Mexico: descent into chaosATF budget cuts hurt efforts to stop illegal guns heading to Mexico
The proposed budget cuts for the ATF could seriously undermine Project Gunrunner, the Obama administration’s efforts to stem the flow of guns across the border to drug cartels; White House budget office proposed cutting nearly $160 million, or 12.8 percent, from the ATF’s budget; under federal rules, the last personnel hired are the first to be fired, and in the last several years the ATF has primarily focused on hiring for the border initiative; in 2009 alone, ATF agents seized 2,589 firearms and 265,000 rounds of ammunition headed across the border; so far, agents have traced more than 65,000 guns in Mexico back to the United States
A major initiative in the fight against illegal weapons trafficking across the Mexican border received a serious setback in the latest round of government budgeting.
Last month, the White House budget office proposed cutting nearly $160 million, or 12.8 percent, from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) budget.
According to the Washington Post, sources close to the budgeting process say that the cuts will effectively eliminate Project Gun Runner, a major effort by the Obama administration to limit the flow of guns heading across the border to Mexican drug cartels.
Under the program, ATF agents have focused on gathering intelligence from firearm purchase records, ballistics, and other analysis to crack down on firearms smuggled across the border that fuel Mexico’s bloody drug wars.
According to U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, “Mexican drug lords go shopping for war weapons in Arizona.”
In the three years since the program was launched nationally in 2006, the ATF conducted roughly 650 investigations against 1,400 defendants and recovered more than 12,000 weapons. In 2009 alone, it seized 2,589 firearms and 265,000 rounds of ammunition headed across the border.
Most recently, agents under Project Gunrunner broke up an arms trafficking ring that had planned to smuggle hundreds of weapons to Mexican cartels. The operation, dubbed “Fast and Furious,” found traffickers buying as many as forty AK-47 assault rifles at a time from gun shops in the Phoenix area.
So far, agents have traced more than 65,000 guns in Mexico back to the United States.
The ATF believes that the latest round of budget cuts will undermine Project Gunrunner’s efficacy. Under federal rules, the last personnel hired are the first to be fired, and in the last several years the ATF has primarily focused on hiring for the border initiative.
Officials in the ATF say that those likely to be affected by the budget cuts include agents hired to train and assist Mexican officials in seizing weapons used by cartels in the bloody drug wars.
James Cavanaugh, a former senior ATF official, said that the budget cuts “would really handicap the ATF.”
“It’s a small agency and it’s a lean machine. There are not a lot of agents and inspectors. There is not a lot of fat. With ATF, it would be an amputation,” he added.
