RECOMMENDATIONS FOR U.S. POLICY

Mexico urgently needs to reduce the power of violent organized crime groups; a prolonged failure to do so has seriously impaired both Mexican governance and economic prospects. Mexico’s security crisis increasingly threatens U.S. interests, as well as the security and prosperity of other countries in the region, particularly in Central America, with rapidly rising homicide rates, geographically expanding patterns of violence, and growing effects of violent organized crime on society. While far from being a failed state, Mexico’s current trajectory is dire, and doing nothing will ensure the perpetuation of greater violence and instability. The danger of recent strategies is that they have greatly exacerbated extreme violence among DTOs for the near term, and—even if successful in the long run—will merely cause them to relocate to neighboring countries such as Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica that are less prepared to respond to the challenge.

There are three ways the United States can help to overcome Mexico’s security crisis and prevent future problems elsewhere. First, the United States should build on recent progress and successes by enhancing and consolidating the mechanisms for bilateral and multilateral security cooperation in Mexico and Central America. Second, the United States should focus more seriously on U.S. drug demand, firearms, and money laundering at home, and direct greater assistance for institutional and economic development in Mexico. Finally, the United States should begin working toward a more sensible drug policy that includes alternative approaches to reducing the harms caused by drugs.

ENHANCING AND CONSOLIDATING COOPERATION

Strengthen U.S. Interagency Cooperation and Liaison Mechanisms

The executive branch should establish mechanisms to coordinate U.S. responses to Mexico’s security crisis domestically and abroad, including a White House office (Special Assistant) to facilitate sustained, high-level attention to U.S.-Mexico security cooperation, coordinate inter-agency processes, and monitor developments and progress. At the state level, the federal government should support collaboration among the U.S.-Mexico border governors and border legislators. Along the border, the United States should dedicate greater staff and resources to binational border liaison mechanisms (BLMs), as well as multiagency task forces and international liaison units within U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Prevent Spillover to Central America and the Caribbean

The U.S. and Mexican agencies cooperating through the Merida Initiative should convene regularly to coordinate with agencies working within the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), and Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). Additional resources and new initiatives are also needed to develop fusion centers, joint operations, and training to strengthen Central American and Caribbean capabilities in response to organized crime.

Institutionalize Multilateral Frameworks for Regional Security Cooperation
The U.S. government should strengthen the Security and Prosperity Partnership or launch a similar initiative, creating a permanent, multilateral council of nongovernmental, private sector, and elected representatives. The council should meet regularly to assesses the region’s challenges and opportunities, and promote sustained cooperation on matters related to security, trade, and regional integration.

Develop Explicit Performance Measures for the Fight Against Organized Crime

Across the board, U.S. agencies should establish explicit baseline indicators, performance measures, benchmarks, targets, and timelines for progress toward their strategic objectives of dismantling organized crime, strengthening rule of law, reducing illicit flows, and building stronger communities. Assessment efforts will require dedicated funding for both congressional oversight and nongovernmental monitoring efforts, and should go beyond typical “output” measures (e.g., arrests, trainings, seizures, and program activities) to evaluate “outcomes,” such as reductions in DTO operational capability, violent crime and human rights violations, total consumption of illicit drugs, and gang participation rates. Recent judicial sector, crime victimization, and community surveys provide useful examples and baseline measures for future evaluation.

STRENGTHENING U.S. DOMESTIC EFFORTS

Disrupt U.S. Organized Crime Networks Linked to Mexican Suppliers

The United States should develop and implement a coordinated, nationwide interagency strategy for identifying, investigating, and disrupting the U.S. financial facilitators and retail distributors that support Mexican DTOs.

