[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 26 (Thursday, March 12, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1885-S1886]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. HUTCHISON (for herself and Mr. Domenici):
  S. 1750. A bill to amend section 490 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 
1961 to establish an additional certification with respect to major 
drug-producing and drug-transit countries, and for other purposes; to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations.


         mexico and the drug certification process legislation

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today with the 
distinguished junior Senator from Texas (Mrs. Hutchison) to introduce a 
bill to bring some much needed credibility and flexibility to the drug 
certification process.
  As my colleagues are aware, the President recently announced his 
annual decision regarding which countries would be certified as ``fully 
cooperating'' with the United States in the drug war. Once again, in 
the face of overwhelming evidence that full certification was 
unwarranted, the President found that Mexico has fully cooperated. This 
decision essentially means that the President has announced to the 
American people and

[[Page S1886]]

the world that Mexico is a full partner in our anti-narcotics efforts.
  Mr. President, I understand that Mexico has made some progress in 
recent years in combating the drug cartels. And for that, the Mexican 
government deserves some credit. But, I simply cannot accept the 
Administration's flawed decision that Mexico has fully cooperated with 
the United States. There were too many instances of drug-related 
corruption and violence in the past year which support the opposite 
conclusion--that Mexico deserves something less than full 
certification.
  Mr. President, I could take all day to explain to my colleagues in 
the Senate why I believe that Mexico does not deserve full 
certification this year. Instead, I would like to point out a just few 
facts which lead me to that conclusion.
  First, I would direct my colleagues to a Washington Post article 
dated March 9th--just this week--entitled ``2,000 Miles of Disarray in 
the Drug War--U.S./Mexico Border Effort `A Shambles.' '' The article 
points out what I think everyone, including the President of the United 
States, knows about our border drug effort with Mexico: it simply has 
been a failure.
  The article notes that despite the official rhetoric from Washington 
praising Mexico's cooperation, U.S. law enforcement officials on the 
ground are saying that the joint U.S.-Mexico effort to establish 
Bilateral Border Task Forces to combat the drug cartels has been a 
disaster. I think the time has come for Congress and the President to 
pay more attention to what our law enforcement officials at the front 
lines of the drug war are saying about Mexico and its level of 
cooperation. It's clear the views of law enforcement are far different 
than those of the diplomats at the State Department and the embassies.
  According to the news article, for the past 14 months, DEA, FBI and 
Customs agents have refused to cross the border into Mexico because 
Mexico will not allow them to carry weapons to protect themselves. 
These agents were supposed to be the front line in the U.S. 
contribution to the joint border effort, but Mexico's unwillingness to 
allow them even the most basic protections has rendered our agreement 
to work together meaningless.
  The news story also states that corruption has almost completely 
eroded the trust and confidence of U.S. officials in the integrity of 
Mexican law enforcement. The report notes that at least five senior 
Mexican officers involved in the Border Task Force program have been 
arrested on suspicion of taking bribes from the drug cartels, 
participating in the kidnaping of key witnesses or stealing confiscated 
cocaine.
  One former Mexican federal police commander in charge of intelligence 
gathering for the Border Task Forces was fired last year for taking 
bribes from the cartels. U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials now 
have identified this individual as a suspected drug trafficker in 
Arizona, but U.S. requests for information from Mexico about his 
activities have gone unanswered. How is that ``full cooperation?'' I 
can tell you that U.S. law enforcement officials do not think this is 
full cooperation--Tom Constantine, the head of the DEA said as much in 
a recent Senate hearing.
  Mexico also has failed to cooperate in another key area: extradition. 
Once again, the Administration claims that Mexico has increased its 
willingness to cooperate with the United States on extradition. Yet, 
once again, there is no evidence that Mexico has made efforts to 
capture and extradite to the U.S. for trial any high-ranking Mexican 
national drug lords. Our law enforcement officials risk their lives 
