The Border Patrol Union is blaming the Biden administration for a Mexican criminal cartel obtaining “military-grade weapons.”
“For the entire [four] years of the Biden administration’s destructive term, his team allowed unfettered access and ceded complete control of our border to the Mexican cartels, so it’s no surprise to anyone that the cartels were able to obtain the military-grade weapons [and] equipment that they currently possess,” the Border Patrol Union, the official union of the U.S. Border Patrol, wrote on X.
Mexican authorities discovered and seized rifles with grenade launchers, rocket launchers and mortar shells during a raid Sunday that left a top cartel leader dead, Reuters reports.
Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” was the leader of one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Mexican forces captured Oseguera in the state of Jalisco, which borders the Pacific Ocean.
The cartel leader sustained injuries during the operation and died from his wounds while being transported to Mexico City for medical attention, the New York Times reports.
“The amount of money that Biden and Border “Czar” Kamala Harris allowed the cartels to earn by encouraging (and facilitating) the unprecedented invasion at our borders is staggering and has allowed them to strengthen themselves with members and resources that rival foreign militaries,” the Border Patrol Union says.
During her tenure as vice president, Harris was never formally given the title of “border czar,” but was tasked with addressing issues of systemic immigration into the United States from a number of countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Over the course of the Biden administration, more than 10 million illegal aliens are estimated to have entered the U.S., many of whom paid the cartels to facilitate or guide their travel to and across the U.S. border with Mexico.
Harris’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
During a 2023 ride-along in Arizona with the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office anti-smuggling unit, Detective Shawn Wilson told The Daily Signal the criminal cartels were choosing to smuggle more people instead of drugs into the U.S. because of the fiscal incentive.
“People want to come, and the cartels, and people down in Mexico who are making the money, they see the opportunity to increase their annual income,” Wilson said at the time.
Cervantes’s death Sunday has sparked violence across Mexico as cartel members seek revenge for “El Mencho’s” death.
Border Patrol in San Diego is on tactical alert following the spike in the violence, Manny Bayon, president of the Border Patrol Union in San Diego, told The Daily Signal.
“It’s scary,” Bayon said of the situation, explaining that there has not been any related violence in San Diego, but several vehicles have been set on fire just across the border in Tijuana, Mexico.
The current strategy of the cartels appears to be creating “chaos,” according to Bayon.
The U.S. State Department has issued a security alert for Americans in Mexico due to “road blockages and criminal activity,” warning “U.S. citizens in specific locations in Mexico … to shelter in place.” Locations affected include Jalisco State, Baja California State, which includes Tijuana, and Nayarit State.
The killings of cartel leaders in the past have led to violence between the Mexican government and cartels.
The Mexican military has mobilized to address the cartel violence, and Pablo Lemus Navarro, governor of Jalisco state, says an additional 2,000 individuals with the Secretariat of National Defense of Mexico have arrived in the state to provide security.
“Gradually, we will be resuming activities and services, such as public transportation and the return to classes,” the governor wrote on X, adding that the goal is for the state to “recover peace.”