then to what ends were they trying to control the hearts and
the minds of the people? To get them to leave town? To sign up
and become a member of a cartel? If you could kind of give just
a bigger, broader picture of that if you would not mind.
Dr. Campbell. There are some analysts that say as much as 8
to 10 percent of Mexican territory is more or less controlled
by drug cartels. So I think we have to look at this not only as
a business issue but one involving politics and power.
What I was trying to say about the narcovideos and so on is
it is a battle to say we are the legitimate authorities in this
region, this territory, and I think it is especially an appeal
to youth because there is a kind of drug cartel culture that is
disseminated through narcocorridos, which is a very popular
genre of music. And these YouTube videos are striking, showing
people being decapitated, murdered on camera. And then
oftentimes these YouTube videos contain statements or
manifestos by drug cartel leaders or members saying we are the
ones in charge here. These other groups are illegitimate,
including the politically elected authorities. In that way, I
consider this a kind of civil war that involves violence,
control of economic markets, but also this propaganda campaign
to convince people that the drug cartels are OK. And that is
something we should be very concerned about, is them having a
growing power to influence people, young people especially, in
Mexico and the United States, to say what they are doing is
legitimate and OK.
Senator Barrasso. I do not know if you were here for the
entire testimony of the first panel. They talked about
different kinds of terror and different kinds of warfare. One
was within a cartel where somebody may have been arrested, and
then there was kind of a power struggle within the cartel. A
second is cartel against cartel, and then the third was cartel
versus government.
Are cartels working together as part of this, or is it just
one cartel that is against the government? I am trying to
figure out where these lines are drawn and if there is a
unified effort to say let us just fight the government now and
then we will fight for our own power base and leadership later.
Dr. Campbell. No, exactly. The reason why Mexico is not a
failed state is because the cartels are primarily interested in
fighting each other for control of these drug markets. So the
cyber campaign of videos and blogs and all the rest are
directed mainly by one cartel against a rival cartel.
But there is also some attacking of President Calderon and
high government officials, but a lot of this has to do with the
attempts of one cartel to make inroads within the government
and attack those that are opposing them within the government.
Senator Barrasso. And if I could ask Mr. Carriles. Is this
pretty much in keeping with your understanding of this and what
you have seen and what you have lived? You have lived this
life. Is what Professor Campbell is saying something that rings
true to what you have been experiencing and seeing?
Mr. Garcia. Some years ago, most cartels were not working
together. They did work without bothering each other. They have
got to a point where some cartels----
The Chairman. Could you get a mike over there?
Mr. Garcia. Oh, sorry.
They have got to a point to where----
Senator Barrasso. Could you start over with your answer
just so people in the back of the room can better hearing?
Mr. Garcia. Yes.
Some years ago, if cartels were not working together, they
were working without bothering each other, without getting in
each other's way. They more or less had their territories well
designed.
They have got to a point to where two of the principal
cartels started fighting each other. And I am sorry if I have
to get specific or detailed, but it is happening almost in
every city. I will put the example of Juarez because that is
where I know the situation better than any other city.
The thing is that, as I said, a great part of the armies
were the local policemen, city policemen, but the other part--
they started recruiting gangs. And those gangs and the
policemen were the ones that would keep their territories in
the city safe from each other and without a lot of fights.
There were certain deaths, but nothing as excessive or as
scandalous as it is right now. Those cartels were using the
same routes. They had no problem with it most of the time.
Now they are really fighting each other and they are
using--until last February 25 in Juarez, they were using
policemen and gang members in order to wage that war. At this
point when the army came in, it is true, there are many
complaints about the army, but mostly of the federales, the
federal police, more than even the army. But if you ask people
in Juarez, I would say that 80 percent agree that the soldiers
should stay until something can be found in order to return
Juarez at least to the position where it was.
Senator Barrasso. So there are these threats and this
battle for the minds and hearts of the people.
Mr. Garcia. Yes, there is. There is a type of a
Colombiazation. I remember going to Colombia in 1973 where a
state representative told me, Ricardo, we have lost the last
two generations. Kids turned to see doctors that have 2-year-
old cars, and they turn to see the drug dealers that have a new
Mercedes or even a Ferrari. And they say, why should I be a
doctor? I would rather be a drug dealer.
Anyway, with the immunity, that is the same thing that is
happening in Mexico. Nothing happens. I can have it and nothing
will happen to me. This is what has been happening in many ways
in Mexico with the 97 percent immunity. People say, well, I
only have a 3-percent chance of getting caught.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Good questions.
Senator Wicker.
Senator Wicker. Thank you.
Dr. Campbell, you are working on a book, I understand,
concerning the war on drugs.
Dr. Campbell. Yes, sir.
Senator Wicker. When is it due?
Dr. Campbell. It is coming out in September, I hope, in the
University of Texas Press.
Senator Wicker. What will the name of it be?
Dr. Campbell. The name of the book is ``Drug War Zone:
Front Line Dispatches From the Streets of El Paso and Juarez.''
Senator Wicker. I look forward to having a chance to look
at that.
Do you agree with Mr. Carriles that 80 percent of the
people in Juarez are glad the troops are there and support it
at least for the time being?
Dr. Campbell. Yes, I think that is right. I have spent
quite a bit of time recently walking around the streets of
Juarez trying to get a feel for what is going on, and I think
most people in general are happy that the soldiers have come
because they have stopped the rampant killing in the streets.
But there is a concern, though, about human rights
violations of the soldiers exceeding their powers, especially
when they grab people to interrogate them without warrants or
anything like that and in the process steal everything in the
house of the person that was being picked up, and then
sometimes torture the person. And there have been people that
have never come back. So there is a problem of human rights
violations. The human rights officer for the state of
Chihuahua, Gustavo de la Rosa, has statistics about this.
Senator Wicker. Well, you mentioned that in your testimony.
It would be helpful if you would help the committee document
that and those particular underlying citations would be
helpful, if you would just submit them in the record.
It surprises me sometimes that polling is done on so many
things in so many locations. Are you familiar with any polling
that is being done in Juarez or nationwide in Mexico about the
Merida Initiative? Have you seen any----
Dr. Campbell. I have not seen any. I believe there
certainly are polls about how the Mexican population feels
about the Merida Initiative or Calderon's fight against the
drug cartels. And I think if you looked at the Reforma
newspaper or Proceso magazine in Mexico, they would have
information about that.
