The National Security Program

July 13, 2010 TO:

Interested Parties

FROM: Andy Johnson, Director, National Security Program Kyle Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program RE:

Combat the Cartels: Institutionalize US-Mexico Security Cooperation

The violent war between drug cartels and the Mexican government has slowly seeped over the US-Mexico border in the past few years, resulting in kidnappings and murders within the US. Most recently, the issue was brought into the national spotlight when Robert N. Krentz, Jr. was shot and killed by a suspected drug smuggler near his Arizona ranch along the border. 1 When President Obama deployed 1,200 National Guard troops to the border in May, it was simultaneously a positive move for US security and a sign that we have yet to implement an adequate plan to combat cross-border violence. The dangerous domestic war in Mexico will continue to threaten US security unless US policymakers take a comprehensive approach to end the violence. This means better securing the border and cracking down on drug cartel operations in the US, but it also means helping Mexico strengthen its domestic ability to combat, convict, and incarcerate cartel members. To ensure that this happens, the US and Mexico should agree to a security cooperation plan that sets measurable benchmarks for success. In this memo, we examine the root causes of the problem and propose that President Obama and Congress develop a five-year security cooperation agreement with Mexico to disrupt the operations of drug cartels and diminish the threat of Mexican narco-violence inside the US. This agreement should address seven aspects of the situation: 1. Understanding the problem 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Stopping the flow of weapons to the cartels Stemming the flow of money to drug cartels Restricting the cartels’ operational capacity Increasing intelligence sharing and joint operations Aiding Mexico’s criminal justice reforms over the long-term Cracking down on cartel gang networks in the US

BACKGROUND:

Mexico’s Domestic War and the US In 2006, Mexico’s newly elected president, Felipe Calderón, declared war on the drug cartels wreaking havoc on his country. Since the beginning of the Calderón administration, more than 23,000 people have been murdered in drug-related killings, with more than 4,000 just in 2010.2 Recently, 96 people were killed in drug related murders in just one 24-hour period. In response, President Calderón Kidnappings  in  Phoenix,  AZ   warned that the fight against the drug 350   299   cartels must continue, otherwise 300   261   261   Mexicans “will always live 3 250   in fear.” 189  

178  

191  

200   Partially because of President 150   Calderón’s tough actions on drug smuggling, Mexico’s highly organized 100   drug cartels are branching out into 2003   2004   2005   2006   2007   2008   2009   other illicit businesses, including human smuggling, kidnapping, and extortion.4 Along the US-Mexico border, drug cartels compete for territory and control of drug smuggling corridors, using violent gang members to enforce and secure their operations. While the vast majority of this violence occurs on the Mexican side of the border, it remains a major security threat for US border states that must cope with armed gangs, kidnapping, and murders. Phoenix alone experienced a sharp spike in kidnappings between 2007 and 2009.5 173  

Not only are the drug cartels a threat to US security along the border, they are also expanding their operations and threatening communities across the country. Mexican drug cartels have linked themselves to 20,000 street gangs in 2,500 US cities, representing over 900,000 active gang members.6 According to the Department of Justice, the influence and power of Mexican drug cartels and their affiliates in the US is growing as they actively work to push out other organized crime groups.7

US–Mexico Security Cooperation To be sure, the situation is dire but not desperate. Mexico is not a failed state. The government has remained firmly in control of the military and other instruments of power.8 This has allowed US agencies to work with their Mexican counterparts on security cooperation in recent years and improves prospects for the future. The Mérida Initiative On October 27, 2007, President Bush and President Calderón agreed to a threeyear, $1.3 billion security cooperation program known as the Mérida Initiative. The four goals of the initiative were: 1) break the power and impunity of criminal organizations; 2) assist the Mexican and Central American governments in strengthening border, air, and maritime controls; 3) improve the capacity of justice Third Way Memo

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systems in the region; and 4) curtail gang activity in Mexico and Central America and diminish the demand for drugs in the region.9 The Mérida Initiative officially winds down at the end of FY2010 with no long-term agreement in place to replace it.

Mérida Initiative Funding, FY2008-FY201010 (in millions)

FY2008

FY2009

FY2010

$20

$15

$15

$50

Foreign Military Financing (FMF)

$215.5

$454

$190

$859.5

International Narcotics Control/Law Enforcement (INCLE)

$116.5

$299

$5.3

$420.8

$352

$768

$210.3

$1,330.3

Economic Support Fund (ESF)

Total

Total

Beyond Mérida: Security for the US and Mexico The Obama administration outlined a plan for 2011 to assist Mexico in combating the drug cartels. The administration’s post-Mérida strategy for Mexico is based on four pillars.11 The first two are essentially a continuation of Mérida initiative strategies and programs to take the fight to the cartels: •

•

Disrupting and dismantling criminal organizations. Continuing the strategy from the Mérida Initiative, this pillar looks at drug cartels like organizations, looking for ways to interrupt the cartels’ “business” of smuggling and violence by interrupting drug, weapon, and cash flows in the US and across the border. Institutionalizing the rule of law. In Mexico, there is only a 1 to 2 percent chance of a crime leading to a conviction and jail time.12 President Obama’s 2011 budget builds on the Mérida Initiative strategy of addressing the weak justice system in Mexico by doubling the amount of money available to strengthen institutions such as police forces and courts.

