[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ADVANCING U.S. INTERESTS IN THE
WESTERN HEMISPHERE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 11, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-153
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
RON DeSANTIS, Florida JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
TED S. YOHO, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois DINA TITUS, Nevada
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York NORMA J. TORRES, California
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
Wisconsin ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
ANN WAGNER, Missouri TED LIEU, California
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida
FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Kenneth H. Merten, Acting Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, U.S.
Department of State............................................ 4
Ms. Sarah-Ann Lynch, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator,
Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, U.S. Agency for
International Development...................................... 12
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Kenneth H. Merten: Prepared statement.............. 7
Ms. Sarah-Ann Lynch: Prepared statement.......................... 14
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 60
Hearing minutes.................................................. 61
The Honorable Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York:
Washington Post article dated July 6, 2018..................... 63
Letter to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the
National Institutes of Health dated December 4, 2017......... 65
Washington Post Letters to the Editor Opinion.................. 66
The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
from the Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement.......... 67
The Honorable Norma J. Torres, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California: Prepared statement.................... 68
Written responses from the Honorable Kenneth H. Merten to
questions submitted for the record by:
The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress
from the State of California, and chairman, Committee on
Foreign Affairs.............................................. 70
The Honorable Eliot L. Engel................................... 71
The Honorable Paul Cook, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California.......................................... 82
The Honorable Brad Sherman, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California...................................... 87
The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in
Congress from the State of Wisconsin......................... 89
The Honorable Joaquin Castro, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Texas........................................... 90
The Honorable Norma J. Torres.................................. 95
ADVANCING U.S. INTERESTS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
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WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2018
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Royce
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Royce. We will call this hearing to order. Today
we look at U.S. policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean.
Our relationships in the Western Hemisphere are forged by deep
cultural and economic ties. We export a lot of goods to the
Caribbean, and that supports many U.S. jobs. Across Latin
America, our trade ties are just as strong. But today, as the
region faces urgent challenges and transitions, the United
States must be more engaged than ever.
As always, the safety of Americans serving abroad is a top
priority for this committee. The still unexplained attacks on
Embassy personnel in Havana, and now in China, are very
disturbing. Twenty-six Americans have been medically evacuated
from Havana with serious symptoms, including sharp ear pain,
headaches, vertigo and other conditions consistent with brain
injury or concussion. Canadians have been impacted, as well. We
need to know what happened, who is responsible, and how to
respond.
The administration is actively addressing the Western
Hemisphere's major crisis starting with Venezuela. The United
States has repeatedly condemned the illegitimate election of
President Maduro as well as the human rights abuses and
economic meltdown unfolding there.
The administration has rightly deployed targeted sanctions
hitting Venezuelan officials responsible for this catastrophe,
not the suffering Venezuelan people, is the way to go. The
Vice-President has traveled to the region three times to urge
regional leaders to do more for the Venezuelan people.
In Nicaragua, the administration has rightly designated
three top officials for human rights abuses and for corruption.
But we should do more to support the Nicaraguan people. The
repressive Ortega regime has killed more than 200 advocates for
free and fair elections since this April. One of the civilians
murdered on a village street was a former neighbor of an Orange
County friend of mine. Subcommittee Chairman Paul Cook will
convene a hearing to further examine this matter tomorrow.
Across the hemisphere, transnational criminal organizations
continue to pose a major threat. These violent gangs are
fueling the drug and migration crisis that the United States
struggles with today. As we fight the deadly impacts of opioids
in our communities, we must continue working closely with our
regional neighbors to increase counternarcotics cooperation.
The recent increase in cocaine production in Colombia is
unacceptable, and I am hopeful that the election of President
Ivan Duque is a sign that the country will redouble efforts to
confront gangs and the cartels.
This committee continues to support U.S. efforts to work
with the countries of Central America's Northern Triangle, El
Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, to help shore up
institutions, combat crime, and combat corruption, and create
conditions that will keep people from migrating north. I agree
with the administration that combating corruption in the region
must be a key part of the strategy to create opportunity and
stability. The committee will continue to support assistance to
the region.
Finally, the recent election in Mexico raises questions
about the future of the U.S.-Mexico security relationship under
the Merida Initiative. I hope that President-Elect Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador's campaign promise to root out corruption
is a sign that our two countries can continue to cooperate on
matters of security. One of those is the Merida Initiative, and
we will hear more from you on this.
The U.S. and Mexico share a 2,000-mile border, and must
continue to work together to enhance both security and trade
that benefits both our countries. NAFTA should be updated for
the 21st century, not scrapped. And with that, let me go to our
ranking member, Mr. Engel of New York, for his opening
statement.
Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
calling today's hearing. This region is particularly important
to me as a former Western Hemisphere Subcommittee chair.
Ambassador Merten, Deputy Assistant Administrator Lynch,
welcome, and thank you both for your service. You are both
doing great work. But again, I must say the White House's
failure to fill key positions in a timely manner means we can't
adhere from those setting the course for foreign policy. That
is too bad, because in my view, the administration has put us
on a very dangerous course when it comes to the Western
Hemisphere.
The way the President talks about this region says it all.
Falsely insisting Mexico will pay for a border wall we don't
need, the ugly language calling Mexicans drug dealers and
rapists, the dehumanizing language about immigrants and
characterization of Haiti and El Salvador using the word I
won't repeat.
Democrats and Republicans have worked for two decades
together to improve the U.S.-Mexico relationship long
characterized by mistrust. Bilateral cooperation on
counternarcotics was once unimaginable. Amazingly, it became
the norm with the Mexican Government extraditing the world's
most dangerous drug kingpin, Chapo Guzman, to the United States
in the last hours of the Obama administration.
On July 1, Mexicans elected a new President, Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador. I worry that if President Trump continues along
the same lines, President-Elect Lopez Obrador may pull the plug
on security cooperation. Where would that leave us the next
time we are seeking an extradition, or if terrorists sought to
cross the U.S.-Mexican border? Too much is at stake in our
bilateral relationship, and we simply don't know if the
President will continue to do this, take to Twitter, and do
damage.
And looking south, Mexico is just a start. For months, the
families have been torn apart, and Central American children
essentially have been held ransom to a radical anti-immigrant
agenda. The President created this policy. He then said only
Congress could fix it, which wasn't true, made clear by the
fact that he then signed an executive order trying to end the
policy, but the damage was done. Children to this day still
remain apart from their parents. That has to change. The
Organization of American States unanimously adopted a
resolution on June 29 criticizing the inhumane family
separation policy.
It is hard to remember a time in recent memory when the OAS
permanent council has so forcefully condemned the United
States, and that is just the start. The administration is
making it harder for victims of abuse to come to the United
States, saying domestic violence shouldn't be grounds for
asylum, that women and children who have endured rape and other
forms of violence should look elsewhere for sanctuary.
The United States also just opposed a U.N. resolution
promoting breastfeeding. I mean, it is unbelievable, and I fear
the worst is yet to come. Temporary protected status will soon
end for 262,000 Salvadorans, 86,000 Hondurans, and 58,000
Haitians. As Mark Schneider of CSIS pointed out in The
Washington Post this week, this move may result in 273,000
American-born children being separated from their parents. This
is a deeply troubling pattern in dealing with the treatment of
women, of families of immigrants.
Is this what we are becoming as a country? I hope not. I
won't accept it, and I will fight tooth and nail against these
policies that betray our values and make it harder to advance
our interests abroad. After all, we are facing very real and
urgent crises in the region.
President Maduro has turned Venezuela into a full-fledged
dictatorship, and rejected humanitarian aid. State Department
sanctions against human rights violators were a step forward.
But instead of working with regional partners, we have, again,
bellicose rhetoric and threatening to invade Venezuela. The
result, Maduro is empowered and alienated key allies at the
same time.
In Nicaragua, the Global Magnitsky Act has allowed us to
crack down on thugs tied to President Ortega who are killing
innocent people in the streets. Yet, the administration zeroed
out democracy assistance to Nicaragua in its 2019 budget. And
in Guatemala, absurd and unconfounded attacks on the U.N.
International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, what we
call CICIG, threaten the institution's ability to fight
corruption and support the rule of law.
Most recently, I was disturbed by the Guatemalan
Government's decision to put CICIG personnel at risk removing a
large portion of their security detail. President Morales
should immediately reverse its decision. And I must say, since
I have been critical of the White House, this time I was
pleased that the White House came out in strong support of
CICIG just this week.
I congratulate Ivan Duque on his recent election victory in
Colombia. Outgoing U.S. assistance is essential for
implementing the peace process and supporting smart drug
policies that go after kingpins while not harming small farmers
or the environment. And in Argentina, I was glad to join Mr.
McCaul in founding the Argentina Caucus to focus on a
relationship that has improved a great deal since President
Macri took office.
Finally, the Caribbean. In 2016, Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen
and I authored the U.S. Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act,
which President Obama signed into law in his last few days in
office. Last June, the State Department released a strategy
mandated by our law. It is an ambitious and impressive
strategy, but unfortunately, 1 year later, it still has not
been implemented. With hurricane season under way, the parts of
the strategy related to disaster preparedness and resilience
are especially urgent. I implore our witnesses to put some meat
on the bones of what are on paper is an excellent strategy, and
I would be remiss not to mention that Haiti is very much on my
mind this week. Haiti has suffered far more than any country
should, and I stand with the Haitian people at this difficult
moment.
So I thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to
hearing from our witnesses, and I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Engel. So this morning, we
are pleased to be joined by Ken Merten, Acting Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs,
and Sarah-Ann Lynch, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator of
USAID for Latin American and the Caribbean. We welcome them to
the committee. Ambassador Merten has been serving as the
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs since August 2015. He is a two-time
Ambassador, having served as the U.S. Ambassador to Croatia,
and also, as the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti.
Ms. Sarah-Ann Lynch currently serves as Senior Deputy
Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at
USAID, and prior to that, she was the mission director in Iraq.
So we appreciate them both being with us here today, and
without objection, the witnesses' full prepared statements are
going to be made part of the record and members are going to
have 5 calendar days to submit any statements or questions or
extraneous material for the record.
So if you could, Ambassador, I would ask you to just
summarize your statement in 5 minutes, each of you, and then we
will go to questions. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KENNETH H. MERTEN, ACTING PRINCIPAL
DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF WESTERN HEMISPHERE
AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Merten. Thanks very much, Chairman Royce,
Ranking Member Engel, members of the committee. Thanks for the
opportunity to allow us to come here and talk a little bit
about the administration's approach to our Hemisphere, the
Western Hemisphere.
We know that a democratic, prosperous, and secure Western
Hemisphere enhances our national security and benefits our
economy. Our policies are built upon that premise. The United
States shares common values and has strong economic bonds with
all the countries in this region. These long historical
connections bind us to the nations of the Western Hemisphere
more closely than in any other region.
Our economic engagement with the Americas cannot be
overstated. The United States is the top trading partner for
more than half the countries in the region. We trade more than
twice as much with the hemisphere as we do, for example, with
China. We also share fundamental values. In the last decades,
Latin America has largely transformed itself into a region of
vibrant, peaceful democracies.
The United States recently reaffirmed its commitment to
these shared values and to our partnership with the region at
the eighth Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru in May. At that
summit, leaders acknowledge the need to continue working
together to address corruption, to strengthen institutions, and
to improve transparency.
We rely on strong hemispheric partnerships to fight
transnational criminal organizations, and we work hand in hand
with our partners to disrupt illicit networks and trafficking
roots.
Because our mutual security and prosperity are so
connected, we work together to counter the illicit activity and
the poverty that drive illegal immigration to the United
States. As such, the U.S., together with our partners, is
renewing its commitment to address the root causes of Central
American migration.
While most of the region enjoys democratic rule, Venezuela,
Cuba, and Nicaragua continue to undermine the region's shared
vision for effective democratic governance enshrined in the
Inter-American Democratic Charter.
The United States remains committed to standing with the
people of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in their struggle to
achieve the liberty that they deserve.
In Cuba, the regime continues its repressive hold on power
despite the recent transition to President Diaz-Canel.
President Trump's June 2017 Cuba policy emphasizes advancing
human rights and democracy, and aims to ensure that the
benefits of U.S. engagement flow to the Cuban people.
In Nicaragua, we condemn the violence and excessive force
used against demonstrators resulting in 215 deaths and hundreds
more wounded since protests began now in mid April. We urge
Nicaragua's government to strengthen democratic processes and
institutions, and to respect human rights and fundamental
freedoms and support the proposal for free and fair elections
that would occur soon.
In Venezuela, the Maduro regime has completely undermined
democracy. We join the nations of the world in standing with
the Venezuelan people as they seek to return to a stable,
prosperous democracy they deserve. We are also addressing the
humanitarian component of the Venezuelan crisis by supporting
Venezuelans who are deprived, suffering, and increasingly
forced to flee their homes.
Overall, the United States is providing nearly $31 million
in humanitarian assistance to Venezuelans in the region. We
will continue to work with our partners to help restore
democracy to Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, and we will
continue to build a democratic, prosperous, and secure Western
Hemisphere that further enhances our own national security and
benefits our economy.
So I look forward to your questions today. Thanks very much
for the opportunity to speak with you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Merten follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ambassador. Ms. Lynch.
STATEMENT OF MS. SARAH-ANN LYNCH, SENIOR DEPUTY ASSISTANT
ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, U.S.
AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Ms. Lynch. Thank you. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel,
and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to
testify today. I had the distinct pleasure of traveling with
some of you recently while Administrator Green and I were in
Peru at the Summit of the Americas in April, and thank you so
much for your continued interest in our work in the region.
