A Florida lawmaker wants the Biden administration to formally designate the Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations so the U.S. can take “appropriate means” to end their outlaw cross-border operations.
State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, a Spring Hill Republican, last week filed a bill known as a “memorial,” which, if approved, is essentially a formal message from the state Legislature to the federal government. In this case, the memorial is directed to the U.S. State Department.
Ingoglia noted that the cartels engage in numerous “illicit activities” that include human and trafficking, weapons trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling, extortion, and kidnapping — all of which “have breached the borders of the United States.”
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Declaring the drug lords to be members of international terrorist groups would grant federal and state agencies the authority to freeze their assets, deny cartel members entry into the U.S., and seek stricter punishments during prosecutions.
As Ingoglia noted in his bill, these “heinous” actions by cartel members include abducting and killing Americans traveling in Mexico, as well as exporting to and distributing inside the U.S. “wholesale amounts” of fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and other illegal drugs — the flood of which has caused tens of thousands of drug-related overdoses and deaths in America.
Ingoglia also noted that just last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized almost 14 tons of fentanyl and millions of fentanyl pills, which was “enough to kill every American several times over,” and yet represents only 10% to 15% of the illegal fentanyl actually crossing the border.
Moreover, the cartels’ human smuggling and trafficking operations create “conduits that allow contraband and persons seeking to harm the United States to clandestinely enter this country.
To support that, Ingoglia noted CBP encountered 172 people who were on the terrorist watchlist, which nearly doubled the previous year and was more than the past 6 years combined.
Under federal law, the senator’s measure adds, the Biden administration, through the State, Treasury, and Justice departments, ought to designate the cartels Foreign Terrorist Organizations because they are foreign in nature, engage in or retain the capability and intent to engage in terrorism, and threaten the security and economic interests of the U.S.
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Accordingly, the Legislature “respectfully urges the United States Secretary of State to designate drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations so that appropriate means may be initiated to mitigate and, eventually, eliminate their operations,” the bill says.
This is not the first time Florida officials have asked the Biden administration to get tougher with the cartels.
As the Tampa Free Press reported in February, state Attorney General Ashley Moody joined 20 other state attorneys general with the same request.
“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 in a press release at the time.
“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.”
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