Washington Watch - 22 April 2010
Haiti: On 19 April Army Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, the former top American commander in Haiti, said that the US military role in Haiti which followed the devastating 12 January earthquake, would further decrease by 1 June. Keen said that the military drawdown, which will see the 2,200-strong US force on the ground cut to about 500, was prompted by the expanding role of civilian agencies. He was clear however that some US assistance would continue beyond 1 June, with 500 US reserve forces moving in to conduct more normal types of military exchanges with Haiti, including training for medical personnel, building schools and clinics, and helping Haiti establish an emergency operations centre. Keen said that the current security situation in Port-Au-Prince “remains calm" and that while there have “been isolated incidents of violence, if you will, it has not been to the degree that it has impacted at all on our ability to provide humanitarian assistance". At the height of the US military effort, some 22,000 forces were located in or around Haiti, including 7,000 land-based troops, with the remainder operating aboard 58 aircraft and 15 nearby vessels.
Mexico: On 20 April the US ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, admitted that some US companies were considering pulling out of Mexico because of the violence. He argued that it was still profitable to invest in Monterrey, though he admitted that costs of doing business in Mexico are rising because of the violence. He also announced that the US was ready to extend its training programmes, which the US already provided for 5,500 federal policemen, elite army and marine units, to include state and municipal police forces in Mexico, and, once Mexico has a single national police force, for those officers as well. Pascual also said that the US had provided training for judges and prosecutors in eight Mexican states where legislation allowed for such training. The point of this training was to ensure that gang members did not escape prosecution. Across Mexico, comparatively few of the people arrested on serious charges are actually prosecuted and convicted.
Mexico: On 15 April, Mexico's army and navy commanders attended the first ever summit of the high commands of Mexico, the US and Colombia to discuss anti-drugs policies. Mexico's defence minister is a serving general, Guillermo Galván, and its navy minister is a full admiral, Mariano Francisco Saynez Mendoza. The host for the meeting was the chairman of the US joint chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen. The Colombians fielded General Freddy Padilla de León. The US also fielded Dan Restrepo, the director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council. This meeting came a day after the US announced that it had suspended aid to the Colombian intelligence service, the DAS.Mullen, in a statement, said that each of the attendees had to learn from the others' experiences.
Region: On 19 April the Arizona senate approved a draft law that will, effectively, allow state police officers to arrest illegal migrants. The bill, which now awaits the signature of the state governor, Jan Brewer, a Republican, before becoming law, was heavily criticised by the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, who likened it to “German Nazi and Russian communist techniques." The LA archdiocese is almost 70% Latino. The Arizona law will be by far the toughest measure taken by any US state to curb illegal immigration. Around 18% of Arizona's registered voters are Latinos. The bill allows police officers to stop people and demand evidence that they are legal migrants. If those stopped cannot produce the evidence, they can be arrested. Previously, the police could only ask people about their immigration status after an offence had been committed. The draft law, however, could have been even tougher: an earlier version had a provision that would have mandated all state agencies to report suspected illegal migrants to federal agencies. Crucially, however, the new bill makes it an offence for an employer to hire day-labourers without checking their immigrations status. It is also a criminal offence to transport an illegal migrant. Separately but also on 19 April, Arizona's two sitting senators, McCain and John Kyl, called on the state government to send 3,000 National Guardsmen to the border immediately and deploy an extra 3,000 Border Patrol agents on the Arizona-Mexico border by 2015.