Abbott Declares War on Cartel Operations
in Texas in Order that Could Invite Violence

Capitol Inside
September 21, 2022

Governor Greg Abbott formally branded a pair of selective Mexican drug cartels as transnational terrorist organizations on Wednesday with an executive order that calls for the dismantling of their operations in Texas by the state police.

Abbott seized on a surge in fentanyl abuse as the hook for an executive order with a seven-point plan of attack that he directed the Department of Public Safety to coordinate and execute with the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel listed as the initial official targets.

The Republican governor ordered the creation of a Mexican Cartel Division for the purpose of intelligence gathering within the DPS. The Abbott decree instructs the DPS to "Identify, arrest, and impede" gangs in Texas and foreign terrorist groups. It includes a directive to "target, seize, and dismantle the infrastructure, assets, vehicles, and buildings used by foreign terrorist organizations to smuggle drugs and people into and throughout Texas."

Executive Order GA-42 does not contain a funding mechanism for the sweeping new state war on specific cartels that Abbott is blaming for spikes in fentanyl deaths in Texas and across the U.S. But Abbott may be holding out hope for federal assistance with a corresponding letter that he fired on Wednesday to President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris in a request to have the two cartels in question classified as foreign terrorists.

Abbott said that he'd ordered state agencies to "ramp up" efforts to tackle the fentanyl problem that he sees as a full-fledged crisis. The governor said he'd told agency heads to get to work on requests for legislation to boost the fight against fentanyl.

“Fentanyl is a clandestine killer, and Texans are falling victim to the Mexican cartels that are producing it,” Abbott said in an email. “Cartels are terrorists, and it’s time we treated them that way. In fact, more Americans died from fentanyl poisoning in the past year than all terrorist attacks across the globe in the past 100 years. In order to save our country, particularly our next generation, we must do more to get fentanyl off our streets.”

The drug cartel blitz comes at a time when the DPS already had a plate overflowing with the border security mission Operation Lone Star - a temporary assignment that's still in business after 18 months with no end date. The DPS has been embroiled in turmoil as a result of its failed response during and after a mass school shooting in Uvalde in May.

Abbott could be reasonably confident that the GOP-controlled Legislature will approve the expenditures that he says is necessary to take down two drug cartels and their support systems in Texas that could not function without. But Abbott could be setting the stage for violence by picking a fight with enemies who are fearless and know that the blood that's shed will only make their price go up.

The DPS had 91 officers at the scene in Uvalde where none risked their lives to try to save dying children. Abbott could be sending these same state police to the lions by unleashing them in the edict today on drug cartels that are in the business of war on a daily basis south of the border. But Abbott sought to make a case for the new initiative nonetheless.

"Mexican drug cartels terrorize the United States and its citizens every day, leaving thousands of dead bodies in their wake," Abbott said in the letter to Biden and Harris. "Their latest weapons of choice are the millions of tiny pills laced with fentanyl that they pour across our southern border. As a result, it is necessary, now more than ever, for you to designate the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and any similarly situated Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This move would help us fight back against these terrorists and disrupt their deadly attacks on America."

Abbott did not elaborate on the decision to narrow the order to only two in a handful of major drug organizations that are based in Mexico and dependent on distribution systems and demand in the U.S. that goes unquenched.