Texas State Rep. Brian Harrison said Gov. Greg Abbott did the right thing in designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations.
"What Gov. Abbott said is exactly correct," Harrison said Thursday during an appearance on Newsmax's "The Chris Salcedo Show."
"Cartels are the ones who have operational control over the border. We have two nations that control that border nominally: the United States of America — and under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we have absolutely no operational control over that border, despite his lying, including under oath, from our Homeland Security secretary [Alejandro Mayorkas] — and then the Mexican government, [which] does not have operational control over that border land.
"And that gets to why this is so important. This designation is important. It's these cartels who control the border, and so we've got to understand the enemy we're facing. If we don't call them by their own name, if we can't recognize what we're dealing with, we're never going to have the appropriate solution. So Gov. Abbott calling them what they are — terrorist organizations — as a first step is something that we need to do to."
Harrison said state law enforcement agencies need to be given "every tool, every authority they need to incarcerate, charge and deport as many as possible; because until we get the real metrics here that matter, which is reducing the number of illegal crossings or reducing the net number of illegal immigration that we allow to stay permanently inside the interior of the United States, we're not going to be getting at this issue."
Abbott on Wednesday issued an executive order designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations and instructed the Texas Department of Public Safety to take immediate action to "keep Texans safe" amid the growing fentanyl crisis.
“Fentanyl is a clandestine killer, and Texans are falling victim to the Mexican cartels that are producing it,” said Abbott. “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.”
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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