[Senate Hearing 111-791]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-791
SOUTHERN BORDER VIOLENCE--2009
=======================================================================
HEARINGS
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
of the
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 25, 2009
SOUTHERN BORDER VIOLENCE: HOMELAND SECURITY THREATS, VULNERABILITIES,
AND RESPONSIBILITIES
AND
APRIL 20, 2009
SOUTHERN BORDER VIOLENCE: STATE AND LOCAL PERSPECTIVES
FIELD HEARING IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA
__________
Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
JON TESTER, Montana
ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Blas Nunez-Neto, Professional Staff Member
Nicole M. Martinez, Staff Assistant
Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Robert L. Strayer, Minority Director of Homeland Security Affairs
Lee C. Dunn, General Counsel, Office of Senator McCain
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
Patricia R. Hogan, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
Laura W. Kilbride, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Lieberman............................................ 1, 43
Senator McCain............................................... 3, 46
Senator Graham............................................... 12
Senator Burris............................................... 14
Senator Pryor................................................ 30
Senator Carper............................................... 32
Senator Tester............................................... 35
Senator Akaka................................................ 37
Senator Kyl (Guest Member)................................... 47
Prepared statements:
Senator Lieberman, March 25, 2009............................ 99
Senator Bennet, March 25, 2009............................... 101
Senator Lieberman, April 20, 2009............................ 191
Senator McCain, April 20, 2009............................... 194
WITNESSES
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Hon. Janet A. Napolitano, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security....................................................... 5
Hon. James B. Steinberg, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of
State.......................................................... 18
Hon. David W. Ogden, Deputy Attorney General, U.S. Department of
Justice........................................................ 20
Monday, April 20, 2009
Hon. Janice K. Brewer, Governor, State of Arizona................ 49
Hon. Terry Goddard, Attorney General, State of Arizona........... 51
Hon. Phil Gordon, Mayor, City of Phoenix, Arizona................ 65
Hon. Octavio Garcia-Von Borstel, Mayor, City of Nogales, Arizona. 69
Hon. Ned Norris Jr., Chairman, Tohono O'odham Nation............. 71
Jack F. Harris, Public Safety Manager, City of Phoenix, Arizona.. 80
Clarence W. Dupnik, Sheriff, County of Pima, Arizona............. 83
Larry A. Dever, Sheriff, County of Cochise, Arizona.............. 86
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Brewer, Hon. Janice K.:
Testimony.................................................... 49
Prepared statement........................................... 195
Dever, Larry A.:
Testimony.................................................... 86
Prepared statement........................................... 251
Dupnik, Clarence W.:
Testimony.................................................... 83
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 231
Garcia-Von Borstel, Hon. Octavio:
Testimony.................................................... 69
Prepared statement........................................... 222
Goddard, Hon. Terry:
Testimony.................................................... 51
Prepared statement with attached charts...................... 199
Gordon, Hon. Phil:
Testimony.................................................... 65
Prepared statement with attached photographs................. 209
Harris, Jack F.:
Testimony.................................................... 80
Prepared statement........................................... 227
Napolitano, Hon. Janet A.:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 102
Norris, Hon. Ned, Jr.:
Testimony.................................................... 71
Prepared statement........................................... 224
Ogden, Hon. David W.:
Testimony.................................................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 132
Steinberg, Hon. James B.:
Testimony.................................................... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 121
APPENDIX
Responses to post-hearing Questions for the Record from:
Secretary Napolitano......................................... 152
Deputy Attorney General Ogden................................ 156
Paul Helmke, President, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence,
March 25, 2009, prepared statement with an attached report..... 158
Joseph M. Arpaio, Sheriff, County of Maricopa, Arizona, April 20,
2009, prepared statement....................................... 255
SOUTHERN BORDER VIOLENCE: HOMELAND
SECURITY THREATS, VULNERABILITIES,
AND RESPONSIBILITIES
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:31 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I.
Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Lieberman, Akaka, Carper, Pryor, Tester,
Burris, Bennet, McCain, and Graham.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN
Chairman Lieberman. Good morning and welcome to this
hearing. This morning, we are going to focus in on the ruthless
drug violence in Mexico, the implications of this violence for
the homeland security of the United States, and most important,
what our government is doing and should be doing about both.
This is the first of two hearings the Committee has planned
on this problem for now. The second hearing will take place on
April 20, 2009, in Phoenix, Arizona.
Today, we are privileged to have as witnesses top officials
from the three Federal agencies here in Washington that are at
the center of our Nation's response to this crisis. This is
their first congressional appearance since yesterday when they
released the Administration's new initiative to contain and
respond to Mexican drug violence, and I thank Secretary
Napolitano, Assistant Secretary Steinberg, and Deputy Attorney
General Ogden for being with us this morning.
The facts of this matter are now pretty well documented and
appalling. More than 6,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-
related violence in the past year. Most of the dead appear to
be associated in some way with the drug trade, but not all of
them. Ten percent of the fatalities are actually government
officials and police. The police chief of Juarez, Mexico, just
across the border from El Paso, Texas, was forced to resign
when drug cartels threatened to kill one of his officers every
48 hours unless he stepped down. The mayor of Juarez actually
lives in El Paso temporarily with his family and commutes to
work every day for reasons of safety.
The U.S. Justice Department said in December that the
Mexican drug cartels are ``the biggest organized crime threat
in the United States'' and are present in 230 American cities.
This morning, Secretary Napolitano will tell us in her
testimony that Mexican drug cartel violence is ``a homeland
security issue in which all Americans have a stake.'' The
danger here is clear and present. It threatens to get worse. It
also follows some puzzling and unpredictable patterns. For
instance, El Paso has been ranked as the third safest city in
America, but Juarez, literally a stone's throw away, is the
epicenter of the carnage with more than 1,500 murders last
year.
Drug-related crime has increased in several American border
jurisdictions and beyond. Phoenix now ranks first in America
and second in the world in kidnappings with more than 700
kidnappings in the last 2 years. Most of the kidnappers and
their victims are drug smugglers, but innocent victims are
always at risk of being caught in the cross-fire and, in fact,
have been caught in the cross-fire.
The Mexican drug cartels are engaging in brutal and
inhumane tactics, the kinds that we, on this Committee, and the
Secretary and the American people have come to expect from
terrorists, and that is exactly what they have become--
attacking police stations and other government facilities,
kidnapping and killing family members or innocent associates of
people involved in the drug trade, posting the names of
officials and law enforcers marked for execution, then
kidnapping or killing many of those officials and informers,
and in a gruesome mirror image of what we have seen from
terrorism, decapitating their targets.
The drug cartels tunnel beneath border fences and use their
blood money to corrupt officials, mostly in Mexico but
sometimes here in the United States. They are high-tech
criminals and killers using satellite phones, encrypted radios,
and Internet voice technology to shield their communications
from the law. According to the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, the Mexican drug cartels, as I mentioned, are operating
in 230 American cities, from Appalachia to Alaska.
The bottom line is this: We must do everything within our
power to help the Mexican government disable the cartels and
prevent them from exporting their drugs and destruction any
further to America.
Our good neighbor to the south, Mexico, is a strong country
with a courageous national administration. President Felipe
Calderon has taken on the cartels, and the Obama Administration
is clearly intent on supporting him. Secretary of State Clinton
is in Mexico City today. Secretary Napolitano and Attorney
General Holder will be there next week. And President Obama
will travel to Mexico in mid-April.
In yesterday's announcement, the Administration directed
the redeployment of Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) resources to the border to
strengthen the prevention and investigation of drug, gun, and
bulk cash smuggling and to increase southbound vehicle
inspections.
Over the last 2 years, Congress has also appropriated $700
billion for Mexico under the Merida Initiative to better train
and equip Mexican law enforcement, military, and border
personnel to root out corruption and help reform the Mexican
judicial system. I look forward to asking Deputy Secretary
Steinberg about what the hopes of the State Department are now
for the Merida Initiative as we go forward.
I would say that the Obama Administration's response
yesterday to the Southwest Border violence represents a
significant step forward, but I do not think it is enough. In a
letter that I, in my capacity as Chairman of this Committee,
sent to the Budget Committee of the Senate regarding the budget
for the Department of Homeland Security, I recommended an
increase of $250 million in fiscal year 2010 to hire an
additional 1,600 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers
at the ports of entry and exit. I also requested $50 million
for Customs and Border Protection to establish and enhance
fusion centers along our Southwest Border and $50 million more
for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hire more
agents to work on gun investigations and also for fusions
centers; and, finally, an additional $35 million for the Human
Smuggling and Trafficking Center at the Department of Homeland
Security.
I think there are also legislative steps that we can take
to strengthen this fight. If Congress, for instance, closed the
gun show loophole that allows purchasers to circumvent
background checks that occur at gun stores, our government's
work would be a lot easier and more effective. There is an
unusual additional problem that we, I think, will want to
legislate on: Cash earned from American drug sales, which are
the lifeblood of these Mexican drug cartels, is increasingly
being smuggled back to Mexico in stored value cards. A single
card can hold thousands of dollars. It is far less conspicuous,
of course, than bundled cash and does not have to be, as a
matter of law, declared at the border. Unfortunately, these
cards are not considered legal monetary instruments, and border
officials, therefore, have little authority to police them.
That needs to be changed by a new law if we are going to make
it harder for the cartels to launder their illicit profits.
In sum, President Felipe Calderon's gutsy leadership in the
fight against the drug cartels has provided the United States
with an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate with him and
the Mexican government to defeat the drug cartels that threaten
the people of both of our countries. In our interest and
theirs, we must together seize this opportunity.
Senator McCain.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
important hearing, and I look forward to this Committee coming
to Phoenix, Arizona, on April, 20, so we can get a lot of
firsthand testimony as to the enormity and the significance of
this challenge to our States and our communities all over the
Southwest, as well as all across America.
I want to thank our head of Homeland Security, the former
Governor of the State of Arizona, who has a very in-depth
knowledge on this issue. She has been heavily involved in it as
governor of our State, and I appreciate the fact that you would
come today and share not only your background but also plans as
to how we can address this issue in the future. And it is a
compelling issue.
Many Americans believe that the escalating violence in
Mexico is remote. It is not. According to a Justice Department
report in December, Mexican cartels and their affiliates
``maintain drug distribution networks or supply drugs to
distributors in 230 cities across the United States.''
The city of Phoenix is now the kidnapping capital of the
United States, second only to Mexico City, for the most
kidnappings in any city in the world. Just last month, 755
criminals living in the United States who are allegedly tied to
a major Mexican drug-trafficking organization were arrested.
Few border cities have experiences the level of fear that
the citizens of Nogales, Arizona, have felt from the rising
violence of Mexican drug cartels. The city of Nogales straddles
the border of Sonora, Mexico, and the State of Arizona. Its
residents have seen several gun battles break out in broad
daylight between Mexican police and the drug cartels. In
August, just one block away from the U.S. consulate, three men
wearing ski masks emerged from a car with AK-47 assault weapons
and opened fire, killing several men. On October 10, 2008, 10
men were killed during a deadly shootout and chase between
heavily armed members of drug cartels and Mexican law
enforcement as they sped through the city streets just a couple
of miles from the border during the early morning hours while
many Mexicans and Americans were commuting to work.
The Intelligence Bureau commander for the Arizona
Department of Public Safety said, ``It was such a heavy
firefight that Mexican police were actually calling for
reinforcements and asking for ammunition from the American
side.''
This increase violence led the State Department to issue an
alert advising Americans traveling to Mexico to use caution
because, ``Large firefights have taken place in many towns and
cities across Mexico. . . . During some of these incidents,
U.S. citizens have been trapped and temporarily prevented from
leaving the area. . . . Criminals have followed and harassed
U.S. citizens traveling in their vehicles in border areas.'' It
is a sad state of affairs and a dramatic change from just a
short time ago.
The United States obviously must do all it can to assist
President Calderon in his efforts against these violent drug
cartels. The prosperity and success of Mexico is essential to
the prosperity and the success of our own country. We share a
border, our economies are intertwined, and we are major trading
partners with each other.
I commend the Administration for its announcement yesterday
that there would be additional personnel deployed to the
Southwest Border, increased intelligence capability, and better
coordination with State, local, and Mexican law enforcement
authorities, but I am convinced we must do much more. Instead,
we have reduced the funding to the Mexican government for
equipment, training, and assistance promised as part of the
Merida Initiative, and, of course, in the United States,
perhaps our dirty little secret is that between $10 and $16
billion are spent by Americans to pay for these illegal drugs,
creating a demand. And I look forward to Secretary Napolitano's
comments about that side of this equation as to how possibly we
can reinvigorate our efforts to try to cut down on what is
clearly drawing these drugs to the United States and a major
factor in this terrible violence that is taking place.
I think it is time for the United States to show its
support for our neighbor to the south and support the Mexican
people and the Calderon administration.
Mr. Chairman, could I just make a couple of points?
One, obviously we are creating the demand, and it is, as I
have mentioned, between a $11 billion and a $16 billion-a-year
business. President Calderon is under real assault. Some high-
ranking members of his administration and law enforcement
officials all over Mexico have been assassinated, showing that
corruption penetrates to literally the highest levels of
government, a problem that he is wrestling with. But the reason
why we are having this showdown is that President Calderon is
not averting his vision from this issue and is willing to take
it on.
Finally, I would like to point out--and I am sure that
Secretary Napolitano will agree with me--this is an existential
threat to the government of Mexico, and if the Mexican
government fails and is taken over by the drug cartels, or
large parts of Mexico are taken over, it not only has profound
consequences for Mexico, but it certainly has most profound
consequences for the United States of America. This is a
serious issue.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator McCain.
Senator McCain joined the Committee this year. He has been
instrumental in urging me and Senator Collins to move forward
with these hearings today and in Phoenix on April 20, and I
appreciate what you said just now, Senator McCain.
I want to indicate for the record that Senator Collins,
almost always here, had a conflict with another hearing. It
happens to be on Alzheimer's treatments and cures, and she is
the co-chair of the Senate caucus on that disease. So she
wanted to extend her regrets to you, Madam Secretary, and to
the other witnesses, and obviously will be with us as we go
through this investigation.
I want to welcome you today. I thank you for appearing here
this morning. Thank you for all the experience, firsthand, that
you bring to this challenge as part of your new
responsibilities, and I would invite your testimony now.
STATEMENT OF HON. JANET A. NAPOLITANO,\1\ SECRETARY, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Secretary Napolitano. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman and
Senator McCain, for the opportunity to testify and to inform
you what we are doing now in response to the drug war that is
going on in Mexico that does have, as Senator McCain said,
profound effects on the American homeland.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Secretary Napolitano appears in the
Appendix on page 102.
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We have seen the violence in Mexico spike. We have seen it
spike because of the efforts of the Calderon government to take
on these cartels, and we have seen it spike because we are
increasingly trying to shut down the avenues by which the drug
trade can move drugs into the United States and, therefore, the
cartels are fighting each other for turf and for precedence.
We are seeing some increases in cartel-related crime in the
United States. As has been mentioned, kidnappings in Phoenix,
for example, are related to the drug cartels, and as the
Department of Justice has itself noted, the cartels are now
distributing drugs in at least 230 American cities. So the
effort to minimize this issue as a ``border issue'' or to
suggest that the American people, as a whole, do not have a
stake in this would be misleading.
There has always been, I must say, based on my own
experience, a certain amount of violence and crime associated
with drug and human trafficking along the border. And I say
that as the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Attorney General
of Arizona, and Governor of Arizona, a border State. But what
we are seeing now is of a level and kind very different than
what we have seen in the past.
The 6,000 homicides already noted in the northern states of
Mexico is a huge number. But the fact that over 550 of them
were assassinations of law enforcement and public official
personnel is itself chilling. And that indicates itself the
seriousness with which this battle must be waged.
Let me turn to what we are doing at the Department of
Homeland Security.
First, we know that the weaponry used in this war in Mexico
comes primarily, although not exclusively, through the United
States. Just a few weeks ago, March 7 through 13, 2009, we
seized 997 firearms going into Mexico. That was accompanied by
$4.5 million in cash and 45 criminal arrests. But we need to
strengthen that.
So we are doubling our Border Enforcement Security Teams
(BEST). These are teams that are combining DOJ with DHS, State,
and local officials. They also involve Mexican law enforcement
officials. To date, they have literally made thousands of
arrests, seized tons of drugs, hundreds of weapons, and
millions in cash. We will double our commitment to those teams
along the Southwest Border and increase the number of teams.
For example, New Mexico has not had a BEST team. It will now
have a BEST team.
We will triple the number of Homeland Security intelligence
analysts along the Southwest Border because we need to get away
from the serendipity of a lucky search. We need to make sure to
increase the yield from searches, and you do that by having
better intelligence. We are tripling the number of analysts
there.
We are increasing by 50 percent the ICE attache personnel
in Mexico City. These personnel are primarily working with
Department of Treasury officials there and in the United States
to combat the money laundering that is going on. We call it
``Operation Firewall,'' but this is an area where I think we
can achieve even more success than we have to stop that flow of
cash into Mexico, into these drug cartels.
We will double the number of Violent Criminal Alien
Sections along the border. These are designed to prosecute
recidivist violent aliens that we find. Many of them are
working for the cartels.
We will quadruple the number of border liaison officers.
These are officers who work to coordinate between American law
enforcement personnel and Mexican law enforcement personnel to
share information and intelligence.
We will increase the technology and resources employed at
the border, particularly by moving significant biometric
identification equipment down to the border so that we can
trace the fingerprints of anyone who is picked up and make sure
that they are run through ICE databases and the other databases
we have before anyone would ever be released.
Previous to this initiative, we had done virtually no
screening of southbound rail traffic, so we do not really know
what was being transported into Mexico by rail. There are eight
rail lines that go into Mexico. We are now screening those rail
lines.
We will move nine Z-Backscatter mobile x-ray units to the
border. That is to help identify anomalies in passenger
vehicles. For example, on southbound cars, what the Backscatter
can do is identify whether this car weighs more than it should
even loaded with passengers, and if it does, it could be
referred over to secondary inspection to see if that weight is
attributable either to loads of cash or arms going into the
cartels.
We are deploying 100 more Border Patrol agents to the ports
of entry, also to help with southbound inspections. We are
moving 12 teams of cross-trained canines to the ports of entry
going south. These are cross-trained because they are trained
to detect both money and guns.
We are moving three mobile response teams of 25 agents
each. These are mobile response teams of Border Patrol agents
that are designed to be mobile, to go where issues are
occurring and to provide immediate response. We are moving
three more of those teams right down to the border, and we are
moving more license plate readers to the ports of entry.
In addition to what we are doing at the Federal level, we
understand that State and local law enforcement in the border
areas is heavily affected by the increase in violence and the
associated crime committed by these cartels and their members.
We are, therefore, revising Operation Stonegarden grant funding
to increase the types of missions that those monies can be used
for, to pay additional law enforcement personnel, overtime,
travel and lodging expenses for deployment of local law
enforcement to the border cities. We anticipate an additional
$59 million will be accessible to border law enforcement by
expanding the guidance for those Stonegarden funds.
In addition, we are reaching out to local border
communities. I have sent some individuals down there now to
personally stay in touch so we know on a real-time basis what
is happening, and I myself am scheduling bi-monthly conference
calls with border chiefs of police and sheriffs.
These actions so far are designed to be budget neutral.
What I have done is identify other activities that are less
urgent fund balances to be able to move these resources where I
think they are needed most. We may need some minor
reprogramming, Mr. Chairman, but I believe that staff members
are already apprised of that or are being apprised of that. But
for the time being, we anticipate all of these actions by the
Department to be within the budget that we have been given by
the Congress.
Senator McCain asked about demand. This is a supply issue.
It is indeed also a demand issue. I will be delighted to work
with the new drug czar, if he is confirmed, but I was also
pleased to see that there was almost $70 million included in
the stimulus bill for drug courts at the State and local level.
Those have been very helpful in identifying non-violent drug
offenders and getting them into treatment as opposed to the
prison system, and that does help on the demand side. But
undoubtedly there is much more we ought to be doing as a
country where these illegal narcotics are concerned.
We are working very closely with the Department----
Senator McCain. Ma'am, could you say a couple of words
about the programs in Arizona?
Secretary Napolitano. Yes. In Maricopa County and in Pima
County, the two urban counties of Arizona, there is a very
extensive drug court program, and it works exactly as I just
described. It is used primarily for first-time, non-violent
offenders. They tend to be younger, and with their one
experience with the criminal justice system, they do have an
incentive not to experience it again. And they receive
basically very intensive follow-up through the drug court
system to keep them out of the prison system.
Senator McCain. And it has been successful?
Secretary Napolitano. It has been successful, yes, sir.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will conclude my remarks and,
again, thank you for holding this hearing, the hearing that you
are going to have on April 20, and for the Committee's interest
in this very important issue.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Madam Secretary. We
will do 7-minute rounds to start out with.
As you know, there are some people who have suggested that
while the Mexican drug cartels have obviously been involved and
caused a wave of terrible violence in Mexico, some of us here,
including people in public office and the media, are kind of
overstating the impact of that on the United States. Am I
correct from your statement in reaching the conclusion that, as
Secretary of Homeland Security, you believe that Mexican drug
cartel violence is a real threat to the homeland security of
the United States?
Secretary Napolitano. I agree, and it takes several forms.
It does take the form of some increased violence now in the
United States. It also takes the form of a threat that
spillover violence of a significant nature will occur. And I
believe as Secretary of Homeland Security, one of the duties I
have is to identify threats and try to prevent those threats
from actualizing in the homeland.
And, third, these cartels have fingertips that reach
throughout the United States, and they are responsible for a
large amount of so-called street crime in our neighborhoods, on
our streets, in our communities. And that in and of itself
lends to a feeling of insecurity in different areas of the
United States.
So for all of those reasons, Homeland Security needs to be
involved.
Chairman Lieberman. You mentioned the danger of spillover
of the violence. Obviously some has occurred already, but more
broadly, the previous Administration left a contingency plan in
place, I gather, should violence begin to spill over. I know
that you have said that you are currently reviewing this plan
and that you were concerned that it did not include State and
local law enforcement as much as it should have.
I wonder if you could indicate to us where you are in the
review of the plan and when you hope to have it ready.
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, Senator. We actually have a
position, Assistant Secretary for State and Local Law
Enforcement. I deployed him to go to the border to personally
sit down with police chiefs, sheriffs, and so forth and to
review the plan, give us their input.
I would anticipate that we would incorporate that and have
a working document that we would be using within the next
several weeks.
Chairman Lieberman. Will you try to state in the document
what the trigger is here, what the threshold is? In other
words, when you, as Secretary, decide that the spillover of the
violence has reached a point where you want to implement
contingency plans in the interest of the homeland security of
the United States?
Secretary Napolitano. I do not believe, Mr. Chairman, that
it will be expressed numerically. That is too difficult to
ascertain.
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Secretary Napolitano. But I think it will be expressed in
terms of what are the factors that would lead me, as the
Secretary, to determine that plan needs to be deployed.
Chairman Lieberman. Good enough. We look forward to that
plan as it comes along.
I thought that yesterday's announcement, which you have
documented again today, of what the Administration intends to
do was significant. It is particularly a significant
redeployment of investigators and agents to the border to focus
on interdicting the cartels' drug, gun, and bulk cash
smuggling. But I will tell you that I am concerned that
transferring these resources from other parts of the country is
not sustainable in the long term and probably does not allow
you to do everything we want to equip you to do on the border
without increasing the overall resources available to the
Department. And that is why I made the recommendations I did to
the Budget Committee and why I intend to fight for more
resources for the Department, particularly for Customs and
Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Do you want to give a reaction to that? I am sure if we
gave you the money, you would be happy to take it and use it
well. But let me ask it this way: Are you considering modifying
your fiscal year 2010 budget request to enable you to continue
the presence of all these additional personnel--350 it looks to
be, from yesterday's announcement--at the border without
compromising your mission elsewhere in the country?
Secretary Napolitano. Mr. Chairman, I believe that the
fiscal year 2010 numbers are still being finalized. Right now,
my belief is that I can sustain what I have described to you
through fiscal year 2010. But obviously budgets and threat
environments are always changing, and so we will obviously keep
you apprised of that situation.
Chairman Lieberman. So we may have a friendly disagreement.
I may try to get you more resources that you are asking for.
But I would rather---- [Laughter.]
Which is unusual.
Secretary Napolitano. I do not have Office of Management
and Budget Director Peter Orszag sitting next to me, but I can
feel his presence behind me.
Chairman Lieberman. But you and I have a longstanding
separate relationship, and we can build on that.
Seriously, I think you are going to need more resources to
get this job done, and also, this is a kind of war, and part of
this is deterrence. And the increase of personnel at the border
and the kind of sophisticated equipment you have talked about
and intelligence resources are going to be critical to making
life miserable for the drug cartels. And when life is miserable
for them, it is obviously better for us.
I think I saw in the media that you are seeing Governor
Perry of Texas today. You know that he has asked, as I believe
the Governor of Arizona has, for some deployment of National
Guard to the Southwest Border. What is your current position on
that?
Secretary Napolitano. Mr. Chairman, I will actually be in
Texas tomorrow, and I will be spending some time with Governor
Perry, and I want to--he basically said, ``I want a thousand
National Guard.''
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Secretary Napolitano. It was a fair request--but without
specificity. And so I want to talk with him specifically about
why 1,000. Is that a magic number? How was it derived? And
where would they go, what would their mission be? And the issue
of National Guard performing some capacity to support civilian
law enforcement at the border is still under consideration by
the Administration.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. My time is up. Senator
McCain.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So you are undecided about the issue of National Guard
troops to the border? And if so, in what capacity?
Secretary Napolitano. Senator, it is still under
consideration.
Senator McCain. You mentioned that you are redeploying
forces to the border from other areas. Where are they coming
from?
Secretary Napolitano. We can give you detail on that. There
are literally a few from here, a few from there, a few from
here. We have not redeployed from the Northern Border. I think
that is important to say. We have delayed purchases of
equipment to help support the movement of agents. We have also
delayed some other initiatives in order to fund this, and then
we are using unexpended fund balances from fiscal year 2006 and
2008.
Senator McCain. Well, I would appreciate it if you would
for the record give us the areas where you are taking these
resources from. I understand the decision, and we would be
interested where they are moved to.
Today's Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2009, says, ``U.S.
to Send More Agents to Curb Border Violence.'' And then it
says, ``However, competing agencies have refused to work
together on the task forces that the Administration is
bolstering to target the drugs, guns, and cash that are fueling
fighting among Mexico's drug lords, according to the agency
officials.
``And adding to the problem, the agencies are operating
under rules that are up to three decades old, said former
senior agency officials and members of Congress involved in the
oversight.''
And then it goes on to say that the problem of ``the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was refusing to
allow some of its agents to participate in several of the
special task force groups established by the Department of
Homeland Security to coordinate border efforts to crack down on
guns and drug proceeds headed to Mexico, said bureau and
Homeland Security officials.
``While bureau agents work on these task forces in Texas,
regional leaders have refused to join the same effort in
Arizona, officials from both agencies acknowledged.''
Do you have a response to that Wall Street Journal
statement and, obviously, those comments from officials in the
Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms
and Explosives (ATF), and the Department of Homeland Security?
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, Senator, I read that article
from unnamed officials, and I am glad that the Deputy Attorney
General is here, but he and I and the Attorney General are
united in this effort. And we understand that it requires the
Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security
agents and employees to work together to maximize the
deployment of resources at the border. And when it comes to our
attention that there is some competition or non-cooperation
going on, we are going to repair that.
Senator McCain. Well, is it true that your agents working
on task forces in Texas have refused to join the same effort in
Arizona? Is that true or not true?
Secretary Napolitano. I do not know the answer to that
question, and I am going to find out. But if it is true, it is
going to be fixed.
Senator McCain. Thank you. I would be interested in, again,
for the record, if you would supply a response to that. I think
it is an important question.
On the issue of funding, the Washington Post today said,
``U.S. Stepping Up Response to Mexican Drug Violence,'' it goes
on to say, ``But some experts said the tools deployed represent
a tiny first step toward what is needed.
``Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the Nation's drug czar
during the Clinton Administration, said that adding `a handful
of platoon-sized units' will not check the problem and that the
amount committed is minuscule compared with the $2.5 billion
the U.S. military spends in Afghanistan each month and the $12
billion going to Iraq.
`` `It's commendable they're paying attention,' McCaffrey
said. But, he added, `where's our sense of priorities?' ''
Do you have a response to General McCaffrey's comments?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, on the one hand, I would
disagree. It is interesting, Senator Lieberman in his comments
began with the fact that there have been decreasing violent
crime statistics in the United States so why are we doing this.
That is one press attack. And then the other one is, well, we
are not doing enough.
Here is what we have done. What we have done is analyze
what is going on, including the efforts of State and local law
enforcement along the border and what is happening in Mexico.
We have done an analysis of what the Department of Homeland
Security can contribute to that that would have the most
effect, both in manpower and technology. And then we have
worked with the Department of Justice in terms of what they
will contribute to the effort. And then, of course, there is
the Merida Initiative that you are going to be hearing about
later.
