It takes 42 hours to drive from Tijuana, Mexico, to Long Island, New York, an area I proudly represent in the U.S. House of Representatives. Our distance should keep us safe from the violence and terror wrought by Mexican drug cartels and traffickers—it doesn’t.
The Biden administration’s border crisis has reached all corners of the United States, with residents in and around New York witnessing the growing control of drug cartels and their street gang affiliates. Because of President Biden’s and the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas’ policies, every state is now a border state.
Back in May, Mexican drug cartels smuggled $5 million worth of fentanyl, including 300,000 fentanyl pills into the Bronx, before being caught by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
In January, following an eight-month investigation, the Department of Justice charged nine members of the Latin Kings gang in New Jersey with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, and with manufacturing untraceable gun parts to illegally create automatic weapons.
The current DEA Administrator has said that the Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels, use “multi-city distribution networks” and “violent local street gangs…to flood American communities with fentanyl and methamphetamine, drive addiction, fuel violence, and kill Americans.” Because of the failed policies of the Biden administration, cartels can smuggle into the United States those who want to avoid apprehension by the U.S. Border Patrol. Since President Biden took office, the Border Patrol has reported over 1.5 million gotaways, who successfully evaded apprehension.
One of the violent street gangs that drug cartels employ is MS-13. Just last year, Nassau County residents were reminded of the dangers of MS-13 after the gang members who senselessly murdered 22-year old Carlos Rivas-Majano in Uniondale in 2017 were sentenced for their heinous crimes.
We know that MS-13 operates closely with the cartels, serving as their foot soldiers and human traffickers. And now they are taking advantage of Biden’s open border policies.
In Fiscal Year 2022, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more than 300 members of MS-13. With two months remaining in Fiscal Year 2023, they’ve apprehended another 150. With over 1.5 million known gotaways, we have no way of knowing how many more MS-13 members have successfully snuck through our porous borders and found their way to America’s neighborhoods, including in New York.
Just last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Juan Carlos Portillo in Alabama, an MS-13 gang member who was on El Salvador’s “100 Most Wanted” list for heinous crimes, including aggravated kidnapping and homicide. And in the same month as the Bronx drug bust, ICE arrested more than 15 armed and dangerous criminals on Long Island who had illegally re-entered the United States. Four of them were affiliated with MS-13.
According to the Department of Justice, “Most MS-13 members who are illegally present in the United States enter via Mexico,” and have long “exploited weaknesses in border enforcement policies.” And because Biden and Mayorkas have stripped Border Patrol agents of necessary resources and have instituted policies that make it harder to apprehend criminals, cartels and their street gang affiliates, like MS-13, are wreaking havoc in America’s communities.
We’re even seeing evidence of cartel activity in the uptick in retail theft. Last year, Homeland Security Investigations, a law enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security, discovered “organized retail crime schemes exploiting undocumented migrants forced to steal goods to pay back ‘coyotes’ who smuggle them across international borders.”
As shoplifting in New York City increased by 44% from 2021 to 2022, New York’s small business owners can’t afford to lose more.
Before I came to Congress, I spent more than a decade as an NYPD detective where I brought murderers and drug dealers to justice and worked to make New York a safer place. As Homeland’s new report on cartels makes clear, because Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas have failed to secure our Southwest border, every community in America is feeling the effects.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito represents New York’s 4th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives, and is a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
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