La Linea

Under the Obama Administration, there’s been a renewed push by the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies to take a more bilateral approach with Mexico on fighting narcotrafficking. So far our efforts at bi-lateralism mostly include using the words “Mexico” and the “United States” side by side in Power Point presentations.

Along these lines, the Southwest Border Sheriff’s Coalition, which encompasses every border sheriff from Brownsville to San Diego, extended an invitation to the Mexican Attorney General’s office to speak at their conference in Yuma last week.

Ariel Moutsatsos, an adviser to the Attorney General of Mexico, gave a presentation about his country’s efforts to fight narcotrafficking. (Actually it was more about the United States but I’ll get to that a little later.) In the 33 months since President Felipe Calderon had taken office, Moutsatsos said that more than 230 high level government officials had been arrested for working with the drug cartels.

In his fight to root out corruption Calderon was having to build his state and local police forces from scratch as well as some of the higher levels of government, Moutsatsos said.”We are flying the plane while we build it.”

As he was talking about this corruption, I thought of the recent arrests on this side of the border of drug and immigration officials. Just two weeks ago, Richard Padilla Cramer, the former U.S. attaché for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Guadalajara was arrested for working as a consultant to drug dealers.

Before his talk, Moutsatsos told me that the U.S.’s insatiable demand for drugs had turned Mexico into hell. “First it was Colombia, now it’s turned my country into hell and the United States could be next,” he said.

I wasn’t so sure about that. But he elaborated on this theme during his presentation by showing a slide called “The Monster in the U.S. Basement.” It turned out this monster in the basement, as he put it, is the one million gang members living in the United States. That coupled with the U.S.’s lax gun purchasing rules and the ability to buy assault weapons could convert our cities into something like what’s happening in Juarez. (He didn’t make the Juarez analogy I did.)

What could prevent this from happening? He asked rhetorically. I heard a deputy behind me mutter through clenched teeth “Two million armed law officers.” He and his partner smiled at their joke.

Moutsatsos then made the point that there are 7,000 authorized gun dealers along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Much of the arsenal owned by Mexican narcotraffickers comes from the United States.

“The same argument about Mexico supplying drugs needs to be applied to the U.S. as well with arms,” he told the sheriffs.

Moutsatsos suggested that the federal ban on assault weapons be reinstated.  “It would be a hell of a good start and helpful to Mexico in its fight against crime. Don’t tell me Americans need an Ak-47 to feel safe?” he joked.

I looked around the room. No one was smiling. You could practically hear the wind whistling under the doors of the conference room it was so quiet.

Next he suggested that the United States government create a civilian firearm ownership registry. “I think it’s crazy that guns sell like pancakes in the United States and the government doesn’t know who has them,” he said.

Imagine if Obama tried to start a civilian firearm ownership registry? The entire country nearly ran out of ammo a few months ago because someone said that someone said that he might reinstate the ban on assault weapons.

Anyway, I digress. The next statement was guaranteed to be an even bigger crowd pleaser. He made the point that 50 percent of narcotraffickers’ profits come from marijuana. “You’ve already legalized it in 13 states,” he said referring to medical marijuana laws. “You’ve legalized the consumption but not the production.”

I think the man is on to something there.

Moutsatos says he doesn’t see Mexico’s battle against narcotraffickers as a war at all. “In a war you are killing the enemy, but our objective is to bring the enemy to justice and strengthen the rule of law in our country,” then he added. ” A war is something you can win or lose. We’re never going to have a clear victory this is going to be a continuous pursuit.”

With that he wrapped up his presentation. In the end it was more about what the United States could do to help Mexico in its fight against narcotraffickers than it was about Mexico’s efforts. In most presentations by U.S. officials they do just the opposite, they harp more on what Mexico can do to help the U.S. fight the narcos.

It struck me that Mexico and the United States are like two siblings with different fathers who keep hurling blame at each other for the bloody narcotrafficking mess. The long and complicated history between our countries makes it difficult to foster trust or to work together on coordinated law enforcement and intelligence efforts. We have so much in common yet we see things so differently.

Until we can get past the distrust and long held grievances we’re not going to make much of a dent in the problem.

U.S.-Mexico Border Czar Alan Bersin paid border sheriffs a visit yesterday in Yuma at their annual southwestern border sheriff’s conference.

What in the @$#& am I doing in Yuma you ask? It’s 103 degrees today.  I’ve asked myself that question a couple of times since I arrived here to cover the conference. Especially since I’ve come down with some terrible cold – I don’t think it’s the dreaded ham fever as we call it jokingly around the del Bosque household – no offense to pork products.

Let’s just say it’s a long story (well not that long) that will soon be told in an upcoming issue of the Observer. Stay tuned!

So what was on Bersin’s mind?  A pretty wide range of things starting with embracing 287 (g) (I’ll explain in a little bit), offering a helping hand to Mexican law enforcement and accepting that social networking should be a part of law enforcement.