Our goal is to obviously address this in the most serious
way possible. If we need to scale up, that will be something
that we will bring to you. If we can scale back over time,
obviously that is something as well. But for this time and
train, these are the actions that immediately will be
undertaken to make sure that the threat of spillover violence
is contained and that we are assisting President Calderon in
his efforts.
Senator McCain. Besides the drug courts that you mentioned
in Maricopa County and Pima County in Arizona, what other
programs have you observed in your time as U.S. Attorney,
Attorney General, and Governor that have been successful in
trying to address the demand side of this issue?
Secretary Napolitano. Senator, I would like to be able to
respond at greater length about that to you and think about it.
I will tell you that, in general, the characteristics of a
successful drug prevention strategy require an education side,
a public media side, and then an immediate intervention and
treatment side. It is really a three-legged stool. And if you
only fund one leg or two legs, you do not really get the effect
on drug demand reduction.
I will also share with you that in certain drugs--for
example, methamphetamine--I am not sure that we yet have, once
someone is addicted, a good treatment regime. But I would be
pleased to supply you with a list specifically of certain
programs around the United States that I think have been more
effective than others.
Senator McCain. Are you generally in agreement with my
comment that this struggle that Calderon and the Mexican
government are engaged in with the drug cartels is an
existential threat to the very fabric of the government of
Mexico? Do you agree with that statement?
Secretary Napolitano. Yes.
Senator McCain. I thank you. Thank you very much for being
here today, and we look forward to chatting with you after your
trip down to Mexico, and thanks for your good work.
Secretary Napolitano. Thank you.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator McCain. Senator Graham,
good morning.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRAHAM
Senator Graham. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Madam Secretary, is there any laws that need to be changed
to combat this threat in the United States that you can think
of in terms of guns, money, or wire transfers?
Secretary Napolitano. Senator Lieberman mentioned the issue
of the service cards that are being used in lieu of cash. That
may be something to be looked at. The initiative that we are
embarked on, however, Senator, does not require any change of
laws.
Senator Graham. Is it fair to say you are comfortable with
the laws that we have in place to deal with the problems of
Mexico?
Secretary Napolitano. I am comfortable that the laws we
have in place are the laws we are going to enforce and will
allow us to take on the initiatives that I have described to
the Committee.
Senator Graham. When it comes to budgeting, what you might
need in the future and having to defer some purchases, do you
think a supplemental request would be appropriate here?
Secretary Napolitano. Senator, right now in light of the
other demands on the budget and the economic exigencies of the
situation, I viewed it as my responsibility to find a way to
pay for this with the money that Congress has appropriated.
Senator Graham. Well, that gets us to a point--we are
spending money very quickly on some things that are very
controversial, and there is a lot of pushback. I doubt that
there would be a lot of pushback--I cannot think of anything
more important right now, really. You are at war in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Our neighbor to the south is under siege. The
government is being threatened. Its very existence in Mexico
has been threatened. I cannot think of a better use of the
Congress' time and efforts to come together and come up with a
game plan to deal with our consumption back here at home, to
beef up resources to your agency and the Department of Justice,
to really go after consumption at home, create a very robust
national drug court system that deals with this head on. I
cannot think of a better use of our time and public dollars
than to come up with a more robust presence on the border,
whether it be military or other agencies involved. And I do not
think you should have to put off purchases.
I think we are missing the boat here. I think this is an
opportunity to get the Congress and the White House together
and really go after this problem. So it is, quite frankly, not
appropriate, in my opinion, to say that we have budget problems
when it comes to this. We have a lot of conflict about the
budget, but this is one area where I think most Americans would
cheer us if we spent some money wisely.
What do you think about that?
Secretary Napolitano. Senator, I think that I agree with
you about the seriousness of the situation. I agree with you
that reducing drug demand in this country is something that
would have a beneficial effect in all kinds of ways, not just
in terms of Federal dollars but State and local dollars that
have to be spent because of the plague of drug abuse and drug
usage in our communities.
But for this day and train on this initiative, I am not
requesting a supplemental.
Senator Graham. Well, you are the Secretary of Homeland
Security, and Senator McCain asked you what programs have
worked and what programs have promise, and you gave a very
thoughtful answer: ``Let me think about it.'' Well, I would
encourage you not only to think about it, but come back to us
and say, ``Help me fund it.''
When it comes to the idea of how to use the military, if
you think there is a need for it, let us get all in. I guess my
point is let us be all in. What I see happening is encouraging,
but I do not think this country is all in, in this fight. And I
cannot think of a more dire consequence to the United States
really in many ways than to have Mexico just collapse.
So I would urge you, when it comes to budget matters,
programs that need funding, to be more aggressive, lean
forward.
Secretary Napolitano. Senator, I appreciate that thought. I
think I will have a better sense after my meetings in Mexico
next week, and I would be happy to report back to the Committee
on what we have learned there.
I believe this will be an ongoing issue; in other words, I
do not believe what we announced yesterday, what I have
informed the Committee of today, is the last word that is going
to be said on this subject. This is going to be something that
is going to require efforts over time.
Senator Graham. Well, if you need somebody to help you up
here, I would be glad to call him and say, ``Peter, there is a
lot of bipartisan support for some spending here that would
make some sense.''
So thank you very much. I know you understand these issues
well, having lived in Arizona, and just let us get all in and
win this thing.
Thank you very much.
Secretary Napolitano. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Graham. You
have expressed, I think, what the feeling on the Committee is,
and I would guess in the Senate generally. I think we will make
an opportunity to introduce an amendment to the budget
resolution to increase support to your Department and perhaps
to the State and Justice Departments as well for this fight.
And if there is a supplemental, we will probably try to do the
same, just to make sure that you have--it is up to you then to
determine how to use that, but I do not want you to feel or to
be underresourced in deterring this violence from coming over
the border and in aiding our allies in Mexico in defeating it.
Senator Burris, thanks for being here. Good morning.
Senator Burris. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much. And congratulations to you, Madam Secretary. You have had
a stellar career. Among us, all have been Attorneys General,
and you are looking at two of us, so we certainly appreciate
your extended service to not only the great State of Arizona
but to America.
Secretary Napolitano. Thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURRIS
Senator Burris. And by way of a statement, it is clear that
solving the border violence will require local and Federal
agencies to coordinate their plans and their information. This
violence is a terrible consequence of our continued fight
against illegal drugs and those that promote them. A victory in
this fight is a victory for our shared security benefits, not
only on our borders, but also throughout America, which I am
going to get to in a moment. However, we must realize that this
problem is systemic and that we must utilize all the tactics
that we have to review today in order to dismantle these
criminal cartels effectively. Creating a successful deterrent
to the trafficking of illegal arms and drugs is fundamental.
But in order to decrease crime, we must also disrupt the
network that funds it. And I hope that we can support President
Calderon's brave effort to secure our border and destroy the
roots of this ever-growing problem before they do any more
damage.
Now, as I mentioned, Madam Secretary, Operation Xcellerator
and Project Reckoning were both multinational victories. Can we
replicate these successes to weaken other cartels? And how can
we use the lessons we learned from our earlier operations to
make border enforcement more effective?
Secretary Napolitano. Senator, there are a combination of
things that need to occur, and it is really at several levels.
One is we cannot fight the cartels in the United States. In
other words, they are based in Mexico. The leaders of the
cartels are in Mexico. Their power base is in Mexico. That is
why we want to be working with the Calderon government so
closely in their efforts to dismantle these cartels, which have
grown ever more stronger over the last 10 or 15 years.
Second, we have to make our border presence more robust,
not just in terms of northbound interdiction but in terms of
southbound interdiction, particularly where arms and cash are
involved.
And then, third, we have to do a better job at disrupting
the drug distribution networks that find their way into our
neighborhoods and communities, and that goes to the demand side
in part that Senator McCain was talking about.
Senator Burris. That is what I also want to discuss. If we
deal with the demand side and we cut down on the demand through
treatment and various--what do you call it, the three-legged
stool where you have the education, the treatment--and whatever
the third leg is on that.
Secretary Napolitano. The media, the public part of it,
where you have constant media messages.
Senator Burris. Yes, because if there is no demand, there
will be no supply, and this is what we always maintain. In some
kind of way, we have to get to our communities to deal with
those individuals who are selling and those who are using. If
we cut down on the users--are we looking at any--because you
have the drug czar or some other type of program, are they a
part of the overall efforts with Homeland Security on our side
to try to deal with the demand problem?
Secretary Napolitano. Senator, assuming that the nominee is
confirmed--and I personally do not know the timing on that--I
am going to actually reach out with the Office of National Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP) to make sure they are incorporated in
our efforts.
Senator Burris. Another question, too, in terms of this
jurisdictional situation where you have all these agencies
together, are these agencies going to be able to function
together with all these questions up in the air? Do you have
turf problems appearing as you now try to pull Justice and
Homeland Security and your other agencies together? Are you
going to be able to work out all your turf problems?
Secretary Napolitano. Well, Senator, following up, again,
on an earlier question in a Wall Street Journal article today,
I believe that the Attorney General and I--we have worked
together for many years on issues, and our common goal is if
some of those residual turf issues are being played out in the
field and they are interfering with our goal of strengthening
the border and getting at these cartels, we are going to fix
that.
Senator Burris. I know that you and Attorney General Eric
Holder, you all have worked together, but getting it down
through the ranks is where the problem occurs. And with your
experience in government, I am sure you are familiar with how
you can bring something down from the top, but getting it to be
operating amongst the operators, it is not always easy.
Secretary Napolitano. Again, if there really is a situation
that has developed, we will get it resolved. Let me be very
clear. I think law enforcement in the field understands the
risk of these cartels, the danger that they pose, and the
strength that they have. So we will work through some of those
issues if they are indeed interfering with our ability to
disrupt the cartel action in the United States.
Senator Burris. And having been the governor of Arizona,
the prosecutor, the Attorney General right on that border, I am
pretty sure you have a pretty good insight into what is taking
place. Is that not correct, Madam Secretary?
Secretary Napolitano. I would like to believe I do, yes,
Senator.
Senator Burris. Well, we are hoping that you are in the
right place at the right time to do the job for the American
people and the Mexican people to do what we can. But my
position is, Madam Secretary, we have to do something about the
demand at home. We have to stop the users and the ability for
individuals to acquire those drugs and start treating those
people who are drug addicted rather than locking them up and
putting them in prison, which is also raising our costs.
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, Senator.
Senator Burris. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Burris.
I just have one more question. If either of my colleagues
have one more, they are welcome to ask as well.
I just want to ask you to speak a little bit more--I am
going to ask the Department of Justice witness as well--about
what you can do through DHS to cut the flow of weapons from the
United States to Mexico. Obviously, in the normal course of
things--and you correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is
that exit inspections do not happen very often. In other words,
when people are leaving the United States, there are random
inspections, but not very rigorous. So one obvious thing to do
is to have more rigorous inspections at least at the Southern
Border, as people are leaving the country. I just wanted to
give you a moment to comment, Madam Secretary, on what specific
actions additionally you are thinking about taking to clamp
down on the southern flow of illegal firearms. Do you need any
additional legal authority to do that? And, of course, that is
one of the reasons why I know you have redeployed and why I
think you should have more personnel to carry out that
particular function.
Secretary Napolitano. Yes, Senator, a great deal of the
actions I described earlier are designed to give us a
southbound presence; in other words, our history has been
focusing on goods and people coming north. What we are trying
to do now is, in addition to that, interrupt the flow of guns
and cash going south. That is why we are going to be inspecting
on southbound lanes. That is why we are deploying technology
down there that allows us to scan vehicles and to weigh
vehicles.
One of the areas of coordination with Mexican law
enforcement that we will be discussing next week is, given the
number of lanes that go south into Mexico from the United
States, Mexico has customs as well; they can also do southbound
inspections.
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Secretary Napolitano. And so dividing it up--we will do
some, they will do some others--that is where the coordination
aspect comes in.
And then as I suggested before, we need to get beyond
getting lucky at a lane inspection. That is why we need more
intelligence and intelligence gathering about what vehicles are
likely to be carrying these guns and this cash. And so that is
why more intelligence analysts are being used at the border and
deployed there as well.
Chairman Lieberman. Senator McCain, do you have another
question?
Senator McCain. No. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Let me just go back, and forgive me.
Senator Burris, do you have one?
Senator Burris. No, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. I will just follow up quickly. How
about a reaction to the concern about sales at gun shows? In
other words, the Brady law creates a check on a person before
they can buy a gun at a licensed gun store. At a gun show, the
fact is that they do not have to go through that minimal check
about criminal record, for instance.
Would that help, do you think, to close the so-called gun
show loophole?
Secretary Napolitano. We may have a better sense of that as
we increase seizures.
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Secretary Napolitano. But, anecdotally, a number have been
purchased at gun shows. The issue for me as the Homeland
Security Secretary, Senator, is that we need to act now, and as
you know, that sort of a statute would take awhile to wend its
way through.
So my view is I have to play the hand of cards I have, and
the hand of cards I have allows me to do southbound seizures,
and the hand of cards I have allows me to increase intelligence
gathering, and the hand of cards I have allows me to coordinate
better with Mexican law enforcement. So that is what I am going
to do.
Chairman Lieberman. Good enough. And I think the question
of that law is obviously more in our court than in yours. I
thank you very much for your testimony. To say the obvious that
you know well from all your experience, we did not get to this
point of crisis overnight, and we are not going to get out of
it overnight. But we certainly appreciate the steps you have
taken, and we want to work with you in the time ahead to both
strengthen and protect our allies to the south and to protect
ourselves as well.
Thank you very much for being here.
Secretary Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
Senator.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you.
We will now call the second panel: Deputy Secretary of
State Jim Steinberg and Deputy Attorney General David Ogden.
Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks very much for being here.
Deputy Secretary Steinberg, I appreciate your presence. I know
that the Secretary herself is actually in Mexico today, so we
thank you for being here, and we would welcome your testimony
at this time.
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES B. STEINBERG,\1\ DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Steinberg. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It
is a great pleasure to be here with you, Senator McCain,
Senator Burris, to talk about the issues that you have raised
this morning about violence, organized crime, and the threat
that drug trafficking poses to the United States and to Mexico
and our common efforts to address the challenges that we face
along our shared border. And I am particularly delighted to be
here with my colleagues from the Justice Department and
Secretary Napolitano. I think it is important that we are all
here together to represent the common effort that we are all
engage in, in partnership with Mexico, to address this
challenge.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Steinberg appears in the Appendix
on page 121.
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I have a more extensive statement for the record, but I
would just like to summarize a few points for you this morning.
And as you noted, we are appearing at an important moment, as
the Secretary is just on her way at this very moment down to
Mexico City to meet with her Mexican counterparts and President
Calderon to talk about the shared challenge.
Her trip as well as President Obama's upcoming trip in
April and the trips of the Secretary of DHS and the Attorney
General highlight the importance that the Obama Administration
places on the issue before us and the great opportunity that we
have to build a stronger relationship with Mexico--one that can
advance a wide range of shared interests and better position
both of our societies for lasting success. It is important as
we address the specific issue today that we do not lose sight
of the bigger and bolder promise in the relationship between
the United States and Mexico that will allow us to work
together to address the global economic crisis, energy and
environmental issues, and regional cooperation. But I do want
to focus my remarks today on the urgent challenges we face in
addressing the threat of drug trafficking and violence.
As you yourself noted, Mr. Chairman, President Calderon has
taken courageous and decisive actions against transnational
criminal organizations by conducting counter-narcotics
operations throughout his country and initiating large-scale
police and judicial reform. The Mexican government's offensive
and inter- and intra-cartel feuds over access to prime
trafficking routes to the United States have driven the number
of drug-related assassinations and kidnappings to unprecedented
levels. The cartels have become increasingly brazen, targeting
police, the military, and other security personnel, as well as
journalists.
It is against this backdrop that our two governments
jointly developed the Merida Initiative, a strategic approach
that recognizes the nature and magnitude of our shared
challenge and expands our cooperation and work together in an
unprecedented and collaborative fashion. I think it is
appropriate to express our appreciation to you and the Congress
for the strong bipartisan support for the Merida Initiative.
Congress appropriated $465 million for the first phase of the
initiative in the fiscal year 2008 supplemental allocating $400
million for Mexico and $65 million for Central America and the
Caribbean. An additional $410 million was recently appropriated
in the Omnibus Appropriation Act, with approximately $300
million for Mexico and $105 million for Central America.
The State Department has been charged with overseeing the
largest portion of Merida funding through implementing these
foreign assistance funds in a collaborative and interagency
effort. The State Department is working closely with the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID), the Departments
of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and Treasury both in
Washington and at our embassies in the region, as well as with
our host nation's partners. And as we enter the phase of
concrete collaboration and implementation, our collaboration
will accelerate.
There are two critical areas in which the Merida Initiative
will make an important difference: Interdiction and border
security and judicial reform.
Interdiction and border security funding, including support
for the Mexican counterparts of our Federal law enforcement
agency, focuses on support for enhanced information systems;
purchasing special investigative equipment, vehicles, and
computers for the new Mexican Federal Police Corps; and
assessing security and installing equipment at Mexico's largest
seaports.
We are also providing inspection equipment and associated
training to support the inspection capabilities of police,
customs and immigration; and facilitating the real-time
exchange of information related to potential targets. An
expansion of eTrace, a weapons tracing program, will enable
increased arms-trafficking investigations and prosecutions.
Additional transport and light aircraft will improve
interoperability and give security agencies the capability to
rapidly reinforce law enforcement operations nationwide.
Judicial reform efforts are equally critical. Merida
includes efforts to improve crime prevention, modernize Mexican
police forces, and strengthen institution building and the rule
of law. Through case management software, technical assistance
programs, and equipment, we will support Mexico's judicial and
police reforms by enhancing their ability to investigate,
convict, sentence, and securely detain those who commit crimes.
Training programs will support the development of offices of
professional responsibility and new institutions to receive and
act on citizen complaints.
Initial projects under the initiative have begun to roll
out, including a bilateral workshop on strategies on prevention
and prosecution of arms trafficking; the implementation of an
anti-trafficking-in-persons system for the Attorney General's
Office this month, the opening of three immigration control
sites along the Mexico-Guatemala border that will issue
biometric credentials to frequent Guatemalan border crossers,
and a train-the-trainer program for Mexican Secretary of Public
Security's corrections officers.
We are also working with the Defense Department to
accelerate the procurement and delivery of much-needed
helicopters. This effort requires that we act swiftly and
closely with our Mexican and interagency partners to respond to
urgent needs.
To conclude, I want to emphasize that every party in the
Merida Initiative recognizes that we share common objectives
and responsibilities and that a true partnership is required to
provide our citizens the safety and security they deserve. The
government of Mexico has clearly demonstrated a willingness to
take strong and decisive action.
While the Merida Initiative was born out of crisis, this
provides us with a strategic opportunity to reshape our
cooperation and expand dialogue with our partners both in
Mexico and throughout the hemisphere on critical security and
law enforcement issues.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Deputy Secretary
Steinberg, for an excellent statement.
Senator Burris and I are former Attorneys General at the
State level, and we agree that one thing that we miss coming to
the Senate is being called ``General.'' [Laughter.]
I do not know whether as Deputy Attorney General you get
that title, too, but anyway, Deputy Attorney General Ogden,
thanks for being here.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID W. OGDEN,\1\ DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Mr. Ogden. Thank you very much, Chairman Lieberman, Senator
McCain, and Senator Burris. I suppose maybe I am ``Deputy
General.'' I do not know.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ogden appears in the Appendix on
page 132.
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I appreciate very much the opportunity to appear before you
today to discuss the Justice Department's role in addressing
the alarming rise of violence perpetrated in Mexico by warring
Mexican drug-trafficking organizations and the effects of that
violence on the United States, particularly along our Southwest
Border. I want to share with you our strategy systematically to
dismantle the cartels, which currently threaten the national
security of our Mexican neighbors, pose an organized crime
threat to the United States, as has been discussed, and are
responsible for the scourge of illicit drugs and accompanying
violence in both countries.
Although the drug-related violence in Mexico has existed
over the years, as Secretary Napolitano indicated, the
bloodshed has escalated in recent months to unprecedented
levels as the cartels try to use violence as a tool to
undermine public support for the government's vigorous counter-
drug efforts.
A significant portion of this increase in violence actually
reflects progress, counterintuitively, by the governments of
Mexico and the United States in disrupting the activities of
these drug cartels since President Felipe Calderon and Attorney
General Eduardo Medina Mora took office in 2006. As the Justice
Department and our Federal agency partners have worked with the
Mexican authorities to disrupt and dismantle successive
iterations of the leadership of these cartels, their successors
have escalated the fighting among themselves for control of the
lucrative smuggling corridors along the Southwest Border.
This explosion of violence along the Southwest Border is
caused by a limited number of large, sophisticated, and vicious
criminal organizations, not by individual drug traffickers in
isolation. Indeed, the Justice Department's National Drug
Intelligence Center has identified the Mexican drug cartels, as
has been mentioned this morning, 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. But the
Department's strategy means to confront the Mexican cartels as
criminal organizations rather than simply responding to
individual criminal acts. For more than a quarter century, the
principal law enforcement agencies in this country 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 full 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 that really brought down La
Cosa Nostra. The Department is applying these same
intelligence-driven tactics that broke the back of the Mob to
fighting the Mexican drug cartels.
Our strategy to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the
cartels has five key elements.
First, it employs extensive and coordinated intelligence
capabilities. We pool information generated by our law
enforcement agencies and Federal, State, and local government
partners, and our Mexican and our foreign counterparts, and
then use that product systematically to direct operations in
the United States and to support the efforts of the Mexican
authorities to attack the cartels and the corruption that
facilitates their operations. I want to entirely endorse
Secretary Napolitano's comments in response to the questions
from the panel concerning the issue of coordination. It is
essential that we have full and complete cooperation between
our departments. I know the Attorney General and I have a long
working relationship with the Secretary, the highest regard
mutually between us, and we will solve any problems that exist
there because it is essential to our success that there be full
and complete operation among all of the elements of both
departments.
The second element is that, 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 the
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 drug-making facilities from the United States
into Mexico. This is the southbound element that the Chairman
was discussing. 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 into the United States
of cartel operations in Mexico, and that, of course, includes
spillover violence. It also includes attacking drug violations
in the United States.
And fifth, in that regard 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 and I are committed to taking
advantage of all resources in this fight. Last month, the
Attorney General announced the arrest of more than 750
individuals on narcotics-related charges under Operation
Xcellerator, which Senator Burris mentioned. That was a multi-
agency, multi-national effort that began in May 2007 and
targeted the Mexican drug-trafficking organization known as the
Sinaloa cartel. 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 by seizing 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, other illegal drugs, and weapons, aircraft, and
vessels.
An equally sweeping initiative against the Gulf cartel,
announced in September 2008 called Project Reckoning produced
similar dramatic results.
Now, Operation Xcellerator and Project Reckoning were
tremendous successes in the battle and show the strengths of
the approach. But there is much more work to do. The cartels
remain extremely powerful. Drugs are coming into the United
States; guns and cash are moving south. So the Attorney General
is taking the following steps in conjunction with the
Administration's overall initiative.
DOJ's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which already
has the largest U.S. drug enforcement presence in Mexico, with
11 offices there, is placing 16 new positions in its Southwest
Border field divisions specifically to attack Mexican
trafficking operations and violence.
DEA is also deploying four new mobile enforcement teams
with 32 new personnel to specifically target Mexican
methamphetamine distribution in organizations along the border
and in Atlanta and Chicago, which are key distribution nodes.
DOJ's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
is redeploying 100 employees, including 72 agents, under its
Project Gunrunner. That is a major plus-up effort, really a
surge, effectively, of new personnel into the Southwest Border
constituting essentially a 67-percent augmentation of the team
there. The fiscal year 2009 budget and the Recovery Act include
critical new funding for Project Gunrunner as well, which will
be used to hire 37 additional employees to open, staff, and
equip new teams. And we will be assigning new personnel to
consulates in Juarez and Tijuana to provide direct support to
Mexican officials on firearms-trafficking issues.
Our Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces program is
expanding to create new Strike Forces along the border. And the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is creating a Southwest
Intelligence Group, which will serve as a clearinghouse of all
FBI activities concerning Mexico and increase the focus on
these key problems--extortion, corruption, kidnapping--that we
are seeing and integrate that effort with the overall effort of
the other law enforcement agencies working the border. We have
also increased the presence of the Marshals Service in the
border area. And our Office of Justice Programs is investing
$30 million in stimulus dollars to support State and local law
enforcement to combat narcotics activity along the border, and
State and local law enforcement may also apply for their share
of the $3 billion in Community Oriented Policing Services
(COPS) grants and Byrne Justice Assistance Grants provided for
those programs.
All of this will be added to our effort to dismantle the
cartels, and I do want to conclude with a brief mention of the
Merida Initiative that Deputy Secretary Steinberg so ably
described.
The Department strongly supports that initiative, which
provides an unprecedented opportunity for a highly coordinated,
effective bilateral response to criminal activity. We are
actively involved in the planning and implementation of the
initiative both interagency and with the Mexican government.
One of the first programs in Mexico is a ministerial level
Strategy Session on Arms Trafficking, funded by the government
of Mexico and the State Department, and developed by the
Justice Department with DHS and the U.S. Embassy. It is going
to be held April 1 and 2, 2009, and that is the program that
the Attorney General and the Secretary will be attending on the
second day. It will provide important support for our joint
efforts with Mexico, which have rightly focused on the
development of intelligence-based targeting and prosecutor-led
multi-agency task forces.
Thank you for your interest in this important issue. I
think working together we can rise to this challenge, and I
would be happy to answer your questions. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Ogden. I want to start with
you, and I want to highlight something. I quoted from the
previous Administration statement of the Justice Department in
December, and you have repeated it here today, which is that
the Mexican drug cartels are the No. 1 organized crime threat
in the United States today. People have focused on the Mexican
drug cartels primarily in terms of the actual and greater
potential for spillover of violence into the United States. But
you have said something else that is really as broad as the
country is, and I just wanted to ask you if you want to back
that up a bit, that this is quite significant. This is the No.
1 organized crime threat in America today.
Mr. Ogden. Yes, Chairman Lieberman, it is. And I think to
understand the dimension of it, first you have to recognize the
centrality of these drug cartels and the distribution of
illegal drugs in the United States--cocaine, marijuana, and
methamphetamine. A substantial majority of the drug trafficking
in those drugs is controlled by the Mexican drug cartels. As
has been described, they have operations in over 250
jurisdictions in the United States. We have estimated that
between $17 and $38 billion worth of drug proceeds are
controlled annually by the cartels, and they move south.
Chairman Lieberman. That is the Department estimate,
between $17 and $38 billion a year?
Mr. Ogden. That is correct.
Chairman Lieberman. To say the least, these people have the
money to buy very sophisticated weaponry and also, of course,
to compromise law enforcement, if they are so inclined.
Let me ask you if you could just explain a little bit more
for the record about what it means to say that the Mexican drug
cartels are operating in as many as 250 cities or metropolitan
areas in the United States today. What kind of presence do they
have there?
Mr. Ogden. Well, they have distribution networks in which
they have essentially distributors and in certain communities
enforcers essentially that distribute the drug product, that
collect the revenues, and that enforce the payment obligations.
Chairman Lieberman. Are these people that they have sent in
from Mexico, or are these people who are essentially soldiers
in their organized crime families that are American?
Mr. Ogden. My understanding is that it is a combination of
the two. We have a presence of individuals from Mexico, but
there are also U.S. persons who are involved in the operations.
Chairman Lieberman. Do you have any evidence that you want
to share with the Committee at this point about the American
arms of the Mexican drug cartels compromising law enforcement
in this country?
Mr. Ogden. Well, it is certainly the case that a large
percentage of the weapons in the hands of the drug cartels have
a U.S.-based origin. And our Mexican counterparts deal with
that, and it is a major challenge for them. And, obviously,
spillover violence is supported by that as well.
Chairman Lieberman. Let me ask you a couple of questions
about that. Some of the numbers here are really quite
startling. This Project Gunrunner, which is the ATF strategy
for disrupting the flow of firearms to Mexico from the United
States, has referred for prosecution--these are numbers from
fiscal year 2004 to February 17 of this year--795 cases
involved 1,658 defendants, 382 firearms-trafficking cases of
those, including 1,035 defendants.
In the last 2 years alone, the Mexican government has
seized more than 33,000 firearms from the drug cartels and
estimates that hundreds of thousands of firearms enter Mexico
from the United States each year.
I have seen the number, and I want to ask you to comment on
it. We have a category called ``Federal Firearms Licensees.''
Those are people who are licensed to sell guns under the
Federal law. I have read that ATF estimates that approximately
6,700 of those Federal firearms licensees are located along the
Southwest Border. Are you familiar with that number? And if you
are, just try to develop it a little bit. Are they really along
the border? Or is it within 25 or 50 miles from the Mexican
border?
Mr. Ogden. I cannot speak to the specific number. That
number sounds familiar. It has been described to me. And I
believe that what we are talking about are basically the
Federal districts along the border. But I can get the specifics
for you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Why don't you do that for the record.
