MONTANA TRIBE OVERWHELMED WITH MEXICAN CARTELS -- Tribal leaders in Montana issued an urgent plea to Congress, saying they are overwhelmed and outmatched as Mexican drug cartels exploit jurisdictional loopholes to embed themselves on Native American reservations with devastating effects.

Jeffrey Stiffarm, president of the Fort Belknap Indian Community, testified that the Sinaloa Cartel operates with near impunity in his region, capitalizing on chronic underfunding of law enforcement on the 652,000-acre reservation patrolled by just nine officers.

“We are fighting a losing battle. The cartels are winning, the drug dealers are winning,” Stiffarm told Congress. “We are left alone to fight this battle against them.”

Stiffarm told “NewsNation Prime” that up to hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives have infiltrated reservations across the American West, using the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the United States without scrutiny from federal ...