foreignpolicy--2020-12-12--Legalization Advocates Hope to End Mexico’s Drug War

A determined political movement to end the war on drugs has taken shape across Europe and North America .
Harm reduction advocates say lives can be saved and resources spared , if only the state would move away from punishing drug users .
Perhaps , some predict , the state could even get into the business of regulating the production and sale of once-illegal substances .
Just last month , voters in Oregon and politicians in Vancouver , British Columbia , approved plans to decriminalize all illicit drugs , paving the way for a health care approach .
They ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which decriminalized drugs in 2001 and has seen overall success .
More than a dozen U.S. states have legalized the recreational use of cannabis , as well as Canada , South Africa , Uruguay , and a smattering of other countries and jurisdictions .
Yet proponents of decriminalizing , or even legalizing , drugs have focused mostly on the world ’ s biggest drug importers and often overlooked the countries responsible for producing and trafficking the drugs to satisfy rich countries ’ demand .
When Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador , known @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2018 , he did so on a sensible , cautious promise to put an end to the costly drug war—an appealing offer to voters tired of the violence that had killed around 150,000 people in 12 years .
He vowed that he would deprive the criminal gangs of money and recruits with a social justice approach .
His slogan was “ Hugs , not bullets.
” As president , he laid out a five-year plan with a call for a “ new paradigm ” in justice .
It was a recognition that neither @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out demand for drugs in Mexico itself , let alone in client markets such as the United States—and , as long as there was demand , supply would follow .
Drug reform advocates hailed AMLO as a leader .
And yet , two years on , the plan seems like a failure .
Violence is up .
The gangs haven ’ t been displaced .
Other countries have warned against nonessential travel to various Mexican states .
Nebulous plans to forge ahead with controlling the cultivation and production of opium poppies appear to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the brink of legalizing cannabis .
The jury is out as to whether that plan will make a dent in the cartels ’ riches .
Yet advocates of drug reform are urging patience , warning that nothing about ending Mexico ’ s drug war will be easy .
Pot has long been a cash crop for the cartels .
Confirming exact numbers may be sketchy , but a 2007 U.S. government report estimated that cannabis trafficking from Mexico into the United States earned them somewhere in the ballpark of $ 10 billion—more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ combined .
That huge number was driven by increasing demand and efforts to eradicate domestic U.S. production .
From Richard Nixon ’ s presidency onwards , the White House has tried desperately and futilely to stem that flow .
Nixon launched Operation Intercept , deploying thousands of border guards to stop and search virtually everything and anyone crossing from Mexico , hoping to push the Mexican government to get tougher on the drug trade by choking trade and travel .
It didn ’ t work .
In the 1980s , then President Ronald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DEA ) south of the border—then launched Operation Intercept II , which was roughly the same as the first operation , after the cartels killed one of his agents .
That didn ’ t work either .
The United States kept up clandestine operations in Mexico until 1998 , when a massive undercover money laundering bust smeared egg on the government ’ s face , leading to new rules on how the DEA can operate in Mexico .
A 2007 U.S. government report estimated that cannabis trafficking from Mexico into the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cocaine , heroin , and methamphetamine combined .
Washington has tried economic blackmail , it has tried cooperation , and it has tried to just do things by itself .
Nothing it has tried has worked .
But as the United States ramped up enforcement on the border , Mexico relaxed its own laws—just as growing portions of the United States were .
Mexico decriminalized small amounts of marijuana for personal use in 2009 .
Since then , though , legal challenges have wound their way through the courts , arguing that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recreational marijuana were illegal .
The Supreme Court agreed , finding the law infringed Mexicans ’ rights to consume cannabis .
After five rulings from the court declaring the law invalid , in October 2018 , just before López Obrador took office , the top court ordered the government to rewrite the laws .
A litany of competing plans were introduced in the legislature to move forward on legalization .
But a growing consensus emerged that a legalization plan had to be realistic about what victories it can actually achieve .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be a decrease in the revenue of the drug cartels , ” Laura Rojas Hernández , a congresswoman for the opposition National Action Party , said in a phone interview .
“ My personal view is that it will not be a great impact.
” She stressed : “ This is a discussion about rights—it is not a discussion about violence.
” Parts of the legalization regime , which legislators hope to pass into law in December , borrows from the lessons learned by other jurisdictions—citizens , for example , will have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of their own plants , but penalties will be strict for those who try and compete with the new legal regime .
There are uniquely Mexican elements to the new regime , however , with some 40 percent of the market reserved for Indigenous , low-income , and marginalized communities .
“ I don ’ t think we have to look to Canada or the United States , ” said Zara Snapp , co-founder of Instituto RIA , a research group focusing on justice and drug policy .
Snapp has lobbied to ensure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engages those who are currently turning a profit for the drug cartels , such as users , people who engage in narcomenudeo ( small-scale trafficking ) , and campesinos ( farmers ) .
There ’ s a reason why cannabis is a favorite cash crop worldwide : It grows plentifully in nearly any climate , it costs little to produce and harvest , and its demand seems to be eternally consistent .
Snapp said that the way legalization is done will determine how effective the strategy is at affecting the illicit market .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a social justice focus and are able to excarcerate people who are in jail for cannabis charges , and if the campesinos are involved , that will already be a big step in the right direction , ” Snapp said .
If the state can convince those currently participating in illegal cultivation to join the legal system—through competitive prices , amnesty for past nonviolent crimes , and a reconciliation over past wrongs committed by the state in the name of the drug war—it may create the conditions to slowly loosen the cartels ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrong , Snapp warned , it may only entrench Mexico ’ s status as a drug supplier for its richer neighbor .
So long as there is U.S. demand for marijuana , Mexico ’ s producers will find profit in supplying it .
If states continue legalizing , the traffickers ’ profit margins may continue falling .
“ We want to be really careful that this isn ’ t another industry where Mexico is used for cheap labor , ” Snapp said .
The backdrop of this debate is one that both Rojas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Mexico won ’ t stop the flow of the drug through Mexico .
The simple reality of Mexico ’ s drug trade is that it exists to satisfy U.S. markets .
Its population is less than half—and its gross domestic product per capita is about one-third—of its northern neighbor ’ s .
So long as there is U.S. demand for marijuana , Mexico ’ s producers will find profit in supplying it .
If states continue legalizing , the traffickers ’ profit margins may continue falling .
But so long as there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s worth it for the traffickers to continue growing in Mexico .
“ The drug cartels are strong enough to keep their prices below [ the legal rate ] , ” said Rojas Hernández .
Growing demand in the United States meant growing supply in Mexico .
Poppy cultivation hit an apex in 2017 , with estimates putting the total scope of the Mexican poppy fields at 109,000 acres—170 square miles .
The cultivation of those poppies alone was worth roughly $ 1 billion in 2017 , before the fentanyl crash , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ include some of Mexico ’ s poorest communities .
In 2016 , the governor of Guerrero , Héctor Astudillo , began marketing the idea that the state could convert some of those fields into legal enterprises .
Since the opium gum from the plants can be processed into legal pharmaceuticals , Astudillo proposed that Mexico regulate the fields for medical purposes .
The profit may be lower , but it would mean farmers not having to worry about the army razing their fields .
It would take some years , but Astudillo convinced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ calling for the decriminalization of opium poppies for medical purposes in 2018 , after which the bill was sent off to the federal Senate for approval .
Support for the idea came from an unlikely source : Mexico ’ s defense minister .
“ It is a subject that will have to be debated .
In principle , it seems to me that it is correct , ” Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos told reporters during a trip to Guerrero that year .
The bill is reportedly under study , but hasn ’ t progressed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has popped up again in debate around the government ’ s marijuana legalization effort .
Manuel Añorve Baños , a senator for Guerrero , proposed legislation in this session which would legalize and regulate the cultivation and production of poppies .
Despite growing support , López Obrador is still weighing his options .
The biggest driver for change may be market forces .
In 2018 , prices for opium gum fell off a cliff , partly because of a decline in use but mostly because of price competition .
A pound of gum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pound .
Production has declined substantially as well .
As is common in the drug trade , the gangs weren ’ t keen to see a reduction in profit , which meant the losses were passed on to farmers .
Prices for opium gum declined by as much as 90 percent in a short period .