Senator Wicker. OK. Well, how do you think the initiative
is being received nationwide in Mexico?
Dr. Campbell. Honestly, I do not have full knowledge of
that. I believe it would be a mixed response. I think that
there is always in Mexico a wariness about the power of the
United States vis-a-vis Mexican sovereignty. So there are
concerns about that. There is also this tremendous worry about
the drug cartels and the desire to end the killing and
violence.
Senator Wicker. How is the President's popularity?
Dr. Campbell. I do not know for a fact. I believe the
popularity would be in the range of 60 percent.
Senator Wicker. President Calderon.
Dr. Campbell. President Calderon.
Senator Wicker. To both Dr. Campbell and Mr. Carriles, will
the July elections send any signal that we will be able to
decipher about the Merida Initiative, or are there so many--
such a multiplicity of issues that we will not be able to
figure out where the population is going on that issue?
Mr. Garcia. At this point, a dirty political war is on the
rampage. Candidates and parties are looking for faults in
candidates. That is what probably will decide elections,
whatever people believe to be the truth.
Senator Wicker. Well, is there a perception that a vote for
the PAN represents support for the Merida Initiative and that
correspondingly, a vote for the PRI or either of the other two
opposition parties is a protest vote? If we will not be able to
get a signal there, tell me.
Mr. Garcia. I believe that up here north, people do not
think very much of the Merida situation. At first, it was said
that it was not enough, one. Two, it was said that United
States intervention was sought by the United States trying to
get into Mexican sovereignty. Also, many of the southern States
felt that way.
I believe that with some changes that have been made, the
press has been a little bit more favorable to the Merida plan.
I believe that with Calderon's efforts, it has been a little
bit more accepted. But I do think that a better public
relations program of the Merida program should be done.
Senator Wicker. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Wicker.
Mr. Garcia, you have been very candid, and I salute you for
that.
When you say a dirty political war is on the rampage, can
you fill that out a little bit for us?
Mr. Garcia. There is a PRI candidate for representative
that is probably a future candidate for governor, and they are
finding faults that he had during his administration as a mayor
of Chihuahua of certain supposedly shady deals that went on.
They have not been proven, but they are coming out.
The Chairman. So in other words, it is politics as usual.
Mr. Garcia. Yes, sir. [Laughter.]
Mr. Garcia. On the other side, for the PRI candidate also
to a federal representative position as a candidate, they are
trying to peg him with the situation that one of the cartels
paid his campaign. So a dirty war, I think, is what is really
taking hold of the decision that the Mexicans will be----
The Chairman. Now, I want both you and Dr. Campbell to try
to--I just want to understand a little bit better the
psychology of this war for the minds, so to speak, hanging
people from lampposts and public executions, et cetera. Is that
the dual purpose of trying to intimidate the other cartel as
well as intimidate the public in order to be supportive of all
of them? Can you explain to us more the nature of taking this
as public?
Because normally, these kinds of fights are better fought
under the radar screen. But I assume that this is not because
of the just abject lack of lawlessness. So they feel they can
terrorize the whole community with impunity. Is that a fair
statement?
Mr. Garcia. Yes, I believe it is intimidate all, intimidate
even the drug buyers. You are buying from this cartel, and you
should be buying from me. So either you buy from me or you are
dead. And the other one says, either you buy from me or you are
dead. Intimidating policemen that will work with one cartel or
the other, intimidating gangs that will work with one cartel or
the other.
This is, I think, the most important point. Sending a
message to the government, you are not going to have any more
tourism. A lot of businesses, even small businesses--we do not
care. They are going to shut down so you will not be able to
get taxes. People with money are going to run and leave Mexico.
Investments in business is going to go down. Your beaches are
not going to be points of tourism. So your taxes will not be in
your treasury, and you will have a very big problem. I think
those are the messages that are being sent.
The Chairman. Well, that is well articulated.
Dr. Campbell.
Dr. Campbell. I think he addressed most of the main points
there. I think the statements made in these dramatic, horrific
killings are to say that the people committing them are the
real de facto powers in a particular plaza, particular drug
market, and that anyone that interferes with them, whether it
be policemen or rival cartels or politicians, will be murdered.
So it is a kind of political statement saying they are the real
powers.
The Chairman. Well, I want to thank you. What strikes me,
in listening to this this morning, is that we have the Taliban
in Afghanistan and we have various sectarian groups in Iraq and
there are different struggles in different places on this
planet, but our next door neighbor, it seems to me, is
experiencing what is essentially a narcoinsurgency. And because
of the implications for our own society, in terms of drug use--
and you have talked about that, Dr. Campbell--but also because
of the importance to all of us of stability and of having a
strong neighbor that is able to enhance its democracy and
enhance the rule of law, this important to us.
I speak for myself. I think the committee has learned a lot
this morning. It has been very instructive. It certainly rings
a number of alarm bells about resources and commitment, as well
as some policy questions that we need to tackle. And so I am
very, very grateful to all of you for being part of this
morning.
Before I ask my colleagues if they have any wrap-up
comments, which I will, let me ask our host, the Congressman,
the distinguished chair, I might add, of the Intelligence
Committee, if he wants to just make any last comment.
Mr. Reyes. Well, only to express appreciation again to you
and the members of the committee. I look forward to continuing
to work with you and do some followup so that there is a clear
understanding of both the situation and the implications of
policy decisions that we might make at the Federal level. So
thank you again.
The Chairman. We pledge to work with you, and we thank you
for your leadership.
Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Well, first, I want to thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for your leadership in bringing us all together and
bringing us to be here in El Paso to see firsthand the needs
and to hear the stories of those who are living this life every
day.
I want to, again, thank Sheriff West, thank the Texas
National Guard for their efforts in helping with this education
for me.
I want to thank our hosts at the University of Texas-El
Paso for being such wonderful hosts, and thank you, Mr.
Congressman, for being a perfect host to all of us here.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
Senator Wicker.
Senator Wicker. Well, I will simply echo the other three
and say thank you very much and we have, indeed, learned quite
a lot. We appreciate it.
