Crime in Mexico, driven by drug cartels targeting the U.S., has reached a new high, drawing into question a $2.5 billion American-taxpayer-funded Washington program to cut corruption south of the border.

Started by former President George W. Bush and continued under the Obama administration, the so-called Merida Initiative has done so little to improve the crime situation in Mexico, that the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week pressed the State Department to prove its worth.

In a letter to State, committee chairman Sen. Ron Johnson wrote, “It is unclear what the U.S. funding of the initiative has achieved.”

He added, “corruption is reportedly at a rate ‘never seen in Mexico,’ as drug cartels exert increased influence over other government officials. A large number of Mexicans are defecting from law-enforcement units to join cartels and department officials acknowledge that the U.S. has likely trained some cartel members through the initiative.”

In demanding answers to questions about the program, Johnson also cited reports of how the U.S. money has been squandered.

In one example, he said that the U.S. “accredited” the Mexican prison where corruption “likely helped” drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” escape before eventually being arrested and sent to the U.S.

“Despite U.S. funding of the Merida Initiative, violent crime is now at the highest rate in 20 years, and the amount of drug trafficking inot the United States has doubled. The DEA assesses that ‘Mexican cartels remain the greatest criminal drug threat in the United States,’ producing 80 percent of the heroin seized in the United States,” wrote Johnson.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com