The United States government has officially designated two more Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move that includes a group operating directly on the Texas border. The designations, which were published in the Federal Register on Thursday, July 16, 2026, target the Juárez Cartel and the criminal group known as Los Viagras, which originates from the western state of Michoacán. These organizations now join six other Mexican criminal groups already labeled as terrorist organizations by the U.S., including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel. Similar designations have previously been applied to gangs in Brazil, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Ecuador under the current administration.
President Trump initiated the policy of extending the terrorist label to Latin American cartels in February 2025. This strategic shift is intended to provide U.S. authorities with broader legal authority to take aggressive action against these groups and any individuals perceived to be aiding them. The intensity of this policy is reflected in recent military operations; since September 2025, U.S. military strikes against suspected drug trafficking vessels in Latin American waters have resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people. Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that both the Juárez Cartel and Los Viagras have either committed terrorist acts or pose a significant risk of carrying out actions that threaten the security of U.S. nationals, the U.S. economy, or the nation's foreign policy and national security.
The Juárez Cartel remains one of Mexico's most established drug trafficking organizations. For decades, it has maintained control over a vital crossing point in the central region of the Mexico-U.S. border at Ciudad Juárez, located across from El Paso, Texas. The group was founded by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who earned the nickname "El Señor de los Cielos" for his use of light aircraft to smuggle massive drug shipments during the 1990s. Despite the arrests of numerous leaders over the years, the cartel and its allies have preserved a vast infrastructure for smuggling illegal shipments into the United States. The organization was also implicated in the 2019 murders of nine American women and children from an offshoot Mormon community. According to analyst David Saucedo, this designation is a critical step in enabling the U.S. to take more decisive action along the border, following the February 2025 terrorist designations of the Northeast Cartel and the Gulf Cartel, which operate at the eastern end of the Texas border.
Los Viagras, meanwhile, operates within the state of Michoacán, a region already home to two other groups designated as terrorist organizations: La Nueva Familia Michoacana and Cárteles Unidos. The group emerged following an armed uprising by farmers between 2013 and 2014, which sought to drive out older cartels only to see them replaced by new criminal entities. The cartel is led by Nicolás Sierra Santana, known by the alias "El Gordo." He is currently facing a formal indictment in the District of Columbia for conspiracy to traffic drugs, filed in June 2025, and the U.S. State Department has placed a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. Earlier this year, an alleged associate of the group known as "El Botox" was arrested for his connection to the killing of a prominent leader of the state's lime growers.
Beyond its drug trafficking activities, Los Viagras has focused on consolidating regional control through extortion and the production of synthetic drugs, which are sold to other cartels for trafficking into the U.S. In 2024, the group gained notoriety for establishing "narco-antennas," a system of makeshift internet antennas built with stolen equipment. The cartel forced local residents to pay for access to this Wi-Fi service under the threat of death. These developments occur alongside increased pressure on the administration of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, following the indictment of 10 current and former officials from the state of Sinaloa for alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and ongoing controversies regarding U.S. operations within Mexico.
