Trump is hosting a White House roundtable on homeland security task forces
Mexican leaders want US help against cartels
Mexican Senator Lily Tellez joined “Fox & Friends Weekend” to discuss growing tensions between President Trump and Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro as the United States bolsters its military presence in the region to target drug boats and drug cartels.
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First on Fox: President Donald Trump will host a roundtable at the White House Thursday afternoon with law enforcement and administration officials to discuss the successes of the Homeland Security Task Forces, which the president established on his first day in office to eliminate criminal gang threats in the United States.
“The President’s Homeland Security Task Forces are a historic achievement that highlights what the federal government can accomplish with a leader like President Trump who is willing to cut red tape, increase coordination, and put the safety of the American people first,” White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson told Fox News Digital about the event.
“In a short period of time, the Trump administration has removed deadly drugs, illegal weapons, dangerous foreign terrorists, and cartel members from American communities,” she added. “The American people are safer today thanks to HSTFs — and they’re just getting started.”
Trump established the Homeland Security Task Forces on January 20 — his first day back in office — through an executive order titled “Protecting the American People from Invasion.” The executive order ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to create task forces in each state as part of the administration’s efforts to thwart cartels and human trafficking networks operating on U.S. soil.
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President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a roundtable with administration officials to discuss updates on Homeland Security task forces. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The executive order specifically directed the task forces to “end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs, and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States, dismantle cross-border human smuggling and trafficking networks, end the scourge of human smuggling and trafficking, with a particular focus on such crimes involving children, and ensure that all available law enforcement tools are used to enforce the immigration laws of the United States.” “Honestly.”
On Thursday, administration officials will join Trump to provide updates on the task forces’ efforts.
Fox News Digital has learned that Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, Noem, Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard will join the roundtable.
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An executive order issued in January orders Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to establish task forces in each state as part of the administration’s efforts to thwart gangs and human trafficking networks operating on U.S. soil. (Yuri Grebas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital has learned that task forces nationwide became fully operational at the end of August and were able to arrest thousands and remove dangerous drugs and illegal firearms from US streets.
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More than 3,000 foreign terrorists and cartel members have been arrested as part of the task force operations, including members of dangerous gangs such as the Sinaloa Cartel, MS-13 and the Jalisco Nuevo Genaracion Cartel, Fox News Digital has learned.
President Donald Trump will host a roundtable at the White House on October 23, 2025, with law enforcement and administration officials, such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. (Mark Schiefelbein/The Associated Press)
Task forces also found two million fentanyl pills and seven tons of other deadly drugs, seized $3 million in currency, and removed more than 1,000 illegal guns from American communities.
Trump’s campaign focused in part on removing violent illegal immigrants and crime from American communities, and he highlighted the effort in his March 2025 address to Congress.
“The area just south of our border is now completely controlled by criminal gangs who murder, rape, and torture and exercise total control,” Trump said at the time. “They have complete control over an entire country. Which poses a serious threat to our national security.” “The gangs are waging war in America, and it is time for America to wage war on the gangs.”
The roundtable comes as the US military carries out strikes on ships suspected of belonging to drug cartels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The strikes began last September and are part of Trump’s broader efforts to dismantle the organization Transnational cartels by force.
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Trump held a similar roundtable at the White House earlier in October, where he invited independent journalists who have witnessed Antifa violence firsthand to speak about their experiences as the administration targets the left-wing group’s protests outside immigration facilities and recently designated it a “domestic terrorist organization.”