The Chairman. Again, we are very grateful to the University
of Texas-El Paso and to El Paso. We are going out now. We are
going to get a chance to view operations at the border itself
and be able to ask some questions of some of our law
enforcement folks. So we are not finished. We will do a little
more on the field hearing.
But, Ambassador, thank you very, very much. Your testimony
was very important. And I want to pursue this question with
you. If we can get the clarification, I think it would be
really helpful to people.
And we are grateful to everybody for taking time to help
the committee. Thank you.
We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:04 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Material Submitted for the Record
Prepared Statement of Hon. Richard G. Lugar, U.S. Senator From Indiana
Mr. Chairman, thank you for chairing this important hearing on
United States-Mexico border violence.
Since entering office in December 2006, Mexican President Felipe
Calderon has moved to improve public security in his country and has
recast United States-Mexico relations on the basis of equality and
mutual respect. The Mexican Government has committed billions of
dollars to combat drug trafficking, launched aggressive antidrug
operations, replaced numerous high-ranking federal police officers in
anticorruption campaigns, and created a unified national crime
database.
In addition, the Calderon government has strengthened law
enforcement cooperation with the United States, extradited drug
suspects to the U.S. and made record seizures of cocaine,
methamphetamine precursors, cash, and other assets.
The Merida Initiative signed into law by the administration of
President George W. Bush is an attempt to seize the opportunity created
by Mexico's invigorated anticrime campaign by funding key programs and
building stronger cooperation between Mexico and the United States. It
recognizes that 90 percent of the cocaine entering the United States
transits Mexico and that our efforts to combat this drug flow and
associated criminal activities depend on a partnership with the Mexican
Government. In Mexico, President Calderon has laid the groundwork for
the upcoming visit of President Barrack Obama, on April 16-17,
articulating a message that makes clear that coordination in sensitive
areas will require more compromise, mutual trust, and respect for each
nation's sovereignty. One area that requires more cooperation is arms
trafficking.
As much as 90 percent of the assault weapons and other guns used by
Mexican drug cartels are coming from the United States, fueling drug-
related violence that is believed to have killed more than 7,000 people
since January 2008, according to estimates by Mexican and U.S. law
enforcement officials.
In the runup to the passage of the Merida Initiative last year, the
Mexican Government officials I met with consistently relayed their
concerns about the flow of guns and explosives from the United States
into Mexico. American Embassy officials confirmed that the U.S. was a
major source of weapons for Mexican gangs and drug runners, as well.
If we are going to effectively fight drug cartels and prevent
violence from spilling into the United States, one very important
element is to curb the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico.
Last year, in an op-ed I coauthored with the Mexican Ambassador to the
United States, Arturo Sarukhan, we highlight the importance of this
issue [Politico, May 15, 2008]. In addition to supporting efforts to
manage firearms under the Merida Initiative, we should consider
ratifying, during this Congress, the Inter-American Convention against
the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition,
Explosives and other Related Material (CIFTA), which calls for
cooperation among members of the Organization of American States (OAS)
to control illegal weapons. CIFTA has been signed by 33 countries in
the Western Hemisphere and ratified by 29. The U.S. was an original
signer in 1997, but ratification is still pending.
I am encouraged by Secretary Clinton's pledge to seek $80 million
from Congress to provide Mexican authorities with three Black Hawk
helicopters to help the police track drug runners and deploy 450 more
law enforcement officers at the border. I am concerned, however, by
statements made by Secretary Clinton regarding withholding funds for
the Merida Initiative--conditions on the border and in Mexico demand
that we put our best efforts forward to help fight drug cartels and
prevent violence from spilling over into the United States. Funding the
Merida Initiative at previously agreed levels strengthens the
institutional framework for effective, long-term cooperation on
safeguarding the security of both countries. I encourage Secretary
Clinton to support funding the Merida Initiative at previously agreed
levels.
The basis of United States-Mexico ties is a strategic relationship
that goes far beyond the problems of drugs and violence. Our Nation is
inextricably intertwined with Mexico historically, culturally, and
commercially. The flow of goods and people across our borders helps
drive our economy and strengthen our culture. But our land borders also
serve as a conduit for illicit activity. This is a problem that bears
shared responsibility and requires cooperative action. I am glad to see
serious commitment from both governments to confront these difficult
challenges.
I look forward to the insights of witnesses on these and other
issues related to this initiative.
______
Bipartisan 27-Signature Letter in Support of Ratification of CIFTA
Hon. John F. Kerry,
Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Kerry: We--diplomats, military leaders, and senior
officials who have been responsible for U.S. relations with Latin
America and the Caribbean over the past 30 years--write to urge
bipartisan support for Senate ratification of a treaty that creates a
framework to combat illegal trafficking in the kinds of weapons used by
the drug gangs and criminal enterprises in Mexico. Ninety percent of
these weapons are illegally shipped into Mexico from the United States.
This treaty creates a foundation for cooperation without requiring any
changes to U.S. gun laws.
The Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of
and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related
Materials (known as CIFTA from its Spanish acronym), calls for marking
firearms, licensing gun exports, criminalizing illicit trafficking and
strengthening international information exchange and law enforcement
cooperation. Operating specifics are left up to individual countries to
determine in accordance with their own laws, programs and sovereignty.
The treaty makes clear that ``enhancing international cooperation to
eradicate illicit transnational trafficking in firearms is not intended
to discourage or diminish lawful leisure or recreational activities
such as travel or tourism for sport shooting, hunting, and other forms
of lawful ownership and use.''
CIFTA has been signed by 33 countries and ratified by 29. The U.S.
was an original signer in 1997, and although ratification is still
pending, Executive Agencies make the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF)'s E-Trace system available to Central
America and Mexico, assist efforts to manage firearms under the Merida
Initiative, and provide some modest training for customs and border
authorities through the Organization of American States (OAS), which
staffs CIFTA's Consultative Committee.
With the recent spillovers of drug violence into the United States,
our ratification of CIFTA is now urgently needed to help protect the
domestic safety and security of the United States itself. Ratification
would also respond to the security concerns of our Mexican and other
hemispheric partners about the upsurge in violence and criminality
caused by the transnational cartels that produce, ship, and sell
illegal drugs in our neighborhoods.