gathering information to obtain indictments against Mexican drug 
traffickers, yet very few are ever captured and sent here for trial. In 
fact, the President's own 1998 International Narcotics Control Strategy 
Report, which is full of information which is supposed to justify the 
President's decision, states that ``to date, no major Mexican drug 
traffickers have been extradited to the United States.'' To this 
Senator, that is unacceptable.
  Mr. President, I realize that drug related violence has become an 
epidemic in Mexico. The recent death of Amado Carillo Fuentes, the 
cartel kingpin known as ``the Lord of the Skies,'' has lead to 
increased violence as the other cartels work to realign themselves in 
an attempt to take over Carillo's turf. In fact, recent reports are 
that two of the largest remaining Mexican cartels (the Caro Quintero 
and Arellano Felix organizations) have joined together to form ``The 
Federation''--the largest drug cartel in Mexico. This presents new and 
more difficult law enforcement questions for the United States and 
Mexico.
  But until recently, I did not realize how deeply the drug cartels 
have become embedded in Mexican and even parts of U.S. popular culture. 
Then I read a March story in the Washington Post about 
``narcocorridos,'' Mexican folk ballads which tell stories about the 
violent exploits of drug smugglers. Narcocorridos glamorize drug-
related shootouts with the police, betrayals, paid executions and the 
wealth associated with narcotics trafficking. There apparently are 
hundreds of music groups recording and singing these songs, which are 
wildly popular in Mexico and parts of southern California. That is a 
disturbing comment on the power the drug cartels possess.
  Mr. President, I have not sought recognition today simply to talk 
about Mexico's shortcomings and what I believe are the flaws in the 
President's certification decision. I realize that the certification 
statute itself is flawed. It's too inflexible and is written in a way 
which leads to the absurd results we have seen with respect to Mexico 
in the last several years. We in Congress have a duty to take a look at 
this law and figure out a way to fix it.
  So today with my colleagues from other border states, we have 
introduced a bill which I believe is a good starting point in the 
debate about the certification process. Our bill would take what I 
think are two important steps in improving the certification statute. 
The bill: (1) provides the President with a new option, called 
``qualified certification''; and (2) emphasizes the important 
contribution our drug-fighting U.S. law enforcement agencies make by 
giving them a greater role in the certification process.
  Under our bill, the President would no longer be forced to make the 
decision between ``full certification'' or decertification, as is the 
case under current law. The fatal flaw of the certification statute is 
that it rigidly requires the President to make a choice between ``full 
cooperation'' and ``no cooperation'', when in reality many countries 
fall somewhere in between.
  Our bill allows the President to make a ``qualified certification'' 
of countries which have cooperated with the United States, but have 
failed to make adequate progress in certain areas. Countries which 
receive a designation of qualified certification would continue to be 
eligible for the full spectrum of multilateral and bilateral 
assistance--they would not be penalized as they are if they are de-
certified.
  Instead, qualified certification would trigger the creation of a 
high-level contact group headed by the Attorney General and consisting 
of the Secretary of State, the heads of the DEA and FBI, the Drug Czar 
and others. The members of the contact group would be tasked with 
meeting with their high ranking counterparts in other countries to set 
measurable goals relating to law enforcement matters like extradition, 
eradication, money laundering or other appropriate counter-narcotics 
concerns.
  The President then would consult with the Attorney General and issue 
a report to Congress setting forth the goals established by the high-
level contact group and report back the following year on the progress 
made in meeting those goals. The President also would be required to 
take a country's progress into consideration when making the 
certification decision the following year.
  Mr. President, I have long believed that law enforcement agencies are 
capable of providing the most accurate picture of whether a country has 
fully cooperated with our anti-drug efforts. I also have felt that the 
certification statute is too rigid, too punitive and fails to recognize 
the critical role U.S. law enforcement plays in our counter-narcotics 
strategy. I think this bill is a step in the right direction, a step 
towards fixing the certification process. I thank my colleague from 
Texas.
                                 ______