Friday, June 28, 2013

June 29, 2013 - "Biometric" identification database for enhanced border security (TRAVEL.STATE.GOV)

http://travel.state.gov

Safety & Security of U.S. Borders: Biometrics

Overview

The United States is committed to “secure borders, open doors,” by welcoming and facilitating legitimate travel to the United States by international visitors while maintaining the integrity and security of our borders and our nation. The U.S. continues to work to ensure that access to our country is not impeded for legitimate international travelers.

Legal Requirement

In the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, the U.S. Congress mandated the use of biometrics in U.S. visas. This law requires that Embassies and Consulates abroad must issue to international visitors, "only machine-readable, tamper-resistant visas and other travel and entry documents that use biometric identifiers. Additionally, the Homeland Security Council decided that the U.S. standard for biometric screening is ten fingerprint scans collected at all U.S. embassies for visa applicants seeking to come to the United States.

What is a Biometric?

A biometric or biometric identifier is an objective measurement of a physical characteristic of an individual which, when captured in a database, can be used to verify the identity or check against other entries in the database. The best known biometric is the fingerprint, but others include facial recognition and iris scans.

Making Us Safer – International Visitors

The use of these identifiers is an important link in U.S. national security, because fingerprints taken will be compared with similarly collected fingerprints at US ports of entry. This will verify identity to reduce use of stolen and counterfeit visas, and protect against possible use by terrorists or others who might represent a security risk to the U.S. These two important programs (collecting fingerprints for visa issuance and verifying travelers’ fingerprints when they enter the United States) will make travel to the U.S. safer for legitimate travelers, and also improve safety and national security for all Americans. This transition to ten prints will enable the Departments of State and Homeland Security to more effectively process visa applicant fingerprints.

What This Means - Traveling to the U.S.

  • For U.S. Visas the chosen biometric identifier method is a digital photo and electronic fingerprints. All fingers of a visa applicant are electronically scanned in a quick, inkless process during the consular officer's interview with the applicant.
  • Travel without a Visa - Visa Waiver Program - Each traveler holding a valid passport from any of the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries, regardless of age or passport used, must present an individual machine-readable passport (MRP) in order to enter the United States without a visa. Depending on the date the traveler's passport was issued, other passport requirements apply. If a prospective traveler does not meet requirements to travel without a visa, he/she will need to apply for a U.S. visa, and cannot travel on VWP. See Visa Waiver Program for complete details. Additionally, all VWP travelers are required to have an approved Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) before traveling to the U.S.
  • Admission into the U.S. - Select travel procedures and biometrics to learn more about the Department of Homeland Security’s program at U.S. ports of entry, which verifies the identity of the traveler using the electronic fingerprint data and digital photographs.

Applicant Refusal to be Fingerprinted at Visa Interview

A visa applicant who refuses to be fingerprinted would have his or her visa application denied on the basis that it is incomplete. However, an applicant who then later decided to provide fingerprints would have his or her visa application re-considered without prejudice.

About the Information Collected

The electronic data from the ten fingerprints is stored in a database and is made available at U.S. ports of entry to Department of Homeland Security immigration inspectors. The electronic fingerprint data is associated with an issued visa for verification and the privacy of the data is protected by storage in the database.
The U.S. Department of State makes data available in accordance with the law governing the use of visa records, to U.S. law enforcement agencies that require the information for law enforcement purposes. Visa records are, by law, confidential. Requests for access to visa records by law enforcement are subject to statutory, regulatory and other legal restrictions.
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June 29, 2013 - Per Sheriff - Illegals burden local authories Texas (KRGV So. Tex. Prop Owners Assn)

Latest News

Surge in Illegal Immigration a Burden for Local Authorities

Posted: Jun 26, 2013 7:53 PM
Updated: Jun 26, 2013 8:32 PM
EDINBURG - A surge in illegal immigration in the Rio Grande Valley is having an impact on the daily operations of the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Department, officials said.
Sheriff Lupe Trevino said his deputies are being pulled away from their duties to deal with stash houses and illegal immigrants.
"This is becoming a problem. We're snatching up 50, 60 up to 100 a day in stash houses," Trevino said.
"When you're arresting 15, 20, 50 people you can't do it with one deputy. You have to have at least seven or eight, until Border Patrol gets here," the sheriff said.
He said calls for suspicious activity turn into human-smuggling busts. Trevino said his deputies can't ignore the stash houses. He said doing so would mean an open door for criminals.
"I've got to worry about the burglars, and the thieves and the robbers and domestic-abuse cases. When we take away from our resources, and assets for something like this, it doesn't fall right. But we have to do our job," Trevino said.
The sheriff said there may be relief in sight. He said legislation being proposed in Washington could mean more Border Patrol agents along the border. Still, that legislation must pass first.
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June 29, 2013 - "What Is a 'pathway to citizenship?'" (POLITIFACT APRIL 2,2013)

What is 'a pathway to citizenship'?

By Molly Moorhead
Published on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013 at 11:55 a.m.

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Demonstrators in Michigan rallied recently for immigration reform.Demonstrators in Michigan rallied recently for immigration reform.
After years of inaction, eight senators say they’re on the cusp of unveiling a bipartisan proposal to fix a broken immigration system.


Border security, visas and family considerations are all part of the debate. But no topic is so emotional as creating a pathway to citizenship for 11 million unauthorized immigrants.


With years of work and payment of fines, some advocates argue, unauthorized immigrants should be able to earn the right to be called Americans. Others call for legal residency only, allowing people who came illegally to live here but not attain all the benefits of citizenship.


We interviewed policy experts representing different viewpoints to find out how lawmakers are defining a path to citizenship, and how the proposals might work.


Fines, taxes, security


The eight senators have put forward a bipartisan "framework" for immigration reform. It includes several hurdles that immigrants would have to clear before becoming eligible to apply for citizenship.


Advocates for immigrants says the details are critical. "A priority for us is the 11 million who are here -- will they qualify?" said Frank Sharry, director of the pro-citizenship group America’s Voice. "Are the requirements achievable? Are the fees and fines affordable?"


