[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 13 (Tuesday, January 23, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H865-H867]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        NAFTA AND THE DRUG TRADE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this evening we are going to listen to the 
President of the United States, and I have no doubt in the State of the 
Union he will talk about the war on terrorism, and he will talk about 
the need to create jobs in Iraq to stabilize the terrible situation 
there, and he will talk about more funds for reconstruction of Iraq. 
Our Nation has already spent over $500 billion and rising in that sad 
country.
  But I would like to focus on the United States just for a second, if 
I could, and talk about the terrorism focused inside of this country 
and point out that 90 percent of all the drugs that are smuggled into 
this country enter through our border with Mexico, and that is 
according to our State Department. In fact, under NAFTA, the North 
American Free Trade Agreement, which his father negotiated, drug and 
drug-related smuggling across the Mexican border has risen to over $142 
billion a year, according to our Drug Enforcement Agency.

                              {time}  1500

  Every single community in our country is affected, not just border 
communities. Every single jail, every single sheriff, every single law 
enforcement official, every single prison. Our communities are infected 
with burglaries, with robberies, with personal assaults related to the 
abuse of drugs in our country. I will be very interested to see what 
the President has to say about that war on terrorism tonight that 
affects every single neighborhood in this country.
  NAFTA brings a significant increase in cargo traffic across our 
southern border and thus strains the enforcement efforts of our border 
patrols and enables traffickers and terrorists. In fact, 9,300 
commercial trucks cross our border daily. 9,300 more trucks. And do you 
know how many we inspect? Five percent. Five percent. So there is a 95 
percent chance for smugglers who are out there, whatever they want to 
get into this country, that will be their rate of success.
  Now, the Mexican Government is working very hard to build a four-lane 
highway which they call La Entrada al Pacifico, the Entrance from the 
Pacific. And the idea there would be to redirect so much of the traffic 
from Asia, from China, these big ships that are bound for the United 
States, from the west coast, Ports of Los Angeles and Oakland, further 
south, and stretch the actual shipping lanes into Mexico versus the 
United States. It is estimated that as much as 30 percent of the truck 
traffic will also be diverted from California and El Paso to the ports 
of entry at Presidio.
  The idea is that the highway into our country would begin further 
south where goods would come in in deepwater ports, and the completed 
route would save up to 4 shipping days for goods moving between the 
Pacific Rim countries and Texas, which would be one of the major ports 
of entry into our country.
  The problem is that we really haven't addressed the issue of drug 
smuggling as a part of this. Ninety percent, again, of all drugs 
smuggled into this country come over the Mexican border. That area has 
become almost lawless. Hundreds of murders related to drug trafficking 
go unaddressed both on the Mexican side of that border and our side. We 
really need to have a border enforcement organization that is 
negotiated by treaty by amending NAFTA in order that we can have proper 
enforcement along that very porous part of our country which makes us 
so vulnerable.
  Our border guards are overwhelmed. We know that pedestrian traffic 
has increased by 55 percent across that border, according to the Drug 
Enforcement Administration, and all kinds of vehicular traffic. Can you 
imagine that one place on that border accounts for 70 to 90 percent of 
the cocaine sold in the United States smuggled through that region? In 
fact, the drug cartels have moved up their major source of operation in 
Colombia up to the state of Juarez, and now control the state of Juarez 
just south of the State of Texas. This is real terrorism poised at our 
country.
  Let's say the people in the Middle East want to get something into 
the United States. You mean to tell me they haven't thought about this? 
Of course they have. And we know that drug presence leads to more 
violence and more corruption at every level.
  An unreleased Drug Enforcement Agency report notes that drugs, 
weapons, people traffickers, and terrorist organizations have to cross 
the border from Mexico into the United States, and they will use one of 
the many corridors available to them. I hope that the President of the 
United States tonight talks about securing our southern border.

         [From the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Dec. 27, 2006]

Crossroads of Conflict--World Trade Bridge Has Changed the U.S.-Mexico 
                        Border, for Good and Bad

                          (By Sara A. Carter)

