Trump's transition team and Congressional Republicans have promised an unprecedented crackdown on immigration, which could include new approaches to fighting drug cartels.
President-elect Donald Trump's immigration platform includes restarting construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, reinstating the Remain in Mexico program for asylum seekers, implementing the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, and a host of other hawkish policies. It includes a number of hard-line measures. suggestion. President Trump's allies and incoming administration officials are also calling on the U.S. to formally designate major drug cartels as terrorist organizations, which would allow criminal organizations that have long wreaked havoc on the southern border. More resources will be given to the fight. (Related: Undocumented immigrant accused of raping woman along Sanctuary County hiking trail has previous arrests)
“The drug cartels are waging war against America, and now is the time for America to wage war against the drug cartels,” then-presidential candidate Trump said. December 2023and declared that his plan to fight cartels includes designating them as foreign terrorist organizations.
“Millions of families and people are being destroyed,” he continued. “When I return to the White House, drug lords and violent traffickers will never sleep soundly again.”
On February 1, escorting Joaquín Guzman Loera (front), also known as “El Chapo Guzman,” the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, appeared in front of the press at the Mexican Navy hangar in Mexico City, the capital of Mexico. Mexican Navy soldiers. 22, 2014. (Photo credit: Jair Cabrera Torres/NurPhoto) (Photo credit: NurPhoto/Corbis, Getty Images)
Now, nearly a year after that announcement, with President Trump set to return to the White House for a second non-consecutive term, the cartel proposal is much closer to reality.
Former Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan, who President Trump recently named immigration czar, said in a statement that he wants the cartel to be given the terrorist designation. news interview In November, it was announced that they had “killed more Americans than all the terrorist organizations in the world combined.”
Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) Designation by the State Department – So Far mostly applied For Islamic terrorist organizations that pose a serious threat to U.S. national security, the United States would be able to freeze financial assets, ban entry, and allow the United States to prosecute members for supporting terrorism. The proposal itself is not new and has been supported by border hawks for years.
“What we need to do is make sure we legally approach cartels as dangerous organizations, and the FTO designation is appropriate,” Texas Representative Chip Roy told the Daily Caller News Foundation. I think so,” he said.
Roy was an early supporter of the action in the House of Representatives, introducing a bill in 2019 asking then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to designate cartels as terrorists. Texas legislators introduced a bill in 2023 It called for the Gulf Cartel, Cartel del Norest, Cartel de Sinaloa, and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Heneracion to be granted FTO designation.
The incoming Trump administration appears to be fully on board with this approach, but it remains to be seen whether it can be implemented. Trump himself explicitly called for drug cartels to be labeled as terrorists in November 2019, largely in response to the cartel's massacre of American Mormons south of the border earlier that month. However, that plan did not materialize during his first term.
The Mexican government also I've been against it for a long time The idea of designating drug cartels as FTOs believes that this approach is primarily an affront to national sovereignty.
Navy members look on as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador meets with relatives of Mormon genocide victims at La Mola Ranch in Babispe, Sonora, Mexico, January 12, 2020 (Photo) (Courtesy of Alfredo ESTRELLA/AFP) (Photo by ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP via Getty Images)
Todd Bensman, a senior national security researcher at the Center for Immigration Studies, said in a statement to the DCNF that he was not “totally opposed” to the idea of an FTO designation, but that cartels would He pointed out that they can be employed. of thousands of individuals. This will require careful scope to ensure that U.S. officials are not overwhelmed as they carry out counterterrorism missions.
Roy argued that while a specific FTO designation is not entirely necessary, some formal action is needed to fully counter the threat of these drug cartels.
“Sometimes we get hung up on words and names and things like that,” the Texas lawmaker said. “Okay, if you want to come up with an equivalent special designation, that's fine.”
“But the bottom line is that we need to designate them as dangerous so that we can use all the tools at our disposal to take action,” Roy continued. “We need to consider all necessary actions to stop them.”
On Election Day, Republicans not only won the White House and a majority in the Senate, but also maintained their majority in the House of Representatives. This would give the Trump administration more freedom to pursue policies to control illegal immigration and tackle crime in the South. border between America and Mexico. Roy appealed to members of Congress to support the White House in pushing these goals across the finish line.
“What we need is executive action, and we need the Legislature to give the executive the tools it needs to act,” Roy said. “We can't blink. We need to move now.”
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