USAID's engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean
advances U.S. national security and economic prosperity,
demonstrates American generosity, and promotes a path to
recipients' self-reliance and resilience. This is a region with
considerable opportunities, but also critical challenges. USAID
works to increase the security and prosperity of the hemisphere
by addressing issues of poverty, insecurity and governance. For
example, our work in Mexico and Central America responds to
challenges that inhibit business development, empower
criminals, and lead to out-migration. Recent high levels of
illegal migration from Central America come largely as a result
of poverty, instability, and weak governance, including high
levels of corruption and impunity.
Therefore, USAID's programs focus on engaging young people
before they turn to crime and violence, improving democratic
governance, and addressing the economic conditions that drive
people to make the perilous journey north.
In Mexico, we partnered with the government to strengthen
national institutions, spread the rule of law, and promote the
protection of human rights. And together with Mexico, we are
working closely with the Northern Triangle governments to
address those challenges to security and prosperity that we
collectively face.
Two of our primary areas of focus in South America are
Colombia and Peru. These countries are making enormous economic
and social strides, but remain plagued by coca cultivation,
which enriches transnational criminal organizations that
threaten regional security. In Colombia, USAID is working in
some of the most dangerous and hard to reach areas, which were
cut off from state presence for decades during the conflict.
Our efforts to reduce the power and influence of illegal-armed
groups build a culture of legality, expand state presence in
former conflict areas, and enable licit rural economic growth
are seeing promising results.
Similarly in Peru, USAID assistance helps to reduce the
flow of illicit drugs by providing farmers with alternatives to
coca cultivation, and the results--the achievements are
impressive.
As the third border to the United States, the Caribbean
remains vital to American security and prosperity. I would like
to thank Ranking Member Engel and Ms. Ros-Lehtinen for their
continued interest and engagement on Caribbean topics, and
especially for authoring H.R. 4939, which helps lead the U.S.
strategy for engagement in the Caribbean.
Under the Caribbean Basin and Security Initiative, CBSI, we
are working to improve citizen security and provide employment
and education opportunities to youth at risk of joining gangs
and other transnational criminal organizations.
We are also working with countries across the Caribbean to
increase resilience so that they are better able to withstand
shocks, such as tropical storms and hurricanes. Maybe we need
to focus for our work in the Caribbean where we are addressing
poverty, promoting good governance, improving health, and
advancing transparent and accountable government institutions.
However, as this weekend's violence has demonstrated, Haiti's
progress and stability continues to be fragile.
And unfortunately, Haiti is not the only place in the
region where we have seen violence and instability recently. We
are very concerned for the people of Nicaragua who are
suffering a brutal crackdown at the hands of the Ortega
government. USAID has given rapid assistance to the brave civil
society groups, human rights organizations, independent media,
and others involved in peaceful protest. And we remain flexible
to respond to needs as they emerge. USAID also helps to
maintain an operating space for those in Cuba who seek to
preserve their basic freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and
democratic voice. But one of our most pressing priorities in
the region right now is the outflow of Venezuelans who are
fleeing their country in record numbers in search of food,
medicine and healthcare.
To help these families who have fled to neighboring
countries, USAID has partnered with these countries to provide
humanitarian and development assistance to meet the most urgent
needs. And while humanitarian assistance will help with
immediate needs, it will not and cannot address the root causes
of Venezuela's instability. Only lasting political and economic
reforms will provide sustainable solutions.
To help the Venezuelan people maintain their voice, USAID
supports human rights, civil society, independent media,
electoral oversight, and the elected national assembly.
In this discussion, I cannot overlook the rise in competing
foreign engagement in the region. We recognize that some
countries have different development models than ours, but we
believe we offer the clear choice. For example, where other
countries assistance models may further dependence, our
development assistant promotes a country's own journey
consistent with U.S. supported universal values and interests
bolstering our partners' self-reliance and prosperity.
To accomplish our goals, we coordinate and leverage the
work of the U.S. interagency, other donors, the private sector,
faith-based communities, and nongovernmental organizations. In
all of our work, we are committed to oversight and ensure that
our programs are smart and impactful. We use a range of tools,
such as monitoring surveys, evaluations, and assessments to
understand the effects of our programs and help us capture
changes at the community or other subnational levels. We know
very well our responsibility to the American taxpayer, and we
take our obligation very seriously.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Engel, I want to thank you and
the committee for the opportunity to give an overview of our
work, and I welcome your questions. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lynch follows:]
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Chairman Royce. If I could begin with this question, we
have got 26 U.S. diplomats and their family members who have
suffered symptoms similar to brain injury or concussion
following sonic attacks in Cuba. We have another three
officials now in China who have suffered similar symptoms. In
response to the attacks, the State Department ordered the
departure of nonessential personnel and their families in
Havana. Sixty percent of the U.S. mission diplomats in Cuba
have been withdrawn. Other than the Canadian mission in Havana
where the Canadians report 10 of their diplomats were targeted,
have any other Embassies been affected, to your knowledge?
Ambassador Merten. Not to my knowledge, Mr. Chairman. This
is something which is very worrisome to us, but we are not
aware of any other Embassies at this point.
Chairman Royce. What is the health condition of the U.S.
diplomats and the family members affected by these unexplained
attacks at this point?
Ambassador Merten. Well, I think you covered it very well
in your opening remarks. The health effects differ from person
to person. Some are more serious on some individuals. On some
individuals, they are less serious. But the bottom line is the
impact of these attacks on folks is serious, which is why they
were withdrawn, and we have gone down to a skeleton crew at the
Embassy there.
Chairman Royce. And the last question I would ask you on
this is how close is the administration to understanding and
identifying the source and cause of these attacks?
Ambassador Merten. Well, we have taken this, as I
mentioned, very seriously, both in the Cuba context and in the
China context, which is, frankly, still very much evolving.
Bottom line answer is, we don't know who is responsible, and we
don't know what is responsible for this. We have various
investigations ongoing. The FBI is involved. The CDC is
involved in looking at this. We have employees who are being
looked at by outside medical care. But we are still unsure
exactly what it is these people have been afflicted with.
Chairman Royce. Let me go to a question about the crisis in
Venezuela, which is worsening. While President Maduro further
cemented his power with sham elections this past May, we have
seen the situation on the streets there and especially the
widespread food and medicine shortages that continue to
displace Venezuelans that create a regional crisis, refugee
crisis, as well as a humanitarian crisis, obviously. And
meanwhile, despite sitting on the world's largest oil reserves.
Venezuelan oil production has fallen by half in the last few
years. Venezuela, in the meantime, has been sending several
hundred thousand barrels of oil every day to China as repayment
on the tens of billions of dollars it has borrowed, and more
recently, China's development bank announced a new quarter
billion dollar investment to shore up Venezuela's struggling
oil production.
Is the administration concerned about China's economic
stranglehold on Venezuela? And is China using Venezuela's as a
foothold to gain influence in the rest of the region?
Ambassador Merten. Thanks for the question, Mr. Chairman.
It is not clear that China is necessarily using Venezuela
as a foothold. Our information indicates that the Venezuelan
economy still continues to crater, if you will excuse my using
that term. Oil production continues to go down. The national
oil company, PDVSA, has been plagued by mismanagement, by
political hacks replacing people who knew what they were doing,
and the company continues to deteriorate, and thus, robbing the
Venezuelan people and the Venezuelan Government of what should
be a very valuable source of income for them.
We are, obviously, watching very carefully what China does
throughout the hemisphere. You know, and we monitor that very
carefully. We are concerned about the role they play. We
believe we are a much better partner for all our friends in the
hemisphere. We share values. We share goals. And it is not
clear to us that the Chinese government or entities operating
overseas share the same goals as our friends in the hemisphere.
Chairman Royce. Well, let me ask a question of Ms. Lynch in
terms of the greatest health concerns that are caused by the
crisis in Venezuela and by the refugee crisis, and what is
being done, for example, to ensure vaccinations and other
medicines are made available, because there is widespread
shortage throughout Venezuela right now on the vaccinations.
Ms. Lynch. Right. Thank you for the question. Yes, we are
also deeply disturbed by all the images and the news reports
coming out of Venezuela. As such, we have been able to
identify, as the Ambassador said, several millions of dollars
of assistance that is going to the almost 2 million Venezuelans
that have fled that country in search of very basic needs like
food, medicine, and healthcare. And Colombia, obviously, is
taking the brunt of the movement of people. I myself was up on
the border not too long ago in Cucuta and witnessed firsthand
the Venezuelans crossing the Simon Bolivar Bridge, and it is
very disturbing. The bulk of our assistance to the Colombians
is in those areas, food, medicine, and healthcare, but also to
help them manage the crossing of the great number of people.
We are also assisting Brazil in the region. And in
addition, we were able to get an assessment team, USAID
assessment team, into Venezuela in order to get the contacts on
the ground and do a full assessment, and this was a team that
spent nearly 2 weeks there, did not just stay in Caracas, but
they went throughout the country and they visited schools, they
visited clinics, they talked to NGOs, they talked to the
private sector, church they talked to as well as organizations,
civil society organizations that could provide humanitarian
assistance at scale.
One issue that we found is that they lack capacity. So what
USAID is doing to respond right now is training these
organizations to be able to provide humanitarian assistance at
scale. So to deal with the logistics involved in that kind of
effort and to identify the truly at-risk people. So with that,
we will be able to address the concerns that you mentioned.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. Mr. Engel?
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Nothing can quite make
people understand the horrors that are occurring in our own
country as a consequence of the President's family separation
policy than hearing the individual stories of Central American
children.
So I would like to briefly talk about Jose, Olivia, and
their sons, Mateo and Andre, who came to the U.S. from El
Salvador seeking refuge from gang violence and extortion. A
close friend was killed by the same gang threatening Jose and
Olivia when he was unable to pay them. So fearing for their
lives and the lives of their children, Jose and Olivia joined a
caravan of asylum seekers and traveled for a month through
Mexico to reach the border.
Upon arrival, they presented their papers and the
children's birth certificates, proving their familial
relationship to avoid agents' suspicion that Jose was a
smuggler paired with children that were not his. Regardless,
U.S. authorities separated the family and sent Mateo, only 1
year old at the time, to a facility 1,500 miles away.
Olivia and Andre awaited news of Mateo's status from a
migrant shelter in Mexico. When Olivia called the facility
where Mateo was being held, she was told he is doing fine with
no further information on his well-being, and certainly, they
wouldn't allow her to speak with her son. She was reunited with
Mateo finally after 85 days. According to her testimony, she
said that after reuniting with her toddler, ``He continued to
cry when we got home and he would hold to know my leg and would
not let me go. When I took off his clothes he was full of dirt
and lice. It seemed like they had not bathed him in the 85 days
he was away from us.'' And that is a quote. Obviously, this is
child abuse. It is unconscionable and should not have happened.
So I recently introduced the Central America Family
Protection and Reunification Act with Representatives Torres
and Espaillat, who are both members of this committee. And this
would require the State Department, through our Embassies in El
Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, to play a much more active
role in supporting Central American governments and parents on
family reunification.
Ambassador Merten, let me ask you: Can you please tell us
what our Embassies in these countries are doing to support
family reunification, if anything?
Ambassador Merten. Thanks for the question, Representative
Engel. What we are doing in Central America, we have a Central
America strategy which seeks to get at the root causes of
migration, to hopefully give people less of a reason to want to
leave their country in the first place. And our efforts have
been really focused on implementing that strategy, particularly
in the Northern Triangle.
We are looking at using tools to eliminate corruption that
allow a climate of impunity for those who seek to abuse people.
We are supporting law enforcement activities through our
partners in the region. We are working to help them improve
their judicial systems so that criminals can be put away in a
clear and transparent way according to local laws.
We are working to help these countries grow their
economies, and we believe that addressing these issues will
really obviate the need for these kind of--that drive people to
want to leave their countries and force them into situations
like you just described.
Mr. Engel. But are Embassies specifically--are Embassies
helping to reunite families? Are Embassies playing any role in
that in the reunification?
Ambassador Merten. At the risk of misleading you, I would
rather take that question back and get back with an answer to
you. I don't want to give you an answer which is incorrect.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, because that is what our bill, our
legislation does. It involves the Embassies, which makes sense
to me, because anything we can do to help expedite this would
be good.
Ms. Lynch, our legislation also requires the State
Department strategy to address pervasive gender-based violence
in the Northern Triangle. Can you please describe the impact of
gender-based violence, and specifically, domestic violence on
women in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras?
Ms. Lynch. Thank you for the question. Yes, all of our
activities in the Northern Triangle are based at focusing on
the root causes of illegal migration. And certainly, we work on
the security front, as well as governance and prosperity. So
this would fall into that security front and governance as
well, whereby we just find the gender-based violence. The rates
that you see in the Northern Triangle are just horrific. So
what we do is we incorporate women as well as other
marginalized communities that suffer as well at higher rates
than others--violence. We incorporate them into all of our
programming, and that means on the governance front, making
sure there is legislation that addresses these issues; on the
citizens front, making sure that there is citizen awareness and
that there is the capacity of certain civil society
organizations to address those issues. And in addition,
prosperity, economic opportunity, is really what gives these
women power and control over their lives, so specifically with
all of our programming that involves increased jobs and
economic growth, we involve women and marginalized communities
to the fullest extent.
Mr. Engel. Well, thank you. Let me just say that given the
pervasiveness of domestic violence in the Northern Triangle and
the low rates of prosecution for these horrific crimes, it is
really horrifying that Attorney General Sessions says he will
no longer allow these crimes to be grounds for asylum. I think
that is just a very bad thing.
And finally, let me piggyback on--the chairman has talked a
lot about Cuba and our Embassy officials being targeted. One of
the things that I have called for is to have the CDC--to
involve the CDC, and why has the administration, referring to
the health--well, let me just say this, why has the CDC not yet
been deployed to Cuba? It certainly seems to me that we should,
if we are really going to get to the bottom of it, and I just
don't understand why that hasn't happened. Does anyone have any
insight into that for me?
