Speech #990028292

The report mandated by section 123 will spell out appropriate alternatives to enhance staffing and personnel management on the Bureau of International Narcotics Matters which should. in turn. Improve the management of our international narcotics control program. Section 124 Is designed to ensure that foreign drug traffickers do not receive a visa to enter the United States. It requires the State Department to cooperate with other U.S. law enforcement agencies. including the Drug Enforcement Administration iDEA] and Customs. to establish a comprehensive information system on all drug arrests of foreign nationals in the United States. The information collected would be available to U.S. consular officials so they could avoid approving visas of known drug traffickers. At present. there is no centralized system to keep track of foreign nationals who are arrested on drug charges in the United States. Section 124 also requires the State Department and DEA to establish uniform guidelines for the sharing of information on foreign drug traffickers. Both of these provisions should help to prevent the approval of visas for foreign drug traffickers who are Ineligible to enter the United States under section 212(a)(23) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(23)). Section 125 mandates the Secretary of State to increase U.S. eiforts to negotiate updated extradition treaties relating to drug offenses with each major drugproducing country. particularly those in Latin America. Under the terms of a 1982 treaty. the Government of Colombia recently extradited four suspected drug traffickers to the United States to face drug charges.