The Summit of the Americas in April and the OAS General Assembly in
June will be good opportunities to convey the clear and irrefutable
message that, with CIFTA ratification, the United States is part of
critical efforts to reduce the illegal flows of weapons that threaten
hemispheric stability.
We appreciate your attention to this urgent issue.
Sincerely,
Hon. Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American
Affairs, 1985-1989.
Hon. Bernard Aronson, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American
Affairs, 1989-1993.
Hon. Harriet C. Babbitt, U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, 1993-1997.
Hon. William G. Bowdler, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs, 1979-1981.
Carl H. Freeman, Major General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Chairman, Inter-
American Defense Board, 2000-2004.
Hon. Luigi R. Einaudi, U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, 1989-1993; Assistant
Secretary General, OAS, 2000-2005; Acting Secretary General,
OAS, 2004-2005.
John C. Ellerson, Major General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Chairman, Inter-
American Defense Board, 1995-1996.
John R. Galvin, General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Commander in Chief, U.S.
Southern Command, 1985-1987.
Paul F. Gorman, General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Commander in Chief, U.S.
Southern Command, 1983-1985.
James R. Harding, Major General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Chairman, Inter-
American Defense Board, 1992-1995.
James T. Hill, General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Combatant Commander, U.S.
Southern Command, 2002-2004.
Hon. Carla A. Hills, United States Trade Representative, 1989-1993.
George A. Joulwan, General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Commander in Chief, U.S.
Southern Command, 1990-1993.
Bernard Loeffke, Major General, U.S. Army (Ret.), President, Inter-
American Defense Board, 1989-1992.
Hon. John F. Maisto, U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, 2003-2007.
Hon. Victor Marrero, U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, 1997-1999.
Barry R. McCaffrey, General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Commander in Chief, U.S.
Southern Command, 1994-1996; Director, White House Office of
National Drug Policy, 1996-2001.
Hon. J. William Middendorf II, U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, 1981-1985.
Hon. Langhorne A. Motley, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs, 1983-1985.
Hon. Roger F. Noriega, U.S. Ambassador to the OAS, 2001-2003; Assistant
Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, 2003-2005.
Hon. Otto J. Reich, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere
Affairs, 2002.
Hon. Peter F. Romero, Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs, 1999-2001.
Hon. Harry W. Shlaudeman, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs, 1976-1977.
John Thompson, Major General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Chairman, Inter-
American Defense Board, 1996-2000.
Hon. Terence A. Todman, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American
Affairs, 1977-1978.
Hon. Viron P. Vaky, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American
Affairs, 1978-1979.
Hon. Alexander F. Watson, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-
American Affairs, 1993-1996.
Fred F. Woerner, General, U.S. Army (Ret.), Commander in Chief, U.S.
Southern Command, 1987-1989.
______
Prepared Statement of D. Rick Van Schoik, Director, and Erik Lee,
Associate Director, of the North American Center for Transborder
Studies at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Esteemed members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the
only multipurpose, transdisciplinary North American research center in
the United States, the North American Center for Transborder Studies
(NACTS, headquartered at Arizona State University and including four
top-ranked universities in Mexico and two in Canada) has the broad
perspectives on security and borders to provide contemporary and
balanced information, insights, and innovations to both the public and
private sectors. NACTS applauds the committee's hearing on cross-border
violence in the historic border city of El Paso, a strategic city for
the United States economy, its security and its sustainable future with
the Mexican Republic.
As a policy-focused, trinational and university-based center
looking at the United States management of its borders and its
relationship with Mexico and Canada, we strongly believe that regional
organizations are critical assets in building a relationship with our
neighbors that is more secure and prosperous. Furthermore, we believe
that when policy relating to Canada and Mexico are viewed from a
multifunctional framework that looks at the highly interconnected
issues of security, competitiveness, and sustainability in North
America, citizens of all three countries will clearly be better off.
background on the north american center for transborder studies
NACTS coordinates ASU's active participation in the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security's University Center of Excellence based at the
University of Arizona and the University of Texas at El Paso. NACTS
also coordinates ASU's participation with the Southwest Consortium for
Environmental Research and Policy, a binational, 10-university
consortium that carries out applied research on United States-Mexico
border environmental problems together with the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. In addition, NACTS will soon begin working with the
Border Legislative Conference/CSG-West on a United States and Mexican
border state legislative analysis of binational issues. In June, NACTS
will host a meeting of a border task force convened by the Mexican
Council of Foreign Affairs and the Pacific Council of International
Affairs and provide policy papers and expertise.
In February, NACTS released ``North America Next: A Report to
President Obama on Building Sustainable Security'' at the National
Press Club in Washington which we released at the National Press Club
on February 10 of this year. The Governments of the United States,
Canada, and Mexico each sent representatives to respond to the broad
issues raised by our report. (Significantly, at the event the State
Department declared unequivocally that Mexico is not a failed state.)
This document (attached) serves as our principal framework for how we
believe the United States should increase and enhance its overall
engagement with Mexico and Canada.
Following the Press Club event, the North American Center for
Transborder Studies organized an event, ``Cross Talk II: Building
Common Security in North America'' in conjunction with the Mexico and
Canada Institutes at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars in Washington, DC. Senior-level academics, government
practitioners from the United States, Canadian, and Mexican Governments
(including representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security and the Department of State), representatives from local
governments and NGOs attended Cross Talk II for two days of closed-door
discussions on the impacts of border security in North America, local
and regional solutions; implementing and measuring joint risk
assessment and joint borders management in North America; and
evaluating joint border management in North America. The draft findings
of these discussions are attached, but what stood out most of all from
the two days of discussion was the insistence on cleaning up our
conceptual vocabulary on border security, specifically, ``risk'' does
not equal ``threat.'' We need better perspective and a better way to
measure our efforts with Mexico and Canada in a way that the broader
public can understand.
To round out this snapshot of our engagement on these issues, NACTS
recently convened meeting of local experts on cross-border crime and
related issues in Tempe for this committee in preparation for this
meeting.
our take
The North America Center for Transborder Studies does a lot of
listening, thinking and acting on issues related to border security. In
our intense engagement with the groups above and many other partners
throughout North America, our thoughts on the ``new'' issue of
potential spillover of violence from key Mexican border cities into the
United States can be summarized in the following bullet points:
The issue is politicized to a degree that is quite
unhelpful.