I have heard recent reports that ATF is sending over 200
agents, redeploying to the border to work on firearm-
trafficking investigations. I want to ask you the same question
I asked Secretary Napolitano, and I did not make a
recommendation on behalf of this Committee to the Budget
Committee because only DHS is under our jurisdiction. We are
concerned that the redeployment of the Department of Justice
personnel to the border may compromise law enforcement in other
parts of the country and wonder whether you are planning to
submit a modification, or the Department is, of the fiscal year
2010 budget to beef up your activities, both these and
prosecutorial activities, the whole range of activities that
you describe to combat the Mexican drug cartels as an organized
crime threat to the United States.
Mr. Ogden. Two parts to the response.
First, we do not believe that we are compromising law
enforcement in the short term. We have taken agents we believe
that we can move. In the hundred that are being moved, it is at
the moment a 3 to 6-month deployment for a surge to really try
to make an impact.
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Ogden. Thirty-seven additional are new that are being
hired and brought in through stimulus. We will assess the
situation and see at the end of that short-term period how to
respond.
As to the longer-term picture, we are looking at the fiscal
year 2010 budget and considering this issue quite centrally in
our thinking about what the needs are.
Chairman Lieberman. I appreciate that. We would like to
work with you on that. You have used a word that resonates with
Senator McCain and me. We have an inherent tendency to want to
support ``surges,'' particularly when we think they protect the
security of the United States.
Mr. Ogden. That was not tactical on my part. [Laughter.]
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Mr. Ogden, you stated that it was between
$16 and $30 billion in proceeds from drug trafficking. How do
they get that money back to the suppliers of the drugs and the
transporters? I would imagine it goes all the way back to
Colombia. How does that kind of money move from the consumer in
the United States of America all the way through the layers of
the pipeline that comes to the United States of America?
Mr. Ogden. Senator McCain, the number is actually--the
estimate is slightly larger than that. It is $17 to $38
billion, the estimate that I have seen. And how it moves is in
a number of different ways. Bulk cash movements are a big part
of this. Literally, large quantities of cash are put together
and smuggled across the border south. There are various ways in
which this is accomplished, and we are quite focused on
identifying those cash flows through intelligence, trying to
identify the vehicles that are moving it, and trying to
interdict them, working together with the DHS. But it is a
major challenge.
There are other ways. There are these stored value cards
that are used, and there are likely other ways. But bulk cash
is a big----
Senator McCain. What about wire transfers?
Mr. Ogden. There may be some of that, although I think it
is less typical than these cash transfers, which are harder to
trace.
Senator McCain. Well, whenever, obviously, we have gone
after crime, we follow the money. And, obviously, it has been
true with the Mafia, etc. So are we doing enough to go after
the money?
Mr. Ogden. Senator, I think that is an extremely important
question at which we are looking very hard. We are adding to
each of our organized crime strike force teams at the border a
financial analyst. That is one of the steps that we are taking
with this specific initiative, adding financial analysts to
each of our strike force teams to be looking at those aspects
of the fight in a very focused way. And as I say, we are
working hard with the Treasury Department and with the other
agencies on the bulk cash issue.
Senator McCain. I think you can also see manifestations of
this money in the lifestyle that some people enjoy: Large
mansions on both sides of the border, ostentatious displays of
wealth. Are there ways of tracking that as well?
Mr. Ogden. It may be that is an element that people look
at, unexplained concentrations of wealth. I do not know
specifically. I will get back and see what we are doing about
that particular aspect and report back to you, Senator.
Senator McCain. Well, I have seen some of it myself, and so
I would hope that sometime we can at least identify the
inhabitants and the people that are flying private jets, etc.,
and try to devise ways of going after it in that fashion.
Are you seeing some of these activities still being run
from prisons in Mexico as well? We see drug cartels sometimes
run from prisons in Mexico. Are you seeing that in the United
States as well?
Mr. Ogden. I am not aware of that specifically, Senator,
but, again, I will inquire and see if there is information that
we can share about that.
Senator McCain. We all know that there are prison gangs
that have Central American and Mexican connections.
Mr. Ogden. That is correct.
Senator McCain. So it would seem to me that drug
trafficking might be part of that. But I guess I am trying to--
we need to sit down and game this situation and try to think
outside of the box. If it is up to $38 billion, we ought to try
attacking this issue from some new directions, and some of that
may require legislation, as it did when we took on corruption
as far as the Mafia is concerned.
Secretary Steinberg, how concerned are you about corruption
at the highest levels in Mexico?
Mr. Steinberg. Senator McCain, it is a very important
issue, and I think one of the marks of President Calderon's
seriousness in this is the efforts he has made against
corruption. The Mexican government has instituted a program,
Operation Clean House, which has identified a number of very
senior officials associated with law enforcement with
significant corruption problems. And I think the fact that he
has taken this on and been willing to take the risks associated
with exposing those individuals and trying to bring them to
justice reflects the determination that he has.
As you said, once you have the magnitude of money involved
here, the potential for corruption is enormous, and it is a
true challenge to the State to be able to combat that kind of
money which is being liberally used by the cartels to try to
corrupt government officials, law enforcement officials, and
the like.
So we have seen a really vigorous effort on the part of the
Mexican government, the Attorney General's Office, and others
to take this on, but it is going to be an ongoing challenge.
Senator McCain. It seems to me, Deputy Attorney General
Ogden, we have illegal immigration, the coyotes, drug
smuggling, and kidnapping all mixed up together now. Do you
agree?
Mr. Steinberg. I do, Senator, and I think that is a
critical insight here--these are organized criminal
enterprises. They are committing crimes in both directions and
in our communities and in Mexico. That is why it requires a
coordinated attack that attacks them as organizations in the
way that we are going about it. We have much to do to improve
on it, but we have a strategy, and I think we are working hard
on it.
Senator McCain. In the now kidnapping capital of America,
the same people that are smuggling illegal immigrants are the
same people that are smuggling the drugs, the same people that
are having the illegal immigrants call up their relatives and
pay ransom.
Mr. Ogden. I think that is likely true. Certainly, the
enforcement side that we see with the home invasions and the
kidnappings is entirely related to the drug trade in the way
that you have described. And that is why what we are trying to
do and I think what we are effectively doing and trying to
improve upon is to bring together all the law enforcement
agencies, Federal--both at our Department and the Department of
Homeland Security--the State and local law enforcement, tribal
law enforcement, and working with our courageous counterparts
in Mexico, to bring this intelligence together, look at this
thing as an overall organization, and attack it as an
organization.
Senator McCain. Well, I would like you also to continue to
look at the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). There are
areas along our border that are basically trackless, and it
takes a long time once someone gets across the border to get
into any kind of populated area if they are on foot, or even
sometimes in vehicles. And I really believe the technology--and
we have had a number of cases of failed technology along the
border, as you know. But I think it is pretty clear that the
UAVs can be very effective, particularly given the state of
technology today. If you agree we are in a ``war'' on drugs--we
use that term too loosely. But the fact is if we are in a
struggle that poses an existential threat to the country of
Mexico, then I think we ought to look at the technological
aspects of warfare to increase our ability to surveill and
interdict. So I hope you will be looking at that.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator McCain. Your last
line of questioning reminds me that a short time ago, General
Renuart, who is the head of our Northern Command, which is
responsible for the Pentagon's role in homeland defense,
testified briefly about what his command is beginning to do
with regard to the spillover of violence from Mexico and to be
a support to the Mexican military as well. And he might be a
good witness to bring before us at a future hearing on this
subject, because we are really beginning to mobilize our
resources here, including defense.
Senator Burris.
Senator Burris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Deputy Secretary Steinberg, in your testimony you were
saying the coordination between Justice and State was to the
point of assisting the Mexican law enforcement and the Mexican
judges. Could you explain that again, how you are working with
the judges and the Mexican law enforcement along with Justice
and coordinating those efforts?
Mr. Steinberg. Certainly, Senator. As I said, one of the
most important parts of President Calderon's effort is to deal
with the justice system. He has, along with the Mexican
legislature, adopted a very ambitious set of legal reforms to
really transform the legal system in Mexico to be more like our
own system of oral advocacy and away from the judicial inquiry
mode that they had before. So there is a very broad-ranging set
of reforms that they are now engaged in, as well as efforts to
deal with corruption in the judicial system, to provide
training for prosecutors and judicial personnel, to reform the
corrections system and corrections facilities, and to train
corrections officers there. So it is really a systematic effort
really to get at the whole system from all of its aspects, from
prosecutions through corrections, to make the system more
responsive, more insulated from corruption and the impact of
cartels, and to prove that the State really is on top of these
things.
Here, although we have a responsibility for coordinating
the assistance, we draw on the capabilities and strengths of
all the different parts of our government, USAID and Justice in
particular, on these reform efforts.
Senator Burris. Thank you. And, Deputy Attorney General
Ogden, I raised a question with Secretary Napolitano about the
local use of drugs. How are you all coordinating with local law
enforcement? Because it is my fervent belief that if there is
no demand, there can be no supply. And especially in inner-city
Chicago, where I come from, the major industry is drug usage
and turf battles and turf spraying with AK-47s.
I know that there is a drug czar and you have these joint
efforts, but are we looking forward to putting more resources,
too, into local law enforcement and into treatment to stop the
demand of these individuals who may find themselves being
addicted to drugs so that we can cut down on the flow of the
dollars going into this drug trade, which then is shipped out
to Mexico, which is used to build these big cartels? It is
coming from the $10 and $15 that is given right on the street.
So if we cut that out, wouldn't that cut the head of the snake
off?
Mr. Ogden. Senator, that is true. Clearly, the violence and
the entire industry is fueled largely with dollars that flow
south from the United States in exactly the fashion that you
describe. And the effort of the Office of National Drug Control
Policy (ONDCP), I believe there is a renewed commitment to
addressing the demand problem there; certainly the drug courts
that Secretary Napolitano spoke about, which are funded through
programs of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice
Programs to increase those important elements in the fight; and
then, as you say, coordination with State and local law
enforcement.
The new stimulus package has $3 billion worth of Byrne
Justice Assistance Grants and grants under the COPS program to
help and support State and local law enforcement, and we plan
to work very closely together with them on these initiatives.
In addition, State and local law enforcement, as I
mentioned, are integrated into the enforcement, intelligence
sharing, and prosecution teams that I was discussing earlier.
Senator Burris. Is anyone dealing with the educational
piece of it, the treatment piece to treat those individuals who
are addicted to drugs so that we can cut down on the demand? I
know that does not fall in the Justice bailiwick. It is
probably in some other department. But in this coordinated
effort that we are talking about here, Mr. Chairman, I do not
know whether or not we have funds that we can some kind of way
find where we can get down to that ultimate user that is
putting that $5, $10, $15, and $20 that really ends up going
back to Mexico in these big bundles that fuel these cartels.
And we must get at the source of it, and that is in my
community and all the small towns across America. These drugs
have inundated our youth. They are in small communities where
law enforcement do not have the resources to go after them. And
they end up eventually in the criminal justice system or in the
health care system in a way that even brings a whole drain on
our economy.
We must get at the root cause, and that is, the user of the
drugs, and education and treatment are the sources that I keep
saying that we must do.
Can you comment on that, gentlemen? Do you agree with me?
Mr. Ogden. We certainly agree with you that education and
treatment are critically important. I think our drug courts try
to incorporate treatment. But there is a lot that needs to be
done.
Mr. Steinberg. If I could just add, Senator, one of the
aspects of our program that does not get as much attention is
we are also working on demand reduction in Mexico as well. That
is another piece of this. Just as we need to deal with the
demand side here, we need to help Mexico deal with its demand
side because they have their own drug problem which also feeds
the cartels.
Senator Burris. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Burris.
Senator Pryor, we now have three former State Attorneys
General.
Senator Pryor. That is right, three against one.
Chairman Lieberman. We are a tight group. [Laughter.]
Not to suggest that you are a law breaker, Senator Tester.
Senator Tester. Just here to offer a level of common sense,
Mr. Chairman. [Laughter.]
Senator Pryor. I love that.
Chairman Lieberman. As usual, he gets to that.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR
Senator Pryor. Mr. Ogden, let me start with you, if I may.
In December, the Department of Justice Drug Intelligence Center
released a report that identified 230 cities in the United
States, three of those being in Arkansas, with a Mexican drug-
trafficking organization or presence in the city. How is the
Federal Government reaching out to those cities and those
States and local law enforcement, governors, fusion centers,
whatever the case may be? How are you reaching out in trying to
work with different levels of government to try to make that
situation better?
Mr. Ogden. It is critically important, Senator, exactly as
you say, to have both coordination and mutual support with
State and local law enforcement in dealing with this problem.
These are enormous organizations that their tentacles reach
into our communities across the country. And so through our
intelligence-sharing facilities that are essentially chaired by
the Drug Enforcement Administration, they bring in all Federal
law enforcement, State and local law enforcement, and to a
significant degree, our foreign counterparts, to share that
information. The information is shared with our State and local
counterparts and partners. There is an effort at the
prosecutorial level to coordinate enforcement of drug offenses,
and so both with the DEA's outreach to individual communities
that have particular problems with the mobile enforcement
teams, with our Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force
(OCDETF) that incorporates State and local law enforcement, and
with the coordination as I described at the DEA intelligence-
sharing facilities, there is really a concerted effort to work
together with State and local authorities on this problem.
Senator Pryor. And you have been talking mostly about
information sharing, but are you also targeting tools and
resources to those cities and those areas?
Mr. Ogden. We are, and thank you for reminding me to
address that part of it. There are $30 million in the stimulus
that are specifically going to the border State and local law
enforcement to support border issues. Beyond that, there are $3
billion of grants under the Byrne Justice Assistance program
and the COPS program, which are available for State and local
law enforcement to apply for support from the Justice
Department and to work with us on developing the most effective
programs for law enforcement generally, but obviously this
problem is a central and important one that would receive
priority.
Senator Pryor. And no portion of those money pots that you
are talking about are designated specifically for this, but you
are saying they are available generally, and I guess they are
somehow prioritized within DOJ?
Mr. Ogden. Well, certainly there is an effort to have those
programs address the urgent law enforcement needs that exist
across the country, and so those monies are to provide that
kind of support, and then we have the coordination operations
that I was describing on the operational side to make sure
people are working together.
Senator Pryor. With the report that came out in December,
it said 230 cities in the United States. Is that number about
the same today?
Mr. Ogden. I believe so. That is, I think, the most current
intelligence that we have on that question.
Senator Pryor. And when it says a Mexican drug-trafficking
organization presence in a city, does that mean it is usually
done with Mexican nationals?
Mr. Ogden. I will get back with whatever detail that we can
provide more specifically. But it is, I think, a combination of
Mexican nationals and U.S. persons who are involved in that.
Senator Pryor. Let me ask, if I may, Mr. Steinberg, a
question about--is it pronounced the Merida Initiative?
Mr. Steinberg. Merida, sir.
Senator Pryor. Merida. Could you tell the Committee what
that is and how that is going?
Mr. Steinberg. Yes, sir. The Merida Initiative was started
last year. It was a multi-year initiative that began with
funding in the fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill. We have
now had--between the fiscal year 2008 appropriations of about
$400 million and now $300 million in the omnibus, it is a
comprehensive effort that involves a number of Federal agencies
as well as our counterparts in Mexico to address a full range
of the issues involved in helping Mexico strengthen its efforts
against the cartels and against narcotics and violence. It
focuses on efforts like providing the Mexican government with
non-intrusive inspection equipment so that it can detect flows
of firearms and funds going south. It provides support for
judicial reform, support for corrections reform, support for
training officials, support for additional mobility and
intelligence and information sharing among law enforcement
officials at the Federal and local level in Mexico and with
their counterparts.
So it is really quite a comprehensive effort dealing with
the full range of issues that allows the Mexican government to
take on this very strong challenge, and it will require a
multi-year effort working together and involving a broad range
of agencies in the United States, the State Department, Justice
Department, DHS, Treasury, USAID, and others working with their
Mexican counterparts to address this problem.
Senator Pryor. Can you tell yet if it is going to be
successful or if it is headed in the right direction?
Mr. Steinberg. We are in the early days. As I say, the
first tranche of funding just became available at the end of
last year. We have already begun to implement a number of
programs, particularly with a focus on some of the training
programs that Deputy Attorney General Ogden and I have
mentioned, but also in getting this equipment to them that they
need, this non-intrusive inspection equipment, which is a very
high early priority, as well as some of these training
programs.
In addition, there are things that are sort of the big-
ticket items. It is increasing our ability to exchange
information and ideas on tactics and operations, and a very
high priority is getting them the mobility they need to be able
to respond quickly when we have information and to support
their own efforts as they try to strengthen particularly the
Federal police as a key element of their effort against the
cartels.
Senator Pryor. And we did this last year. Is it your
impression that this Administration will continue to prioritize
this and continue to seek this type of funding and continue the
program?
Mr. Steinberg. Senator, as you know, we have not yet
finalized the 2010 budget yet, but we see this as a multi-year
commitment, and I am confident that, without discussing
specific amounts yet, this is a priority we intend to continue.
Senator Pryor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Pryor, for
your questions.
Next we go to Christopher Carper's father, Senator Tom
Carper. We are honored to have both the Senator and his
offspring here this morning.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will
let the audience look at the folks behind me and figure out
which one of them might be my son, Christopher.
Thanks very much. Our thanks to each of you for being with
us today. I apologize for being late. One of the
responsibilities of this Committee is not just to be concerned
about the security of our borders and the security of our
homeland, but also a responsibility is to make sure that we
count every 10 years how many people live in this country in
the census, and that starts in about a year. And we had a big
session today with a lot of Latino organizations that are
anxious to make sure we count the folks that are here,
hopefully legal, but some may be some who are not. So I
apologize for being delayed and having missed your testimony
and that of my former governor colleague, Janet Napolitano. But
we really appreciate your presence and appreciate your work.
I caught just a little bit of Senator Burris' comments when
I was coming in and out, and I asked my staff about this. Is
this the right picture? Do I have this right? In this country,
we consume enormous amounts of illegal drugs, and a lot of
those come out of Mexico, and as a country, we pay a lot of
money for those illegal drugs, and a lot of that money ends up
down in Mexico, and the folks down in Mexico use a portion of
that money to come back into the United States and buy weapons
from us, and they send people who do not have a criminal record
into gun stores to buy a number of weapons legally. They send
people into gun shows where they can buy weapons legally. And
they can buy assault weapons legally now because the ban on
that has dropped.
I am a guy who believes in the right to bear arms, but I
also have some concerns about the way this seems to be working
to me. We took the train down here this morning from Delaware,
and I read in the local paper this initiative that has just
been launched by the Administration. I said it sounds good. I
understand that Governor Napolitano discussed it today. But if
the two of you could just take a couple of minutes and talk to
us about how this new initiative reduces some of the demand for
illegal drugs in our country. And, second, how this initiative
will reduce the ability of folks to come into this country and
to buy weapons here that will go back and be used as a part of
the violence, not just on the border but into this country and
certainly well into Mexico. If you all could take a shot at
that, I would be grateful.
Mr. Ogden. Certainly, Senator. Well, I think the basic
picture that you paint of large criminal organizations which
are selling drugs in the United States for large amounts of
money, buying weapons in the United States, taking the money
and the weapons back to Mexico and using them to further the
criminal enterprise----
Senator Carper. I mean, we are all about a strong economy,
and we are trying to stimulate our economy and pass stimulus
bills and so forth. It seems like this part of the economy is
going too well, and we need to figure out how to deflate this
bubble.
Mr. Ogden. Certainly, it is a very insidious economy, and
it is one that has these terrible ramifications for our border
communities and for our partners and friends in Mexico. And it
is something that we are very serious about attacking.
We think that it is critically important to attack these
organized criminal enterprises as organizations and to take
them on through prosecutor-led task forces, intelligence
sharing among the relevant law enforcement agencies working
with State and local governments, and most important,
partnering with the Mexican government, which is so
courageously taking on this problem on their side of the
border. And what we are trying to do with these new resources
is to support that centrally driven prosecutor-led strategy to
bring these people to justice and dismantle these
organizations.
On the demand side, we have talked today, I think that it
is a very important thing to do. We need to address the
distribution here. We need to do everything we can to address
addiction and the problems that bring that about.
Fundamentally, this problem of the cartels we need to address
the way we took on the Mafia in the 1980s and 1990s and try to
take them down that way.
Senator Carper. All right.
Mr. Steinberg. If I could just add, Senator, obviously this
is a priority for the Mexican government. It is of deep concern
to them that it is feeling the violence on the other side of
the border. And we are talking not just about small firearms,
but in many cases actually things that are approaching heavy
weaponry. So this is not just a question, although we are
concerned about individual weapons, but we are starting to see
the kinds of weapons that are really used in military warfare.
So this is a very serious problem, and it is contributing
to this remarkable violence on the Mexican side.
Senator Carper. But the folks that are using those weapons,
Mr. Steinberg, where are they buying those, the heavier
weapons?
Mr. Steinberg. I think there are a variety of sources, and
one of the things that we are working with the Justice
Department is to understand better where they are including
efforts not only to detect them going across the border through
non-intrusive inspection equipment, but also through the eTrace
program, which tries to identify the sources of them and look
back to the sources, and then working with Treasury and Justice
to identify where they may be coming from.
Senator Carper. All right. I understand that a fair amount
of this hearing today has focused on the Southern Border, and I
want to take just a minute--I do not know if anyone has
discussed the Northern Border with you or not. The Northern
Border is pretty big, and it is worth a little bit of
attention.
I would ask--and this is probably more for Deputy Secretary
Steinberg. But how long do you think it will take to fully
implement the State Department's Merida Initiative? And do you
feel the money that the Congress appropriated was enough to
provide concrete improvements to the Mexican government's
counter-narcotic and anti-cartel efforts?
Mr. Steinberg. Well, Senator, this is a multi-year effort,
and we are off to a good start. As I indicated, the Congress
has now provided about $700 million to Mexico, and one thing
that we have not talked as much about this morning, but I just
do want to emphasize, is that some of the funding has gone to
Central America and to Haiti and the Dominican Republic because
we have to see this in a regional context. And it is very
important and the Mexican government is very concerned as well
about its Southern Border, so seeing this regional effort is
quite important.
That is a significant start on a program that will take
several years, and clearly, again, without specifying what we
will be looking for in the 2010 budget precisely, we are going
to need continued funding. This is going to be a multi-year
effort.
The good news is we really now have the framework underway.
We have the letters of agreement with the government of Mexico.
We have the interagency understandings mostly in place at this
point that allow us to be effective. I think we are going to
see an acceleration of the program as we go forward. So
sustaining that going forward is going to be quite important,
and obviously we will be talking to you about that as the 2010
budget comes up.
Senator Carper. Good. Now we will go back to the Northern
Border. The kind of concerns that we have seen, that we see
every day along the border of Mexico are riveting, and they
demand our attention. When you look at the Northern Border, can
you all describe for us any current or future efforts to
bolster security along the Canadian border? Have you seen
suspicious illegal immigration activities or trends that our
intelligence folks or law enforcement people feel can pose a
national security risk?
Mr. Steinberg. Senator, we work very closely with our
Canadian counterparts as well. It is a very strong relationship
that we have with the security officials, with the RCMP in
Canada, to have a joint effort and to coordinate our effort
there----
Senator Carper. RCMP stands for the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police?
Mr. Steinberg. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, yes, sir.
Senator Carper. Yes.
Mr. Steinberg. Still there, and doing a very fine job.
Senator Carper. After all these years.
Mr. Steinberg. But the President was just in Canada
visiting with his counterparts, and we had a chance to talk
about this. The border there is critically important to our
economic well-being, the ability to both, on the one hand, make
sure that people, commerce, and goods can move expeditiously to
have the kind of just-in-time integrated economy that is so
critical to our well-being, and we depend so closely on working
with Canada on those things, but at the same time to deal with
security and to see this as a shared space so that it is not
just the border as how we deal with security problems, which
not just involve illegal immigration but, obviously, concerns
about potential terrorist threats and the like. And that is
something that we have seen increased collaboration and
cooperation between our two countries. We need to continue to
build the infrastructure around the Northern Border as well to
address these concerns.
Senator Carper. All right. Thanks very much.
Mr. Chairman, thanks very much. Timely hearing. This is
really timely.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Carper. Thanks for
being here. It has been a very productive hearing so far.
Senator Tester, thank you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER
Senator Tester. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I
apologize for not being in on the first panel, and I apologize
for not hearing your testimony. But, nonetheless, I think this
is a very important hearing, and I want to thank you, Mr. Ogden
and Mr. Steinberg, for being here today.
I come from a border State, as Senator Carper talked about.
It is a Northern Border State. We have different issues, as you
pointed out, Mr. Steinberg, but it certainly has its
challenges, and I look forward to working with you in the
future on meeting those challenges. But whether it is the
Northern Border or the Southern Border, porous borders mean
that the potential for drugs flowing into communities all over
the country is real, and it is everybody's problem.
We do need, as Senator Burris pointed out when I first came
in, to acknowledge that there is a clear demand problem here in
the United States. I think that is critically important that we
get a handle on that. And I want to be clear about one other
thing. Some have used this latest outbreak in Mexico to argue
for tighter gun control restrictions in the United States. I do
not agree that is the right answer either. I think that the
right answer is really cooperation, which I am hearing at all
levels of government, and smarter intelligence, more eyes and
ears on the border, getting tougher on criminals that are
smuggling the weapons and drugs, and as I said earlier, demand
here at home.
One other thing that I would throw in, and that is, trade
policies at work in Mexico as well as here in this country. I
think anytime you get a situation where people are struggling
to make a living, they are willing to almost do anything to
feed their family.
Mr. Ogden, I want to make sure that you have the resources
to address gun crimes, and rather than ask for new gun laws, I
am glad to see Project Gunrunner is being discussed; I am glad
to see that you are working to find folks that smuggle weapons.
I think that is critically important.
I am a firm believer in getting the biggest value for the
buck that we spend when it comes to taxpayer dollars, but I
think there are a lot of folks in my State that think that is
money well spent to go get the bad guys.
Mr. Ogden. Thank you, Senator. We certainly agree with
aggressive enforcement of the gun laws that are on the books,
getting at this smuggling through the eTrace system, which is
the ATF system for identifying a gun that has been used
illegally, a gun that is in Mexico that is seized, how it was
sold, and tracking down that process to try to find the gun
smugglers, the gun runners, is critically important.
Senator Tester. I appreciate that. I appreciate that a lot
for a lot of different reasons.
I think it was you, Mr. Ogden, who said that there is $30
million in the jobs recovery, stimulus bill, whatever you want
to call it, that go directly to the border.
Mr. Ogden. Senator, there are $30 million in the stimulus
for the Office of Justice programs to provide grants to State
and local law enforcement directly connected with the border
and the critical communities that are suffering from drug----
Senator Tester. Is that the Southern Border only, or is
that both borders?
Mr. Ogden. It is focused on the Southern Border and the
communities that are directly affected by that problem. The
larger package in the stimulus, there are $3 billion worth of
grants under Byrne Justice Assistance Grants and COPS that are
available nationwide.
Senator Tester. Do you know how much of that is going to
the Northern Border? I know this is the Southern Border
hearing, but----
Mr. Ogden. I think that essentially remains to be seen. We
are open for business to receive applications, and I think we
will try to process them according to appropriate criteria.
Senator Tester. And the $30 million you talked about is
used to develop relationships with local entities on the
border.
Mr. Ogden. To support them and support our relationship,
that is right.
Senator Tester. And how is that going? Is that money
getting out? When do you anticipate that money to get out? When
do you anticipate those relationships to be developed so you
can send that money out?
Mr. Ogden. Well, the relationships exist, and we are
working hard on them every day. We work side by side with State
and local law enforcement in this battle. The money is--as you
can appreciate, there are processes. People need to apply. We
are ready to receive those applications and to move that money
out as soon as possible. A precise timeline I think depends on
the applications and how fast we can move them.
Senator Tester. I would just say from my perspective, I
appreciate those efforts, working with local law enforcement,
working with, in the Northern Border's case--and I am much more
familiar with that than the Southern Border--people who own
land, who farm and ranch along that border. I think you can get
a lot of bang for the buck, and I think that those
relationships really need to be developed if we are going to
get a firm grip on tightening up the border.
I speak mainly from a Northern Border perspective, but if
it applies to the Southern Border, then so be it and so do it.
And so I thank you for those efforts.
You had mentioned that you feel it is important to attack
the cartels, treat them as an organization, attack the
organization. Part of being able to do that is communication
between not only those local entities that are on the American
side of the border with Homeland Security, but also the Mexican
side of things. And I did not hear your statement, and you may
have addressed this already. But what kind of communication do
you have--because timeliness is critically important here. What
kind of communication do you have with local agencies, local
law enforcement, and Mexican law enforcement at all levels?
Mr. Ogden. It is a critically important question, and there
is no way to understand this problem and how we are going to
solve it without understanding what you have just said, which
is that we need to have the most productive partnership with
our Mexican counterparts that we possibly can have. And we have
a very strong and good relationship. The Merida Initiative, in
which we are side by side, our prosecutorial and investigative
experts working with theirs to build infrastructure, to build
bridges, and to make ourselves more coordinated, is a critical
piece of this, the work that the State Department, the Attorney
General, and Secretary Napolitano are doing, to build those
bridges.
