Rep. Tom Emmer: Designating Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations ‘Does Do Something – It Would Be Significant’

(CNSNews.com) – House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said Thursday that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s response to the proposal to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) is “outrageous.”

As CNSNews.com previously reported, Jean-Pierre said that “designating these cartels as FTOs would not grant us any additional authorities that we don’t really have at this time.” 

“They frankly don’t take anything serious. They seem to be living in a parallel universe where all the facts are as they see them, not as they actually are. The idea that you won’t or can’t designate these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations is outrageous,” the congressman told Fox News’ “The Faulkner Focus” on Thursday.

“The statement that it doesn’t give us anymore tools, well, okay, then why wouldn’t you just cede to Republicans’ wishes and do it, and If it doesn’t do anything there is nothing to argue about. In fact it does do something. It would be significant. These people have been soft on China, soft on crime, soft on everything else. Guess what?” Emmer said.

“They have ignored the southern border. Because they’ve ignored the southern border they have allowed this thing to turn into a major crisis. It’s not just the number of people coming across the border, it’s the security risk not only on our side but as you can tell as this tragedy, these four Americans who lost their lives proves, they’ve totally lost control of the situation,” he said. 

When asked what pressure there is on the Mexican government to deal with the cartels, Emmer said, “The only pressure is coming from Republicans in the majority in the House and Republicans in the minority in the Senate who are raising awareness on this issue every day and who are actually calling for the administration to take action.”

The congressman also blamed the American Red Cross for enabling the cartels by distributing maps to migrants showing them how to cross the border into the United States.

“I gotta tell you, Julie, it’s worse than what you just described. It is not just the administration is sitting back and not taking any affirmative action, which in fact encourages our adversaries in this case the cartels to move forward with their human trafficking and all the awful things they are doing, but we’ve got the American Red Cross that is supported with U.S. tax dollars that sits on the FEMA board,” he said.

“They are literally putting out maps to migrants to tell them how to cross Mexico with this dangerous journey and how to enter illegally across our southern border. They call this humanitarianism? I call this a tragedy and a failure of moral integrity,” the congressman said, adding that being humane “would be securing the southern border and making sure people could enter this country in a legal fashion safely.”

Host Julie Banderas said, “A federal judge Wednesday ruled that Biden’s border policies are unlawful. Writing a scathing opinion saying the Biden administration quote effectively turned the southwest border into a meaningless line in the sand and little more than a speed bump for aliens flooding into the country. 

“There is a new report which finds that taxpayers, you are spending $182 billion a year on illegal immigration. The bottom line for each taxpayer is more than $1100 a year. This comes in the midst and this should make your blood boil and here is why,” Banderas said.

“Here we have a president that wants to raise your taxes, if you make over $4 hundred thousand, he wants to raise your medicare so you have to pay more in health insurance and illegals get free health insurance when they come into our country all because why? Our money is being used to fund things such as this. This is just one of the examples,” she said.

EMMER: First off, what he says just people $400,000 or more. That’s a lie on its face. You talk about the lawsuit that the state of Florida had to bring to try to get our government to enforce our immigration laws and to secure our southern border. 

First off, the American public should be sitting back and saying why does one of our states have to sue the government to do its job? 

I would argue, Julie, this is why the articles of impeachment filed by Pat Fallon of Texas and by Andy Biggs of Arizona against Mayorkas for not doing his job at homeland security might actually have legs, because you have the actual administration, Biden is saying there isn’t a problem at the southern border, and by the way, he also adds – or his people – that if there is, we inherited this problem. 

The very court case that you talked about, Julie, said you didn’t inherit the problem. You created the problem, and you need to do something about it. So this is the challenge that Republicans have in the House and in the Senate. The American public are smarter than the Biden administration gives them credit for. This will be an ongoing issue for all of us until we get it resolved. 

On China, Emmer said that the Biden administration’s weakness has emboldened adversaries.

“This started with the Biden administration. Frankly, their weakness on the world stage has emboldened all of our adversaries, and the number one adversary, which these hearings yesterday once again confirmed, is China,” the congressman said.

“The Biden administration, their soft on China policies has simply emboldened China which is now suggesting that partnering with Russia is important to weaken the United States of America,” he said.

“This is why Republicans created the Select Committee on China. This is why Chair Gallagher is going to chase down every CCP member in this country who has been causing problems. It’s time to get tough on China, and guess what? Republicans are going to take over where the Biden administration has failed when it comes to China,” Emmer said.

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