Ambassador Merten. Thanks very much, yes. One of the things
that we have done in the past month or so is Secretary Pompeo
has asked that Deputy Secretary Sullivan chair a task force to
look at these incidents, both in China and the attacks in Cuba,
and this task force is chaired by the Deputy Secretary; he
participates in it; I participate in it representing the Bureau
of Western Hemisphere Affairs.
We also have, once a week, a meeting of the task force with
the interagency community, and in that community, CDC is
present, and they are an active member of that community, of
the interagency community that participates in this task force.
I don't know if they have plans to travel yet, but I think
their involvement in this is relatively recent, but I think
there is a possibility that they could become more involved. I
am not--it wouldn't be appropriate for me to really explain
what their plans are to do, but they are participating now in
this interagency task force.
So as I said, we remain very concerned about this, and I
think we are looking for any tools we can find to really get to
the bottom of what is causing this.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Yes, and Mr. Engel and I are going to be
meeting with Deputy Secretary Sullivan this afternoon at 4
o'clock, so we will raise that issue, Ambassador, with him as
well at that time.
We will go now to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Chairman Royce. Thank
you, Ranking Member Engel, for, once again, holding a hearing
on a very timely and important topic. Since widespread protests
began on April 18 in Nicaragua, we have seen over 300 people
killed under the direction of Daniel Ortega and his henchmen,
and Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro continues to rule with impunity
ignoring the pleas of the Venezuelan people for new leadership.
In my native homeland of Cuba, Raul Castro continues to call
the shots as head of the Communist Party, all the while hiding
behind the veil of the so-called transition of power. Under
Diaz-Canel, nada has changed for the people of Cuba. Activists
are still being held for days at a time. Las Damas de Blanco
are still being beaten and arrested, and the regime continues
to rule with an iron fist.
More worrisome, Mr. Chairman, is that cooperation between
these rogue regimes has actually increased. Just last week,
there were reports indicating that Maduro has sent a shipment
of weapons to Ortega to help him further suppress and silence
the Nicaraguan people. Instead of using the country's resources
to alleviate the Venezuelan people suffering, suffering he
caused for his failed policies, he sends weapons to his cronies
making him complicit in the deaths of so many in Nicaragua.
But this U.S. administration has shown a willingness to
lead and hold those abusers accountable in stark contrast to
the previous administration, and I thank our witnesses here for
explaining all that has happened. We have seen a reversal of
the disastrous Cuba policy. We have seen a more active use of
sanctions, particularly the global Magnitsky sanctions in
Nicaragua and targeted sanctions against the Maduro regime in
Venezuela.
On two occasions, I have read letters urging sanctions on
several Nicaraguan regime officials for their roles in the
human rights abuses being perpetrated against the people of
Nicaragua. The administration has included most of these
individuals on the global Magnitsky list, but I intend on
sending another letter shortly with more names. And the
administration has begun to provide assistance to Venezuelans
who have fled to neighboring countries and has signaled that it
will make freedom and democracy in the region a priority, but
more must be done. And you had explained, Ms. Lynch, about what
the administration, and specifically, USAID, has been doing to
support the Venezuelan refugees who are in Colombia and Brazil.
I wanted to ask you about Ecuador, what help is being given
to the Venezuelans there that Vice-President Pence was just
there. So what more can be done? And secondly, I worry about
China's growing presence and influence in the entire region
using its resources to bully nations to further isolate our
strong ally, Taiwan, and what is the administration's strategy
then to counter Chinese aggression to help Taiwan strengthen
its relationship with its partners in the region. Thanks again,
Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Lynch. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, some small scale
assistance was requested from Ecuador from the U.S.
interagency, and that is being provided. And we stand ready to
assist other nations if they are interested in additional
assistance. We know this is a horrific regional problem that
may impact other nations in the region, other strong partners
of ours.
Regarding our perspective on the development side on China,
for example, what from AID's vantage point, we believe that our
work in building strong institutions in the region, as well as
promoting strong economic investments, particularly from the
U.S., are good antidotes to the influence of nations that have
a different development model than we do.
You know, some of these other donors, as I mentioned in my
opening are more--their development model is one more of
dependence rather than one of partnership. Ours is of
partnership where we look to work with partners who are self-
reliant eventually.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you.
Ms. Lynch. And we look forward to working with you in that
area.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you, Ms. Lynch. Mr. Ambassador?
Ambassador Merten. Just to talk briefly about the influence
of China in the hemisphere again, yes, it is something, as I
mentioned earlier, that we are concerned about and watching
very carefully. We regularly talk to our partners in the
region, I have done so myself, to explain what it really means
to sign up with--to some of the blandishments of the PRC in
terms of loans and other things. These are things that we have
seen in the recent past that don't necessarily help these
countries out in the long term. They may be quick political
fixes, but I think we are trying to explain, in very clear
terms, that it makes more sense for long-term development of
all our partners in the region to focus on rules-based and
normal economic development.
Our assistance programs in the region seek to support rule
of law and governance, and to make these countries better
places to live, better places to do business, and thus,
ultimately reduce migration. But it is an issue that we
continue to work very diligently on and are paying close
attention to.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ileana. We go to Brad Sherman of
California.
Mr. Sherman. Mr. Chairman, we have a knowledgeable witness
here, but he is the, as I understand it, Acting Principal
Deputy Assistant Secretary. We used to have under secretaries
and assistant secretaries come here. They may not have been
more knowledgeable, but they were higher ranking in the State
Department. The administration took over a year to appoint an
Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, and a
Republican Senate still hasn't acted to confirm. The
administration is hollowing out the State Department, and I
think we as a practice should be compelling the testimony of
those at the National Security Adviser's Office and Council if
you are going to hollow out the State Department that if we are
going to oversee foreign policy, we have to have those
witnesses.
I had a chance to visit the kids who are separated by the
United States at the border. I want to commend the State
Department for its 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report, which
identified and condemned foreign governments for separating
children from their families, and relate the story of one
particular family. Jose and his son, Brian, arrived in
California from Honduras, my State, in May. Brian's mother had
been raped and brutally murdered. She was 7 months pregnant at
the time. Jose and Brian thought that they might face a similar
outcome.
Jose was jailed for 20 days and asked to sign papers he
couldn't understand because they were in English and deported
back to Honduras. This after Brian, the son, had been separated
from his father. There are news reports that say that this
whole process at least began--it seems now they are walking it
back--as an effort to deter immigration from Central America.
Has there been any effort at the State Department to try to
tell people in Central America, ``Don't come to the United
States, we will treat you harshly, separate families, deport
you,'' et cetera? Ambassador?
Ambassador Merten. Thanks for the question. What we do tell
people is to not make a journey that is dangerous or illegal.
We always encouraged legal orderly migration of people, legal
and orderly travel of people, so that is what we have been
focusing on.
Mr. Sherman. Okay. I want to move on to one other issue,
Ecuador. Julian Assange is in their Embassy in London. He is
wanted by law enforcement authorities in both Britain and
Sweden. One thing we know about Julian Assange is that he did
collude with Russia to use cyber files stolen from the
Democratic National Committee to affect the U.S. election. And
in 1972, when files were stolen from the Democratic National
Committee, Members of Congress from both parties condemned that
action. We haven't put any pressure on Ecuador to turn out Mr.
Assange, and I understood that to be because we had such
respect for Ecuador's sovereignty. And then I find out in The
New York Times that we threatened Ecuador with punishing trade
measures and a withdrawal of critical military aid if they
wouldn't withdraw their support for a World Health Organization
resolution encouraging breastfeeding.
Ambassador, can you, on the record, indicate that you know
that these reports in The New York Times were false, and that
we did not threaten Ecuador on this issue?
Ambassador Merten. My understanding from our Ambassador and
from my colleagues in the State Department Bureau of Western
Hemisphere Affairs that work on this issue, on a regular basis,
is that we did not threaten anybody, that the U.S. supports
breastfeeding.
Mr. Sherman. But we don't support efforts at breastfeeding
beyond what the companies that make billions of dollars on the
formula industry by discouraging breastfeeding want us to do.
We support only mild resolutions, and we force the World Health
Organization to back down and adopt a milder resolution. But
you are certain now that Ecuador can introduce the stronger
resolution, and there will be no diminution of trade or aid.
Can Ecuador count on you for that?
Ambassador Merten. I can tell you what has happened thus
far in my understanding----
Mr. Sherman. What is our policy? Is it our policy to
threaten Ecuador on this issue or to allow them to go forward?
Ambassador Merten. My understanding is that there has been
no threatening, and I do not believe that we----
Mr. Sherman. So they are free to go forward, you can
guarantee it?
Ambassador Merten. I am not here to guarantee that going
forward.
Mr. Sherman. So maybe they will be threatened, maybe they
won't, they either have to----
Ambassador Merten. They are not going to be threatened,
sir, but I will say that this is----
Mr. Sherman. They are not going to be threatened?
Ambassador Merten. This is a policy that we don't actually
own----
Mr. Sherman. So The New York Times reports are false?
Ambassador Merten. As I understand from our Ambassador and
from the folks that work on this in our bureau, that nobody was
threatened. We have not threatened to pull trade sanctions or
anything else on Ecuador. That is my understanding, sir.
Mr. Sherman. Well, a lot of infants are going to get worse
nutrition as a result of the successful efforts by the United
States at the World Health Organization to water down this
resolution, and I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Chris Smith of New Jersey.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, and thank you for your testimony to
our two witnesses. On April 27, I chaired a hearing on serious
and credible allegations of collusion between CICIG and the
Russian Government in the persecution, mistreatment, and
incarceration of a Russian family, the Bitkovs, who fled Russia
after Putin's cronies threatened their lives, took away their
business, and, of course, the young daughter was raped,
Anastasia, who obviously is still dealing with the aftermath of
that.
Our prime witness was Bill Browder, the main man, whose
tenacity, courage, and credibility led to at least an
accountability of what happened to Sergei Magnitsky. It is
because of Bill Browder that we have the Magnitsky Act. It is
because of Bill Browder that we have the Global Magnitsky Act,
so when he speaks, everybody should listen and should listen
very carefully, and I share his concerns about the Bitkovs.
Let me just say to my colleagues: In 2013, the Bitkovs fled
and finally got to Guatemala under an assumed name. They used
documents that were not true, but again, for having documents
that weren't true--and they are true refugees. The Palermo
Protocol says you don't prosecute when somebody is fleeing
tyranny and has a well-founded fear of persecution. Igor got 19
years in prison. Irina got 14 years. And Anastasia, 14. Igor
spent 3 years in pretrial detention, jail, in a very, very
unseemly pattern that CICIG is a part of.
Now my question to our distinguished colleagues today is,
one, have you investigated, and has there ever been, is there
now any collusion whatsoever between VTB, Gazprombank,
Sberbank, or any other person associated with the Russian
Government and CICIG, including Ivan Velasquez on any matter
relating to the prosecution and incarceration of the Bitkovs?
Second, can you tell us what kind of information do you
have? Is there any accountability? I have asked the Secretary
General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, why aren't you
looking into this? He says they have no authority to do so. He
told me that just a few weeks ago when I met with him.
I am asking today, and I will do it by way of letter, that
the Inspector General investigate the potential of collusion.
My hope is that in an answer to my question, you will say that
you have thoroughly investigated this, and you either found it
or you didn't, or to some degree, there is some collusion.
Those are my opening questions, and I do have some further
ones, but if you can answer that.
Ambassador Merten. Thanks for the question. This is an
issue that we follow closely. Our Embassy and the Department
have looked into these allegations of collusion. Thus far, have
found no evidence that that has occurred.
Mr. Smith. Could you give us details of what that
investigation included? I mean, was it done just asking Mr.
Velasquez and a few others, ``Hey, is there collusion?'' Or did
you really dig into documents and look into this? I call your
attention to this, and we will give you a copy, an excellent
piece that was put together by Mr. Bill Browder--this just
reeks of collusion, so I would like to know exactly what that
investigation entailed.
Ambassador Merten. Sure. I look forward to receiving that
document, and I think if you allow us to get back to you with
exactly what has been done, I think that would be a more
effective way of answering your question.
Mr. Smith. Is there any mechanism for holding CICIG to
account? I mean, there is a hold on their $6 million now that
has finally gotten their attention. Two days before I had my
hearing, the constitutional court found in their favor. Again,
we are talking about 19 years, 14 years, 14 years. People don't
get that many years for murder in Guatemala, and CICIG then
appealed that ruling and now there is going to be another
prosecution of, at least Igor, which is absurd.
I mean, if I was doing that with my family, and I would say
the same to you: Wouldn't you use every means possible to get
out of a country that is going after you, hurting your
daughter, putting you into prison and maybe even killing you?
We have learned that from Sergei Magnitsky, I thought, and many
others. We called our hearing the Long Arm of the Russians. Let
me ask you again, is there any kind of connection between CICIG
and the Russians?
Ambassador Merten. Again, thus far in our investigations we
have found no collusion between them.
Mr. Smith. And no contact, no cooperation?
Ambassador Merten. The information I have been given we
have not received that--we have not seen that. So that is----
Mr. Smith. Maybe the IG will be able to ferret out that
information. Let me ask you about the Guatemalans who are held
in pretrial. There is a dual national from Jersey City, Anthony
Segura, 3 years in pretrial detention. I know, and I have been
in Congress 38 years, Mr. Chairman, and I have been to places
like Bolivia where they use prosecution as way of getting
political retribution, and certainly, Evo Morales does it
better than anybody else on earth. What is your view about
these pretrial detentions that go on for years with CICIG's
full complicity in that?