       Laredo, Texas.--The mammoth globe on the World Trade Bridge 
     spins in the glow of the Texas moon, welcoming hundreds of 
     cargo trucks from Mexico to the United States' largest inland 
     port.
       Nighttime is the slowest time for the bridge.
       During the day, literally thousands of trucks cross the 
     span into the U.S., headed for destinations scattered 
     throughout the Midwest and East and north into Canada.
       Traffic between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, on Mexico's side 
     of the bridge, is only expected to increase in coming years 
     with Mexico anticipating billions of dollars in new trade, 
     mainly from China, on its way to the United States, according 
     to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration executive summary.
       Increasing trade has, however, been matched by growth in 
     corruption and death in both border cities, though U.S. and 
     Mexican officials are loathe to admit it.
       $142 billion in drug trade between the U.S. and Mexico, 
     according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
       86,000 Transportation jobs created as a result of the World 
     Trade Bridge.
       9,300 Commercial trucks pass through the World Trade Bridge 
     daily.
       90% of all drugs smuggled into the United States enter 
     through its border with Mexico.
       The prospect of expanded trade in Mexican states controlled 
     by some of the country's most dangerous cartel leaders could 
     pose serious national security challenges for the United 
     States, an internal DEA report obtained by the Daily Bulletin 
     explains.
       The report, which has never been released, examines how 
     already strained federal law enforcement agencies monitoring 
     border security and narcotics will be challenged by not only 
     Mexican and South and Central American drug trafficking 
     organizations, but also by Asian cartels.
       With slim resources to monitor cargo and inadequate border 
     security measures in place, it will be next to impossible for 
     U.S. agencies to stem the tide of contraband expected to 
     enter the country from Mexico, the DEA report warns. Agencies 
     will be hard-pressed to monitor the billions of dollars in 
     contraband expected to enter the nation if U.S. officials 
     don't take heed.
       ``Contraband can be anything from narcotics, pirated 
     videos, humans or weapons of mass destruction,'' said David 
     Monnette, spokesman for the DEA in EI Paso, Texas. ``These 
     drug trafficking organizations know that we are spread thin, 
     and many times they use legitimate trade routes to move their 
     contraband into the United States.

[[Page H866]]

     This report explains the possible dangers of not addressing 
     these issues.''


                              Trade route

       A joint venture of Texas and the Mexican government, La 
     Entrada al Pacifico (Gateway to the Pacific) which also is 
     the title of the DEA report is meant to get more goods from 
     Asia north into the United States.
       The plan which involves redirecting more than half of East 
     Coast-bound Asian cargo from the ports of Long Beach and Los 
     Angeles to Mexico will stretch the power of Mexican cartels 
     while aligning them with Asian drug-trafficking 
     organizations, according to the DEA report. That report 
     focuses on the Mexican port of Topolobampo, Sinaloa, on 
     Mexico's southwestern coast.
       But Topolobampo has taken a back seat during the past year 
     to another port, Lazaro Cardenas, just 72 hours from Laredo.
       Lazaro Cardenas, the deepest container port on the Pacific, 
     is in southern Mexico, in Michoacan. The volume of re-routed 
     trade through it is expected to explode within the next four 
     years.
       And that's troubling to U.S. authorities.
       ``The (plan) represents an expanding threat to the U.S. for 
     drug, weapon and alien smuggling, as well as related crime, 
     through a 260-mile stretch of Texas into the heartland of the 
     U.S.,'' the report states. ``(Drug trafficking organizations) 
     will be able to exploit the new corridor through the use of 
     established smuggling networks and associations with Mexican 
     drug trafficking organizations.
       ``They may evade U.S. law enforcement under the guise of 
     the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and use 
     established Asian communities in the U.S. for the 
     distribution of drugs.''


                             Piggy-backing

       Ninety percent of all non-domestic narcotics enter the U.S. 
     through the Mexican border, according to a 2005 U.S. State 
     Department report.
       Drugs are a multibillion-dollar industry for cartels in 
     Latin America. The National Drug Intelligence Center 
     conservatively estimates more than $108 billion roughly equal 
     to the combined gross domestic product of Ecuador and 
     Guatemala in drugs comes into the U.S. yearly. The U.S. Drug 
     Enforcement Administration puts the figure at $142 billion in 
     drug trade just between the U.S. and Mexico. Other estimates 
     soar even higher.
       ``NAFTA has made smuggling drugs across the border easier 
     by several means,'' including via cargo trucks, the DEA 
     report notes. ``The volume of truck traffic coming across the 
     border necessitates the expediting of inspections to the 
     point that few trucks are thoroughly inspected.''
       More than 9,300 commercial trucks, carrying everything from 
     pinatas to electronics, pass through Nuevo Laredo into Laredo 
     each day, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection 
     officials. As cargo shifts from Los Angeles to Mexico, it is 
     expected to triple the amount of traffic moving from Mexico 
     through the Texas highway system.
       At the same time, drug cartels are using the trucks to 
     piggy-back more than $10 million a day in drugs through the 
     Laredo corridor into the United States, according to senior 
     DEA officials interviewed by the Daily Bulletin.
       The numbers aren't surprising, said TJ Bonner, president of 
     the National Border Patrol Council. In July, Bonner testified 
     before Congress that less than 5 percent of the 6 million 
     cargo containers entering the U.S. each year are physically 
     inspected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.
       ``From the standpoint of homeland security, this plan 
     (Gateway to the Pacific) is a nightmare,'' Bonner said. ``Any 
     possible benefit of expedited trade is going to be totally 
     eclipsed by the increased amount of contraband . . . slipping 
     across borders.''
       Hidden among the televisions, pinatas and clothing are 
     heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, law enforcement 
     officials say. Worse are weapons and people, and the 
     possibility of terrorist organizations using gaps in border 
     security to put their agents in the United States. ``. . . 
     All such ventures have one common factor: They have to cross 
     the border from Mexico into the U.S., and they will use one 
     of several corridors available to do so,'' the DEA report 
     points out. ``La Entrada al Pacifico is one of the 
     corridors.''