Here are some of the possible requirements:
• A waiting period. Unauthorized immigrants would be given a work permit that allows them to remain in the U.S. to work without fear of deportation. The timetable is likely to be 13 years -- eight years on the work permit, followed by five years with a green card; or 10 years on the work permit and three years on the green card. Any new legislation will also have a cut-off date, requiring immigrants to show they’ve been living and working in the U.S. for a certain amount of time. The immigration law President Ronald Reagan signed in 1986, for example, granted legal status to everyone who had been here since 1982.


If that sounds simple, the details get hairy. For example, Sharry questioned how some people might prove how long they’ve been in the U.S., especially if they’ve done work that wasn’t documented. "If you’re a day laborer, if you’re a grandmother, if you’re a homemaker are you going to be bounced out of the program?" he said.


• Background checks. Immigrants would have to pass a criminal background check and be literate enough in English to pass a citizenship exam. The framework says people "with a serious criminal background or others who pose a threat to our national security" wouldn’t be eligible. Advocates want to make sure the criminal checks don’t weed out people who aren’t hardened criminals, such as those caught driving without a license.


• Fines. Financial penalties are in the mix too: a fine of somewhere between $2,000 and $4,000, plus back taxes for the time they’ve worked without paying income taxes. Sharry questions how low-wage workers could find the means to pay years of back taxes on top of hefty fine.


• Border security. The Senate framework makes the new green card program contingent on securing the border first. It calls for boosting the number of surveillance drones that monitor the southwest border, adding more border patrol agents and enhancing their training and technology. It also promises an entry/exit system that catches people who overstay their visas, a major source of illegal immigration.


• Employer verification. The framework describes an E-Verify system that holds employers accountable for hiring undocumented workers and makes it more difficult to falsify documents to obtain employment. "Employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers must face stiff fines and criminal penalties," the document says.


Steven Camarota, with the Center for Immigration Studies, says granting people legal status alongside tightening the border and implementing e-verify makes "security first" a moot point.


"What would happen if the border isn’t certified -- would you withdraw their legal status? Of course not," he said. "It’s sort of amnesty on the first day even if it doesn’t result in citizenship. Once you’ve given legal status, that’s it. It’ll never be withdrawn."


Citizenship vs. legal status


People on both sides also question a federal law that could ultimately create a permanent underclass.


"I don’t think it’s good for the U.S. to have a second tier of people who can’t fully participate, but if that’s what the political marketplace can bear then I think that’s acceptable." said Tamar Jacoby with the pro-reform group ImmigrationWorks USA.


Camarota added: "We want a stakeholder society. We want a country that can ask certain things of you and you can ask certain things of the country."


But Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, pointed out that "illegal immigrants don’t come here to vote. They come here to work and make money and to have a better life for their kids."


"There are only two real non-voting benefits to becoming a citizen: one is not being deported and two is you can buy guns." Permanent legal status, he said, "doesn’t bar people from the primary benefit of a better life."


Politically speaking


Among politicians and the public, citizenship itself is the most divisive aspect of immigration.


A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that 71 percent of Americans believe that people in the United States illegally should have a way to stay in the country. But in that group, just 43 percent say they should be eligible for citizenship, while 24 percent favor permanent residency only.


The last time Washington dug into immigration reform, in 2006 and 2007, the effort broke down between the pro-pathway side and those who opposed any special treatment of people who broke the law to get here.


Now, the margins of that debate have narrowed significantly -- nobody is talking about doing nothing with the illegal population -- but any suggestion of amnesty or allowing them to cut to the front of the line draws outcries of unfairness.


Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has emphasized that the blueprint in the Senate creates no "special" pathway because illegal immigrants who eventually obtain a green card would then join the pool of everyone applying for citizenship.


"There isn’t a literal pathway to citizenship in the plan... There is a path to a green card," Rubio’s spokesman Alex Conant told PolitiFact in an email. "It’s worth noting that under current law, if you are in the U.S. illegally and want to become a citizen, you must leave the U.S. for 10 years and then apply for a green card. Under the Senate plan, they would be allowed to apply for a temporary permit to remain in the U.S. legally during those 10 years."


But to Camarota and others wary of any pathway, the ability to remain in the U.S. translates to cutting the line.


"They’re getting to stay in America and that’s the line that matters," he said. "The person who stays in his own country would have to wait."
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June 29, 2013- Legal def. of "amnesty" (FREE DICTIONARY)


