Republican Rep. Chip Roy is set to introduce legislation that would designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
“I’ve spent my time talking to people who actually know what’s happening at the border, and I’ve been meeting with former DPS agents, people engage with and rooting out cartels and the violence, and all they are telling me is that cartels are becoming increasingly violent. All of the data shows it. All of the actions show it. We have people in America being shuttled around by cartel-paid American citizens to put them in human trafficking, sex trafficking,” Roy said.
Roy then explained a “situation where there was a woman in San Antonio who was stopped, she can’t read or write, she was being terrorized, being held for ransom by the cartel, and they threatened her by showing [a] picture of her husband, who they had murdered. This is what cartels are doing. They’re doing it in our communities. It is reaching our suburban communities. It’s time for Texas to stand up. It’s time for America to stand up.”
“That’s why I’m introducing a bill to designate them as the terrorist organizations that they are,” Roy said.
NORTH CAROLINA TEACHER SHOT AND KILLED BY CARTEL AFTER ALLEGED ATTEMPTED BURGLARY: POLICE
The bill, the Drug Cartel Terrorist Designation Act, targets the Reynosa/Los Metros faction of the Gulf Cartel and the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas, designating them as foreign terrorist organizations. The bill would also require the State Department to submit a report to Congress on other cartels that could also be worthy of the designation.
Roy argued that cartels are “undermining our national security. They’re undermining Mexico’s national security. And they are a violent organization that is basically the equivalent of having al Qaeda and ISIS literally operating on our border, and we should stop them.”
The move comes as the surge of migration at the U.S. southern border continues to plague the Biden administration, with much of the activity in the region driven by drug cartels.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The situation has been made worse by crowded facilities amid the pandemic, with border agents encountering over 9,000 unaccompanied minors at the border in February alone.
