The State Department has designated several drug cartels as global terrorist organizations.
A notice in the Federal Register lists the Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha, Cartel de Sinaloa, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Carteles Unidos, Cartel del Noreste, Cartel del Golfo, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana as global terrorist organizations. The notice will be officially published on February 20.
The cartels “pose a significant risk of committing, or have participated in training to commit acts of terrorism that threaten the security of United States nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in the notice.
“I have determined that no prior notice needs to be provided to any person subject to this determination who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, because to do so would render ineffectual the measures authorized in the Order,” he said.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order upon taking office that created a process “by which certain international cartels (the Cartels) and other organizations will be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
“The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” Trump said in the order, explaining that cartels “functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States.”
“The Cartels’ activities threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,” the order said. “Their activities, proximity to, and incursions into the physical territory of the United States pose an unacceptable national security risk to the United States.”