The other two pillars of the Obama administration strategy are new and not as clearly defined. The first is to build a “21st century border” that will use the latest security technology to ensure that legal goods can flow over the border quickly while illicit traffic and illegal persons are more easily stopped. President Obama and President Calderón announced this joint effort in May, but the specifics of this plan are a long way off. A US-Mexico working group is determining which technologies and systems would be needed to improve the border and will announce its findings later this year. The final pillar of the strategy involves pilot programs in Mexican towns across the border to address some of the root economic and social causes of violence. The Obama plan also calls for significant reductions in foreign military financing (reduced by $257 million) while increasing the international narcotics control and law enforcement budget by $8 million to $292 million. The bulk of this money, $207 million, is slated to support programs that improve the rule of law and strengthen criminal justice institutions in Mexico.

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This approach is a move in the right direction. It builds on the goals of the Mérida Initiative to disrupt cartel operations in the short-term, while also focusing on the necessary (but much more ambitious) long-term reforms in Mexico’s criminal justice system. However, much of this strategy remains broad and vague, and a single year budgetary commitment to combating the problem is not sufficient.

Obama Administration Mexico Foreign Assistance Request, FY201113 (in millions) Economic Support Fund (ESF)

FY2010 Estimate

FY2011 Estimate

Increase/ Decrease

$15

$10

-$5

Foreign Military Financing (FMF)

$265

$8

-$257

International Narcotics Control/Law Enforcement (INCLE)

$284

$292

$8

OUR RECOMMENDATION:

Make a five-year commitment to security cooperation with Mexico While President Obama is building on the security cooperation developed during the Bush administration, it is not yet clear that this relationship is institutionalized in the US or Mexico: the main US partner in Mexico—President Calderón—is more than halfway through his term-limited presidency, and President Obama’s current plan for Mexico only encompasses activities through 2011. When Calderón leaves office in 2012 and President Obama is up for re-election, it’s not clear what the security relationship between the US and Mexico will be. President Obama, in consultation with Congress and President Calderón, should design a 5-year security cooperation agreement with yearly benchmarks for success that would take effect in mid-2011. Such an agreement should include the following seven aspects:

1. Understand the problem: Produce an NIE on the cartel threat The president should direct the US Intelligence Community to produce a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the threat posed by Mexican drug cartels to the United States. This would build on the annual threat assessment by the National Drug Intelligence Center, but would provide much deeper predictive analysis on the issue and create a baseline for future security cooperation planning. The NIE should have the standard classified version as well as an unclassified version to broaden public knowledge on the nature of the threat.

2. Stop the flow of weapons to drug cartels According to the ATF, Mexican drug cartels acquire thousands of weapons each year in Arizona, California, and Texas and smuggle them across the border to Mexico.14 Of the traceable weapons recovered in Mexico, 90% come from the US.15 This steady supply of weapons must be stopped in order to limit the power of the cartels. Third Way Memo

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Close the Gun Show Loophole. Approximately 40% of US gun sales take place at gun shows where no background checks on the purchasers are conducted.16 Closing the Gun Show Loophole is a popular move that Do  you  support   would make the US safer. A recent survey by Republican pollster Frank Luntz found that 69% of background  checks  at   NRA members and 86% of non-NRA gun owners gun  shows?   support background checks for all gun sales at gun shows.17 100%  

80%  

Increase the pressure on law-breakers. The 86%   ATF should be given increased resources to 69%   investigate sellers that are linked to weapons that end up in Mexico. Just 1% of federally licensed gun dealers are responsible for 60% of guns NRA  Members   Non-­‐NRA  Gun   Owners   linked to crime.18 The ATF should crack down on this small minority of gun dealers who routinely break the law and show that there will be zero tolerance for dealers that sell to straw buyers or otherwise knowingly sell guns intended for transport to Mexico. 60%  

40%  

20%  

0%  

Make smuggling guns out of the US illegal. While there is a specific provision in the Gun Control Act that makes smuggling weapons into the US illegal, there is no such mirror provision for smuggling weapons out of the US. 19 While smuggling weapons out of the US is a crime punishable under other general smuggling laws, creating a specific provision and attaching harsher penalties for those found to be involved in smuggling or knowingly selling weapons that end up smuggled into Mexico could help to limit this activity.