                               The Bridge

       With the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles already 
     stretched to capacity, Lazaro Cardenas' ability to handle 
     billions of dollars worth of cargo from Asia is proving a 
     godsend to global corporations and city leaders in the 
     American southwest.
       For their part, Port of Los Angeles officials say they 
     don't expect the Mexican port to siphon off anywhere near the 
     amount of cargo called for in the Gateway to the Pacific 
     Plan, though they admit business is booming.
       Theresa Adams Lopez, the L.A. port's media director, said 
     she disagrees with the assumption that half of the Asian 
     cargo headed to Los Angeles will be diverted to ports in 
     Mexico.
       ``Our cargo is expected to double and triple in the 
     upcoming years,'' she said. ``The bulk of it is still going 
     to come in through the Port of L.A. and through our partner, 
     the Port of Long Beach.
       ``A lot of the problem with new developments like the one 
     in Mexico is the infrastructure rail and roads to get things 
     out. Coming here is literally one stop, and going there would 
     be two stops first from their original destination, and then 
     through Mexico to the United States.
       ``There is plenty of cargo to go around,'' she said. ``But 
     the contention that half of our business will go away is not 
     true.''
       Regardless, Laredo officials are pinning their hopes on 
     increased port business, and tout the World Trade Bridge and 
     its ability to handle cargo from places like Lazaro Cardenas 
     as the lifeblood of Webb County, Texas.
       Born out of NAFTA, the bridge signaled the beginning of a 
     bright future with Mexico as a significant partner in North 
     American trade.
       According to a 2004 U.S. Census Bureau report, the most 
     recent data available, the Port of Laredo handles more than 
     $130 billion worth of goods and merchandise each year. Nearly 
     86,000 transportation jobs have been created since the World 
     Trade Bridge was built. More than 90 percent of the truck 
     traffic between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo goes over it.
       Expansion of Lazaro Cardenas will allow delivery of cargo 
     to the East Coast via the World Trade Bridge four to five 
     days faster than from California, say proponents of the plan 
     especially officials in Laredo, which benefits every time 
     traffic and trade increase.
       ``NAFTA started moving Laredo away from being the frontier 
     land to the center of something very significant,'' said 
     Roger Creery, executive director of the Laredo Development 
     Foundation. ``We're not the U.S. vs. Mexico vs. Canada 
     anymore. We are the Americas.''
       Even as Congress held numerous immigration field hearings 
     during the summer to determine the extent of security 
     failures at the U.S. border, private corporations, local and 
     federal government officials and international investment 
     corporations were planning for trade expansion.
       Those plans include finishing the Trans-Texas Corridor, 
     which would open the highways to future shipping of cargo 
     from Lazaro Cardenas, whose biggest investors are Hong Kong-
     based Hutchison Port Holdings Group and Wal-Mart. Those two 
     firms already have invested more than $300 million to expand 
     the container port.
       For many business and political leaders, the economic 
     growth promised by Gateway to the Pacific and the Trans-Texas 
     Corridor outweighs any perceived danger about national 
     security or increased drug trafficking.
       That philosophy seems to be heard even in the words of 
     former Laredo Mayor Elizabeth Flores, who was criticized 
     publicly earlier this year for playing down the escalation of 
     violence in Nuevo Laredo.
       ``We've lived with the cartels all of our lives,'' Flores 
     said in an interview a few weeks before she left office. 
     ``They are a part of life on the border. Eventually, one will 
     take control, and the killings will slow down.''
       The business Lazaro Cardenas will bring to Laredo and Nuevo 
     Laredo could transform both cities, Flores added.
       ``It's about growth, not death,'' she said.
       With billions of dollars in legal trade at stake, bad 
     publicity simply isn't something business leaders or 
     politicians are willing to acknowledge, others say.
       ``See no evil, hear no evil,'' said Webb County Sheriff 
     Rick Flores, who testified before Congress numerous times 
     this year about growing violence in Laredo, the county's 
     largest city, and along the border. ``That's the way they 
     want it, and that's what they have done.''