The action of a government by which all persons or certain groups of persons who have committed a criminal offense—usually of a political nature that threatens the sovereignty of the government (such as Sedition or treason)—are granted Immunity from prosecution.
Amnesty allows the government of a nation or state to "forget" criminal acts, usually before prosecution has occurred. Amnesty has traditionally been used as a political tool of compromise and reunion following a war. An act of amnesty is generally granted to a group of people who have committed crimes against the state, such as Treason, rebellion, or desertion from the military. The first amnesty in U.S. history was offered by President George Washington, in 1795, to participants in the Whiskey Rebellion, a series of riots caused by an unpopular excise tax on liquor; a conditional amnesty, it allowed the U.S. government to forget the crimes of those involved, in exchange for their signatures on an oath of loyalty to the United States. Other significant amnesties in U.S. history were granted on account of the Civil and Vietnam Wars.
Because there is no specific legislative or constitutional mention of amnesty, its nature is somewhat ambiguous. Its legal justification is drawn from Article 2, Section 2, of the Constitution, which states, "The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." Because of their common basis, the difference between amnesty and pardon has been particularly vexing. In theory, an amnesty is granted before prosecution takes place, and a pardon after. However, even this basic distinction is blurry—President gerald r. ford, for example, granted a pardon to President richard m. nixon before Nixon was charged with any crime. Courts have allowed the two terms to be used interchangeably.
The earliest examples of amnesty are in Greek and Roman Law. The best documented case of amnesty in the ancient world occurred in 403 b.c. A long-term civil war in Athens was ended after a group dedicated to reuniting the city took over the government and arranged a general political amnesty. Effected by loyalty oaths taken by all Athenians, and only later made into law, the amnesty proclaimed the acts of both warring factions officially forgotten.
In other nations in which amnesties are accepted parts of the governing process, the power to grant amnesty sometimes lies with legislative bodies. In the United States, granting amnesties is primarily a power of the Executive Branch, though on some occasions Congress may also initiate amnesties as part of legislation. The Immigration Reform and Control
Act of 1986 (100 Stat. 3359, 8 U.S.C.A. §1101) attempted to reduce the number of Aliens illegally entering the United States by punishing employers who knowingly hired them. However, because of concerns voiced by both employers and immigrant community leaders, the act compromised: it contained provisions for an amnesty giving citizenship to illegal immigrants who had been residents for a set period of time.
Though the Supreme Court has given the opinion that Congress can grant an independent amnesty, it has never expressly ruled on the issue. However, the president's power to grant amnesty autonomously has never been in serious question. The president always has recourse to the pardoning powers granted the office by the Constitution.
During the Civil War period, President Abraham Lincoln offered a series of amnesties without congressional assent to Union deserters, on the condition that they willingly rejoin their regiments. After the war, Lincoln issued a proclamation of amnesty for those who had participated in the rebellion. Though Congress protested the leniency of the plan, it was helpless to alter or halt it. Lincoln's amnesty was limited, requiring a loyalty oath and excluding high-ranking Confederate officers and political leaders. Lincoln hinted at but never offered a broader amnesty. It was not until President Andrew Johnson's Christmas amnesty proclamation of 1868 that an unconditional amnesty was granted to all participants in the Civil War. Amnesty used in this way fosters reconciliation—in this case, by fully relinquishing the Union's criminal complaints against those participating in the rebellion.
Amnesty was used for a similar purpose at the conclusion of the Vietnam War. In 1974, President Ford attempted reconciliation by declaring a conditional amnesty for those who had evaded the draft or deserted the armed forces. The terms of the amnesty required two years of public service (the length of a draft term), and gave evaders and deserters only five months to return to the fold. Many of those whom the amnesty was designed to benefit were dissatisfied, viewing the required service as punishment. On the other hand, many U.S. citizens agreed with President Nixon that any amnesty was out of the question. It was left to President jimmy carter, in 1977, to issue a broad amnesty to draft evaders. Carter argued the distinction that their crimes were forgotten, not forgiven. This qualification makes clear the purpose of an amnesty: not to erase a criminal act, nor to condone or forgive it, but simply to facilitate political reconciliation.
Though an amnesty can be broad or narrow, covering one person or many, and can be seriously qualified (as long as the conditions are not unconstitutional), it cannot grant a license to commit future crimes. Nor can it forgive crimes not yet committed.
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Thursday, June 27, 2013

JUNE 27, 2013 - BRACERO PROGRAM "SET STAGE" FOR LARGE SCALE LEGAL AND ILLEGAL MEX/US MIGRATION (HISTORY NEWS NETWORK 2006)

Monday, July 3, 2006 - 03:42
The Bracero Program: Was It a Failure?
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Philip Martin


Mr. Martin is Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of California, Davis and a member of the Commission on Agricultural Workers established by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. He is the author of numerous studies and reports on immigration, including Trade and Migration: NAFTA and Agriculture (1993). This article is drawn from his book, Promise Unfulfilled: Unions, Immigration, and Farm Workers. Ithaca (Cornell University Press, 2003).
The US and Mexico shared a 2,000 border throughout the 20th century, but most Mexico-US migration occurred since 1980. Almost 6 million Mexicans were issued immigrant visas in the 20th century, and almost 4 million of these green cards were issued between 1980 and 2000. Similarly, over 40 million Mexicans illegally in the US were apprehended, and 26 million or two-thirds of these apprehensions occurred between 1980 and 2000.

