The Looming "Threats" to U.S. National Security

U.S. Military and Economic Assistance to Latin America: FY 1999 est. Source: Secretary of State, Congressional Presentation for Foreign Operations, Fiscal Year 2000 (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1999), pp. 1324-5.

In the absence of a deeper vision of more durable democracy and sustainable development in Latin America, what remains are policies driven by domestic political considerations and perceived "threats." The most visible U.S. actor in much of the region is the U.S. Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey. Debates on Capitol Hill related to Latin America center almost exclusively on the issues of immigration, drug trafficking, and Cuba. The only new addition to the list is Colombia, where cold war and drug war villains are conveniently combined. As succinctly stated by Rep. Dan Burton (a Republican from Indiana) in congressional hearings on March 31, 1998: "I've been told by our sources...that the entire country is in jeopardy of being lost. The entire northern tier of South America could be lost to narco-guerrillas and traffickers, and that would be horrible for the United States...(and) the entire Western Hemisphere." As is the case in Colombia, the policies driving the U.S. role in the region repeat many of the errors made during the cold war and often ignore the views and concerns of Washington's Latin American allies.

The latter is particularly true with regard to immigration policy, which repeatedly emerges as a sticking point in bilateral relations with Mexico as well as Central American and Caribbean countries. The backlash in the region from the deportation of record numbers of Latin American immigrants is notably absent from the U.S. debate on immigration policy. Yet sharp decreases in remittances from family members in the United States can wreak havoc on small countries' economies as well as individual families.

Moreover, large numbers of deportees with criminal records--many of whom have not even lived in the countries they are being "returned" to--often go on to foster gang or other criminal activities in Latin America, contributing to significant increases in violent crime. Relaxations in the harsh 1996 anti-immigration legislation came about not as a result of pressure from Latin American countries but rather out of growing interest on the part of the Republican Party in winning the voting support of the Latin American population, soon destined to be the largest minority in the United States.

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