Texas Congressman introduces bill to label cartels as terrorists

US Rep. Chip Roy wants Mexican drug cartels to be designated as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

The Texas Republican’s bill comes after two Americans were killed last week during a kidnapping by drug smugglers in the Mexican city of Matamoros.

“It’s long past time to designate these cartels as the terrorists they are and give U.S. authorities the tools needed to take them down,” Roy told Fox News. “That’s why I started pushing the Trump administration for FTO designations during my first few months in Congress, why I introduced this legislation last Congress, and why I’m introducing it again.”

Under the text of the The Drug Cartel Terrorist Designation Act, the US State Department would declare the Cartel Del Noreste, the Cartel de Sinaloa, and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion as foreign terrorist organizations.

The porous US border has become a dumping ground for deadly fentanyl moved by the cartels. In 2022 the US Drug Enforcement Administration announced they had seized enough to kill every American in the United States. Texas border sheriffs told The Post they were witnessing a “tsunami of death” in their communities.

Roy’s bill currently has 21 House co-sponsors and if passed into law would offer new tools for the federal government to crack down on the deadly violence the cartels cause along the southern border.

“They are bold enough to kidnap and kill foreign nationals in broad daylight; there is no limit to the inhumane methods they will use to achieve their ultimate end — profiting off of human suffering,” Roy said.