We are sharing information to a very significant degree. We
are working to build vetted units within the Mexican law
enforcement structure of agents who have been vetted by the DEA
and by the United States as being people who are not corrupt
and who can be trusted with our intelligence. And all of this
effort which is underway, has been underway, which we are
trying to accelerate. As the Deputy Secretary said, it is
critically important to winning this fight.
Senator Tester. If there is one area that needs to be
addressed--I will not call it the ``weakness,'' but if there is
one area that you would say we really need to focus on to
really be able to secure the border, stop the gun running, stop
illegal drugs coming the other direction, what would it be?
Mr. Ogden. I think the critical thing is to have the
strengthening of our working relationship with the Mexican
government, strengthening the institutions on both sides, and
the coordination on both sides.
Senator Tester. Thank you very much, and I appreciate you
both being here.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Tester. Thanks for
those questions. Senator Akaka, welcome. Thanks for being here.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good to
be here. Let me apologize for being late to this hearing, but I
was conducting another hearing before this.
I am very interested in what is happening there on the
Southern Border, as well as the Northern Border, and would like
to direct this question to Deputy Secretary Steinberg, and
bring in the Merida Initiative, which is an assistance package
to Mexico and Central America to combat drug trafficking and
organized crime with an objective to maximize the effectiveness
of efforts against drug, human, and weapons trafficking.
The Merida Initiative provides also funding to support a
variety of programs in Mexico. The large amount of funding and
broad scope of the initiative makes oversight particularly
challenging. I would like you to address how you are monitoring
progress on this. What performance metrics do you have in place
to measure the progress of the Merida Initiative in meetings
its goals?
Mr. Steinberg. Well, thank you, Senator. I think you have
raised a very important point because, obviously, the test of
the program in the long term is going to be how effectiveness
we are in partnership with Mexico in helping the government of
Mexico to get control of its streets to deal with this very
serious organized threat to the very public security of its own
citizens. And so we have a set of short-term measures that we
are going to be focusing on as we go forward, looking at issues
like increased arrests of drug traffickers and gang members,
the dismantling of organized crime syndicates, increased
interdiction of illegal drugs and weapons, improved
effectiveness of the national judicial systems, reduction of
criminal case backlogs, reduction in the average length of
trials, increased public confidence in the courts, improved law
enforcement cooperation both between us and the Mexicans and
between the Federal level in Mexico and the local authorities,
and the ability to deal with the cross-border issues not just
between the United States and Mexico, but also into Central
America.
So there are a number of things that we are going to be
working on there over the long term to see a reduction in
violence, to see a reduction in these flows of the drugs north
and the money and the arms to the south. These are early days,
but I think we have already seen the very fact of this
increased violence to some extent is a reflection of the
determination on the part of the Mexican government to take
this on. And the cartels are fighting back. They are seeing
their existing routes be disrupted. They are fighting over
territory.
So we are seeing in some respects a kind of intensity of
fighting reflecting the determination of both sides, the United
States and Mexico, to take this one. But we are going to need
to stay at this for a while. The cartels are well organized and
well funded. They are fighting for their lives, and the Mexican
government is going to be doing what it needs to get that done.
So we will have to stay on top of this. Oversight is very
important. These are significant resources. We have mechanisms
in place. These are largely situations where we are not
transferring funds to Mexico so much as providing technical
assistance, training, and equipment that we are working on
together so we have a good ability to make sure that it is
being used for the purposes that Congress intended.
Senator Akaka. You mentioned training. In particular and
specifically, how is the training going? I can recall that
training was to begin April 2008, and since then--then my
question would be: How is the training program? And what kind
of metrics are you using to check on that?
Mr. Steinberg. Well, Senator, the initial appropriation for
the Merida Initiative was enacted in June of last year, so we
have been operating on funding that has just become available
starting last summer, and we have been working with Committee
staff here up on the Hill in the initial days to agree on a
plan going forward. We had to reach some letters of agreement
with the Mexican government on how these programs should go
forward.
So the reality is that the programs have actually begun in
the last 4 or 5 months, and we are beginning to see these
programs take place--training of corrections staff, working
with judicial officials, and as I said, a significant effort
focused on the procurement of equipment, particularly non-
intrusive detection equipment, which is a major part of the
actual overall amount of spending.
But these efforts now I think are accelerating. We have the
framework in place, and we need to keep at it.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
Deputy Attorney General Ogden, there are a number of
initiatives addressing the violence associated with the drug
cartels near the Southwest Border. In order to meet these
initiatives, your Department must coordinate--and my question
is really on your coordination--with DHS, the State Department,
and the State and local governments as well.
How are you ensuring that your Department's
counternarcotics efforts are complementing rather than
duplicating efforts of other agencies involved?
Mr. Ogden. Thank you, Senator. I think you put your finger
on a critically important aspect of the response here, which is
we do need to be extremely well coordinated.
The Drug Enforcement Administration was established to be
the drug enforcement entity, the central drug enforcement
entity for the United States, and DEA has established
intelligence centers, the Special Operations Division (SOD)
center, and the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), which bring
in all of the critical agencies to share intelligence and to
share information. That is a critical aspect of the
coordination of this effort, that effort that the DEA does, and
then the DEA works to make sure we are de-conflicted, that we
do not have conflicts among agencies pursuing these cases, and
work together with the prosecutors in their own task forces, of
which DEA and the other agencies are a part, to put together
these major initiatives that are designed to take down the
cartels, such as Xcellerator, such as the one against the Gulf
cartel.
So we are pursuing coordination through those mechanisms
and, I think, continuing to look for ways to improve our
coordination.
Senator Akaka. Yes. And as was pointed out, you have been
working with groups. Can you tell me how many different groups
there are that you are working with on this problem?
Mr. Ogden. The groups that we are working with on our side
of the problem you mean?
Senator Akaka. To deal with this problem.
Mr. Ogden. Well, certainly within--well, it is a large
number. I am not sure I could quantify it. In the Justice
Department, there is the DEA, the ATF, the FBI is an important
part of this, the Marshals Service, and our Federal prosecutors
in the Criminal Division and in the U.S. Attorneys' Offices. At
DHS, there is ICE, the Border Patrol components, and the rest
of the critical aspects of DHS working on this. Obviously, our
partners at the State Department in working with the Mexican
authorities are critical. The Treasury Department with respect
to the aspects of this that affect the cash flows is another
critical partner. State and local law enforcement, tribal law
enforcement, and then, far from least, our Mexican colleagues
and counterparts are so bravely taking this battle to the
cartels in their own backyard. That relationship is critical.
And I have probably left out someone who will be annoyed with
me, but it is a large group that we are bringing together.
Senator Akaka. Yes, well, thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman. My time has expired.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Akaka.
I just have one more question or two for you, Mr.
Steinberg, about the Merida Initiative. Incidentally, I
appreciate what you said a short while ago about the
relationship between the United States and Mexico. It is a
longstanding relationship. It has been through difficult times.
This seems to be one of the better times. We always ought to
have a pro-American Government in Mexico and a pro-Mexican
government in America. That does not always happen. We have it
now, and in regard to this specific crisis, we have an
extraordinarily courageous Administration in Mexico City that
we want to work with and we are working with. So I appreciate
the way you said that, as a matter of our foreign policy, if
you will, in addition to domestic law enforcement.
I want to ask you just this question about the Merida
Initiative. First, I understand that we are in the budget
process so you cannot tell us how much you are going to ask
for, for Merida, but I appreciate that you made a commitment on
behalf of the Department to continue this as a multi-year
program. You tell me if you are willing to answer this
question. I assume that we will put at least as much into the
program as is going in on an annual basis now. Is that fair to
conclude?
Mr. Steinberg. Senator, again, without getting into
specifics, when the program was initially envisioned, we were
talking about a 3-year, $1.4 billion program. Now, obviously,
we want to look at it in terms of individual year allocations,
how we can best use the money. We do not want to get more money
than the system can appropriate. So I cannot give an absolute
number, but I do think the fact that it is a multi-year thing
and some sense of the scale that was initially envisioned gives
you some sense about the kind of role that we saw going
forward.
Chairman Lieberman. In the first 2 years, fiscal year 2008
and 2009, Congress actually appropriated less money than was
requested. There was $950 million requested and $700 million--
still a considerable amount, of course--was appropriated. One
of the reasons given here in Congress for the reduction in
funding was a concern about the slowness with which the Merida
money had been disbursed to date. This is not a problem of your
creation, that you found this, but I gather that a relatively
small fraction of the funding appropriated in fiscal year 2008,
as Senator Akaka indicated, for Mexican law enforcement
agencies has actually been expended to date--not obligated but
actually expended.
So I wanted to ask you if you agree with that observation
that this is moving slowly, and if so, why do you think it is
and what are you doing with the Secretary to expedite the
disbursement of the remaining fiscal year 2008 Merida funding.
Mr. Steinberg. Well, Senator, I think everyone always wants
the money to get out the door as fast as possible, and I think
we could talk about the details about what happened last year.
I think there was a period of time that it was important for
the Department and Congress and the key members of your staffs
to have a joint understanding about what we are going to do,
because it is a long-term program, and getting it off on the
right footing was important. So there was a period of time
associated with that, and once we had an agreement here in the
United States about how to spend the money, we needed to work
that with the Mexicans.
By the end of calendar 2008, I would say we had the
mechanisms in place, and now we are ready--fortunately,
coinciding with the beginning of this Administration--to really
begin to be aggressive about this. And as I said, one of the
things that we are going to see, although a relatively small
amount of money has been obligated at this point, a significant
amount of funding, particularly for this non-intrusive
detection equipment, is really ready to go.
Also, a very important additional part that I hope we will
be moving very quickly is the helicopters for the Mexican
military. Congress was good enough to waive the informal
notification requirements under the Foreign Military Financing
(FMF) program. The formal notification expires on April 13,
which means we will be in a position after April 13 to finally
negotiate those contracts for the helicopters, which are
critically important to provide the mobility and the speed of
responsiveness.
So as we get some of these larger programs out the door, we
will see that in terms of the percentage of funds allocated,
that will go up very dramatically, and as I say, we have now
the letters of agreement in place with the government of Mexico
that facilitate the expenditure of the funds that are handled
under our international narcotics law enforcement accounts.
And so I think that the pipeline is well established, the
relationships are well established, both within the United
States and between the United States and Mexico, and we can see
an acceleration of the implementation of the program.
Chairman Lieberman. That is very encouraging, and we will
obviously keep in touch with you on that.
Although the Merida funding is appropriated to the
Department of State foreign assistance accounts, obviously the
Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice
are important partners with you. This is in the form of open
group family therapy. We have heard grumbling--not, of course,
from Mr. Ogden--that folks at DHS and DOJ feel that they have--
and, again, this maybe goes more back to the previous
Administration--but they have not been fully involved in the
budget priority formulation process. And I wanted to ask you if
you intend to include them early on as best you can in that
process?
Mr. Steinberg. Absolutely, Senator. I think it is
critically important, as you have heard today both from
Secretary Napolitano and my colleague here. This is a multi-
agency effort, and many of the expertise and capacities
obviously lie outside the State Department. So we cannot
develop and implement these programs without the work of these
other agencies. And while we provide a convening framework, the
Secretary chairs the high-level group that involves both the
agencies in the United States and our counterparts in Mexico,
that we need to work very effectively. And I have been
encouraged in the short time we have all been together--
particularly my colleague who has been in office just for a
very short period of time--of the very collaborative spirit
that we all approach this with.
Chairman Lieberman. Well, thanks very much. I thank both of
you for your testimony. I thank you for what you are doing
every day on this challenge to our security and to our
neighbor's security.
My impression from this morning is that our government is
really mobilized now on this, but it is going to be a longer-
term fight, and we want to help you in every way we can in it.
As a formal matter, we are going to keep the record of the
hearing open for 15 days, if you or Secretary Napolitano want
to add to your testimony. There may be some Members of the
Committee who were not here, or some who were, who want to
submit additional questions, which we will ask you to fill out.
But thank you very much for being here. Thank you for what you
are doing.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
SOUTHERN BORDER VIOLENCE: STATE AND LOCAL PERSPECTIVES
----------
MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Phoenix, AZ
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m., in the
Phoenix City Council Chambers, 200 West Jefferson Street, Hon.
Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Lieberman, McCain, and Kyl.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN
Chairman Lieberman. I will focus this morning on the very
real consequences for communities along the Mexican border
associated with activities of the Mexican drug cartels and
their nightmarish violence.
We are going to consider the spillovers of this criminal
behavior into the United States, the crime that has already
occurred, and we are going to ask if we are prepared to deal
with more if it does occur and what we in the Federal
Government can do to help working with State and local
officials.
I want to thank my friends your Senators from Arizona, John
McCain and Jon Kyl for focusing the attention of this Homeland
Security Committee of ours on the threat of the Mexican drug
wars to homeland security here in the United States. Our Nation
and the State of Arizona are fortunate to have these two great
public servants fighting for you and our country in Washington.
I am proud to have Senator McCain as a Member of this Committee
and also proud to have Senator Kyl joining us today as a
special Member of the Committee.
I also want to thank Governor Jan Brewer, Attorney General
Goddard, Mayor Gordon, and other officials from across the
State who are going to testify here this morning. I know how
hard you have all been working to keep your citizens safe and
your State prosperous. We come today to listen, to hear your
ideas about how the Federal Government can help you to stop the
lawless behavior that the Mexican drug cartels are causing.
As the citizens of Arizona know only too well, drug-related
violence has claimed over 7,000 lives in Mexico since the
beginning of last year. That is a stunning number. The cartels
have gone to war with each other and the Mexican government.
This conflict obviously escalated with Mexican President Felipe
Calderon's heroic decision to take on the cartel 2 years ago
and at the same time to root out corruption within his own
government. Now increased enforcement efforts by the Department
of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
at the border are making it more difficult for the cartels to
smuggle drugs into the United States.
It seems to me that our goal should be to squeeze the
cartels from both sides of the border, and as we began to do
this they have reacted as the lawless thugs that they are. Many
of the killings that I have described in Mexico bear the
characteristics frankly that we typically associate with the
threat that this Committee has been most focused on and that is
the threat of Islamist terrorism: Beheadings, gunfights on
crowded city streets, the targeted intimidation and
assassination of government officials, and, as Phoenix is
painfully aware, kidnappings and ransom demands. These are true
atrocities.
What is also true is that the majority of victims are
associated with the Mexican cartels, but we also know that
innocent civilians have gotten caught literally and
figuratively in various aspects of the crossfire, that the
intensity of the violence has spread across the border and
created an atmosphere of fear in border communities, and that
the cartels have extended their deadly reach far away from the
border into the United States.
Phoenix has endured, as I have said, this extraordinary
wave of kidnappings, but we have also seen in border
communities--and I want to hear from the local officials in
more detail about this--an increase in violence in some areas
and quite a remarkable increase in car thefts in several border
communities which are associated with the drug cartels.
Federal law enforcement official have told us that Phoenix
has become the most significant hub for marijuana smuggling
into the United States for the Mexican drug cartels. The law
enforcement officials at the Federal level also tell us that
there is no present indication that the cartels plan to carry
across the border the extreme violence occurring in Mexico,
but, my friends, these cartels have the money, the weapons, the
network of operatives throughout the United States and the
utter disregard for human life to do so at some point and that
is what we must be on guard for and push back.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the
Mexican drug cartels are now the No. 1 organized crime threat
in the United States, displacing the Mafia. In addition to the
kidnappings and home invasions that they carry out in places
like Arizona, which we are going to hear about today, they are
increasingly responsible for other crimes. They steal cars from
border cities in which to smuggle guns and cash back to Mexico.
El Paso and Laredo, Texas, have experienced the most dramatic
increase in car thefts in recent years, but Phoenix and Tucson
are now among the top 20 most vulnerable cities for car thefts.
The drug cartels and smuggling organizations also attack
each other to hijack loads of drugs or aliens from competing
operators. And of course, the cartels' primary business is
smuggling narcotics across the border to distribute in and from
more than 230 American cities from Anchorage, Alaska, to
Hartford, Connecticut, and just about everywhere in between.
Incidentally, I say parenthetically that part of the response
to the Mexican drug cartel violence has to continue to be
aggressive law enforcement against drug sale and usage
throughout the United States.
In that sense, we the American people do bear some
responsibility for this crisis because the great demand for
illegal drugs by Americans and the subsequent flow of illegal
cash, billions and billions of dollars of it, and weapons into
Mexico clearly fuel the cartels' explosive growth and provides
them with the resources to wage war with each other and with
the Mexican government, and increasingly with people here in
America.
President Obama has recognized the severity of the problem.
Last week he was in Mexico with President Calderon discussing,
planning operational responses to the crisis. Three top Obama
Cabinet officials have traveled south of the border in the last
month, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, former governor
here of course, has gone twice already. The Department of
Homeland Security is redeploying resources to the border to
step up the detection of arms and cash bound for Mexico and
drugs and undocumented aliens bound for the United States.
Just last week, Secretary Napolitano announced the
appointment of a man named Alan Bersin to be a so-called
special representative for border affairs. A border czar, if
you will, whose job it is to make sure the Administration's
border initiatives in response to the Mexican drug cartels is
efficient, coordinated, and effective. DHS is now also
finalizing a government-wide contingency plan if violence
spills further across the border. And the State Department is
implementing the $1.4 million Merida Initiative to screen and
train Mexican law enforcement officers, purchase helicopters
for the Mexican military, support reform of Mexico's judicial
system, and purchase and deploy scanning technology at border
crossings.
These are significant actions, but we can and must do more.
With my friends here on the dais, I am determined to expand the
resources available to the Department of Homeland Security, the
Department of Justice, and State and local law enforcement
agencies in the border region in States like Arizona to take on
the cartels in the most forceful way we can. With broad
bipartisan support, this Committee's Ranking Member, Susan
Collins, Senators McCain and Kyl, and I passed an amendment to
the Senate budget resolution just a few weeks ago for Fiscal
Year 2010 budget, which would add $550 million for beefed up
law enforcement along the U.S.-Mexican border.
It would send over 2,000 more law enforcement officers and
investigators to the border region and specifically set aside
$40 million for State and local law enforcement to expand your
anti-cartel operations. We intend to ask that some of that
money be added to the Fiscal Year 2009 Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations bill when it moves through Congress in the next
few weeks. Particularly to backfill in for the approximately
400 Department of Homeland Security employees that Secretary
Napolitano has redeployed from elsewhere in the country to the
border.
You know, my friends, that State and local law enforcement
is where the rubber ultimately meets the road here. What we do
at the Federal level is critically important, but it will not
have the impact we need it to have if we do not work in concert
with you, our partners in this war against the Mexican drug
cartels. That is why our Committee has come to Phoenix this
morning to hear the witnesses that we are privileged to have
before and to continue to work with them to protect the safety
of the people of border States and all of the United States
from this very critical threat to America's Homeland Security.
Senator McCain.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCAIN
Senator McCain. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule to be
here in Arizona, one of the frontline States in the struggle
that we are facing as far as the violence that has been
generated by many of the causes that we will hear from our
witnesses today. I am very grateful you came and I also
appreciate the fact that you will hear first hand from
Arizona's local and State elected officials and law enforcement
officers on the increasing violence along the U.S.-Mexico
border. I appreciate those who were invited to testify, but
unable to attend, including Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who submitted
written testimony. The Committee is here today to hear from
those who have the difficult job of securing the safety of the
citizens of Arizona and the Nation despite the fact that our
Southwest border is not yet as secure. And as we know all too
well here in Arizona, violence associated with illegal drug
traffic by the Mexican drug cartels is a real problem and must
be addressed.
It is for that reason that I have joined the calls for the
National Guard to be sent to the border. I look forward to
hearing our witnesses' ideas on the how best to deploy the
Guard and what other solutions they propose be taken.
Due to the insecure border and the high demand for illegal
drugs in the United States, the drug cartels' activities are
impacting the security of the United States and particularly
border States like Arizona. I am sad to say that the city of
Phoenix is now the kidnapping capital of the United States and
second only to Mexico City for the most kidnappings in any city
in the world. The city of Nogales has seen several gun battles
break out in broad daylight between Mexican police and the drug
cartels just a couple of miles from the border. The city of
Tucson has seen its crime rate increase this past year,
especially for property crimes and car thefts. Each of these
instances can be traced to an increase of violence along the
Mexican border and the high demand for illegal drugs within the
United States.
For these reasons, I was pleased that the Administration
announced last month the addition of more personnel to the
Southwest border, increased intelligence capability, and better
coordination with State, local and Mexican law enforcement
authorities. But it is not enough. Instead, the United States
has cut funding to the Mexican government for equipment,
training and assistance promised as part of the Merida
Initiative. We have failed to stop the demand for drugs in the
United States and been somewhat lax in preventing the transport
of bulk caches of firearms to Mexico.
Just last week, the Administration denied Governor Brewer's
request for Federal support to add 250 more National Guard
troops to be assigned at the border to the Joint Counter-
Narcotic/Terrorism Task Force. This is an unacceptable response
and I hope our witnesses will further explain the ramifications
of that decision.
I hope the hearing today will highlight the outstanding
work that our State and local officials are performing to
provide for the safety of Americans despite the unwillingness
in some instances of the Federal Government to provide the
necessary resources to assist Mexico in its efforts against the
drug cartel violence and to secure the Southwest border from
the flow of drugs, money laundering and illegal immigration. We
must do more, and the people at today's hearing know that fact
far better than I can attest. I am very eager to hear from them
today.
Additional Federal action is urgently needed and in my
judgment, our failure to do more puts at risk the safety and
security of our citizens each and every day.
Thank you again Mr. Chairman, and thank you for coming to
Arizona.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you Senator McCain for that
excellent statement. Senator Kyl we would welcome an opening
statement from you now.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JON KYL, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF ARIZONA
Senator Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing and thank you Senator McCain for coming up with the
important idea to highlight the issues and learn as a result of
hearing from friends here in Arizona.
Let me begin by just reiterating one thing my colleague
Senator McCain just said. We need to recognize the outstanding
work that is being done everyday under very dangerous
circumstances by the Federal officials, the State officials,
and the local officials. They are working very hard under very
difficult circumstances.
I view there to be two purposes for this hearing today.
First of all to hear from the people who are literally on the
ground closest to the problem what is occurring; and second to
get their recommendations as to what to do about it. Having
talked to several in advance, I know it will to a large extent
boil down to resources. And because the State of Arizona is not
in a position right now to spend additional resources on this
problem, which is after all an international problem--people
coming across our border committing crimes from another
country--clearly the resource issue has to be taken back to
Washington, DC.
So I see part of the benefit of this hearing, our ability
to take what we hear today, both anecdotally and statistically,
and just from the experience that these people have and go back
to Washington to be able to better persuade our colleagues in
the Congress and people in the Administration of what has to be
done and why the resources are so significant.
And another point I would like to make is this. We tend to
focus on the people who would actually be standing guard at the
border or who would be arresting people for crimes and with
good reason, that is where it begins. But then we tend to
forget that there is an entire chain in the criminal justice
process that also has to be funded for this to be effective.
You need to have, for example, people to prosecute the cases
and for defense of those charged you have to have public
defenders, that costs money. Obviously, you have to have enough
judges and court personnel, court rooms. You have to have jails
to put the individuals if they are incarcerated. The
transportation requirements are daunting as well.
So we cannot just focus on the border patrol or on more
resources for the Sheriff's office, though I know they would
like more resources, but they need it but also we need it up
and down the chain.
Just to give you an illustration, I am told by Judge Roll,
who is the chief presiding Federal district judge here, that
there is a significant need for more judges, more courthouses,
and I would note that when the number of prosecutors were added
to this district, the felony case filings for the first 3
months of this year have increased by 24 percent.
Now, the point is, there is a relationship between the
people you have to prosecute the cases and the number of cases
that get prosecuted. People on the ground will tell you that
there is a threshold of 500 pounds of marijuana. We are on
track to interdict 1.2 million pounds of marijuana this year.
What do you do if you cannot prosecute the cases? There is a
lot of anecdotal evidence that under 500 pounds, the cases are
not prosecuted.
You can see that when we add new prosecutors, you get a lot
more cases filed, and if they are not filed, and the people
just continue to get away with what they are doing, then we are
not obviously solving the problem. So, we need to view it from
beginning to end of the criminal justice process and make sure
that it is all adequately resourced.
I would like to just conclude with two, quick points.
Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman both mentioned the
Merida support. Anything that the United States can do to
assist the government of Mexico, which is now very strongly
committed to helping us, will be a benefit not only to them,
but to us, as well, and we need to be very open-minded about
the kind of support that we can provide to them.
And, finally, and this is just a personal note, but I had a
meeting recently with the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency
(DEA) here, and I asked this question specifically: I said,
what happens if we were to legalize marijuana, would that solve
that problem? Her view, which confirmed mine, is no, it will
not. We are dealing with very bad actors who are going to make
money illegally one way or another. They found a way to do it
through smuggling, whether it is through people or
methamphetamine. Eighty percent of methamphetamine now comes
from Mexico. You can legalize one, but unless you are willing
to legalize it all, and then have it apply to anybody of any
age.
In other words, the point is, you cannot just legalize a
piece of it and expect to have the problem solved. We need to
solve this from a resource point of view and learn from the
experts what else needs to be done. I really appreciate you're
holding this hearing so that we can find that out, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Kyl. That is a really
good point because I was once an Attorney General, and you
never have enough resources to prosecute every case you want to
prosecute. So you have to make priorities, and some of the drug
cases may end up being lower in the priority list, including
some of the gateway drugs like marijuana. But the impact of
that up the line I think is significant.
So, I thank both of my colleagues for, again, bringing us
here and for the good statements they have made. We now look
forward to the testimony of our witnesses in exactly the way
both Senators have indicated.
First, we are honored to have the Governor of Arizona, the
Hon. Jan Brewer here for us, and we welcome your testimony at
this time.
STATEMENT OF HON. JANICE BREWER,\1\ GOVERNOR, STATE OF ARIZONA
Governor Brewer. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, and
Senators McCain and Kyl, let me thank you and the Senate
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for
holding this very timely and critical important hearing today.
Arizona appreciates you making this a priority, for taking time
to be here to learn firsthand what our State is engaged in
regarding the border.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Governor Brewer appears in the
Appendix on page 195.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Chairman, someone whom I admire greatly once described
the Arizona border situation eloquently. He stated those of us
from border States witness every day the impact illegal
immigration is having on our friends and our neighbors. Our
country and city services, our economy, and our environment, we
deal with the degradation of our lands and the demands imposed
on our hospitals and other public resources. Our current system
does not protect us from people who want to harm us. It does
not meet the needs of our economy, and it leaves too many
people vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
I happen to totally agree with those sentiments made by
Senator McCain. Senator, you are absolutely right, our system
does not protect us, and Americans should have the right to
feel safe in their homes. The fact is too many avenues exist
for illegal trafficking of drugs and immigrants, which
unfortunately makes Arizona particularly an attractive State
for those factions engaged in these illegal activities.
I am very grateful for the work of the Federal authorities
and our own law enforcement resources such as the Arizona
Department of Public Safety, county sheriffs, and municipal
police departments, all of which keep a watchful eye and ear
while we citizens work, rest, and recreate.
It should be mentioned, however, that despite the vast
efforts in Arizona, as governor, I still cannot state
unequivocally that Arizona is immune from spillover effects of
the Mexican drug wars. Unfortunately, Arizona's reputation as
``ground zero'' for illegal narcotic smuggling, human
smuggling, and kidnapping is directly related to our border
status and the growing threat posed by criminal syndicates
south of the border. The relative success of our law
enforcement north of the border should not lull the Federal
Government into believing things will always be this way.
Mr. Chairman, I have identified five primary suggestions
that I believe our national policymakers should consider
regarding our border.
First, the Federal Government should give serious
consideration to my March 24, 2009, request to increase the
National Guard presence on Arizona's border by 250 soldiers.
Redeploying current and existing resources as a first step, but
it is more important that border States and local and tribal
law enforcement receive a surge in additional Federal funding
and additional resources to respond to the clear increased
threat of violence and kidnapping.
Chairman Lieberman, you recognized this need for additional
funding when you introduced legislation to add $550 million in
Federal money to better secure our borders. My hope is the
Administration and Congress will seriously give consideration
to both of our proposals, and, Mr. Chairman, as the Committee
moves forward, I hope it considers that while technology and
physical barriers are an important tool in dealing with border
challenges, boots on the ground combined with solid
intelligence is what really facilitates adequate response and
effective prevention.
Next, I believe Congress must strive for a sensible
immigration policy that first and foremost focuses on securing
our border. There is no more important border policy than that.
Second, the Federal Government should make prosecution of
human trafficking activities a top priority.
My third suggestion is that all the ports of entry between
Arizona and Mexico should be modernized and outfitted to
balance appropriate traffic flow with the needs for inspection
and other security measures.
Next, I believe it is time for the Federal Government to
address the immense fiscal burden that border States are
unfairly shouldering in combating illegal immigration.
To date, the Federal Government is not bearing its full
responsibility in law enforcement. Education, healthcare, human
services, and the correction system are directly tied to
illegal immigration and human smuggling.