The border sheriffs are a tough audience. They are a no nonsense bunch of blue-collar guys who wear handcuffs on their belts and pack heat. When they don’t like something they start to grumble or check their phones for messages. Some just close their eyes and take a snooze.

Bersin wears a tie and has a chummy yet absentminded Ivy League college professor demeanor. He’s no stranger to a podium. At times it seemed like he was lecturing a class of college freshmen.

At least he doesn’t show up in desert fatigues like he’s visiting Afghanistan. Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and the previous Bush Administartion officials were very fond of khaki ensembles.

Bersin does travel with more handlers than Cher, however.  He was trailed by at least 10 Border Patrol and government public affairs officers.  I tried to ask him a question after his presentation and they waved me away and whisked him out the back door of the Indian casino where the sheriff’s conference was being held.

I looked around the hallway. It was just me and two local TV camera crews for chrissakes, not a ravenous media pack.

In contrast Ariel Moutsatsos, a special advisor to Mexico’s attorney general showed up alone after a flight from Mexico City to brief the sheriffs on Mexico’s efforts to fight drug trafficking. Several officials from the Mexico’s attorney general’s office have been assassinated for investigating cartel crimes in the past few months.  Of course Moutsatsos is much safer in Yuma than Juarez but I was surprised to see him travelling alone. Maybe Bersin could have shared some of his crew with Moutsatsos?

Anyway, back to Bersin’s speech. He made a pitch that Sheriffs start using 287 (g) under DHS’s new guidelines. I haven’t read these new guidelines yet. But here’s the controversy over 287 (g) in a nutshell (folks, please correct me if I am wrong): many human rights and immigrant advocates and some law enforcement hate it because it means they have to do a federal immigration officer’s job. In the past it has been very controversial because some law enforcement officials used it to deport undocumented immigrants in their jails. This undermined trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement.

Bersin argues that many communities will be okay with 287 (g) if it is used to deport criminals only and not people who have committed a civil offense by crossing illegally to work in the United States:

“287 (g) is not about using immigration law to pursue a painter or a construction worker. Yes those people acted illegally when they entered this country…but this can be a tool to remove dangerous criminals from other countries.”

Bersin said that for many local officials 287 (g) has been a “political nightmare.”

“I am asking you to be open. We need to deal with the perception among law enforcement that 287 (g) is a political nightmare for local officials and the best people to persuade them that it is doable are the local sheriffs.”

He also asked the sheriffs to put aside their negative experiences and prejiduces against Mexican law enforcement. He suggested that the sheriffs make an effort to train law enforcement agencies in Mexico. (He didn’t explain whether Mexico would welcome U.S. law enforcement training.) Bersin called Mexican President Felipe Calderon one of the bravest political leaders since WWII for his battle againt narco traffickers and against government corruption.

“Here is a political leader that has basically acknowledged that state and local law enforcement is unreliable and corrupted. It’s an extraordinary admission for a political leader to make,” he said. Bersin said Calderon was using the Mexican Army for basic public safety purposes until he could rebuild law enforcement.

He predicted it would take Mexico at least a generation to root out the corruption and rebuild law enforcement. He equated it with the U.S.’s own battle for many years to fix corrupted law enforcement agencies. “We raised the pay, the status and the education and created accountability systems. It took us a long time in some agencies to create honest law enforcement,” he said.

He told them that in an effort to coordinate more with Mexican officials, the new Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske who is the former police chief of Seattle has invited several law enforcement officials from Mexico to the upcoming International Association of the Chiefs of Police conference in Denver in October.

“I’m asking you to seek out honest cops in Mexico, local heroes and put out your hand to the honest effective law enforcement,” he said. “I hope you will embrace them as IACP has.”

Apparently, one of the biggest threats to law enforcement these days is Facebook and Twitter. A lot of Sheriffs are not too happy about it as they imagine their deputies twittering away their time. The Department of Homeland Secuity has plunged into social media by starting a blog and hooking up with Facebook and Twitter. Bersin launched into a rambling bit about how law enforcement is undergoing a labor transition. The new younger employees use Facebook and Twitter to communciate, he told the sheriffs many of whom are in their 50s and 60s.

“We can put our heads in the sand and say that’s not where the world is going but we would be out of step with where young people are in the world,” he told them. Obviously social media wouldn’t be used for sensitive law enforcement intelligence, Bersin said, but it could be used to “build communities of interest and undertsand what people are thinking.”

There was some grumbling and phone message checking among the sheriffs at Bersin’s comments. Clearly, they were not buying the social networking spiel. It looks like Bersin may not be Border Czar for much longer anyway. He is up for confirmation to be the new commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

After that Bersin took a couple of questions from the sheriffs then was out the door. Cher, I mean Bersin, had left the building.

