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Stopping Traffic: The US, Mexico and Guns - July 23, 2009 #204
By Dr Dave McIntyre, Director Integrative Center for Homeland Security, 23 July 2009
From June 2008 to July 2009, the Government Accountability Office evaluated the problems of weapons trafficking to Mexican drug organizations, and the US programs to stop that traffic. Their conclusions were not encouraging. I will tell you more if you will give me Just a Minute for Homeland Security.
I’m Dave McIntyre, Director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M
The first problem for investigators was finding usable data. The only systematic data available is from the ATF program called eTrace. These electronic checks indicate that over 90 percent of illegal Mexican firearms traced between 2004 and 2008 originated in the US. Frequently eTrace can identify an initial commercial purchase from a gun shop or pawn shop in the US southwest, but the trail ends there since US law allows firearms to be sold again by individuals or at gun shows without filing records. Law enforcement officials suspect many guns are obtained through this means.
But this is only a suspicion. Because of bureaucratic problems between the Mexican military and their Attorney General, Mexican officials only submitted about one quarter of the weapons they seized into the eTrace system. So experienced law enforcement officials are making a professional guess at the real source of most weapons.
A larger complication is the lack of consistent cooperation between US agencies. The primary players involved are the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). But ATF works cases within the US while ICE works smuggling across the border. So who owns a case that starts within the US and continues across the border? Jurisdiction is just not clear. Moreover, there is no incentive to share information, since credit goes to whoever makes an arrest, not to those who does the hard work of developing the intelligence. As a result, ATF and ICE may occupy desks in the same building – as in the El Paso Intelligence Center – but rarely cooperate on cases, or even advise each other of ongoing operations. Add other officials from Customs, the Department of State, and local law enforcement, and the situation gets worse.
Even more challenging is the fact that corruption pervades all levels of Mexican law enforcement. The Mexican military is being use to reduce this influence, and thousands of Mexican officials have been fired, suspended or prosecuted in anti-corruption activities. But US officials are not likely to stake their investigations and their lives on Mexican reliability.
In short, the US effort to stop the traffic of guns to Mexico is stymied by problems with laws, data, cooperation and corruption. And that’s before we even consider the Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations that are causing the problems.
This is Dave McIntyre, Director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M, inviting you to join us again next week on Just a Minute . . . for Homeland Security.