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“COUNTERDRUG COOPERATION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND MEXICO” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S4647-S4649 on May 16, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
COUNTERDRUG COOPERATION BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND MEXICO
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, on May 14, 1997, I along with my colleague, Senator Feinstein of California, received a communique from President Clinton that I would like to read at this point. It says:
Dear Senator Coverdell: Thank you for your letter regarding counterdrug cooperation between the United States and Mexico. I want to take this opportunity to tell you about my visit to Mexico and the efforts my Administration is making to advance our counternarcotics strategy in a bipartisan spirit.
President Zedillo and I had a full and frank discussion on ways we can achieve greater progress toward attacking the abuse and trafficking of illegal drugs. The Binational Drug Threat Assessment report that General McCaffrey and Attorney General Madrazo presented to us sets forth in plain terms a common view of all aspects of the drug phenomena striking at our societies. On that basis, President Zedillo and I agreed to form an Alliance Against Drugs, which commits our two governments to prepare a common counterdrug strategy this year to achieve 16 specific objectives.
These objectives, which reflect your own thoughtful contributions, include reducing demand through anti-drug information campaigns directed at our youth, bringing the leaders of criminal organizations to justice through strengthened law enforcement cooperation, attacking corruption, improving extradition (for example, by negotiating a protocol to the extradition treaty to allow trials in both countries prior to completion of sentences in either country), fully implementing laws to combat money laundering and increasing interdiction and eradication. Achieving all these objectives in the short term is unrealistic, but I believe we can make progress and that President Zedillo's effort to restructure Mexico's anti-drug forces is an essential starting point.
I want to keep the Congress informed of the progress we are making toward achieving the objectives set forth in my 1997 National Drug Control Strategy and the U.S.-Mexico Alliance Against Drugs. ONDCP Director McCaffrey will provide further details on these issues to Members of both Houses in the near future. My Administration will also provide the Congress by September 1, 1997, a report covering each of the issues contained in the Senate resolution passed in March as elaborated in your recent letter and discussions with my Administration. In addition, we will provide reports, as you have requested, commenting on prospects for multilateral hemispheric cooperation and on the feasibility of enhancing truck inspections at the border.
I appreciate your continued efforts to work with my Administration to ensure that our children face a future free of drugs and the crime they breed.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton.
Mr. President, this letter is in direct response to the legislation offered by myself and Senator Feinstein in March of this year, passed overwhelmingly by the Senate but which had not yet become law because of differences between the House and the Senate.
Because the President was going to be in Mexico and in Central America, that led to extensive discussions between myself and Senator Feinstein and the administration, culminating with a discussion between myself and the National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, during the trip to Mexico wherein the administration agreed to provide this letter of assurances to myself and Senator Feinstein, and in spirit the Congress and the other Senators who worked so diligently to pass these legislative proposals.
From my point of view--and the Senator will speak for herself--it is a new platform. It is an acknowledgement of the issues that the Senator and I were trying to bring before the Congress, the Nation and the people of Mexico. I personally accept it in the spirit of cooperation and eagerly await the information to be provided to us in September. From my point of view, it is the acceptance of the point that was being made during the debate that the status quo was unacceptable for either country and that we had to move to a new era of more candor and more realism about the ravaging drug war and the damage it has done to both our countries and to the hemispheric democracy. So, I appreciate the National Security Adviser's conversation. I believe he and the administration fulfilled the discussion, at least to the level that I had it.
I appreciate, again, and want to acknowledge the work of the Senator from California on this issue. It has been very dedicated, very focused, and very meaningful. I have enjoyed working with her on this matter. I believe the drug war in our hemisphere could potentially destabilize the hemisphere. It is doing enormous damage to the youth of our country and is an issue that must receive far more attention than it has to date. I hope this communique is not the end, but the beginning of much more work to be done by the Members of the Senate and the Congress.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor. I see my colleague from California is prepared to talk on the subject, and I welcome her remarks.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California, by previous order, is recognized for up to 10 minutes.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I want to begin by thanking the senior Senator from Georgia for his leadership in this matter. This has been a difficult area, I think, for both of us, because I believe we both respect Mexico. We know that Mexico is an ally, a friend, a neighbor, and we want to see relations become much better and much more fully developed. We do not want to see a rift continuing to develop, so, we have worked with that spirit in mind. Yet, one can want this equal partnership but also continue to point out the facts of what is happening in our States and our region, and particularly along the southwest border. So I thank the Senator from Georgia for his leadership. It has been, as he knows, a great pleasure for me to be able to work with him. It has been a wonderful experience. We will keep it going.