Ambassador Merten. Well, pretrial detention is a problem in
a number of countries throughout the hemisphere. It is
something that we work at in our rule of law programs to get
countries to establish mechanisms to reduce or eliminate
pretrial detention. I think our work in that area is certainly
ongoing. So obviously, it is not a situation we like. We are
working in a number of countries to help address that.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask you, finally, because my time is
running out, Mary Anastasia O'Grady from The Wall Street
Journal in her piece, and I invite members to read it,
``Guatemala, Russia and the Bitkovs, The family remains in
jeopardy thanks to a U.S.-funded rogue U.N. agency.'' She
points out immediately after the high court decision, CICIG
apologists launched a full scale press on Capitol Hill to cover
up the U.N. agencies' many transgressions. How do you respond
to that?
Ambassador Merten. I am not aware of any such cover-up. If
you would like to ask, we can get you more details on what we
know on that. I am not aware of that, sir.
Mr. Smith. So there is no cover-up?
Ambassador Merten. I am not aware of a cover-up, sir.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. We share the concerns of Mr.
Smith. This committee will continue to work with the Senate,
the State Department, the U.S., U.N. on reforms that will
preserve the essential functions of CICIG while responding to
legitimate criticisms of overreach. All right. We go now to
Albio Sires of New Jersey.
Mr. Sires. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for hosting
this full committee hearing on the Western Hemisphere, and I
want to thank our panel that is here today. Thank you very
much.
I have this issue over the last few years that I have been
on the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee that we just don't focus
enough on the Western Hemisphere and the Caribbean. I think
that while we sleep, there are people out there plotting, and
basically I am talking about China, I am talking about Russia,
I am talking even about Iran, who is now started with a couple
schools now they have over 100 schools throughout the area. And
the signs are there. I mean, even in Venezuela, you have 30,000
Cubans basically running the show there, and Cuba, they started
with the national assembly, which basically destroy all sorts
of democracy or anything that was there. And then you have, in
Venezuela, you have the constituent assembly, which is
basically the same thing destroying any signs of democracy. And
then you go to Nicaragua, you have the Russians selling them
$80 million worth of tanks, and they are asking the people of
Nicaragua to contribute more to the Social Security. I mean,
the signs are there. And I don't know what we do is basically
insult some of these people in Central America, which makes
your job a lot harder when you want to talk about democracy and
talk about investment. I mean, where do we go from here? We got
a new President in Mexico. I don't know how we deal with the
new President of Mexico after all the insults that we have laid
on the Mexican people. And before we know it, all these people
are going to be in our backyard, all these countries that are
plotting as we sleep.
So, I am not all that bullish on this area. I see more and
more democracies going down in the future. You have Venezuela,
and you have Nicaragua. You have to a certain degree Ecuador,
some of these other areas.
So where do you see democracy in the area? Can you tell me
about that?
Ambassador Merten. Thanks for the question.
I think we see the hemisphere largely united behind, as I
said in my opening remarks, the Inter-American Democratic
Charter. We have been working the OAS. I think we have seen a
pretty significant amount of support in the OAS to voice their
opposition to undemocratic steps that are taken in countries
like you have mentioned.
I think that we continue to do work to promote civil
society, to engage with civil society, and to enable opposition
parties to have a voice. We have supported those people in
Nicaragua who are calling for early elections. We have
acknowledged that. So I think we are still working very
diligently on this.
But these are countries that, as several members have
already noted, are not necessarily going to be--they are not
squeamish about using repression as a way to stay in power.
Mr. Sires. I look at Nicaragua. We have a bill, Ileana Ros-
Lehtinen and I, the NICA bill. Basically, it doesn't allow them
to take loans from international finance institutions.
Why should we allow them to have loans from financial
institutions when they go and spend $80 billion on Russian
tanks to oppress their people? And yet some people here don't
like to support something like that.
I think we have to bring some sort of pressure on these
governments to realize you just can't run over people and just
expect us, the United States, to not do anything, especially
when it is our Western Hemisphere and our Caribbean. We really
have to focus more on those areas.
Ambassador Merten. Well, as you know, we have applied
individual sanctions on members of the regime in Venezuela. We
have applied the Global Magnitsky Act to three people in
Nicaragua. We have, as I understand it, revoked 21 visas from
government officials or officials who were responsible for
these types of things. I think, you know, there is a
possibility we could look at more of those kinds of tools as
well.
Mr. Sires. Okay.
Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Dana Rohrabacher of California.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just note from the some of the comments we have had
so far that this condemnation of our President for the policies
that we now have in terms of people who are coming to our
country illegally and separation of families, let us just note
that that policy was in place and put in place during the Obama
administration. And I consider that singling out our President
today is very political, because I didn't hear any of the
complaints coming from that side of the aisle during the Obama
administration when the policies were exactly the same.
With that said, I have somewhat of a disagreement over the
idea of using the word ``migration.'' Maybe you could tell me,
what is the population of Latin America?
Ambassador Merten. I don't know off the top of my head,
sir.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Do you know what the population of Latin
America is?
Ms. Lynch. We can get that for the record.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Well, I think these are fundamentals
that people need to know when they are talking about migration.
We are not talking about 10 million people. We are not talking
about 50 million people. We are talking about hundreds of
millions of people, are we not?
And when you have societies like we see in Latin America--
and elsewhere in the world, I might add, but now we are focused
on Latin America--where you have millions and millions of
people living in countries that are somewhat chaotic and very
clearly repressive--and let me identify myself with the remarks
of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and her concerns about Nicaragua and
Venezuela, but those same types of repression can be found in
other countries, Latin America as well.
We do not have a policy--or do you believe that we should
have a policy in labeling those people migrants, thus giving
them some other definition rather than illegal entries or
illegal immigrants into our country? You think that that should
be open to hundreds of millions of people when they end up
suffering under their own government?
Ambassador Merten. Well, sir, our policy with Central
America is to address the root causes that drive people out
of----
Mr. Rohrabacher. I understand that. That is not my
question. Because I understand--that is a good point. I voted
for NAFTA for that reason, because I felt making sure Mexico
had a very good economy would take the pressure off of people
coming here illegally.
Okay, let me ask you this: How many people are permitted to
legally immigrate from those countries into the United States
every year?
Ambassador Merten. Sir, I don't have those figures. That is
a DHS, Department of Homeland Security, function.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So already we have, however--you can
correct me if I am wrong. I am assuming we are talking about
millions of people over a 10-year period coming from that area
legally into our country. Over a 10-year period, we permit more
legal immigration into our country than all the rest of the
countries of the world combined.
But what I am worried about, after hearing your testimony
today and the use of the word ``migration,'' is that that in
some way gives credence that the United States has to accept
millions of more people into our country over and above the
million that we allow in already legally, which, as I say, is
more than the rest of the world combined.
Now, is there a limit that you think that we should have on
people who are--you call it migration. Is there a limit on
migration into our country?
Ambassador Merten. My understanding--again, this is not an
area of expertise for me; this is really a Department of
Homeland Security issue--is that there are rules established
for this that the administration has established. There are
rules for people, for example, who can apply for asylum----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Well, let me just say I disagree
with you totally. I think members of our State Department
should be concerned about massive flows of people coming into
our country illegally.
And I think the use of the word ``migrant'' in some way
adds some kind of problem with us for not accepting migrants,
as compared to people who have come here illegally, when we
have a very robust legal immigration system. Our legal
immigration, as I say, it is the best in the whole world. No
one comes close to us on letting--and now we are supposed to
feel guilty about not permitting a more massive flow? Which
basically would change the nature of our society, as it has.
And let me just note, Daniel Ortega and these folks and the
Nicaragua--when they were removed from power, there was a
relatively free system established in those countries. And when
they left, came back into power, Mr. Ortega, all of a sudden
people began being murdered. And that is something--I am very
proud that the Reagan administration did take the moves to make
sure that Mr. Ortega and his communist dictatorship was removed
and replaced by a democracy.
With that said, thank you very much for your service.
And I do not believe that the President--again, the
criticism that the President is hollowing out the State
Department is ridiculous. The fact is that if he was hollowing
it out we would be complaining that he is putting his own
people in. Well, when you have people with the expertise, like
yourselves, who are still in position that the President hasn't
replaced yet, that is not something people with an open mind
should complain about.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you.
We will go to Karen Bass of California.
Ms. Bass. Once again, thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking
Member, for holding this hearing.
I wanted to talk about the situation in Central America and
specifically would like to focus on El Salvador.
I was listening to your responses, Mr. Ambassador, about
what we are doing to address the root causes, and it seemed as
though your focus was a little bit on law enforcement. And we
have spent a lot of time trying to address violence and crime-
related issues with a strictly law enforcement strategy in the
United States, and it hasn't fared very well, so I wanted to
know what you have done beyond law enforcement.
And I focus on El Salvador because there is a lot of
discussion about MS-13, Mara Salvatrucha, which is a gang that
started in my city, Los Angeles, and we exported this problem
to El Salvador. And so I want to know what responsibility we
are taking for our contribution to the problem in El Salvador.
Ambassador Merten. Thanks for the question. And I think an
element of this here should be fielded by my colleague from
USAID.
Our Central America strategy, yes, it has a component of
law enforcement to it, but it is also designed to address the
root causes of why people are leaving these countries and--or
why they seek to leave.
And this involves working with governments to improve the
business climate, the investment climate, to create economic
opportunity. My colleagues at USAID and at our economic
sections in our Embassies are working to help these countries
attract investment, attract and grow their economies so that
people have less reason to have to leave.
Ms. Bass. Right, which is a catch-22, because it is hard to
do that with the gang violence.
So I want to know, since we exported the problem to El
Salvador, I was wondering if we also exported some of our best
practices. We actually do have best practices, in the United
States, of how to address gang violence. There are a lot of
examples of gang violence being reduced in a number of
communities. Unfortunately, we have not really taken a
sustained investment in communities, which is why we still have
the problem.
So my question is: Are we exporting also some of our best
practices in how to reduce gang violence?
Ambassador Merten. Well, one of my colleagues from the
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement would be
better equipped to answer that. We can take that back and get
you an answer as to what specifically we are doing regarding
gang violence in El Salvador, but----
Ms. Bass. Okay. That is great. I would appreciate that.
Let me move on to another subject, because, like all of my
colleagues--and I am sure all of us in Congress are deeply
concerned about these children. And I am concerned that many of
these children will never be reunited with their parents again.
And so there is a number of examples of parents who are
deported and then not being able to find their children since
we did this in such a haphazard way.
And my colleague over there, Mr. Rohrabacher, when the
Obama administration had the problem of unaccompanied minors,
which is different than taking children away at the border,
there was a big outcry about that and what was happening with
those children.
But my question is, I have heard of numerous examples of,
when the parents are deported, number one, if they are
fortunate enough to find their children, then what we are
saying is now you have to pay $1,500 to transport your child
and a guardian to get your children back.
And so I want to know if, in the budget of USAID, the State
Department, somewhere--it seems as though if we take the
children away, then our government should be responsible for
reuniting those families. So I am introducing legislation that
makes our government responsible.
I am also very concerned that the children that are put in
is time-limited. And so, if you languish in foster care for
more than 18 months, parental rights can be terminated, which
is why I am worried that some of these children may never find
their parents again.
And so I want to know if, within the budget of USAID, you
are considering setting money aside to help facilitate the
reuniting of these children that we took away.
Ms. Lynch. Great. Thank you.
All of our funding is dedicated to working in the countries
of the Northern Triangle on this issue----
Ms. Bass. Right. So the question is, are we setting aside
money so that we don't charge the parents? We took the children
away, and now we are charging them to get their own children
back.
You also mentioned, Mr. Ambassador, an information campaign
to let people know not to come over here because we take their
children. And I am wondering if that is a massive PR campaign
on radio, on TV, social media, or are we just doing it one by
one?
Ambassador Merten. I think what I said or certainly what I
meant to say was that our public diplomacy in all countries is
to encourage people to travel to the United States, whether
that is as a tourist, as a student, or as a legal migrant, to
come and travel, to use legal methods to do so. We----
Ms. Bass. Are we telling them that we are going to take
their children?
Ambassador Merten. I don't believe we are telling them
that.
Ms. Bass. Yeah.
Ambassador Merten. We are telling them that they need to
avail themselves of legal routes of travel and legal routes--
should they qualify as immigrants, that they should pursue
legal ways to do that.
Ms. Bass. This is going to go down in our history as a real
moment of shame.
Thank you. I yield back my time.
Chairman Royce. We go to Joe Wilson of South Carolina.
Mr. Wilson. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, as I begin, I want to thank the statements of
Congressman Albio Sires. His thoughtful observations are a
fulfilment of the bipartisan promotion of democracy in the
Western Hemisphere, which really reflects the bipartisanship--
usually, not always, as we just saw--of this committee. So
thank you very much for your service.
Sadly, American diplomats, in 2016, were subject to
unexplained sonic attacks in Cuba. The Cuban dictatorship
continues to deny knowledge or involvement in the attacks, but
it is in a totalitarian regime with heavy static surveillance.
What is the status of the investigation? Have we been able
to determine the cause and source of the attacks? When can
Congress expect a thorough report on the cause of these
attacks?
Ambassador Merten. Thanks for the question. As I mentioned
earlier, this is something we find very troublesome at the
State Department.
The Deputy Secretary chairs a task force which is made up
of various elements of the State Department but also has an
interagency component as well. We have ongoing FBI
investigations. FBI has traveled on a number of occasions to
Cuba to investigate the sites where this has happened. Our
Diplomatic Security agents in the State Department are
investigating. We have other elements who are participating now
in this task force, like CDC and others, who are really
examining all the data that we have thus far been able to bring
together.
But, as of today, we still do not know what the cause of
this is nor who is responsible.
Mr. Wilson. And I would tell you, with the technology we
have today, Ambassador, this should be determined. And so I
hope you will make every effort to proceed.
The next question: I am grateful to have been co-chair of
the Partners of the Americas program with the nation of
Colombia from South Carolina. And we have hosted students from
Colombia to live with us. Two of my sons were in an exchange
program to a high school in Colombia. What an extraordinary
country it is.
