{"id":405748,"date":"2026-08-13T19:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T19:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/405748\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T19:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T19:34:12","slug":"el-paso-border-security-drill-follows-juarez-cartels-new-terrorist-designation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/405748\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso border security drill follows Ju\u00e1rez Cartel\u2019s new terrorist designation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 U.S. Border Patrol held a joint border security operation in central El Paso on Thursday, bringing together U.S. and Mexican partners in an exercise intended to demonstrate rapid response capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>The operation included the agencies HIS, DEA, ATF, Texas DPS, Texas Military, CBP, the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office, Western District of Texas, and representatives of the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez. <\/p>\n<p>U.S. Border Patrol Special Operations detachment agents will be inserted by CBP Air Marine Operations helicopter along with response from Texas Military Department, Department of War soldiers, and other federal law enforcement partners on the border in El Paso. A mirrored patrol by the Mexican military will also be conducted on the Mexican side of the border.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Department of the Treasury has designated the Ju\u00e1rez Cartel, also known as &#8220;La Linea,&#8221; as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, a move that significantly expands the financial and legal tools available to target the criminal organization with deep ties to the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED:<a href=\"https:\/\/kfoxtv.com\/news\/local\/us-designates-juarez-cartel-as-foreign-terrorist-organization?src=link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> U.S. designates Ju\u00e1rez Cartel as foreign terrorist organization<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The joint-combined capabilities exercise comes as the Juarez Cartel has now been designated a foreign terrorist organization, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>WATCH FULL PRESS CONFERENCE:<\/p>\n<p><p>El Paso border security drill follows Ju\u00e1rez Cartel\u2019s new terrorist designation<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur message has been and has always been and will be very clear: if you have engaged with terrorist activity, if you are a member of a terrorist organization or if you have provided material to support these terrorist organizations, you will face severe legal and immigration consequences,\u201d said Hamid Nikseresht, a special operations supervisor with U.S. Border Patrol.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not rhetoric; this is the law. The operation is testimony to how serious and how united we are on this,&#8221; said Nikseresht. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the cartels understand that they are terrorists. Who needs to hear this message is those lower-level people who are helping those cartels. You are not being treated as someone helping a criminal organization; from now on,  you are being treated as someone helping a terrorist organization,\u201d said Border Patrol Chief Jesse Munoz of the El Paso Sector.  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis cartel [La Linea] has been terrorizing both sides of the border for decades. Leaders of those cartels have made billions of dollars trafficking from Mexico into the U.S.,\u201d said Justin Simmons, the U.S. Attorney of the Western District of Texas.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kfoxtv.com\/sign-up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sign up<\/a> to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 U.S. Border Patrol held a joint border security operation in central El Paso&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-405748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}