by R. Cort Kirkwood, The New American:
The State and Justice departments have begun to implement President Donald Trump’s order designating the drug cartels operating mainly at the Southwest border as terrorist organizations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has published a list of the cartels now considered terrorists and, therefore, subject to attack by the U.S. military. Attorney General Pam Bondi has declared the Justice Department’s (DOJ) goal as “total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations [TCOs].”
She also ordered subordinates to draft canned language to include in indictments and search warrants.
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Just after Trump’s designation, border agents exchanged gunfire with the cartel terrorists, and the cartels tried to murder two hikers in California. Even so, The New York Times claimed the designation threatened the U.S. economy.
The U.S. has officially declared the following as Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Tren de Aragua, MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the United Cartels, the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, and the Michoacán Family. pic.twitter.com/cgcw9juyEl
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On January 20, Trump designated the cartels terrorists in an executive order, writing that “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.”
As well, he wrote, they “control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States.”
Trump observed that the cartels are “quasi-governmental” operations in some parts of Mexico. And, he wrote, “Their activities, proximity to, and incursions into the physical territory of the United States pose an unacceptable national security risk to the United States.”
State Department, DOJ Notices
Trump specifically pointed to El Salvador’s MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, both operating with impunity inside the United States. Rubio’s order fingered eight cartels as terrorists as defined in 8 U.S. Code 1189. They are:
Tren de Aragua (TdA);
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13);
Cartel de Sinaloa (the Sinaloa Cartel);
Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (Jalisco New Generation Cartel);
Cartel del Golfo; and
The day before, Bondi published her memorandum for all DOJ employees that discussed “total elimination” of the cartels.
Bondi plans to charge cartel and TCO leaders and managers with capital crimes, both as terrorists and racketeers and as foreign narcotics kingpins who run continuing criminal enterprises and violate machine-gun laws.
“More generally, while charging decisions must be based on case-specific assessments of the facts and evidence, the following factors should be evaluated when considering whether to pursue charges, arrests, and/or extraditions of a Cartel or TCO target,” Bondi wrote:
• Whether the target is a manager or a leader of the organization;
• Whether the target has significant ties to the United States, including physical presence or directing action in the United States;
• Whether the target’s conduct resulted in death of or injuries to U.S. citizens;
• Whether the target’s conduct involved international terrorism … ;
• The availability of non-criminal responses to the target’s conduct, including removal from the United States and economic sanctions; and
• Any known or suspected prior violent crimes committed by the target.
DOJ also will settle on “standardized language” to describe TdA, MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel, and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in indictments and search warrants.
And Bondi also wants “fentanyl-related substances” added to Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.
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