The Trump administration is designating Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations as part of a crackdown on drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexican border, President Trump said during his inauguration speech on Monday, Reason.com reports. Trump promised "to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gang criminal networks" through the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the government to round up foreigners who are citizens of a country that Congress has declared war on or that is engaged in an "invasion or predatory incursion." The terrorism designations are not a declaration of war. A Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation bans Americans—or anyone who wants to immigrate to the U.S. —from providing any kind of "material support" to a designated terrorist group and allows victims of terrorism to sue alleged FTO supporters for compensation. Meanwhile, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) designation allows the U.S. Treasury to seize a group's assets. Trump's executive order will apply both FTO and SDGT designations and will include non-Mexican gangs as well, such as El Salvador's MS-13 and Venezuela's Tren de Aragua. Unlike other U.S. sanctions, the FTO and SDGT lists don't include exemptions for free speech or humanitarian aid. While Americans are allowed to buy books from Cuba or ship food to North Korea despite the U.S. embargoes on those countries, the same doesn't apply to Al Qaeda.
SDGT sanctions have been a headache for international charities working in Yemen under Houthi rule and Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Adding drug cartels to the FTO list could have similarly far-reaching consequences, both for Americans doing business south of the border and Mexicans trying to immigrate north. "Because the cartels are so closely intertwined with legitimate businesses (in mafioso-like protection rackets), many people are forced to pay them off or be killed. Under U.S. law, that could count as material support to terrorism," says attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the nonprofit American Immigration Council. Ironically, immigration hawks worry that a terrorist designation might make it easier for Mexicans to come to the United States as refugees, since they can claim they are fleeing terrorism. "If you designate them as terrorists, you've just created millions of more legal asylum seekers," Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R–TX) has said. "Now, look, are they obviously terrorists? Of course. They act like terrorists. But if you designate them that way, you make our immigration crisis much worse." Even though terrorism designations are not legally a declaration of war, they might make it politically easier to send U.S. troops to Mexico—which Trump's advisers have said he favors—without asking Congress.
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