The decline in heroin ’ s popularity in the United States appears to be explained by a stark increase in the use of extremely potent and cheap fentanyl .
Some of that appears to be trafficked by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Huge amounts of the drug are shipped in from China , often via Canada and the United States .
All of this has created a domino effect for Mexico , which has historically not seen high levels of drug use .
Recently , the overflowing supply of meth has created a domestic addiction problem .
Looking to diversify their output to compete , drug cartels have ramped up methamphetamine production , which is cheaper and easier to produce than ever , and its potency appears to be skyrocketing .
In parts of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
All of this has created a domino effect for Mexico , which has historically not seen high levels of drug use .
Recently , the overflowing supply of meth has created a domestic addiction problem .
A lack of a market for heroin has forced cartels to offload that drug closer to home as well .
The COVID-19 pandemic ’ s impact on travel and supply chains has only multiplied that effect .
And then there are the deportations .
U.S. President Donald Trump ’ s administration ’ s efforts to send @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those struggling with addiction as well .
It is estimated that about 40 percent of intravenous drug users in the Mexican city of Tijuana , which borders San Diego , were deported from the United States .
Clampdowns on drug smuggling into the United States has also led to more heroin being sold domestically .
Accessible addiction clinics are in short supply , and harm reduction policies proven successful elsewhere are not common in Mexico .
“ The intersection of a fragile emerging social structure as a result of nationals returning through deportation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the treatment of pain ; lobbying from pharmaceutical companies ; increasing local production , distribution , and availability of heroin ; and a lack of infrastructure to support evidence-based treatment of opioid use disorder are likely to increase the risk of a generalized Mexican opioid use epidemic , ” read a paper published in the American Journal of Public Health in January 2019 .
The United States ’ changing demand for increasingly potent drugs has , once again , led to painful outcomes for Mexico .
“ The iron law of prohibition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and usually more harmful , substances , ” Snapp said .
The recent trend has only put a finer point on the calls for legalization and a system that could keep farmers employed , cut back on a glut of cheap drugs , and help those struggling with addiction instead of incarcerating them .
The recent trend has only put a finer point on the calls for legalization and a system that could keep farmers employed , cut back on a glut of cheap drugs , and help those struggling with addiction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Snapp wonder if those things can fit together—whether poppy cultivation could plug into an international harm reduction model .
Snapp visited Vancouver recently to try and learn more about the particulars of Canada ’ s drug problem .
She was struck by the fact that there was an appetite for alternatives .
In late November of this year , Vancouver ’ s city council voted unanimously to decriminalize drug use for personal possession and lobby the federal government in Ottawa to formally drop criminal prohibitions around personal drug use .
“ Would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or fentanyl ?
” she recalled asking some users .
“ Yes , ” they told her .
“ But nobody has offered me that yet.
” The idea is hardly novel .
At the turn of the 20th century , Vancouver was—like New York and San Francisco—renowned for its opium dens .
At the time , the opium was largely sourced from colonial India .
The British , in fact , started two wars to prevent the Chinese government from trying to clamp down on British imports of the drug .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ temperance movement , combined with anti-Chinese racism , led to a Western crackdown on opium that laid the foundation for much of the modern war on drugs .
Tracing those historical lines—from opium to heroin to fentanyl , or from cocaine to crack—appears to support the idea that criminalization leads to more potent drugs .
The question remains whether that problem can be reverse-engineered and legalization lead to safer alternatives .
Even if Guerrero can figure out how to regulate its poppy fields , it is only one state of many .
Mexico @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of heroin—albeit far behind Afghanistan , the world ’ s largest—and large expanses of its countryside are perfect for cultivation .
Abroad , there are scant few jurisdictions that would allow opium gum to be imported , and even those states would require just tiny amounts .
That ’ s to say nothing on the international conventions against such drug trading .
Marijuana legalization could mean some of those farmers can replace their poppy fields with cannabis , but exportation is not likely to be in the cards in the short term .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ farmers without a path to a legal market .
And it doesn ’ t change the fact that the U.S. market is still hungry for opiates .
Heroin use may have declined , but heroin has proved itself to be a remarkably resilient drug .
“ Mexico is 100 percent in a hard place , ” Snapp said .
The country has learned that crop eradication doesn ’ t work .
But decriminalizing crop production isn ’ t an obvious solution , either .
Marijuana and heroin are only two drugs .
Stroll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and you can find vendors hawking any number of illicit drugs .
( Whether they are as advertised is another question . )
Snapp also conceded that cannabis legalization is ” controversial enough for society that it will be hard enough to implement something else.
” López Obrador might simply not have the political capital needed to forge ahead on poppy cultivation rules .
Going only for decriminalization , like others have done , isn ’ t a solution , either .
“ I don ’ t think we could follow Portugal , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to think about how you handle cultivation.
” Mexico is largely on its own here .
Rojas Hernández suspects that once cannabis legalization is done , the state can look to other avenues to battle organized crime through the law .
“ I think we have to go step by step , ” the congresswoman said .
“ We have to solve this first .
We are trying to find the best model that could work for us.
” “ This will not stop , as long as we have a big market @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a problem that can only be solved if we act together.
” Rojas Hernández theoretically supports drug decriminalization—she repeated , with emphasis , theoretically—but , she said , “ the problem with the drug cartels is that nowadays , they are not only involved with drugs , but also with , for example , kidnapping .
So the problem is huge.
” “ This will not stop , as long as we have a big market right next door , ” Rojas Hernández said .
“ We have said this for a long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can only be solved if we act together.
” U.S. President-elect Joe Biden vowed during the campaign that “ no one should be incarcerated for drug use alone , ” committing instead to drug courts and treatment .
It ’ s unclear what form that promise will take , but it signals an intent to move away from using police and law enforcement to solve the problems of addiction and drug use .
Even though it is uniquely responsible for Mexico ’ s rampant opium industry , the United States is also the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ treaties as a cudgel should Mexico explore legalization .
Yet he ’ s found surprising solidarity in his own country .
Rojas Hernández represents the center-right National Action Party of former Presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón , and last year Fox even came out in support of outright legalization .
Añorve Baños , the senator who introduced poppy legalization legislation , represents the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party of López Obrador ’ s predecessor , Enrique Peña Nieto .
López Obrador ’ s left-wing alliance holds a majority in both chambers , so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ necessary .
But the support is nevertheless meaningful .
“ We support the government ’ s goal of combating violence , ” Rojas Hernández said .
“ We have done all that we can to give the president the institutional instruments for doing it.
” To that end , marking López Obrador ’ s success on narrow metrics is short-sighted .
Given so much of Mexico ’ s drug trade is dictated by Americans ’ appetite for illicit substances , his efforts at reform will have to be more gradual and systemic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the violence , it ’ s unclear whether he can stay on course .
“ It ’ s going to be up to the state to stop being distracted , ” Snapp said .
She said the amount of resources and time spent torching crops , arresting low-level dealers , and trying to disrupt the cross-border flow of drugs is part of the problem .
“ Our justice system is being distracted by the work it should be doing in actually investigating and prosecuting real crimes—homicide , disappearances , extortion.
” Mexican prisons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faced stiff penalties from a state anxious to round up any and every participant in the drug trade .
Releasing inmates has also been a priority as the COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged prisons worldwide .
“ Most of them are [ in prison ] for a value of under $ 25 , ” Snapp said .
Pulling back on arrests is an imperfect solution , too .
López Obrador ’ s softer stance over the past year hasn ’ t abated the violence .
Last year was Mexico ’ s deadliest on record @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Mormon community in Sonora in 2019 has only increased the sense of impunity among the cartels .
President Donald Trump is now openly talking about listing the cartels as terrorist organizations .
Low-level drug dealers are in prison because they ’ re easy to catch .
Cartel assassins and kingpins are out free because they ’ re hard to nab .
In Mexico , it ’ s hard even to keep them locked up .
Still , with discipline and time , the direction López Obrador has taken may win out .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a few of these things well , and it will start having an effect , ” Snapp said .
Identifying victims found buried in mass graves could be a start , so as to end the plague of disappearances that propagate cycles of violence in communities across the country .
Rojas Hernández pointed to reforms already undertaken over the past year to strengthen security and judicial systems as evidence that progress is being made .