I also want to extend my thanks to the President and to the National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger. Both Senator Coverdell, as he indicated, and I--we have met separately with the administration. We have both made the same request that this report, described by our Senate resolution, be rendered by the administration to this body.
Let me begin by saying the administration could easily have said no. There is no legislative vehicle that accompanies this request. But they did agree, in our negotiations, to honor this request, and they have kept that commitment and, in effect, will produce the report on September 1. I am heartened by that. As my colleague just spoke, we are heartened because we hope it will be a new day of cooperation between the executive and the legislative branches in what is rapidly becoming the soft underbelly of this Nation as well as the Mexican nation, and that of course is drugs.
As many know, I have a bill which is now in the Judiciary Committee's bill called the Gang Violence Act. What we have discovered is that drugs are fueling a new extension of gangs working across the States. One of the steps I am hopeful this body will be taking is passage of that bill and, in essence, applying to street gangs, who are organized and moving across State lines, the same racketeering statutes that we would apply to Mafia-type organized crime--expanding the Travel Act, putting in asset seizures and forfeitures, effectively doubling Federal penalties for Americans who participate in major drug trafficking, gun running, and other criminal activity, across State lines.
So, we will take major steps in this Nation to combat our problem, which is one of demand for drugs. The report that we have asked the administration to produce will deal with Mexico's progress in the following areas:
Efforts to combat drug cartels--four big Mexican drug cartels are operating with impunity beyond our border; bilateral law enforcement cooperation--we are very interested in a partnership between our Drug Enforcement Administration and Mexican drug authorities, but to have our agents in Mexico unable to arm themselves makes no sense, particularly with the record of assassination that the cartels have established; improved border enforcement--obvious; extradition of Mexican nationals wanted in the United States on drug charges; implementation of money-laundering laws; increased crop eradication; rooting out corruption; and improved air and maritime cooperation. All of these points are elucidated in our Senate resolution requesting this report, and the administration has agreed, unilaterally, to provide it. For that I am very thankful.
Let me talk about one area, and that area is extradition. This is an area which for me is a litmus test as to whether there is cooperation. I want to give one case that was just written up in the May 13, 1997 Los Angeles Times by Anne-Marie O'Connor. It is not a traditional case, in terms of names like Amado Carillo-Fuentes--well-known cartel names. This case deals with a family by the name of Reynoso: Antonio Reynoso and two brothers, Jose and Jesus Reynoso. They were indicted among 22 alleged members of a vast ring that transported cocaine from Mexico to Los Angeles to Chicago and to New Jersey, using Lear jets, boilers, and canned vegetables. They are named in an extradition request presented by this country to the Mexican Government. Last September, Jose Reynoso pled guilty on a drug-smuggling charge. Both Antonio and Jesus are under indictment for conspiracy to import and possess cocaine with intent to distribute, as well as for money laundering. In the last 2 years, they have built a magnificent home within a stone's throw of the border between San Diego and Tijuana. There is a small picture in the Los Angeles Times, which shows the border fence and then this drug lord's home right across the border fence. I want to describe it to you for a moment. I am quoting from the Los Angeles Times.
To their profound annoyance, Justice Department officials say, Reynoso, 53, is putting the finishing touches on an ostentatious walled residence that backs right up to the U.S. border. If he wanted to, he could hit a tennis ball into San Diego County.
The article goes on to describe the mansion:
Encircled by a forbidding wall that ascends 35 feet, chateau Reynoso rises like a ship over San Diego County, not far from a binational gulch called ``Smuggler's Canyon.''
[Where I have been.] With its turret, a glass pool atrium and a dazzling green roof worthy of Oz, it is so conspicuous that Border Patrol agents sometimes point it out to visitors.
U.S. law enforcement officers note its fortress architecture and its protected position at the end of a narrow cul-de-sac. So close to the United States, they complain, yet so far from a San Diego courtroom.
``I wish we could just tunnel back and grab him,'' a Justice Department attorney said.
Then it goes on to say:
. . . Reynoso's name has appeared on lists of traffickers given to Mexican authorities by United States Attorney General Janet Reno. But no discernible action has been taken. U.S. officials have no indications that Reynoso is even a wanted man in Mexico.
