President Donald Trump's executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations is a "game changer" that's been a long time coming, Victor Avila, a former ICE supervisor special agent and author, said on Newsmax Sunday.
"[It's] music to my ears," Avila told Newsmax's "Sunday Agenda." "I've been advocating for this for many, many years, along with a lot of my colleagues, because we understand this is where we are today. This is the game changer, this designation."
He added that Department of Defense resources are already being assessed, but more is happening than just military intervention.
"A lot of people think it's going after the assets of the cartel, their money, their bank accounts, and everywhere where they launder their money in the United States," said Avila. "This is where you attack them, hurt them with the money, because we know that's their ideology. That's how they get their power. Hurt them with the money to take away their power and you start dismantling them."
Further, the designation allows ICE to arrest immigrants in the United States who are associating with the cartels "just like if you would be doing that with ISIS … now let's see what happens on the Mexican side and what their next move is going to be."
Another Trump order bars immigrants in the United States illegally from receiving federal benefits, and Avila said that is "cutting off the magnet" that has been drawing migrants to the country.
"That's how you stop them from even making the journey to our country to begin with," he said. "It's going to make a huge impact because this is where people need to see the economic impact that it has on our healthcare system, our school systems, and of course, our criminal justice system. That's going to be impacted tremendously dramatically in favor of the American citizen."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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