Trump State Department declares Tren de Aragua, MS-13, Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations

The Trump administration designated several gangs and cartels, such as Tren de Aragua, MS-13 and the Sinaloa Cartel, as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a public notice set to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday, that he had concluded there is a “sufficient factual basis” under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to designate eight groups as FTOs.

The eight groups consist of Tren de Aragua; Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13; the Sinaloa Cartel; New Generation Cartel of Jalisco; United Cartels; Northeast Cartel; Gulf Cartel; and La Nueva Familia Michoacana, or LNFM, many of which go under multiple different names.

This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office to direct the State Department and other executive agencies to move to designate cartels and other criminal groups as FTOs.

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The U.S. Attorney’s Office and law enforcement agencies in Tennessee announced the indictment of multiple people in the state with ties to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA). (Left: Obtained by New York Post Center: Edward Romero Right: DEA)

The order specifically mentioned Tren de Aragua – which is also known as “TdA” – as well MS-13, as groups needing to be designated as terror organizations.

Trump gave Rubio 14 days to make policy recommendations – in consultation with the secretaries of the Treasury and Homeland Security as well as the U.S. attorney general and director of national intelligence – to make a recommendation regarding the designation of criminal groups to be designated as terrorist organizations.

A foreign terrorist designation expands the government’s ability to crack down on criminal groups operating in the U.S., allowing all government agencies, including the Department of the Treasury, to target that group from every angle. 

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The order stated that these groups “present an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” and invokes the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEP) to declare a national emergency to “deal with those threats.”

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Rubio instructed the department to begun taking certain actions in line with Trump’s executive orders. (Reuters)

“It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States,” the order read.

Joseph Humire, executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, authored a report on how to dismantle TdA in 2024. He previously explained to Fox News Digital that designating these groups as foreign terrorist organizations places them “at the highest level” of U.S. national security interest, meaning their funding and any organizations enabling them can be targeted as well.

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“Trump just put all of them on notice,” Humire said. “This said: ‘We know you’re here; we know you’re up to no good, and we’re going to come after you.'”

Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.