President Joe Biden’s handling of the migrant crisis has been an unmitigated disaster. At this point, most Americans are aware of how horribly this administration has addressed the matter. With millions of illegal aliens gaining entry into the country, it is impossible to deny.
Not only is it creating more stress on the country financially, cities forced to house these individuals are being stretched to their breaking points. But there is another danger that has arisen from this catastrophe: The emboldening of Mexican drug cartels. If the White House doesn’t take action, the situation could become even deadlier.
Texas Scorecard published a report explaining the growing threat these organizations pose to America’s national security. Jaeson Jones, a retired Texas Department of Public Safety captain, illustrated how pernicious this threat has grown during a conversation with State Sen. Bob Hall.
“What’s happening at that border directly impacts everyone in this country because it is no longer just a U.S.-Mexico problem, nor is it a Texas or border problem only; there is not a community in this country that is not impacted,” he said. “What we are really witnessing is the largest U.S. intelligence failure since 9/11.”
Jones also warned that the fentanyl issue, which has killed over 100,000 Americans, is “only the beginning.”
The cartels operated more as organized crime syndicates in Mexico. But when former Mexican President Felipe Calderón began taking more aggressive action against these criminal enterprises, the traffickers became increasingly brutal in their response.
“The reason they did this, and what was not told to the American public and to many around the world, is that these cartels had become so emboldened that they were literally using everything from 50-caliber belt-fed machine guns, 40-millimeter grenade rocket launchers, like light anti-tank weapons, hand grenades, and armored vehicles to take on local and state government,” Jones recounted.
The former official said he and his colleagues saw “six-to-eight-hour gun battles right on our border, yet no one knew or was aware this was even occurring.”
Fast forward to 2015, and we see how much more terrifying the cartels have become. When former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto launched an offensive against Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) leadership, he sent ground forces and helicopters into the Sierra mountains.
“As the helicopters were coming in, one of them was shot out of the sky,” said Jones. “From there, the operation really fell apart. As ground units were blocked, they weren’t able to get into the mountains, and the leadership was not even affected.”
In 2019, after the government captured the son of El Chapo, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, “the city of Culiacán erupted in violence, forcing the Mexican government to release him.”
Now, the cartels have even carried out assassinations on American soil. In one instance, a Border Patrol Agent who was working with the criminal enterprise carried out a murder near South Padre Island.
Under this current administration, it is not difficult to imagine how this situation could get even worse. According to Jones, the U.S. is not equipped to address this growing threat. But this does not mean the U.S. government is helpless.
“Get these cartels designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations so that we c[an] use tools of national power,” Jones recommended. “We’ve got to go after and destroy these [drug] labs and then target these cartels.”
From Texas Scorecard:
In order to effectively accomplish this, Jones says the crime reporting databases are in need of serious work. Although he says the Nyberg National Incident-Based Reporting System is much improved from the FBI’s uniform crime report, it does not sufficiently meet the needs of law enforcement.
“I wish I could sit here and tell you that things are going to get better, but unfortunately, they are not. It will get worse before it gets better, and the reason for it is because we are taking no proactive stance to go after these cartels,” he said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in September issued an executive order designating multiple cartels as terrorist organizations. “Cartels are terrorists, and it’s time we treated them that way. In fact, more Americans died from fentanyl poisoning in the past year than all terrorist attacks across the globe in the past 100 years. In order to save our country, particularly our next generation, we must do more to get fentanyl off our streets,” he said.
Abbott also called on the Biden administration to take similar action. Predictably, the response from the White House was a rousing chorus of crickets.
This is only one of many examples illustrating how this president and his team are not taking the border issue seriously. They continue insisting that the border is secure, even when Americans can clearly see that it is anything but. But if this problem is allowed to persist, the consequences could be even worse than we originally thought – especially because most don’t understand how bold the cartels have become.
