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Bodies hang under the underpass. State institutions systematically bribed. Killed political candidates by the dozens. Teenagers lured to “recruitment centers” only to be tortured and killed. The police ambushed him and executed him.
This is not a description of my time fighting terrorists overseas; it is a dark and painful reality life in Mexico today.
The crisis has spread beyond Mexico. Fentanyl, which is smuggled into our country by Mexican drug cartels and their Chinese partners, kills about 80,000 Americans annually. That equates to 25 9/11 attacks every year. This reality is what led me to work with then Speaker of Parliament Kevin McCarthy to establish an anti-cartel task force.
Police officers at the scene where members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel set fire to a vehicle after detaining one of its leaders, in Zapopan, Mexico, on August 9, 2022. Inset: Fentanyl pills. (Reuters)
What exactly is a congressional task force? They vary in size and scope, but usually a task force is a group of members focused on a specific problem. We had no additional staff or resources, just a common goal.
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Despite extremely limited resources, I personally traveled to eight locations across the country, went on three international trips, incl two visits to Mexico Cityhe held nearly 30 briefings and led a working group to develop an extensive list of legislative proposals.
Our solutions varied in size and scope. In 2023, along with President Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor, Congressman Mike Waltz, I introduced the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against cartels to empower the US military to act against cartels in coordination with Mexico.
Our bipartisan task force largely agreed on the need for a “big” idea like this that greatly increases military cooperation with Mexico and leads the fight against cartels. We also realized that our laws do not do enough to deter fentanyl trafficking, and we worked on legislation to significantly increase the penalties for cartel members and their enablers, including local drug traffickers, US banks and foreign governments complicit in their operations.
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We recognized the need to choke off the supply of arms to the cartels by focusing on illegal flows south across our southern border while addressing flows to the north. We found that the penalties for fentanyl precursor suppliers who illegally ship products to the US were nothing more than a slap on the wrist, necessitating higher penalties deter Chinese companies from falsification of shipping manifests.
This is only part of the solution needed to fight the Mexican cartels. But if Congress is serious about following through on President Trump’s promise to fight the cartels, we need significantly more congressional firepower. It will require professional staff, budgets for travel and investigations, and significantly more congressional focus than my limited task force can currently provide to pass legislation.
We need a select committee to defeat the Mexican drug cartels.
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What’s the difference?
The fight against Mexican drug cartels requires dismantling every aspect of their operations – from the precursor to fentanyl suppliers in China falsified manifests used to smuggle cargo into the United States. This means targeting precursor mixers, pill pushers, traffickers, lawyers, corrupt politicians and bankers who support cartel activity.
That means building the right capabilities within the Mexican government and deeper coordination between our military and theirs. This means increased intelligence gathering on cartels that must be funded and approved. The list goes on.
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What might initially seem like simple legislative solutions quickly become a complex web of measures spread across as many as nine committees—an incredibly ineffective way to address the insurgency at our border.
Election Committee for Defeat the Mexican drug cartels it would act as a central coordination center for this multifaceted crisis, meaning a single jurisdictional committee. Instead of navigating bills through committees with overlapping jurisdictions, a select committee would streamline the process, allowing us to quickly bring critical legislation to the floor, much like the select committee on China accomplished with the sale of TikTok to CCP in the last Congress.
Ignoring the Mexican cartels is not an option. Even another year of preventable fentanyl overdoses in America is an unacceptable future, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on.
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With new administrations in the US and Mexico – each with a track record of taking decisive action against cartels – the time is right. Now the only question is whether the House will stand up and lead, which is why I am calling Speaker Mike JohnsonR-La., to support my proposal to establish a Select Committee to Defeat Mexican Drug Cartels.
Now is the time to eliminate them.
