Texas Governor Signs Executive Order Declaring Mexican Cartels Foreign Terrorists Over Fentanyl Crisis

Many in the US incorrectly link immigrants to fentanyl 3:07

(CNN) --

In response to the growing fentanyl crisis, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott signed an executive order Wednesday declaring Mexican cartels foreign terrorists in the state.

At a news conference following a roundtable discussion with state officials and law enforcement, Abbott said Texas will take immediate steps to identify gangs that support Mexican cartels and work to seize their assets and disrupt cartel networks. cartels.

• What are the largest Mexican cartels in the US and where do they operate?

Abbott said he sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris demanding that they classify Mexican drug cartels operating in Texas as terrorist organizations.

CNN has contacted the Biden administration for comment on the letter and executive order.

"These Mexican cartels are violent and deadly threats to all Texans and all Americans," he said.

Credit: Office of the Texas Governor

Abbott said his administration is working to reclassify fentanyl overdoses as fentanyl poisoning, and that they seek to charge people with murder if they knowingly provide fentanyl to someone killed by it.

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“…we all have a collective commitment to crack down on those gangs and their activity, as well as crack down on their distribution of fentanyl in this area, as well as throughout the state of Texas.

It has become clear that fentanyl kills Texans with and without substance abuse problems,” Abbott said.

Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) are increasingly producing wholesale quantities of illicit fentanyl pills and smuggling them into the United States, according to a January 2020 intelligence report from the Control Administration. Drug Administration (DEA) of the United States.

“The DEA, working in conjunction with Mexican officials, seized and dismantled numerous fentanyl pill pressing operations and fentanyl synthesis laboratories in 2018 and 2019, highlighting the role that TCOs play in supplying the fentanyl market from United States," the report says.

• What is fentanyl, the drug fueling the US overdose epidemic?

According to the report, the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels are likely the main trafficking groups responsible for smuggling fentanyl into the United States from Mexico.

Abbott's letter to the Biden administration stated: “It is necessary, now more than ever, for you to designate the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and any similarly situated Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations under of Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).”

He added: "This move would help us fight these terrorists and disrupt their deadly attacks on the United States."

An estimated record 105,752 people died from drug overdoses in a 12-month period ending in October 2021, roughly two-thirds of those deaths involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl, CNN previously reported.

"Fentanyl is a clandestine killer and Texans are falling victim to the Mexican cartels that produce it," Abbott said in a press release.

"Cartels are terrorists, and it's time we treat them that way."

CNN's Deidre McPhillips and Sam Fossum contributed to this report.

Drug cartelsFentanylTexas