Rep. Chip Roy On President Trump Considering Designating Certain Mexican Drug Cartels Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)

Rep. Chip Roy released the following statement Tuesday evening:

The news that President Trump is poised to declare certain dangerous Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations is a huge development in taking on the absolute evil they perpetrate on Americans, our friends in Mexico, and migrants seeking a better life.

Specific dangerous drug cartels - notably the warring Reynosa faction of the Gulf Cartel and the Cartel Del Noreste (CDN) of Los Zetas - are undermining both the Mexican and American governments, waging an all-out war every single day across our shared border as they vie for operational control. They are murdering law enforcement personnel and government officials. They are killing American families. They are running a brutal underground economy running migrants and dangerous narcotics across our southern border for profit. They hold people for ransom, dismember bodies, bury victims in mass graves, and engage in open warfare along our border.

Enough. These organizations must be identified as the terrorist organizations they are, targeted, and destroyed.

Unlike many in Washington wringing their hands about how this might somehow harm our efforts, President Trump is taking action. He recognizes what the excuse-makers of the swamp don't, which is that designating cartels as terrorists is the step necessary to make Mexico stronger and to protect Americans and our border. I applaud the President being ready to take this step even as he is being attacked with a nakedly political impeachment effort.