The hope is that once Mexicans know their government is capable of a rational , principled , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To that end , maybe one of the biggest challenges is psychology .
“ People around here drive crazy , ” Snapp said , laughing .
“ Then they cross the border into California , and they drive perfectly .
”

A determined political movement to end the war on drugs has taken shape across Europe and North America. Harm reduction advocates say lives can be saved and resources spared, if only the state would move away from punishing drug users. Perhaps, some predict, the state could even get into the business of regulating the production and sale of once-illegal substances.
A determined political movement to end the war on drugs has taken shape across Europe and North America. Harm reduction advocates say lives can be saved and resources spared, if only the state would move away from punishing drug users. Perhaps, some predict, the state could even get into the business of regulating the production and sale of once-illegal substances.
Just last month, voters in Oregon and politicians in Vancouver, British Columbia, approved plans to decriminalize all illicit drugs, paving the way for a health care approach. They’re following the example of Portugal, which decriminalized drugs in 2001 and has seen overall success. More than a dozen U.S. states have legalized the recreational use of cannabis, as well as Canada, South Africa, Uruguay, and a smattering of other countries and jurisdictions.
Yet proponents of decriminalizing, or even legalizing, drugs have focused mostly on the world’s biggest drug importers and often overlooked the countries responsible for producing and trafficking the drugs to satisfy rich countries’ demand.
States such as Mexico.
When Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, won the presidency in 2018, he did so on a sensible, cautious promise to put an end to the costly drug war—an appealing offer to voters tired of the violence that had killed around 150,000 people in 12 years. He vowed that he would deprive the criminal gangs of money and recruits with a social justice approach. His slogan was “Hugs, not bullets.”
As president, he laid out a five-year plan with a call for a “new paradigm” in justice. It was a recognition that neither the police nor the military could snuff out demand for drugs in Mexico itself, let alone in client markets such as the United States—and, as long as there was demand, supply would follow. Drug reform advocates hailed AMLO as a leader.
And yet, two years on, the plan seems like a failure. Violence is up. The gangs haven’t been displaced. Other countries have warned against nonessential travel to various Mexican states. Nebulous plans to forge ahead with controlling the cultivation and production of opium poppies appear to have dissipated.
Mexico is only now on the brink of legalizing cannabis. The jury is out as to whether that plan will make a dent in the cartels’ riches.
Yet advocates of drug reform are urging patience, warning that nothing about ending Mexico’s drug war will be easy.
For decades, Mexico’s booming illegal cannabis industry has existed largely to supply demand in the U.S. market. U.S. Border Patrol seized 858,000 pounds of marijuana at the Mexican border in the 2017 fiscal year alone, representing just a fraction of the drug entering the country.
Pot has long been a cash crop for the cartels. Confirming exact numbers may be sketchy, but a 2007 U.S. government report estimated that cannabis trafficking from Mexico into the United States earned them somewhere in the ballpark of $10 billion—more than cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine combined. That huge number was driven by increasing demand and efforts to eradicate domestic U.S. production.
From Richard Nixon’s presidency onwards, the White House has tried desperately and futilely to stem that flow. Nixon launched Operation Intercept, deploying thousands of border guards to stop and search virtually everything and anyone crossing from Mexico, hoping to push the Mexican government to get tougher on the drug trade by choking trade and travel. It didn’t work. In the 1980s, then President Ronald Reagan dispatched the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) south of the border—then launched Operation Intercept II, which was roughly the same as the first operation, after the cartels killed one of his agents. That didn’t work either. The United States kept up clandestine operations in Mexico until 1998, when a massive undercover money laundering bust smeared egg on the government’s face, leading to new rules on how the DEA can operate in Mexico.
A 2007 U.S. government report estimated that cannabis trafficking from Mexico into the United States earned cartels around $10 billion—more than cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine combined.
Washington has tried economic blackmail, it has tried cooperation, and it has tried to just do things by itself. Nothing it has tried has worked.
But as the United States ramped up enforcement on the border, Mexico relaxed its own laws—just as growing portions of the United States were.
Mexico decriminalized small amounts of marijuana for personal use in 2009. Since then, though, legal challenges have wound their way through the courts, arguing that the laws banning the cultivation and sale of recreational marijuana were illegal. The Supreme Court agreed, finding the law infringed Mexicans’ rights to consume cannabis. After five rulings from the court declaring the law invalid, in October 2018, just before López Obrador took office, the top court ordered the government to rewrite the laws.
A litany of competing plans were introduced in the legislature to move forward on legalization. But a growing consensus emerged that a legalization plan had to be realistic about what victories it can actually achieve.
“We think, of course, that there will be a decrease in the revenue of the drug cartels,” Laura Rojas Hernández, a congresswoman for the opposition National Action Party, said in a phone interview. “My personal view is that it will not be a great impact.”
She stressed: “This is a discussion about rights—it is not a discussion about violence.”
Activists display marijuana paraphernalia and grow crops at a protest encampment outside the country's Senate building in Mexico City on July 18 as they call for the legalization of the drug.
Parts of the legalization regime, which legislators hope to pass into law in December, borrows from the lessons learned by other jurisdictions—citizens, for example, will have the freedom to grow a small quantity of their own plants, but penalties will be strict for those who try and compete with the new legal regime. There are uniquely Mexican elements to the new regime, however, with some 40 percent of the market reserved for Indigenous, low-income, and marginalized communities.
“I don’t think we have to look to Canada or the United States,” said Zara Snapp, co-founder of Instituto RIA, a research group focusing on justice and drug policy.
Snapp has lobbied to ensure that the new regime is one that engages those who are currently turning a profit for the drug cartels, such as users, people who engage in narcomenudeo (small-scale trafficking), and campesinos (farmers). There’s a reason why cannabis is a favorite cash crop worldwide: It grows plentifully in nearly any climate, it costs little to produce and harvest, and its demand seems to be eternally consistent.
Snapp said that the way legalization is done will determine how effective the strategy is at affecting the illicit market.
“If we successfully regulate cannabis with a social justice focus and are able to excarcerate people who are in jail for cannabis charges, and if the campesinos are involved, that will already be a big step in the right direction,” Snapp said.
If the state can convince those currently participating in illegal cultivation to join the legal system—through competitive prices, amnesty for past nonviolent crimes, and a reconciliation over past wrongs committed by the state in the name of the drug war—it may create the conditions to slowly loosen the cartels’ grip on the drug market. Done wrong, Snapp warned, it may only entrench Mexico’s status as a drug supplier for its richer neighbor.
So long as there is U.S. demand for marijuana, Mexico’s producers will find profit in supplying it. If states continue legalizing, the traffickers’ profit margins may continue falling.
“We want to be really careful that this isn’t another industry where Mexico is used for cheap labor,” Snapp said.
The backdrop of this debate is one that both Rojas Hernández and Snapp recognize: Legalizing marijuana in Mexico won’t stop the flow of the drug through Mexico.
The simple reality of Mexico’s drug trade is that it exists to satisfy U.S. markets. Its population is less than half—and its gross domestic product per capita is about one-third—of its northern neighbor’s. So long as there is U.S. demand for marijuana, Mexico’s producers will find profit in supplying it. If states continue legalizing, the traffickers’ profit margins may continue falling.
But so long as there are enough U.S. clients, it’s worth it for the traffickers to continue growing in Mexico.
“The drug cartels are strong enough to keep their prices below [the legal rate],” said Rojas Hernández.
Members of the Guerrero Community Police patrol an illegal poppy field in Guerrero state on March 25, 2018.
In Guerrero, a mountainous state in Mexico’s south, poppy cultivation is a necessity for many. The agrarian state is one of the country’s poorest, with an average income of less than $6,000 per year and consistently has one of the highest murder rates of any state. When business is good, the gum extracted from the poppies—which is used to make heroin—could fetch nearly $600 a pound, offering a quick route out of poverty, before the price crash caused by the arrival of fentanyl.
Growing demand in the United States meant growing supply in Mexico. Poppy cultivation hit an apex in 2017, with estimates putting the total scope of the Mexican poppy fields at 109,000 acres—170 square miles. The cultivation of those poppies alone was worth roughly $1 billion in 2017, before the fentanyl crash, for Guerrero and the surrounding areas, which include some of Mexico’s poorest communities.
