President Donald Trump said in an interview Tuesday that he will designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorists over their role in drug and human trafficking. This is a huge development in the fight against the narco-trafficking organizations and will open up federal government resources to target the drug king pins that have amassed hundreds of billions of dollars in their illicit operations.

In an interview with Bill O’Reilly that aired on Tuesday the President said “they will be designated … I have been working on that for the last 90 days.”

“You know, designation is not that easy, you have to go through a process, and we are well into that process,” said Trump.

Over the past several years this reporter’s nonprofit The Dark Wire: An Investigation Foundation has been working to draw attention to the horrors of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Last year’s documentary Not In Vein, produced by the foundation, focused on the drug crisis in America and the poisoning of our nation by the cartels.

Not in Vein exposes the billion-dollar cartel-controlled distribution network in the United States — and specifically we focused on Ohio, which during 2018 was among the top five states with the highest rated of opioid-related deaths. Full Story Foundation, in Ohio, produced the documentary in conjunction with The Dark Wire and the film is available online and has been showcased in multiple college campuses and schools across the country.

Judicial Watch’s Director for Investigations and Research Chris Farrell, who is also in the film, noted the importance of designating the top Mexican Drug Cartels terrorist organizations. He cited the need for more resources and the growing threat from chemical synthetics like Fentanyl being trafficked across the border.

The conservative watchdog group has advocated for the designation.

“Mexican Drug Cartels continue to pose a very real threat to communities across America. With the recent massacre of an American family in Northern Mexico, it has become increasingly apparent that President López Obrador’s government is doing little to crack down on cartel violence. The nearly unchecked influence and power exercised by drug cartels in Mexico and good parts of the southwest U.S. – Mexico border demonstrate the need for Washington to embolden its posture in the protection of U.S. Citizens. It’s time for the U.S. to classify drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs),” stated Judicial Watch.

Farrell and the organization are absolutely right. The president’s decision is a victory for our nation, our children and our future.

Earlier this year, this reporter, alongside others who participated in the film, testified before the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee. The committee passed House Resolution Bill 10 to urge the federal government to designate several of the Mexican drug cartels Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

It passed with unanimously with both Democrats and Republicans agreeing that as a nation we must fight back.

Shortly after the bill passed the full Ohio House legislature.

House Resolution 10:

RESOLVED, That we, the members of the 133rd General

Assembly of the State of Ohio, respectfully urge the federal

government to designate the drug cartels operating from Mexico

as foreign terrorist organizations, so that the government may

use appropriate means to mitigate and eventually eliminate the

operations of the cartels;

Like Ohio, families and communities have been ripped apart by the drug crisis. Major Mexican drug cartels like Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generacion have been amassing billions of dollars off of the death and addiction of Americans.

“The Mexican drug cartels don’t fly planes into buildings, but they aggressively ship poison into our communities, ” Heidi Riggs explained to the Ohio House Criminal Justice committee last week. Riggs, a mother who lost her daughter Marin to Heroin addiction is now an advocate fighting the epidemic. Tragically, Marin died just two weeks after her twentieth birthday from a heroin overdose. Marin fought long and hard to beat her addiction, but the drug took ultimate control and claimed her life as collateral damage of a greater problem.

Former Drug Enforcement Administration Director of Special Operations Derek Maltz, who has spent his career battling the cartels and terrorist organizations, also testified before the committee.

He noted that the drug cartels fulfill the requirements listed by the U.S. State Department to be designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Maltz said in an earlier interview

we’re not in the 1960s anymore. We’re with a dangerous threat to our country. They’re using state of the art technology, they’re aligning themselves up with these global transnational criminals, they’re making billions of dollars, and we’re vulnerable.”

The Secretary of State designates Foreign Terrorist Organizations in accordance with section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The legal criteria for designating a group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization are: