Mexico/Drug Violence

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 borders 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.

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.

In March 2009, I led a congressional delegation to meet with President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent me, as the House Intelligence Committee Chairman, to explore opportunities to further cooperation with Mexico.  This action underscored Congress' commitment to assist the Mexican government in its effort to strengthen the rule of law and restore stability in Mexico.
 
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.

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. 

It is also imperative that Congress continues 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.

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.  

Inadequate staffing and outdated infrastructure at our land ports of entry are making America less safe.  For this reason, I recently introduced the PORTS (Putting Our Resources Toward Security) Act, a bill that would dramatically increase funding and staffing levels at America’s land ports of entry to help combat the illegal transport of drugs, money, and weapons between the United States and Mexico and reduce excessive bridge wait times.  This critical legislation would provide $5 billion through 2014 to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), to repair and modernize infrastructure all U.S. land ports of entry, and would also provide funding for an additional 5000 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents to improve inspections and reduce traffic congestion.  To track the progress of this leglisation in Congress click here.

I believe that our commitment to Mexico and to ending this violence and bloodshed must continue in the 111th Congress 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.