[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19829]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    THE CARIBBEAN BORDER INITIATIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Puerto Rico (Mr. Pierluisi) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PIERLUISI. Mr. Speaker, American citizens in the Caribbean are 
facing a security crisis. While the national murder rate has declined 
in recent decades, the number of homicides in Puerto Rico and the U.S. 
Virgin Islands remains unacceptably high. Since 2008, the murder rate 
in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands has been about five times the 
national average and about twice as high as that of any State.
  Most of the murders committed in Puerto Rico and the USVI are linked 
to the drug trade. As Attorney General Holder and other officials have 
acknowledged, the Federal Government's effort to prevent traffickers 
from transporting drugs across our Nation's southwest border is causing 
traffickers to turn increasingly to the Caribbean to ship drugs into 
the United States. As the National Drug Intelligence Center recently 
observed, violence by traffickers in the two territories has ``become 
indiscriminate, endangering the lives of . . . innocent bystanders.''
  In response to questions I posed, Attorney General Holder recently 
called drug-related violence in Puerto Rico and in the USVI a national 
security issue that we must confront. At my urging, Congress has also 
taken notice of the problem, directing Federal law enforcement agencies 
on three separate occasions to devote more attention to the Caribbean 
region.
  According to briefings provided to my office, 70 to 80 percent of the 
cocaine that enters Puerto Rico is transported to the U.S. mainland. 
Because Puerto Rico is a U.S. jurisdiction, once drugs enter the 
island, they are easily delivered to the States through commercial 
airlines and container ships, without having to clear customs or having 
to otherwise undergo heightened scrutiny. Once in the States, these 
drugs destroy lives and communities in my colleagues' districts. So 
this is a problem of national, not simply regional, scope.
  That said, the primary reason the Federal Government must do more to 
reduce drug trafficking in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands is that 
U.S. citizens in these two territories are dying in unprecedented 
numbers. Our Nation has devoted considerable resources in confronting 
drug gangs that are operating along the southwest border, and 
rightfully so. Yet Puerto Rico's murder rate is four to five times 
higher than that of any Southwest border State.
  According to a recent piece in The Washington Post, since 2008 the 
island has received less than one-fifth of the funding that the Federal 
Government has provided to combat the drug trade and associated 
violence in Mexico and Central American nations.

                              {time}  1020

  The number of authorized positions at key Federal law enforcement 
agencies in Puerto Rico is too low. The number of vacancies is too 
high. And interdiction assets, like planes and boats, are in short 
supply.
  Since taking office, I have urged the Federal Government to devote 
resources to Puerto Rico at a level commensurate with the severity of 
the problem it faces. Specifically, I have asked the White House drug 
czar to establish a Caribbean border initiative modeled after the 
successful Southwest Border Initiative.
  The time for half measures and piecemeal efforts has passed. What is 
needed instead is a well-planned, well-funded, well-executed, 
governmentwide strategy that will encompass all Federal agencies 
charged with fighting drug trafficking and related violence. To protect 
the lives of the U.S. citizens in the Caribbean and to reduce the flow 
of drugs headed to the States through that region, the Federal 
Government must make a commitment of resources to Puerto Rico and the 
USVI that is similar to the commitment it has made to the southwest 
border.
  The challenge we face today is similar to the one we faced back in 
1994. I was Puerto Rico's attorney general back then and lobbied 
successfully for Puerto Rico and the USVI to be federally designated as 
a high-intensity drug trafficking area, which contributed to a 
significant reduction in the island's violent crime rate. The problem 
has evolved over time, and the Federal response must evolve along with 
it. I will not rest until it does.

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