Senate Democrats and Republicans are taking a widely different view of the issue of Mexican cartels’ smuggling and gun violence and how to stop it – with Democrats appearing to continue to focus on the U.S. firearms industry while Republicans focus on investigative efforts and the dangers that cartel members pose to law enforcement and other Americans.
The largely disparate views were recently highlighted during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “The Thin Blue Line Protecting America from the Cartels.”
“Today’s hearing focuses on the very real threat of Mexican drug cartels and the lengths law enforcement goes to defend Americans,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassly, the committee’s top Republican, said at the June hearing.
“These are the folks who enforce the law at great personal cost. As of late, they’ve been pelted with rocks, assaulted with homemade explosives … . And yet, they continue to hold the line against one of the greatest national security threats to America – Mexican drug cartels.”
Among the three federal law enforcement officials to testify at the June 17 hearing was the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Matthew Allen.
“In my 22 years-plus in the DEA … . I’ve experienced several instances of cartels and criminal organizations surveilling our people, both in Mexico and the United States,” said Allen the special agent in charge of the agency’s Los Angeles Field Division. “I’ve personally lost several friends on this job – two of them, very close friends of mine. It’s a dangerous job.”
Grassley also warned about the dangers of cartel members infiltrating the United States, citing the son-in-law of Ruben Oseguera Cervantes – known as “El Mencho” and the leader of Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, a major drug-trafficking organization in Mexico – living in Southern California under a fake name until his arrest last year.
Prosecutors say the son-in-law, Cristian Fernando Gutierrez Ocho, faked his own death and fled to the U.S. to avoid Mexican authorities after kidnapping two members of the Mexican Navy in 2021. He is also accused of conspiring to import thousands of kilograms of methamphetamine and cocaine into the U.S.
Allen said agents working on a tip arrested him in a gated community, “just down the street from the chief of police.”
Grassley also hammered away at Democrats on the committee as they appeared to zero-in on U.S. gun dealers as a major factor in cartel violence.
“It was Democrats who threw open our southern border,” he argued.
Illegal border crossings surged during the previous Biden administration, with at least 7.2 million migrants purportedly encountered from January 2021 to January 2024.
Hellbound and Down 