FIRST ON FOX: Sense. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced a bipartisan bill Thursday to step up federal prosecution of human traffickers at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The proposed legislationcalled the Border Smuggling Crackdown Act, seeks to improve penalties for smugglers by updating federal sentencing guidelines to better reflect the exact number of people smuggled in.

“Criminals and human traffickers who exploit and smuggle human beings across our southern border must pay a heavy price. They threaten our national security and exploit victims of trafficking.” Ossoff said in a statement.

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A group claiming to be from India stands in the shade of the border wall as they wait to be picked up by Border Patrol after passing through the border fence in the Tucson sector of the US-Mexico border near Lukeville, Arizona, on August 29 . , 2023. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

In recent years, federal authorities reported an increase in migrant kidnapping and extortion in US border cities as people-smuggling operations increasingly shift from people to transnational criminal networks.

Ossoff’s office said current federal guidelines do not adequately account for the precise number of people brought in illegally, instead allocating sentencing enhancements based on a broad range of people brought in illegally.

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Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. (Shannon Finney/Getty Images for RIAA)

In addition, the bill raises penalty levels for cases where victims suffer bodily harm or death, with penalties increasing based on the severity of the injuries sustained. Bodily injury carries a two-level increase per person, serious bodily injury adds four levels, life-threatening or permanent injury adds six levels and each death leads to a 10-level increase, according to the bill’s text.

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Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

“Cartels at our southern border traffic and exploit innocent men, women and children every day,” Blackburn said in a statement. “Our bill would modernize federal sentencing law to better hold these human traffickers accountable and ensure that the sentence for these crimes reflects every person these criminals injure or kill.”

The bill comes as President-elect Trump promised to crack down on illegal immigration and the crisis at the southern border while making historic gains in Democratic districts.

Democrats have struggled this election cycle, with Vice President Kamala Harris as their presidential candidate, to address illegal immigration.

This year, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general sent a report to Congress that found that over the past five years, more than 32,000 unaccompanied illegal alien children have failed to appear in immigration court hearings and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement he could not explain the location of all the no-shows.

Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw contributed to this report.