As even many media reports have made plain, we have still
not seen significant ``spillover'' of violence into the United
States, and there are good reasons for this.
Overall crime rates in U.S. cities such as San Diego,
Phoenix, and El Paso are low and falling.
Both the United States and Mexico need to continue to
reinforce their efforts at interdicting southbound arms and
cash. The United States has had minor southbound inspections in
the past but they were discontinued post-9/11 as funds were
shifted elsewhere. We need to commit to vigorous southbound
inspection for the long term.
There are significant differences and levels of success in
how cross-border communities deal with cross-border crime and
criminality.
We need to avoid a fixed image of how drug trafficking works
in the United States.
The Mexicanization of narcotics trafficking in the United
States is not a new phenomenon and indeed has been going on
since the late 1980s with the successful closure by the United
States of the Caribbean as a principal narcotics trafficking
route.
The criticism of the slow implementation of the Merida
Initiative is warranted; essentially the United States is
playing ``catch up'' against a decades-long process of
underfunding of Mexican police forces, particularly at the
local and state levels, and our Nation needs to move much more
quickly to work with Mexico on bringing these local forces up
to speed.
We want to reiterate that Mexico is not a failed state nor
will it become a failed state.
The intensification of the drug and human smuggling business
through the Arizona corridor is a result of Operations
Gatekeeper and Hold the Line, which were implemented by the
Clinton administration in San Diego and El Paso, respectively,
in 1994.
The wage differential between the United States and Mexico
is still about 10:1.
North American governments have NO overall human security
framework with which to address this problem, which is, among
other things, really a mental health problem in the United
States and an issue of uneven development in Mexico.
These points--arrived at, again, through intense discussions and
engagement with a wide variety of governmental and nongovernmental
partners--are significant, because they are often directly at odds with
the political discussion over perceived levels of spillover violence,
the need for sending troops to the border, the need for the United
States to pay as much attention to violence in Mexico as it does to
Afghanistan, and so on.
As we have said before, although the uptick in violence in border
cities in Mexico is alarming and requires our attention, the United
States, Mexico, and Canada need to place our attention to the even more
pressing long-term policy issues at hand:
Deficits in United States-Mexico border infrastructure;
Deficits in how the two countries jointly manage natural
resource;
Effectively managing the already felt human effects of
climate change on Mexico and the United States, etc.
Deficits in development policy in Mexico (and Central
America); and
Overall deficits in the United States policy framework(s),
implementation and evaluation of efforts in working with
Mexico.
We address all of these issues in the attached report to President
Obama, the attached draft findings of ``Cross Talk II: Building Common
Security in North America,'' and an article on Mexican development
which myself and our center's associate director, Erik Lee, wrote for
Canada Watch and Foreign Affairs Latinoamerica.
We urge the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to take a leadership
role in recognizing the drug violence in Mexico as a risk to border
communities rather than as an existential threat to the United States
essential security. In turn, we also hope the committee will urge the
relevant Federal agencies to more fully and rapidly engage with
colleagues in Mexico to engage the most pressing, and interrelated
human security (not just law enforcement) issues which are at the
essence of the United States and Mexico's shared challenges.
[Editors note.--The complete report ``North America Next: A Report to
President Obama'' was too voluminous to include in this hearing. It
will be maintained in the permanent record of the committee. The other
three above mentioned attachments follow.]
______
A Report to President Obama on Building Sustainable Security and
Competitiveness--Executive Summary
the challenges are the opportunities
A number of significant economic challenges for the United States
have created unprecedented North American opportunities for enhancing
our nation's--and our neighbors'--competitiveness, security and
sustainability.
History has shown us that expanding our engagement with Canada and
Mexico helps expand the U.S. economy. Almost 40 million jobs were
created in Canada, the United States and Mexico between 1993 and 2007,
and today, Canada and Mexico are the first- and third-ranked foreign
suppliers of petroleum to the United States and our first- and third-
most significant trading partners, respectively.
However, challenges remain, particularly at our extremely congested
borders. This congestion, which is partly a consequence of a desire to
thwart another major terrorist attack on the United States, has left us
in many ways poorer, less secure, and with major environmental
challenges at our borders. Yet smart infrastructure investments at our
borders can simultaneously enhance U.S. and North American security,
competitiveness and sustainability by creating jobs, enhancing outdated
infrastructure, and facilitating faster and ``greener'' trade.
The North American Center for Transborder Studies--in a year-long
effort with input from numerous key partners throughout North America--
has developed a set of recommendations for the Obama Administration.
The following eight top-level recommendations can be implemented in the
near- and medium-term and will also encourage greater collaboration in
a number of other areas.
key recommendations
1. Build upon and expand the Merida Initiative in a way that maximizes
bipartisan U.S. support and multi-partisan Mexican consensus
and buy-in
Mexico currently faces its most significant security challenges in
decades. These shared challenges threaten to complicate efforts to
build a new, more secure future for U.S.-Mexico border communities and
North America more generally. The United States needs to expand its
strategic and financial investment in the Merida Initiative. Build on
the foundation of current binational cooperation on security by
implementing the recommendations of the 2008 Joint Declaration of the
Border Governors' Conference on border security, particularly regarding
improved cooperation on tracking the cross-border movement of firearms
and enhancing binational exchange of information on criminal activity
on both sides of the border.
2. Energize and expand the North American Trilateral Leaders' Summit
The Summit is the highest profile example of North American
cooperation and should continue with greatly increased participation
from a number of key stakeholders. Draw on the work of existing
regional entities--governors, legislators, NGOs, academics, advocacy
groups--for solutions to needs throughout North America. These include
the private sector and public-private partnerships that would perhaps
interact at pre-Summit meetings of NGOs, trade unions, academics, and
think-tanks. Involving the three federal legislatures as well as state,
county, tribal, and municipal governments within the Summit structure
will deepen and strengthen collaboration among the United States,
Mexico and Canada. Academic and public policy organizations could
function at the center of a reinvigorated cross-border network.
3. Designate a North America/Borders authority to coordinate
sustainable security
A senior deputy at the National Security Council should be
appointed to deal with and to resolve the competing, complementary, and
overlapping border management, national security, law enforcement,
commerce, transportation, environment, water, regional development, and
other infrastructure and political issues that comprise today's border
area realities. A singular focus on traditional security does not
address all of the critical functions of our borders.
