Drug trafficking

Push to label drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations picks up steam

They behead, dismember, kidnap for ransom, instigate deadly shootings and bombings and control entire communities – yet Mexican cartels are not designated foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) in the United States.

The classification issue previously gained little traction, despite increased concerns over U.S. border security, but a renewed vocal push by some retired law-enforcement officials shed light on the question once again.

“The level of murders and disappearances in Mexico along with the terrorist activities like dumping heads on the roads, chopping people up and dumping humans in acid combined with unprecedented levels of death in America from the drugs justifies this designation,” Derek Maltz, former head of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)'s Special Operations Division, told Fox News. “Since the Mexican Cartels pose an immediate threat to U.S. national security and are to blame for the importation of synthetic opioids, which helped bring about the greatest drug epidemic in U.S. history, we need great authorities to deal with them.”