Develop Better Controls to Prevent Illegal U.S. Firearms Exports to Mexico

The United States should develop stricter controls to prevent illegal exports of firearms to Mexico. This is best done through: registration requirements for large-volume ammunition purchases and unassembled assault weapons kit imports; reporting requirements for multiple long arms sales (similar to those for multiple handgun sales); increasing ATF capacity for the investigation of straw-purchases and trafficking conspiracies; and enforcing the federal ban on imports of assault rifles not intended for sporting purposes. The federal government should also review the possible effects of a ban on assault weapons and .50 caliber sniper rifles, similar to provisions that have proved successful at the state level. Finally, federal policy on firearms tracing and gun crime data should also be examined with an eye toward removing obstacles to information sharing among law enforcement agencies and greater transparency in the public reporting of aggregate data on gun crimes.

Develop Better Controls on Money Laundering and DTO Financial Operations

The United States should provide more resources, training, and coordination mechanisms for state and local law enforcement agencies to better target, seize, and trace the proceeds of illicit drug sales. The United States should also aggressively enforce the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 to track the investments of Mexican drug traffickers in the United States. Additionally, the United States should establish joint operations to share data and intelligence on possible drug money laundering in Mexican and third-country financial institutions. Ultimately, the United States needs greater coordination and stronger initiatives from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Treasury Department, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to conduct careful searches for financial patterns consistent with drug money laundering. If these institutions cannot do so, then the United States should create a new agency that will.

Reduce Obstacles to Economic Growth and Legitimate Commerce at the Border

U.S. authorities should make greater efforts to encourage NAFTA trade by facilitating legitimate cross-border flows and stimulating economic opportunities for local communities on both sides of the border—particularly by aggressively expanding access, efficiency, and infrastructure for trusted traveler and exporter programs, such as Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection (SENTRI) and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT). Following examples along the U.S.-Canada border, both the United States and Mexico can also facilitate cross-border commerce, maximize efficiencies, and improve border security by permitting privately funded ports of entry—like the Buffalo-Port Erie Peace Bridge—and developing shared facilities for north and southbound inspections at border corridors.

Assess Current U. S. Border Security and Law Enforcement Interagency Cooperation and Integrity

The U.S. Congress should require the Department of Homeland Security to provide regular reports and greater detail—including information and statistics on activities, seizures, apprehensions, and aggregate costs—for current border security initiatives and programs intended to facilitate interagency collaboration in combating drug trafficking, money laundering, and firearms trafficking in border communities, such as Operation Stonegarden. In addition, the U.S. Government Accountability Office should carefully assess the influences of transnational organized crime networks on U.S. border security and law enforcement, and ensure that there are adequate resources to address possible vulnerabilities and breaches in integrity.

Prevent Blowback from U.S. Deportations of Criminal Aliens

U.S. law enforcement, prison, and immigration authorities should work more closely with their foreign counterparts to prevent repatriated criminal aliens from becoming new recruits for DTOs in Mexico and Central America. Preventive strategies should include educational and rehabilitative programs for foreign nationals in U.S. prisons (such as working with Mexico’s education ministry to provide the equivalent of a general education degree to Mexican criminal aliens during their incarceration in the United States). In addition, U.S. immigration authorities should be required to work with Mexican and Central American authorities to develop better bilateral protocols for managing the reentry of aliens to their home country.

REALLOCATING U.S. ASSISTANCE TO MEXICO

Increase U. S. Economic and Educational Assistance for Mexico

In its provision of aid, the United States should put greater emphasis on “soft” economic and educational assistance in additional to “hard” security assistance, The U.S. Congress should fully fund the Obama administration’s request for$66 million in economic and development assistance for FY 2012—morethan doubling the amount provided in FY2010. . In determining longer-term aid targets, policymakers should consider Plan Colombia’s success in promoting economic development; whereas, Colombia has one-third Mexico’s population, it receives three times the economic and development assistance, By increasing economic assistance, the United States can provide alternative opportunities for poor families and micro-entrepreneurs in communities vulnerable to violence. Emphasis should be placed on broadening and scaling up programs of youth education, recreational and gang intervention programs, drug treatment and prevention, workforce preparation and technical training, micro-finance and micro-credit lending, and regional economic development and job-creation centers. In addition, the Obama administration should bolster funding for international educational and professional exchanges, encouraging skills transference and sustained partnerships that build knowledge and opportunities in both Mexico and the United States.

