Another Front for Local Foreign Policy: Crime Control

See this story from Wednesday’s FT on a meeting between Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the president of El Salvador, Antonio Saca, to address the growing transnational aspects of gang-related crime. This isn’t a first — the New York City Police Department has seven liaison officers posted in foreign cities, most recently to Santo Domingo on a narcotics-related beat — but it is surely a growth area for localities on the international scene, especially as transnational crime is fueled by US deportation practices. Long gone is Justice Taney’s vision (Holmes v. Jennison) of a Compact Clause broad enough to “to cut off all connection or communication between a state and a foreign power.”