In 2016, the governor of Guerrero, Héctor Astudillo, began marketing the idea that the state could convert some of those fields into legal enterprises. Since the opium gum from the plants can be processed into legal pharmaceuticals, Astudillo proposed that Mexico regulate the fields for medical purposes. The profit may be lower, but it would mean farmers not having to worry about the army razing their fields.
It would take some years, but Astudillo convinced the state legislature to pass a bill calling for the decriminalization of opium poppies for medical purposes in 2018, after which the bill was sent off to the federal Senate for approval.
Support for the idea came from an unlikely source: Mexico’s defense minister. “It is a subject that will have to be debated. In principle, it seems to me that it is correct,” Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos told reporters during a trip to Guerrero that year.
The bill is reportedly under study, but hasn’t progressed in the Senate.
But the idea has popped up again in debate around the government’s marijuana legalization effort. Manuel Añorve Baños, a senator for Guerrero, proposed legislation in this session which would legalize and regulate the cultivation and production of poppies.
Despite growing support, López Obrador is still weighing his options.
The biggest driver for change may be market forces. In 2018, prices for opium gum fell off a cliff, partly because of a decline in use but mostly because of price competition. A pound of gum now sells for about $100 per pound. Production has declined substantially as well.
As is common in the drug trade, the gangs weren’t keen to see a reduction in profit, which meant the losses were passed on to farmers. Prices for opium gum declined by as much as 90 percent in a short period.
The decline in heroin’s popularity in the United States appears to be explained by a stark increase in the use of extremely potent and cheap fentanyl. Some of that appears to be trafficked by the cartels, but not exclusively: Huge amounts of the drug are shipped in from China, often via Canada and the United States.
All of this has created a domino effect for Mexico, which has historically not seen high levels of drug use. Recently, the overflowing supply of meth has created a domestic addiction problem.
Looking to diversify their output to compete, drug cartels have ramped up methamphetamine production, which is cheaper and easier to produce than ever, and its potency appears to be skyrocketing. In parts of the United States, meth use is skyrocketing.
All of this has created a domino effect for Mexico, which has historically not seen high levels of drug use. Recently, the overflowing supply of meth has created a domestic addiction problem. A lack of a market for heroin has forced cartels to offload that drug closer to home as well. The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on travel and supply chains has only multiplied that effect.
And then there are the deportations.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to send undocumented immigrants back to Mexico has deported those struggling with addiction as well. It is estimated that about 40 percent of intravenous drug users in the Mexican city of Tijuana, which borders San Diego, were deported from the United States. Clampdowns on drug smuggling into the United States has also led to more heroin being sold domestically. Accessible addiction clinics are in short supply, and harm reduction policies proven successful elsewhere are not common in Mexico.
A recovering heroin addict stands in a doorway after exercising at the Los Tesoros Escondidos Drug Rehabilitation Center in Tijuana, Mexico, on Dec. 14, 2006.
“The intersection of a fragile emerging social structure as a result of nationals returning through deportation from the United States; structural challenges in the treatment of pain; lobbying from pharmaceutical companies; increasing local production, distribution, and availability of heroin; and a lack of infrastructure to support evidence-based treatment of opioid use disorder are likely to increase the risk of a generalized Mexican opioid use epidemic,” read a paper published in the American Journal of Public Health in January 2019.
The United States’ changing demand for increasingly potent drugs has, once again, led to painful outcomes for Mexico.
“The iron law of prohibition is that we move towards more potent, and usually more harmful, substances,” Snapp said.
The recent trend has only put a finer point on the calls for legalization and a system that could keep farmers employed, cut back on a glut of cheap drugs, and help those struggling with addiction instead of incarcerating them.
The recent trend has only put a finer point on the calls for legalization and a system that could keep farmers employed, cut back on a glut of cheap drugs, and help those struggling with addiction instead of incarcerating them.
Advocates such as Snapp wonder if those things can fit together—whether poppy cultivation could plug into an international harm reduction model.
Snapp visited Vancouver recently to try and learn more about the particulars of Canada’s drug problem. She was struck by the fact that there was an appetite for alternatives. In late November of this year, Vancouver’s city council voted unanimously to decriminalize drug use for personal possession and lobby the federal government in Ottawa to formally drop criminal prohibitions around personal drug use.
“Would you smoke opium instead of injecting heroin or fentanyl?” she recalled asking some users. “Yes,” they told her. “But nobody has offered me that yet.”
The idea is hardly novel. At the turn of the 20th century, Vancouver was—like New York and San Francisco—renowned for its opium dens. At the time, the opium was largely sourced from colonial India. The British, in fact, started two wars to prevent the Chinese government from trying to clamp down on British imports of the drug.
As time went on, influence from the temperance movement, combined with anti-Chinese racism, led to a Western crackdown on opium that laid the foundation for much of the modern war on drugs.
Tracing those historical lines—from opium to heroin to fentanyl, or from cocaine to crack—appears to support the idea that criminalization leads to more potent drugs. The question remains whether that problem can be reverse-engineered and legalization lead to safer alternatives.
Even if Guerrero can figure out how to regulate its poppy fields, it is only one state of many. Mexico is the world’s third-largest producer of heroin—albeit far behind Afghanistan, the world’s largest—and large expanses of its countryside are perfect for cultivation.
Abroad, there are scant few jurisdictions that would allow opium gum to be imported, and even those states would require just tiny amounts. That’s to say nothing on the international conventions against such drug trading.
Marijuana legalization could mean some of those farmers can replace their poppy fields with cannabis, but exportation is not likely to be in the cards in the short term.
That still leaves the majority of poppy farmers without a path to a legal market. And it doesn’t change the fact that the U.S. market is still hungry for opiates. Heroin use may have declined, but heroin has proved itself to be a remarkably resilient drug.
“Mexico is 100 percent in a hard place,” Snapp said.
A Mexican Marine walks through a marijuana field during a mission to destroy the crop in the remote mountains of Sinaloa on Sept. 9, 2009.
The country has learned that crop eradication doesn’t work. But decriminalizing crop production isn’t an obvious solution, either.
Marijuana and heroin are only two drugs. Stroll down the beach in tourist-laden Puerto Vallarta and you can find vendors hawking any number of illicit drugs. (Whether they are as advertised is another question.)
Snapp also conceded that cannabis legalization is ”controversial enough for society that it will be hard enough to implement something else.” López Obrador might simply not have the political capital needed to forge ahead on poppy cultivation rules.
Going only for decriminalization, like others have done, isn’t a solution, either. “I don’t think we could follow Portugal,” Snapp said. “We need to think about how you handle cultivation.”
Mexico is largely on its own here. Rojas Hernández suspects that once cannabis legalization is done, the state can look to other avenues to battle organized crime through the law.
“I think we have to go step by step,” the congresswoman said. “We have to solve this first. We are trying to find the best model that could work for us.”
“This will not stop, as long as we have a big market right next door. … This is a problem that can only be solved if we act together.”
Rojas Hernández theoretically supports drug decriminalization—she repeated, with emphasis, theoretically—but, she said, “the problem with the drug cartels is that nowadays, they are not only involved with drugs, but also with, for example, kidnapping. So the problem is huge.”
Mexico’s reality leaves plenty of room for fatalism.
“This will not stop, as long as we have a big market right next door,” Rojas Hernández said. “We have said this for a long time. This is a problem that can only be solved if we act together.”
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden vowed during the campaign that “no one should be incarcerated for drug use alone,” committing instead to drug courts and treatment. It’s unclear what form that promise will take, but it signals an intent to move away from using police and law enforcement to solve the problems of addiction and drug use.
Even though it is uniquely responsible for Mexico’s rampant opium industry, the United States is also the country most likely to wield international anti-drug treaties as a cudgel should Mexico explore legalization.
That so much of Mexico’s drug problem is dictated by decisions in Washington is at the heart of why López Obrador’s reforms haven’t shown much in the way of results.
Yet he’s found surprising solidarity in his own country. Rojas Hernández represents the center-right National Action Party of former Presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, and last year Fox even came out in support of outright legalization. Añorve Baños, the senator who introduced poppy legalization legislation, represents the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party of López Obrador’s predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto.
López Obrador’s left-wing alliance holds a majority in both chambers, so the cross-party consensus isn’t strictly necessary. But the support is nevertheless meaningful.
