EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The New York Times reported in August that President Trump signed a secret directive for the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American drug cartels.
The U.S. military on September 2 struck a speedboat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing 11 people purportedly associated with Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. Trump reported two additional strikes on cartel boats this month.
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As Democrats in Congress question the legality of the strikes, one Senate Republican and the head of the FBI this week spoke on why the U.S. should engage in tactics it used against Al-Qaida in the 2000s to go after cartels designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
“Do you think a law enforcement model for dealing with these narco-traffickers is adequate to deal with the threat? Or do we need to start thinking about this in a new and different way?” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked FBI Director Kash Patel at a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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Cornyn opined the use of law enforcement officers alone “seems not be working” to deal with the volume of drugs illegally coming into the country and killing tens of thousands of Americans through overdoses every year.
“Obviously, we are not engaged in a war, per say, although it is a war, metaphorically,” Cornyn said. “Do you think we need to start thinking about how we deal, within constitutional legal parameters, to deal with this problem in a different way to be more effective in protecting the American people?”
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Patel said yes.
“Absolutely. The administration has designated these cartels as FTOs. We must treat them like the FTOs post-911. We must treat them like the Al-Qaidas of the world because that is how they’re operating,” the FBI director said.
FBI Director Kash Patel answers questions during a hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025. (United States Senate)
He spoke about the limits of civilian law enforcement capabilities against complex criminal organizations operating mostly from abroad and how just arresting a cartel leader doesn’t solve the problem.
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“They always have the next-man-up philosophy. If we take out the leader, they have 10 guys behind him. In order to eliminate […] the drug trade and eliminate the pouring of narcotics into the country, we have to use authorities at the Department of War and the intelligence community to go after the threat like we did terrorists.
“… and now we have that ability, we are seeing that in real time, whether that is the strike on the boat or going down into Mexico, working with our Mexican authorities, with these intelligence assets to say, ‘We’ve located not just the person in charge, not just the cadre in charge but the entire network,’ and we’re now able to dismantle that entire network.”
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Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee did not engage in combating transnational criminal organizations but questioned Patel on how many FBI agents are being pulled from regular duties to round up unauthorized immigrants.
“According to reports, the 25 largest FBI field offices have been ordered to divert 45 percent of their agents from their primary mission to work on the mass deportation of immigrants,” U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, said.
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Durbin, the committee chair, and other Democrats also questioned the termination of FBI agents and the alleged rushed hiring of new agents.
“So, we have a brain-drain and a significant watering down of training,” Durbin said.
The more than four-hour hearing wound down with a heated exchange between the FBI director and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California, over the FBI’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case files.