This same family was the mastermind behind a huge tunnel, 60 feet below the ground, between Otay Mesa and San Diego. This tunnel had electricity, it had air conditioning, and it was used by this family to smuggle drugs under the border into the United States. It was one of the most sophisticated tunnels, really, ever known. This family spent
$1.1 million buying the lot in Otay Mesa where the passage's exit was to be located.
This is a clear indication, I believe, of what Senator Coverdell and I will be looking for in terms of actions taken by the Mexican Government. We will have another round on certification. It is important to both of us, as well as, I believe, to a majority of this body, that there be actions taken in this equal partnership between the United States and Mexico. Let me just summarize.
The response from a good friend, a neighbor, and an ally that drugs are exclusively a U.S. problem is simply not adequate. We admit that we have a demand problem. We have taken steps to strengthen our laws, to allocate funds for prevention programs. Still, we know we must do more and we are willing to say we will and do it.
But when Mexican nationals run meth labs throughout California--and over 700 meth labs have been seized by the State Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in California alone in the last year, 700 of them--and Mexico refuses to enforce its border, the drug problem is not our problem alone.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senator her 10 minutes have expired.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. May I ask for 1 minute to wrap up, please?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. When drug cartels are brazen enough to kill Government officials and church leaders in cold blood, the drug problem is not our problem alone. When the cartels are operating with such impunity that they do not hesitate to bribe officials on both sides of the border and, as ``Nightline'' has just pointed out, to buy up businesses along the border, the drug problem is not our problem alone. So the drug problem is a problem for both sides. What we need is a cooperative effort of both nations acting as full partners. Neither the United States nor Mexico can win this battle alone.
The report that the President has now committed to provide to the Congress on September 1 will be an important indicator of whether or not Mexico has taken the decision to approach this terrible problem in a cooperative partnership and in a fully committed way. Unless the report can cite significant and demonstrable progress in cooperation, the answer, very sadly, will be that Mexico has not yet taken such a decision. I hope that is not the case on September 1.
To me, this report is very meaningful. The point I want to make is that I believe the expectation of a majority of this body is that there be tangible and substantial steps taken that are visible, discernible, and real to combat the cartels and to stop the corruption, the bribing, and the sort of total disregard for law which is now characteristic of the situation.
I, for one, will watch the extradition picture especially carefully.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the May 14 letter from the President be printed in the Record, I thank the Presiding Officer for his forbearance, and I yield the floor.
The White House,
Washington, DC, May 14, 1997.Hon. Dianne Feinstein,U.S. Senate,Washington, DC.
Dear Dianne: Thank you for your letter regarding counterdrug cooperation between the United States and Mexico. I want to take this opportunity to tell you about my visit to Mexico and the efforts my Administration is making to advance our counternarcotics strategy in a bipartisan spirit.
President Zedillo and I had a full and frank discussion on ways we can achieve greater progress toward attacking the abuse and trafficking of illegal drugs. The Binational Drug Threat Assessment Report that General McCaffrey and Attorney General Madrazo presented to us sets forth in plain terms a common view of all aspects of the drug phenomena striking at our societies. On that basis, President Zedillo and I agreed to form an Alliance Against Drugs, which commits our two governments to prepare a common counterdrug strategy this year to achieve 16 specific objectives.
These objectives, which reflect your own thoughtful contributions, include reducing demand through anti-drug information campaigns directed at our youth, bringing the leaders of criminal organizations to justice through strengthened law enforcement cooperation, attacking corruption, fully implementing laws to combat money laundering and increasing interdiction and eradication. Achieving all these objectives in the short term is unrealistic, but I believe we can make progress and that President Zedillo's effort to restructure Mexico's anti-drug forces is an essential starting point.
I want to keep the Congress informed of the progress we are making toward achieving the objectives set forth in my 1997 National Drug Control Strategy and the U.S.-Mexico Alliance Against Drugs. ONDCP Director McCaffrey will provide further details on these issues to Members of both Houses in the near future. My Administration will also provide the Congress by September 1, 1997, a report covering each of the issues contained in the Senate resolution passed in March as elaborated in your recent letter and discussions with my Administration. In addition, we will provide reports, as you have requested, commenting on prospects for multilateral hemispheric cooperation and on the feasibility of enhancing truck inspections at the border.
I appreciate your continued efforts to work with my Administration to ensure that our children face a future free of drugs and the crime they breed.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator suggest the absence of a quorum?
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). Is there objection to the order for the quorum call being rescinded? Without objection, it is so ordered.
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