At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) spoke about President Trump's decision to divert federal agents who were working on anti-weapons trafficking work to work on deportations.
00:00Thank you, Senator Grassley. I'll speak for myself, but I believe I represent the feelings of all the members of the Senate.
00:08There is no excuse for violence in political expression in America.
00:14There is no excuse for violence against men and women in law enforcement who are doing their job and risking their lives in the process.
00:21There's no excuse for that violence either in Mexico, the border states, or in the U.S. Capitol building on January 6th when we saw the rioters come storming into the building assaulting our men and women who risked their lives for us every day.
00:37You see them in the corridors. They're standing in the back of this hall.
00:40These are the men and women of the Capitol Police who came to our defense on January 6th.
00:47As a net result, the largest criminal prosecution in the history of the Department of Justice took place.
00:53Some 1,500 of these rioters were held responsible for their conduct against law enforcement officials in this Capitol.
01:00We all know what happened next.
01:02The new president, Donald Trump, on his first day in office, as one of his first acts of office, decided to give full and unconditional pardon to the individuals who beat up the law enforcement officials trying to defend us that day.
01:16That was an outrage.
01:17That was an outrage. It still is.
01:19Some of these people back on the street have committed crimes again against law enforcement.
01:24It never should have happened. That pardon should not have been given.
01:27And we must remember that the president did that as one of his first acts of office.
01:32The second point I'd like to make is this.
01:34Whether or not it's in Mexico or the adjoining states of the United States, the fact of the matter is we are dealing with a terrorist organization, officially declared as such.
01:47These Mexican cartels, we know what they're up to.
01:49They are not only a major force in the politics of Mexico, they're becoming a dominant force of illegality and criminality in the United States and in Europe and beyond.
02:00Designated them as a terrorist organization, in my mind, was the right thing to do.
02:05What would we think if we learned this morning that there were firearms dealers in the United States selling firearms to Hamas in Gaza or to ISIS?
02:18Terrorist organizations, which we have declared to be enemies of the United States and dangers to the United States.
02:23Outraged, that would be the feeling, outrage at the notion that some firearms dealer in the United States is going to sell them weapons that they can use in their evil pursuits or against America and against our law enforcement.
02:39Well, that's exactly what is happening with the terrorist organizations, the Mexican cartels.
02:43They are being armed by one country primarily, the United States.
02:49Firearms dealers in this country are selling drugs, pardon me, selling guns into Mexico to the cartels, and those guns are being used for their evil plans across the United States.
03:01I thank Senator Grassi for this hearing to highlight the threat posed by these cartels.
03:08I held multiple hearings on the cartel threat when the Democrats were in the majority, and I appreciate committees continuing focused on this issue.
03:17Cartel violence and drug trafficking have hit border states hard, but these criminal organizations impact all of us across the United States.
03:25Through sophisticated nationwide networks, bad actors are profiting from harming Americans and our neighbors across the southern border.
03:34We must acknowledge the role the United States has played in arming these cartels to the teeth,
03:42sending hundreds of thousands of American-made firearms south in an iron river and empowering their use of violence to traffic fentanyl into the United States.
03:51We are supplying the firearms for the Mexican cartels, although Mexico has one legal gunshot, one in their nation.
04:03It's located on a military base.
04:06The country has faced a surge in widespread violence over the past decades as criminal gangs and cartels have illegally acquired American weapons.
04:15According to the most recent data available from ATF, 70% of guns recovered from crime scenes in Mexico came from the United States.
04:27That's a fact.
04:28Some of these guns are .50 caliber rifles.
04:31There are experts at our witness table in this room who can tell you that is not a rifle that's going to be used in sport or hunting.
04:38These rifles are capable of ripping through armored police cars and even downing aircraft.
04:46There are American sales into the Mexican cartels that are arming them with these deadly weapons.
04:51These weapons cannot be legally purchased in Mexico, but they can be in the United States, and they're being used against our interest.
04:59In light of the cartel threat, President Trump's recent order diverting federal law enforcement agents away from combating drug and firearm trafficking and toward mass deportation efforts is particularly dangerous.
05:12It makes it more difficult for us to stop these cartels.
05:16This will only make it easier for cartel violence and drug and human trafficking to continue.
05:21Guns smuggled from the United States arm the cartels, destabilize civil society, and increase violence throughout the region.
05:30This bolsters the cartel's ability to funnel drugs into the United States, fueling our devastating narcotics crisis.
05:39Mexican cartels are responsible for a significant portion of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine smuggled into the United States.
05:49Currently, most of the fentanyl coming into the U.S. is manufactured and trafficked by the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, who are armed with weapons sold in the United States to them.
06:00American guns are the weapon of choice for cartels.
06:04These guns fuel a vicious, never-ending cycle of violence, with drugs flowing north and guns and bulk cash flowing south.
06:12We must end this dangerous cycle before more innocent lives are lost.
06:16When I was chair of this committee, Congress passed the historic Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which created federal straw purchasing and trafficking criminal offenses, allowing prosecutors to target dangerous illegal gun runners who, for decades, have escaped prosecution.
06:35While this is a major step in the right direction, we must continue to build on this law to reduce gun trafficking at the border.
06:42That's why I introduced the Stop Arming Cartels Act.
06:46This legislation would end easy access to these high-powered rifles, the weapon of choice of these cartels that they use to create chaos in Mexico and allow victims of gun violence to sue gun dealers who knowingly transact with drug kingpins.
07:02Doesn't that make sense?
07:03If your firearms dealership is going to knowingly transact with these cartels, should you be stopped?
07:09Should you be held responsible?
07:11I think the answer is obvious.
07:13It's time to end the cycle of violence that has caused so many lives.
07:17And let's be clear.
07:18We will not defeat the cartels by mass deportation of immigrants with deep roots in our communities who pose no threat to public safety.
07:26If someone is here and a danger to the United States, they ought to be gone.
07:30Period.
07:31Period.
07:32In order to truly weaken the cartels and cut off their ability to operate, we must stop the flow of the Iron River of guns for good and allow federal law enforcement to do their jobs instead of diverting them toward fulfilling a campaign promise.