I know that we are assisting Colombia in achieving lasting
peace while also combating criminality and narcotics
trafficking. The election of Ivan Duque gives the U.S. a
reliable partner in combating cocaine production and a modified
approach to the peace process.
What do you see USAID or the State Department doing to
promote peace and security for the people of Colombia?
Ms. Lynch. Yeah. USAID's program is focused very much on
peace. And, in fact, we work predominantly in helping the
Colombians and supporting their efforts to extend State
presence in some of the areas that have not seen a government
in sometimes decades. So we are actually working in over 50 of
the hardest-hit communities in Colombia to help the Colombians
provide the local institutions that can provide basic services
to people as well as improve the environment to improve the
rural economy.
Specifically, when we work jointly with State Department
INL, they on eradication and us on alternative development, it
works extremely well, where the coca crop is eradicated, and
then we come in with opportunities and an enabling environment,
again, to have solid economic opportunities, jobs for people in
the licit economy.
Mr. Wilson. Well, again, thank you. And what an
extraordinary nation of 40 million people in Colombia.
And then, sadly, another country that was dynamic, was
democratic is Venezuela. And we now see the consequence of what
Margaret Thatcher said, and that is that socialism will work
until you run out of spending other people's money. And so now
they have converted one of the wealthiest countries, one of the
most dynamic in South America into a destitute, poverty-
stricken, authoritarian regime.
And so I am really grateful for the sanctions by the
President. What more can be done to try to help the people of
Venezuela?
Ambassador Merten. Well, as we talked earlier, we are, with
colleagues at USAID and the State Department Bureau of
Population, Refugees, and Migration, providing humanitarian
assistance to those people who have been driven out of
Venezuela. We have regular outreach at the Embassy with the
opposition parties, encouraging them to get unified and form a
unified opposition to the Maduro government. You know, we have
applied targeted sanctions to government officials and to
Venezuela.
And we are working with our partners in the region. We have
pretty much, I would say, unprecedented support of other
countries in the region who really share our concern at what
they see is a rich and democratic country descending into
abject poverty and to effective dictatorship.
Mr. Wilson. Well, thank you again. And working on behalf of
the people of Venezuela, mutual benefit to the hemisphere.
Thank you.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Bill Keating of Massachusetts.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The President has made it very clear and the administration
has made it clear, the threat of MS-13 and the gang violence
that is present in countries like El Salvador. This has been
echoed in Homeland Security, of which I am also a member, where
the administration officials have clearly said how dangerous
and violent it is there and what danger it represents.
So I am going to just address--a couple of the
administration's responses to this simply don't make sense.
For instance, when it comes to the parents and their
children fleeing this terrific violence in El Salvador, the
President's response was to separate the children from their
parents, traumatizing them, deporting them back to the crisis
that they fled from.
One of these people, Jessica, had two sons taken from her
when she crossed in Texas in March. They were separated for 3
whole months. Jessica fled the brutal violence of El Salvador.
She and her sons received death threats from MS-13, and she
herself was beaten in front of her children by gang members.
Yet that is one response, is to separate the children.
The other one that just does not have any semblance of
consistency is to move forward on ending the TPS program for
those countries like El Salvador that have--those countries
have hundreds of thousands of people here legally. And they are
being sent back because it is safer now?
There is a definite contradiction with sending these
people--many of them have been here for years legally to escape
that violence--sending them back because now it is safer, yet
at the same time the administration is saying what an enormous
threat it now is becoming.
How can you reconcile such contradictions? These things
simply don't make sense. They contradict each other, by their
own definition.
Ambassador Merten. Thanks for the question.
As I mentioned earlier, what our goal at the State
Department is, in our view, is that we need to help these
countries address the root causes of these problems. In that
analysis, the root causes are corruption, impunity, lack of
economic opportunity for people, lack of effective judicial
systems, lack of effective law enforcement.
Our Central America strategy, for which Congress was
generous enough to give us $2.6 billion from 2015 to 2018, is
working in all these areas in those countries----
Mr. Keating. Okay. I apologize for interrupting, but where
you are going is to the root causes. That is great. But there
are present dangers. Well, we could deal with the root causes
of MS-13, but the President and the administration, they are
not talking about the root causes of MS-13; they are talking
about the present danger. The same kind of timeline should be
used when you are looking at the present danger of these
people.
So I know what you are saying in terms of root causes, but
you are avoiding the contradiction that is quite clear, that
one, these two instances of the response to this kind of
violence contradict the fact that the violence is there that
they are escaping from. You can't have it both ways. So I want
you to address not just the root cause but the present danger
in that contradiction.
Ambassador Merten. Again, we work with the tools that we
have, both in USAID and the State Department, and these are the
tools that we have to address these issues. If you are talking
about other issues such as TPS, that is a decision that is
taken by the Department of Homeland Security. They have made
that determination.
Mr. Keating. Well, I just think there should be better
coordination. And I sort of echo, actually, the gentleman from
California who said those are issues for Homeland Security,
sure; they are also issues for Foreign Affairs, and they are
also issues for State.
Just quickly, I would like to echo the concerns in terms of
the violence in Nicaragua as well. People like Father Jose
Alberto Idiaquez has had his life threatened. He has been
targeted because of his work through the Jesuits and through
education. And I want to make sure people that have been
targeted, that that be known to everyone.
With that, I would like to yield 40 seconds to my colleague
from California, Mrs. Torres. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. We go to Mr. Ted Poe of Texas.
Mr. Keating. No, no----
Mrs. Torres. He yielded me 40 seconds that he had.
Chairman Royce. Oh, yeah, that is right. Somebody was going
to give you extra time. Norma Torres of California.
Mrs. Torres. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to be on the
floor at 12 noon to present on a rule.
I want to thank the Department of State and specifically
the White House in continuing to support CICIG in Guatemala
specifically.
While I agree that we should demand fair treatment for all
refugees in Guatemala and here in the U.S., too, I hope that we
don't lose sight of the significant progress that CICIG has
made, not just carrying out investigations but also helping to
bring about important reforms and strengthening Guatemala's
institutions. That progress is real, and turning back that
progress, in my view, is a big mistake.
Ambassador Merten, I had nine questions--they were ``yes''
or ``no'' questions--for you regarding how the State
Department--which I have accused in the past of head in the
sand with the certification process in Honduras and now in
Guatemala. Because of the lack of time that I have, I will
submit them for the record, as well as a longer statement on
CICIG.
I do hope that you will respond to me. The certification of
Guatemala after the ongoing problems with the Congress trying
to impugn themselves for their criminal behavior in stealing
the purse of the people, to me, is something that we should be
more careful about in how we go about. At the end of the day,
us here in Congress have to be accountable, and we have to have
a transparent process on how taxpayers' dollars are being
spent.
And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Would the gentlelady yield?
Mrs. Torres. Yes.
Chairman Royce. Because I would like to add a quick
observation here as well. Because, as our witness stated
today--and I think Ambassador Nikki Haley reinforced this
during her trip to Guatemala in February--CICIG is providing
critical assistance to advance justice, accountability, and
stability in the region. That is not an easy task. It is bound
to be controversial. But CICIG is successfully chipping away at
the culture of corruption.
That said, there was an issue that was raised here by Mr.
Smith. And, as we know, the consequence of that has been
adjudicated through the courts there in Guatemala, and that
family is freed.
This committee will continue to work, as I said, with the
Senate, with the State Department, with the USUN on reforms
that will preserve the essential functions of CICIG while
responding to legitimate criticisms of overreach.
And, with that, I think, without objection, the
gentlelady's questions are going to be submitted to our
witnesses, and we will go to Ted Poe of Texas. Thank you.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here.
As the chairman mentioned, I am from Texas. We have a very
strong and longtime history with Mexico, back even to the days
of the 1500s when Mexico and Texas were part of Spain, or at
least Spain claimed the territory. I am a great believer in
trading with Mexico. Ten thousand 18-wheelers a day cross back
and forth on our southern border. Thousands of people from both
countries cross the border.
And I think that the United States, as a Nation, needs to
refocus our attention to our next-door neighbors. I mean, we
are all over the world. There are 190-something countries, and
we are in most of them. I am not saying that is a bad idea. I
am saying that we need to focus on our next-door neighbors--
Mexico, Canada--and then, of course, all of Latin America.
I see, as many Members of Congress have pointed out, that
things are not good in the hemisphere from Mexico south:
Corruption, incompetence, violence, and humanitarian problems
with the nations. And, as Mr. Sires pointed out, I think things
are getting worse. I don't think they are getting better. I
think they are getting worse.
So, I mean, that is my position. As some other Members
pointed out, I am a believer in NAFTA. But let's talk about
some of the issues specifically with Mexico. There are a lot of
foreign workers in the United States from Mexico.
Going back to 2003, when Vicente Fox was President, he made
this comment that was recorded in the San Diego Tribune:
``Twenty million Mexicans in the United States generate a gross
product that is slightly higher than the $600 billion generated
by Mexicans in Mexico. Remittances are our biggest source of
foreign income--bigger than oil, tourism, or foreign
investment.'' That was in 2003.
Most recently, the Pew Research organization has listed how
much remittances from the United States go to other countries--
in other words, foreign nationals working in the U.S. sending
money back home. No surprise, Mexico is the number-one country
that receives remittances from their workers in the United
States back to their country, $28.1 billion, according to the
Pew Research organization.
Surprising to me--another issue--China is number two as far
as remittances go.
So we are talking about $28.1 billion for Mexico. Total
amount, $138 billion a year of remittances go back to foreign
countries by their workers working in the United States. And my
understanding is, today, remittances are the number-one source
of revenue to Mexico except maybe for the sale of autos. So
tourism and sale of oil is still behind remittances.
So we are sending a lot of money, economic development
money, from the United States to Mexico and a lot of other
countries. It is no surprise that the Mexican Government has
long supported more people coming to the United States by any
means so that remittances can go back to their nation.
So my question is--and this has been brought out by the
administration as well. If we just think this through, if we
can use the phrase ``subsidize'' these countries all over the
world, shouldn't the United States charge a fee, 1 percent, for
these transactions to occur--specifically, foreign workers in
the U.S. sending money back to Mexico and any other country
where those remittances go each year. So that part of that
income generated in the United States stays in the United
States, that the taxpayers don't have to pick up the difference
of that $138 billion, with a small fee--1 percent, 2? It makes,
to me, no difference.
My question is, what is your opinion of that, Ambassador?
And then I will ask Ms. Lynch what your opinion is.
Ambassador Merten. Well, I think that is an interesting
thought. I don't think it is--I think that could be potentially
a subject for legislation should you decide to go that route.
I will say, there are other countries in the hemisphere
that do tax remittances as they come in. Haiti is an example of
that in the case that I know of. Beyond that, I don't think I
would choose to comment.
Mr. Poe. Okay.
Ms. Lynch, have you got an opinion? I am about out of
time--I am out of time.
Ms. Lynch. I also think it is very interesting. I think we
would have to do further analysis. I know sometimes remittances
are something that we look at as a way that we reduce foreign
assistance. But we would be happy to look into this and analyze
it.
Mr. Poe. All right. I think Congress ought to consider that
strongly so we can keep some of that money in the United
States. One hundred thirty eight billion dollars, that is a lot
of money even for us, you know.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you.
We go to Greg Meeks of New York.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
There was this--I found out about a Mr. Nazario Jacinto-
Carrillo and his daughter, Filemona. His daughter was 5 years
old. They fled to California from their village in the western
highlands of Guatemala. Nazario was fleeing a local gang that
had threatened to kill him.
Nazario and his daughter encountered a Border Patrol agent
and were promptly arrested at a Border Patrol station in Campo,
California, and Nazario was told that he would be sent to jail.
Filemona, his 5-year-old daughter, was taken by Border
Patrol agents. Nazario said, ``My daughter was screaming and
crying, and so was I.'' Filemona was put in custody of the
Office of Refugee Settlement, and she was transferred to my
State, New York.
Nazario subsequently abandoned his asylum claim and was
flown back to Guatemala. And in the 5 weeks he spent in U.S.
custody, he was never once able to speak to his daughter.
Now, I visited a facility in New York, and one of the
things that was noted to me, that each and every one of the
children that they had there also had their birth certificate,
which tells me that they were not just trying to sneak in, they
were truly trying to seek an asylum so they could have a
hearing because they were running from danger. They wanted to
stop to see a Border Patrol so that they could go through a
hearing. They had some evidence of who their kids were. But
they were treated like criminals.
In fact, one of the children that was examined by the
doctor, we were told, thought they had a toothache, but, upon
further examination, what was in the child's mouth was pellets
from a bullet. That is what they were fleeing from.
So sometimes I do feel inappropriate asking you questions,
because I really do acknowledge you and the service you have
given our Nation in the State Department and the diplomacy. And
watching you--and I know you have to answer some of these
difficult questions.
The problem is I think that the President of the United
States doesn't understand diplomacy and the value of the State
Department. In fact, I was looking at him today when he was--
and international organizations--when he was over talking to
NATO, making all kinds of horrendous statements and separating
us from our allies there. I couldn't help but see the pain on
Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison when she had to admit this was
right up Putin's alley, what was going on, and looking at
General Kelly as he was looking away and drinking water and
drinking water and drinking water as the President was making
his statement.
I say all that because my question to you is going to be
about the United States and our affiliation with the OAS and
the terms of the international American Declaration of the
Rights and Duties of Man, which obligates the states of the
Americas to protect the right to life, liberty, and security
for every human being and to give protection to families and to
grant all children the right to special protection, and, we
know, where a member of the OAS has filed a complaint to the
OAS's Inter-American Commission of Human Rights concerning this
administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy.
