AUSTIN, Texas—Lawmakers and border security analysts speaking at a Texas Policy Summit on Feb. 20 said states can now assist the federal government in battling certain cartels and gangs now that the U.S. State Department has designated them as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.
The designations of Mexico-based cartels included the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the United Cartels, the La Nueva Familia Michoacana organization, and the Northeast Cartel.
In addition, La Mara Salvatrucha gang, commonly known as MS-13, and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua were designated as terrorist organizations.
A terrorist designation removes much of the red tape involved in arresting cartel members who came into the country illegally.
“Really, it takes the gloves off,” Ammon Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Secure & Sovereign Texas Initiative, said at the summit.
“It’s going to bypass a lot of the bureaucracy needed in order to prosecute Mexican cartels, that also includes the people or the intermediaries that they work with.”
Local law enforcement will be able to work with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI agents to arrest cartel members and hold them without bail, he said.
State Sen. Pete Flores, a Republican, said during the summit that state laws, such as the Texas Racketeering Act passed in 2023, offer another tool for law enforcement to break up cartels.
“That’s where you go after their money and make it unprofitable,” Flores said, adding that for the cartels, “it’s about money.”
Blair, who is also an intelligence consultant and former border patrol agent, said the Mexican cartels work in cells, just like the ISIS terrorist group, which makes it harder for authorities to identify and locate them.
The cartel drug and human trafficking operations “contract” with U.S. citizens or force illegal immigrants to work for them, he said.
The terrorist designation will allow the government to go after people who give the cartels material support.
“It’s going to make the consequences so harsh and so quick and fast,” Blair said.
The designation ups the ante for the Mexican government as well, he said.
Mexico will be under increased diplomatic pressure to counter the cartels as the host country for “state-sponsored terrorism,” he said.
Blair said the cartels are “conducting drug warfare” in 65 different countries. So how the United States and Mexico deal with them will have a ripple effect around the globe.
The cartels have military-grade communications and counter-surveillance systems, which explains why the Department of Defense (DOD) is needed to counter them, he said.
The U.S. military is flying MQ-9 Reaper drones, he said, which are sometimes called Predator B drones, over Mexico.
Blair said the U.S. Air Force is flying operations to gather intelligence, such as listening to cartel communications. The U.S. military is also setting up observation points along the border equipped with night vision.
He said the cartels may form alliances with each other or move their operations deeper into the United States to cope with the U.S. response.
One of the most significant areas for illicit marijuana production was in East Texas instead of along the Texas–Mexico border, he said.
“So we’re going to start seeing the cartels either collapse and decentralize or form into super cartels,” Blair said.
He predicted that the DOD, along with law enforcement, would need to launch operations similar to those conducted by Special Operations to eradicate insurgent terrorists overseas.
“We are now defending on the inside because the invasion has gone on for so long,” he said.
