Under the National Emergencies Act, an executive order was signed on April 27, President Joe Biden has authorized the deployment of US reservist troops to its southern border with Mexico, supposedly to combat “international drug trafficking.” The order authorizes the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) to call up active duty reserve troops as necessary.
“I am authorizing the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to order to active duty such units and individual members of the Ready Reserve under the jurisdiction of the Secretary concerned,” wrote the President in his letter to US Congress.
“The authorities that have been invoked will ensure the Department of Defense can properly sustain its support of the Department of Homeland Security concerning international drug trafficking along the Southwest Border.”
Biden issued the executive order late last week authorizing Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to deploy active duty reserve troops to the US-Mexican border.
“I … find that the trafficking into the United States of illicit drugs, including fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, is causing the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans annually, as well as countless more non-fatal overdoses with their own tragic human toll,” said Biden in the 2021 executive order. “Drug cartels, transnational criminal organizations, and their facilitators are the primary sources of illicit drugs and precursor chemicals that fuel the current opioid epidemic, as well as drug-related violence that harms our communities.”
Last month, a group of 20 Republican congressmen introduced a bill that would designate groups such as Gulf Cartel, Cartel de Noreste, Cartel de Sinaloa, and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion as “foreign terrorist organizations,” a follow-up to a similar bill introduced by the US Senate that would label nine such organizations as ‘terrorist’, and allocate federal funds to form a special task force for dismantling these groups.
There is push-back from Mexica though, as President Andres Manuel Lopes Obrador is alleging that America’s fentanyl crisis is a result of societal problems in the US, and Chinese fentanyl being shipped directly into North America.
Obrador also hit back at the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for infiltrating the Sinaloa drug cartel without the Mexican government’s knowledge, and warned that such clandestine operations could place Mexican and American lives in danger.
In addition, the White House also announced on Thursday “sweeping” measures to “further reduce unlawful migration across the Western Hemisphere,” said to take effect once the current Title 42 public health order ends.
“But the lifting of the Title 42 order does not mean the border is open,” says a DHS fact sheet announcing new measures.
“When the Title 42 order lifts at 11:59 PM on May 11, the United States will return to using Title 8 immigration authorities to expeditiously process and remove individuals who arrive at the U.S. border unlawfully.”
THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY – STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER UPDATES.
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