Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers is joining a coalition of 21 states in calling on the Biden Administration to designate Mexican drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations under federal law.
Doing so will give state and federal law enforcement agencies increased authority to freeze cartel assets, deny entry to cartel members and allow prosecutors to pursue stricter punishments against those who provide them material support.
According to the 21 state officials more than 100,000 Americans died of overdoses in the past year, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl were responsible for more than half.
Hilgers says the U.S. Government knows precisely how the drugs are entering the United States. Mexican drug cartels import raw materials from China, use them to produce deadly synthetic opioids at low cost and traffic those illicit drugs across the southwestern border and into the country.