RIGHT SPEAK: 5 actions President Trump can take NOW to reclaim our border from the Mexican cartels

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Try to think of any other foreign entity – a country, terrorist group, or criminal group – that devastates our country as much as the Mexican cartels. They control our border – both sides of it – and have operatives in every state fueling the entire drug crisis, gangs, crime, and an endless flow of illegal immigrants who cause a massive fiscal drain and cultural transformation of our communities. Why have we gone to war with everyone but them? Will that change in light of the murder of Americans by the cartels?

It’s good that there is finally some media and policy focus on the Mexican cartels. Sadly, it came at the cost of an American family living in a Mormon community in Mexico. Three mothers of the LeBaron family were driving in three separate SUVs in two locations eight miles from each other in the Sonora province, just 50 miles from the international border with New Mexico, on Monday. Cartel gunmen opened fire on the three vehicles and then torched them, killing and burning the three mothers, as well as six children, including twin babies. Six other children were wounded, and there are reports some of them were initially kidnapped but managed to escape.

The president called for action against the cartels and implied he’d be willing to help Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) militarily against the cartels, a gesture that was rebuffed by the leftist president of Mexico. However, Trump can focus the fight on the cartels closer to home – at the border itself and in the interior of our country, where the cartels and their contractors are operating with impunity.

Here’s the reality of the cartels at the border that nobody realizes: They have created an entire business model on the premise that our government will not treat them as a hostile enemy. Were that to change, as powerful as the cartels seem today, they’d be crushed quite easily. Thus, Trump’s strategy should not hinge upon cooperation of AMLO and the Mexican military. We must seize control of our own destiny and at least protect our own country from the cartels.

To that end, here are five ideas the Trump administration should pursue:

1) Reorient the mission of Border Patrol and the military: The 9/11 commission staff report on terrorism and travel warned that “no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal” and that even in 2004, it was “not considered a cornerstone of national security policy.” Sadly, that is still true today. Whether it’s the potential threat of Islamic terror, cartel terrorism that plagues our cities with drugs, gangs, and violence, or the espionage threat from the increasing presence of Chinese migrants, our State Department, Defense Department, and Department of Homeland Security still do not view our border as relative to our national security. That must change.

At present, CBP treats the border like a domestic law enforcement issue. This is why cartels can cross our border with impunity. As I’ve reported before, Border Patrol agents will not grab armed smugglers who have crossed our border and are an inch across the border in a belligerent posture as agents appear on the scene. They do not retaliate when shot at with automatic fire. The military is even worse. It is hamstrung from doing anything, and the cartels, knowing this fact, cross right in front of our troops.

The time has come for the military to be used at our border the way we use it to defend other borders. Our Founders envisioned a military for our own border, not for Afghanistan. Not enforcing immigration law or dealing with detainees, but holding the line right at the perimeter and striking hostile actions, whether through smuggling, drone espionage, or armed conflict. There is no reason the cartels should be operating scouts in Arizona’s mountains as deep as 70 miles into our territory. If we can’t secure our own soil, we are on our way to becoming like Mexico.