❓WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald J. Trump praised the success of the Homeland Security Task Forces (HSTFs) operation targeting drug cartels, operatives, and gang members.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: President Trump, HSTFs, and members of various drug cartels, including the Sinaloa Cartel and MS-13.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Remarks were made on Thursday, October 23, during a roundtable at the White House.
💬KEY QUOTE: “In a matter of weeks, the task force has made the largest number of arrests of cartel leaders, operatives and gang members in American history, more than 3,000 and counting.” – Donald Trump
🎯IMPACT: Over 3,000 arrests of cartel members, with military strikes targeting drug-trafficking operations.
The Homeland Security Task Forces (HSTFs), a 50-state joint task force established by President Donald J. Trump on January 20, has arrested more than 3,000 violent criminals—including cartel leaders, operatives, and gang members—since its inception. “We’re here today to discuss a sweeping, unprecedented, and historically successful operation that my administration has carried out in recent weeks to arrest, prosecute, and permanently remove members of foreign drug cartels from American soil,” President Trump said on Thursday at a White House roundtable on his administration’s efforts to combat foreign drug cartels and domestic gang crime.
“In a matter of weeks, the task force has made the largest number of arrests of cartel leaders, operatives and gang members in American history, more than 3,000 and counting,” he said, continuing: “That includes members of the ultra-violent new generation cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the lnfm Cartel, MS-13 cartel… and Tren de Aragua.”
“These are, in addition to the massive numbers of dangerous criminals my administration arrested nationwide since January 20, numbering over 120,000. It’s a record and 120,000 criminal arrests. Unfortunately, for four long years before I took office, the last administration allowed the cartels and their operatives to frankly take over our country,” Trump added.
The America First leader declared that South and Central American drug cartels “are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere.” The National Pulse reported earlier this month that President Trump formally notified Congress that the United States is now engaged in an official “armed conflict” with the cartels. Since late September, the Trump administration has ramped up foreign operations targeting cartel members, including executing military strikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats launching from Venezuela.
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