Mr. Chairman, I think any discussion about violence on our
Southern Border must also be upfront in recognizing that the
United States still has a hefty appetite for illegal drugs. The
price we pay for illegal trafficking of these drugs is
enormous. Addressing these matters requires a comprehensive,
national look at what works and what does not work.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and Senators, these are just a
few perspectives from the State of Arizona on how we see the
challenges on the border. I have said before that Arizona and
the Southern Border States cannot and should not have to
shoulder the burden of securing our borders and protecting our
citizens from these seeking to do us harm. A porous border
ultimately can leave the entire country at risk.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify in front of the
Committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and I
thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would be happy to answer any
questions.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Governor. You said
a lot in the short time that we gave you, and I appreciate that
very much. We look forward to the question and answer period.
Attorney General Goddard, welcome and good to see you
again.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TERRY GODDARD,\1\ ATTORNEY GENERAL,
STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Goddard. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, Senator McCain,
Senator Kyl, and I join the governor in thanking you for
conducting this field hearing here in Arizona, the point where
the problems of the Southwest Border are most acute, most
critical. I hope I can provide some insight on how, as the
Chairman just suggested, that we can focus on what has been
going on in our State in terms of combating the organized crime
threat.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Goddard appears in the Appendix
on page 199.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Chairman, you've already stated that this has been
identified by the FBI as the No. 1 organized crime threat. I
won't repeat my remarks along that line because you summarized
it so well, but I would point out that the criminal syndicates
that we are fighting against are highly flexible, paramilitary
organizations, and they use violence as an integral of their
modus operandi, of their business plan, and that is what we are
dealing with.
Their operations are made up of at least four, primary,
criminal enterprises, and I have a very rudimentary drawing
over here that shows them in graphic style, but I think it is
important to keep all four in mind. Guns and cash, smuggled
south, drugs and human beings, smuggled north, and each leg of
that stool needs to be paid attention. Arizona has increasingly
become home to the cartels' most lucrative and heavily-utilized
smuggling corridors, and the corridors are really what we need
to be cognizant of and pay attention to. Approximately half of
the northbound contraband in human beings and drugs passes
through our State, and the fiscal impact that the governor just
referred to is as a result of that literal flood of illegal
activity.
While most of the violence has been in Mexico, this is by
no means just a Mexican problem or just a border problem. The
Department of Homeland Security recently identified cartel
activity in 230 cities, as the Chairman mentioned, and
Hartford, Connecticut, is not immune from the kind of threats
that we see here on the Southwestern Border. There is a dot for
Hartford, Mr. Chairman, on the map to which I refer.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ The chart referenced by Mr. Goddard appears in the Appendix on
page 207.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This does not show all 230 U.S. cities, but it gives a
representative sample of how widespread the cartel activities
are in this country and the active partnership that the cartels
have joined in with street gangs and prison gangs throughout
this country to facilitate the distribution of drugs is
something of which we need to be constantly cognizant.
For the U.S. Border Patrol, the Tucson Sector is only 13
percent of their jurisdiction of the U.S.-Mexico Border, but it
is responsible for approximately 44 percent of the interdiction
of human beings that are smuggled across the border and a
similar amount of drug seizures, which, as I believe Senator
Kyl mentioned, is hitting a record this year--1.2 million
pounds of illegal drugs is where they appear to be headed.
And here, in the city of Phoenix, despite, I am sure the
chief will tell you, a shrinking violent crime rate, of which
the police are justifiably very proud, the kidnappings are out
of control, almost one a day in this community. Tucson has
become a leader, unfortunately, for home invasions, and here,
at the Attorney General's Office, we have been dealing for
almost a decade with human smuggling and all of its associated
crimes, including money laundering, extortion, human
trafficking, and murder. And Arizona law enforcement has a
great record of successful collaboration.
Just in the last year, my office coordinated with Federal,
State, and local law enforcement agencies in four major
organized crime takedowns: A major arms trafficking
organization; a Coyote organization that was smuggling over
10,000 people a year across the border; another which
transported from Phoenix to cities around the country over
8,000 people a year; and, finally, a drug smuggling operation
which, in 4 years, had brought over 2 million pounds of
marijuana across the Mexican Border.
These are important successes, but I do not want to deceive
the Committee or anyone else. As big as they are, they only
impact a very small part of the total of the cartel business.
From my seat, it seems clear that our effort against the
cartels must change in at least three ways.
First, we need better communication and information sharing
at all levels of law enforcement, State, local, and Federal,
and with our Mexican counterparts, something that is still very
rudimentary.
Second, we need to attack all aspects of cartel operations.
As this diagram shows, drugs, people, guns, and money flow
across the border, but I would submit especially money has been
the weak spot in my opinion.\1\ Southbound traffic is as
important as northbound traffic, and that involves bulk cash,
large amounts of hundred-dollar bills literally bailed
together, and other means of money transportation that I will
get into in a minute.
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\1\ The chart referenced by Mr. Goddard appears in the Appendix on
page 208.
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And, third, we need coordinated command and control for the
entire border region, employing all the Federal resources
coordinated with State and local. For too long, we have had
silos that have divided us and divided the Federal effort.
Let me just say a little about the money. We call them
blood wires that are used to pay for people being transmitted
into the United States, and I would like to recognize Cameron
Holmes, who is right behind me. He's the head of our Financial
Crimes Taskforce in the Attorney General's Office, and I would
submit one of the true money laundering experts in the United
States. It is his expertise that allows us in the Attorney
General's Office over the last almost 10 years to be
aggressively monitoring the wire transfer activity to the
cartels and intercepting over $17 million of that activity.
Now, that is a drop in the bucket, but it has caused major
disruption in the kind of money transfer for illegal activities
such that hundreds of millions of dollars that used to be
coming into the State of Arizona are not doing that today.
We have learned a few lessons, and if I could summarize
those quickly for the Committee, it shows that we are up
against a well-organized, criminal organization. They are
sophisticated, high-tech, and very flexible. Our response needs
to be equally well-coordinated if we are going to succeed.
The cartels meet resistance, law enforcement resistance by
shifting ground. It may be geographical; it may be in terms of
their business enterprise, whenever they get pushback. We have
to be as opportunistic and as flexible if we are going to be
successful. We need a seamless local, State, and Federal
response, and I would be happy to go through in more detail
with questions.
A couple of very specific requests. One, we have
partnerships at the local level that are working. I would
submit the High-Intensity, Drug-Trafficking Area (HIDTA), a
hard acronym to pronounce, is one such model, where the
Federal, State, and local authorities truly get together and
make cases and have brought real prosecution results.
But I want to emphasize to this Committee how important our
failures are in the area of stopping the hemorrhaging of cash
to the cartel bank accounts. We need a region-wide, bi-
national, coordinated attack on corrupt money transmitters. I
believe we can shut them down, but we need much better
information to do it.
And I would like to simply show you one item. This is a
stored-value card. This kind of card, which we think of as a
gift certificate, has been used to move hundreds of thousands,
if not millions, of dollars across the border. It is not a
financial instrument under U.S. law, and, as a result, there is
no crime to take $1 million in a card like this and take it
across the border. That single regulatory change has been
pending for years, and I would submit that the time is long
past that it has to be implemented. Stored-value cards are
money, and they must be curbed in crossing the border.
Recognition has been paid to the Merida Initiative. That is
a critical effort to make sure that our efforts are on both
sides of the border, and, just to conclude, the violence will
not be contained until the Mexican drug cartels are destroyed.
In the interest of the United States to assist Mexico in
its courageous fight, and we need to step up our own efforts to
dismantle the cartels' operations on this side of the border,
our attack must be changed, I think, fundamentally to reflect
the seriousness of the threat. We must fight smarter and we
must fight harder.
The single best way is to cut off the flow of illegal
money. It should have been done years ago, it must be done now.
We face an urgent, public safety threat, as the Committee has
recognized by your presence here today, and we look forward to
working with you to try to solve and overcome this problem.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, General Goddard. I
think we will do 5-minute rounds of questions, and we will keep
moving until we have finished our questions. I appreciate your
statement, and it brought to mind the similarities, if you will
allow me, between fighting the Mexican drug cartels and the war
we are in against terrorism, specifically Islamist terrorism.
Some of it is just the broader view, which is, as you said, the
drug cartels are now paramilitary organizations with the money
to buy very sophisticated, military equipment, but with a
paramilitary approach.
Second, just as the terrorist groups are defined by a
willingness to use brutal violence to achieve their political
ends, the Mexican drug cartels are defined by a willingness to
use brutal violence to achieve, I supposed you'd say, their
business ends, which is the sale of drugs. And I am also struck
by your specific call for us to focus on the financial
transactions that the drug cartels are involved in because, as
we found at the Federal level, some of the most effective work
we have done against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and now
increasingly against State sponsors of terrorism like Iran, has
to do with tying them up financially, in that sense, trying to
close off part of the lifeblood of these organizations.
And the stored-value cards are one indication of that.
You've probably done more work on this than I or my staff have,
but is this a matter of simple regulatory change or is it, as I
had originally thought, requiring a law change at the Federal
level?
Mr. Goddard. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, my
understanding is what we need to do in terms of stored-value
cards is to define them as monetary instruments subject to
reporting in the Currency and Monetary Incident Reports
(CMIRs), and that change is statutory.
Chairman Lieberman. OK, so, then we are going to work to
really accelerate some action on that, and, of course, this
shows you that the enemy here, the drug cartels, are smart, so,
they know what the law is here in the United States. You do not
have to be a genius, but they have figured out this is a great
way to move money across the border because it is not
technically illegal. So, it is time for us to make it illegal.
And any other ideas about stopping the flow of cash, better
stopping the flow of cash?
At the hearing we held in Washington on March 25, 2009, one
of the government witnesses--of course, you can not come up
with a hard figure on this--estimated that the annual takeout
of the United States by the Mexican drug cartels is between $17
billion and $38 billion. I mean, that would make it one of the
largest businesses in the United States. What more can we do to
stop the cash from flowing southward?
Mr. Goddard. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, the
number that you've just used is the drug revenues. Human
smuggling revenues, we believe, exceed $2 billion. So, it may
be small in the comparison, but it is also a major business
opportunity.
Chairman Lieberman. That is absolutely right.
Mr. Goddard. And one that they use. I have a couple of
other specific suggestions. One is that we lower the threshold
for mandatory reporting of single transaction money transfers.
Currently, whenever we cross an international border, it
asks if we have over $10,000 of currency. I believe that number
is way too high, and that, in fact, it would help us
immeasurably in terms of finding the smugglers if we could have
a reduced number. I do not have a specific number, but I
believe that is too high, along with recognizing stored-valued
cards as part of that $10,000, I think we'd go a long way.
I also think--and this is, I believe, a regulatory issue--
the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does, in fact, examine all
of the money transmitters, but it does it on a random basis. I
can tell you, Mr. Holmes and his staff can tell you precisely
where the risks of greatest criminal activity are through the
money transmitters in particular that are shifting money across
the border for the cartels. It does not take rocket science, it
is a matter of statistical examination, and if they use a risk-
based analysis and go after the various transmitters who are
the source of the greatest risk, they could go a long way to
shutting down these criminal operations, and they are, in fact,
criminal and they are on both sides of the border, and they
need better attention. So, I am talking about money
transmitters here, that is Western Union and the other----
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Goddard [continuing]. Wire transfer operations which
have been very helpful to the cartels in filling their pockets,
and I think we have been working virtually alone here in the
State of Arizona to try to cut off their access to funds. We
could certainly use all the assistance we can get from other
States and from Federal authorities.
Chairman Lieberman. Those are very helpful suggestions, and
we will take them back to Washington with us.
Governor, I thought you made an interesting point about
National Guard personnel. Again, I know there are great
differences, but one of the things we learned in Iraq, of
course, is that numbers matter, that personnel on the ground,
boots on the ground matter when you're in a conflict, and it
seems to me that we are understaffed, under-resourced in
responding to the Mexican drug cartels. I know you've made this
call for National Guard personnel.
Tell me what thoughts you had more specifically about what
they might do if the National Guard were involved in this.
Governor Brewer. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it is
important.
I think the people of Arizona are alarmed that we do not
have our borders secured, and, by that reason, we are the
recipient of drug smuggling, money laundering, and kidnapping.
I believe that we need to get additional National Guardsmen on
the border in order to secure our border, regardless, Mr.
Chairman and Senators, of all the issues that come to Arizona
and other border States. If we do not secure our borders
quickly, we are at great risk. I believe that if we could get
an additional 250 National Guardsmen on the border, they would
be able to help law enforcement along the border and relieve
them from doing things such as communication, logistics, and
planning--all those things that take up their time from
actually supporting the border security.
Mr. Chairman, it is absolutely ultimately most important
that Congress understands that we are the recipient of all
these horrible things that could take place in Arizona and the
whole United States if we do not secure the border. We need
resources. We need boots on the ground, and I know, Mr.
Chairman, that it has been mentioned on a couple of occasions
that taking our National Guard and putting them on the border
would possibly be taking them from maybe some of the other
responsible duties that they are there to perform. However,
they would still be in training, they would still be ready to
go if they needed to be deployed somewhere, but, at this time,
I cannot stress enough on behalf of the State of Arizona and on
behalf of the people of Arizona that we have to have our
borders secured.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Governor. My time is up.
Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Governor, just to
follow-up on this issue of more troops, you asked for 250
National Guardsmen. Were you surprised by the response?
Governor Brewer. I was very surprised. The reaction from
the Obama Administration appeared to be very negative and I
believe that it was very irresponsible, given the fact that
through the Homeland Security Department, the past governor saw
the need, and now we are not seeing the help that we need. I
certainly know that Arizona and other States are facing greater
and greater challenges from illegal drugs and insecure borders.
We face very unique threats, and I just feel very disappointed
that the Federal Government has not stepped up and has done
what their responsibilities are, and I have left the control,
if you will, up to our local law enforcement, our local State
Department, public safety, our sheriffs, and our police
organizations. I am disappointed.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Governor.
I believe, from having visited Mexico City myself--and the
President has visited Mexico City--that we are getting from
Mexico City an almost unprecedented level of cooperation. Now,
there are serious corruption problems and there are other
problems, but are you getting that same kind of cooperation
from the governor of Sonora?
Governor Brewer. Well, we have been in contact and we have
met, and in my opinion, I do not believe they are as concerned
about the open illegal immigration and the drugs coming in to
the State of Arizona.
Senator, we have to secure the border, and that will solve
our problem. We, in Arizona, and the other border States need
resources to take on this challenge. If we secure the border--
and I understand, Senator McCain, that they have issues down
there, and I appreciate the problems that they are having to
deal with, but the fact of the matter is if we get the
resources, if we get the support, and if the Federal Government
does what they are supposed to be doing according to our
Constitution, those problems would halt. We need a secure
border.
Senator McCain. Attorney General Goddard, I will ask the
other witnesses this, but you are involved in this issue every
single day and fighting it every day. We have talked a lot
about statistics and being the kidnapping capital of the
country and the world with the exception of Mexico City. These
numbers, billions and billions of dollars, put a human story on
that, tell us a little bit about the Coyotes and what they do
and tell us a little bit about some of the heinous acts of
murder and torture that take place. Put a human face on this
issue for us, would you?
Mr. Goddard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator McCain, it
is an extraordinary tale that is probably heard too seldom, and
thank you for the opportunity to at least try.
Human smuggling has become--I think there is a myth out
there that at one point it was almost a Robin Hood type
activity, that people were guided through the desert to seek a
better life, and the people who guided them were good
Samaritans. We have no illusions about that today, and I
believe the Mexican officials have no illusions either because
what we have now through the active intervention of the
criminal cartels is a highly organized criminal activity using
the same roots that the drug smugglers are using, and those
Coyotes, those criminal operatives that bring people across the
border, either are in the cartels themselves or are
subsidiaries, they pay a tariff in essence, and only move
people when they are given permission by the major bosses
because there is an integrated dance on the border between
drugs and people. Sometimes they are synonymous, sometimes they
are separated, and always, they are part of a criminal
operation.
When they get to Phoenix, and this is, unfortunately, the
distribution point for the entire country, these folks, and
they are numbered in the millions--we still believe the folks
crossing through the Arizona border and through this State,
approximately 1 million human beings a year, and, so, they go
to drop houses in the Phoenix area, some in Tucson, but mostly
Phoenix because of our excellent access to transportation, and
from there, the Coyotes move them across----
Senator McCain. But many times, they are terribly
mistreated or held----
Mr. Goddard. I am getting to that, Senator. I am sorry if I
am overlong for the Committee. Very often, we find that there
are extortionate demands, the price that was originally quoted
becomes double or triple what it originally was. We are
investigating to try to find a number of murderers who
literally took somebody from a group that protested the new
price and shot them right in front of the others to make sure
the collections would go easier.
And I would like to emphasize that we use the word human
smuggling and human trafficking almost interchangeably. They
are not. Smuggling is when somebody pays a fee and goes to a
destination of their choice, trafficking is when somebody comes
across the border as a virtual slave. But because the drop
houses have turned into prisons, the individuals there, it is
hard to tell whether they are trafficked or smuggled, and, all
too often, they end up in the sex trade or as individuals that
are being held for personal labor without compensation, and,
so, unfortunately, we are seeing an incredible rise in human
trafficking as a direct result of the organized criminal
activities in smuggling. And, so, anybody who wants to think
today that this is a benign or humanitarian episode is sadly
mistaken.
Senator McCain. Thank you and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator McCain. Senator Kyl.
Senator Kyl. Thank you. If I could just follow-up on that
last point. As Senator McCain said, the real story is the human
tragedy story and not just the statistics, but, as a result of
what you said, would you also believe that the number of
reported crimes such as kidnappings, rapes, robberies, etc.,
are probably underreported due to the fact that so many of the
victims are themselves illegal immigrants?
Mr. Goddard. Mr. Chairman and Senator Kyl, I know Chief
Harris and Mayor Gordon will speak to that, but there is no
question that this is a significantly underreported crime,
whether it is 1 in 10 or 1 in 3, I do not know, and I guess
nobody does, but the fact is that we have criminal groups
fighting with each other, and what I should have mentioned in
response to Senator McCain's question is the terror among the
victims when somebody heavily armed and wearing ski masks
seizes a drop house from one gang and takes it over on behalf
of another, a group kidnapping, if you will, which turns those
people into objects of extortion, and the extortion activity
also extends south of the border.
A lot of the times the Coyotes will simply go to the
families that they know have individuals working in the United
States and will threaten to kidnap them, and the police in
Sonora and other parts of Mexico are very concerned that wire
transfers are being used to expedite extortion of their
citizens, as well.
Senator Kyl. You said that a lot of the routes are the same
and that the smuggling of drugs, as well as human beings has
been taken over by the cartels to a significant degree.
Can you put some kind of a number on that? In other words,
would you say that the bulk of the smuggling of illegal
immigrants has been taken over by the same kind of folks that
are smuggling drugs?
Mr. Goddard. Mr. Chairman and Senator Kyl, unquestionably,
I doubt there are any independent operatives in the market
today. The cartels are that powerful and they either charge a
per-person tax to use the corridor or they move the people
themselves using their operational techniques.
We had a River-Walker case that you probably are familiar
with back in February. It was indicted. It basically took an
entire Coyote organization from the drivers to the housekeepers
at the drop houses and eliminated it, but the sophistication
and the level of specialization within that criminal operation
were extraordinary.
Senator Kyl. Let me ask Governor Brewer a question. If
there is time, I want to get back to the money issue that you
brought up, governor, but you went over quickly because of your
time, but you mentioned the costs to Arizona society, you
mentioned hospitals, you mentioned the cost of the governments.
There are two specific programs. One is the State Criminal
Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), and that has been authorized
at $950 million a year. In the last couple of years, the
appropriated amount is somewhere in the $400 million range. In
other words, less than half.
The question is whether that is one of the programs that
you would like to see more resources in. And then, second is
the so-called Section 1011 Program for hospital reimbursement
for taking care of illegal immigrants who, under the law,
emergency rooms are required to treat, and it is only up to the
point of stabilization of the patient. That program has
terminated, and except for some money that is still available
to Arizona hospitals, the program is terminated for the other
States because their money was paid out more rapidly, but that
money will be going for Arizona hospitals, as well, by the end
of this year.
Is that another example, and are there any others that you
want to make specific reference to?
Governor Brewer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Kyl.
Absolutely, and as you are more than aware, in the last few
years, Arizona has been very severely neglected in regards to
receiving the reimbursement from the Federal Government in
regards to the SCAAP dollars, and Senator Kyl, I remember you
working with me when I was chairman of the Maricopa County
Board of Supervisors because we, of course, were the ones that
held the responsibility in our jails here in Maricopa County.
So, we are continually trying to get the Federal Government to
pay their share that is most necessary because the resources
are just eating up our budget and we cannot continue to go down
that path over and over again, and we are going to make another
request to be reimbursed our fair share of those dollars. We
really do receive the huge burden.
In regard to the hospital cost, again, you realize how
large these illegal immigration costs are to our hospital
system. Because of the illegal immigration, they use our
hospitals for emergency services, they use them for colds, and
they show up at any given time and use up all the resources. We
cannot continue to afford to take care of all these people that
are coming in illegally through our borders.
Our State, as you certainly are aware--we are in a state of
catastrophe, and to have the citizens of Arizona continue to
have to serve all these costs to the border being insecure is
totally unfair. And, Mr. Chairman, Senator Kyl, and Senator
McCain, it is the Federal Government's responsibility to
protect our borders.
Senator Kyl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Kyl. Let us do a
second round with the Governor and the Attorney General.
Attorney General, let me start this one with you. As you
all know, the Mexicans regularly call on us, the government, to
help reduce the flow of weapons into Mexico. This was a major
element of what President Calderon pleaded to President Obama
in the recent visit, and, of course, it is a fact based on all
the studies that we see that an overwhelming majority of the
weapons that are seized from the drug cartels in Mexico are
coming from the United States. I suppose for the obvious reason
that we do not say enough but it is true, that it is our gun
laws that are more liberal so to speak, it is easier to
purchase a gun here than it is in Mexico, that is part of our
constitutional system.
What effectively can we do about it? I know that people
have been called for a reinstitution of the ban on automatic
weapon sales in the United States. I support that, but I
suppose President Obama at least seemed to say to me when he
spoke about it, it is not likely to pass Congress.
There have been calls for closing the gun show loophole.
That is a good idea, I think. Gun show loophole, long story
short means that at a gun show you can buy a gun without having
to present the personal background information that you do when
you go into a licensed gun dealer to buy a gun. That will help.
As I have gathered interestingly and noteworthy that most of
the guns that are sent from the United States to Mexico are
purchased legally in the first instance. And you correct me if
I am wrong. In other words, the use of straw men to go into
licensed gun dealers to buy them.
So, I suppose another obvious thing we could try to do, and
this goes to the monitoring that you are talking about. Right
now, most people in America do not know this. You know it here
at the border; there is effectively little or no inspection of
traffic moving southward as opposed to traffic moving
northward. There are random checks at best. That is obviously
one way, both on our side of the border and on the Mexican side
of the border to try to stop the flow of guns from here to
there, but give me your sense of the dimensions of this problem
and what you think we can really effectively do to try to
assist keeping guns out of the hands of the Mexican cartels.
Mr. Goddard. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I believe we can do a
lot more. There is no question it is a major problem.
Two years ago, a group of attorneys general were in
Cuernavaca to meet with all the state and Federal law
enforcement prosecution arm in Mexico. Their attorney general,
Eduardo Medina Mora, made it very clear that he felt the United
States was deficient in enforcing the laws on the books today.
He said, ``I understand you have a Second Amendment, I
understand that it is very important in the United States. We
are not asking you to change one bit of your respect for that
part of your Constitution. We are, however, asking you to
enforce the Federal laws against straw buyers, which are,
unfortunately, often in the breach.''
You have here in this room, and I do not know if it is
later in the program, Bill Newell, the head of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms for this region. He has done an
extraordinary job, I think, with a limited staff in trying to
identify where the worst offenders are. My office has helped to
bring prosecutions against two of those worst offenders, and we
are anxious to do more.
You may ask why the State is doing that and not the Federal
agencies, and I think that is a good question. We talked about
limited prosecution resources or Senator Kyl referred to that.
I think that is one place where our U.S. attorney here in
Arizona could have some significant help to be sure to be able
to bring the cases that ATF brings.
I have two suggestions. One is vigorous enforcement of the
straw buyer ban. ``Don't lie for the other guy,'' as the
National Shooting Sports Foundation says. I think that is a
great message, and it is one that everybody needs to hear.
Chairman Lieberman. Would it help to increase the legal
penalties for straw buying?
Mr. Goddard. I am always in favor of that when I think what
is happening is literally the carnage in Mexico facilitated by
a flood of arms coming from this country. Now, not just from
this country, I guess we have to mention that there are
military stores that the cartels have access to, which include
grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, a variety of bazookas, and
some extraordinary weapons which are not being sold at gun
stores, that are not being sold by gun shows. So, they have
access in other ways, but the AK-47s, the AR-15s----
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Goddard. The other paramilitary type arms are, in fact,
coming across the border in extraordinary numbers. They call it
a parade of ants. Many individuals with two or three arms are
going across----
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Goddard [continuing]. And selling them illegally. The
most important thing, and you mentioned it, Senator, is to----
Chairman Lieberman. Excuse me just for a second while I cut
you off. You said you had two.
Mr. Goddard. The second one is the southbound inspections.
Those are almost nonexistent today. We have the technology to
do vehicle inspections and determine if a significant long gun
is in the car.
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Goddard. I think that needs to become the rule and not
the exception, and that could do more than anything without
interfering with people's constitutional rights to stop the
flow of guns in New Mexico.
Chairman Lieberman. That is a really important suggestion
and one that we will take back with us as part of the
appropriations process.
Incidentally, in terms of ATF, our amendment, if it is
carried through the budget process, does have funding for ATF
to bring on 150 more investigators and 50 more investors to
work on Project Gun Runner, but I take your point that it also
is important to prosecutorial personnel to see those cases to a
finish.
Let me ask you first, governor, for a quick response to
this.
In the $40 million in our original amendment that we put
in, and as part of the ornate budget process, this is the
recommendation and authorizations of the appropriators--$30
million was for Operation Stonegarden grants through the
Department of Homeland Security to State and local government
for specific work on action related to the Mexican drug
cartels, and then $10 million was to State and local law
enforcement to staff up the fusion centers insofar as the
fusion centers, including the one here, are focused on the drug
cartels.
How about that division of the $40 million? Leave the
amount aside, if you were asking us to supplement funding for
you at the State level to help you help us fight the drug
cartels or the impact of them, where would you like to see the
money focused?
Governor Brewer. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I believe that the people of the State of Arizona and
myself believe that we need to secure the border, we need to
get the National Guard. I would like Congress and the Obama
Administration to get the National Guard and boots on the
ground.
Mr. Chairman, I believe fully that if we secure our border,
all the other issues that we are facing in regards to drug
trafficking, kidnapping, border spillover, guns going south of
the border, if we could get the resources to secure our border,
then these other problems would go away in most cases, I
believe. I just cannot take this time when I have an audience
with you and Senators McCain and Kyl to express how strongly
the State of Arizona and the people believe that our money, our
resources, combined with yours ought to be used to secure the
border.
We know that there are a lot of issues out there, Mr.
Chairman, but they all come from our borders not being secured.
That is our first and primary concern. I would hate to think
that all these other issues would take the eye of Congress off
the real cause that is creating the problems, that we do not
have a secure border.
Chairman Lieberman. I think you have successfully conveyed
that message this morning, governor.
Governor Brewer. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. I am over my time, but if you have a
thought about how you could best use any additional money that
we would send the State and local----
Mr. Goddard. Very briefly, Members of the Committee, first
and foremost, I hope you will take a hard look at how the
Stonegarden funds are allocated, how those grants which now are
available to your State, with all due respect, Mr. Chairman, is
not on the border and is not having 44 percent of the immigrant
traffic illegally coming across or most of the drugs. So, I
would hope we could focus that where the problem is most acute,
and that, I know, is a vigorous issue. We are also very
respectful and find a great deal of help from the Arizona
Counterterrorism Information Center, which is part of the
formula that you described.
So, if our various information aspects through that funding
could be encouraged to do a better inter-operative
communication, we have waited far too long to be able to have
State, local, and Federal law enforcement talk to each other.
It seems a very simple request. But, Mr. Chairman, it is not
been happening, so, we could use the money to make sure that
when or if a crisis comes on the border, we truly can have a
coordinated response. I believe that is where we ought to focus
these monies, to have our agents, basically communication
between Federal, State, and local by cell phone instead of
using the official channels which just do not work, I think
would be a tremendous step forward.
Chairman Lieberman. Well said. Thank you. Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Governor
Brewer, I agree with you that we have to secure the borders
first, and that would address a significant portion of the
issue.
I think there is also the fact that Retired Army General
Barry McCaffrey told the Washington Post in a March 25 article
``adding a handful of platoon-sized units is miniscule compared
with the $2.5 billion the United States military spends in
Afghanistan each month,'' and you state in your written
testimony these efforts must be bolstered and that additional
funding is still necessary, which, obviously, I agree with.
