Under the leadership of President Donald Trump, border czar Tom Homan promises that the Mexican criminal cartels are going to be “exterminated.”
“They’re going to be wiped off the face of the earth because they’re now [regarded as] terrorist organizations, and we’re going to treat them as such,” Homan said in an interview with The Daily Signal.
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“It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States,” Trump’s executive action states.
The cartels run multibillion-dollar human- and drug-smuggling operations out of Mexico, and some sources estimate that as many as 185,000 people are actively working for these cartels.
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In 2019, Trump celebrated the defeat of the Islamic State caliphate in Syria.
If the U.S. took steps to dismantle the cartels, Homan said, he thinks Mexico would be willing to help because it would make the country safer and increase tourism.
“Mexico is a corrupt nation, in large part because the cartels control much of the government, the military and the law enforcement,” Homan said, adding that officials are not necessarily voluntarily working with the cartels, but are under tremendous pressure to do so.
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The U.S. could “really improve life in Mexico by taking out the criminal element,” the border czar said.
Homan has been working to secure America’s borders and defend the U.S. against the cartels since he joined the Border Patrol in the 1980s. As Trump’s border czar, Homan is overseeing the mass arrest and deportation of illegal aliens, with a targeted focus on criminal illegal aliens and those who pose a security threat to the country.
Under Trump and Homan’s leadership, the administration has carried out more than 100,000 deportations since Jan. 20 and made 113,000 arrests of illegal immigrants.
With the reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires illegal aliens to wait in Mexico for their asylum hearings instead of being released into the U.S., and increased security measures at the border, the cartels are “pissed off,” Homan said.
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The policies of the Trump administration are “hurting their bottom line,” the blunt-spoken border czar said, adding that intelligence reports he has seen indicate the cartels are now “smuggling more of the fentanyl and other narcotics to European nations, where there’s less control.”
The policy changes at the border, according to Homan, will not only lead to less drugs entering the country, which means fewer overdose deaths, but will also diminish the cartel’s exploitation of migrants.