Image Credit: Anadolu / Contributor / Getty Images 
New task forces have been launched by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to fight foreign gangs and cartels operating in the US.
“These new teams, known as Homeland Security Task Forces, bring together FBI and HSI personnel—as well as task force officers from local, state, and federal partner agencies—to investigate transnational organized crime activity such as drug trafficking and human trafficking that occurs across all 50 states, the nation’s capital, and Puerto Rico,” the FBI said in a statement released on Friday.
The task forces will focus on “rooting out violent crime committed by foreign gangs, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations impacting the United States.”
In the first six months of the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 356 gang members. Between them they had nearly 1,700 criminal offenses and had entered the US illegally over 1,400 times.
Members from 40 different gangs were arrested, including 39 members of the Salvadorean gang MS-13 and 25 members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.
The Homeland Task Forces will target crimes including drug trafficking, murder, extortion, money-laundering, arms trafficking, human trafficking and kidnapping. Immigration will not be a main focus; although probes are likely to touch on immigration-related crimes.
Groups targeted will include those recently designated foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration, like MS-13 and Mexican cartels.
As well as the FBI and HIS, the Task Forces will include personnel from more than 15 federal agencies, including Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), the Department of War and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
The Task Forces have been established in response to a day-one Executive Order by President Trump, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” The Order focused on the dangers posed to the American people by millions of illegal aliens in the country, especially criminals who pose ““significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans.”
The Order directed the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security to set up Task Forces in all 50 states.