3. Stem the flow of money to drug cartels Between $19 billion to $29 billion in cash from drug sales in the US is smuggled back into Mexico, with at least half of these sums immediately entering Mexico’s informal cash economy and eluding detection by authorities.20 This money is the lifeblood of the cartels. In 2009, Operation Firewall, a DHS/ICE initiative to partner with Mexico and Central American governments to stop illegal money transfers and laundering, resulted in over $200 million in seizures and over 200 arrests in the US and abroad.21 Compared to the amount of cash smuggled out of the US, this is only a drop in the bucket. These joint US-Mexico efforts to stop bulk cash smuggling are a good start, but they need to be expanded to address the scope of the problem: •

•

US financial intelligence capacity needs to be expanded beyond the federal level to allow local and state officials to better understand financial flows in their areas and disrupt or interdict bulk cash smuggling and other money laundering activities.22 Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) is under-resourced and can only investigate a small number of cases each year.23 Over the course of a five-year plan, significant monetary and training resources should be devoted to improving the UIF’s capabilities.

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•

A joint training program between the US Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and Mexico’s UIF would help to assure these resources are used effectively.

US policymakers must recognize that remittances from the US – both legal and illegal—are the number two source of revenue in Mexico and play a very significant role in propping up a weak economy there.24 While the Mexican authorities may pay lip-service to efforts to choke off the flow of narco-dollars, there are some questions about their level of commitment, making this effort to professionalize and expand their ranks all the more urgent.

4. Restrict the cartels’ operational capacity Create a “border security surge” to transition to a secure 21st Century Border While President Obama and President Calderon’s vision of a 21st century border could eventually improve border security, this concept may take years to implement. In the meantime, there is a need for a border security “surge” to enforce calm along the border. Such a surge would include: •

•

•

Increased numbers of National Guard troops with specific duties to fill gaps in the capacities of other law enforcement agencies based on a review by agencies active on the border informing the administration of personnel gaps. Expanded resources—both equipment and personnel—for Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security agencies operating along the border Increased resources for local and state police forces in border states

Over the course of the five-year security agreement, the border security surge would draw down, with National Guard troops leaving first.

5. Increase intelligence sharing and joint operations More than ever before, US law enforcement agencies are working hand in hand with their Mexican counterparts, evidenced by tactics such as “mirrored enforcement,” in which US Border Patrol agents coordinate with Mexico’s federal police to patrol both sides of the border simultaneously.25 But more can be done: •

•

Increase the use of US unmanned aerial drones for intelligence gathering. A new program to provide aerial intelligence from unarmed Predator drones over the Texas-Mexico border should be expanded to the rest of the border states.26 Some of this intelligence should be shared with Mexican law enforcement to help interdict drug smugglers before they reach the border. With the consent of the Mexican government, aerial drones could be used within Mexico for intelligence gathering to share with the Mexican military. Consider joint US-Mexico Special Forces raids on cartel leadership. Capturing and extraditing cartel leadership to the US for trial would ensure that they would face justice and remain locked up. Mexico already extradites dozens of criminals each year for this purpose, but joint operations led by Mexico’s

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military and supported by US aerial assets and logistics could lead to even higher-level targets being captured and brought to justice.

6. Aid Mexico’s criminal justice reforms over the long-term Strengthen the rule of law to improve security. In 2008, Mexico passed constitutional reforms designed to improve Mexico’s judicial system and put more pressure on the drug cartels. However, these reforms won’t be fully implemented until 2016. Over the next six years, Mexican government agencies and criminal justice institutions will require significant monetary and training support from the US to succeed in their efforts. Focus on cooperation and training of local and state police forces in Mexico. In addition to reforming the courts and government institutions, significant attention must be paid through 2016 to Mexico’s law enforcement organizations. The Mérida Initiative focused almost exclusively on reforming Mexico’s military and federal police, yet these forces represent only 10 percent of Mexico’s law enforcement officers. 27 Ultimately, success in the fight will depend on reforming and professionalizing local and state police.

7. Crackdown on cartel gang networks in the US With links to gangs in over 2,500 cities, the Mexican drug cartels are a threat to US citizens well beyond the border. Severing the links between the cartels and US gangs is a necessary step to disrupt and dismantle the cartels. Project Deliverance, a 22-month long interagency, cross-border operation to fight these criminal and drug trafficking networks, is putting pressure on the cartels’ drug distribution chain within the US. Led by the Department of Justice and involving over 300 US agencies, Project Deliverance has resulted in 2,266 arrests and the seizing of: $154 million in US currency, 2.5 tons of cocaine, 1,410 pounds of heroin, 1,262 pounds of meth, 69 tons of marijuana, 501 weapons and 527 vehicles.28 Project Deliverance is a robust security cooperation program that crosses agency, state, and international lines to disrupt and dismantle the cartels’ networks in the US. This successful model should be used as the basis for the disruption of cartel and drug gang activity throughout the US as the President and Congress develop a new security cooperation agreement with Mexico.

