The deputy director of the White House Public Policy Cabinet and one of President Donald Trump's main advisors, Stephen Miller, assured that Mexico's judicial, political and legal system “does not work” because large areas of the country are under the control of drug trafficking cartels.
During a ceremony led by the Secretary of War of the United States, Pete Hegseth, in which the Medal for the Defense of the Mexican Border was awarded to members of the Armed Forces, Miller stated that Mexican criminal organizations exercise territorial control that prevents the functioning of State institutions.
“There is a reason why in Mexico the judicial system does not work, the political system does not work, the legal system does not work: it is because there are territories controlled and occupied by terrorist organizations that kill, extort, kidnap or assassinate anyone who gets in their way,” declared the US official.
Miller maintained that Mexican cartels represent a direct threat to the security of the United States and defended the Trump administration's decision to classify them as foreign terrorist organizations.
In this context, he compared these criminal groups to organizations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, although he stressed that, unlike these groups, the cartels operate “a few meters” from the US border.
According to him, in addition to trafficking narcotics, they seek to expand criminal networks capable of destabilizing institutions and the rule of law in United States territory.
The statements are part of the Trump administration's speech to justify the tightening of its border security strategy and the fight against drug trafficking. Miller insisted that the border is the main barrier to prevent violence attributed to cartels from moving to the United States.
Miller's statements occur in the midst of a bilateral relationship marked by tensions regarding security, migration and the fight against fentanyl trafficking, issues that have occupied a central place on the agenda of Donald Trump's government.
