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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Pierluisi Reiterates the Need for an Enhanced Federal Response to Combat Drug Trafficking and Related Violence in Puerto Rico

WASHINGTON, DC- In a letter thanking U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other senior federal officials for visting Puerto Rico last week and for pledging to develop a law enforcement strategy specifically tailored for the Island, Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi reiterated that any strategy will require the allocation of additional personnel and resources in order to be successful.

In addition to Secretary Napolitano, the letter was addressed to Associate Attorney General Tony West from the U.S. Department of Justice and Assistant Secretary Betsy Markey from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. West and Markey, who serve as co-chairs of the Puerto Rico Intergency Public Safety Working Group (PSWG), traveled to the Island last week to learn firsthand about the public safety crisis in Puerto Rico and to better understand the basis for calls for additional resources that have been made by Governor Luis Fortuño and Resident Commissioner Pierluisi.

Pierluisi described last week’s meetings as “positive and productive” and said the visit of senior federal officials to Puerto Rico underscored the federal government’s commitment to working with local law enforcement to enhance and expand efforts to combat drug trafficking and related violence on the Island.

“Madame Secretary, I was heartened to hear you say that Puerto Rico’s public safety crisis has your full attention and that our motto moving forward will be “Let’s fix this.” I agree with you that the definition of success—and the benchmark by which we will measure our progress—is a significant and sustained reduction in the number of homicides committed on the Island,” Pierluisi wrote in the letter.

In addition, the Resident Commissioner noted that he was encouraged by the statements of Mr. West, Ms. Markey and several other federal officials that the close collaboration between federal and local law enforcement agencies in Puerto Rico could serve as a model for the rest of the nation.

Pierluisi also said that he shared the view expressed by a senior Department of Homeland Security official during Friday’s PSWG meeting, namely that the “real test” was not what federal and local stakeholders said during that session, but rather what specific actions they would take once the session concluded.

“I believe we all recognize the need to act with a sense of urgency in light of the severity of the situation. To the extent any doubt remains, I should note that there were 19 homicides in Puerto Rico this past weekend, including 10 on Friday,” the Resident Commissioner wrote.

In the letter, Pierluisi told Secretary Napolitano that he was grateful for her commitment to promptly develop a “law enforcement strategy” specifically tailored for Puerto Rico and the neighboring U.S. Virgin Islands. He noted that such a strategy was necessary, “on the one hand, to ensure that our efforts are as well-coordinated and effective as possible and, on the other hand, to identify deficiencies in the current approach that should be improved.”

“I respectfully ask that this strategy encompass not only the Department of Homeland Security’s component agencies (U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the U.S. Coast Guard), but also the Department of Justice’s component agencies (the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives), as well as the counternarcotics bureau within the Department of Defense,” said Pierluisi.

The Resident Commissioner explained that an appropriations bill pending in Congress directs the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to prepare and publish a Caribbean Border Counternarcotics Strategy, “on terms equivalent to the existing Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy and the Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy,” within 180 days of that bill’s enactment and every two years thereafter. Pierluisi stated that the law enforcement strategy that Secretary Napolitano had proposed to develop and the ONDCP strategy were both critically important and will serve to complement one another.

The Resident Commissioner asserted that implementation of any meaningful strategy will require a reasonable allocation of personnel and resources, whether on a temporary or enduring basis. “Otherwise, a strategy will merely be words on paper and will do little to achieve our shared goal of reducing Puerto Rico’s homicide rate,” he said.

Pierluis concluded his letter by noting that, in the five-year period between 2007 and 2011, the number of homicides nationwide fell by over 20 percent. In that same time period, however, the number of murders in Puerto Rico rose by over 55 percent, from 730 to 1,136.

“There is not a single other American jurisdiction where the spike in violence has been this pronounced. Indeed, no other jurisdiction even comes close. Yet, the number of personnel and resources that each DHS and DOJ component agency has allocated to Puerto Rico has remained stagnant, increased just slightly, or even been reduced. In other words, the federal law enforcement footprint in Puerto Rico has not evolved in the face of profoundly changed circumstances. It is my fervent hope that the forthcoming law enforcement strategy will recognize that an enhanced and expanded federal response is required if we are to be successful,” Pierluisi wrote.