                            Violent Neighbor

       Lost in the talk about bigger business and improved trade 
     is the picture of life on the street in Nuevo Laredo.
       The drug cartels have compromised truck drivers, U.S. 
     Customs inspectors at ports of entry and business owners on 
     both sides of the river, according to residents and law 
     enforcement officials.
       And then there are the killings, which come on a stunningly 
     regular basis.
       The sound of gunfire in the distance doesn't seem to shock 
     residents in the heart of Nuevo Laredo. Many of their homes 
     are fortified with thick cement blocks, iron gates and barbed 
     wire protection from the high-powered weapons used by the 
     cartels.
       ``The government is owned by the cartels,'' said an older 
     woman returning home. ``As the trucks make their way to 
     America freely, we are forced to live like animals. While the 
     rich get richer, we are here dying, and nobody really 
     cares.''
       Residents in Nuevo Laredo say that the violence has only 
     become worse over the past year. Expansion of trade routes 
     will only heighten the tension and violence among Mexico's 
     cartels, they contend.
       ``They want to control the routes into the United States,'' 
     said Nacho, a Nuevo Laredo resident whose real name was 
     withheld to protect his identity. ``In a way, they already 
     do. And U.S. officials should be worried, because the cartels 
     will do anything for money. They will kill anyone, help 
     anyone, do anything to get what they need to move contraband 
     across the border for the right price.''
       The DEA report echoes what Nacho and other residents 
     believe. The possibility of a ``direct, nearly inspection-
     free route to the central U.S. and expanded market for 
     drugs'' has or will result in the following, according to the 
     report:
       Networks created by Mexican and Asian organized crime 
     organizations to smuggle illegal aliens, counterfeit products 
     and pirated intellectual property into Mexico.
       Cargo containers being used to smuggle drugs into the U.S.

[[Page H867]]

       Distribution networks being created by Asian gangs in 
     communities.
       Creation of legitimate businesses in the U.S. to cover up 
     smuggling, contraband and money laundering.
       Expedited truck inspections ``to keep substantial backup of 
     trucks from regularly occurring.''
       The cartels' reach extends well beyond the streets and 
     people of Nuevo Laredo and the border, however.
       On Dec. 12, newly elected President Felipe Calderon sent 
     more than 6,500 troops to Michoacan, where the Port of Lazaro 
     Cardenas is located, in an effort to get a handle on the 
     growing violence.
       Calderon also transferred 10,000 troops from the army and 
     navy to the federal police force on Dec. 13, the largest move 
     against narcotics traffickers since his predecessor, former 
     President Vicente Fox, sent nearly 1,000 troops to Nuevo 
     Laredo to squelch a drug war that has killed more than 3,000 
     people across the country during the past two years.
       Calderon may have learned how deadly dealing with the 
     cartels can be. First Lady Margarita Zavala, Calderon's wife, 
     lost her cousin, Luis Felipe Zavala, on Dec. 12 when gunmen 
     open fired on his SUV in Mexico City.
       According to DEA intelligence officials, Zavala's 
     assassination was retaliation for Calderon's promise to take 
     down Mexico's drug kingpins. ``It was an assassination of 
     opportunity,'' said one DEA intelligence official who 
     requested anonymity. ``... It was directly related to 
     Calderon's move into Michoacan.''
       However, Mexico's attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, 
     told reporters the incident was a coincidence.
       ``There is at this time no indication ... that would 
     suggest or make us guess that this unfortunate event was 
     related to the Mexican government's efforts against organized 
     crime,'' he told reporters at a press conference a day after 
     the killing.
       Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Department of 
     Homeland Security has tried to beef up security along the 
     border. Officials say new technologies radiation portal 
     monitors, hand-held radiation detectors and X-ray machines 
     assist front-line agents in detecting dangerous materials 
     that may be in trucks at ports of entry.
       U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Pat Jones said 
     striking a balance between increased traffic and inspections 
     is challenging. New programs implemented by the Department of 
     Homeland Security have assisted in better checks at ports of 
     entries along the southwest border, he said.
       ``It may be possible to improve the flow of legitimate 
     trade and improve security,'' Jones said. ``Prior to 9/11, 
     the thought was that if you improve security, you're going to 
     slow down cargo trade. We've learned that if you actually 
     could identify and separate the risk-free cargo, the flow of 
     cargo could be expedited.''
       But once the illegal cargo finds its way into the U.S., 
     there's little law enforcement can do.
       Laredo police can barely keep up with the violence spilling 
     into their community from their sister city across the 
     border. Sheriff Flores said growing violence and corruption 
     in Mexico is spilling into the U.S. and becoming increasingly 
     difficult to manage.
       ``The cartels have more power, money and weaponry than we 
     do,'' he said. ``The cartels know how to get their narcotics 
     across the (World Trade) bridge. They're not afraid to lose 
     some of their loads; they expect it. The risk is worth it 
     because the possibility of getting caught is minimal, at 
     best.''

                          ____________________