The Trump transition team and congressional Republicans have promised an unprecedented immigration crackdown, which could also include a novel approach to combating drug cartels.
President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration platform includes a number of hardline measures, such as resuming construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, reviving the Remain in Mexico program for asylum seekers, conducting the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and a number of other hawkish proposals. Trump allies and upcoming administration officials have also called on the U.S. to officially designate key drug cartels as terrorist organizations, which would open more resources to combating the crime syndicates that have long sowed chaos at the southern border.
“The drug cartels are waging war on America — and it’s now time for America to wage war on the cartels,” then-candidate Trump said in December 2023, and declared that his plan to fight the cartels included designating them as foreign terrorist organizations.
“Millions and millions of families and people are being destroyed,” he continued. “When I am back in the White House, the drug kingpins and vicious traffickers will never sleep soundly again.”
Nearly a year after that announcement was made, Trump is now due to return to the White House for a non-consecutive second term, bringing his proposal for cartels far closer to reality.
Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Tom Homan — who Trump recently tapped to serve as his immigration czar — declared that he’d like to see cartels be given the terrorist designation, having said in a news interview in November that they have “killed more Americans than every terrorist organization in the world combined.”
A foreign terrorist organization (FTO) designation by the State Department — which has so far been mostly applied to Islamic terrorist groups that pose a significant threat to American security — would trigger U.S. authorization to freeze financial assets, prohibit entry into the country and prosecute members for supporting terrorism. The proposal itself is not new, as it’s been championed by border hawks over the years.
“What we need to do is make sure that legally we are approaching cartels as the dangerous organizations that they are, and I think an FTO designation is appropriate,” Texas Rep. Chip Roy said to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Roy was an early proponent in the House of Representatives for this action, having introduced legislation in 2019 that called on then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to designate cartels as terrorists. The Texas lawmaker introduced a bill in 2023 that called for the Gulf Cartel, Cartel Del Noreste, Cartel de Sinaloa, and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion to be given the FTO designation.
While the incoming Trump administration appears to be fully on board with this approach, it remains to be seen if it can be done. Trump himself explicitly called for drug cartels to be labeled as terrorists in November 2019 — largely in reaction to the massacre of American Mormons living south of the border by drug lords earlier that month — but those plans never came to fruition in his first term.
The Mexican government has also long opposed the idea of FTO designation for drug cartels, believing the approach to largely be an affront to their national sovereignty.
In a statement to the DCNF, Todd Bensman, who serves as a senior national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, said he doesn’t “outright oppose the idea” of an FTO designation, but noted that a cartel organization can employ tens of thousands of individuals. For this reason, careful scope would be needed so U.S. officials are not overwhelmed as they carry out their counterterrorism mission.
Roy argued that a specific FTO designation isn’t completely necessary, but some sort of formal action is needed in order to fully take on the threat of these drug cartels.
“We can get hung up with words and designations and whatever,” the Texas lawmaker said. “Alright, if you want to come up with a special designation that’s the equivalent, then so be it.”
“But the bottom line is that we need to designate them as the dangers that they are and then be able to take action with the full tools at our disposal,” Roy continued. “We need to explore every action necessary to stop them.”
On Election Day, Republicans won control of not only the White House and the Senate, but also maintained their majority in the House of Representatives, which will allow the Trump administration to more freely foment its agenda to control illegal immigration and tackle crime emanating south of the U.S.-Mexico border. Roy urged lawmakers to get behind the White House to push these goals over the finish line.
“What we need is the executive branch to act and we need the legislature to give the executive branch the tools necessary to act,” Roy said. “We can’t blink. We need to move now.”
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