Summary
In recent years, violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has escalated dramatically, due largely to the Mexican government's efforts to disrupt Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTO). U.S. officials note the violence associated with Mexican DTOs poses a serious challenge for U.S. law enforcement, threatening citizens on both sides of the border, and U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials generally agree many of the firearms used to perpetrate crimes in Mexico are illicitly trafficked from the United States across the Southwest border. GAO was asked to examine (1) data on the types, sources, and users of these firearms; (2) key challenges confronting U.S. government efforts to combat illicit sales of firearms in the United States and stem the flow of them into Mexico; (3) challenges faced by U.S. agencies collaborating with Mexican authorities to combat the problem of illicit arms; and (4) the U.S. government's strategy for addressing the issue. GAO analyzed program information and firearms data and met with U.S. and Mexican officials on both sides of the border.
Available evidence indicates many of the firearms fueling Mexican drug violence originated in the United States, including a growing number of increasingly lethal weapons. While it is impossible to know how many firearms are illegally smuggled into Mexico in a given year, about 87 percent of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced in the last 5 years originated in the United States, according to data from Department of Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). According to U.S. and Mexican government officials, these firearms have been increasingly more powerful and lethal in recent years. Many of these firearms come from gun shops and gun shows in Southwest border states. U.S. and Mexican government and law enforcement officials stated most firearms are intended to support operations of Mexican DTOs, which are also responsible for trafficking arms to Mexico. The U.S. government faces several significant challenges in combating illicit sales of firearms in the United States and stemming their flow into Mexico. In particular, certain provisions of some federal firearms laws present challenges to U.S. efforts, according to ATF officials. Specifically, officials identified key challenges related to restrictions on collecting and reporting information on firearms purchases, a lack of required background checks for private firearms sales, and limitations on reporting requirements for multiple sales. GAO also found ATF and Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the primary agencies implementing efforts to address the issue, do not effectively coordinate their efforts, in part because the agencies lack clear roles and responsibilities and have been operating under an outdated interagency agreement. Additionally, agencies generally have not systematically gathered, analyzed, and reported data that could be useful to help plan and assess results of their efforts to address arms trafficking to Mexico. U.S. law enforcement agencies have provided some assistance to Mexican counterparts in combating arms trafficking, but these efforts face several challenges. U.S. law enforcement assistance to Mexico does not target arms trafficking needs, limiting U.S. agencies' ability to provide technical or operational assistance. In addition, U.S. assistance has been limited due to Mexican officials' incomplete use of ATF's electronic firearms tracing system, an important tool for U.S. arms trafficking investigations. Another significant challenge facing U.S. efforts to assist Mexico is corruption among some Mexican government entities. Mexican federal authorities are implementing anticorruption measures, but government officials acknowledge fully implementing these reforms will take considerable time, and may take years to affect comprehensive change. The administration's recently released National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy includes, for the first time, a chapter on combating illicit arms trafficking to Mexico. Prior to the new strategy, the U.S. government lacked a strategy to address arms trafficking to Mexico, and various efforts undertaken by individual U.S. agencies were not part of a comprehensive U.S. governmentwide strategy for addressing the problem. At this point, it's not clear whether ONDCP's "implementation plan" for the strategy, which has not been finalized, will include performance indicators and other accountability mechanisms to overcome shortcomings raised in our report.
Recommendations
Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director:
Team:
Phone:
Jess T. Ford
Government Accountability Office: International Affairs and Trade
(202) 512-4268
Recommendations for Executive Action
Recommendation: The U.S. Attorney General should prepare a report to Congress on approaches to address the challenges law enforcement officials raised in this report regarding the constraints on the collection of data that inhibit the ability of law enforcement to conduct timely investigations.
Agency Affected: Department of Justice
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To further enhance interagency collaboration in combating arms trafficking to Mexico and to help ensure integrated policy and program direction, the U.S. Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security should finalize the Memorandum of Understanding between ATF and ICE and develop processes for periodically monitoring its implementation and making any needed adjustments.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Agency Affected: Department of Justice
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To help identify where efforts should be targeted to combat illicit arms trafficking to Mexico, and to improve the gathering and reporting of data related to such efforts, the U.S. Attorney General should direct the ATF Director to regularly update ATF's reporting on aggregate firearms trafficking data and trends.
Agency Affected: Department of Justice
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To help identify where efforts should be targeted to combat illicit arms trafficking to Mexico, and to improve the gathering and reporting of data related to such efforts, the U.S. Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, should, in light of DHS's recent efforts to assess southbound weapons smuggling trends, direct ATF and ICE to ensure they share comprehensive data and leverage each other's expertise and analysis on future assessments relevant to the issue.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Agency Affected: Department of Justice
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To help identify where efforts should be targeted to combat illicit arms trafficking to Mexico, and to improve the gathering and reporting of data related to such efforts, the U.S. Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security should ensure the systematic gathering and reporting of data related to results of these efforts, including firearms seizures, investigations, and prosecutions.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Agency Affected: Department of Justice
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To improve the scope and completeness of data on firearms trafficked to Mexico and to facilitate investigations to disrupt illicit arms trafficking networks, the U.S. Attorney General and the Secretary of State should work with the Government of Mexico to expedite the dissemination of eTrace in Spanish across Mexico to the relevant Government of Mexico officials, provide these officials the proper training on the use of eTrace, and ensure more complete input of information on seized arms into eTrace.
Agency Affected: Department of Justice
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Agency Affected: Department of State
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Recommendation: To support the 2009 Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director should ensure that the implementation plan for the arms trafficking chapter of this strategy (1) identifies needs and clearly defines objectives for addressing those needs, (2) identifies roles and responsibilities for meeting objectives that leverage the existing expertise of each relevant agency, (3) ensures agencies are provided guidance on setting funding priorities and providing resources to address those needs, (4) establishes mechanisms to facilitate coordination across agencies, and (5) employs monitoring mechanisms to determine and report on progress toward objectives and identifies needed improvements.
Agency Affected: Office of National Drug Control Policy
Status: In process
Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