Maybe you could provide for the Committee in writing,
especially since we do not have unlimited amounts of money.
There will be, I believe, additional sums. I am grateful there
is so much publicity now as this violence has escalated in such
a dramatic degree. If you could have your folks submit to us
some of your priorities as to how we can best secure the border
and what needs to be done in addition to that on a more
permanent basis, we'd appreciate that since we will be
revisiting this issue for some time to come, particularly in
the coming legislation.
Governor Brewer. Thank you, Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Thank you.
Governor, studies have shown that well-administered drug
courts can reduce recidivism up to 35 percent, and many
counties in Arizona have established drug courts.
Have you had a chance to look at what is being done here in
Maricopa County to treat the drug issue?
Governor Brewer. I have not been briefed totally on that. I
am a little bit familiar with it, Senator McCain, having served
on the board of supervisors. The last 3 months, having served
as the Governor of the State of Arizona, I have been briefed on
several different things.
I will tell you that I believe that the drug courts have
been very successful as far as Maricopa County and that we
should probably try to implement those all over the State of
Arizona to the standard of which the Maricopa Court System has
done.
Senator McCain. Thank you. Attorney General Goddard.
Mr. Goddard. Absolutely. They work. We need more in the
area of treatment, and I believe Senator Kyl made the reference
to the drug policy. I would hope that a derivative of your
discussions would be to put our national drug policy under the
microscope, hopefully in a non-partisan and non-emotional way.
I know that is a big order, but we have put huge amounts of
money into suppression interdiction with very little result.
The price of most illegal drugs is as low or lower than it has
ever been, and as we now know, the border patrol is
confiscating at a record level this year.
So, the epidemic is on, let us look at drug courts and the
treatment that they provide and the changes in lives that they
have been able to accomplish. Let us look at better
information.
Here in Arizona, we have the Anti-Meth Program, which has
been incredibly successful in reducing methamphetamine use by
teenagers. We cut it in half in 2 years. I think that means
that it is hopeful that we can do prevention on a national
scale in a way that would help to cut down the cartel profits.
Senator McCain. And it is my understanding that these drug
courts are very tough. That there is constant testing, that if
there is one mistake, the individual goes to prison. That it is
a very tough program, not one that--I think maybe that there is
not a good understanding how tough this program is.
Is that your understanding?
Mr. Goddard. Yes, sir. It is tough, and, frankly, the
judges that are involved get heavily involved in each case, and
they do not accept the litany of excuses that so often come
from drug addicts to why they are not doing what they are
supposed to do.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goddard. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator McCain. Senator Kyl.
Senator Kyl. I think that the governor needs to get to the
Navajo Nation, and, therefore, instead of just taking my full
round, let me just make a point, and, governor, if you want to
respond to this, fine.
Your predecessor was very supportive of enhancing our ports
of entry, you mentioned that. I understand there is some money
in the budget now for the Mariposa Port of Entry. One thing I
think we need to do, comment on this if you want, is that we
need to get the Mexican government to do the same, that is to
say it does not do any good to have a great highway and port of
entry on our side if the Mexican highway does not match up with
that. So, that is one thing that we need to do, and, obviously,
anything we can do to enhance trade not only helps us, but
helps Mexico, as well.
If you want to make a comment, fine, otherwise, I will
quickly go to the----
Governor Brewer. Absolutely, Senator Kyl. I think that we
do need to address that issue with the governor of Sonora and
that we do enhance the border crossings on both ways. Certainly
in regard to the gun trafficking going south, I think that
they, too, need to step it up and certainly do their end of the
job as we are trying to attempt to do up here.
I would like to mention at this time, if I could, that I
realize how important the issue is, and I am very sympathetic
to the concerns of what is going back into Mexico, but the
bottom line is I always remain very concerned when I hear
Washington start discussing gun control measures, and, frankly,
as we go down this path, I again want to mention that these
other issues that we are facing here in Arizona, I do not want
to take the issue away again, Mr. Chairman, of securing our
borders, and the bottom line is that stopping the flow of guns
into Mexico won't stop the Mexican cartels, if you will, from
obtaining guns elsewhere. Venezuela and other countries have
large factories that are making guns, and I am sure with their
innovative abilities that they would get them. I do not believe
that they are all coming from the United States.
Senator Kyl. Attorney General Goddard, I just want to
clarify one thing. There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence
about the kind of violence that is occurring here in the United
States. A lot of it is one drug cartel against another.
In other words, that in terms of the murders, for example,
or assaults, a lot of that is what we refer to as the bad guys
on the bad guys. Is that the case with kidnappings, as well,
however?
Mr. Goddard. Mr. Chairman and Senator Kyl, and any experts
behind me, Chief Harris, my understanding is that most of the
kidnappings are gang-on-gang activities. Where the general
population gets involved is where they make a mistake, where
they take down a house or a home invasion, where it is not the
person that they intended.
Senator Kyl. Well, it is gang-on-gang, but the people who
are being kidnapped are frequently innocent in the sense they
may be illegal immigrants, but they have not committed crimes.
Mr. Goddard. Senator, let me get out on a limb here--very
often, the people who are kidnapped are under investigation by
the police at the same time. The victims are often perpetrators
in another context. So, they are not less of a victim because
of that, but, very often, they are running a drop house
themselves when they are kidnapped. That does not make them
exactly simon-pure, and that is one of the reasons, as you
pointed out earlier, that the reporting of these crimes is
often, let us say, less than prompt if it happens at all.
Senator Kyl. I understand. I presume it may come through
the Judiciary Committee on this financial instrument issue, and
we will want to work with you on that to make sure that we can
try to accomplish what Senator McCain was talking about.
Mr. Goddard. Thank you, Senator. It is just something we
have done in Arizona pretty much on our own, but we have a lot
of expertise that hopefully we can share with the Treasury and
the IRS and some of the other agencies that could really help
take a bite out of this problem.
Senator Kyl. And, yet, even with your success of something
like $17 million, when you compare that with the total,
obviously, you are frustrated that it cannot be a whole lot
more than----
Senator McCain. It sounds like a bit, Senator, but it is a
drop in the bucket. All it has done, and this is a tribute to
the cartels' flexibility and opportunism, is simply moved them
across the border. They wire the funds to Northern Mexico
today, and they will make a phone call in Arizona. We are still
in court fighting that issue as to whether we can, in fact,
seize the records from the Northern Mexico money transmitters.
I believe we can under our U.S. law, and I believe, hopefully,
the Arizona Supreme Court will free us to do that in the
future.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Kyl, and
thank both of you, Governor Brewer and Attorney General
Goddard, for both highlighting the impact of the Mexican drug
cartels on Arizona, but also giving us some very specific and
practical steps that we can take in law and in financing to
assist you in what you're doing to assist us to diminish this
problem.
I will just say parenthetically that I appreciate, Attorney
General Goddard, your thought that we have to do a better job
at monitoring and imposing some kind of control of southward
traffic from here. We also, I think, have to ask and assist the
Mexican government in doing a better job at monitoring traffic
coming into Mexico from here, the right to be concerned about
the flow of weapons, for instance, in if that is a priority, we
can not just stop that from here, that has to be done on their
side of the border, as well.
We look forward to keeping in touch with both of you; we
thank you for your time, for your service, for your testimony
this morning. Thank you very much.
Governor Brewer. Thank you.
Mr. Goddard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senators.
Chairman Lieberman. We will now call on the second panel,
which we are honored to have a distinguished group of local
officials and the Hon. Phil Gordon, Mayor of the city of
Phoenix, the Hon. Octavio Garcia-Von Borstel, Mayor of the city
of Nogales, and the Hon. Ned Norris, Chairman of the Tohono
O'odham Nation. We thank you, all, for being here, and being
patient as we heard the first panel.
What we need you to help us understand in real terms what
the impact of the Mexican drug cartels has been on your
communities and what we can do to help you diminish that
negative impact.
Mayor Gordon, good morning, and we will start with you.
STATEMENT OF HON. PHIL GORDON,\1\ MAYOR, CITY OF PHOENIX,
ARIZONA
Mayor Gordon. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much, Senator Kyl and Senator McCain, for being here in the
city of Phoenix. We are honored to host this important and
critical Committee meeting in the fifth largest city in the
United States, dealing with one of the largest issues we face.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mayor Gordon appears in the Appendix
on page 209.
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Last month, as I believe you are aware, Mr. Chairman and
Senators, I was invited to Washington, DC, to offer testimony
before a House Subcommittee on this very topic. I went then,
and I come here now to discuss an issue which we all have
agreed must urgently be discussed, debated, addressed, and
resolved.
There can be no doubt, in my opinion, that a crisis exists
at our border with Mexico. And for reasons ranging from a
historically bad economy and corruption at many levels of
government and law enforcement on the Mexican side of the
border, to various degrees of inattention on our own side of
the border, to the border itself, which is vast and porous,
Phoenix finds itself at the center of the perfect storm--a
storm that is growing increasingly violent, threatening, and
resource-consuming. Homeland security, Senators, includes, as
you are aware, hometown security, and that is especially true
in Phoenix, Arizona, today.
Senators, I know that a number of your colleagues sitting
2,000 miles away from Arizona envision a border similar to what
you find between El Paso and Juarez, or San Diego and Tijuana--
a road in, a road out, with a railroad-type crossing to control
the flow of arms and people. But the Arizona-Mexico border, as
you are aware, is not like that. It is 370 miles long, and
hundreds and hundreds of square miles in area. It is hot,
rugged, and has nooks and crannies, ravines and ridges, that
facilitate covert movement. There is no ``Great Wall of
Phoenix'' to separate us from that imaginary border. And I
promise you, what happens at the border does not stay at the
border but comes across here. And that is why we are all
involved so deeply.
But what happens in Phoenix does not stay here either. The
criminals, as you have heard from the Attorney General,
continue on to all parts of our country--Washington, Oregon,
Iowa, Kansas, Maine, and Connecticut. We are just a gateway for
their cargo of drugs and people to come into the United
States--and for money to go into Mexico and drugs to come into
the United States.
That is one of the reasons I am feeling it is so critically
important for you to be here today. This is not simply a
Phoenix solution or an Arizona solution. It is a national
problem requiring a national solution. We do need more funding.
I specifically ask you to continue funding our partnerships
with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), DEA, FBI, and
ATF. We do need continued funding to go after the ``worst of
the worst.'' We do need to continue funding to cut the drugs
and the violence off at the border. We do need continued
funding to help and protect our own law enforcement personnel.
And even though the most violent spillover has not yet
reached Phoenix, the perception outside Arizona is very
different. And that perception, if left unchecked, will start
impacting the people who want to visit our State and this
city--the ones who want to move to Phoenix, the businesses that
want to relocate to Phoenix, and anyone who wants to invest in
Phoenix or the State. And that will directly impact our
economy, which impacts our revenue stream, which impacts our
ability to expand the public safety efforts that are necessary,
not just to the city of Phoenix and the State of Arizona, but
the Nation.
We do really have a dichotomy here, Senators. Our crime in
Phoenix and in most incorporated cities in the valley is down
significantly from last year in every category--violence and
property. And that is from last year where it was down last
year. So 2 years straight in a row.
Our cities have their priorities straight. They are going
after the violent criminals, the syndication, and the repeat
offenders. We know that the first order is to maintain order
and safety, and that is why we plead with you and your
colleagues in the Senate, and the House, to continue funding
the Federal agencies that we have successfully partnered with.
We need new funding for the Border Patrol. The money and
the agents that have been allocated are not significant, nor
sufficient, with the size of the border we have. U.S. Marshals,
DEA, FBI, ATF, ICE, and yes, postal agents--everyone can go
after dangerous felons by serving them the warrants that
already have their names on them, instead of letting them
collect dust sitting in a closet. All of our agencies are
involved.
As you might suspect, the cost of Phoenix border-related
crime is staggering and far beyond what most municipalities in
this country are required to bear. It is the cost of
intelligence, the cost of equipment, the cost of hiring new
officers, the cost of overtime, the cost of undercover
operations that continue for months and years, the ongoing
surveillance operations. In these challenging economic times we
must be particularly sensitive to the manner in which our
increasingly scarce resources are used. And that is why we go
after the ``worst of the worst'' in a quick response.
As you heard, people are being tortured. People are being
kidnapped almost every night. Last year, the average was one a
night. Phoenix police were called out to rescue one variation
of the same story--``My wife is being held in a Phoenix drop
house and they are torturing, raping, assaulting, or
threatening to kill her if we do not pay thousands of dollars
more.'' The response to that kind of call is incredibly labor
intensive. More than 60 officers a night are diverted from
other operations to go rescue individuals, sometimes innocent,
undocumented aliens that have done nothing other than to come
across the border illegally or bad guys on bad guys.
And I will show you an example of each. The individual to
whom you are closest is a bad guy that was tortured by another
one.\1\
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\1\ The photograph referenced by Mr. Gordon appears in the Appendix
on page 221.
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The overtime hours are staggering; the personal resources,
as I said, diverted. I do not know if time permits. I can give
you specific operations that have been so successful----
Chairman Lieberman. Go ahead and take a few minutes.
Mayor Gordon. Operation Blank Check: Again, a joint
operation with the Federal partners I identified--led to the
felony indictments of 183 individuals this last year alone.
Twenty-two different gangs were identified and taken out,
totaling more than $3 million in money obtained also.
Operation En Fuego: Last year, again, alone was responsible
for the break-up of a Phoenix-based smuggling organization from
the syndicate south of the border, indicted 35 individuals on
felony charges that related, as the Attorney General said, to
the human smuggling of more than 10,000 individuals a year for
at least 3 years.
Operation Tumbleweed: Disrupted and stopped the illegal
activities of 20 different organizations by following the money
trail. Drug smuggling, human smuggling, money laundering were
significantly impacted.
Additionally, we shut down two of the largest syndicates in
the Nation that dealt with the tragedy of human smuggling. Each
year, 15,000 people were brought into the United States through
Phoenix to the rest of the country; $30 million a year went the
other way. That business is now closed.
We are also a member of the FBI Violent Street Gang Task
Force, which has resulted in more than 300 felony arrests of
felon illegal immigrants arrested in the past year alone.
The Phoenix Police Department has a very successful and
innovative program, which we recommend across the country,
where we embedded criminal ICE agents on a full-time basis for
the last 3 years in our police department. That is where their
desks are. Their presence and participation in the office and
on the street is invaluable. They have access to the Federal
databases. They allow us to not only rescue people that would
be killed, but also to go after the syndications and identify
individuals more quickly.
When this Nation was founded, no one ever conceived or
imagined that immigration enforcement was an issue that would
ever fall to mayors and local police departments. But here we
are. Not only are we being forced to step up our immigration
efforts, but we have also an increased burden when it comes to
gun crimes and white collar crimes connected to illegal
immigration formerly handled at the Federal level due to
September 11, 2001.
You have seen the pictures from Mexico. You have seen what
their criminal syndicates do to good Mexican police officers
and honest Mexican politicians. And they do not respect our
border, and they do not respect our police.
In conclusion, let me say that the extreme violence,
including the assassination of officers and government
officials we are seeing on the Mexican side of the border, has
not yet spilled over to the American side. Even the kidnappings
and the shootings that have spilled over in an effort to
control the human drug and gun trafficking operations in
Arizona are almost exclusively, as Senator Kyl said, ``bad guys
on bad guys''.
But make no mistake. Related violent criminal activity--
shootings, kidnappings, home invasions, rape and torture--have
spilled over and occur every day and are affecting American
citizens and legal residents. The three of you know her, Julie
Erfle, a police widow and her two young sons who will never see
their husband and dad again--a young hero who was gunned down
by an illegal immigrant smuggled back into our country having
already been convicted and deported.
Senators, without increased funding, the Phoenix Police
Department and your Federal agencies here, and more Federal
agents on the ground in the city, as well as at the border--
that spillover violence will increase and the victim pool will
expand and touch law abiding American citizens. And that is a
circle that I know we all want broken.
Thank you very much for your time. And I am here afterwards
to answer any questions you may have.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for the
warning at the end, which I believe is stark but well taken.
Next, Mayor Octavio Garcia-Von Borstel. Thank you for being
here this morning.
STATEMENT OF HON. OCTAVIO GARCIA-VON BORSTEL,\1\ MAYOR, CITY OF
NOGALES, ARIZONA
Mayor Garcia-Von Borstel. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman
Lieberman, Senator McCain, and Senator Kyl.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mayor Garcia-Von Borstel appears in
the Appendix on page 222.
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I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss ``Southern Border Violence: State and Local
Perspectives''. I want to commend Senator McCain for his
personal attention on the border and personal visits in meeting
with local movements.
We are all aware of the international situation as it
relates to the drug cartel violence that has been occurring
along the Southwest Border. What I would like to address this
Committee with are the effects of the border violence in our
community of Nogales, Arizona.
Since May 2007, the city of Nogales, Arizona, has been a
witness to several highly reported brutal slayings that are
occurring between drug cartels in our sister city of Nogales,
Sonora, Mexico. The Department of National Drug Intelligence
Center has identified the Mexican drug trafficking
organizations as the greatest organized crime threat facing the
United States today.
Although in our neighboring city the violence committed
against innocent parties and tourism is very rare, in October
2008, the State Department issued a travel advisory mentioning
the city of Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. This advisory has had an
effect on the economy of the city of Nogales. We are
experiencing longer waits on the border crossings and a decline
in tourism.
Nogales, Arizona, is on the frontlines in this fight
against drugs. We see continued record high tonnage of drug
seizures, cash, and weapons--all results of this effort between
Federal, State, and local identities working in conjunction.
Nogales is a thriving, safe community that has always put
the safety of our citizens and tourists on the top of our
priorities. Nogales reported zero drug-related homicides in
2008, and what we call ``small crime'' such as vandalism and
shoplifting were at a minimum.
The principal effect of border violence in my community of
Nogales, Arizona, are as follows:
The drug trafficking has reached a point where this
activity is even occurring in our sewer system. Last week
alone, numerous loads of marijuana were intentionally channeled
through our International Outfall Interceptor (IOI), which is
the main sewer line flowing through Nogales, Arizona. This
shows the length to which drug traffickers have resorted in
getting the product into this country. What is normally a drug
trafficking problem has now become an infrastructure problem
because these actions can damage a sewer line infrastructure to
the tune of millions of dollars.
Locally, we cannot go more than a few months without
discovering another drug channel under the border into Nogales,
Arizona. These tunnels cause great damage to the structural
integrity of our streets and buildings.
The wait times at our port of entry continue to be
considerable. It is our understanding that a great portion of
these wait times are due to heightened security at our border.
While this ensures our national safety, the burden of longer
wait times for commercial and pedestrian entry, which is
frequently exceeding 1 to 2 hours, falls on the border cities.
We estimate that approximately 75 percent of people in these
lines at the border are coming to shop in the United States.
When the wait times exceed 1 or 2 more hours, potential
visitors and customers are discouraged from coming into the
United States to buy our products. This affects Nogales,
Tucson, Phoenix, and the rest of the State of Arizona.
State and national media reports discourage people from
other parts of the United States from coming to Ambos Nogales.
Tourism--tourists used to come and lodge in Nogales, Arizona,
and shop and dine in Nogales, Sonora. That is not happening
much anymore. Whether merited or not, the perception alone of
increased violence in Nogales, Sonora, has greatly reduced the
amount of business and tourist visitors to Ambos Nogales. This
reduction in business and tourism has had a detrimental effect
in our community, which damages commerce, tourism, and
ultimately reduces our precious sales tax, which is the main
source of revenue in Nogales, Arizona. Sixty percent of our
sales tax comes from Mexico.
The factors not only affect existing business, but also
greatly diminishes new business prospectives from our border
town. Produce, the maquiladora industry, and other border
operations which might have been thinking of relocating to
Ambos Nogales are now discouraged to do so because of the fear
of increased violence along the border.
Due to the growing violence in Mexico, our local police
departments are forced to spend a great amount of time
assisting Federal law enforcement agencies. While the effects
on this side of the border are indirect, they directly affect
our economy and deplete our budgetary resources that are
crucial to border cities during difficult economic times.
For instance, our police and fire departments' levels of
response to incidence at the ports of entry have greatly
increased. From January 2008, the police department responded
to 34 calls, and in January 2009, they have responded to 6,800
calls at the port of entry.
Our citizens living in close proximity to the International
Boundary Line are constantly deprived of a reasonable night
rest due to the noise and disruptive activities, such as
emergency vehicles, surveillance aircraft, high capacity
floodlights, emergency sirens, etc.
The city of Nogales is therefore requesting your assistance
in seeing that greater resources are allocated to combating the
potential spillover effect of the drug war in Mexico, as well
as increased CBP manpower to properly staff and operate the
largest port of entry in Arizona. If we can maintain the
security and operation of the Mariposa and DeConcini ports of
entry in Nogales, all of Arizona, as well as this country, will
benefit.
The sad irony is that Nogales, Arizona, remains one of the
safest cities in the country despite the violence, drug and
human trafficking that surrounds us.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. By
continuing to work together we can develop new ideas to refresh
and strategies that can rise to the current challenge. I will
be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Mayor. You pointed out, and
Mayor Gordon did the same, that there is a complicated picture
here. That while the Mexican drug cartels have had an obvious
impact on public safety, overall, some of the communities here,
thanks to the leadership and work of the law enforcement have
actually seen declining rates of violent crimes. So that
insofar as people living here form an attitude about crime, or
even people intending to visit or come here, generally
speaking, these are still very safe communities to be in.
Mr. Norris, thanks for giving us your time this morning,
and we look forward to your testimony now.
STATEMENT OF HON. NED NORRIS JR.,\1\ CHAIRMAN, TOHONO O'ODHAM
NATION
Mr. Norris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator McCain, and
Senator Kyl. The Tohono O'odham Nation is honored to be here at
the table with you to share our thoughts about the border
violence and the impact that activity has had on the Tohono
O'odham Nation.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Norris appears in the Appendix on
page 224.
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Border-related crimes, such as illegal immigrant and drug
trafficking, robberies, sexual assaults, stolen vehicles, and
property crimes have an impact not only on our law enforcement
and other resources, but also affects the quality of life of
our people and diminishes our efforts to maintain our culture
and traditions.
The Tohono O'odham Nation has 78 law enforcement officers;
about 46 are assigned field operations or patrol duties.
Although border crossings have decreased from a high of about
1,500 a day from 2005/2006 to about 400 to 450 a day, these
numbers remain significant because of the increase of drug
smuggling. Customs and Border Protection data show that about
10 percent of the crossers are criminal aliens with histories
of rape, assaults, drug and human smuggling, and murder. So,
there are about 40 to 50 felons entering the Tohono O'odham
Nation on a daily basis, or about 1,500 a month.
Tohono O'odham Police investigate an average of 70 deaths a
year of illegal immigrants that die attempting to cross Tohono
O'odham Nation. They die from exposure or injury. About 3
percent were murdered by other illegal immigrants robbing them
of their drugs and other human cargo.
From years 2004 to 2008, the Tohono O'odham Nation Police
Department seized 290,885 pounds of marijuana, an average of
58,000 pounds a year. For year 2009, Tohono O'odham Police
Department is expected to exceed this average by about 27
percent, or approximately 79,236 pounds.
Additionally, there were 877 pounds of cocaine seized. The
estimated street value of all the drugs seized is $221,633,000.
These numbers do not indicate data from Customs and Border
Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who seized about
400,000 pounds in fiscal year 2007.
Information indicates that there are two Mexican Cartels
operating within the Tohono O'odham Nation: (1) the Sinaloa
Cartel, and (2) the Tijuana Cartel. Both are vying for control
of the Tohono O'odham Nation, particularly the western side.
They see the porous nature of our border, despite the
construction of vehicle barriers. The barriers do not stop foot
traffic. Because the southern side of the border is rural
desert area with little, if any, law enforcement presence, they
use the area as staging areas to smuggle drugs and illegal
immigrants.
Because of the vehicle barriers, they can no longer drive
north from the Mexican side of the border, so they shifted
their tactics to stealing vehicles from the Phoenix metro area.
They then drive the stolen vehicles to sites on the Tohono
O'odham Nation where the drugs and/or human cargo are stored or
waiting. They then transport the cargo north off the Tohono
O'odham Nation. Because the current practice of Customs and
Border Patrol is to not check southbound vehicles, this has
been, thus far, a successful strategy for the cartels thus far.
The cartels are developing formal relationships with Tohono
O'odham Nation members to drive vehicles loaded with hundreds
of pounds of drugs and/or illegal immigrants to designated
locations off the Tohono O'odham Nation. What they do is a
simple process of offering $700 to $5,000, depending on the
type of load, to a Tribal member to either drive the load or
store the drugs at their home or a shed.
More and more, the Tohono O'odham Nation's members are
getting involved in the illegal operations. As little as 5
years ago there were just a few Tribal members involved in the
illegal operations. As indicated, about 30 percent of the total
Federal prosecutions for drug smuggling and/or transport of
illegal immigrants are Tribal members. In the same period of
time there were 145 drug possession/transport cases prosecuted
in Tribal Court.
Lack of interoperability, radio and cell phone--there is
about 30 percent of the Tohono O'odham Nation that lacks
adequate radio and cell phone communication. This handicaps our
efforts and presents an officer and public safety concern.
Adding to this is the inability to communicate directly with
our Federal partners--Customs and Border Patrol, and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that should this
type of activity occur in any town or city in the United
States, it would be considered a crisis. The Tohono O'odham
Nation is in the midst of this crisis, and our way of life and
culture and traditions are changing every day.
This crime and violence does not end at the Tohono O'odham
Nation. The drugs and criminals transporting the drugs and
human cargo are headed to cities and towns throughout the
United States. The victims of kidnapping that the city of
Phoenix has been experiencing have likely traveled through the
Tohono O'odham Nation. We need help to protect not only our
community but also to protect our neighbors, the State of
Arizona, and the United States of America. I urge you to do
whatever you can to help us protect our homeland.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Mr. Norris, for a
very strong statement.
Let me begin the questioning. Mayor Gordon, you talked--and
I think very compellingly--about the cost of border-related
crimes to Phoenix being staggering--something we do not think
about. And let me just make sure I understand you. You said
that 60 officers a night are involved--does that mean they
spend most of the night or they are responding to something
that you would consider a border-related crime every night?
Mayor Gordon. Mr. Chairman--and again, noting that Chief
Harris will be on the next panel--the police operations are
ongoing now in terms of both going after drop houses. These are
two examples. Nightly--and Senator McCain actually also put a
face on it--in fact, late last night, our police were involved
and rescued a group of immigrants that were being held. One of
the smugglers shot at the police officer from above.
Fortunately, he missed or at least he was gone--this was last
night alone.
Chairman Lieberman. The smuggler was holding the illegal
immigrants?
Mayor Gordon. Yes, sir.
Chairman Lieberman. Just for the record, why was he holding
them?
Mayor Gordon. For smuggling, extortion, and transportation.
Chairman Lieberman. Because they had not paid him, or he
was not going to let them go until they paid him more?
Mayor Gordon. The typical--almost every occurrence now is
that individuals will pay X-dollars to get them to the border,
and the transportation system related to the cartels takes them
through the desert--roads or no roads--over fences with the
truck-loading equipment--to the Phoenix metro area where they
are held in drop houses. At that point, the holders of the
homes then start to extort additional monies from the occupants
and then call their relatives to say either pay us X-dollars
more or we will torture and rape them.
The one I am referring to last night, an innocent victim, a
14-year-old girl, was raped. The mother was raped also. But a
14-year-old girl, no matter what her nationality, legal status,
is not----
Chairman Lieberman. In other words, how is this related?
Mayor Gordon. Last night, officers came across a home.
There were a number of individuals in there being held against
their will--very similar to the picture you see in the middle
or on the end--waiting for transportation on one hand to other
parts of the country to go to work. And on the other hand,
being held to get more money from what they originally paid to
get to the metro area to then go to Iowa or Connecticut.
The individuals, part of the smuggling syndication, were
discovered at the premises by the police. It was a two-story
apartment, as I understood. One of those smugglers raised his
gun to shoot at a police officer down below. Fortunately, the
Phoenix police officer shot back and was safe. So, that
violence--that went on last night.
Chairman Lieberman. And those rapes, who were those women?
Mayor Gordon. They were immigrants being held. But the cost
on those operations are ongoing. They may be one night; they
may be weekly. Those calls from Seattle to internationally
across the world. And again, the police are then diverting
resources over time. These are officers involved in these
operations that just cannot be pulled off the street.
Chairman Lieberman. Let me ask you briefly--I am going to
ask your two colleagues--of the likelihood that additional
funding would come to State and local governments for Mexican
drug cartel-related violence through existing programs. It is
not definitely so, but it is always a likelihood. Now, which of
the existing programs are helping you most and, therefore,
would you like to see more funding put into as part of
supplemental funding?
Mayor Gordon. Mr. Chairman and Senators, I think the
operations that I described--those are partnerships. Whether
the money goes directly to the Federal agencies for those
partnerships, to the Department of Safety (DPS) directly, or to
the city of Phoenix, which tends to have the most officers
involved--for those specific operations--there is not a delay.
The results are proven, all across the board for a couple of
years. I went to D.C. to testify to get the Federal agencies
more. That would be the best single dollars you could use.
