The United States has designated eight Latin American criminal and drug-trafficking groups as “global terrorist organizations” amid escalating rhetoric from President Donald Trump, Al Jazeera reported.
In a Federal Register notice filed on Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, without offering details, that the groups have committed or pose a risk of committing “acts of terrorism that threaten the security of United States nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States,” said Al Jazeera in its reports.
Some experts say the open-ended language could be used by Trump to justify expansive presidential powers and policies previously seen as out of bounds, such as military strikes on Mexican territory or stripping migrants of their right to due process.
The eight groups named in Wednesday’s notice are the Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (also known as MS-13), Cartel de Sinaloa, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Carteles Unidos, Cartel de Noreste, Cartel del Golfo, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana, said Al Jazeera.
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While those groups commit acts of violence and exploitation, experts say cartels are motivated by business interests instead of the political or ideological motives typically attributed to terrorist groups.
“The US already takes a lot of actions against these groups. They surveil them, sanction them, and prosecute their members in court. So this decision will not change much in terms of the tools they have at their disposal,” said Stephanie Brewer, the director of the Mexico program at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a US-based research group, according to Al Jazeera.
“I think it’s of concern that this is coming in the context of rhetoric out of the White House that conflates migration with crime, drugs, and now, terrorism.”
Many immigrants passing through Mexico and other countries in Latin America are forced to pay fees and “taxes” to criminal groups, which extort migrants and smugglers alike.
Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, says that fact could be used by the administration to argue that immigrants are providing material and financial support to terrorist organisations.
“You could accuse anyone—from a migrant who pays a smuggler to a Mexican business that is forced to pay a ‘protection fee’—of’ offering material or financial support to a terrorist organization,” he said.
He also notes that one of the most powerful criminal groups in the Americas, Brazil’s First Capital Command, does not appear on the list, said Al Jazeera.
“I do wonder if the throughline here is that a lot of the named groups are involved in immigration routes,” he said.
The White House has frequently used depictions of irregular migration as an “invasion” to promote a hardline approach to immigration.
The Trump administration has previously threatened to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—a law that allows presidents to immediately deport citizens of an “enemy nation” during times of war—to carry out mass deportations in the US, added the Doha-based media outlet, according to Al Jazeera.