“We support the government’s goal of combating violence,” Rojas Hernández said. “We have done all that we can to give the president the institutional instruments for doing it.”
To that end, marking López Obrador’s success on narrow metrics is short-sighted. Given so much of Mexico’s drug trade is dictated by Americans’ appetite for illicit substances, his efforts at reform will have to be more gradual and systemic.
With pressure increasing for Mexico to end the violence, it’s unclear whether he can stay on course.
“It’s going to be up to the state to stop being distracted,” Snapp said. She said the amount of resources and time spent torching crops, arresting low-level dealers, and trying to disrupt the cross-border flow of drugs is part of the problem. “Our justice system is being distracted by the work it should be doing in actually investigating and prosecuting real crimes—homicide, disappearances, extortion.” Mexican prisons are full of narcomenudista—low-level street dealers who faced stiff penalties from a state anxious to round up any and every participant in the drug trade. Releasing inmates has also been a priority as the COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged prisons worldwide.
“Most of them are [in prison] for a value of under $25,” Snapp said.
Pulling back on arrests is an imperfect solution, too. López Obrador’s softer stance over the past year hasn’t abated the violence. Last year was Mexico’s deadliest on record. The slaughter of nine members of a Mormon community in Sonora in 2019 has only increased the sense of impunity among the cartels. President Donald Trump is now openly talking about listing the cartels as terrorist organizations.
A woman holds pictures of a missing relative in front of the National Palace during the commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared in Mexico City on Aug. 30, 2019. Tens of thousands of people are missing in Mexico amid years of violence since the government declared war on the country's powerful drug cartels.
Low-level drug dealers are in prison because they’re easy to catch. Cartel assassins and kingpins are out free because they’re hard to nab. In Mexico, it’s hard even to keep them locked up.
Still, with discipline and time, the direction López Obrador has taken may win out.
“We just need to start doing a few of these things well, and it will start having an effect,” Snapp said. Identifying victims found buried in mass graves could be a start, so as to end the plague of disappearances that propagate cycles of violence in communities across the country.
Rojas Hernández pointed to reforms already undertaken over the past year to strengthen security and judicial systems as evidence that progress is being made.
The hope is that once Mexicans know their government is capable of a rational, principled, and functional system, faith will return. To that end, maybe one of the biggest challenges is psychology.
“People around here drive crazy,” Snapp said, laughing.
“Then they cross the border into California, and they drive perfectly.”


foreignpolicy--2020-12-13--The United States Has Failed Cameroonian Asylum-Seekers

When Franklin Agbor , a former Cameroonian gendarme , disobeyed an order to kill civilians , he was labeled a turncoat .
Agbor was patrolling in Cameroon ’ s Southwest region , which Anglophone separatists regard as part of a breakaway state ; his decision not to pull the trigger on behalf of the national government carried a death sentence .
With his life in imminent danger under President Paul Biya ’ s authoritarian regime , the soldier had no choice but to flee Cameroon .
Within weeks , Agbor , 33 , left behind his wife and two young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He traveled up through Central America to Mexico , braving mountains and jungles .
Finally , in October 2019 , he surrendered himself to the United States for asylum at the Laredo border crossing .
Agbor fled to “ pursue a brighter future , ” said his brother-in-law , Nzombella Atemlefack , who lives in the United States .
But that isn ’ t what he found .
Instead , Agbor spent 13 months in detention at Jackson Parish Correctional Center in Louisiana , denied asylum and parole .
His treatment there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Atemlefack said .
In detention amid the coronavirus pandemic , Agbor faced high-risk conditions—minimal access to medical treatment , no social distancing , no personal protective equipment , and no testing—even as his peers contracted COVID-19 .
And like other Cameroonian asylum-seekers , Agbor was beaten by immigration officers who forced him to sign his own deportation papers .
Since Cameroon descended into civil war in 2016 , more than 400,000 people have fled ethnic and political persecution , with thousands seeking asylum in the United States .
Many have instead been detained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , suffering conditions that advocates say flout international norms for the treatment of refugees—and reflect glaring inequities for Black migrants in the immigration system .
Despite civil demonstrations led by Cameroonians in ICE facilities across the country this year , the poor conditions have only intensified .
The inhumane treatment comes despite the role of the United States in Cameroon ’ s civil war .
In addition to their colonial legacies , Western countries have fanned the flames of the crisis by indirectly bankrolling the persecution of Anglophones with funds for infrastructure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while the White House denounced Biya ’ s administration , the United States donated military helicopters , turboprop jets , and drones to his arsenal .
Cameroonians have fled a crisis shaped in part by the West only to be met with hostility on American shores .
Still , those who remain in the United States could be considered lucky .
Since October , ICE has deported dozens of Cameroonians : On Oct. 13 , 57 Cameroonians were repatriated and handed over to military custody , and on Nov. 11 , 37 more—including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ none has been heard from since , according to families .
Several have gone missing .
Advocates say another deportation flight is scheduled for Dec. 15 .
After the first deportations , several U.S. lawmakers signed letters expressing “ grave concerns ” over the situation for Cameroonian detainees and ICE ’ s conduct .
In November , Rep. Karen Bass introduced a House resolution demanding an immediate halt to the expulsions and a Department of Justice investigation into the allegations .
But as the abuses and the deportations continue , the fate of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immigration system has chosen militarization over mercy .
“ It seemed like ICE had enough of us , ” said Martha Nfonteh , an advocate with the Cameroon American Council whose brother participated in the Pine Prairie protests .
Since the protests , detainees say that things have only gotten worse .
Godlove Nswohnonomi , a welder who fled Cameroon in 2018 after getting caught in the crossfire of the conflict , joined the Pine Prairie protests after more than a year in ICE custody—feeling that the poor conditions in the facility put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But he watched as his comrades were pepper sprayed , beaten , placed in solitary confinement , and threatened with deportation .
“ The way [ the ICE officers ] looked at us and talked to us , we felt very threatened , ” Nswohnonomi said .
Across the country , detainees have experienced a similar pattern of physical violence , emotional abuse , and medical neglect .
Of the 23 detainees interviewed by Foreign Policy over the past two months , almost all had similar stories : punishment by ICE officers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the inability to seek justice in a court system that appears to be against them .
Twelve have since been deported .
( ICE officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment on these and other allegations . )
To accelerate these deportations , ICE has used coercive measures to force detainees to sign their own papers—supposedly accepting their deportation before they are expelled .
By September , ICE was separating the Pine Prairie protesters , sending them to facilities in far-flung states .
Ivo Fogap , who participated in the protests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ LaSalle , another Louisiana detention facility for those facing imminent expulsion .
The bus was packed , and several detainees had symptoms consistent with COVID-19 .
That ’ s when Fogap says he understood ICE ’ s intent : “ to put our lives in danger by staying here.
” ICE has a history of medical mismanagement : In 2017 , a report by the Department of Homeland Security ’ s Office of Inspector General described problems with medical care that “ undermine the protection of detainees ’ rights , their humane treatment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and healthy environment.
” “ Before COVID , our immigration system had already been making people sicker , ” said Amy Zeidan , a physician and co-founder of the Society of Asylum Medicine , which conducts medical evaluations for detainees .
“ The virus has only made things worse.
” At LaSalle , several individuals were immediately placed in isolation , and the rest were sent to a 70-person dormitory , where many developed high fevers and coughs .
One detainee , Valdano Tebid , said he experienced COVID-19 symptoms , but it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a diagnosis , during which he likely exposed his dormmates .
He was released back into the general population after 10 days in quarantine—less time than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended .
Leonard Ataubo , a 23-year-old detainee who was diagnosed with stomach cancer at Pine Prairie , has yet to see a doctor since his diagnosis or begin treatment for the disease , which puts him at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19 .
At Prairieland , a Texas facility , detainees report similar conditions .
Anonymous callers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ group Freedom for Immigrants have reported that ICE officers have forced them to drink water out of the toilet , punished them in solitary confinement , physically abused them , and denied them adequate treatment for COVID-19 .
After a transfer to River Correctional Center in Louisiana , Nswohnonomi tested positive for tuberculosis in July , which he believes he contracted while in ICE detention at Pine Prairie .