The Bracero (strong arm) program set the stage for large-scale legal and illegal Mexico-US migration. Agriculture in California and the southwest began with the large acreages needed for dryland agriculture, which involved planting seed and harvesting wheat if there was sufficient rain as well as cattle grazing. When the transcontinental railroad in 1869 allowed California to take advantage of its Mediterranean climate and produce fruits and vegetables for consumers 3,000 miles away, large farms were expected to be broken up into family-sized units in order to get a labor force. This did not happen. Farmers found seasonal farm workers among the Chinese imported to build the railroad and shut out of cities by discrimination.
Braceros were the last wave of immigrant farm workers who had no other US job option except working in the fields. In the spring of 1942, California farmers predicted that there would be labor shortages for the fall harvest because of conscription for World War II, and asked the US and Mexican governments to allow Mexicans to work seasonally on US farms. Despite protests from US farm labor reformers that there was no shortage of workers, only a shortage of decent wages and working conditions, the US and Mexican governments signed a bilateral agreement in 1942 that allowed the entry of “native-born residents of North America, South America, and Central America, and the islands adjacent thereto, desiring to perform agricultural labor in the United States.”
Between 1942 and 1964, some 4.6 million Mexicans were admitted to do farm work; many Mexicans returned year after year, but 1 to 2 million gained legal U.S. work experience. The Bracero program was small during the war years. Admissions peaked at 62,000 in 1944, meaning that less than 2 percent of the 4 million U.S. hired workers were Braceros.
The wartime Bracero program ended in 1947, and many Mexican workers elected to migrate illegally because such migration was tolerated. If they were apprehended inside the US, illegal Mexicans were legalized in a process that official U.S. government publications called “drying out the wetbacks:” they were taken to the Mexico-US. border, issued documentation, and returned to the farm on which they were found. There were no penalties for farmers for knowingly hiring unauthorized workers, and the number of “wetbacks” soon exceeded the number of legally admitted Braceros.
A US government commission in 1951 recommended employer sanctions, imposing fines on US employers who knowingly hired illegal workers. President Truman and the Mexican government endorsed the commission’s recommendation, but Congress did not, and the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act that made harboring illegal aliens a felony included the so-called Texas proviso, which explained that employing an illegal alien was not harboring. There were thus no penalties on U.S. employers who knowingly hired illegal workers.
The Bracero program sowed the seeds for later Mexico-US. migration in several ways. The availability of Braceros permitted labor-intensive agriculture to expand to meet a growing demand for fruits and vegetables, creating a demand-pull for Mexican workers. Many areas of rural Mexico became dependent on money earned from U.S. jobs, and networks were soon established to link rural Mexican villages with U.S. farm jobs. US workers who faced Bracero competition in the fields, but not in nonfarm labor markets, exited for nonfarm jobs, leading to “farm labor shortages” that brought more Braceros. The Bracero share of the work force in citrus, tomatoes, and other major California commodities soon exceeded 50 percent, and farm wages as a percentage of manufacturing wages fell during the 1950s.
One argument for Braceros was that allowing Mexicans to come legally would reduce illegal migration. This argument was proven wrong. Between 1942 and 1964, there were 4.6 million Braceros admitted and 4.9 million Mexicans apprehended in the United States; it should be emphasized that both numbers double count individuals who entered the United States as a Bracero several times or were apprehended multiple times. The number of Braceros and “wetbacks” increased together in the 1950s, prompting the Immigration and Naturalization Service to launch “Operation Wetback” in June 1954, which removed 1.1 million Mexicans, including US-born and thus US citizen children of Braceros.
As the U.S. Department of Labor relaxed regulations on Bracero housing, wages, and food charges in the mid-1950s, more farmers hired legal Braceros; admissions peaked at 445,200 in 1956. However, Braceros admissions began to fall in the early 1960s, when President Kennedy ordered the Department of Labor to enforce Bracero regulations. The November 1960 CBS documentary “Harvest of Shame” convinced Kennedy that Braceros were “adversely affecting the wages, working conditions, and employment opportunities of our own agricultural workers.” Farmers fought to preserve the program in Congress, but lost, and the Bracero program ended December 31, 1964.
There were three major responses to the end of the Bracero program in US agriculture. Many farmers joined or formed associations that acted as “super labor contractors” to recruit and supervise fewer U.S. workers, increasing worker earnings. The Coastal Growers Association in Ventura County, for example, reduced employment from 8,517 workers in 1965 to 1,292 in 1978 and increased average hourly earnings from $1.77 to $5.63, reflecting rising worker productivity, from an average 3.4 boxes picked an hour in 1965 to 8.4 boxes an hour in 1978.
A second response to the end of the Bracero program was labor-saving mechanization. Plant scientists developed a uniformly ripening tomato that was processed into ketchup and other tomato products, and engineers developed a machine to cut the plant and shake off the tomatoes, reducing the number of pickers needed by over 90 percent.
The third response was successful unionization. In the fall of 1965, the National Farm Workers Association headed by Cesar Chavez joined a strike called by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, which included mostly Filipino grape pickers. In the spring of 1966, the combined groups, renamed the United Farm Workers Union (UFW), won a 40 percent wage increase for grape pickers, largely because no Braceros were available. This UFW grape victory ushered in a 15-year golden era for US farm workers that ended with rising illegal migration in the 1980s and 1990s.
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June 27, 2013 - Link with cartel and terrorists TRANS. NATIONAL CRIMINAL ORGAN.(NDU PRESS 2010)

Terrorist-Criminal Pipelines and Criminalized States:
Emerging Alliances

By Douglas Farah
2 and 0

Abstract

Transnational criminal organizations, networks, and terrorist groups are increasingly helping each other move products, money, weapons, personnel, and goods. They accomplish this through an informal network or series of overlapping pipelines. These pipelines can be best understood as recombinant chains with links that can couple and decouple as necessary to meet the interests of the networks involved. Many operate in “alternatively governed” spaces outside of direct state control or within criminal state enterprises. A criminal state counts on the integration of the state's leadership into the criminal enterprise and the use of public services—such as licensing, issuance of official documents, regulatory regimes, border control—for illicit purposes. A further variation of the criminal state occurs when a state franchises part of its territory to nonstate groups, with the protection of the central government or a regional power sharing the profits. The author shows that understanding and addressing these threats requires capacity-building in human intelligence collection and prosecuting transnational criminal organizations.
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June 27, 2013 - Transnational criminal org. and terrorists (ISJ INVESTIGATIVE SCIENCE JOURNAL JAN. 2013

Volume 5, Number 1, January 2013


Street Gangs, Organized Crime Groups, and Terrorists:

Differentiating Criminal Organizations



Carter F. Smith
1

Jeff Rush
2

Catherine E. Burton
3

Abstract


Individually street gangs, organized crime (OC) groups, and terrorists all present serious

problems for national and international law enforcement agencies. Imagine though if these three

were connected or linked in substantive ways. Whether we want to accept this or not, the lines

between these structures are often blurred and ill-defined. Each of these groups often takes on

the characteristics of the other group, if not in motive then in technique. Additionally, these

groups sometimes form alliances with one another further complicating law enforcement efforts

to combat their criminal activity. Distinguishing these groups from one another, as well as

outlining areas in which they overlap will help direct law enforcement toward a more successful

pursuit of these groups.

Keywords
: Gangs; Organized Crime; Terrorism; Law Enforcement
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June 27, 2013 - DEPT OF DEFENSE ROLE: TRANS NATIONAL ORGAN. CRIME AND CARTELS


The Department of Defense’s Role in

Combating Transnational Organized Crime


William F. Wechsler and Gary Barnabo



T

ransnational organized crime (TOC) is altering the face of national security and changing

the character of the battlespace. Loose networks of criminals operate across international

boundaries with impunity, and their actions are more violent, deadly, and destabilizing

than in any previous time. Once viewed primarily through the lens of law enforcement as

drug cartels, transnational criminal organizations now engage in a web of overlapping illegal

activities, from cybercrime to trafficking in persons, money laundering, and distribution of

materials for weapons of mass destruction. As the power and influence of these organizations

have grown, their ability to undermine, corrode, and destabilize governments has increased.

