Abbott’s Border ‘Theatrics’ Now Include Acting Like the State Department

Governor Greg Abbott is, once again, using the border to test the bounds of his authority. Last month, Abbott designated Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization with roots in a Venezuelan prison, as a foreign terrorist organization. 

Normally, the U.S. State Department designates all Foreign Terrorist Organizations, using criteria established under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act. But it’s not Abbott’s first time straying beyond the norms of his state government leadership role. In September 2022, he declared Mexican drug cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations. Other than Abbott, no governor appears to have taken such radical steps, experts say.

Jason Blazakis, a former director of the State Department’s Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office told the Texas Observer that Abbott’s move might introduce confusion abroad. “It makes it convoluted for our partners who might be watching what’s happening in the United States, and they might conflate an action taken by the State of Texas as a mandate by the federal government when it’s not,” Blazakis said.

After Abbott unilaterally declared “Mexican Drug Cartels,” including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, as foreign terrorist organizations in 2022 via an executive order, Texas Republicans created a legal basis for him to do so again. 

In 2023, state Senator Brian Birdwell introduced Senate Bill 1900, which created a state definition for a foreign terrorist organization under the Texas Penal Code. The bill passed and took effect last fall, making Texas what appears to be the only state with its own legal definition for a foreign terrorist organization, according to interviews with experts and a review of state statutes. Now, under Texas law, a foreign terrorist organization is defined as “three or more persons operating as an organization at least partially outside the United States who engage in criminal activity and threaten the security of this state or its residents, including but not limited to a drug cartel.”

Republicans outside Texas have tried to follow suit. In 2023, Republican legislators in Arizona introduced a bill that would have declared Mexican drug cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations. (The state’s Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, vetoed it.) Meanwhile, Republican U.S. Senators John Kennedy of Louisiana and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina began efforts in 2023 to change federal law to require the state department to recognize several Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, and Los Zetas. 

The Republican bid to achieve a foreign terrorist organization designation for Mexican drug cartels is not new. Since the 2010s, some conservatives have proposed various measures to increase militarization, including labeling drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and even declaring war on the groups by advocating for drone strikes or even by sending troops to Mexico. 

Texas’ definition of a foreign terrorist organization is far broader than the State Department’s. The federal government makes the designation based on legal criteria in the Immigration Nationality Act: The group must be foreign-based, engage in terrorist activity or political violence like bombings and assassinations, and pose a risk to U.S. national security interests. The designation process is rigorous, requiring a hefty amount of paperwork and citations to back up every assertion. Writing up the designation’s administrative record is an “exhaustive process” akin to writing a dissertation, and it can take months to complete, Blazakis said. It is unclear what process exists for the Texas designation. Abbott’s office did not answer questions sent via email. 

The State Department’s designation of a group as a foreign terrorist organization allows the federal government to freeze assets and to prosecute people who provide funding or material support. Almost all the same consequences apply if the U.S. Department of the Treasury designates the group as a transnational criminal organization, Blazakis said. Tren de Aragua was classified as a transnational criminal organization in July.

As a governor, Abbott lacks the authority to designate such groups as terrorist organizations, according to Vanda Felbab-Brown, director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors at the Brookings Institution. Nor does Abbott have the resources or authority to conduct transnational or national investigations of organized crime. The Texas Office of the Governor’s Public Safety Office announced a $5,000 award for information leading to the identification or arrest of Tren de Aragua members. In July, the federal government announced offers of up to $12 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of several of the group’s leaders.

Abbott’s move to designate it as a foreign terrorist organization is “merely theatrics,” Blazakis said.

Tren de Aragua’s activities also don’t fit most definitions of terrorism, Blazakis said. Normally, the groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations engage in violence with a unifying ideological purpose—like Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. But that isn’t Tren de Aragua’s goal. To generate profits, the gang has engaged in illegal mining, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, and the trafficking of illicit drugs in several countries, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. They have a “particular focus on human smuggling and other illicit acts that target desperate migrants,” according to the agency.

Tren de Aragua members are generally motivated by money, not a political ideology, according to Mike LaSusa, deputy director of content at InSight Crime, a think tank and newsroom that has researched and reported on the group in multiple countries for several years. Most of Tren de Aragua’s criminal activities in the United States are lower-hanging fruit, LaSusa said, like robbery, extorting individuals, or actions that don’t require a sophisticated criminal infrastructure. 

“If anything, they’re just operating at a very small scale,” LaSusa said, but police officials are still wrapping their heads around the level of threat to public safety the group poses and are “walking the fine line between not raising undue alarm about the gang but also showing people that they’re taking it seriously.”

InSight Crime reported in April 2024 that the gang “appears to have no substantial US presence and looks unlikely to establish one” after contacting more than a dozen national, state, and local law enforcement agencies—none of which reported significant Tren de Aragua activity.

Texas’ latest move is part of a broader Republican campaign to get the federal government to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Some have even called for military action. “You see Republican politicians calling constantly for [the] U.S. bombing the cartels or even having U.S. special operations forces act against the cartels—something that the Mexican government is deeply opposed to,” said Felbab-Brown, the Brookings Institution director.

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an author and professor at George Mason University who specializes in U.S.-Mexico relations and organized crime, said a federal foreign terrorist organization designation for Mexican drug cartels would have negative consequences for diplomatic relations between the two countries. Designating a Latin American gang as a foreign terrorist organization is part of a playbook to demonize asylum-seekers, Correa-Cabrera said, which pushes the “idea that migrants are not only taking the jobs but also coming with these groups … that perpetrate really bad things.”

Trying to connect immigration with national security and public safety issues is part of the Republicans’ election strategy, she said. 

“The utilization of the politics of fear has been a very important electoral tool for Republicans during these past few years,” she said. “Why is this happening now, with the election very close? And why [is] the governor of Texas … reinforcing the politics of fear? They have been doing this every year.”