[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 83 (Tuesday, May 20, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H4286-H4287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TO SECURE OUR BORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Department of State recently 
issued a travel warning alerting American citizens about the 
deteriorating

[[Page H4287]]

security situation in Mexico. Violence has become so widespread and 
rampant that even the State Department is having difficulty papering 
over the problems with diplomatic language.
  According to the travel warning, which was issued last month, a war 
between criminal organizations struggling for control of the lucrative 
narcotics trade continues along the U.S.-Mexico border. That's right, a 
war, and it's in our back yard. And the blood bath isn't only claiming 
Mexican casualties. According to the State Department, Americans have 
been among the victims of homicides and kidnappings in the border 
region. Dozens of U.S. citizens were kidnapped and/or murdered in 
Tijuana in 2007. There have been public shootouts during daylight hours 
near shopping areas.
  And this conflict between drug cartels is not just a neighborhood 
turf war fought between dime store thugs with switchblades. According 
to the travel warning, the conflict between the Mexican Government and 
``heavily armed narcotics cartels has escalated to levels equivalent to 
military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and 
fragmentation grenades. Criminals are armed with a wide array of 
sophisticated weapons. In some cases, assailants have worn military 
uniforms and have used vehicles that resemble police vehicles.''
  And endemic corruption in Mexico's government is tipping the scales 
in favor of the cartels. Police and soldiers desert their posts to give 
traffickers inside knowledge about tactics and surveillance. And 
because of their history of corruption and abuse, the police and army 
are often less popular than the drug cartels who hand out cell phones 
and employ taxi drivers and youth as lookouts.
  Several high-ranking police officials have been gunned down in Mexico 
this month. This includes Mexico's Acting Federal Police Chief, Edgar 
Millan Gomez, who was killed by the Sinaloa cartel. In another case, a 
Mexico City district police chief was the target of a bomb that 
exploded near the police headquarters. Saul Pena, who was to be named 
one of the five police chiefs in Ciudad Juarez on the border with 
Texas, was shot dead earlier this month, making him the 20th police 
official to be killed in Juarez this year.
  Just yesterday, a new Juarez police chief quit his post after 
receiving death threats. And more than 100 of the city's 1,700-member 
police force have quit their jobs since January. Several Mexican police 
commanders have crossed into the United States and are seeking asylum, 
saying they are unprotected and fear for their lives. And who can blame 
them?
  According to the Associated Press, ``Police who take on the cartels 
feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 
commanders in Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a 
handwritten death list. It was addressed to those who still don't 
believe in the power of the cartels. Of the 22, seven have been killed, 
three wounded in assassination attempts. Of the others, all but one 
have quit, and city officials said they didn't want to be 
interviewed.''
  The Zetas, an infamous group of soldiers turned drug hit men are 
perhaps the most notorious of the drug enforcers. In Mexico, they hang 
banners above bridges offering jobs, good-paying family benefits to 
soldiers and police who desert their posts and join the 
narcotraffickers. The message the drug cartels are sending, Mr. 
Speaker, is clear: ``Join us or die.''
  Many Americans might be shocked to learn that many of the Zetas 
receive their advance training courtesy of the American taxpayer. And 
the Bush administration is poised to make the problem worse by 
providing an additional $1.4 billion in assistance for this purpose. 
With just $1.4 billion in taxpayer aid, the argument goes, we can train 
Mexican police and military to better fight the armed elements of the 
drug cartels.
  But we've been there before. Our border patrol agents in Texas and 
California have already seen U.S.-provided Humvees and other equipment 
being used by drug cartels and by rogue units of the Mexican military 
assisting the smugglers.
  Mr. Speaker, handing out another $1 billion in taxpayer money to a 
Mexican government so rife with corruption so we can watch the scenario 
repeat itself makes about as much sense as dropping cash out of 
helicopters. A better use of the $1.4 billion, Mr. Speaker, would be to 
secure our own border before any more of this violence spills over to 
our country and across that dangerous frontier which is separating us 
from Mexico.

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