The links forged among criminal groups, terrorist movements, and insurgencies have resulted

in a new type of adversary: hybrid, ever-evolving networks that are criminal, violent, and, at

times, politically motivated and blend into the landscape of a globalization-dominated world.

Hybrid networks adapt their structures and activities faster than countries can combat their

threats. These adversaries have become the new normal, compelling governments toward

integrated, innovative approaches to countering the growing dangers posed by transnational

organized crime.


The Character of Transnational Organized Crime


For decades, drug trafficking was the dominant lens through which the United States viewed

TOC. In the 1970s and 1980s, the flow of illicit narcotics into the United States was deemed

a major risk to the health and safety of Americans, and the government expended massive

resources to curtail both the supply of and the demand for illegal drugs. Supply side reduction

strategies emphasized degrading the capabilities of Western Hemisphere drug-trafficking

organizations—highly capable, violent, centralized, and hierarchical organizations often led

by charismatic kingpins. Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel, for example, were emblematic

of the type of threat facing the United States.


234



Wechsler and Barnabo



The drug-trafficking organization–centered paradigm for understanding the threat from TOC

was already anachronistic by the 1990s as the character of transnational criminal groups began

changing in three critical ways. First, drug-trafficking organizations diversified their activities.

Taking advantage of the hallmarks of globalization such as open borders, rapid increases in

the volume and speed of global trade, and the dissemination of technology tools, criminal organizations

that once dealt almost exclusively in narcotics began trafficking in small arms and

light weapons, people, counterfeit goods, and money, while continuing to ship vast quantities of

drugs along an expanding set of transportation routes. These groups recognized the additional

profits and operational flexibility that a broader range of trafficking activities could provide.

Second, transnational criminal organizations harnessed new methods of doing business.

Criminal groups began penetrating the licit global marketplace, subverting and distorting legitimate

markets and economic activity. These groups became adroit at harnessing information

technology tools, seizing the opportunities presented by the accelerating velocity of information

flows, the proliferation of online money transfer, and the general anonymity of virtual

exchange to increase the scale and scope of their activities while spreading or reducing the risk

of detection. Cyberspace is now a central arena for TOC: it enables vital elements of criminal

transactions, such as communications and financial exchange, at low risk. Moreover, the increased

virtual nature of some transnational criminal organizations has created deep overlaps

and synergies between legal and illegal activities: the same networks that facilitate legitimate

international business transactions are used for crime. Consequently, it is increasingly difficult

for governments to identify, target, and degrade the activities of transnational criminal groups.

Third, the structure of transnational criminal organizations changed. Reflective of globalization’s

trends, centralized criminal groups have, in many cases, yielded to dispersed networks

of criminal agents. They have become loose, amorphous, highly adaptable networks that are

decentralized and flat, and emphasize ad hoc partnerships defined by the opportunity of the

moment rather than top-down, command-and-control hierarchies. These characteristics have

rendered transnational criminal organizations more flexible and agile than the government

agencies chartered with degrading or defeating them. In the context of the Department of

Defense (DOD), criminal networks cut across geographic combatant commands, which are

responsible for the employment of military capabilities in distinct regions. Criminals who

operate across multiple combatant commands present challenges for DOD in synchronizing

its efforts to understand and address their activities. These realities demand new approaches

that are networked, whole-of-government, and adaptable.

Together, these shifts have generated a more threatening set of challenges to national and

international security. Transnational criminal organizations co-opt government officials and

elites, corrode the legitimacy of government institutions, and increasingly have the propensity

and ability to use national infrastructures to further their activities. In some cases, these groups

threaten and challenge the state’s control of its territory. Guinea-Bissau in Africa is on the verge

of becoming a narco-state. Transnistria, a region of Moldova controlled by a separatist regime,

has been deeply penetrated by organized crime. And closer to home, certain governments in

the Western Hemisphere are increasingly challenged to preserve citizen security from the

insidious effects of criminal organizations, such as corruption and large-scale violence.


235



Combating Transnational Organized Crime



Criminal networks are increasingly merging, blending, and cooperating with other

nefarious and violent nonstate actors including terrorist organizations and insurgent movements.

Crime is used to finance terrorism and is often how insurgencies raise revenue to

pay individual cadres. Terrorists and insurgents can tap into the global illicit marketplace to

underwrite their activities and acquire weapons and other supplies vital to their operations.

Criminals, in their search for profits, will turn almost anywhere for revenue. The net effect is

a crime-terror-insurgency nexus.

Examples of this nexus abound. As of November 2011, the Drug Enforcement Administration

(DEA) had linked 19 of the 49 organizations on the State Department’s list of Foreign

Terrorist Organizations to the drug trade.

1 Similarly, in 2010, 29 of the 63 organizations on

the Justice Department’s Consolidated Priority Organization Targets list, which includes key

drug trafficking and criminal organizations, had associations with terrorism.

2 In January 2012,

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper concluded that “Terrorists and insurgents will

increasingly turn to crime and criminal networks for funding and logistics, in part because of

U.S. and Western success in attacking other sources of their funding. The criminal connections

and activities of Hezbollah and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb illustrate this trend.”

3

Global crime networks coalesce with members of radical political movements in ungoverned

border regions in Central and South America; similar blending has occurred in the Balkans.

The crime-terror-insurgent nexus is changing the global security landscape and, more

importantly for DOD, is also altering the character of the battlespace. In Afghanistan, the

Taliban and a variety of criminal networks often operate in lockstep; illicit activities are an

important funding stream for the Taliban and its offshoots. Moreover, drug incomes corrupt

politicians, alienating populations who then become vulnerable to the messages of the Taliban

and its ilk. Crime and corruption thus perpetuate the Afghan insurgency and threaten coalition

forces’ ability to consolidate security gains and establish conditions for long-term stability. Of

direct concern to DOD are the criminal networks that provide the materials and financial

and logistical support for improvised explosive devices, which are among the most significant

threats to U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan.

