Former US presidential candidate Ted Cruz says that convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman should fund President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall between the US and Mexico.
Guzman faces life in prison without possibility of parole after being found guilty of ten charges, including drug trafficking, although his defence team says the 61-year-old intends to launch an appeal.
In a series of tweets following the verdict, Texas Senator Cruz urged his colleagues to pass legislation that would ensure any money recovered from El Chapo’s criminal empire would go towards constructing a border wall between the US and its southern neighbour.
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Prosecutors are hoping to recover up to $14bn (£10.9m) in assets from the former leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, which has trafficked vast quantities of cocaine and heroin into the US since the 1980s, CNN reports.
Cruz originally introduced the EL CHAPO (Ensuring Lawful Collection of Hidden Assets to Provide Order) Act in April 2017, after the drug lord’s extradition to the US.
The bill, reintroduced last month, proposed that the profits of Guzman’s criminal operation be put towards strengthening border security, including construction of a physical wall, one of Trump’s central campaign promises.
Cruz’s proposal would offer an unusual solution to the border wall funding stand-off, which resulted in the US government’s longest-ever shutdown last month.
A second shutdown was narrowly avoided this week after party leaders agreed a partial funding deal, but Trump has already said he is “not thrilled” with the terms of the truce, which he must sign by 11.59pm on Friday or plunge the government into fresh deadlock.
“Cruz’s comments came as [Trump] said he was ‘considering everything’,” Bloomberg reports, including the possibility of circumventing congressional approval by declaring a state of emergency along the US-Mexico border.
However, even if lawmakers were to pass the EL CHAPO Act - an unlikely proposition, given unanimous Democratic opposition to the border wall - putting it into practice would be far from simple.
US prosecutors “are unlikely to find much - certainly not $14 billion”, drug cartel expert Bruce M. Bagley told Forbes.
In any case, “the lion's share of any of his assets seized, rightfully - by law and agreement - belong to Mexico”.