The disease makes him more vulnerable to COVID-19 , but he has not received any medicine—a doctor told him he would be deported soon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ extraordinary conditions and health risks , legal recourse has been elusive for Cameroonian detainees .
Pandemic-related court closures have delayed and canceled hearings , leaving parole , probation , bond , and humanitarian release out of reach—even for those with conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19 and therefore eligible for release .
Officers deemed several detainees simply “ ineligible ” : Parole was reserved for pregnant women and children or for those with immediate family in the United States , they said—statements that are inconsistent with ICE policy .
Sylvie Bello @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Council , suspects that there are financial motives for the private corporations that operate the facilities—as well as for the remote regions where the facilities are major local employers and consumers .
“ Those little itty-bitty Louisiana towns have been profiting off Black bodies from slavery onward , ” Bello said .
“ Immigrant detention is just the latest iteration.
” The detainees ’ accounts fit historical patterns .
In fiscal 2020 , median bond granted to Cameroonians was 25 percent more expensive compared with the broader population facing immigration proceedings .
Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expulsion than other populations in removal proceedings .
And in recent months , Cameroonians have increasingly faced other barriers .
According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse , the asylum denial rate for Cameroonians has skyrocketed , from around 19 percent in 2019 to around 45 percent in 2020 .
The deportation rate of Cameroonians has also shot up , from 22 percent in fiscal 2019 to 35 percent in fiscal 2020 .
Moreover , advocates fear that ICE has deliberately transferred Cameroonians to antagonistic legal districts .
For example , every judge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Louisiana—with a jurisdiction that stretches across the state—denies asylum at rates of 90 percent or higher .
Nathan Bogart , an immigration attorney who frequently works with the court , said that its “ harsh ” approach symbolizes recent changes that have weaponized Southern courts for deportation .
“ There have always been questions about whether people of color are treated differently , ” Bogart said , citing the court as one reason that Black migrants face an “ uphill battle ” to asylum .
Calisus Fon , an asylum-seeker detained at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ called the system “ pure racism.
” His initial credible fear interview—the key step toward asylum—was approved , but over a dozen appeals for his release have been ignored or denied since .
Meanwhile , Central American friends in the facility have been granted parole .
“ All of this effort to send me back home just means they want me to die , ” Fon said .
“ I guess that is why they are treating us how they are here , too.
” On Nov. 11 , Fon joined Agbor , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he was deported to Cameroon .
His pleas to be sent anywhere else were denied .
“ These people came to America in one piece , ” Nfonteh , whose brother remains detained , said .
“ They are going back broken , body and soul .
”

When William, a former Cameroonian gendarme, disobeyed an order to kill civilians, he was labeled a turncoat. William, whose name has been changed for his safety, was patrolling in Cameroon’s Southwest region, which Anglophone separatists regard as part of a breakaway state; his decision not to pull the trigger on behalf of the national government carried a death sentence. With his life in imminent danger under President Paul Biya’s authoritarian regime, the soldier had no choice but to flee Cameroon.
When William, a former Cameroonian gendarme, disobeyed an order to kill civilians, he was labeled a turncoat. William, whose name has been changed for his safety, was patrolling in Cameroon’s Southwest region, which Anglophone separatists regard as part of a breakaway state; his decision not to pull the trigger on behalf of the national government carried a death sentence. With his life in imminent danger under President Paul Biya’s authoritarian regime, the soldier had no choice but to flee Cameroon.
Within weeks, William, 33, left behind his wife and two young children and flew to Ecuador via Nigeria. He traveled up through Central America to Mexico, braving mountains and jungles. Finally, in October 2019, he surrendered himself to the United States for asylum at the Laredo border crossing. William fled to “pursue a brighter future,” said his brother-in-law, Daniel, who lives in the United States and whose name has also been changed.
But that isn’t what he found. Instead, William spent 13 months in detention at Jackson Parish Correctional Center in Louisiana, denied asylum and parole. His treatment there was “without a conscience,” Daniel said. In detention amid the coronavirus pandemic, William faced high-risk conditions—minimal access to medical treatment, no social distancing, no personal protective equipment, and no testing—even as his peers contracted COVID-19. And like other Cameroonian asylum-seekers, William was beaten by immigration officers who forced him to sign his own deportation papers.
Since Cameroon descended into civil war in 2016, more than 400,000 people have fled ethnic and political persecution, with thousands seeking asylum in the United States. Many have instead been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), suffering conditions that advocates say flout international norms for the treatment of refugees—and reflect glaring inequities for Black migrants in the immigration system. Despite civil demonstrations led by Cameroonians in ICE facilities across the country this year, the poor conditions have only intensified.
The inhumane treatment comes despite the role of the United States in Cameroon’s civil war. In addition to their colonial legacies, Western countries have fanned the flames of the crisis by indirectly bankrolling the persecution of Anglophones with funds for infrastructure and counterterrorism operations. In 2018, while the White House denounced Biya’s administration, the United States donated military helicopters, turboprop jets, and drones to his arsenal. Cameroonians have fled a crisis shaped in part by the West only to be met with hostility on American shores.
Still, those who remain in the United States could be considered lucky. Since October, ICE has deported dozens of Cameroonians: On Oct. 13, 57 Cameroonians were repatriated and handed over to military custody, and on Nov. 11, 37 more—including William—followed. Placed in maximum-security prisons, none has been heard from since, according to families. Several have gone missing. Advocates say another deportation flight is scheduled for Dec. 15.
After the first deportations, several U.S. lawmakers signed letters expressing “grave concerns” over the situation for Cameroonian detainees and ICE’s conduct. In November, Rep. Karen Bass introduced a House resolution demanding an immediate halt to the expulsions and a Department of Justice investigation into the allegations. But as the abuses and the deportations continue, the fate of Cameroonian asylum-seekers shows how the politicized U.S. immigration system has chosen militarization over mercy.
The furor started in Texas. In February, 140 Cameroonian women protested conditions including medical neglect at T. Don Hutto detention center, which has previously come under FBI scrutiny for sexual abuse allegations. Detainees in other facilities soon joined in, galvanized by the potentially fatal consequences of COVID-19. Between March and August, Cameroonians organized hunger strikes against discriminatory treatment and a lack of pandemic precautions in Pine Prairie, a Louisiana facility. In September, Pauline Binam, a Cameroonian woman, was one of the whistleblowers in allegations of forced hysterectomies and other medical abuse while being held at a Georgia ICE facility.
“It seemed like ICE had enough of us,” said Martha Nfonteh, an advocate with the Cameroon American Council whose brother participated in the Pine Prairie protests.
Since the protests, detainees say that things have only gotten worse. Godlove Nswohnonomi, a welder who fled Cameroon in 2018 after getting caught in the crossfire of the conflict, joined the Pine Prairie protests after more than a year in ICE custody—feeling that the poor conditions in the facility put his life “in clear danger.” But he watched as his comrades were pepper sprayed, beaten, placed in solitary confinement, and threatened with deportation. “The way [the ICE officers] looked at us and talked to us, we felt very threatened,” Nswohnonomi said.
Across the country, detainees have experienced a similar pattern of physical violence, emotional abuse, and medical neglect. Of the 23 detainees interviewed by Foreign Policy over the past two months, almost all had similar stories: punishment by ICE officers, the lack of due process, and the inability to seek justice in a court system that appears to be against them. Twelve have since been deported. (ICE officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment on these and other allegations.)
To accelerate these deportations, ICE has used coercive measures to force detainees to sign their own papers.
To accelerate these deportations, ICE has used coercive measures to force detainees to sign their own papers—supposedly accepting their deportation before they are expelled. By September, ICE was separating the Pine Prairie protesters, sending them to facilities in far-flung states. Ivo Fogap, who participated in the protests, found himself on a bus to LaSalle, another Louisiana detention facility for those facing imminent expulsion. The bus was packed, and several detainees had symptoms consistent with COVID-19. That’s when Fogap says he understood ICE’s intent: “to put our lives in danger by staying here.”
ICE has a history of medical mismanagement: In 2017, a report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General described problems with medical care that “undermine the protection of detainees’ rights, their humane treatment, and the provision of a safe and healthy environment.” “Before COVID, our immigration system had already been making people sicker,” said Amy Zeidan, a physician and co-founder of the Society of Asylum Medicine, which conducts medical evaluations for detainees. “The virus has only made things worse.”