More generally, hybrid criminal-terror-insurgent threats are forcing DOD to adapt its approaches

to conflict and adjust the type and level of resources it deploys around the world. War

against nebulous, networked threats that operate at the seams of war, instability, and peace; blur

the illicit and licit; and simultaneously display the characteristics of criminals, terrorists, and

insurgents requires DOD to think innovatively about how it plans, organizes, and operates.


A New Impetus for Combating Transnational Organized Crime


Largely because of the changing character of transnational criminal organizations, the national

security threats posed by TOC have expanded and become more dangerous. This finding is at

the core of the Obama administration’s July 2011

Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized

Crime


, which concludes that “criminal networks are not only expanding their operations, but

they are also diversifying their activities. The result is a convergence of threats that have evolved

to become more complex, volatile, and destabilizing.”

4 In a clear articulation of the U.S. Government’s

position, the strategy declares that transnational organized crime poses “a significant


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threat to national security.”

5 It directs the government to “build, balance, and integrate the tools

of American power to combat transnational organized crime and related threats to national

security—and to urge our foreign partners to do the same.”

6

The strategy is a call to action: it compels the U.S. Government, including DOD, to reframe

and refocus its efforts in combating TOC. Importantly, the strategy addresses organized

crime and drug trafficking as increasingly intertwined threats, laying the foundation for a broad

approach to global crime that rightfully retains a core focus on counternarcotics but widens

the aperture by recognizing the diversification of global criminal activity and its relationship

with other irregular threats.

Transnational criminal organizations are the essence of a networked threat. Not only are

criminal entities themselves networked, but they also rely on support networks—transportation,

financial, human capital, logistics, and communications—to enable their activities. It

follows that U.S. Government efforts to combat organized crime should emphasize counternetwork

approaches. Disrupting networks, particularly those associated with financial flows—

vital enablers of any criminal activity—through multifaceted targeting of key network nodes,

be they individuals, institutions, or even specific trafficking routes, can have a broad positive

impact on degrading criminal organizations. Employing these counternetwork approaches,

however, requires the government to assume the characteristics of a network, integrating the

capabilities of diverse interagency stakeholders and adjusting approaches as rapidly as the adversary

changes tactics. Only when our policy responses and actions in the field are as adaptive

as the threat will we see true progress against transnational organized crime.


DOD’s Supporting and Evolving Role


DOD supports law enforcement, other U.S. agencies, and foreign partners in combating

transnational organized crime. The U.S. Government and its partners address transnational

criminal threats primarily through law enforcement channels, capacity-building efforts, diplomacy

with key partner states, intelligence and analytical efforts, and the use of innovative policy

tools such as counterthreat finance capabilities. Because it is in a supporting role, DOD rarely

leads these efforts, but it offers unique capabilities and resources that strengthen overall U.S.

Government approaches against criminal networks. As the threat has morphed, however, there

have been important instances of law enforcement agencies supporting DOD operations. The

Afghanistan Threat Finance Cell, for example, is run by law enforcement entities and provides

direct support to military operations in Afghanistan. Support that cuts both ways—from

DOD to law enforcement and from law enforcement to the military—is a strategically important

evolution in how the U.S. Government organizes to combat TOC.

The Department of Defense can provide intelligence and equipment to support law

enforcement efforts against transnational criminal organizations. DOD’s focus, however,

has typically been on counternarcotics missions—historically in the Western Hemisphere

and over the past decade in Afghanistan and the surrounding region. As described above, the

nexus among criminals, terrorists, and insurgents is increasingly visible as our adversaries forge

hybrid organizational and operational models, suggesting that counterterrorism initiatives in

the future should incorporate a greater emphasis on combating the nexus with TOC.


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Moreover, the traditional emphasis on counterdrug missions will also continue to shift

due to the blurring of illicit narcotics production and trafficking and other forms of transnational

crime. Criminal networks that traffic in drugs more often than not also deal in small

arms, light weapons, precursor chemicals, people, or bulk cash. This is certainly the case of

organized crime groups such as Los Zetas, the Sinaloa Cartel, and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13),

which operate across the Western Hemisphere and have tentacles reaching into Europe and

Asia, and the illicit networks that crisscross Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asia.

Not all transnational criminal organizations undertake the full spectrum of illegal activity,

but it is increasingly rare to see major crime groups confine their business strictly to one type

of criminality.


Spectrum of Support


The evolution of many drug-trafficking organizations into diversified criminal groups has

driven a shift in DOD’s mission focus. The Department now provides support to law enforcement,

other U.S. Government agencies, and foreign partners across a spectrum of operations

and activities: military-to-military assistance, capacity-building and training to partner states,

intelligence support to law enforcement, support to the development of institutions that convene

interagency stakeholders in whole-of-government approaches to combating the national

security threats TOC present, and, as a last resort, direct military action against terrorist or

insurgent groups that also engage in crime. DOD is not often the most visible government

agency combating transnational organized crime, and this is entirely proper for a Department

in a supporting role. But the lack of attention it receives for its efforts against TOC does not

diminish the importance of its contributions.

The extent and success of DOD support in the fight against TOC are best understood

through examples at various points on the spectrum.


Military-to-Military Support

In the 1980s and 1990s, Colombia faced a full-blown challenge to the viability of the state.

Several armed criminal-insurgent groups waged an active campaign against the government,

engaging in major terrorist attacks, kidnapping, extortion, and all phases of the drug trade. In

the late 1990s, there was widespread belief that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

(FARC) would seize Bogota. For 20 years, Colombian drug-trafficking organizations exported

cocaine to the United States in staggering quantities, and it appeared almost impossible to

make a dent in the drug trafficking and organized crime emanating from that country.