4. Expand joint risk assessment and preparedness with Canada and Mexico
Much of the security effort in North America is focused on the
prevention of another major terrorist attack. But this effort can be
bolstered by more effectively engaging our North American neighbors as
collaborators through enhanced joint defense of North America to
minimize, mitigate, and manage natural and human-caused catastrophes in
North America.
5. Create an effective North American trade and transportation plan
with Canada and Mexico
Common transportation infrastructure challenges in all three
countries--congestion, bottlenecks, infrastructure deficits--are an
opportunity for concerted investment that will bring concrete, highly
visible improvements to the trinational public. Build upon examples
such as the existing Arizona-Sonora infrastructure plan and
California's unique new port of entry at Otay Mesa. Economic stimulus
packages going forward should include funds for bolstering border-
region infrastructure.
6. Create a joint, revolving fund for infrastructure investments in
North America
Infrastructure in the United States, Canada and Mexico is rapidly
deteriorating and in urgent need of broad and deep investment. By
pooling resources, the three countries can maximize the competitive
benefit vis-a-vis Asia and Europe and jump-start our collective
economic engine.
7. Implement a North American Greenhouse Gas Exchange Strategy
A North American Greenhouse Gas Exchange Strategy (NAGES, modeled
on the Clean Development Mechanism to create a North American clean
energy fund) could ensure the United States continues to have priority
access to Canada's wealth of hydro-electricity, natural gas, light
petroleum and uranium in exchange for offsets for the greenhouse gases
created by their development. Mexico, as the seller of the offsets,
could then develop the infrastructure to clean its energy,
transportation, housing, and industrial sectors. This arrangement would
improve U.S. energy interdependence and continental climate security.
8. Establish joint and practical assessments of North American policy
effectiveness
We are in great need of practical and meaningful ways to guide and
track progress on a number of key North American issues. Such an effort
should include tools such as a Cross-Border Collaboration Scorecard and
an annual State of North America Report (SoNAR) to be developed by
North American academic and public policy organizations. The scorecard
and report would inform the annual Trilateral Leaders' Summit.
partnering on a road map for the future
The Obama Administration has a unique opportunity to focus not only
on trinational challenges in continental relations but also internal
challenges with a public that is highly skeptical about competitiveness
and security issues. In the current media environment, clearly the more
daunting task is establishing a frank and productive conversation with
relevant public and private institutions and the U.S. public on complex
issues of regional competitiveness and security. North America's
universities are particularly well-positioned and have an obligation to
address these issues with their specialized expertise; a long-term
perspective; increasingly more holistic and sophisticated approaches to
solving complex problems; and a long history of productive cross-border
collaboration.
The North American Center for Transborder Studies urges the new
Administration to adopt these recommendations at this critical though
opportune moment for the nation.
______
Cross Talk II: Building Common Security in North America, February 10-
11, 2009, Washington, DC--Draft Findings
background
The objective of Cross Talk II was to take North American border
realities--information, insights and innovations--inside the Beltway in
order to engage public and private sector officials and key policy
networks in Canada, the United States and Mexico. This diverse group of
experts was asked to discuss and then develop policy options and,
ultimately, recommendations toward building more sustainable security
in North America. One of the particular objectives of the event was to
enhance our appreciation for the local impacts, implications and
unintended consequences of security policy.
The broader context of the event comprised several key events:
Former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano became President
Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security on January 20 and
promptly requested a number of reviews of key DHS activities
initiated by the previous administration;
The developing global recession continued to affect cross-
border flows and interactions of all kinds;
A surge in violence associated with organized crime groups
continued across northern Mexico and caused growing unease in
U.S. policy networks, the news media and the public discussion
more broadly; and
NACTS released ``North America Next: A Report to President
Obama on Building Sustainable Security and Competitiveness.''
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, brought about an
unprecedented administrative consolidation in the United States with
the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, a collection of 22
different and often divergent U.S. Federal Government agencies. In
addition, 9/11 served to accelerate the ``thickening'' of the border;
strongly impacted governmental agencies that work in the border
regions; and failed to significantly advance cross-border risk
assessment in the face of a number of additional potential threats,
such as pandemics and intensifying effects of climate change.
However, the North American security panorama has shifted
radically, particularly in the past 12-18 months. Specifically, the
rapidly evolving U.S. strategic concern with worsening drug-related
violence in Mexican border cities is driven by three principal causes:
(a) Persistent demand for illegal substances in the United States, (b)
chronic southward flows of cash and arms from the United States to
Mexican organized crime groups; and (c) the potential for violence
associated with the Mexican federal government's continuing pressure on
organized crime groups along with increasingly violent competition
between these groups in Mexico to spill over to the United States.
key findings of cross talk ii
Senior-level academics, government practitioners from the United
States, Canadian, and Mexican governments, representatives from local
governments and NGOs attended Cross Talk II for two days of closed-door
discussions on the impacts of border security in North America, local
and regional solutions, and implementing and measuring joint risk
assessment and joint borders management in North America, and
evaluating joint border management in North America. The key findings
of these discussions are summarized below.
Illuminating the Impacts of Border Security in North America
1. The United States can take positive steps on common security and
joint border management with a clear vision of the myriad and strategic
roles of its over 7,000 miles of shared borders with Canada and Mexico,
namely, security, competitiveness, energy supply, and sustainability.
2. Challenges to broader cooperation on security were enumerated by
the panelists and included the following:
A complex political context that made serious debate on
shared security interests difficult;
Significant challenges understanding common interests and a
collaborative approach;
The concept of security itself, which has varying
definitions and connotations in English, Spanish and French;
Problems with articulating different aspects of security:
``The government lacks messaging capabilities to better
communicate different definitions of security.''
3. North American cooperative entities do exist (IJC, CEC, etc.)
but are generally quite small and built to address narrow concerns
rather than being set up in a broader, multifunctional fashion to
tackle interrelated phenomena.
4. Canada needs to find ways to engage more robustly with Mexico to
advance the Canadian agenda in D.C. The broader North American agenda
would benefit from a closer Canada-Mexico engagement.
