<<<Back to News Center 2010

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Pierluisi Speaks on House Floor About Need for More Federal Agents to Combat Violent Crime in Puerto Rico and Other High-Need Jurisdictions

WASHINGTON, DC- The Resident Commissioner, Pedro Pierluisi, spoke today on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives about bipartisan legislation he recently introduced that directs the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to establish programs to recruit, assign, and retain agents to serve in locations that have experienced high rates of violent crime.

“It is imperative that the federal government reduce personnel shortages in federal law enforcement agencies in high-need jurisdictions,” said the Resident Commissioner in his speech.

Since becoming Resident Commissioner, Pierluisi has been advocating for more federal
resources to combat violent crime. In July 2010, he wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder to express concern about the amount of funding and personnel that the federal government has devoted to fighting violent crime in Puerto Rico. Subsequently, the Resident Commissioner met with the Attorney General—as well as with senior officials from the Department of Homeland Security—to reiterate these concerns and to receive a briefing on the specific steps these agencies have taken to address the problem he identified.

Puerto Rico has 31 federal law enforcement officers for every 100,000 residents, well below the national average of 36.

“I urge the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to take action now to make recruitment and retention a priority. Vacancies at law enforcement agencies are not a minor administrative hassle, but an urgent public safety problem. We must summon the best ideas from the field of personnel management to ensure that these agencies recruit superior talent and retain that talent. Too much is at stake to accept the status quo. For every moment we wait, we risk losing another American citizen to senseless violence,” said Pierluisi.

The Resident Commissioner noted, for example, that 17% of the authorized positions at the Puerto Rico office of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and 22% of the authorized positions at the Puerto Rico office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are vacant.

Based on these numbers, the Resident Commissioner said that there is clearly a “mismatch” between the severity of the violent crime problem in Puerto Rico and the scale of the federal response.