CONCLUSION:

Setting the US and Mexico on the Right Course The violence associated with drug cartels in Mexico developed over many years, and its current trajectory is bad—it is increasing and spreading. The US and Calderon approaches are still struggling to make a positive impact, and it is clear that much more must be done. There is no question that the problem underlying all of this is demand for illegal drugs inside the United States. But policymakers have struggled with that problem Third Way Memo

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for decades without success. What we need in the near and medium term are policies to try to tamp down the violence in Mexico and prevent its spread to this side of the border. A five-year security cooperation agreement with Mexico would allow US and Mexican law enforcement agencies to plan for long-term cooperation regardless of who is in the White House or the Mexican presidency. It would also allow Congress—through the appropriations process—to provide oversight, set benchmarks for success, and adjust US resources and strategies according to facts on the ground. By setting a five-year plan with clear benchmarks, US policymakers can start to reverse the immediate crisis and address the chronic danger to US security posed by Mexico’s drug cartels.

Endnotes 1

Archibold, Randal C. "Ranchers Alarmed by Killing Near Border." The New York Times 4 Apr. 2010. . 2

Moving Beyond Merida in U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation, 111th Congress Cong. (2010) (testimony of Shannon O'Neil). 3 Booth, William. "Mexico's Deadly Drug Violence Claims Hundreds of Lives in past 5 Days." Washington Post, 16 June 2010. Web. . 4 Moving Beyond Merida in U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation, 111th Congress Cong. (2010) (testimony of Shannon O'Neil). Print. 5

United States. Department of Justice. National Drug Intelligence Center. National Drug Threat Assessment 2010. . 6

Ibid.

7

Ibid.

8 Selee, Andrew. "Five Myths about Mexico's Drug War." Washington Post 28 Mar. 2010: B03. Washington Post. . 9 United States. Cong. Mé rida Initiative for Mexico and Central America: Funding and Policy Issues. By Clare Ribando Seelke. Cong. Rept. [Washington, DC]: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2010. 10

Ibid.

11 Olson, Eric L., and Christopher E. Wilson. Beyond Merida: The Evolving Approach to Security Cooperation. Working paper. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. May 2010. . 12 Selee, Andrew. "Five Myths about Mexico's Drug War." Washingtonpost.com. 28 Mar. 2010. Web. 08 June 2010. . 13

United States. Department of State. Congressional Budget Justifications: Foreign Operations, Annex: Regional Perspectives, Fiscal Year 2011. Department of State, 2010. Web. . 14

United States. Department of Justice. National Drug Intelligence Center. National Drug Threat Assessment 2010. . 15

"Counting Mexico’s Guns." FactCheck.org. 22 Apr. 2009. Web. 18 June 2010. . Third Way Memo

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16 Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, “No Check. No Gun. Why Brady Background Checks Should be Required for All Gun Sales,” 2009. < http://www.bradycenter.org/xshare/pdf/reports/no-check-no-gunreport.pdf> 17

Luntz, Frank, and Tom Barrett. "New Poll at Odds with Gun Rhetoric." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 23 Jan. 2010. . 18

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, “Exporting Gun Violence: How Our Weak Gun Laws Arm Criminals in Mexico and America,” March 2009. Available at http://www.bradycenter.org/xshare/pdf/reports/exporting-gun-violence.pdf. 19

Chu, Vivian S., and William J. Krouse. Gun Trafficking and the Southwest Border. [Washington, DC]: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2009. 20

Wilkinson, Tracy. "Cartels Smuggle U.S. Drug Money Back to Mexico in Cash, Study Finds - Los Angeles Times." The Los Angeles Times. 03 June 2010. . 21 "Operation Firewall Fact Sheet." US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 15 Jan. 2010. . 22 Farah, Douglas. Money Laundering and Bulk Cash Smuggling: Challenges for the Mérida Initiative. Working paper. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, May 2010. Web. . 23

Ibid.

24 Wilkinson, Tracy. "Remittances to Mexico down Sharply." Los Angeles Times. 2 June 2009. Web. . 25 Preston, Julia. "Officers on Border Team Up to Quell Violence." The New York Times. 25 Mar. 2010. . 26 Bolton, Alexandar. "Predator B Drones Deployed on Texas-Mexico Border." The Hill. 4 June 2010. . 27 Moving Beyond Merida in U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation, 111th Congress Cong. (2010) (testimony of Shannon O'Neil). Print. 28

Russo, Tracy. "PROJECT DELIVERANCE: By the Numbers." Web log post. The Justice Blog. US Department of Justice, 10 June 2010. Web. .

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