By Leah Barkoukis | COMMENTARY, Townhall
Social media users did a double take this week on a New York Times headline reacting to President Trump’s recent executive order designating certain cartels as global terrorists and foreign terrorist organizations.
“The Cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” the EO notes.
“The Cartels functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States,” the order continues. “In certain portions of Mexico, they function as quasi-governmental entities, controlling nearly all aspects of society. The Cartels’ activities threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere. Their activities, proximity to, and incursions into the physical territory of the United States pose an unacceptable national security risk to the United States.”