21 States Call On Biden to Label Mexican Drug Cartels Terrorist Organizations; 21 Attorneys General Call On Biden To Treat Mexican Drug Cartels Like The Terrorist Organizations They Are

21 states call on Biden to label Mexican drug cartels terrorist organizations

The attorneys general for 21 states sent a letter to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday to ask the administration to declare Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

The officials noted drug overdoses have killed more than 100,000 Americans in the past year, and almost two-thirds of them were related to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. They cited the Drug Enforcement Administration in saying that Mexican drug cartels are importing raw materials from China, using them to produce opioids at a low cost and illegally transporting those illicit drugs into the United States.

But the Republican attorneys general said the cartels threaten U.S. national security beyond the drugs themselves, having created armed forces to protect their trade from rival cartels and 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,” they said.

The signers, led by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), said the cartels also have connections to foreign terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group. —>READ MORE HERE

21 Attorneys General Call On Biden To Treat Mexican Drug Cartels Like The Terrorist Organizations They Are:

In a bid to rectify the chaos caused by President Joe Biden’s open border policies, 21 Republican attorneys general are formally requesting the federal government designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

In a letter sent to Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, the Republican coalition asked that “the Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG, and other similarly situated Mexican drug cartels be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations” under federal law so state and federal law enforcement agencies would be granted “increased powers to freeze cartel assets, deny entry to cartel members, and allow prosecutors to pursue tougher punishments against those who provide material support to the cartels.”

“Traditional counter-narcotics efforts are inadequate to address the threat posed by the Mexican drug cartels,” the document says. “Now that the cartels have made widespread use of assassinations and armed insurgency against the Mexican government, FTO designation is the only way to disrupt these increasingly violent cartel tactics and weaken their criminal enterprise.”

Throughout the letter, the signers, led by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, also point to the alarming rise in American drug overdoses, particularly those caused by heavily trafficked synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. According to figures from the Drug Enforcement Administration, 66 percent of America’s more than 100,000 overdose deaths last fiscal year were related to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. From Oct. 2021 to June 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized 8,425 pounds of fentanyl being smuggled into the country through the U.S.-Mexico border. —>READ MORE HERE

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