Over time, however, the political will among Colombian leaders, supported by a sustained

U.S. Government interagency effort, resulted in a remarkable impact against the FARC and

related criminal-insurgent activity in Colombia. DOD was a vital enabler of Colombia’s success,

helping its security forces overcome critical capability gaps. The Department’s sustained

counternarcotics and security assistance delivered military training, tactical and operational

support, capacity-building on intelligence sharing, and information operations, equipment,

and human rights training. The Department’s engagements assisted the Colombian military

in turning the tide against the FARC and other violent criminal groups that sought to capture


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the state. Colombia is now an exporter of security in the region, providing military training at

the request of regional and international organizations and collaborating with both neighboring

states and other countries as far afield as Turkey to share its lessons learned and provide

capacity-building assistance for combating narcotics and TOC, as well as citizen security,

peacekeeping operations, disaster response, and the strengthening of defense institutions. Its

special operations forces are now considered to be among the best of their kind in many circles.

The lessons learned from Colombia’s successes are regularly applied to U.S. Government efforts

in support of Mexico, Afghanistan, and other partners. DOD was just one U.S. Government

actor among many that provided support to Colombia, but its military-to-military collaboration

was a vital part of perhaps the first whole-of-government approach to combating TOC.


Building Partner Capacity

DOD’s capacity-building efforts with foreign partners are widespread. Capacity-building and

training of security forces, which serve a variety of national security objectives, are often areas

in which DOD has a comparative advantage vis-à-vis other departments and agencies. As

transnational criminal organizations expand their presence in regions such as West Africa and

Southeast Asia, the Department’s ability to support an ever-greater array of partner nations is

more and more valuable. DOD’s role in training, equipping, and in some cases operating alongside

partner countries’ security forces is the bedrock of building these states’ capacity to combat

TOC over the long term. DOD also partners with U.S. law enforcement agencies to support

the improvement of policing capacity in key partner states. Given resource constraints, support

for military-to-military and law enforcement capacity-building is in many cases a particularly

effective use of limited resources. It amounts to a long-term investment and provides partner

countries with the skills and tools that allow them, rather than the United States, to assume

the burden of combating TOC in and around their territory.

The impact of DOD initiatives is clear in numerous cases. In Indonesia, a sprawling

archipelago across which multiple criminal organizations and terrorist groups operate, Joint

Interagency Task Force–West (JIATF-W) activities have increased the capacity of Indonesian

security forces to fight a broad range of transnational threats including criminal organizations

trafficking in narcotics and precursor chemicals and terrorist and insurgent movements seeking

safe space from which to operate. JIATF-W support to Indonesia’s National Narcotics Board

has resulted in the construction of facilities at a counternarcotics academy used by various

elements of the Indonesian security forces. In Liberia, a strategic location in a region that has

experienced growth in trafficking and transnational crime, DOD support has focused on

capacity-building in two principal areas: maritime security (primarily through rebuilding the

Liberian Coast Guard) and support to the newly formed Transnational Crime Unit. United

States Africa Command (USAFRICOM) supported the renovation of a Liberian Coast

Guard base of operations, which included construction of a boat ramp/launch facility, floating

pier, and security fence. In addition, USAFRICOM has sponsored attendance by Liberian

Coast Guard personnel at various U.S. Coast Guard training courses that support Liberia’s

maritime security operations.


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Military Intelligence Support to Law Enforcement

Network mapping has become widely recognized as a key enabler in combating transnational

organized crime. Criminal organizations use multiple, overlapping transportation, logistics,

and financial networks to do business. Financial networks are particularly vital since money

is central to all criminal activities. Consequently, DOD has expanded its military intelligence

support to law enforcement on counterthreat finance initiatives that seek to identify, penetrate,

and exploit the critical nodes in the complex financial systems that enable global illicit networks.

DOD recognizes that countering the financial flows that facilitate trafficking groups, criminal

organizations, terrorists, and insurgents will produce cascading positive effects across the range

of networks these nefarious actors use.

A particular strength of DOD is integrating various forms of all-source intelligence to

facilitate a network-based approach to targeting. This is the approach used in the Afghan

Threat Finance Cell, through which DOD supports the DEA, Federal Bureau of Investigation,

Department of the Treasury, and other U.S. Government partners to identify insurgent

financiers, disrupt front companies, develop actionable financial intelligence, freeze and seize

illicit funds, and build criminal cases. These actions are vital to degrading and diminishing

the power of criminal-terrorist networks by enabling a judicial endgame—the prosecution

of adversaries, which often removes them from the battlefield for far longer than typical military-

led raids. The Afghan Threat Finance Cell is also designed to provide direct support to

the government of Afghanistan’s efforts to reclaim tainted money moving around the country,

which further undercuts the power of insurgent and terrorist networks. Importantly, these

types of approaches can be replicated and DOD’s experiences in Afghanistan have equipped it

with new tools, techniques, and institutional skill sets that add to the overall set of capabilities

the Department offers in support of law enforcement.


Direct Military Action with a Counter-Network Focus

In Afghanistan, DOD is taking direct action against a hybrid insurgent-criminal adversary in

partnership with law enforcement agencies and the government of Afghanistan. Over the past

10 years, there has been an evolution in how the Department thinks about and approaches

its missions there. DOD—and the interagency—have shifted from the paradigm that crime

oriented around narcotics production was an indelible feature of the national landscape but

disconnected from operations against al Qaeda and the Taliban, to a recognition that corruption,

narcotics production and trafficking, criminal organizations, and insurgency and terror are

mutually enabling and reinforcing and cannot be addressed in isolation. Ultimately, organized

crime and corruption threaten the viability of the Afghan state.

Consequently, DOD actions in Afghanistan emphasize counternetwork approaches:

attacking, degrading, and defeating the criminal networks that sustain the insurgency and

undermine the legitimacy and capacity of the Afghan government. Counterinsurgency,

counter–transnational organization crime missions, counterthreat finance activities, and capacity-

building efforts are part of an integrated U.S. Government effort led, in many cases, by

DOD. The Department’s role in the operation of the Afghan Threat Finance Cell is a critical

contribution to whole-of-government approaches to combating hybrid criminal-insurgent


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enemies in Afghanistan. The Interagency Operations Coordination Center, a joint U.S.–

United Kingdom center that provides law enforcement targeting support and operational

coordination for counternarcotics and counter–illicit networks operations in Afghanistan, is

a broader example of successful whole-of-government initiatives to counter organized crime

that also include the participation of key U.S. allies.

