Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody demanded, on Wednesday, that President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations under federal law.
“The president’s unlawful immigration policies embolden the cartels who are bringing in vast amounts of deadly fentanyl, as well as violence, into the country—putting American lives at risk,” said Moody’s office.
Declaring the cartels FTOs gives state and federal agencies the authority to freeze assets, deny entry to cartel members and pursue stricter punishments.
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“It’s evident that the Mexican drug cartels are terrorist organizations—they are trafficking deadly fentanyl directly across the border, and it is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year. They are also fueling extreme violence at the southwest border and beyond,” Moody said. “Sadly, the Biden administration has only emboldened the cartels to commit even more crimes on both sides of the border—through his unlawful immigration policies. So, today, I am demanding that Biden better equip the federal government to fight back by declaring the drug cartels foreign terrorist organizations.”
Cartel violence is escalating in both countries. The groups are assassinating rivals, killing Americans at the border and engaging in an armed insurgency against the Mexican government.
Last month, a cartel-style execution occurred in California that reportedly involved a Mexican drug cartel.
In a letter sent Wednesday, Moody and 20 other state attorneys general explain that the Mexican drug cartels are more than just a drug-trafficking operation.
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The letter states: “The Mexican drug cartels threaten our national security beyond the sale of these deadly drugs. Over the past decade, Mexican drug cartels have developed well-organized armed forces to protect their reprehensible trade from rivals and from the Mexican government. The existence of such forces just across our southwestern land border, and the Mexican government’s inability to control them, pose a threat to our national security far greater than a typical drug-trafficking enterprise. That threat is made greater still by the known links between the Mexican drug cartels and Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) like Hezbollah who already intend to do us harm. Our national security requires the federal government to disrupt this collaboration between cartels and terrorist groups.”
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