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“TO SECURE OUR BORDER” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4286-H4287 on May 20, 2008.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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 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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