More than two decades ago, not long after the time in which the hit Netflix series Narcos is set, a real-life debate was raging in Congress over whether the Mexican government could be trusted as an ally in our ongoing battle to stop the tidal wave of cocaine flooding into American neighborhoods.
It was 1997, and the U.S. House of Representatives, fed up with the Mexican leaders’ complacency toward (and in some cases active cooperation with) Mexico’s powerful drug cartels, voted 251-175 to overrule then-President Bill Clinton’s decision to “certify” Mexico as “a fully cooperating partner in the worldwide fight against drugs.” The vote was bipartisan, with nearly 50 House Democrats and independent then-Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont joined 204 Republicans in a stinging rebuke of President Bill Clinton and his failure to address the growing problem.
Outraged by the rampant corruption in Mexico City (the country’s highest-ranking anti-drug official had recently been caught “provid[ing] protection for one of the country’s drug kingpins in exchange for money and other bribes” after just 10 weeks on the job), the congressional decertification vote sought to cut foreign aid to Mexico and bar taxpayer-backed financing for Mexico-linked projects through the U.S. Export-Import bank, World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Ultimately, the U.S. Senate never followed the House’s lead. But that push some two decades ago may provide a roadmap for the current Congress on how to turn up the heat on our southern neighbors for their role in the drug and human smuggling nightmare spilling into our country today.
Now, as in the late 1990s, we have immense leverage over our recalcitrant “partners.” Restoring the 1997-style certification vote for Mexico on drug interdiction efforts – while expanding it to cover other “source” countries in the region and applying it to cooperation on immigration and border security as well – would give Congress a more muscular role in forcing recalcitrant leaders in Latin America and the Caribbean to clean up their acts.
In addition to shutting off American aid and international financing to these non-cooperative governments – as Congress attempted 20 years ago – lawmakers could expand the menu of penalties to target trade preferences, the issuance of legal visas and access to American banks by politically connected foreign elites, and the free flow of remittance payments.
This last item is especially important.
Remittances — money foreigners living and working in the U.S. send home — are a key source of revenue for many of these countries. Just a few short years ago, for example, these money transfers replaced oil revenue as Mexico’s top source of foreign income. And it isn’t just Mexico. In Latin America and the Caribbean, such payments rose by double digits last year alone.
It is a phenomenon that helps explain why so many foreign governments do so little to dissuade their own people from making the dangerous trip north. And given the Biden administration’s refusal to secure the border or enforce the law, it is easy to see why.
For many of these regimes, the current crisis we face represents a win-win arrangement for them. They export large segments of their disaffected population to our country and then reap the economic benefits of the remittance payments these same migrants ultimately send back to their country of origin.
And what do we receive? Millions of unskilled and impoverished migrants, added strain on local education and healthcare systems, a spike in violent crime, illegal drug use and gang activity, downward pressure on wages, and fewer opportunities for younger, low-skilled Americans seeking to grab that first rung on the ladder to upward mobility.
Stage-managed border photo-ops, speeches about the “root causes” of illegal immigration, and billions more in unconditional U.S. handouts to corrupt developing country rulers will not solve the crisis President Biden has created.
Money talks. Only when the U.S. is ready to play hardball by exerting maximum pressure on our Third World neighbors – and the cartels and oligarchs they rely on to remain in power – can we hope to turn the tide.
Tom Tiffany represents Wisconsin’s Seventh Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.
