Arkansas House urges action on terrorism on America’s southern border

It is often pointed out that Washington D.C. is out of touch—with the rest of America.

It’s not that elected officials in Washington don’t come up with good ideas; but between “The Swamp” running interference and leftist ideologues in the White House and Congress delaying or even killing legislation, so little seems to get done.

There are many people across America, including in Washington D.C., who understand the threats we face.

One of those is State Representative Marcus Richmond, a former Marine who serves as the House Majority Leader in the Arkansas House of Representatives. During the 2023 legislative session at the Arkansas state capitol in Little Rock, Richmond authored a resolution admonishing the U.S. government to do what so many Americans know is necessary.

House Resolution (HR) 1048 calls on the United States government to disrupt collaboration between drug cartels and terrorist organizations, declare fentanyl to be a weapon of mass destruction, and designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Drug overdoses have killed more than 100,000 Americans over the past year. 66% of the overdose deaths in the past year were related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

The DEA reports that Mexican drug cartels, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, import dangerous raw materials from Communist China, use them to produce deadly synthetic opioids at low cost, and unlawfully transport those opioids into the United States.

Both the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel have expanded their deadly business into the United States.

These foreign drugs have created twin public health and national security crises of unparalleled magnitude.

Over the past decade, Mexican drug cartels have developed well-organized armed forces to protect their reprehensible trade from rivals, from the Mexican government and from the U.S. DEA.

The existence of the cartels’ armed forces just across our southwestern land border and the Mexican government’s inability to control these forces pose a threat to our national security far greater than a typical drug-trafficking enterprise.

The threat to our national security is made greater still by the known links between the Mexican drug cartels and jihadist terror organizations like Hezbollah, who have already killed Americans and intend to do our country harm.

The Mexican drug cartels are essentially conducting chemical warfare on everyday Americans, affecting every community, town, and city across America.

The cartels are importing a chemical agent — fentanyl — into the United States that endangers the safety of the American people

The same cartels that produce and traffic this dangerous chemical are also assassinating rivals and Mexican officials, ambushing and killing Americans at the border, and engaging in an armed insurgency against the Mexican government.

It has prompted a bipartisan group of 18 state attorneys general to call on the Biden administration to declare fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.

The catastrophic loss of life is intolerable, yet it has received an anemic response from the federal government.

Now Arkansas has called for a change…

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS:

THAT it is time to respond to these crises because our national security requires the United States Government to disrupt the collaboration between drug cartels and terrorist organizations.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the House of Representatives call on President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, and the United States Congress to treat fentanyl as the danger it truly is and declare it a weapon of mass destruction.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT the House of Representatives request that the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and other similarly situated Mexican drug cartels be designated as foreign terrorist organizations under 8 U.S.C. § 1189.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT upon adoption, a copy of this resolution be provided to President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, and the members of the Arkansas Congressional Delegation.

State Representative Richmond and the Arkansas House are to be commended on their strong stance. When it comes to matters of American national security, the security of our border, and the safety of our people, things are too important to be left up to Washington to fix… if they ever get around to it. More states need to follow Arkansas’ example and demand action on Fentanyl and the cartels.