Texas Gov. Greg Abbott | Facebook
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott | Facebook
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently issued an executive order designating the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels as "foreign terrorist organizations," and then called on President Joe Biden to do the same.
In a news conference, Abbott urged Biden to designate the organizations as terrorist cells for the "twin purposes of raising national awareness around fentanyl and pursuing harsher sentences for convicted traffickers," according to a release on the Governor's Official website.
Abbott told state leaders they should be willing to allocate more resources to prioritize training personnel to deal with what the release called a "rapidly escalating crisis" at the border.
According to a story by KPNX, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) has acknowledged that the situation along Arizona’s southern border isn't sustainable, but he also voted against an amendment to the recently codified Inflation Reduction Act, a measure that would have required the U.S. government to add 18,000 more Border Patrol agents before hiring any of the more than 80,000 workers the IRS plans to hire in the coming years, thanks to a boost in federal funding.
DEA agents seized 1.7 million fentanyl pills in one day, according to a story by AZCentral. Officials claimed that the pills likely were produced by the Sinaloa cartel.
According to data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than 2700 overdose deaths were reported from March 2021 to March 2022 due to fentanyl.
Abbott reminded Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of a similar request he made in April of 2021 to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations, which Abbott said was met with no response.
In June, the Supreme Court declared President Biden’s ending of the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico policy" to be constitutional, but Abbott published a statement arguing that the Court's decision would open the door to more significant issues down the road.
“Reinstating and fully enforcing Remain-in-Mexico would deter thousands more migrants from making that deadly trek, and President Biden should take that simple step to secure the border because it is the only humane thing to do,” Abbott said in his statement.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have had more than 2.1 million border enforcement encounters since October 2021, according to CPB data.
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