So my question to you--and I know sometimes the President
doesn't believe in multilateral and international
organizations--does the Trump administration plan to respond to
the OAS member's complaint to the OAS? Do you know?
Ambassador Merten. Sir, I am unfamiliar with that specific
issue. I am happy to take that back to my colleagues and get
back to you with an answer on that.
Mr. Meeks. Okay. Thank you. And that is probably something
that might be--again, as I said, it is difficult for me to
question you because I know of your work. And some of it may be
more appropriate for some other members of the administration.
I think we touched on this--and, again, to Ms. Lynch, who
is the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, I agree with you
and the work that Administrator Green is doing and what the
USAID does all over the region, and you are addressing the root
cause of the problem.
But these deportation--whether it is DACA or TPS, sending a
lot of these folks, DACA kids who have never been there before,
sending them back, does that help our relationship and the work
that you are doing in trying to deal with the root causes of
the immigration problem that we have at the border now?
Ms. Lynch. Thank you for the question.
We work very much within those countries, so within the
Northern Triangle, in partnership with the interagency and also
the host countries. So our role is really to support the host
country and their efforts in receiving some of these folks.
And so we have worked in the reception centers and through
the International Organization of Migration, IOM, and working
with them to refurbish those centers and also make sure basic
services are available to folks, with the ultimate goal that
they would return to their host and home communities and there
would be institutions there that would be stood up to also
provide basic services and economic opportunities.
Mr. Meeks. I thank you for your service.
Chairman Royce. Ted Yoho of Florida.
Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I appreciate both of you being here.
This is a timely hearing on the Western Hemisphere. I think
we have pivoted away from not just the last administration but
the last 15, 20 years, and it is time that we really put an
emphasis on there, whether it is energy security for our
Caribbean nations like Puerto Rico, our territory, or the U.S.
Virgin Islands or other Caribbean nations. Instead of them
getting their energy from Venezuela, we are implementing energy
from North America and allowing us to break the ties from
Venezuela. And I think this is something that is imperative
that we do.
But I hear over and over again--and, Ambassador Merten, you
were talking about better governance. We have to do more. Ms.
Lynch, you were talking about we have to do more and help these
economies in that.
The numbers I have pulled up, Central America, from Mexico
down to Panama, there is roughly 171 million people. Over the
course of the last 10 years, we have given $5.746 billion in
foreign aid to El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras,
Mexico, and Panama--$5.746 billion.
People are leaving the Northern Triangle because of poor
governance. We are putting money into our aid programs--USAID,
MCC, OPIC, other organizations--to get good governance, to get
economic development in those countries, yet we are not getting
the return on that.
I would like to hear from both of you, what would you do--
we have to do something different. We can't do the same thing
over and over again. And if I throw in the war on drugs, we
have spent over $2 trillion since the 1970s on the war on
drugs. And I think we are all convinced we are not winning the
war on drugs, especially when you have Mexico with 72,000-plus
acres of poppy fields, which goes right into heroin, which
comes right into my country. And then you look at Colombia has
more coca planted today than we did with the drug cartels.
And so I want to know from you, what do we need to do as a
Nation, more specifically this committee, to direct foreign
policy so we get good governance, we get a better economy, and
we get allies that are on board with us that seriously want to
fix this problem?
Ambassador Merten?
Ambassador Merten. Thanks for the question.
And we certainly share your concern about all of the above,
I think particularly the concern about the drug issue, which I
will briefly talk to.
We have developed a good level of cooperation with Mexico,
and one of the things that Secretary Tillerson started was
discussions with Mexico on how we can work together to stop
these transnational criminal organizations----
Mr. Yoho. Let me ask you that, because we were down there
with the chairman a couple years ago, and we want them to get
better on their drug cartel and the drug production, but I
didn't see the want and the desire there as much as we did. How
do we get the desire with them? Do we pull money back? Do we
threaten that? Do we threaten to block trade?
Because we are not getting the results. And I hear what you
are saying. Yeah, we want them to do this.
Ambassador Merten. Yep. We have a new government coming in
Mexico in 5 months, a new President who has just been elected
who will take over. Secretary Pompeo will be traveling there in
the coming days, along with Secretary Mnuchin and Secretary
Nielsen. We are going to start up those discussions again with
this new government----
Mr. Yoho. What is going to be different about those
discussions?
Ambassador Merten. Well, I think we have a new government
to work with. We have to see where we can have leverage with
them and what their interests are.
Mr. Yoho. I feel like we have the cookie that they want.
You know, they want to trade, they want the access to our
markets. I think we need to play hardball different than we
have.
Ms. Lynch, what are your recommendations?
Ms. Lynch. Right. I do think we have considerable successes
in the region, specifically I will talk about in Central
America, where we see on the governance side, for example, we
see the governments of these countries putting their own
resources against some of the objectives and goals that we
mentioned at the outset----
Mr. Yoho. Define ``success.''
Ms. Lynch. Success is when a government--I would say it is
three things: When a government puts its own resources to these
issues, when the private sector invests, and when civil society
acts as a watchdog and can hold their government accountable.
Mr. Yoho. Which countries are you talking about?
Ms. Lynch. I think we are seeing some of these successes in
all of the Northern Triangle countries, whereby with our U.S.
Central America strategy, they proposed a similar strategy, the
Alliance for Prosperity, which aligns very well with ours.
Mr. Yoho. Are we seeing a decrease in crime, a decrease in
migration to our country?
Ms. Lynch. Honduras is a good example, again, where we work
very closely with the interagency and with the Government of
Honduras. In one area, the Riviera area of San Pedro Sula is a
good example where INL works on the law enforcement side, we
work on citizen security side, and, together, yes, we have seen
in past years the homicides reduced by over 60 percent there.
So that is----
Mr. Yoho. I am out of time. I wish we had more time to talk
to you. I appreciate both you being here. I hate to be so
abrupt, but limited time. I would like to talk to you further.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Lois Frankel of Florida.
Ms. Frankel. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I want to thank both our witnesses for being here,
and thank you so much for your service. And, please, my
comments are not really directed at you, and I have a lot of
respect for what USAID does and the development that the State
Department takes part in.
So, first, I want to start with, I guess, sometimes I think
I am just living totally in a bad episode of ``Saturday Night
Live.'' I happen to represent beautiful Palm Beach, where Mar-
a-Lago sits. And very interesting: Donald Trump asked
permission to hire 78 foreign workers at Mar-a-Lago for the
season. Doesn't he think there were American workers who could
take those jobs? Oh, well. I thought that was very interesting.
Anyway, on to another point which I think is actually much
more important, which is the fact that we are witnessing what I
call a Trump-induced crisis at our Mexican border. We have
heard many people comment on this, but I am going to say it
again, because until these families are united I am not going
to shut up about this.
Mothers and fathers who are seeking refuge from extreme
danger and persecution, they finally think they come for
refuge, and what do they do? They get to our border and this
government steals their children right out of their arms.
And you know what is happening now? Our government is so
incompetent and so uncaring that they can't even match up most
of these children. This is going to be a dark stain on this
country, with what is going on here.
I went to the border a couple weeks ago with some other
Members. And look, I am the granddaughter of an immigrant.
Probably everybody here is either the granddaughter or the
grandson of an immigrant, right? And what I saw was
heartbreaking.
And I am just going to talk about meeting with the mothers,
listening to their excruciating crying because their children
were taken from them, they hadn't seen them, didn't know where
they were. And one woman told me that she was told she was
going to go to court for 48 hours, and then it is a month later
and she didn't even know where her child was.
The other day, I had a little roundtable at the Guatemala
center where I live. And they do wonderful work there. And I
heard from a young woman who told me that her cousin came over,
fleeing from gangs and violence in Guatemala, got to the border
with her 10-year-old son. The 10-year-old son is now in
Homestead, in Florida, and guess where the mother is? She was
deported back to Guatemala.
Now, I just got a little--you know, it is a good thing you
get these little alerts from your phone. This is what is
happening now. Listen to this one. One mother had waited 4
months to wrap her arms around her little boy. Another had
waited 3 months to see her little girl again. And when it
finally happened Tuesday in Phoenix, the mothers were met with
cries of rejection from their children. The children didn't
even recognize the mothers. They were screaming for the
caseworkers.
And what I heard yesterday at this roundtable from child
professionals, psychologists, was the trauma that these
children--toxic trauma that these children are experiencing.
Well, we can see that right now. Could you imagine? They don't
even know who their parents are.
So here is what I want to say. I mean, a lot of the
questions I was going to ask have been asked and answered. I
want to thank you for that. But I think there is no question--
and I want to say this--building a wall is not going to solve
the problem. Separating children inhumanely from their parents
is not going to solve this problem. We have got to get into
these countries and do the work.
And I just saw that there is a proposal now to cut $180
million in funding for Central America. To me, that is just
dumb, all right? That is really dumb.
I don't have to ask you what you think about it. You are
good people. I am not going to force you to answer that.
But, Mr. Chair, I just want to conclude by saying that we
have to step up our efforts to try to get to the root causes.
And we need immigration reform that the Congress is responsible
for, and we should do that as soon as we can.
And thank you for patiently being here with us today.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Congresswoman Frankel.
We go now to Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is an important hearing. And I am sure there are other
hearings where my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can
discuss their desire to abolish ICE, but this is very important
issues on the Western Hemisphere.
With a lot of the issues we are seeing on the border, I
think it drives home the importance of motivating people to fix
their own countries and live in a better situation. If you look
at our friends in Colombia, for instance, they went through
decades of very difficult times and, with a little help from
the United States and a lot of desire from their internal
community, have really been able to not only just overcome
their problems but also be a refuge for people in tough areas
like Venezuela.
That is a good example of how we should be handling this
issue so that the issue on the southern border does not
continue to haunt us, and, frankly, we don't have to abolish
ICE in the process as some of my friends want.
Since September 11th, our security focus has been primarily
geared toward the Middle East, where we have spent the past 17
years combating Islamic extremism. And, during these years,
many of our neighboring countries have faced political and
economic instability and domestic insecurity. As a result of
this instability and insecurity, thousands of people have
migrated north and have arrived at our doorstep.
And, as I have mentioned before, I have worked with ICE, as
a member of the Air National Guard, as well as Customs and
Border Protection officers on our southwest border, and I know
firsthand how those insecurities not only affect our Nation's
security but also how they endanger the lives of those
traveling north in search of freedom. And that is why it is
imperative we regain focus on our own hemisphere.
And I believe if we can establish a more stable and secure
Western Hemisphere we can usher in an era of prosperity that
has never been seen before. And I would like to briefly touch
on a few of those countries.
We have talked a lot about Venezuela. It has been the
problem child of our region for the past two decades. In May,
we watched as the corrupt Maduro regime swept the country's
Presidential election, which had been called fraudulent by the
U.S. and our global partners.
Last Congress, I introduced legislation that passed in the
NDAA and would enhance the State Department's capabilities
through the Global Engagement Center to identify and respond to
propaganda and disinformation.
So, Mr. Merten, given Venezuela's prosecution of political
opponents and restriction of freedom of expression, can the GEC
be used to amplify peaceful protests while highlighting the
mass human rights abuses occurring in Venezuela? And what other
tools do you have to handle that?
Ambassador Merten. Thanks so much for the question.
We have not been at all shy about calling out the
Venezuelans and drawing attention to their abuse of the
regime's abuse of its own people. And we have done that in
various fora, not least in the Organization of American States.
And just at the recent summit here in Washington at the OAS, we
were able to get an unprecedented resolution in support of
members of the OAS condemning Venezuela and putting them on a
path to, perhaps, eventual suspension from that organization.
Again, we will not be shy. We have used targeted sanctions
to focus on those people who are responsible for tormenting the
Venezuelan people and----
Mr. Kinzinger. Can you answer, though, specifically about
if you see a role for the Global Engagement Center in this
area?
Ambassador Merten. I am not an expert in that particular
thing, and I will be happy to take that back and get you an
answer on that.
Mr. Kinzinger. And when you talk about what has been done
in OAS, can you talk about the benefits of removing Venezuela
from the OAS that you see?
Ambassador Merten. We have discussed that, as I said, in
the resolution, that was passed by unprecedented support of
countries representing over 90 percent of the population of the
hemisphere, that puts us on a path to consider suspending
Venezuela from the OAS.
Mr. Kinzinger. And after Argentina's economic collapse in
2001, we saw anti-American administrations, led by populist
regimes, drive the country in and out of economic despair.
However, in 2015, under the new leadership of a pro-West, pro-
business President, the Argentinian Government settled their
debts and opened Latin America's third-largest economy for
business. There is still a lot of work to do, specifically in
helping the country's poor and combating a growing
narcotrafficking network, but Argentina is showing a lot of
promise.
Supporting governments in Latin America that shun socialist
and repressive policies and support Western values should be
one of our top priorities. But what concerns me is that, in the
past, Argentina has clawed out of an economic collapse only to
spend more money than they are able to collect through taxes
and trade, resulting in new depressions.
So does State or USAID have any programs geared toward
economic growth or making that government more efficient in how
they spend their money?
Ambassador Merten. Well Argentina has a relatively new
President that we have engaged with, and we are very supportive
of his market-oriented reforms.
I think, in our analysis, that, absent reforms generated
from inside the country, that realizing their own shortcomings
in previous legislation and mistakes that they have made in the
past is the way that they are going to find the proper way
forward. So we are very optimistic about their approach to
resolving their own problems.
Mr. Kinzinger. Thank you.
I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Castro.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you both for your testimony today.
Many Americans and many around the world have been shocked
by the Trump administration's use of family separation,
separating young kids from their parents, as a deterrent--what
the administration would consider a deterrent to having people
attempt to come here, including those who are seeking asylum,
legally, to the United States.
