Last month, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel kidnapped, tortured, and murdered five young Mexican college students who were lured into a trap by the promise of a fake job offer. According to a local outlet in Mexico, the students were deceived into meeting cartel members, who tried to recruit the victims. When the students refused, they were duct-taped, beaten, stabbed, and beheaded.
The cartels are an enemy to the American AND Mexican people. These criminals want to see innocent civilians suffer, so they can profit off of their torment, pain, and death. These cartels are poisoning American citizens too, with deadly fentanyl being laced into drugs. So what can we do about it? Look to Colombia for a good example:
It was only 30 years that Colombia looked very similar to how Mexico looks today. Cartels ruled the streets and the Colombian government was powerless to stop them. All of that changed when Colombia partnered with the United States. They utilized our intelligence and military capabilities to take down the cartels and end their reign of terror. That partnership never ended, and transitioned to “Plan Colombia” to fight the guerrilla insurgencies. Colombia is now one of the most successful countries in South America, and American support played a huge role in that success.
We could use that same model in Mexico to wipe out the cartels which are responsible for so much damage — human trafficking, more than 70,000 American deaths from fentanyl every year, and an untold number of murders of Mexican citizens. As the Chairman of the Congressional Task Force to Combat Mexican Drug Cartels, part of my mission is to persuade the Mexican government to simply ask for the support of the U.S. military.
My message to President AMLO is this: let us help you defeat these cartels once and for all. We have the resources and capabilities. We have to act now, before more innocent people get killed. Your country is on the line.