5. U.S. security concerns can and often do create acute, unintended
consequences, particularly for Mexico. U.S. drug interdiction efforts
have combined with what one panelist termed ``disaffected youth [in
Mexico] with an identity crisis'' and even an ``environmental
refugees'' crisis to produce the proverbial ``perfect storm'' for
Mexican border communities. In the context of such visible signs of
societal breakdown, ``At what point do we start talking seriously about
decriminalization?'' Another panelist emphasized the need for a new
paradigm because of the ``unevenness of the NAFTA process.'' He cited
statistics that 40 percent of adolescents in Ciudad Juarez were neither
in school nor working.
6. Implementation of technological fixes to complex, interrelated
problems at the border need to be thought through even more carefully.
``We need to work on a number of issues before addressing other issues
like RFID and smart technologies.''
Local/Regional Solutions and Sharing Risks
7. Local and regional entities need a more active role in border
and security issues in order for a common security to actually develop.
``Local knowledge is often where the rubber hits the road,'' and though
federal governments see international relations as a key prerogative,
from a local standpoint, ``Key regional organizations are actually
conducting international relations.'' Another panelist emphasized that
``The people that live there [the border region] know how to solve the
problem . . . The sense of urgency is not here [Washington, DC].''
Understanding the border regions as strategic zones for issues other
than security was emphasized ``Joint production process are happening
but not yet recognized,'' and ``We need to reach beyond NAFTA for a new
paradigm.''
8. We need to stop confusing border dynamics with terrorism.
9. We need to find the political will to address border and
security issues more collaboratively. There has been a lack of
leadership and a need to boost North American dialogue. At the end of
the day we are talking about cooperation, not integration. The three
governments have recently ``marched off in three different
directions,'' and as a result, ``we have `political' rather than `real'
security,'' and ``we have moved from `just in time' to `just in case'
production.''
Implementing Joint Border Management in North America
10. We need to clean up our conceptual vocabulary; risk does not
equal threat. We should be thinking of borders as ``membranes,'' rather
than walls.
11. For the U.S. to effectively coordinate its part in shared
border management, the key institution is the National Security
Council, as suggested by the second main recommendation in NACTS'
Report to President Obama.
Evaluating Joint Border Management in North America
12. It is essential that borders be transparent and accountable. As
noted in the North America Next Report to President Obama, ``The
guidelines for the most effective indicators are those that are derived
from readily and permanently available data, are easily understood by
the public, and measure progress of the government program as well as
the fundamental, broader value: Human security.'' While it is vital for
government agencies and government oversight mechanisms to develop
meaningful evaluation(s) of how effectively we manage our borders, and
as one U.S. Government practitioner noted, ``No single perfect
performance measurement exists,'' the importance of independent
assessments cannot be underestimated.
13. We need to develop ways to measure what is not always easy to
measure, such as interaction and cooperation as well as joint border
management best practices and models. This is challenging, because as
one panelist noted, ``The grand vision and goal of North America is
still undefined.'' But this is a doable task, because as another
panelist noted with respect to the United States-Mexico relationship,
``We have made a lot of progress from certification to Merida.''
14. Going forward, one key performance measurement should be, Are
we getting more security for less cost?
15. Additional performance measures should place North American
assessment into its global context. ``Illegal markets behave like real
markets'' and we need to expand our vision to see global drug flows, as
one panelist insisted. And in protecting the public's right to know
about border management and its broader effects on citizens, much work
needs to be done to protect news media that report on this story.
conclusion
To create true and effective sustainable security, the three
governments need to collaboratively reinvigorate existing institutions
and also to develop smarter, more mutifunctional institutions to handle
multifaceted risk. The U.S. needs leadership from Congress and the
private sector. Mexico and Canada (and particularly groups along the
northern and southern borders) need to seek common ground and
articulate for the United States what its shared interests are. For
example, Canadian energy resources can be a key part of the U.S.
sustainable security going forward. On a continental level, we need to
clean up our conceptual vocabulary: Risk is not the same as threat, and
as one panelist insisted, ``We need to stop `securitizing risk'.''
Instead we need to think more holistically about multifaceted security.
In particular, the development agenda in Mexico is key and needs
champions.
Numerous, interrelated phenomena need to be assessed and included
as part of a sustainable security framework. A unifying and coherent
concept of the borders as a ``system of systems'' is missing and
frustrates effective implementation of more effective and collaborative
plans, infrastructure and activities that flow from it. Without such a
vision and follow-on efficiencies the border will continue to be blamed
far many ills even those unassociated with the border. And a unilateral
imposition of a narrow definition of security (a fence, a wall, and a
virtual fence attempt or a restricted immigrant visa policy as
examples) will remain as the ``standard'' that our neighbors to the
north and south must react to (for the time being, at least).
On the other hand, a progressive and responsive border policy
development would include full implementation of opportunities enabled
by past legislation and accords and expand existing multifunctional
government entities (and create new ones where necessary) that would be
better able to manage risk to our collective security, competitiveness
and sustainability.
______
North America's Forgotten Agenda: Getting Development Back on Track
north america's poverty issue
If one remembers, or is told for the first time, that 40 million
Mexicans' income falls below the poverty level, it might sound as if
Mexico has a significant poverty issue. Seen another way, it is
actually North America that has a significant poverty issue--one out of
ten North Americans are poor.
North America can scarcely rise with the ``tide'' if Mexico remains
impoverished. And in light of climate change and its tendency to affect
the global South more directly than industrialized nations, we may have
indeed been somewhat ``lucky'' that only a half million Mexicans
immigrate without correct documentation to the United States annually.
What happened to the conversation about developing the poorest
parts of Mexico (the central and southern states)? Where is the policy
discussion, or the public debate, and how do the two overlap and
interact? During the next U.S. Presidential administration, how might
these two discussions come together in positive ways to jump-start the
productive intersection of competitiveness and quality of life in North
America?
nafta's promise vs. the reality
NAFTA, while a limited document, seemed to promise or hold the hope
of much more than mere tariff removal. Some claim a modest success. For
example, as recently as January 2008 the Economist stated: ``Since 1994
Mexico's nonoil exports have grown fourfold while the stock of foreign
direct investment has expanded by 14 times. Even the country's farm
exports to its NAFTA partners have risen threefold.''