And a few weeks ago now, I was one of the Members of
Congress who went down and visited two of the centers who are
keeping these kids. One of them is what is called a tender-age
shelter, and it is called Casa Presidente in Brownsville,
Texas. And myself and Sheila Jackson-Lee and a few others held
an 8-month-old named Roger who had been separated from his
family, and the staff told us they believed that he came with
his sister because his mother had died. There was a 1-year-old
girl named Leah who was also in the room with us.
What role does the State Department play in the
reunification of these young children?
Ambassador Merten. Sir, thanks for the question.
And as I believe I have said in earlier questions similar
to this, we work in countries with our host governments, we
work in places like Central America to try and eliminate the
root causes of this. In terms of----
Mr. Castro. Well, but I mean specifically when parents--
some of these parents have been deported now. Is the State
Department involved, if they are back in the Northern Triangle
countries, in trying to get their kids back? Is the State
Department involved at all? Because HHS is not in Guatemala or
Honduras or El Salvador.
Ambassador Merten. I will be honest with you, I am not sure
that our consular officials are involved in that process. I can
take that back and get you a clearer answer on that, but I am
unaware of that.
Mr. Castro. I hope that you will. And I will submit my
question for the record, because I would like to know if the
State Department that deals with other nations and, of course,
our domestic agencies here, whether they can represent to the
American people that none of these children has died or been
severely injured while in the custody of the United States
Government. That is my question.
I would also like to echo the comments by Ranking Member
Engel and also my colleague Congresswoman Torres about CICIG
and the work that it is doing to fight corruption in Guatemala.
And although I think it is fair to always be critical of any
organization and take a critical look, I think it is important,
when we think about helping these countries get back on their
feet, to make sure that we have an organization that is trying
to root out corruption and really restore the rule of law.
Let me ask you this, because Congressman Kinzinger spoke a
minute ago about making sure that countries fix the things that
are wrong with themselves. And I agree. I think that the best
antidote to having many people want to come to the United
States who are undocumented is to make sure that the
economies--to work with the nations to the south to make sure
that the economies there are strong.
But let me ask you, if you are Mexico and there is the
United States and an incredible demand for drugs coming from
the United States, what strategy is going to be successful to
completely root out the trafficking of drugs to the United
States, where you have a huge demand for it?
And because Mexico is not Colombia, which, obviously, is in
South America, but has basically got a 2,000-mile border with
the United States, so, in other words, geographically, it is a
central country for drug trafficking routes, how do they combat
that?
Ambassador Merten. This is not exactly an area that I have
expertise in the terms of domestic demand. My understanding is
that the administration is putting together policies to look at
fentanyl and look at ways that we can reduce people's use of
these drugs.
In terms of working with other countries, which is where we
operate, the State Department, we have excellent cooperation
with Mexico and with other countries in the region, including
Colombia, to work with them, to reduce the amount of these
things that they produce, that they prosecute those who are
responsible. As I mentioned earlier, we have this working group
with the Mexicans on combating and Central Americans combating
transnational criminal organizations. This is ongoing work. It
is important work, and we believe we are hopeful that it will
ultimately be successful.
Mr. Castro. And my last comment, and the reason I pose that
question is because as we try to help them figure this out, I
think for them, if you are a relatively poor nation where the
rule of law is not what it should be and there is incredible
corruption, and you have got people who are not making much
money, very poor who are basically tempted to go into the drug
trade, or be part of the drug trade, and there is an incredible
demand right up north for those drugs, the challenge of rooting
that out is gigantic. I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Garrett, Tom Garrett, Virginia.
Mr. Garrett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the
witnesses. I want to ask a series of very brief questions
because I have a finite amount of time. I want to start with
your understanding of the nature of the hearing today. The
hearing that I was briefed on was entitled, ``Advancing U.S.
Interests in the Western Hemisphere.'' Is that your
understanding, as well?
Ambassador Merten. That is my understanding.
Mr. Garrett. And you all are from the U.S. Department of
State, correct?
Ambassador Merten. [No verbal response.]
Mr. Garrett. And yet it seems about half the room is
focused primarily almost exclusively on separations at the
border. Is that correct?
Ambassador Merten. We have got a lot of questions on that.
Mr. Garrett. A lot of questions on that. And so, in the
Department of State, do you all have oversight of HHS?
Ambassador Merten. We do not.
Mr. Garrett. Okay. Do you have oversight of DHS?
Ambassador Merten. We do not.
Mr. Garrett. How about USCIS?
Ambassador Merten. No.
Mr. Garrett. How about USCBP?
Ambassador Merten. We do not.
Mr. Garrett. How about Customs and Border Patrol--I'm
sorry, how about ICE?
Ambassador Merten. We do not.
Mr. Garrett. So none of those are within your purview and
yet, you have ``gotten a lot of questions on that subject
matter.'' It is amazing to me how well some people talk off of
talking points. In fact, right now, the number of people under
the age of 5 who we think are separated from their families is
just over 100, and yet quite candidly, just off of the
preplanned talking points, we have covered about 14 percent of
their cases in this committee hearing today. That is amazing.
But what we have covered zero percent of, and pardon me
while I go on a little bit of a discourse here, are the roughly
4,000 Americans killed every year by unlicensed drivers who are
here illegally. In other words, mathematically speaking, and we
can't quantify these numbers because while we know about 13
percent of all highway fatalities nationally are caused by
people who are here illegally, we don't quantify fatalities
specifically by immigration status, however, what we do know is
in the 10 States where you are licensed to drive, regardless of
your legal status, Maryland, California, et cetera, the number
of highway deaths caused by people here illegally is closer to
14.5 percent.
And so I guess if we looked at the numbers and we compared
the number of people who are under the age of 5 who we think
are currently separated from their families, there would be
about 40 Americans permanently separated from their families
every single year for every one of them, but nobody has talked
about that. And you all from the State Department and again, my
condolences and gratefulness for you being here, but we have
just determined, and I wish that I had gone earlier in the
hearing because maybe we could have saved some time, that you
are not responsible for HHS, DHS, USCIS, USCBP or ICE, which a
lot of my friends across the aisle seem to want to abolish.
So I apologize vicariously for the waste of your time, and
I want to cover another thing real quickly that might be
further within your purview. My good and distinguished
colleagues and friends across the aisle to include Mr. Meeks,
Mr. Keating, Mr. Engel, Mr. Sherman, Ms. Bass, and Ms. Frankel
all have talked about horrific occurrences of gang violence in
Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador and Mexico, and it
really gives me pause because I don't think that everyone in
these countries are violent gang members, do you all, based on
your experience? The Northern Triangle has lots of good people,
right? They are not all gang members, right?
Ambassador Merten. Of course.
Mr. Garrett. And yet, we have heard horrible stories, in
fact, we heard about Jose and Brian, whose mom was raped and
murdered, and they came to this country because they were
afraid, and I quote, ``the same thing might happen to them.''
But all people in those countries, they are not bad people,
right?
Ambassador Merten. [No verbal response.]
Mr. Garrett. There are some gang members in those
countries, right? And some of the people who are there are good
people, right? Likewise, what we haven't heard of is that any
gang members might ever leave those countries and come here.
Now I understand it is somewhat beyond the scope and purview of
the responsibilities of the Department of State, but do we have
reason to believe that some of the people who might come into
this country illegally could also be gang members? Could that
be? I mean, mathematically speaking, just give me a wild guess.
Ambassador Merten. I mean, I don't think--certainly, we at
the State Department don't know.
Mr. Garrett. Do you think it is possible? I mean, you have
risen to the level of Ambassador. I am just asking you to
posit.
Ambassador Merten. I mean, in the realm of possibility, a
lot of things are possible.
Mr. Garrett. Right. Okay. And we have heard that a wall is
not the solution, but just like a door being closed and locked
might prevent someone from coming in a room, but doesn't always
prevent someone from coming in a room, it might also be part of
a solution while it is not panacea.
So I continue that it is remarkable to see this concern for
these just over 100 people under the age of 5, but not within
the purview of the Department of State, nor the scope of
identifying and addressing, let me see, U.S. interests in the
Western Hemisphere. What is it that you would like to have been
asked about today very quickly that you haven't been asked
about because nobody in this room seems to want to talk about
the subject matter and why you are here, Mr. Merten,
Ambassador.
Ambassador Merten. Sir, I think the questions we have got
today are relevant to----
Mr. Garrett. What is it that you would have like to have
been asked about, what question would you like me to ask you?
Ambassador Merten. Well, I would like you to ask me about
the situation in Haiti, that I know reasonably well.
Mr. Garrett. Outstanding. I have got 20 seconds. Please go
over the situation in Haiti, and I apologize for having been
distracted there. People are running for election. They have
got goals here, things they want to do.
Ambassador Merten. Sure. Very quickly, we are very
disturbed by the recent unrest in Haiti. We are happy to see
that the Haitian police and the Haitian Government have been
able to reclaim control of the streets. We hope that the
Haitian Government continues to work to pacify the situation,
the political situation in the country. And in Haiti, we really
see that the answer to why people are out on the streets upset
rioting is because there is a lack of economic opportunity. And
this is something we drive home with them at every possible
opportunity, they need to attract investors who want to come to
Haiti, and there are investors who want to come to Haiti, and I
will leave it there.
Mr. Garrett. Thank you so much, Ambassador. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Royce. We appreciate the State Department. Myself
and another colleague here was on the phone over the weekend
with the situation room there dealing with some of our
constituents who were in harm's way in Haiti, and we appreciate
the State Department's efforts to get that resolved. And we
also, Ambassador, appreciate very much your expertise in Haiti
and all the time you spent there.
We are going to go to Robin Kelly of Illinois.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I hope you don't find
my question a waste of time, but thank you for being here, and
I would just say there is a lot of things--a lot of ways people
get killed that we don't talk about here, like gun violence
prevention. I just had to say that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I think it is important as we hold
these hearings to remember the young families who are escaping
violence in Latin America and traveling to the land of
opportunity. A young 14-year old girl from El Salvador
identified by her initials, VFB, arrived in the United States
in May with her mother fleeing violence after her stepfather
was murdered in a church. The two of them fled to save their
lives.
At the time of their arrival, our government announced the
implementation of a zero tolerance policy. As we watched the
consequences of this policy unfold, we saw thousands of
children, as we have talked about, being separated from their
parents, and she being one of them. Believing that she was
being taken to give a bath, VFB was instead being lured away
from her mom, not aware that she would not see her mom again.
After being transferred to a shelter in Connecticut, the
girl's mother remained detained in Encino, Texas. Finally,
after 39 days, the young lady could hear the comfort of her
mother's voice when she was finally allowed a 10-minute phone
call. And now in July, VFB and her mother are still separated.
We must get to the root problems that are causing increased
migration with families giving up everything for the chance of
a better life, just like you talked about what we need to do in
Haiti. The United States must do more to push for change on the
ground in these countries. That is why I was so disappointed by
the State Department's decision last year surrounding the
Honduran election.
In November, the State Department chose to certify
Honduras' conditional funding, meaning you provided the
Honduran Government with direct U.S. funding just days after a
disputed election with the Organization of American State
Secretary General Luis Almagro eventually concluded was
characterized by irregularities and deficiencies with very low
technical quality and lacking integrity. President Hernandez
said he would move forward with electoral reform, yet he has
done very little to date. In the past, he has also said he
would remove the military police on the streets, yet there is
still no timeline to do so.
What is the State Department doing to pressure the Honduran
Government to make electoral reforms and to take the military
police off the streets? And also, what leverage do you have
given how quickly you certified the Honduran Government after
its disputed election? Thank you.
Ambassador Merten. On the Honduran certification, my
understanding is that that is a process that takes some time to
do. I know we do certifications for Haiti and other countries.
The determination was made in our--in the building in the State
Department, ultimately by the Secretary of State, that they had
met the criteria for certification, and that is why we
recommended that.
Ms. Kelly. Can you share some of the criteria that they----
Ambassador Merten. I can't speak to the exact criteria for
Honduras. That is not an area I work with on a daily or weekly
basis. Regarding the idea of military servicing as police, it
is unfortunate, like you see in many countries in the
hemisphere, where military perform police functions. In
general, our view is that is not a good thing, that there is a
role for military and there is role for police, and we believe
that those two should be separated.
Ms. Kelly. And do you know if there is a timeline to do
something about the police on--or the military on the street?
Ambassador Merten. I don't know that there is a timeline
no, ma'am, sorry.
Ms. Kelly. And also, is there a general certification
criteria, or is this something different for every----
Ambassador Merten. My understanding is that for every
country there are--and maybe this is something you can speak
to--there are different criteria that are established, usually
by the appropriators.
Ms. Lynch. Yes, and we can get the specific criteria for
you, if you would like.
Ms. Kelly. I would appreciate that.
Ms. Lynch. Absolutely.
Ms. Kelly. Believe it or not, I yield back early.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. We go to Paul Cook from
California.
Mr. Cook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to apologize for
being late to the committee. I had a markup in Natural
Resources. I want to thank you for being here today.
Ms. Lynch, it is good to see you again. Our committee had
nine members that went to the Summit of the Americas, and you
spent a lot of time with us, and I am really, really impressed
with what you are doing in many of the countries, and also saw
some of your work in Egypt. So thank you for being here.
My questions, Mr. Ambassador, I did want to address the
Peruvian agrarian bonds, and this is something that has been
bouncing around for a while. It affects San Bernardino County.
This is to resolve the claims of many of my constituents. These
are land bonds as they are known in the--they have been
floating around for long years, and directly affected many of
the pension plans in San Bernardino.
The role of the government right now is they don't want to
address it. They think that this happened 50 years ago, and
that this was under a different regime, and they are not--they
just don't want to address it. And I keep pushing it on them,
and I get some pushback. So I am hoping you can kind of help me
out with that. Are you familiar with it at all?
Ambassador Merten. I am generally familiar with the case,
yes, not with the specifics, however.