Chairman Lieberman. OK. Mayor.
Mayor Garcia-Von Borstel. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Although
I recognize that we are working in a partnership with all
agencies, the trend seems to be that local agencies seem to be
supporting Federal agencies, such as CBP, because of their lack
of funding and agents at the border. So, to me it makes sense
to certainly support CBP in getting more qualified border
agents at the border.
Chairman Lieberman. Would that include beefing up and
monitoring our inspections southward?
Mayor Garcia-Von Borstel. Correct. That would make a lot of
sense.
Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Norris.
Mr. Norris. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, the
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the primary
agencies that we are working with. Our Tribal Police
Department, as well as the entity that I am sure the Committee
is familiar with--the Shadow Wolves, who are very active out
there need assistance in funding themselves to continue their
operations on our Tohono O'odham Nation.
Chairman Lieberman. Right. It is very interesting. That is
not the answer I expected, but it is significant that you gave
it.
Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mayor Gordon, with
the tremendous difficulties as associated with the economy, you
have more foreclosures. Right?
Mayor Gordon. Yes, sir.
Senator McCain. So you have more boarded up homes. So you
have more places for these people to go in and locate. What do
we do about that?
Mayor Gordon. Mr. Chairman and Senator McCain, first, let
me note that almost all the drug drop houses that are
discovered on a daily basis are not boarded up. They are
operational. This one is in a very affluent neighborhood, and
locations are not discriminatory in terms of lower
socioeconomic or higher. They are throughout the entire valley.
It is keeping a low presence, and sometimes the highest areas
are done.
The boarded up homes are a significant issue as it relates
to street crime, gang members, drug dealing, because
transients----
Senator McCain. But these people have no trouble finding
anywhere to locate?
Mayor Gordon. These people have no trouble, and money is
not an issue in terms of renting homes that may be owned by
out-of-state corporations or individuals or locally.
And to answer your question directly, with respect to the
money that the Federal Government, your body, and the House and
Administration has allocated from the last Administration, is
already put to use at the city of Phoenix in terms of acquiring
these boarded-up homes. There is a percentage that cannot be
saved, demolished. The others rehabbed and then sold to single
owner-occupied families. So, we have found the best way to use
the Federal money is actually to bridge the gap instead of
trying to become a rental agency.
Senator McCain. Thank you very much, Mayor Gordon.
But crime overall has gone down, but crime associated with
this is going to continue. Would you say it is your major
challenge besides the overall economy?
Mayor Gordon. Mr. Chairman, and Senator McCain. Absolutely.
And that point, because it really is a dichotomy, crime is down
significantly in the city of Phoenix. Homicide, as an example,
is down by over 25 percent from last year alone. Having said
that, 225 or 250 homicides a year--the Chief can correct me--it
is either all bad guys and bad guys, these syndicates, or
unfortunately, probably related a small percentage to domestic
violence.
Those officers that are being diverted to keep this
spillover violence from affecting our daily lives, and these
things are coming at a significant cost as I described over
time to the families. The undercover operations--these officers
are undercover a long time and cannot be replaced on a rotating
basis. Our public safety budget is now 74 percent of our
operating budget. Police and fire--the vast majority of that is
police, and that is growing as the demand is needed to stay
equal to keep that crime going down. But that is pulling
officers now off the street.
We, for the first time in our history, Senator, have had to
reduce the Public Safety budget, especially since I have been
mayor. The growth of that--we are still hiring but we do not
have the luxury to keep adding to the Federal task forces that
have been so successful.
Senator McCain. Mayor Garcia-Von Borstel, now they are
moving drugs through the sewers.
Mayor Garcia-Von Borstel. That is right.
Senator McCain. And how often are you uncovering a tunnel?
Mayor Garcia-Von Borstel. Very often, it is very sad to see
that all of our efforts are going towards the border and trying
to be effective in eliminating drug trafficking and human
trafficking. And it is sad to see that they keep finding and
identifying ways to make sure that their product comes into our
country illegally.
And so it is very sad to see in our community that although
we are working diligently with our Federal and State
governments, they continue to identify ways to smuggle their
products.
Senator McCain. What kind of cooperation do you get from
the city of Nogales, Sonora?
Mayor Garcia-Von Borstel. We work very diligently with
them. There is a great wave of communication with them. But I
think that it is bigger than their local government, as well.
Both local governments working together I do not think is
enough.
Senator McCain. What do you estimate the population of
Nogales, Sonora, is?
Mayor Garcia-Von Borstel. I estimate it at 500,000. Half a
million.
Just on a personal note, Senator, talking about identifying
abandoned homes. I live in a single-family home by myself, and
so my house is abandoned during the day while I go to work. And
so after I came home one day, I identified a red t-shirt
hanging from a tree outside my house. And so I figured that was
odd; I will get to it tomorrow morning. And nevertheless, the
next morning I ran off to work again and came home for lunch
and saw that there were illegal aliens at my house just hanging
out and resting. Who knows for what.
And so these people are very creative and just find ways to
identify houses that are abandoned during the day. So I just
thought I would share that with you because it was a personal
experience that happened to me. And so it was that red shirt
that was signaling other illegal aliens to say that is the
house where we are hanging out today.
Senator McCain. Mr. Norris, it is good to see you again.
Thank you for all your service to the Tohono O'odham Nation.
It seems to me from your testimony that the border
crossing, as you mention, has decreased from a high of about
1,500 a day in 2005 and 2006 to about 400 to 450 a day. Is that
because of the vehicle barriers?
Mr. Norris. Mr. Chairman and Senator McCain, I think that
it has a lot of factors. There has been a significant increase
of Border Patrol agents on the Tohono O'odham Nation's land.
And so the ability to do their business on the Tohono O'odham
Nation has decreased but also, because the vehicle barriers
have had a significant impact on that, as well.
But I think the fact is that there is always a continued
effort on the Tohono O'odham Nation's part to work
cooperatively with the Border Patrol. And so we are hoping that
our cooperation is going to be able to assist the Border Patrol
and take into consideration the Tohono O'odham Nation's
interest in the fact that we have nine communities that
continue to exist today in Mexico and about 1,500 enrolled
Tribal members in Mexico, as well. So, we have to have a
cooperative working relationship with the Border Patrol in
order for us to be able to address this issue.
Senator McCain. It seems to me your major concern here is
the penetration of drugs into the young people of your Tohono
O'odham Nation.
Mr. Norris. Yes, sir. Not long ago I was talking to the
former Chief of Police for the Tohono O'odham Nation, who
shared with me a situation where a 16-year-old female was
offered $500,000 to drive a vehicle from this point to that
point.
And obviously, that is just one of several examples of how
some of our people are bought into the illegal activity of drug
smuggling and sale in that, if you wave $500,000 in front of a
16-year-old's face, or anybody for that matter, to just drive
this vehicle from this point to that point, I think it is
extremely enticing for them to----
Senator McCain. Is drug addiction up amongst Tribal
members?
Mr. Norris. I think that my service to my Tohono O'odham
Nation goes back 32 years. I spent 14 years as a non-attorney
tribal judge, and I can remember in the late 1970s, early 1980s
when the choice of drug was alcohol. That graduated to
marijuana. Over the years that graduated to cocaine. Over the
years that has graduated to methamphetamine.
So I think that slowly there is an increase in the types of
drugs that members of the Tohono O'odham Nation use and that we
are seeing come across our Tohono O'odham Nation's borders.
Senator McCain. I have had the great pleasure of visiting
you on numerous occasions. The Tohono O'odham Tribe has been on
the frontline and they have cooperated with State, local, and
Federal officials. I thank you for that, Mr. Norris. And I know
you need additional help, and it seems to me that we have
probably not given you nearly what you need.
Mr. Norris. I appreciate that Senator. Thank you.
Senator McCain. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator McCain. Senator Kyl.
Senator Kyl. Let me begin by noting that Mayor Gordon
mentioned the need for more U.S. Marshals to be able to serve
the warrants on the felons and so on.
Just to make the point again that it is not just more
Border Patrol agents or the arresting officers, but the people
all up and down the line. So I appreciate you mentioning that.
I need to clarify something--I will ask the chief this, as
well--but I am a little bit dubious of the notion that all the
violence is, as you said, almost exclusively bad guys on bad
guys. And I did not say that. I asked the question about it to
try to differentiate between the kind of case that you
described--the innocent girl who gets raped. She is not a bad
guy. Yes, she may have crossed the border illegally, but that
is it.
And so I do really want to bore down a little bit more on
this notion that it is just bad guys on bad guys. There are a
lot of relatively innocent people--innocent, certainly, in
terms of the kind of crimes that are committed against them
that are caught up in all of this. And I know you agree with
that because you cited the example of it.
Any further comment you would like to make on that is
appreciated. But, there can be kind of a sense that, well, if
it is just bad guys on bad guys, let them kill each other.
You make two points about that, Mayor Gordon. First, it
diverts a whole lot of your resources that should be devoted to
protecting the rest of us. And second, there are a lot of cases
in which innocent people are taken advantage of. If you would
like to comment any further on that you are welcome to.
Mayor Gordon. Mr. Chairman and Senator McCain, thank you.
I was too loose with my words, but I think you adequately
described it.
First of all, any crime--I have said in so many public
speeches--is too much crime. Second, there are always innocent
victims, including those that are engaged in criminal
activities with their families.
With respect to specifically, my intent was to say that
anecdotally--because I do not think anybody could drill down
deep enough--the vast majority of violent crime is related to
drug smuggling, use of drugs, and now human smuggling and gun
smuggling. And as you will hear from the chief--you have heard
from the Federal agencies--these cartels and syndicates, they
are now one in terms of drugs, people, guns, and money. So it
is one continuous operation.
The individual closest to you was--I will describe, as the
chief would say--a bad guy. But you can see he was tortured.
That is how the police found them as they were untying them--
anyone that is torturing and willing to kill anyone is not
going to hesitate to kill individuals. We have had police
officers that have been shot at, killed. They are certainly
innocent.
Senator Kyl. One of the key points, with only 5 minutes
here, let me quickly get to this point. In order to get
resources in Washington, we cannot sugarcoat. And I appreciate
that the job of mayors is to say we have wonderful, safe cities
and so on. But it does not argue against that to recognize that
we have a problem that we need help with. And you have both
made the point that for the most part the citizens of the
cities are safe. So that should not be a reason for people not
to come to Nogales or to Phoenix.
But by the same token, resources are being diverted in both
cases, and there is a threat to the citizens, in addition to
which we do not want crime to occur against anybody and our
citizens. So I am just making the point that--just, for
example, you talked about the reporting of statistics. I would
not suggest that the numbers here are a result of the fact that
Phoenix reports all of its murders, whereas some other cities
may not. The reality is that, as was noted earlier by the
Attorney General, a lot of the crime is not even reported
because it is crime against illegal immigrants or against other
bad guys.
So, just a suggestion here, and to enable us to better do
our job, be straightforward about what is occurring here and
ask for help. And that will help us to make the case that our
colleagues who have no idea of what is going on will be more
likely to provide the assistance that we need.
Mayor Gordon. Mr. Chairman and Senator Kyl, that has been
my job for 3 years now, coming to Washington asking for that
help. The numbers continue to go up. And in no means was my
intent to say or to sugarcoat or not tell it. I think I have
told it directly day in and day out. And the local officers--
and Phoenix Police just to be specific--are doing an inordinate
amount to maintain the status quo in gross numbers.
But, again, these individuals that are involved are more
heavily armed than police officers, with body armor, using
sophisticated smuggling equipment and all other types of
technology. They are better armed than a lot of the National
Guard is, Senator. So, I said, as you noted, it is not a
question of if it is growing; it will continue to grow. And we
are begging for more help.
Senator Kyl. You need to try to get that assistance. I,
too, have enjoyed our various meetings about different kind of
problems. It is so distressing, just heartbreaking, to hear the
kind of stories that you are talking about--to bribe people on
the reservation and it must be just heartbreaking for you, as
well.
The vehicle barriers you have noted have had some impact. I
need to go back and look this up--but my recollection also is
that there were some recommendations from the Department of
Homeland Security with respect to foot traffic--fences to stop
foot traffic, as well. What is the status of that? Is there any
problem with that? I know there are some miles of fencing yet
to be completed, but I am not familiar with the situation on
the Tohono O'odham reservation.
Mr. Norris. Mr. Chairman and Senator Kyl, as the Committee
is well aware, the Tohono O'odham Nation's leadership and
legislative counsel supports the establishment of vehicle
barriers on our Tohono O'odham Nation.
We also supported and continue to support the efforts to
establish the virtual fence on our Tohono O'odham Nation's
land. So, we also continue to support the establishment of
beacon lights on our Tohono O'odham Nation's lands.
The Nation's Legislative Council recently--about 2 months
ago--passed a resolution that reaffirmed its commitment to
establishing the vehicle barriers. And for those areas that
have been omitted for some reason or another, the Tohono
O'odham Nation wants the vehicle barrier project to be
completed. And we will do whatever is necessary in our power to
ensure that completion is----
Senator Kyl. Do you oppose fencing for foot traffic?
Mr. Norris. The opposition regarding fencing is that the
Tohono O'odham Nation has gone on record to say that the Tohono
O'odham Nation will not ever agree to a walled fence. And for
the reasons that I stated earlier--we have nine villages that
continue to exist in Mexico. We have 1,500 enrolled tribal
citizens living in Mexico--not necessarily because they want to
live in Mexico, but when the International Border was
established without any consultation with the Tohono O'odham
Nation or its people itself, that essentially cut that portion
of the Tohono O'odham Nation off from the part that ended up in
the United States.
We will continue to work diligently with the U.S.
Government to come up with an amicable way to address the
concerns that we have and to ensure the protection of the
United States of America, as well.
Senator Kyl. Well, I will just note--and I appreciate the
problem, but I know the Customs and Border Patrol has tried to
work out arrangements whereby the movement of tribal members
across the border is facilitated with special cards and so on.
And I will just note that since you, yourself, pointed out
the problem of the foot traffic that is not stopped by the
vehicle barriers even though they have obviously an impact--
that it may be that we are going to have some kind of ability
to stop the foot traffic, as well. And in some places, actual
barriers have worked very well. So that is something that we
should probably continue to work on.
Mr. Norris. Yes, Senator.
Senator Kyl. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Kyl.
I want to thank this panel very much for excellent
testimony which made it real for us. And there is this
dichotomy, which we will explore with the next panel of law
enforcers and my colleagues have stated it, that thanks to a
lot of effort, generally, violent crimes are going down. But
that does not mean that there is not a tremendous burden on
local law enforcement, local municipalities, and the Tribal
nations to deal with the violence that is from the Mexico drug
cartels.
And, of course, it would appear that as Mayor Gordon
expressed at the beginning, this will grow more significant if
we do not come together and push it back. So, your testimony
has been very helpful. I am very pleased--as I said at the end
of my questioning--that you have had this cooperative
relationship with the Federal agencies, particularly as I heard
you speak with Customs and Border Patrol.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Norris. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. I will now call the third panel. Jack
Harris is a Public Safety Manager for the city of Phoenix;
Clarence Dupnik, the Sheriff of the County of Pima, Arizona;
and Larry Dever, Sheriff of the County of Cochise, Arizona.
Thank you very much for being with us.
Chief Harris, obviously, we want to hear from you now about
law enforcement at the local level and the impact that the
Mexican drug cartels have begun to have as you have witnessed
it.
Obviously, there are some people in Washington who think we
are overreacting here. I think you know that. So, your
testimony will be very important.
Chief Harris, welcome. You have been much referred to this
morning. Now it is your time for your defense.
STATEMENT OF JACK F. HARRIS,\1\ PUBLIC SAFETY MANAGER, CITY OF
PHOENIX, ARIZONA
Mr. Harris. I hope I can live up to the billing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Harris appears in the Appendix on
page 227.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Senators of the
panel. I will read my statement to begin with, and I am afraid
I will be repeating some of the numbers that you have already
heard. But I will try to put it into perspective in what we are
facing at the local level, especially here with the Phoenix
Police Department.
As you heard, Phoenix does continue to be one of the safest
major cities in the country--2008 numbers compared to 2007:
Property crime is down by 8 percent; violent crime is down by 6
percent; homicides are down by 24 percent. As a member of Major
City Chiefs--the 55 largest cities in the country--I can tell
you that in bad economic times historically crime rates soar.
And that is happening in most of the major cities across the
country.
But we have had the ability here and the good fortune to be
able to help drive that crime rate down. However, as you have
also heard, in 2007, there were 357 reported kidnappings in
Phoenix and 317 home invasions. In 2008, there were 368
kidnappings and another 337 home invasions. This problem has
garnered the attention of the world.
Phoenix is, as you have heard, a transshipment point for
illegal drugs and smuggled humans. Both come here before being
shipped to other points throughout America. The majority of the
victims of kidnappings and home invasions are involved directly
or indirectly with the drug or human smuggling business.
Regardless of their involvement in the crime, these victims are
human beings, and first and foremost, we treat them as such.
Many of the kidnapping victims, as you have heard, are
being brought into Phoenix by smugglers known as ``coyotes,''
and each victim is paying in excess of $1,500 each to be
brought into the country. Once here, the coyotes take them to
drop houses where dozens of smuggled people are kept. Their
shoes and clothes are often taken so that they can not escape.
They are beaten and tortured while their loved ones listen on
the telephone in horror as another $2,500 or more is being
demanded from the kidnappers.
The pictures that you saw up here earlier depict one of
those drop houses where the humans who were sitting there had
been smuggled.\1\ They were being held in a drop house, which
was actually in a pretty decent neighborhood, but if you
noticed in the picture, the windows were boarded up in the
summer. You are well aware of what the temperatures are in
Phoenix. They are held without food, they are held without
water, and their clothes are taken away from them, and then
they are tortured to get their loved ones to bring more money
to the smugglers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The photographs submitted for the record by Mr. Gordon appear
in the Appendix on pages 218 through 221.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other coyotes try to ``steal'' the human cargo from the
original coyotes. They then ask for more money before they will
release or transport their prisoners. We have had shootouts on
our highways where a vanload of people being smuggled are
trying to be stolen by another group of coyotes and they opened
fire in an attempt to steal the load.
There have been other kidnappings, which sometimes start as
a home invasion where the victims are the smugglers themselves.
Groups often dressed, as you have heard, in police-type raid
gear break into a home or a vehicle and kidnap the smugglers.
These kidnappers know the smugglers or their family members and
associates have the ability to come up with ransoms ranging
from $30,000 to a million dollars or more.
Oftentimes, the ransom demands include drugs, such as 100
pounds of marijuana, or methamphetamine, or cocaine. The
primary goal for investigators in these cases is to rescue the
victims. But saving these lives, as you have also heard, is
tremendously resource-intensive. We have had operations that go
more than a week trying to locate these kidnapped people in a
city of over 550 square miles. And we have put as many as 60
officers on one case.
And then when you look at the numbers that I started with
in excess of 350 of each of those types of crimes, you can see
how manpower-intensive this is.
Chairman Lieberman. Chief, how large is the Phoenix Police
Department?
Mr. Harris. We have approximately 3,600 sworn officers and
another 1,100 support staff. And we are covering a 550 square
mile area with a population of a little over a million and a
half. We respond to about 750,000 dispatch calls per service
per year.
If you went out there on the street right now and added up
every officer in this uniform, you would find maybe 250
officers covering that 550 square miles.
The officers that I need to assign to combat the problem of
border violence are a valuable resource that I have had to pull
off of their regular duties throughout the department. Like
other agencies, we do not have a pool of excess officers to
draw from. However, we have been forced to do something, which
is why we have participated with two other agencies in the
creation of the Illegal Immigrant Prevention and Apprehension
Coop Team (IIMPACT).
Additionally, IU have authorized the department--or the
development of the Phoenix Police Home Invasion and Kidnapping
Enforcement (HIKE) Unit. We have great partnerships in both of
these endeavors.
IIMPACT is a partnership between the Phoenix Police
Department, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and the
U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This team
deals specifically with the violence associated with human
smuggling and illegal immigration.
The HIKE team, which is one of the only ones like it in the
country, is made up of supervisors and detectives from the
Robbery, Assaults, and Document Crimes Units from within our
own department. In addition, agents from the Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Drug
Enforcement Administration are part of the team. This team
deals specifically with the kidnappings in Phoenix.
Home invasions and kidnappings have had an impact on local
gangs in Phoenix. Gang members have been recruited to
participate in these crimes. In addition, they have learned of
these crimes and copied them in an effort to get financial
gain. To combat this problem, the Phoenix Police Department has
partnered with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation in the
FBI Violent Street Gang Task Force. As the name implies, this
team deals with gang violence, which is influenced by the
border violence.
I have submitted that portion of my statement to you.
Chairman Lieberman. That will be printed in full in the
record as everyone's statements will be.
Mr. Harris. But let me conclude by saying I know that you
are here to ask what impact the border violence has had on our
cities and our counties. And also, it is clear and we very much
appreciate that you are asking what can you do from Washington
to help us.
I can tell you that financially we have applied for a
number of grants under the stimulus, under the COPS program. We
are asking to add 25 people to the HIKE unit to handle these
types of cases. So there certainly is a financial need in our
city.
I would also ask you to please keep in consideration our
Federal partners. All of these task forces, all of the major
investigations that you have heard about this morning, have
been conducted by--for the most part--task forces that include
ATF, DEA, the FBI, and ICE, along with our local law
enforcement agencies. So, any assistance that you can give to
people, resources, and finances to help those Federal agencies
along the border and in our communities would be very much
appreciated.
But, beyond that, I know that I have given presentations to
the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major
City Chiefs. I have worked with the faith community, with the
business community. I have worked with and given presentations
to the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington, the
Police Foundation. And I can tell you that foremost beyond all
of this--we all want a secure border but we have to have
immigration reform.
There is a big difference between the pictures that you saw
of 25 or 50 people who have committed the crime of trying to
come into this country to work and provide for this country,
and the people who are running guns, smuggling their human
cargo, and smuggling narcotics. We have to have immigration
reform--comprehensive reform. So, this country has to make a
decision as to what they want us to do at the local level.
In all of those Federal groups and associations that I have
talked to, I can tell you there is a minimum of hundreds of
different ways that local law enforcement is trying to cope
with this very difficult divisive issue. We have to have
something in the way of immigration reform to tell us do we
want a workforce in this country that is an immigrant workforce
or do we not? We have to find a way, if we do want that as a
country, to bring those people into the country legally for a
period of time to provide the labor that the business community
seems to need.
That I would say is the most important thing that could
come out of Washington, DC, in the near future to help local
law enforcement. Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Chief. Thanks for all parts
of your testimony, including what I would call a healthy dose
at the end of Arizona straight talk to which we have become
accustomed in Washington.
Sheriff Dupnik, welcome.
Mr. Dupnik. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Lieberman. I look forward to your testimony now.
STATEMENT OF CLARENCE W. DUPNIK,\1\ SHERIFF, COUNTY OF PIMA,
ARIZONA
Mr. Dupnik. Thank you, Senator. I have submitted my
testimony, as well, but much of what is in here is a
duplication or triplication of what has already been said. And
I think the problem that we have here in Arizona with drug
smuggling and people smuggling is pretty well identified.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Dupnik appears in the Appendix on
page 231.
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So I would like to kind of concentrate on some areas that I
thought were very important that have been previously
discussed. And I would kind of like to amplify on that.
And first I would like to thank Mr. Norris if he is still
here--I do not see him.
But at any rate, a lot of what I had to say had to do with
the Tohono O'odham Reservation. And I appreciate the candor
with which he talked about it, because it is a very significant
problem, not only for the nation, but for our country and for
smuggling, as well. Because we have a corridor that runs
primarily from Phoenix and Interstate 8 down to the Mexican
border, west of Tucson, and all the way to the border.
And it is in that area that most of this activity takes
place. And that is where Tucson kind of gets caught in the
middle. We have a tremendous amount of violence associated with
the people smuggling and with the narcotics smuggling that goes
on because somehow all of this activity has to get from Mexico
up to Phoenix. And therein lies the rub.
A lot of this is related to the drug cartels down in
Mexico. For example, a couple of years ago, before we formed
our Border Crimes unit in Pima County, we had two loads of
aliens coming across in the wee hours of the morning, 3 a.m., a
very rural known smuggling route. And they were fired upon by,
as it turned out, four armed banditos who were apprehended by
the Border Patrol and in their statements they had been hired
by the Sinaloa Cartel down in Sinaloa. They came up, lived in
the desert, and were told to rip off drugs from a competing
cartel, namely the Gulf Cartel, which was trying to move in.
They fired upon these vehicles, which they assumed to be
carrying drugs--instead were carrying people, and killed
several people, wounded several people. And that happened on
two different occasions.
Now, we have not had that kind of violence in about a
little over a year for reasons that I know not. That kind of
activity has subsided. I suppose being a politician I could pat
myself on the back and say it is because of us, but I think
probably we had nothing to do with it.
One of the things that concerns me is the fact that we
spend a lot of money the same way we spent it last year and the
same way we spent it the year before. And most of the money
that we spend in Tucson, for example, goes to investigative
activities--intelligence and actually narcotics investigation.
We do not get into alien smuggling hardly at all because we
simply do not have the resources, nor should we. I do not think
that is our problem; I think that is your problem.
We assist with it all the time. For example--I am not a
lawyer so I do not want to use the word arrest--but we stop and
detail probably 100 or so aliens every month that we then turn
over to the Border Patrol.
But those are incidental to what we do. We have a
department of about 1,500 people, about 600 of whom are sworn
police officers. In our jail--you talked about SCAAP a while
ago. Two years ago, Pima County was able to recoup 3 percent of
our actual costs in the jail. That is not a whole lot. On any
given day, 10 percent of our prisoners are Mexican aliens who
are there not because of any immigration issues but because
they committed serious crimes in our county. In our jail that
is 200 people every day. Well, that is a lot of expense.
That does not include the expense that we have related to
healthcare--for example, our morgue is overwhelmed with the
bodies that are found in the desert. Mainly, people who are not
committing any serious crime except trying to get into this
country.
So, expenses are a horrible problem. I do not know how you
address that. The previous Administration tried to eliminate
SCAAP.
But I have this idea. We talk about southbound activity,
and that is an area that cries out for some activity, for some
leadership, for some response. Putting more people at the ports
of entry to check southbound activity is imperative and we need
to do that. But that is not going to stop the sophisticated
people from getting guns and money back to Mexico. We need to
develop a task force, and in my remarks I talked about a
management program that we put together for our investigative
unit down in Tucson.
We had almost a dozen separate task forces existing at one
time in Tucson. And about 8 years ago we decided to make that
one task force. And we succeeded at doing that. And I think the
reason we succeeded at doing that is because we do not have
anybody in charge of it. If Customs tries to do something--and
I realize there is no such agency as Customs anymore--but if
DEA, for example, has a task force and they want other Federal
agencies to plan, it is not going to happen. If it becomes the
ownership of one agency, other agencies are going to be very
reluctant to participate.
And that is why this management concept that we put
together in Tucson has applications beyond investigative and
intelligence activities. If we could put together a task force
that would deal with the people stealing the cars in Phoenix
and going down to the border and bringing people and contraband
across, we could make significant impact not only on that which
is going south, but that which is coming north.
In our Border Crimes Unit we have 18 people. Well, when you
consider it takes 5.2 people to staff one position 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week, that is not a lot of people to stick out
into the hundreds of miles that we are talking about.
Pima County, Senator, is a little larger than the State of
Connecticut. It is almost 10,000 square miles. And in that
county we have this reservation where State and local police
officers are not allowed to participate. And it is a
significant problem because most of the activity is now coming
across that reservation. It is winding up in Pinal County and
up to Maricopa County. And it is very difficult for people like
us to deal with what is going through that reservation. So, I
really think there needs to be something done about that
particular issue with the reservations.
We have some serious problems in Tucson--primarily in the
city of Tucson--where all the pockets of social issues and
problems exist. And it does not matter which particular social
indices you want to pick to evaluate--whether it be high school
dropouts, whether it be unwed teenage mothers, whether it be
gang membership or single parents in the home, crime, gang
membership, whatever--they are all in one pocket. And in that
pocket, credible information from people that I deal with in a
particular school district in there say that at least 40
percent of those kids are illegal. That is staggering.
Last week in the Arizona Republic there was a story quoting
Pew. Is it an institute?
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, Pew Research Center, probably.
Mr. Dupnik. They said that in Arizona, one in seven
students is illegal. I think it is understandable why we have
the kinds of problems that we have with reference to our
education program. When you consider the millions, and
millions, and millions of dollars that we have to provide just
so that students can learn English--and we are not allowed to
ask those students whether they are here legally or not because
of a 1986 decision back in Washington.
Maybe it is time that we send another case back to the
Supreme Court to see if we might get a different ruling. I have
said enough.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Sheriff. You covered some
good ground and it was interesting to the Committee.
Sheriff Dever.
STATEMENT OF LARRY A. DEVER,\1\ SHERIFF, COUNTY OF COCHISE,
ARIZONA
Mr. Dever. Chairman Lieberman, Senator McCain, and Senator
Kyl. Thank you for being here today and inviting me to
participate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Dever appears in the Appendix on
page 251.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I will just preface my remarks by saying this is the eighth
opportunity I have had to testify before committees of Congress
related to border issues. And I am starting to feel like maybe
I am a little ineffective. But, hopefully, I can say something
useful today.
