Republican critics of President Joe Biden have long cited his lax immigration policies for the influx of drugs and violent criminals across the nation’s southern border.
Now that the GOP has a majority in the House of Representatives, lawmakers are ramping up their demand for increased border security to stop the deleterious impact of drug cartels from Mexico and elsewhere across Central and South America.
Border Patrol agents apprehended 312 suspected members of the notorious MS-13 gang along the U.S.-Mexico border during the last fiscal year alone. There were a total of 2.2 million total arrests of noncitizens during the same period, which is the highest number ever recorded.
Furthermore, as El Salvadoran authorities crack down on their own violent crime problem, some U.S. immigration experts believe that criminals will begin fleeing that country in larger numbers and make their way north toward the United States.
In order to stem the tide, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) offered a comprehensive immigration plan earlier this month in the form of a Twitter thread.
“The Mexican Cartels are terrorists who kidnap, harm, rape and kill American citizens,” he wrote. “They profit off of our suffering through drug smuggling and human trafficking. The Cartels declared war on us long ago. The Left did nothing to stop them.”
Asserting that the U.S. could have the “most secure border in the world,” Gosar laid out a few key policy initiatives that he believes would help achieve that goal.
We don't have to live like this. We are capable of having the strongest & most secure border in the world.
– Our southern border should be militarized.
– Fentanyl dealers need to receive the death penalty.
– Trump's wall must be completed.
– We need an immigration moratorium.
— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) March 7, 2023
Going on to share a video of 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s immigration platform, the Arizona Republican concluded: “We need mass deportations and NO AMNESTY.”
After the kidnapping of four Americans — two of whom were killed — by a Mexican cartel near the border earlier this month, Texas Republicans were quick to condemn the act of brutality.
“These cartels are brazen enough to shoot at and kidnap foreign nationals in broad daylight,” asserted Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX). “There is no limit to the brutality they will use to achieve their ends — the profiteering off of human suffering.”
House Intelligence Committee member Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) agreed, adding: “The cartel-fueled violence can easily spill into the United States and threaten American lives, and that’s exactly what happened.”