Mr. Cook. Okay. The other thing I wanted to talk about,
when we were down there, we had a weekend trip, as I said it
was a great codel. It was short-lived. It was only a weekend
basically, a Friday and came back on a Monday, and we met with
21 countries. And I got to be honest with you, I came back just
exhausted, but never learned so much in my life.
But one of the things on the tail end of it, we met with
nine of the Caribbean countries. And you hear the same theme
over and over and over again, that the United States has kind
of forgotten or ignored the Western Hemisphere, same thing. And
even more so, in the Caribbean, and even more so with some of
these smaller countries. And it is no wonder that some of the
very small ones, and not just Caribbean countries, they are
susceptible to some of the economic manipulations that the
Venezuelan Government is making in returns for rebates on oil,
and this is going to be a continuing problem. And you have to
do the math in regards to the OAS. Each one of these countries
has one vote, same as the United States. You add them together,
and whatever changes you want to do in the OAS that is going to
affect it, it ain't gonna happen. At least, I am not very good
at math. I am not very good in a lot of things, but something
we have got to talk to these countries in the Caribbean.
One of the big concerns, hurricanes coming. Every year, we
are going to have a hurricane, we are going to have one, two,
three, four, five, and here we go again trying to get aid down
there, whether it is--Puerto Rico isn't a country, it is a
territory, as you know.
But here we go again. Now I am from the military. I know
how successful prepositioning equipment is, and we had talked
about this prepositioning many of these supplies, have command
post exercises where we go through the drill when it happens,
whether it is in our own southern states or in the Caribbean,
so we don't start from scratch like this because we know it is
going to happen. So I would hope that we agendasize that, and I
think my staff has kind of mentioned that to you, that this was
a big, big issue with our committee, and just don't--we are
going to keep pushing that at all.
The other thing I wanted to just to ask you in terms of--I
know that Secretary Pompeo is interested in Mexico and
everything else, but do you get that same feeling that, Hey, we
got to--we have to start paying more and more attention because
there is a lot of countries down there. We have got China, we
got Iran. Ambassador, I didn't mean to talk so much, but if you
can kind of address that absence of attention to the area.
Ambassador Merten. Yes, thanks for your comment and
question, sir. I would respectfully disagree that we have been
neglectful of our neighbors in the hemisphere. We have a whole
bureau of people that work on a daily basis with this. USAID
has large bureau that works with them on a daily basis. We have
had the Vice-President who has traveled to the region several
times already. We have, regarding the Caribbean, H.R. 4939,
which has been the guiding light.
Mr. Cook. I don't mean to cut you off, but the chairman is
going cut me off anyway. The only thing I want to say is
perception is reality.
Ambassador Merten. Understood.
Mr. Cook. And if you poll those countries down there, their
perception is they have been ignored, and that is all I am
going to say there, and I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Congressman Cook. We go to Dina
Titus of Nevada.
Ms. Titus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to have to
agree with Mr. Cook. I appreciate your optimism, Mr. Merten.
You have said it in your opening statement, and now that we
have these great bonds and that nothing is more important than
our relationship down there, but actually, history tells a very
different story. Our relations with Latin America over the
years, at best, have been benign neglect, and at worst have
been shoring up either with troops or resources, governments
that practice state terrorism. Now we are ripping children from
the arms of their parents, and current policy is so bad and
relations so abominable that the OAS recently unanimously
passed a resolution condemning our behavior. So I don't really
think that is anything to brag about.
I would go back to something, though, that was discussed
hours ago, you brought it up, Ms. Lynch, that we have a policy
that tends toward self-sufficiency, but there are other players
in the region who have a policy that is more about dependency.
This worries me because I have seen it all over the world. We
have seen it in Southeast Asia, we see it in Africa. We see it
in Eastern Europe. The U.S. pulls back. We create a power
vacuum. In moves Russia. In moves China. And now, certainly,
there are examples of that in Latin America. We heard about the
tanks that Russia is selling in Latin America. We know that
they are increasingly meddling politically and economically
through propaganda. I wonder, have you asked the President if
he is going to bring this up with Mr. Putin when he meets with
him next week, that this could be causing a problem, the tanks
and the other activities? They have supplied global navigation
satellite system in Managua. They have got a joint
counternarcotics center there. I mean, they are moving in when
we are not doing much.
Also, let's be specific about China. Latin America is now
their second largest destination for Chinese investment, and
they are the largest trading partner for Argentina Brazil,
Chile, and Peru, so this is not something minor. They are
putting $2 billion into the ports in Peru as part of a $10
billion Chinese investment in energy, mining, and shipping, and
telecommunications. So even if it is creating dependency when
they are offering those kind of things, it is kind of hard for
us to compete with it or counter it with the policy as you
described, Mr. Merten, of telling them it is not a good idea to
do this in the long run. Well, they are interested in the short
run.
So I would say, in addition to having talked to the
President about Russia's involvement, how can we possibly
compete when we have a diminishing budget at USAID, they want
to cut that back all the time. It is already very small. We
have got kind of a demoralized, understaffed State Department.
You have got a President who insults our allies. You have got a
policy of zero tolerance at the border. How can we compete with
the competition down there to build those strong relations that
we need?
Ambassador Merten. Well, I do think we do have strong
relations, and we have a history of engagement, we have a
history of shared values with all the countries in the
hemisphere, and particularly, our close neighbors Canada,
Mexico, Caribbean countries. We have diaspora communities here
in this country who contribute to our national well-being.
So I think that we have a lot to offer. We also have aside
from all the good things that our colleagues at USAID are doing
throughout the hemisphere and our colleagues from the state INL
are doing, we also have a very vibrant private sector, and I
think that while our private sector does well exporting and
trading with Latin America, we also have a lot of investment
there. And I think that is a good vector of bringing economic
opportunity, and hopefully, hope to these places.
Ms. Titus. Well, I agree with that, and I think the USAID
does a wonderful job. I think they are one of the best
agencies. We get more from them by giving them less than any
agency I can think of, but as far as the commercial aspect, we
are not even being very helpful there because the one party in
this Congress doesn't even support the Export-Import Bank,
which would help with some of the investment there. So I just--
on what front are we really being successful? And I know you
have to answer that in a positive way, and I appreciate that,
and I would like to be optimistic, too, but I think we need to
be realistic, as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. We go to Mr. Chris Smith of New
Jersey.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me just
make clear for the record that after being unjustly jailed for
3 years, Igor Bitkov and his wife Irina, who spent 3 months
unjustly jailed, and their daughter Anastasia, another 3 months
for being unjustly jailed, Igor got out on bail, but they were
told they are not free. They are under house arrest. I just
confirmed it again within the last couple of minutes with their
attorney that they are under house arrest. Significantly, on
May 23--and I mentioned earlier before in terms of the
chronology--2 days before my hearing, which was in this room,
the court ruled and allowed them out of jail. That was the
constitutional court.
That wasn't enough for CICIG however. On May 23, CICIG went
back to the constitutional court--yet another action against
the Bitkovs.
Chairman Royce. This would be the third time.
Mr. Smith. Yes. And so there is a pattern, I think, here.
On June 21, the constitutional court, in contrast to its
previous decisions, exonerated the Bitkovs under the Palermo
Protocol. I remind my colleagues that under Palermo--I mean, we
are talking about migrants, these are asylum seekers, a family
that was escaping the impunity of Vladimir Putin and his
cronies. Article 5 makes clear that migrants shall not become
liable to criminal prosecution under the protocol for the fact
of having been the object of conduct set forth in Article 6 of
the protocol. And then it is clearly pointed out that producing
a fraudulent travel or identity document procuring or providing
or possessing such a document. So the Palermo Protocol couldn't
be clearer, and anyone who doubts that they were escaping a
tyrannical action against them just look at the record, it
couldn't be more clear.
So the constitutional court now has allowed a CICIG action
because the Bitkovs got false drivers' licenses and credit
cards. Again, they wanted to change their identity. We have
witness protection in this country when someone wants to change
their identity in order to escape the mob or the Mafia, in this
case the Russian Mafia, and now they are bringing another
action. And what is it--I want to ask with respect, what is the
driving force behind CICIG after first being part of an action
that got 19 years for Igor, 14 years in prison for his wife,
and 14 years in prison for their daughter? I mean, that is what
the judge found. That is what the court found. What is the
driving obsession here? When you say there has been an
investigation and you found no evidence, how deep was that
investigation? How much was looked into the Russian connection
here?
We know for a fact that thousands of businesswomen and men
in Russia routinely have their businesses taken away from them.
I cut my eye teeth on Russian human rights issues in 1982 in my
first term on a trip to the Soviet Union on behalf of Soviet
Refusniks--Jews who wanted to emigrate--including people like
Yuli Koshirovsky, great people, who then had all these false
charges brought against them and often were sent to psychiatric
prisons, or places like Perm Camp 35. I actually visited Perm
Camp 35 in the Ural Mountains just a few years later, and heard
horror tales of men who had been taken and tortured by the
Russians, in that case the Soviets, but now we have a
continuation of that, and again, the Russians went looking for
the Bitkovs, took them several years, and then they found them,
and had a willing partner called CICIG to join in the efforts.
It is all laid out in nauseating detail unfortunately, and yet,
there are people who suggest that this is an overreach on our
part trying to raise these issues.
And I said it before, Bill Browder--he is the subject of
unrelenting attacks by the Russian Government, unrelenting. I
was in a bilateral at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly as head
of the United States delegation these last 5 days in Germany,
and at that meeting that was chaired by Pyotr Tolstoy from the
Russian side from the Duma was some of the people who had been
held to account under the Magnitsky Act in terms of their
wrongdoing. They were sitting right at the table and took great
umbrage of the Magnitsky Act. They don't like it. We believe in
sanctions. We believe in personalizing them as a way of really
trying to inhibit bad behavior and hold to account. But now we
have a situation where a family, who is at grave risk in my
opinion--their physical safety is my overriding concern. I want
to keep them out of prison because I think they have done no
wrong. They have done what any of us would do for our families
if a gangster group came after us, and certainly changing a
passport to a new name, certainly having a driver's license
with a different name, and now CICIG is going after them
because of their driver's license. It begs credulity. It is
beyond the pale as to why. Can you tell us why?
Ambassador Merten. Sir, I can't speak to the
particularities of how CICIG works internally. I will say in
terms of beyond what I told you about the Bitkovs before, our
Embassy has engaged with the Guatemalan Government. We have got
assurances from them that they will not send the Bitkovs back
to Russia.
Chairman Royce. If I could interrupt, would the gentleman
yield?
Mr. Smith. There is no extradition.
Chairman Royce. How about the son? Since the Russian banks
are now asking that the young son, who is maybe under 3 years
of age, be returned from Guatemala to Russia, do you have
assurances of that, too?
Ambassador Merten. I hate to admit this, but you have
exhausted my expertise in this subject, and rather than mislead
you, I would rather get back to you.
Chairman Royce. If the gentleman would yield, Ambassador, I
would suggest in a situation where you are looking at, in
sentences of 17 years, 14 years for the wife, 14 years for the
daughter, who had been, after the bank tried to--after certain
individuals in the bank tried to take control of the company,
had been abducted and raped in St. Petersburg for 3 days, for
her to get 14 years, for the younger son to be in a situation
where the Russian Government is trying to have him returned to
Russia, and given the past pattern of behavior, you would have
to ask yourself when these sentences are longer than sentences
for drug trafficking, for murder, for even terrorism in
country, there is something a little unusual about the
particulars of this case, and that is why, when I said earlier,
we are going to work with U.S. U.N. on investigations here in
terms of this set of circumstances, it is, I think, incumbent
upon all of us to dig a little deeper and get a little bit more
understanding of this case.
And I would ask you to do that and then get back in touch
with Chairman Smith and myself and other members of this
committee that are interested because at the end of the day,
our goal is to have CICIG work effectively. They are in an
environment where they are taking on corruption. But the one
thing you and I know is that the Russians try to influence the
outcome in any case where they go after anyone who tries to
flee their government's control. And if you ask yourself how
far will they go, apparently poison by radiation is not out of
bounds. We know of two cases where that was done in the U.K.
So when you have an arm of the state, a state bank bringing
a case in Guatemala after bringing a case where they had
previously--anyway, I have exhausted our time, but I think
Chairman Smith made the point, and I would just reiterate it.
At the end of the day, we want CICIG to be effective. For
that to happen, we need the reforms in place, but again--and I
see Mr. Cook here. Were you seeking time?
Mr. Cook. I came back in because we are planning a trip, as
part of my committee, to Guatemala, and obviously this is a
huge, huge issue. We are all concerned about it. I know Mrs.
Torres, it is something that we are concerned and I share the
chairman's feelings about Russia and their history, and, so,
this is something that is not going to go away and obviously
this is going to be our top agenda when we go down there. Thank
you.
Mr. Smith. If I can just conclude, Mr. Chairman, and I
thank you for----
Chairman Royce. I yield back.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. Your comments. To the Bitkovs, they
live with the Sword of Damocles hanging over their head every
single day. I mean, they have got very poor treatment in
prison. They had a huge, huge SWAT-like team take them to
prison in the first place, totally beyond all reason. And what
that has done--especially to Anastasia, who was abducted, and
this is the way the Russian oligarchy, the Russian leadership
works. They go after businessmen and women who are successful
to fleece them, and if you don't play ball, they set examples
for certain people. To think that CICIG has anything to do with
that absolutely undermines their mandate. Who doesn't want to
get rid of corruption? Every single one of us. But if personnel
is policy, which I think it is, and there are any corrupt
people within the organization called CICIG, that needs to be
weeded out and beyond that, not just weeded out--anyone who is
complicit in any of this, that is why I have asked very
specific questions about collusion, they need to be prosecuted.
And no games. I thank you.
Chairman Royce. Okay. With that we thank the witnesses for
being with us today, and we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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