“We can use cartel money to build the wall.”
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images/Getty Images
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (La.) said he believes the United States should “confiscate” money from Mexican drug cartels to fund President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall during an interview with Breitbart News.
“The cartels move about $110 billion a year from the United States to Mexico,” Cassidy told the conservative news outlet. “If we can stop that, confiscate that money, we can use cartel money to build the wall. It won’t be the Mexican government, it’ll be the Mexican cartels [paying for the wall], and that’s probably the better party to build it.”
Cassidy also told the outlet he believed sanctuary cities should “pay consequences” for shielding immigrants living in the U. S. illegally from deportation within their boundaries.
“If you have a mayor who’s subverting the law, allowing people who are criminals to beat it out, before they get arrested and then in some cases, those criminals go out and commit other crimes, there should be a consequence on a federal level, but ideally the voters would vote them out,” he said during the interview.
“Most voters want safe streets, not less safe streets.”
In February, Cassidy proposed an amendment that would fund enhanced border security through bonds and “ensure the bonds are repaid with money seized from and forfeited by drug traffickers moving illicit profits across the southern border,” according to a press release from his office.
“We need to do better,” he said. “If we confiscate this money, we can pay for better border security and make drug traffickers less able to hurt our communities.”
In March, there was talk of President Trump using Defense Department funds to build the border wall project, though White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president was still pushing for Mexico to fund the wall.
Kelcey Caulder is a News Fellow at IJR. Previously, she worked with the web team at the Los Angeles Times and led the Student Press Law Center’s campa… more