Increase U.S. Assistance for Judicial Reform in Mexico

The United States should greatly expand its efforts to assist judicial sector reform in Mexico. In particular, the United States should broaden and enhance support for education, training, and exchange programs for judicial sector professionals; nongovernmental organizations that monitor judicial sector performance, advocate for due process, and promote human rights; and efforts to develop independent measures of judicial sector performance in Mexico. Greater emphasis should be placed especially on coordination and cross-fertilization among U.S.-funded programs working in these areas, and on baseline and performance indicators to demonstrate progress in the short (one to three years) and intermediate (three to five years) term.

SHIFTING U.S. DRUG POLICY

Reevaluate U.S. Drug Policy

The U.S. Congress should commission an independent advisory group to examine the fiscal and social impacts of drug legalization as well as other alternative approaches to the war on drugs. The commission should be provided adequate funding—at least $2 million—to provide a comprehensive review of existing policies and develop realistic, clearly defined, and achievable policy recommendations for reducing the harms caused by drug consumption and abuse.

Shift U. S. Counter-Drug Priorities to Focus on Major Sources of Illicit Income

To allow policy experimentation, the federal government should permit states to legalize the production, sale, taxation, and consumption of marijuana. While testing this policy shift, authorities should redirect scarce law enforcement resources to focus on the more damaging and socially unacceptable drugs (like heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine) from which Mexican DTOs derive more than 70 percent of their drug proceeds.

Lead International Efforts on Drug Policy Reform

The United States should lead the international dialogue on the future of international drug policy by collaborating directly with other countries in the Americas to develop alternative policy approaches to reduce the harm caused by drugs. Specifically, the United States and Mexico should work together in promoting the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission’s “New Hemispheric Drug Strategy,” with an emphasis on protections for basic human rights, evidence-based drug policy, and a public health approach to drug abuse.

FINAL OBSERVATIONS
The opportunity for effective U.S.-Mexico cooperation to address these shared concerns has grown, thanks to the resolve of Mexican leaders to embrace the fight against transnational organized crime. The United States has a vested interest in helping Mexico improve its governance, national security, economic productivity, and quality of life, which are integral to making Mexico a better neighbor and trade partner in the longer term. Mexico is also eager to continue working toward these ends, and it has embraced unprecedented levels of collaboration thanks to a growing spirit of cooperation on both sides of the border.

Over the next five years, the best-case scenario will bring a turning point in which authorities gain the upper hand against organized crime, violence dies down to pre-2006 levels, and illicit drug flows diminish dramatically. This would require continued progress in disrupting organized crime groups, with the reduction in drug-related violence as the primary metric of policy success. For now, at least, the nightmare scenarios of government collapse, widespread political insurgency, or sudden military takeover are as unlikely in Mexico as they are in Brazil and Colombia, which have even higher levels of violence. Still, without progress on the above recommendations, Mexico’s drug war will drag onward and downward indefinitely, with greater and more geographically dispersed violence, more direct political influences by organized crime, rising instability and fear, growing human and capital flight, and increasing spillover effects to neighboring countries, including the United States.

Challenges and setbacks are inevitable, and will require sustained efforts to build greater trust and cooperation between both countries. Events in late 2010 and early 2011, such as Wikileaks’ disclosure of persistent skepticism within the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City of Calderón’s government and military performance, and the death of a U.S. immigration and customs agent at the hands of drug traffickers, led to an unexpected nadir in U.S.-Mexico relations. The March 2011 surprise summit between Presidents Obama and Calderón reflects both countries’ desire to move past short-term diplomatic disruptions. The United States can help shift the balance in Mexico’s battle against organized crime and prevent the further spread of violence within Mexico and to its neighbors. This will require a serious commitment to U.S. responsibilities at home, long-term investments to make Mexico a more secure and prosperous neighbor, greater multilateral cooperation throughout the region, and a more sensible policy for managing the harms associated with drugs.