Ted Cruz Thinks 'El Chapo' Should Pay For Wall — Or At Least Part Of It

AUSTIN, TX — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas may or may not agree with President Trump that Mexico will pay for the wall. But this week, he hatched a novel Plan B: Have a single Mexican pay for it—namely reputed kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The Republican senator believes Guzman's personal fortune is something in the neighborhood of $14 billion. He's proposed the idea of seizing those assets as a down payment to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that Trump envisions as a way of curbing surreptitious entry into the country.

"Ensuring the safety and security of Texans is one of my top priorities," Cruz said in a statement. "We must also be mindful of the impact on the federal budget. By leveraging any criminally forfeited assets of El Chapo and his ilk, we can offset the wall's cost and make meaningful progress toward achieving President Trump's stated border security objectives."

He said $14 billion "....will go a long way toward building a wall that will keep Americans safe and hinder the illegal flow of drugs, weapons and individuals across our southern border."

Cruz has even come up with a clever name for his proposal that serves as an acronym: Ensuring Lawful Collection of Hidden Assets to Provide Order Act. Informally: The El Chapo Act.

While novel, the cost of the wall is yet unknown with estimates running from $12 billion to $22 billion.

What's more, Guzman's fortune (not unlike Trump's) has been exaggerated and widely believed to be more in the $1 billion range, not the $14 billion Cruz somehow calculated.

After his 2016 arrest in Mexico, Guzman was extradited to the U.S. to face charges related to his running the Sinaloa cartel. He was housed at the maximum-security wing of the Metropolitan Correctional Center located in Manhattan, New York, while awaiting trial.

>>> Uppermost photo of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman by Department of Homeland Security, photo of Ted Cruz via U.S. Congress (both via WikiMedia Commons), special effect $1 million bill above created via Photofunny.net.