Members of Congress are raising the alarm that war-like conditions on the Mexican border could lead to Mexican drug cartels helping terrorists attack the U.S.

“When you have…gangs and they have loose ties with al Qaeda and then you have Iran not too far away from building a nuclear capability, nuclear terrorism may not be far off,” said Rep. Trent Franks (R- Ariz.), a member of the House Armed Services committee.

The Mexican drug cartels’ violence accounted for more than 6,000 deaths last year, and in recent months it has begun spilling over into the districts of lawmakers from the southwest region, even as far north as Phoenix, Ariz. -- which has become, Franks noted, the “kidnap capital of the U.S.”

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), whose district borders Mexico, said that while the situation is bad, it could easily get worse.

“The goal of the cartels is to make money,” said Cuellar, who sits on the House Homeland Security committee. “If they can smuggle in drugs and human cargo, then certainly they can smuggle other things in, other devices to cause us harm.”

“We have not heard of any associations, but is there the possibility? I’ll be the first to say, yeah. They have the routes, they can very easily smuggle in other things. If I was a bad guy in another country, I would go into Central America because the U.S. is not paying the proper attention.”

Violence reached new levels last week when the mayor of Juarez, a Mexican city with 1.6 million people that serves as a major transit point for drug smugglers, moved his family to El Paso, Texas, after receiving threats against his and their lives.

The move corresponded with the resignation of the city’s police chief after a drug cartel promised to kill a police officer every 48 hours if he did not step down. The city’s police director of operations, a police officer and a prison guard were killed by the cartels in days prior.

“That was a mistake in my judgment,” Franks said of the chief’s resignation. “The federal government should have come in and said listen, we’re going to put a Marine division there to help you out if that’s what’s necessary, but narco-terrorists are not going to tell America who to elect and who resigns.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said earlier this week that there are no plans to militarize the border, but Texas Gov. Rick Perry last week asked for 1,000 additional forces, such as National Guardsmen, to help protect the country’s border.

The Homeland Security and House Oversight and Government Reform committees, which Cuellar sits on, and the House Appropriations subcommittees on Homeland Security and State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs all have hearings scheduled next week to address the increase in violence.

“The U.S. moves on crisis,” Cuellar said. “My colleagues aren’t going to pay attention to it until it boils up to a particular point. And we’re boiling.”

A report on global security threats issued by the U.S. Joint Forces Command earlier this year stated that Mexico is on the same level as Pakistan for the potential of “a rapid and sudden collapse.”

Cuellar, who does not think Mexico has reached a "failed state" status, traveled to Mexico City two weeks ago to meet with the Mexican secretary of defense and Mexico’s attorney general, asking them what more assistance the U.S. can provide.

“If you ask the Mexicans what’s the biggest thing we can do, it’s stop the flow of guns,” he said, adding that during his visit he viewed a large cache of seized weapons. “A lot of (the guns) were from the U.S. but some were from China, Bulgaria, and other places.”

According to ATF, 95 percent of the weapons used by drug cartels came from the U.S.

Under the Merida Initiative, initiated by President George W. Bush, the U.S. has committed to provide Mexico with $1.4 billion over three years to fight the drug cartels. The omnibus spending bill that is currently caught up in the Senate carries $405 million designated for the program.

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas), who sits on the House Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security, said he hasn’t seen much violence spilling over into his district, which spans nearly all of Texas’ border with Mexico. But, he added, he is still very concerned about the situation.

“One thing we’re working on from Homeland Security is to beef up from a border patrol perspective, from the passage back and forth perspective, and also not to shoot ourselves in the foot as far as trade; our economies are directly tied in to each other,” he said.

Rodriguez, who was born in Mexico and has spent nearly 10 years in Congress, said there may be a silver lining to the influx of violence.

“I hate to say this but the fact that that’s occurring right now is a good sign that they’re (the drug cartels) not in control,” he said. “In other words, if you don’t hear any noise anywhere, it doesn’t mean that it’s okay, it just means that one group is in control.”

But the unrest does not ease the concern of Franks, whose district borders Phoenix, where police reported an average of one kidnapping a day last year linked to Mexican drug cartels.

“I take it personal in that I have two little 7-month-old babies,” Franks said. “If lawlessness like that is not contained, it almost always has a tendency to grow more and more bold and broad and a lot of times these kidnap victims are held for ransom, so they may say, ‘Why not kidnap a rich American kid?’”

“They make a mistake if they do that because I think that would finally get the attention of the American government to the point where we responded.” 
 

Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican, represents the 2nd District of Arizona in the U.S. Congress. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerical and Administrative and Law.

###

2435 Rayburn HOB, Washington, D.C. 20515
202-225-4576