Others might argue that the industrialized north and other
maquiladora sectors paid the price of the development by creating jobs
and employing some skilled labor but the return revenues generated that
flowed to the federal coffers back to local development lagged. Many on
the border cite the negative cost of NAFTA traffic, congested ports of
entry, and their associated air and water pollution loads.
The wide and still diverging wage differential, rather than
unemployment, is the force that continues to drive Mexican immigration
to the United States. Mexico continues to have one of the most unequal
distributions of wealth within Latin America, wage convergence has not
occurred and so tax coffers do not have the funds necessary to finance
many of the basic infrastructure needs. Those who track progress on
meta-indicators such as Kuznet's curve and the General Inequality Index
(GINI) state a lack of progress over the decade and a half since NAFTA
took effect.
The reality is even worse for other measures. NAFTA was passed on
the swing votes of a handful of Texas legislators who were promised a
North American Development Bank (NADBank) and the loans and grants
necessary to finance it. The U.S. committed to a Border Environmental
Infrastructure Investment Fund (BEIF) of $100M per year. Funding for
the BEIF has declined steadily since its initial promise under NAFTA
and dropped precipitously under the Bush administration. This is
converse to what many expected when the Texas Governor with good
relations with Mexico became President.
The impact of not funding Mexico's needed development is
significant. A recent report by the Border Environment Cooperation
Commission identifies funding inadequate to address even 5 percent of
the documented infrastructure deficit in the border region.
While infrastructure needs assessments vary widely, especially when
used as propaganda or to motivate change, they can be used to get a
sense of progress of made or failed promises. A meta-analysis by author
Van Schoik in 2001 tried to determine the environmental infrastructure
needs for just water, wastewater, solid and municipal waste.
``Estimates of current need reached by this method ranged from around
$US6 billion to over $US10 billion, with a mean of $US8.5 billion and
standard deviation of $US1.8 billion'' and an anticipated additional
deficit of the same amount by 2020 (due to population increase).
perceptions versus the reality of u.s development aide
A survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and
others polled U.S. citizens about U.S Development aide. It showed that
regardless of the survey, the question or the constituent being asked,
survey respondents consistently think:
Foreign assistance is a significant portion of the overall
budget (as high as 20 percent with a median of 15 percent, and
Foreign aide should be higher (as high as 10 percent) than
it actually is (less than 1 percent).
Respondents also indicated their personal willingness to pay from
their own pockets for such foreign development. A full 75 percent would
pay an additional $50 if they knew it was going to foreign assistance.
U.S. foreign aide is stingy at best. The Congressional Research
Service of the Library of Congress shows that the U.S. ranks last of
the 22 developed nation donors and has since 1993. Aide has averaged
around $20B for the last dozen years (Iraq reconstruction excluded) or
about 0.13 percent of Gross National Income (GNI), 0.2 percent of Gross
Domestic Product, and 0.9 percent of budget outlays. Canada gave $2.01B
or 0.28 percent of Gross National Income in 2002.
Mexico, our closest neighbor to the south and long-time partner, is
traditionally not even in the top 20 nations for foreign aide. Most
Americans do not even appreciate that most of our aide goes to just two
nations (Israel and Egypt), that the larger Middle East dominates the
top ten, Africa populates the next ten, and that assistance to fastest
developing or second world nations is found in the middle of the list.
However, one recent and significant investment in Mexico has been
the Merida Initiative; a new paradigm for security cooperation. Under
it Mexico promises $2.5B annually to seven security and safety
agencies, a 24-percent increase over the previous administration's 2006
levels prompted by a ``grant'' of $500M from the U.S. Government.
Foreign aid is foreign aid no matter the focus, and this assistance,
while aimed at drug traffic and cross-border crime will be used to
bolster basic infrastructure including justice, police and
anticorruption investigations.
The Merida Initiative funds are too selectively related to
transnational security, drugs, and crime to benefit infrastructure and
other social development. While the $500M would be welcomed by Mexico
some suspect its underlying intent and intended effect. Ambassador
Sarukhan very diplomatically recasts the situation, stating ``Our
strategies for expanded cooperation are based upon full respect for the
sovereignty, territorial jurisdiction, and legal frameworks for each
country, and are guided by principles of mutual trust, shared
responsibility, and reciprocity.''
the post-bush conversation on development in north america
The lack of a clear purpose and therefore leadership in the
continental relationship allows and even encourages these unhelpful
methods of noncommunication to fester and for the North American
development agenda to languish. A new U.S. administration allows us an
opportunity to pause and ask ourselves if our current methods of
research and action, cut off from a larger public anxious about the
globalized future, is the most productive way forward.
Conventional wisdom holds that comprehensive immigration reform
efforts will be restarted following the upcoming Presidential elections
(but not prior, despite the fact that the pressure emanating from
States such as Arizona is ratcheting up almost daily). Might a new
Congress and executive branch be inclined to take a more holistic
approach to the topic of immigration in a way that takes development in
Mexico into account in a more intelligent and comprehensive manner?
Congress and the executive branch could start by heeding the key
initial recommendations for the three nations that emerged from the
recent North American Center for Transborder Studies' recent Cross Talk
between academics and government officials:
Implement a common North American security perimeter.
Include civil society involvement in the Security and
Prosperity Partnership.
Improve the north-south transportation infrastructure in
North America.
Implement trinational customs teams.
Implement trilateral, multiagency risk assessment.
Find support for a North American Investment Fund at the
level of $20B per year for 10 years as proposed by Robert
Pastor of American University.
it's not all about government
In addition, citizens and the private sector can begin working to
overcome tension starting ``from the bottom up'' by seeking new and
stronger connections on the personal level. Neither increased funding
nor increased federal government involvement is the answer, but rather
civil society, including the private sector, must play a leadership
role and then decide how to bring government into the process.
Government officials tend not to think about the private sector until
long after its involvement would have been most effective.
And finally, it will be difficult to build consensus on North
American development without the full engagement of the continent's
universities, which need to inform both policymakers and the public
more effectively. University-based expertise, when deployed effectively
and thoughtfully, can enrich practitioners' existing institutional
knowledge, build important new institutional and civil society linkages
and deepen existing linkages. Academic institutions need to be
challenged to develop more robust teaching and ``policy-transfer''
models in order to more effectively and comprehensively inform public
debates and educate key constituencies.