US, Mexican Officials with Ties to Harris Meet at White House to Combat Fentanyl Crisis

Illustrating that impact is indeed part of the Harris School of Public Policy’s DNA, a popular lecturer and an alum were recently central to the action as U.S. and Mexican officials agreed to collaborate on combating cross-border fentanyl and arms trafficking. 

The lecturer is Jake Braun, now a senior counselor to the U.S. Homeland Security deputy secretary. The alumnus is Roberto Velasco-Álvarez, MPP’17, the chief officer for North America at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And the new efforts on trafficking fall under the U.S.-Mexico Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities, which was launched in 2021. 

“I actually saw Roberto down in Mexico City when a high-level delegation went down to talk about fentanyl and weapons trafficking,” said Braun, a cybersecurity expert with multiple stints in government. “I noticed in his bio that he wasn't just a University of Chicago alum, but a Harris alum. And I said, ‘Oh, I've gotta meet this guy.’ So, I went and said hello. And then when they came to Washington I said, ‘Oh, we’ve gotta take a picture.’”

That photo was snapped at the White House in April. 

“I led the negotiation of the Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities on the Mexican side,” said Velasco-Álvarez, who is based in Mexico City. For these new initiatives, he said he “worked very closely with the White House — including with Jake Braun — the U.S. Embassy, and the Mexican security cabinet to reach an agreement on reinforcing cooperation on two key areas: illegal trafficking of guns and trafficking of fentanyl.” 

“These are,” he added, “two critical security priorities of Mexico and the United States, given the deadly effects of such illegal trade.”

Mexico has said that 70% to 90% of guns recovered at its crime scenes can be traced back to the U.S. And fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, was linked to nearly 75,000 overdose deaths in the United States last year, according to just-released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

“That’s several orders of magnitude worse than any narcotics problem we've ever had in the country,” Braun said. “And it's categorically different from a narcotics problem because almost nobody out there is seeking to do fentanyl. What the Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation cartels in Mexico are doing is cutting cocaine or heroin or, worse, fake prescription drugs with fentanyl. It’s much more addictive than any other drug and is obviously much more deadly.”

“This was new territory for me,” he added.

Meanwhile in Mexico, Braun said, the attention is on weapons. “After the cartels smuggle fentanyl north,” he said, “they then smuggle weapons back south.”

In their April agreement, the two nations agreed to increase cooperation on illegal firearms trafficking and committed to continuing work on both sides of the border to dismantle the fentanyl supply chain and the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

Problems in need of novel solutions, like the fentanyl crisis, are what Braun regularly tackles. Appointed to his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) post by President Joe Biden in 2021, Braun has been working on the cross-border trafficking issue for about a year, he said, and earlier was tasked with helping to resettle thousands of Afghans as part of the United States’ 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“I just kind of get thrown into whatever pressing problem requires attention,” said Braun, who was the White House liaison to DHS during the Obama administration.

Braun and Velasco-Álvarez didn’t cross paths at Harris, where Braun taught cyber policy. Velasco-Álvarez, who was at Harris from 2015 to 2017, was focused on international affairs and found, he said, that “studying at Harris and living in Chicago were definitely among the best experiences that I've had.”

“Harris was a great place to gain broad skills that prepared me for my current role,” he added, “which includes negotiations on a very diverse array of bilateral and trilateral policy questions, such as security, trade, water, border infrastructure, and migration, among others.”

Braun said meeting people with ties to the University of Chicago is not out of the ordinary for him — many work in the Biden administration. But finding a University of Chicago graduate, particularly a Harris MPP, while negotiating with a delegation from another country was a first.

“It's great to see how the Harris community is growing," Velasco-Álvarez said, “and to find colleagues like Jake in high-level international meetings. Given the caliber of people at the school and their level of commitment, however, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”