Top law enforcement group calls for Congress to take action against Mexican cartels after American deaths

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FIRST ON FOX: An association of thousands of sheriffs across the country is calling for Congress to take immediate action against Mexican drug cartels, including additional manpower and tools to law enforcement, after the deaths of two Americans by cartel members and amid an ongoing fentanyl crisis.

The National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA) says that it is backing new initiatives in Congress to undermine and eliminate drug cartels -- which wreak havoc at the border and are responsible for the smuggling of illegal migrants and drugs like fentanyl into the U.S. -- and calling for more action.

Specifically, the organization, which represents more than 3,000 sheriffs, says it wants to see Congress using its authorities to build a "comprehensive system of further manpower and other tools that prevent any illicit drugs from being produced, smuggled and sold on American streets."

"The nation’s sheriffs strongly support the American people’s continued demand that our federal government use whatever means appropriate to combat these deadly cartels," Sheriff Jim Skinner, chair of the National Sheriffs’ Association Government Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

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Police officers keep watch at the scene where authorities found the bodies of two of four Americans kidnapped by gunmen, in Matamoros, Mexico March 7, 2023. (REUTERS/Daniel Becerril)

The call to action comes after the kidnapping of four Americans who traveled across the border from Brownsville, Texas, to Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Two of the Americans and an innocent Mexican bystander died during the incident, officials said.

The incident cast a spotlight onto the ongoing violence which has engulfed parts of the southern border. Cartels are also responsible for the smuggling and trafficking of migrants into the U.S., as well as illicit cargo such as drugs.

Specifically, the flow of fentanyl -- a drug 50-100 times for potent than morphine and that is estimated to have killed more than 70,000 Americans last year -- into the U.S. is facilitated primarily by cartels. The drug is produced in Mexico using Chinese precursors and then shipped across the U.S. land border.

Some members of Congress have recently been ramping up calls for action, with multiple lawmakers calling for cartels to be designated as foreign terrorist organizations and some even calling for military action into Mexico itself.

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"We're going to unleash the fury and might of the United States against these cartels," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said. "We're going to destroy their business model and their lifestyle because our national security and the security of the United States as a whole depends on us taking decisive action."

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The NSA has previously joined other sheriffs’ groups in calling for officials to use sanctions and other tools to push back against the cartels.

"Without clear, determined and strong action against the Mexican cartels and their partners, we are witnessing the destruction of our families and communities," Sheriff Skinner said. "We must use the means necessary to undermine the cartels now." 

Mexico recently pushed back against the increased talk of action from the U.S. on the cartels. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador threatened to launch an "information campaign" against Republicans mulling military action, while falsely claiming that fentanyl is not produced in Mexico.

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"Here, we do not produce fentanyl, and we do not have consumption of fentanyl," he said. "Why don't they [the United States] take care of their problem of social decay?"

Fox News' Peter Aitken contributed to this report.