Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Delivers Remarks at the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Security Dialogue Joint Press Availability

Remarks as Delivered

I want to thank our government counterparts and our law enforcement counterparts for welcoming us to Mexico City.

We are here today because the shared challenges the United States and Mexico are facing could not be more urgent.  

I am here to represent the men and women of the United States Department of Justice who are working tirelessly on three core challenges that we discussed today: fentanyl, firearms trafficking, and human smuggling.

First, we are taking on the dangerous drug trafficking cartels that are responsible for the deaths of both American and Mexican citizens.

The fentanyl these cartels are producing and trafficking is the deadliest drug threat the United States has ever faced.

To fight it, we are going after every link in the cartels’ fentanyl trafficking networks, at every stage, and in every part of the world.

That is why, earlier this week, I announced charges against eight companies based in China, and 12 of their executives, for crimes relating to the production, distribution, and importation of fentanyl, other synthetic opioids, methamphetamines, and their precursor chemicals. We know that the global fentanyl supply chain, which ends with the deaths of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China.

Earlier this year, I announced charges against 23 Sinaloa Cartel members, associates, and leaders for their role in running the largest, most violent, and most prolific fentanyl production and trafficking operation in the world.

Just three weeks ago, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and a son of El Chapo, was extradited from Mexico to the United States. He is one of more than a dozen cartel leaders we have indicted and who have been extradited to the United States. He will not be the last.

We are grateful to our Mexican counterparts for that extradition. We recognize that these cartels are terrorizing Mexican communities. And we recognize that this action would not have been possible without the sacrifice of Mexican law enforcement and military servicemembers who gave their lives in the pursuit of justice.

And just last week, our countries’ work together also resulted in another critical arrest. Last Thursday, we charged a defendant in connection with the horrific fentanyl poisoning of four children at a day care center in New York. One of those children, who was just a year old, tragically died. Our counterparts in Mexican law enforcement helped us ensure that the defendant will face justice in the United States.

Our agents and prosecutors at the Justice Department are working every day to get fentanyl out of our communities and bring to justice those who put it there.

Second, the Justice Department is fighting the firearms trafficking from the United States to Mexico that we know helps to arm these cartels.

We are putting to use the new authorities granted to us by the United States Congress to prosecute gun traffickers and seize illegal guns.

Under those new provisions, just last month we charged and arrested seven defendants in Texas for buying over 100 guns later trafficked to Mexico.

The month before, we charged five defendants in North Carolina in a conspiracy to smuggle guns illegally into Mexico, including AK-47 style rifles.

In July, a defendant was sentenced to federal prison for attempting to smuggle thousands of rounds of ammunition from the United States to Mexico.

And we are continuing to disrupt firearms trafficking through our Operation Southbound. That operation includes nine multi-agency Firearms Trafficking Task Forces all along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Third, we are disrupting the human smuggling operations that put peoples’ lives at risk for profit and violate our laws.

In 2021, I directed the formation of Joint Task Force Alpha, a collaboration between the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, to target the most prolific and dangerous human smuggling groups.

Since then, we have made over 260 domestic and international arrests and secured more than 150 convictions on human smuggling charges.

All of us recognize that these challenges are of the utmost importance and urgency for the citizens of both of our countries. I look forward to intensifying our efforts to meet them.

Thank you.