A new federal report released yesterday says the border wall is costing taxpayers $6.5 million a mile. The zinger is after all the lawsuits and the billions we’ve spent, the Department of Homeland Security still doesn’t know whether the border wall is keeping people from illegally entering the United States.As of June, 633 miles of fence had been built with 28 miles remaining.  It comes as no surprise to me that Homeland Security has no idea whether the fence is reducing the number of illegal crossers. They put the fence up without any hard numbers or data to prove that it would be effective where they built it in the first place. In fact, in many cases it was downright suspicious that they avoided building fence through country clubs and rich people’s properties as I detailed in my “Holes in the Wall” story last year. Now the U.S. General Accountability Office reports that while Border Patrol can report whether apprehensions are up or down in different areas of the border, they can’t determine whether the border wall has anything to do with it. According to Border Patrol’s own data, apprehension along the entire southwest border except San Diego had already declined between 2006-2007 before the majority of fencing was built. Less migrants are also crossing because of a slumping economy, according to the GAO.The only measure Customs and Border Patrol has for success on the border wall is the number of miles that have been built, said the GAO. In other words who cares if it doesn’t work and screws up border residents’ lives  and the environment just get it done because Congress says so!But wait apparently CBP has done some analysis to determine where fencing should be built and whether it is effective. Oh wait, no actually they just spoke with senior border patrol agents and they gave Washington D.C. officials their opinions on where the fence should be placed. Thanks guys.The GAO has a novel idea. What about  some statistical analyses to show whether a sector of the border even needs fencing. And if it has a fence already how about some hard data showing us whether it works? After all we’re paying $6.5 million a mile for it. And the U.S. government is seizing people’s properties and destroying national parks. DHS could at least show landowners some hard data as to why they’ve been pinpointed for destruction. All landowners have gotten from the U.S. government so far is “give us your land to build a border fence because we said so.”Also, while the border wall may be tall and ugly it is not invincible. The GAO reports that the wall has already been cut open 3,363 times and it costs taxpayers on an average of $1,300 a pop  to repair the damage. Really we all owe former Congressman Duncan Hunter a big thanks for this fine wall he helped build. It worked so well in his district (which is why apprehensions are going up in San Diego instead of down like the rest of the border, go figure) he just couldn’t wait to apply it to the rest of the southern border. It’d be a big joke if it didn’t cost taxpayers several billions of dollars and cause so much heartache for so many Americans living along the southern border.

It’s back to the caliche hauling business for Kino. State Rep. Kino Flores, D-Mission,  announced today he won’t run for re-election in 2010. Not particularly shocking considering that he was indicted in July by a Travis County grand jury for failing to reveal sources of income, gifts received, real estate holdings and real estate sales in documents required for public office holders.Of course, Kino’s not leaving until his term has run its course. Like Rocky he can fight the indictment and represent the people of Hidalgo County with one arm tied behind his back. We’ll miss the gold jewelry and the bullying on the House floor (not!).Steve Taylor and Joey Gomez from the Rio Grande Guardian have more on Kino’s decision to release his iron grasp on District 36.

In August, the Mexican government decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and other drugs.  Several other Latin American countries have also done the same recently.

Some people argue that Latin America’s move to emphasize treating drug addiction as a medical condition rather than a criminal act will force the United States to change its own policies towards drugs. This is why we should pay attention to what is happening south of the border.

That and the mounting death toll that is accumulating along our southern border because of the U.S.’ insatiable desire for drugs.

Oh, and don’t forget the gazillion people who are in jail for drug use.

I’ll admit I haven’t read Mexico’s decriminalization legislation. I’ve only had time to read media reports on the new law. I’ve heard different takes on the decriminalization: one is that the new law will emphasize treatment over incarceration, which sounds like a progressive and good thing. The other take is that the term decriminalization is actually a misnomer. Instead, Mexico’s new law is a step toward mandatory sentencing.

Eric Sterling, from the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, pointed this out in an email the other day. He wrote:

“Actually Mexico’s “decriminalization” bill contains mandatory minimum sentences of four years for “small dealers;”  a mandatory three years to possess with intent to distribute; and a mandatory seven years for other offenses. The reforms provide that anyone in possession of the small amounts will be arrested and presented to the local prosecutor who will determine if the possession was for personal consumption, or trafficking. The abuse of process potential is substantial. “

The New York Times has a forum posted on its Web site debating Mexico’s decriminalization law and what impact it might have on the United States.  It’s a good read for anyone interested in our own country doing something about our dysfunctional drug policies.

There’s a Texan in the mix too. Dr. Tony Payan, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso is a participant in the forum. Payan is one of the organizers of the upcoming global forum on U.S. Drug War policy happening at UTEP this month. We need to do something about our failed drug policies. Until we do, the violence in Mexico and along the border won’t stop.