At LaSalle, several individuals were immediately placed in isolation, and the rest were sent to a 70-person dormitory, where many developed high fevers and coughs. One detainee, Valdano Tebid, said he experienced COVID-19 symptoms, but it took six days for him to receive a diagnosis, during which he likely exposed his dormmates. He was released back into the general population after 10 days in quarantine—less time than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended. Leonard Ataubo, a 23-year-old detainee who was diagnosed with stomach cancer at Pine Prairie, has yet to see a doctor since his diagnosis or begin treatment for the disease, which puts him at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19.
At Prairieland, a Texas facility, detainees report similar conditions. Anonymous callers to a hotline maintained by the advocacy group Freedom for Immigrants have reported that ICE officers have forced them to drink water out of the toilet, punished them in solitary confinement, physically abused them, and denied them adequate treatment for COVID-19. After a transfer to River Correctional Center in Louisiana, Nswohnonomi tested positive for tuberculosis in July, which he believes he contracted while in ICE detention at Pine Prairie. The disease makes him more vulnerable to COVID-19, but he has not received any medicine—a doctor told him he would be deported soon anyway, he said.
The experiences of Cameroonian asylum-seekers reflect broader inequities faced by Black migrants to the United States. Immigration officers have historically used punitive actions, such as solitary confinement, against detained Black migrants at rates up to six times higher than the rest of the population. Likewise, medical mismanagement and neglect may disproportionately affect Black migrants subject to the unconscious biases of medical practitioners.
Despite the extraordinary conditions and health risks, legal recourse has been elusive for Cameroonian detainees. Pandemic-related court closures have delayed and canceled hearings, leaving parole, probation, bond, and humanitarian release out of reach—even for those with conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19 and therefore eligible for release. Officers deemed several detainees simply “ineligible”: Parole was reserved for pregnant women and children or for those with immediate family in the United States, they said—statements that are inconsistent with ICE policy.
Sylvie Bello, the founder of the Cameroon American Council, suspects that there are financial motives for the private corporations that operate the facilities—as well as for the remote regions where the facilities are major local employers and consumers. “Those little itty-bitty Louisiana towns have been profiting off Black bodies from slavery onward,” Bello said. “Immigrant detention is just the latest iteration.”
The detainees’ accounts fit historical patterns. In fiscal 2020, median bond granted to Cameroonians was 25 percent more expensive compared with the broader population facing immigration proceedings. Black migrants are also more likely to face expulsion than other populations in removal proceedings. And in recent months, Cameroonians have increasingly faced other barriers. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, the asylum denial rate for Cameroonians has skyrocketed, from around 19 percent in 2019 to around 45 percent in 2020. The deportation rate of Cameroonians has also shot up, from 22 percent in fiscal 2019 to 35 percent in fiscal 2020.
Advocates fear that ICE has deliberately transferred Cameroonians to antagonistic legal districts.
Moreover, advocates fear that ICE has deliberately transferred Cameroonians to antagonistic legal districts. For example, every judge on the immigration court in Jena, Louisiana—with a jurisdiction that stretches across the state—denies asylum at rates of 90 percent or higher. Nathan Bogart, an immigration attorney who frequently works with the court, said that its “harsh” approach symbolizes recent changes that have weaponized Southern courts for deportation. “There have always been questions about whether people of color are treated differently,” Bogart said, citing the court as one reason that Black migrants face an “uphill battle” to asylum.
Calisus Fon, an asylum-seeker detained at the Rio Grande Detention Center in Texas, called the system “pure racism.” His initial credible fear interview—the key step toward asylum—was approved, but over a dozen appeals for his release have been ignored or denied since. Meanwhile, Central American friends in the facility have been granted parole. “All of this effort to send me back home just means they want me to die,” Fon said. “I guess that is why they are treating us how they are here, too.”
On Nov. 11, Fon joined William, Fogap, and dozens of others when he was deported to Cameroon. His pleas to be sent anywhere else were denied. “These people came to America in one piece,” Nfonteh, whose brother remains detained, said. “They are going back broken, body and soul.”
Update, Dec. 14, 2020: This article has been updated with new language to reduce risk to sources.


foreignpolicy--2020-12-14--China’s Drive to Make Semiconductor Chips Is Failing

Shenzhen , a city of some 12 million people in southeastern China ’ s Guangdong province , is the consumer electronics capital of the world .
Immediately abutting Hong Kong , it now towers over its restive regional rival in terms of population , skyscrapers , and by some counts even gross domestic product .
It is also home to Huawei , the Chinese telecommunications company that dominates global 5G wireless infrastructure and sits at the center of the U.S.-China tech war .
Long a hub for mobile phone assembly , the city of Shenzhen is about to get into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In November , a consortium led by the Shenzhen municipal government struck an unusual deal to pay Huawei $ 15 billion and take over the company ’ s Honor budget smartphone brand .
Huawei is fighting for its very survival since it was added to both the U.S. Commerce Department ’ s export licensing Entity List and the U.S. Defense Department ’ s foreign investment blacklist .
The strange spectacle of a city government funneling money into a global tech giant and ending up with a budget phone maker is emblematic of China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ technologies .
China has the ambition , and it can do things at scale .
It can also raise the money , even ( when necessary ) from unlikely sources .
But it lacks the broad ecosystem of commercial cooperation , intellectual property protection , and intelligent venture capital that makes deep technology collaboration possible .
China ’ s command economy is a cookie-cutter economy , but high technology is a networking game .
The fact that the U.S. government could so easily hobble the world ’ s largest smartphone maker and 5G @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is indicative of the fragility of China ’ s highly centralized high tech sector .
China ’ s electronics industry relies on U.S. , Taiwanese , South Korean , and Japanese suppliers for many key components , but the most strategic of strategic technologies is the microprocessor .
And despite years of strategic investment , China has ( so far ) been unable to master the production of these highly specialized but utterly ubiquitous computer chips .
China ’ s electronics industry relies on U.S. , Taiwanese , South Korean , and Japanese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ semiconductors are used in all sorts of computer chips , including memory chips , sensor chips , and a variety of other microprocessor chips .
Most people are familiar with the general-purpose microprocessors known as central processing units ( CPUs ) that power smartphone and computer operating systems , but device performance increasingly depends on more specialized microprocessors such as graphics processing units ( GPUs ) and artificial intelligence ( AI ) accelerators .
The most advanced CPUs now coming to market , such as the Apple A14 Bionic , the Qualcomm Snapdragon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , include integrated GPUs and AI accelerators right on the chip—and have 5G wireless integration to boot .
The only serious Chinese rival to these advanced U.S. chips is the HiSilicon Kirin 9000 , designed by Huawei ’ s own in-house “ fabless ” chip-design subsidiary .
In the arcane lingo of semiconductor manufacturing , a fabless chipmaker is one that lacks its own fabrication facilities , known as “ fabs ” or “ foundries.
” Until this year , Huawei ’ s HiSilicon chips were actually made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end to that .
Broader U.S. export controls on chip design software and foundry machine tools mean that Huawei now has little chance of developing an advanced fabrication capability of its own .
As a result , the Kirin 9000 is effectively stillborn .
China ’ s most advanced chip foundry is Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation ( SMIC ) , based in Shanghai .
Like Huawei , SMIC is on both the U.S. Commerce and Defense departments ’ watchlists , severely restricting its access to U.S. technology and finance .
Without foreign help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ able to produce a chip like the Kirin 9000 .
Like all of today ’ s flagship CPUs , the Kirin 9000 is designed for 5-nanometer silicon wafers .
When it comes to semiconductors , thinner is better , and the best SMIC can currently manage is 14 nanometers .
It has announced plans to produce 7-nanometer chips , but lacks the machine tools to make them .
If China has been unable to match its international competitors on microprocessors , it ’ s not for want of trying—or spending .
China established @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Industry Investment Fund in 2014 ( known as the Big Fund ) in a bid to reduce its reliance on imported chips , but to little avail .
Today , only 16 percent of China ’ s semiconductors are made locally , and these tend to be the least sophisticated in every category .
Last year , China announced a second Big Fund to invest a further $ 29 billion in semiconductor development .
It remains to be seen whether or not China can make a success of it the second time around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aggressive U.S. sanctions .