Let me give you just a little bit of historical
perspective, if I may. I have here a copy of Arizona Sheriff
Magazine that features the Border Patrol. And in this article
it quotes the sector chief of the Tucson Sector of the Border
Patrol at that time saying this:
``Within the last year we have been mandated by Congress to
gain control of the border, and we are going to do that along
the Southern Border, whether it is narcotics, illegal aliens,
terrorists, criminals, or whatever.''
A couple of notable items about this article. It was
written in the fall of 1987, which was 1 year post-Reagan
amnesty, by the way. It mentions the word ``terrorist,'' which
I find kind of compelling. The thought of terrorists using our
international border to facilitate their evil ways is not a new
concept, and the U.S. Border Patrol had 250 agents in the
Tucson sector at that time. That was 1987; today, there are
over 3,000 in the sector, and we are sitting here talking about
all of the violence associated with drug smuggling and people
smuggling coming across the border.
Violence comes really in many forms, and you have heard a
lot of it today about murder and kidnapping, rape, robbery. It
is estimated that 80 percent of the women who cross the border
illegally have been sexually assaulted in some fashion. That
study comes actually from a 1995 study that originated in
Central America.
But there is another form of violence that I think is just
as insidious, and that is the number of people in--Sheriff
Dupnik mentioned his morgue--the number of people who are left
behind who cannot keep up the pace, either as a result of
illness, pregnancy, injury, or whatever it may be. And they are
left behind by these ruthless smugglers to die in the desert,
which in and of itself is murder in my mind. And all of those
cases have to be investigated as homicides, which require a
tremendous amount of resources on our part to do.
Something that has not been mentioned in detail a little
bit by authorities here in Phoenix is the impact on our local
residents of this unferreted smuggling that continues to invade
us and threaten homeowners and property owners along the border
and particularly in the rural areas. My county--we are in the
southeast corner of Arizona. Properties are continually
burglarized. Their fences are cut and damaged. Their water
sources destroyed, contaminated. The amounts of human waste and
trash left behind are devastating, not only to private property
but to the beautiful and scenic mountainous areas and park and
recreation areas in Cochise County.
If you drive into the entry, up one of the canyons into the
public parks--these areas where people like to go for
recreation--you will find a sign at the entry onto those
Federal properties that says: ``Caution: Drug and human
smuggling may be encountered here.'' Bad situation.
The day and night disruption of the quality of life is
enormous. People cannot leave their homes together. Spouses--
husbands and wives--somebody has to stay behind to watch the
place to keep it from being robbed. We have a 6,300 square mile
county, and I do not have an Indian reservation so my county
jurisdiction is bigger than my partner Sheriff Dupnik, here, in
those terms. And I have 86 deputies total in my organization.
Mr. Dupnik. Chief Dever, I am jealous. If you could share a
few, I would take them.
Mr. Dever. There are some things that we have and cannot
ask you to do. You mentioned SCAAP, Senator Kyl. SCAAP is
important. In 1997, when we first applied for SCAAP, we
received about 33 percent of our actual costs associated with
incarcerated criminal aliens. Today it is 9 cents on every
dollar. There are a lot of causes in that--reduction in the
fund, as well as the tremendous impact of the presence of
illegal alien activity, criminal activity throughout the
country, and more people tapping that fund.
Today, as we sit here in spite of all the efforts and
funding that we have seen come down the pipe and to talk about
the need for interoperability that is physical communication,
the ability for State, local, and Federal law enforcement first
responders--police, fire, medical--to be able to pick up the
microphone on the radio and talk to each other in the event of
a need in a situation to do that--does not exist along most of
the Southwest Border.
We are talking about a tremendous need for infrastructure
in order to support that kind of effort. Specifically, I sit on
the Board of Directors of the National Sheriffs' Association
and chair the Immigration Subcommittee of the Homeland Security
Committee. And we sat down and crunched numbers, taking a
specific look at the Southwest Border and what might be needed
in terms of funding support for personnel, for communications
infrastructure and support, along the entire 2,200 mile
Southwest Border to a distance of only 25 miles north. The
nominal number of about $500,000,000 a year for five
consecutive years is the figure that comes up--rises to the
surface when we discuss and examine that.
Finally, I would like to address what Senator Lieberman
stated this morning in a comment in your initial remarks where
you emphasized the importance of coordinated effort and
discussion at the State and local level with Federal
authorities. Everything--every policy, every strategy, every
initiative launched by the Federal Government has an immediate
and long-term local impact. And State and Local officials who
have lived and worked in this environment their entire lives
and for many years must be included in those planning sessions.
And one last comment that came up when you were talking
about the National Guard. We need to understand the culture
from whence these people come. They do not have a great regard
for civil law enforcement officials--either Federal or local--
and in some places those do not even exist. But they do have a
great deal of--I will call it--respect, and more likely fear of
military resources. And the mere presence of those units---
regardless of what they are tasking is--creates a whole new
element of deterrence in the mind of the border crossers.
Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Sheriff.
That is a very interesting point at the end. I appreciate
it.
Chief Dever, let me ask you to give us some context to a
few of the statistics that are part of the national debate with
regard to ``Phoenix: Kidnapping Capital of America.'' You did
some of this, but first off it is just a question of fact
because most other parts of the country--we do not talk about
home invasions. We talk about breaking and entering, things of
that kind. But what is a home invasion?
Mr. Dever. Well, the difference is--I think most people
would think if their house was broken into, that it was
probably a burglary.
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Dever. While they were not at home.
Chairman Lieberman. Correct.
Mr. Dever. A home invasion is more of a tactical entry into
the house, similar to what you would think a SWAT team would do
where people come heavily armed. They force their way through
the front door while the people are at home, and then they take
them captive. And it is usually about drugs. Somebody fronted a
bunch of money or drugs to another dealer and they did not get
the money back, and so they are breaking into the house. They
are going to hold everybody in the house captive until the
money or the drugs are brought to them.
Chairman Lieberman. And that I take it can also become a
kidnapping incident.
Mr. Dever. Yes.
Chairman Lieberman. Obviously, in most of the rest of the
country, when we talk about kidnapping--not always so.
Obviously, sometimes it has to do with domestic disputes, but
at worst it is grabbing somebody who you do not know and
holding them, perhaps for various purposes. One might be for
ransom.
But, again, you said the majority of the kidnappings are
within the drug smuggling and human smuggling communities.
Correct?
Mr. Dever. Yes. The vast majority. We have had incidents
where a bad guy had moved out of a house.
Chairman Lieberman. Yes.
Mr. Dever. And the other drug dealers came and hit the
house a few days later and there were innocent people that had
moved into the house. American citizens.
But the vast majority of the cases that we are talking
about is drug dealer on drug dealer or it is tied to the human
smuggling for ransom.
Chairman Lieberman. So to say the obvious, I assume that
were it not for the presence of the Mexican drug cartels
operating in and around Phoenix that the kidnapping rate here
would be pretty much like the kidnapping rate everywhere else
in America.
Mr. Dever. Absolutely.
Chairman Lieberman. Let me go to a different part of this,
if I can.
I want to ask you, if you could--and I ask all three of
you--characterize your working relationships with the Federal
law enforcement agencies in your jurisdiction.
Go back to the Sheriff's last point and my first point. We
want to know whether there is real coordination going on here,
and a lot of the testimony that we have heard that was
submitted talked about the need for enhanced information
sharing and collaboration between Federal agencies and the
State and local law enforcement departments. I do not think any
of this is personal, but how is it going in that regard?
Mr. Dever. Well, in Phoenix, I can tell you that it is
unique compared to the rest of the country from what I have
seen. We have a very good working relationship with all of the
Federal agencies.
As I mentioned in my testimony, most of the major cases
that were mentioned today by the Attorney General and by the
Mayor were conducted through task forces involving the
Department of Public Safety, our State Police Organization,
with our sheriffs, with ATF, DEA--all the three letter
identifier organizations in the country. So, in Phoenix, we
have had a really great relationship.
The information sharing is something that I think
nationally--whether you are talking to the sheriffs or you are
talking to local police, they are going to tell you we would
like to see more of the information sharing made available to
us at the local level.
Chairman Lieberman. Tell me what you're talking about
there. What kinds of information?
Mr. Dever. When you look at the information that an
organization like DEA has available to them in reference to
narcotics trafficking or you look at the information that the
FBI has in relation to terrorism, there has been a long history
of being very careful about sharing that information with local
agencies.
We would like to see improvements, even though here in
Phoenix we do not have a big problem with it. But nationally, I
would say that we need to see an improvement there.
One of the things that has been very beneficial in doing
that are the fusion centers--the Arizona Counter Terrorism
Information Center (ACTIC) here in Arizona has representatives
from all of those agencies. We did something very unique in
Phoenix last year. We asked ICE to provide us 10 of their ICE
agents to work in our Violent Crimes Bureau. So they sit right
next to our detectives that are investigating the home
invasions, the murders, and the kidnappings. They have access
to databases that we do not have access to.
So we are able to alleviate a little bit of that, but if we
had access to some of those databases that would be much
improved.
Chairman Lieberman. I appreciate that. My time is up.
This has been a real focus of our Committee going back to
the post-September 11, 2001, period because obviously, part of
the story of September 11 is that the agencies of the Federal
Government were not sharing information that they should have
shared. If they had shared, it is possible we could have
stopped September 11.
I always feel that from a Federal level we should look at
State and local law enforcement as part of one national force.
And when you think about how much stronger we would be--whether
the enemy is the terrorists or what we are dealing with as
Mexican drug cartels--if we are working together. It just seems
foolish not to. I do not know why you would not share
information with local law enforcement. I do not think there is
a good argument that I have heard for that.
So, I thank you for bringing us to the relevance of that
point to the Mexican drug cartel.
Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. Well, I thank the witnesses, and I am very
glad to see all three of you. Thank you for your many years of
service to our State. I am grateful that you would come today,
and I am very appreciative of the input that we get from you.
Chief Harris, last month, the Department of Homeland
Security notified our office that of the hundreds of
kidnappings in Phoenix last year, the FBI's Phoenix field
office only opened seven kidnapping cases--five of which came
out of the Tucson resident office. Do you know why that is?
Mr. Harris. No, actually, I do not.
Senator McCain. Has that concerned you?
Mr. Harris. Well, our kidnapping cases that are related to
this--we open those cases. Our investigators investigate those
cases. They would not be transferred over to the Federal
agencies. But, no, I was not aware of that number.
Senator McCain. Sheriff Dupnik, you have been around as
sheriff since 1980 and have a wonderful record of service. How
is this whole issue of violence on the border changed since the
day you first were sworn in as sheriff?
Mr. Dupnik. In 1980, there was very little violence. It was
kind of incidental based on what was going on. There was very
little smuggling going on. The same kind of smuggling that we
have today was not going on in 1980.
Primarily, they were using aircraft and things of that
nature. Today, it is just totally changed. The people involved
in the activities have become more and more violent themselves.
They are very quick to pull the trigger and kill another human
being over a minor issue. That is something that we did not
used to see in the old days. People had a little more respect
for human life than they do today. But, there was very little
violence associated with the traffic.
And I think one of the reasons that it has escalated to the
point it is today is because of the organized criminal activity
that is involved in it. Back in 1980, there was not that much
criminal organization involved in smuggling. Today, it is
almost totally organized.
A few years ago the Colombians tried to make some in-roads
into taking the cocaine from Colombia, putting it into Mexico,
transporting it across Mexico, and bringing it into the United
States, and then trying to control it in the United States, as
well. The Mexicans fought back and eventually kicked the
Colombians out. And now it is just the cartels fighting each
other.
Speaking of Mexico, I would like to echo what a lot of the
speakers have already said. I have seen presidents--as you all
have--come and go in Mexico. They talked about doing something
about drugs but very little ever happened. As a matter of fact,
years ago they would take the helicopters, and the money, and
the aid that we provided to them and used it for their own
purposes.
So, President Calderon is the first president that has had
the courage to do something about it. How this is all going to
turn out, I do not know. But I think this is the only chance we
may have in our generation to assist that country in doing
something about this horrible problem. If he fails, it is going
to have incredible consequences for the country of Mexico, and
it is going to have substantial consequences for us here.
Senator McCain. I could not agree with you more, Sheriff.
And we certainly need to emphasize the need to cooperate with
him in a broad variety of ways. Some argue that it is not only
our last chance, but maybe the Mexican government's last
chance. I do not necessarily accept that description, but there
certainly is a significant threat.
Sheriff Dever, in his statement, talked about the lack of
interoperability that still exists after all these years of
trying to fix it. Are you plagued with that problem, too?
Mr. Dupnik. We are, but we are in the process of fixing it,
to some extent.
Five years ago we passed a bond issue in Pima County for
$105 million for an interoperability radio system for public
safety, which is primarily for first responders--police, fire,
and emergency services. The contract was just let 2 weeks ago
to begin to build that system 5 years later.
We still do not have the kind of funds that we need to
finish it because 5 years ago prices were different and there
never was enough money put into it. They put $95 million into a
project that really needed about $115 million. So, we still
could use some Federal help to make that happen.
At one time I had this noble goal of including our Federal
partners in this system so that we could talk to our Federal
partners, as well. And I went to the FBI. I went to ICE. And I
went to the Border Patrol. And they all wanted to play. They
had no reservations because their system sucks, too, to be
honest about it. Their systems are horrible.
Chairman Lieberman. Talk about Arizona straight talk.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Dupnik. They are in worse shape than we are. But,
because of the bureaucracy, if we tried to make that happen, we
would still be talking about it.
Senator McCain. It is also because of the failure to get
the frequencies. And it is one of the recommendations of the 9/
11 Commission--in fact, one of the few recommendations that
have not been implemented and it is disgraceful. There is no
reason wasting the time of the Committee to go through it.
Sheriff Dever, you testified, as you mentioned, last month
before the House Homeland Security Committee, and you stated
the important thing to remember--and I cannot emphasize it
enough--that every Federal initiative, every Federal strategy
and tactical planning opportunity needs State and local input
because they have local consequences. Have you noticed
significant difficulty in that area? The lack of State and
local input?
Mr. Dever. Yes, sir, although it is much improved.
In part, answering Senator Lieberman's question along with
yours, in Mexico we talk about the corruption problem, and they
have institutionalized corruption in Mexico. What we have had
traditionally in the intelligence system in the United States
is what I call institutionalized territorialism. And there is
still a large degree of mistrust and a desire to safeguard the
very important pieces of information that need to filter down
to the working level--the most rudimentary area.
But, it has been recently improved. There has been a lot of
outreach recently from DHS to attempt to include, particularly
Southwest Border sheriffs, I know, in discussions, what our
specific needs are. I am working on a document to send back to
that committee that you mentioned that talks about some
specific needs. So it is all very encouraging, but it needs
follow through, of course, and a commitment to consistency and
determination to follow through on these discussions is what is
critical. And we still have to overcome that institutionalized
territorialism to a great degree.
Senator McCain. Thank you. Just finally, Chief Harris, how
are you generally able to identify these drop houses? Is it
neighbors? Is it surveillance? What is it that usually
identifies these places for you?
Mr. Harris. Many times it is just the neighbors calling in.
There is suspicious activity. They are seeing a lot of people
coming and going out of the area and something does not seem
right to the community. It is really a strong point for
community policing--that neighbors are far more aware than they
were 20 years ago as to what goes on in their neighborhoods.
So, mostly it is that kind of a call. A check welfare. We
are seeing something is not right over there at the house.
Could you check it out? And then the officers arrive; they go
up to the house.
Senator McCain. Do we have a program encouraging citizens
to call in?
Mr. Harris. Yes.
Senator McCain. If you had to make a guess, if you could,
how many drop houses do you think there are in Phoenix?
Mr. Harris. Well, that would be very difficult at any given
moment to guess, but I would say the records probably reflect
that there are somewhere between 90 and 100 drop houses a year.
Senator McCain. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator McCain. Senator Kyl.
Senator Kyl. Thank you.
I have always wondered about the comparison between Tucson
and Phoenix in this regard. I have always assumed that there
were a lot more in Phoenix, even though it is a bigger
community.
Is the drop house issue comparable in Tucson, Sheriff
Dupnik? Do you know?
Mr. Dupnik. I do not think that it is. It is a significant
issue for us in Tucson, but I do not think it is nearly the
problem that it is up in Phoenix. And I think it is because the
traffic is going to Phoenix. Phoenix is the hub.
Senator Kyl. Yes. So, the point is they are not going to
stay in Tucson very long. The main point is to get folks up to
Phoenix so then they can either go east, or west, or north.
Mr. Dupnik. That is correct. We get them. Tubac gets them.
Eloy gets them. But not in the numbers.
Senator Kyl. The other thing that I wanted to ask you--I am
not sure I understood--you indicated that the bulk of the
problem was through the Tohono O'odham Reservation. Could you
expand on that? Did you mean that in the Tucson sector? Or on
the Arizona border? Quantify that if you would.
Mr. Dupnik. Primarily, it is the Tucson sector that I am
talking about. And because we cannot get on the reservation--
that it makes it a lot more difficult for us to deal with the
problem.
But if I could get back to one of the questions because I
think I could add something to Senator Lieberman's question
about intelligence-sharing.
One of the reasons that we cannot share intelligence with
the Federal agents as much as they would like to share with us
is because in their systems they have intelligence information.
We do not have that in our system.
For example, with our license plate readers we have two
issues. Most of our units in our Border Crimes unit have these
license plate readers that read things automatically and feed
you back information immediately, automatically. But the
problem is in Arizona--we do not have front license plates,
which makes it very difficult operationally, not only for us
but for the Border Patrol and for all law enforcement. And for
some reason, we cannot get the legislature to understand that.
I do not think it is that big of an issue.
But the second problem is that--for example, a car from
Colorado, we check their plate and nothing comes back out of
our system. But, if we were tied to DEA's system, we would know
that car was involved in narcotics trafficking or some other
criminal activity. So, that is a serious problem.
DEA is looking at that closely now to see if they can help
us to perhaps incorporate some of the information that comes
out of the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), and somehow
linking that to our system. But it is a problem, and it is
always going to be a problem when you are talking about
intelligence information being accessed by multiple agencies.
Senator Kyl. I appreciate that. We cannot solve the front
license plate problem, though I assume that the first panel
should be contacted about that.
But on the second matter, we just need to know from many of
you--and you do not have to wait until there is a hearing. I
know you come back and see us in Washington, and that is
helpful, but at any point that you suggest that we could do
something to help facilitate things like the information
sharing. If it is a cost issue, for example, please let us know
that.
Mr. Dupnik. Well, one time you did, Senator. You may recall
that right after September 11, 2001, because of some things
that happened in Tucson with reference to terrorism, I
contacted you and you tried desperately to get the people in
Washington to do something about a call line where people could
report terrorism.
Well, you were not successful in that, unfortunately, but I
laud you for your effort. I should have called Senator McCain.
[Laughter.]
But at any rate, we started that program in Tucson, and
that is one of the things that I wanted to talk about. We
started it right after September 11, 2001, in Tucson, and we
got some very interesting calls.
There are not going to be that many calls that come in
referencing terrorism--whether it be Tucson, New York City, or
whomever. But I think that the program could be done on a
national basis with very little cost, and it would be very
effective. Because all it takes is the one phone call. And I
can see President Obama right now on TV in a public service
announcement advertising this new program.
Senator Kyl. Would you do us a favor and write up a little
one-page memo on that to the Chairman, and then we will see if
we can get more going on that.
The story here--there were two specific calls in to the
Sheriff's office which resulted in significant terrorist
investigations in Pima County right after September 11, 2001,
so it was a big deal. If you could do that, that would be very
helpful.
Before the time expires, Sheriff Dever has been on the
frontline of this for a long time. And all of the things that
you talked about, the one thing that has not really gotten the
attention because it is more of a rural county, is the
protection of the folks out in ranch country. For example, the
cutting of fences, leaving the water on, or cutting the water.
And you also mentioned the environmental impact.
I guess the time is up. Could you speak just for a second
about the environmental consequences here? Because I think
people back east have a hard time imagining out here in the
desert how there could be environmental consequences to this
smuggling.
Mr. Dever. Well, I am trying to keep people out of Cochise
County, so I will not tell them how beautiful it is.
[Laughter.]
But we have on the western and eastern ends of the county,
primarily, two sky islands. Mountain ranges that reach up 9,000
feet. They are beautiful, forested. People come from all over
the world to visit. Bird watchers flock in --no pun intended--
by the hundreds of thousands. And those areas are just simply
trashed.
And when I say trashed, I am talking about football field-
size areas piled two to three feet deep with backpacks, and
clothing, and medical supplies, and human waste up in those
areas. People normally go and recreate there. They are lay-up
areas for illegals--both drug smugglers, and alien smugglers.
I did not mention the fires. Just last month we had four
fires that were started by smuggling groups that got out of
control. One of them burned one house and 12 other structures.
There is all kinds of environmental damage and consequences to
that.
And, water is scarce in our area. And those water sources
are popular gathering places for smugglers and illegals
crossing the area. And they contaminate it and they leave all
kinds of junk behind.
Cattle ingest plastic bags that are left behind by people
carrying them through--and strangle and die. It is a sad set of
circumstances that has just gone on way too long.
Chairman Lieberman. Sheriff Dupnik, I just have one other
question.
My staff has been here for a couple of days before the
hearing and meeting with people, and they were surprised in
talking to the Border Patrol to learn that Border Patrol has
been prohibited by Federal law from building permanent
checkpoints in the Tucson sector, which means that when they
try to stop traffic they basically have to get out there on a
limited access highway with orange cones and try to bring the
cars to a stop.
What is the background on that and how do you feel about
it? Do they understand it correctly?
Mr. Dupnik. Do you want a candid answer?
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, sir. We have not put you under
oath but I know you are an honorable man. Yes.
Mr. Dupnik. There used to be a congressman representing
that area that we are talking about who simply would not allow
it. Would not allow it to be funded.
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Dupnik. That is tending to change. And it is my
understanding that at some point they are going to put one--not
where they really want it but in a different location that will
not upset so many people in that location.
Chairman Lieberman. But you would say from a law
enforcement point of view that it is a good idea to have a
permanent checkpoint?
Mr. Dupnik. I think it is a fantastic idea.
And if I could offer--I do not know how much time we have
left----
Chairman Lieberman. No, go ahead.
Mr. Dupnik. We talk about southbound traffic. But I still
have not heard very many ideas on what we ought to do about it.
One of the things that happens when you guys allocate
Federal money is that we all get together and figure out how to
spend it. And sometimes we do some very good things with it, as
you have heard here today.
But sometimes, one of the things that happens is we tend to
just fortify what we have been doing. And the Federal agencies
tend to do that, as well. And nothing really creative happens.
I would kind of like to see a separate program--maybe a
pilot program--where you say to us give us your ideas--maybe a
one-page statement of the problem and a one-page statement of
how you would like to attack it.
Chairman Lieberman. Do you mean specifically relating to
the drug cartels?
Senator McCain. Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Lieberman. Go ahead, Senator McCain.
Senator McCain. On the subject of the permanent
checkpoint--and I cannot make Congressman Colby's argument as
convincingly as he did--but his argument was we establish a
permanent checkpoint and the drug dealers and the human
smugglers know about it and they just simply go around. I am
curious about your response to that.
Mr. Dupnik. From my point of view that is a weak argument.
It sounds reasonable. He said we should put all of our
resources on the border instead of right at the border in a
denial mode. But, unfortunately, there are not enough resources
to do that. And they will find ways to circumvent it.
But, the Border Patrol has plenty of statistics to show the
effectiveness of permanent checkpoints. And they have
strategies to deal with the very issue that you brought up.
They have ways to deal with the flanking that is going to
occur. And, in fact, they want that to happen.
I would like to talk about a southbound project where we
incorporate some semi-permanent checkpoints going south. And
also, some mobile checkpoints. But we, in law enforcement, from
a legal standpoint--State and local people cannot do much about
that because we do not have the authority to stop the traffic
along the border.
In our Border Crimes Unit, we have two full-time Border
Patrol sergeants assigned to our unit. So that helps us. But,
on our own we cannot do it.
Chairman Lieberman. So, do you want to give us an idea. I
mean, I will ask you for a second memo now since Senator Kyl--
Mr. Dupnik. Well, we talk about the National Guard, for
example. What could the National Guard do if we really wanted
them to do? And I am not a legal expert on posse comitatus
either.
Chairman Lieberman. Right.
Mr. Dupnik. But I have never heard anybody say how far can
you push the envelope to having the National Guard do something
substantial to help you? Well, I would like to see a program--a
Southbound Task Force--using the management concept that I
talked about in this paper where we have a huge task force of
State, and local, and Federal people trying to deal with
southbound traffic.
And if we had the National Guard to assist us in getting
into the remote areas by helicopter and then using perhaps a C-
26, which I think is a minor version of the Airborne Warning
and Control System (AWACS) to be able to provide communications
and control of operations, we could then get into areas where
there are incursions occurring or where there is narcotics
being trafficked. I think we could really make some substantial
progress.
Chairman Lieberman. It is a really good idea.
Senator McCain. Mr. Chairman, could I just ask for a brief
statement from each one? Obviously, we know there is a demand
for drugs. Maybe we could close up here by what do we do about
the demand? Starting with you, Chief Harris
Mr. Harris. Well, I think you hit on one of the keys. As a
citizen of this country, we have to take responsibility for why
all those drugs are coming across the border. They are coming
across the border because we want them, and we give them big
money to get them to come across the border.
So it is easy to point fingers at the drug cartels. They
are bad people, but we are fueling that whole business with our
insatiable desire for drugs.
I think it starts at the very earliest levels of education
with our children as they are in kindergarten and on up--is to
try to divert them away from the demand for the drugs. So, I
think one of the key things for that side of it is we can
certainly do more in the area of enforcement, but as a guy who
worked narcotics undercover making buys, I have been into
apartment complexes back in the 1970s where I could have bought
25 buys a day in one apartment complex. So, that is a very
difficult enforcement part of the picture to be involved with.
But, I think education, especially with the younger the
better, is one of the keys and in the schools.
Mr. Dupnik. I think as long as there are drugs on the
streets kids are going to use them. And adults are going to use
them.
So, how do we keep the drugs off the street? Part of the
problem, in my judgment, is the fact that there is not the will
in America to make the necessary effort or the sacrifice to do
the significant things that need to be done. We need to have a
policy at the national level that deals with our schools--and
not only provides the support that they need for getting the
drugs out of their school, but they need perhaps some
regulation.
Drug testing ought to be a significant component. If law
enforcement officers and other groups of people can submit
themselves on a regular basis to being tested for drugs--so, it
is an invasion of privacy. And I understand that. But if you
look at the national data on schools that use drug testing as
part of their program and have a very rigid approach to dealing
with drugs decisively, their drug use has gone down
dramatically.
If we had the same programs for business--if we had the
same programs for supporting our parents in our homes and
getting the drugs out of our homes, out of our businesses, out
of our schools--I think we could make some significant
progress.
Mr. Dever. We talk about the insatiable appetite for
illegal drugs. There is a much greater appetite for controlled
substances that are legally produced and distributed in this
country. So, the problem--law enforcement is an important
component, an important element of the equation or the
solution. We have to keep reinforcing it and keep working it--
what Sheriff Dupnik suggested--and that is keeping the stuff--
legal substances and illegal substances--out of the hands of
the people that should not have them.
But I am just telling you, Senator, and this is my personal
perspective, churches have a role to play. Synagogues have a
role to play. Law enforcement has a role to play. Schools have
a role to play. But if it is not happening in the home, it is
not going to happen.
Senator McCain. Could I say, Mr. Chairman, I really thank
you for coming to Phoenix, Arizona, to conduct this hearing. It
is a terrible issue that confronts my State, as well as
America, and I am very grateful that you are here. And I think
it has been very useful and very helpful. And thank you for
your time in coming here today.
Chairman Lieberman. Well, thanks for saying that, Senator
McCain. And thank you for making sure that I came here. It was
a very important morning. I learned a lot. Not just to put
human faces and reality onto the numbers and the problem, but
the various panels have given us some specific ideas that I
think are very practical and helpful in terms of law changes
and where we ought to develop resources. Your idea about a task
force on southbound traffic is a very good idea.
I mean, ultimately, we can have a lot of arguments about
gun control, etc., but it is pretty clear that those are only
going to go so far. If we want to respond to what the Mexican
government is most asking us for, which is to try to deter the
movement of weapons south, we are going to have to do it in the
southbound flow.
And, of course, the second part is that the money is going
that way, and that is another way to hurt the enemy here--if I
can use that expression--the drug cartels. It has been a very
productive morning, and I thank you all.
Well, in the normal course of things, this Committee leaves
the record of these hearings open for 15 days, if you want to
add anything to your testimony or if we want to ask more
questions to answer for the record.
I cannot thank you enough. This is a real crisis. It
happens to be more intense here along the border, but it is a
national crisis as your answer to the last question indicated.
And we are going to do everything we can to get you help as
quickly as we possibly can.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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