Trump Task Force Catches 3,000 Cartel and Gang Members, 1,000 Guns, 91 Tons of Drugs in Weeks

A Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) established by President Trump on the day of his inauguration to tackle a pandemic of transnational organized crime created by the Biden administration’s “disgraceful” open border policies has made thousands of arrests in recent weeks and seized over 1,000 illegal firearms, 91 tons of drugs and $3 million in currency. The special HSTF teams combine agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a premier federal law enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as officers from other federal, local and state agencies to crackdown on an unprecedented wave of violent crimes committed by foreign drug cartels, gangs and other transnational criminal organizations (TCO). This includes sophisticated human and drug trafficking operations nationwide that often involve minors.

In a recent White House roundtable with law enforcement and administration officials, the president revealed that the HSTF operations represent the largest coordinated effort against cartels in U.S. history. The event also included Attorney General Pam Bondi, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel. They confirmed that in just a few weeks the taskforce arrested more than 3,000 foreign drug cartel operatives and gang members and seized enormous amounts of narcotics. The illicit drugs include 2.1 million fentanyl pills, 58,000 kilos of cocaine, 2,300 kilos of fentanyl powder, over 7,000 kilos of methamphetamine and nearly 600 kilos of heroin. To put it in perspective Bondi said the drugs confiscated in just a few weeks could fill four 18-wheeler trucks. The recent operations targeted members of some of the most violent TCOs, including the Sinaloa, Jalisco Generacion and La Nueva Familia Michoacana (LNFM) cartels as well as the notoriously vicious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Tren de Aragua gangs. The Trump administration says it has arrested more than 120,000 criminal aliens since January 20, purging communities throughout the country of dangerous offenders.

The commander-in-chief created the HSTF, which has been fully operational for only a month, to work in every state as part of a broader initiative to mitigate the damage caused by the record-breaking 7.6 million illegal aliens who entered the country under Biden, including hundreds of thousands with serious criminal records and over 1.7 million from countries DHS says pose a national security threat to the U.S. “Many of these aliens unlawfully within the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans,” the president’s January order, titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” states. “Others are engaged in hostile activities, including espionage, economic espionage, and preparations for terror-related activities. Many have abused the generosity of the American people, and their presence in the United States has cost taxpayers billions of dollars at the Federal, State, and local levels.”

A key part of the president’s plan is enforcing the nation’s immigration laws, but ridding communities of criminal aliens is also a fundamental component. That is where the HSTF comes in, to end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs, and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States, according to the January order. The units are also tasked with dismantling cross-border human smuggling and trafficking networks with a particular focus on those involving children and ensure the use of all available law enforcement tools to execute U.S. immigration laws. The administration assures it is targeting the “worst of the worst,” for arrest and removal even as most media outlets spin the narrative to focus exclusively on policies open border groups claim separate families and victimize hard-working migrants. In the last few months federal authorities have arrested thousands criminal aliens with serious felony convictions throughout the U.S., including gang members, child predators, and murderers.

In Houston, Texas alone hundreds of violent gang members with a combined 1,700 criminal convictions were apprehended within weeks. In Massachusetts, over 1,400 criminal aliens were arrested in just three weeks in September, including hundreds with significant criminal convictions for offenses committed in the U.S. Many are known foreign fugitives and others are members of the MS-13, Tren de Aragua and 18th Street gangs. All have “significant criminality in the United States or abroad,” according to the Boston-based DHS official who led that recent operation.