We are going to talk about the takedown of El Mencho, the ruthless head of Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
This is a major strike against one of the most violent enterprises poisoning our communities with fentanyl and terrorizing families on both sides of the border.
This cartel has blood on its hands and taking out its kingpin is a big step towards restoring law and order.
When you cut off the head of the snake, the body thrashes, and we're already seeing cartel retaliation and chaos in parts of Mexico. That means Texans, especially our farmers, ranchers and anyone working along the southern border, need to stay sharp.
If your operation hugs a border or requires cross border travel, postpone anything that's absolutely not necessary. Avoid isolated roads, stay in close contact with local law enforcement and report suspicious activity immediately.
The safety of our producers and rural communities comes first. Texas will not be caught flat footed. We stand ready to protect our land, our livestock and our people from spillover violence. Ranchers and all citizens of the Texas border should listen to Homeland Security advice and refrain from any unnecessary travel.
Drug cartels are no longer a law enforcement problem. They're a threat to our whole hemisphere. Transnational drug cartels now operate as paramilitary organizations controlling territory infrastructure and supply chains all across Mexico, Central America and South America. These groups undermine legitimate governments, terrorize rural communities and destabilize trade systems. This is all critical to US agriculture. The scale, the violence and reach of cartel operation now exceeds the capacity of civilian law enforcement. Military grade threats require military grade reactions.
They're not just a threat to public safety, but the stability of agriculture in America and abroad. Cartel controlled agriculture in Mexico and South America directly harms US producers. Cartels have infiltrated and have control over fertilizer distribution, seed supply, trucking routes, packing houses and export corridors. Farmers in cartel controlled regions are forced to pay protection fees, grow cartel preferred crops, use cartel approved transporters. This creates artificial market manipulation, unfair competition and supply instability. When cartels control agriculture, food becomes the main weapon.
Human and cattle trafficking fueled by cartels enable the spread of the New World screwworm. Drug cartels control the human smuggling corridors moving millions north through Central America, including the Darién Gap. These same routes are used for illegal livestock movement with no veterinary inspection, no biosecurity control, no disease monitoring whatsoever. This lawless movement is most likely the explanation of the re-emergence of the New World screwworm and its spread. The pest previously was eradicated, but cartel trafficking has collapsed our bio security firewall and allowed the New World screwworm to move north through Mexico.
Cartel operations are crippling border producers in the United States, ranchers and farmers along the border face fence destruction, water infrastructure damage, theft of livestock, theft of equipment, armed trespassing and intimidation. Producers are forced to operate under constant threat, often abandoning land that has been farmed for generations. And this is not a hypothetical harm. It’s a daily, measurable economic loss. No American producer should be expected to coexist with foreign criminal rmies on their land.
The United States has acted before, and we must and will act again. The US has historically used military force to protect trade routes, strategic resources, hemispheric stability. Drug cartels now meet every threshold to use force against them, including transnational criminal enterprises, terrorist-style violence, national economic security threat. All this coordinated action with regional partners, backed with United States Armed Forces, is necessary to dismantle the cartel and its logistics and dismantle its leadership.
Yesterday, the Mexican military executed an operation to take the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Took him out. While that was a good thing, within minutes a new cartel leader took his place and started a new reign of terror at Puerto Vallarta, a place where tens of thousands of Americans travel each week.
The Mexican government has had 40 years to solve this problem. They have failed. I am sick and tired of having to come to our border and tell our hard working farmers and ranchers that they must alter the way they conduct their business because of the actions of these ruthless criminal thugs. I'm sick and tired of watching parents have to bury their children because these cartels are pouring fentanyl into our communities. And I'm sick and tired of seeing the toll of human trafficking of innocent children.
While taking out El Mencho was a great thing, the cartels have not stopped the criminal activity. They have not stopped their reign of terror. They continue to operate unabated because the cartels, by large, controls the government in Mexico at all levels. This is why I hope the United States will finish the job and eliminate this evil once and for all. We have the best trained, best skilled, greatest fighting force on the face of earth, and I'm calling on President Trump and our federal partners to finish the job just like we did in Venezuela. Not a war, but a surgical strike that will end once and for all this evil that has harmed both the Mexican and American people, which has claimed countless lives.
Donald Trump has ability to do this. He's done it in Venezuela and taken out of evil regime down there. We can do this in Mexico under the leadership of Donald Trump. You know, we spent years in Vietnam, lost 56,000 soldiers. We were embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan for years, lost over 6,000. Under the cartel we've lost hundreds of thousands because of fentanyl. It's time we put a stop to it. We have the ability to do that. We can work with Mexico under Donald Trump's leadership. We need to move forward. So I'm calling on every asset that the United States has to be made available to the Mexican government to end the war on the cartels.
Editor's Note: Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller delievered the above remarks at the offices of the Texas Department of Agrilculture in San Juan, Texas, on Feb. 23, 2026.