The Department of Defense has also adapted its policies in Afghanistan to address the

convergence of crime and insurgency more effectively. In 2008, DOD changed its policy to enable

U.S. forces to provide direct support to counternarcotics missions conducted by the DEA

and its Afghan counterparts. This shift in policy has led to a number of successful operations,

such as

Khafa Khardan, during which U.S. and coalition forces operating under the International

Security Assistance Force enabled 94 counterdrug operations by Afghan counterdrug

law enforcement units and their mentors in a 30-day period.

DOD possesses significant convening power outside of Afghanistan. Through organizations

such as the Joint Interagency Task Force–South ( JIATF-S) and JIATF-W, DOD

has brought key U.S. agencies together in pursuit of common objectives. These hubs of collaboration

facilitate fast and flexible responses to the range of threats posed by transnational

organized crime. They are prime examples of the government assuming the characteristics

of a network—essentially creating a network among myriad U.S. Government agencies in

one location—to combat a networked threat. While its traditional emphasis has been on

counternarcotics, particularly the interdiction of illegal drugs, JIATF-S is a resounding success.

In 2009, it accounted for more than 40 percent of global cocaine interdiction, and in the

past two decades it has deprived criminal organizations of nearly $200 billion in profits.

7 Its

success stems in large part from the long-term, sustained, and institutionalized integration

of effort among law enforcement, DOD, and intelligence. Indeed, it may be that DOD’s role

in establishing the institutional architecture that enables agencies to work together as part of

a unified, whole-of-government approach is actually the most significant contribution it has

made in the fight against transnational organized crime and related national security threats.

Entities such as the JIATFs are not easy to create, and success does not stem from standing

up an organization, calling it “joint,” and staffing it from across the interagency. Impact and

sustainability require a set of conditions, beginning with a clear overlap in vital interests so

that stakeholders see the value of enduring participation, and a shared commitment to unified

action around the issues affecting those interests. Next, it is critical to develop and implement

strong cross-organizational structures that bring order and discipline to execution of critical

tasks. Finally, the organization must be adaptive, adjusting its approaches based on evolutions,

transformations, and shocks to the “issue set” it is chartered to address. DOD leadership has

fostered these conditions in the JIATFs, turning them into highly effective interagency hubs

that are models for replication.


New Challenges and Paradigms of Support

Five years ago, the Mexican government directed its military to increase its traditional role

of supporting law enforcement while Mexico undertook reforms to strengthen police, the

judicial system, and related institutions. These measures were largely necessitated by Mexican

transnational criminal organizations’ diversification beyond drug trafficking into kidnapping,


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extortion, smuggling persons, and other crimes. As the Mexican government disrupted transnational

criminal organizations, these groups increasingly fought for market share, escalating

violence against one another, targeting Mexican security forces using military-like weapons,

tactics, and techniques, and endangering the civilian population in the process. Mexican

criminal organizations also expanded their operations into Central America and have reached

into the United States, penetrating cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and Atlanta, far from the

border. The diversification of criminal activity and the increase in violence forced the Mexican

military to assume even more prominent roles, while simultaneously transforming themselves

to become more capable of protecting the public from hybrid, irregular threats.


The Way Forward


As the spectrum demonstrates, DOD tailors the type of support it provides to law enforcement,

other U.S. Government agencies, and foreign partners. Given the ever-evolving character

of transnational organized crime, this adaptability allows DOD to have significant strategic

impact in a range of circumstances. There are risks, however, of overextension and redundancy.

Providing support across a wide spectrum of efforts demands that DOD carefully prioritize

the specific activities it undertakes—a prescient requirement as resources shrink.

DOD has taken important steps toward setting clear priorities for its actions against

transnational organized crime. The Department’s Counternarcotics and Global Threats Strategy,

derived from national strategic and military guidance, is a key departure point for how

DOD combats transnational organized crime. But this strategy is not exhaustive. There are

manifestations of organized crime such as cybercrime, financial crimes, and state-sponsored

illicit activities that DOD has not yet fully integrated into its strategy and policy development.

Doing so will be critical to ensuring that the resources expended against criminal organizations

have maximum strategic impact.

The Department must also link its efforts against transnational organized crime with other

national security priorities. The strategies and policies created and implemented to combat

the threats posed by criminal networks should be connected to other focal points for DOD

and the U.S. Government—particularly cybersecurity, counterterrorism, counterproliferation,

building partner capacity, and strengthening governance. Holistic approaches that recognize

transnational organized crime not as a stovepiped problem but as a nefarious feature of the

global security environment that touches the whole world and impacts a multitude of vital

U.S. interests are the types most likely to succeed over the long term.

DOD understands that the most important prerequisite to success against transnational

organized crime is organizational flexibility and adaptability. As the character of transnational

criminal organizations continues to change and DOD and its U.S. Government partners hone

their understanding of the types of national security threats these groups pose, we must be

able to shift our strategies, priorities, policies, operations, and tactics for combating them. To

fail in our mission because DOD is unable to organize itself properly is unacceptable, yet it

remains a risk if we do not assume the characteristics of flexible, flat organizations.


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Notes


1

Statement of Derek S. Maltz, Special Agent in Charge of the Special Operations Division, Drug Enforcement

Administration, before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Terrorism, Non-Proliferation, and Crime,

November 17, 2011.


2

Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime: Addressing Converging Threats to National Security (Washington,

DC: The White House, July 2011), 6.


3

James Clapper, Unclassified Statement for the Record on the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S.

Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, January 31, 2012.


4

Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, cover letter by President Barack Obama.

5

Ibid., 1.

6

Ibid.

7

Evan Munsing and Christopher J. Lamb, Joint Interagency Task Force–South: The Best Known, Least Understood

Interagency Success


, Strategic Perspectives No. 5, Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic

Studies (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, June 2011), 3.
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