House Foreign Affairs Committee

In July 2020, part of an extrajudicial execution committed by soldiers was captured on video in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas—one of a series of civilian deaths at the hands of soldiers in that city over the past several years, which include cases in 2022 and 2023 of arbitrary killings and alteration of crime scenes by the army. [...] In short, the power exercised by criminal networks in Mexico can be understood only in light of the State’s varying relationships of tolerance or collusion with criminal groups, the consequences of which include a lack of effective investigation of both regional and local patterns of violence, which go well beyond the activities of transnational cartels. [...] This environment prompts concerns about the impact of the government’s discourse on the freedom that judicial authorities feel to apply the law without fear of reprisals, as well as on the population’s own perception of the importance of an independent judicial branch as a fundamental element of a democracy. [...] The Bicentennial Framework In 2021, the governments of Mexico and the United States announced a new security and rule of law cooperation plan: the Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities. [...] Under the Bicentennial Framework, a central priority of the United States has been combatting the production and trafficking of fentanyl in the midst of an overdose crisis that surpasses 100,000 victims annually.