Nineteen U.S. representatives have sent a letterto the secretary of state urging cooperation with Mexico on security and human rights issues.
Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva was one of the sponsors of the letter, which raises concerns about high rates of impunity, human rights violations, rising violence and the increasing use of the military in Mexico.
“The increased deployment of the Mexican military to combat crime has predictably resulted in serious human rights violations and has failed to weaken the drug cartels or reduce crime,” it reads. “We observe with concern that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has so far only deepened military participation in domestic policing, while deploying his new National Guard — made up mostly of current or former military personnel—to carry out immigration enforcement and other domestic security functions.”
“The letter says in clear terms that militarization, the deployment of the military in policing tasks, which has now been ongoing for the last over 14 years, throughout three presidential administrations in Mexico, that has not worked,” said Stephanie Brewer, director for Mexico and migrant rights at the Washington Office on Latin America.
She said it’s important that representatives are raising these issues at the start of the Biden administration, when there’s an opportunity for the two countries to renew and improve their relationship.
“It's time to fundamentally rethink and move away and move past those strategies, not just retool them,” Brewer said. “Not just retool the war on drugs and the use of force. But rather recognize that priorities need to shift to institution building, to rooting out corruption as the fundamental focus of security cooperation.”
