Republican congressmen have launched a legal initiative to put pressure on the Department of Defense to fight the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) of Mexico.
The bill was introduced last Thursday by Tom Cotton, Republican senator from Arkansas.
It proposes “demanding periodic briefings on efforts to capture or kill the leaders of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.”
If approved, the Pentagon would have to report to Congress every 90 days on its efforts in this regard, although the rule would not imply that the Department of Defense would have to launch an operation to kill the leaders of the cartel.
To be taken into consideration, a bill like this needs the support of 60 of the 100 senators, that is, the support of both Democratic and Republican senators.
The regulation has not begun to be processed and it seems unlikely that the Senate will give it the green light.
Congressmen frequently present legislative initiatives with which to satisfy their voters even if they are not viable.
The proposal is an indicator of the mood in Congress over Mexican cartel violence and the rise of fentanyl addictions, which causes tens of thousands of deaths each year in the United States.
“Mexican drug cartels continue to kill Americans at a higher rate than any terrorist group in history.
Even by drug cartel standards, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel is especially violent and represents a direct threat to the safety of Americans in the border states and beyond.
It is time for the Biden administration to develop a strategy to hold these killers accountable,” Senator Cotton said in a statement introducing the initiative.
Texas Republican Congressman Morgan Luttrell, a former member of a special operations military team, is introducing a similar proposal in the House of Representatives in parallel.
“Our border is being exploited by cartels as they run one of the most extensive human and drug trafficking operations in the world, leaving no corner of our country untouched by the danger of cartel activity,” he said. Luttrell in a statement.
“This legislation makes clear that the Jalisco Cartel cannot remain emboldened on our border and that the United States military must be prepared to confront and eliminate [that criminal group], if it is determined that the best course of action is to use the Armed Forces of our great country,” he added.
Morgan Lutterell, in Washington DC (USA), on January 10.
Tom Williams (CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag)
Republicans have frequently mixed drug trafficking with illegal immigration in the domestic US political debate, since they believe that the southern border has not been secured.
Recently, however, Republicans have blocked a proposal they themselves had demanded to provide more funding for border security forces and reform legislation to curb immigration.
The pressure from Donald Trump, the probable Republican candidate for the November presidential elections, who wants to use the immigration issue and the border as the star issue of his campaign, has been decisive for this.
In the United States, concern has grown about Mexican cartels and the penetration of their illicit businesses on the side of its border.
The CJNG is known not only for the vastness of its resources and its weapons power, but also for its violence and cruelty, even more exalted in its battle with the Sinaloa Cartel for control of markets inside and outside of Mexico.
Republican politicians have shown on several occasions their inclination for the US Government to classify the cartels as terrorist organizations.
In March of last year, Republican congressmen had already endorsed an initiative that sought to empower the US Armed Forces to combat fentanyl trafficking from Mexico.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has been emphatic in his rejection of these proposals, which he considers interfering and violate national sovereignty.
The president, from the leftist Morena party, has a different approach to combating the cartels, less armed confrontation and more aimed at solving what he calls the social causes of violence, through government aid for the poor population and education campaigns. of values.
This strategy has been highly criticized by the Mexican opposition, given the high numbers of homicides and disappearances of people.
It does not mean that the Mexican Government is sitting idle and has not cooperated with US authorities in coordinated efforts to encircle the cartels.
In the first years of the current Administration, the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) froze more than 20,000 bank accounts linked to criminal organizations.
The largest amount of illicit resources retained belonged to the CJNG.
Authorities have sought to suffocate the cartel's support network.
In 2022, the Government of Mexico captured Antonio Oseguera, brother of Jalisco Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera,
El Mencho
, and extradited him to the United States, on charges of cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking.
Last year, another relative of El Mencho, his brother-in-law Gerardo González Valencia, head of the Los Cuinis criminal organization — an ally of the CJNG — was sentenced in the United States to life imprisonment for trafficking cocaine through shark carcasses.
In addition, the Treasury Department has recently blocked the assets of a cartel weapons supplier, as well as a police chief in the State of Jalisco—the CJNG's base of operations—and five other members of its structure.
Three months ago, the US Government also sanctioned 12 companies and three front men that laundered money for the criminal group.
Follow all the international information on
and
X
, or in
our weekly newsletter
.