Florida Rep. Michael Waltz (R), a retired U.S. Army Green Beret, recently endorsed former President Donald Trump’s hawkish plan to combat Mexican drug cartels and has said that he will propose legislation that would authorize direct military action against the cartels.
“He is absolutely right,” said Rep. Waltz about President Trump's anti-Cartel plan, adding, “The cartels are running our border.”
“We need to go on offense against them. I plan to introduce legislation to authorize the use of military force against these cartels,” stated Rep. Waltz.
Waltz’s proposed legislation authorizing military intervention against cartels across the border would be the first of its kind.
The measure or idea has received bipartisan support from Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a House Democrat whose congressional district runs along the border with Mexico.
Rep. Gonzalez told The Floridian that the U.S. should. “definitely consider using military and law enforcement action against the cartels–they are terrorists.”
Gonzalez says that he has been saying for quite some time that the U.S. military needed to go after the Mexican drug cartels because the Mexican government has not been able, or has refused to do so.
“If Mexico doesn’t handle it themselves, they will leave us no choice. At this point, they have impacted our national security, and continue to impact it,” said Rep. Gonzalez. “We are losing more people to fentanyl than we have in some wars, so why would we think of it any differently?”
Another Texas lawmaker, Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R) contends that cartels “are a serious problem” to America and believes that U.S. Congress needed to “send a strong statement,” but fell short of backing Waltz’s idea.
Rep. De La Cruz says that she would “certainly like to read the legislation on that.”
Florida Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R) and John Rutherford (R) both told The Floridian how serious the situation along the border, but fell short of endorsing Waltz’s potential measure to wipe out the cartels using the military.
“Drug cartels are responsible for the deaths tens and tens of Americans. We need to hold those cartels accountable,” said Rep. Diaz-Balart.
Rep. Rutherford focused more on hitting the cartels where it hurts the most—its bottom line.
“Until we start addressessing how we enable them by allowing remittances back to cartels through electronic transfers, that’s’ where I think we are missing the boat,” said Rep. Rutherford. “We can hurt them a lot.”
President Joe Biden recently made his first visit to the embattled border since taking office in 2019. Republicans were quick to criticize President Biden for hold an apparent lax position on the illegal immnigration probem along the border with Mexico.