China ’ s chipmakers and designers now seem to be short on cash .
Despite all the promised investment , China ’ s chipmakers and designers now seem to be short on cash .
Huawei going cap in hand to the Shenzhen government is no surprise , given its high exposure to the U.S. and Indian markets .
But other Chinese chipmakers with little connection to the United States are also facing financial difficulties .
Wuhan ’ s Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Company had promised to build China ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of money in August .
It has since been taken over by the municipal district government—effectively a bailout .
Also based in coronavirus-hit Wuhan , memory-chip maker Yangtze Memory Technologies announced plans in September to build a world-class $ 22 billion flash memory chip foundry .
Two months later , its parent company , Tsinghua Unigroup , defaulted on a $ 198 million bond repayment .
In addition to the now-stalled memory chip project , Tsinghua Unigroup owns a chip design firm and cloud computing platform , among other subsidiaries .
A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese President Xi Jinping ’ s alma mater ) , it would once have been thought politically immune from failure .
Yet it is not the first prestigious university-linked spinoff to default on its debt .
Peking University Founder Group , a diversified conglomerate , missed a bond payment last December , even before the coronavirus crisis hit .
If China is allowing such well-connected firms as semiconductor foundries and university research groups to go bust , financial conditions in the country must be much more dire than its announcements of multibillion-dollar investment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in fact , that the governor of the People ’ s Bank of China , Yi Gang , felt compelled to publicly warn local governments last week not to expect bailouts for bad business decisions—such as taking over struggling companies or subsidiaries with uncertain futures .
China made chipmaking its top civilian technology priority of the last decade , but it has little to show for it .
Even before many of its leading companies were hit with U.S. export and financial controls , China proved itself unable to establish a competitive presence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chips—never mind complex microprocessors .
As the cutting edge of chip design goes even farther down the path of multiple integration , with CPUs , GPUs , AI accelerators , and wireless modems all printed on a single wafer a few molecules wide , China will find it ever more difficult to catch up .

Shenzhen, a city of some 12 million people in southeastern China's Guangdong province, is the consumer electronics capital of the world. Immediately abutting Hong Kong, it now towers over its restive regional rival in terms of population, skyscrapers , and by some counts even gross domestic product. It is also home to Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company that dominates global 5G wireless infrastructure and sits at the center of the U.S.-China tech war.
Shenzhen, a city of some 12 million people in southeastern China’s Guangdong province, is the consumer electronics capital of the world. Immediately abutting Hong Kong, it now towers over its restive regional rival in terms of population, skyscrapers, and by some counts even gross domestic product. It is also home to Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company that dominates global 5G wireless infrastructure and sits at the center of the U.S.-China tech war.
Long a hub for mobile phone assembly, the city of Shenzhen is about to get into the business of making phones itself. In November, a consortium led by the Shenzhen municipal government struck an unusual deal to pay Huawei $15 billion and take over the company’s Honor budget smartphone brand. Huawei is fighting for its very survival since it was added to both the U.S. Commerce Department’s export licensing Entity List and the U.S. Defense Department’s foreign investment blacklist.
The strange spectacle of a city government funneling money into a global tech giant and ending up with a budget phone maker is emblematic of China’s problems in developing its own technologies. China has the ambition, and it can do things at scale. It can also raise the money, even (when necessary) from unlikely sources. But it lacks the broad ecosystem of commercial cooperation, intellectual property protection, and intelligent venture capital that makes deep technology collaboration possible. China’s command economy is a cookie-cutter economy, but high technology is a networking game.
The fact that the U.S. government could so easily hobble the world’s largest smartphone maker and 5G infrastructure supplier in less than one year is indicative of the fragility of China’s highly centralized high tech sector. China’s electronics industry relies on U.S., Taiwanese, South Korean, and Japanese suppliers for many key components, but the most strategic of strategic technologies is the microprocessor. And despite years of strategic investment, China has (so far) been unable to master the production of these highly specialized but utterly ubiquitous computer chips.
China’s electronics industry relies on U.S., Taiwanese, South Korean, and Japanese suppliers for many key components.
Silicon-based semiconductors are used in all sorts of computer chips, including memory chips, sensor chips, and a variety of other microprocessor chips. Most people are familiar with the general-purpose microprocessors known as central processing units (CPUs) that power smartphone and computer operating systems, but device performance increasingly depends on more specialized microprocessors such as graphics processing units (GPUs) and artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators. The most advanced CPUs now coming to market, such as the Apple A14 Bionic, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, and the Samsung Exynos 1080, include integrated GPUs and AI accelerators right on the chip—and have 5G wireless integration to boot.
The only serious Chinese rival to these advanced U.S. chips is the HiSilicon Kirin 9000, designed by Huawei’s own in-house “fabless” chip-design subsidiary. In the arcane lingo of semiconductor manufacturing, a fabless chipmaker is one that lacks its own fabrication facilities, known as “fabs” or “foundries.” Until this year, Huawei’s HiSilicon chips were actually made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, but tightening U.S. sanctions put an end to that. Broader U.S. export controls on chip design software and foundry machine tools mean that Huawei now has little chance of developing an advanced fabrication capability of its own. As a result, the Kirin 9000 is effectively stillborn.
China’s most advanced chip foundry is Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), based in Shanghai. Like Huawei, SMIC is on both the U.S. Commerce and Defense departments’ watchlists, severely restricting its access to U.S. technology and finance. Without foreign help, SMIC is generations away from being able to produce a chip like the Kirin 9000. Like all of today’s flagship CPUs, the Kirin 9000 is designed for 5-nanometer silicon wafers. When it comes to semiconductors, thinner is better, and the best SMIC can currently manage is 14 nanometers. It has announced plans to produce 7-nanometer chips, but lacks the machine tools to make them.
If China has been unable to match its international competitors on microprocessors, it’s not for want of trying—or spending. China established a $22 billion National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund in 2014 (known as the Big Fund) in a bid to reduce its reliance on imported chips, but to little avail. Today, only 16 percent of China’s semiconductors are made locally, and these tend to be the least sophisticated in every category. Last year, China announced a second Big Fund to invest a further $29 billion in semiconductor development. It remains to be seen whether or not China can make a success of it the second time around, this time in the face of aggressive U.S. sanctions.
China’s chipmakers and designers now seem to be short on cash.
Despite all the promised investment, China’s chipmakers and designers now seem to be short on cash. Huawei going cap in hand to the Shenzhen government is no surprise, given its high exposure to the U.S. and Indian markets. But other Chinese chipmakers with little connection to the United States are also facing financial difficulties. Wuhan’s Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Company had promised to build China’s first 7-nanometer chip fab, but ran out of money in August. It has since been taken over by the municipal district government—effectively a bailout.
Also based in coronavirus-hit Wuhan, memory-chip maker Yangtze Memory Technologies announced plans in September to build a world-class $22 billion flash memory chip foundry. Two months later, its parent company, Tsinghua Unigroup, defaulted on a $198 million bond repayment. In addition to the now-stalled memory chip project, Tsinghua Unigroup owns a chip design firm and cloud computing platform, among other subsidiaries. A spinoff from the prestigious Tsinghua University (Chinese President Xi Jinping’s alma mater), it would once have been thought politically immune from failure.
Yet it is not the first prestigious university-linked spinoff to default on its debt. Peking University Founder Group, a diversified conglomerate, missed a bond payment last December, even before the coronavirus crisis hit. If China is allowing such well-connected firms as semiconductor foundries and university research groups to go bust, financial conditions in the country must be much more dire than its announcements of multibillion-dollar investment funds would suggest. So dire, in fact, that the governor of the People’s Bank of China, Yi Gang, felt compelled to publicly warn local governments last week not to expect bailouts for bad business decisions—such as taking over struggling companies or subsidiaries with uncertain futures.
China made chipmaking its top civilian technology priority of the last decade, but it has little to show for it. Even before many of its leading companies were hit with U.S. export and financial controls, China proved itself unable to establish a competitive presence in the market for relatively simple memory chips—never mind complex microprocessors. As the cutting edge of chip design goes even farther down the path of multiple integration, with CPUs, GPUs, AI accelerators, and wireless modems all printed on a single wafer a few molecules wide, China will find it ever more difficult to catch up.