In response to four Americans kidnapped in Mexico on Friday and the steady flow of narcotics through the southern U.S. border, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he plans to introduce legislation that would allow the president to use U.S. military forces in Mexico against drug cartels.
The four U.S. citizens crossed into the northern Mexico border city of Matamoros from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday in a white minivan. They came under fire shortly after crossing in what was reported to be a drug-related shootout. The FBI said all four Americans were taken hostage by heavily armed men and placed in the back of a pickup truck.
"I'm going to introduce legislation … to make certain Mexican drug cartels [are listed as] foreign terrorist organizations under U.S. law and set the stage to use military force if necessary to protect America from being poisoned by things coming out of Mexico," Graham said during an interview on Fox News.
In January, Reps. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., and Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, introduced legislation for an Authorization for Use of Military Force against Mexican cartels for trafficking lethal fentanyl and other related activities "that have caused destabilization in the Western Hemisphere."
"Additionally, Mexican cartels have acted as paramilitary forces in their open warfare with the Mexican military that has created the conditions for massive influxes of illegal immigration across our southern border and further endangered American law enforcement," according to a news release on Waltz's website.
Graham, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said it's time the Biden administration takes a page out of former President Donald Trump's playbook and "put Mexico on notice: If you continue to give safe haven to fentanyl drug dealers, then you are an enemy of the United States."
He criticized the Biden administration's lax enforcement regarding the southern border, saying "[70,000] to 100,000 people have died from fentanyl poisoning coming from Mexico and China, and this administration has done nothing about it."
"I would tell the Mexican government if you don't clean up your act, we're going to clean it up for you," he said.