WASHINGTON—Representative Mike Haridopolos (R-FL) said he is "absolutely okay" with President Trump's designation of the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and discussed other border policies in a recent interview with The Floridian, saying "that we need to send a clear message that we respect our own sovereignty."
President Trump has expressed support for the use of military force to combat the cartels since April 2023, telling Breitbart News, "This is an invasion of our country - this isn't just people walking over."
Rep. Haridopolos shared the same sentiment in his comments to us, saying the cartels "have declared war on the United States in so many ways," referencing their trafficking of the notoriously deadly fentanyl into the country along with their human trafficking atrocities and facilitating the entry of other violent criminals such as MS-13 from El Salvador and Tren de Aragua from Venezuela.
"It is a de facto invasion, and clearly, the Biden Administration just turned a blind eye to it," Rep. Haridopolos continued.
As a result, the Florida Congressman said that military force to fight the cartels is a demonstration of how "we need to send a clear message that we respect our own sovereignty [and] we have a border. Without a border, we have no sovereignty. And clearly, these folks have taken advantage of the system."
Even outside of the criminal element taking advantage of lax border policies, Haridopolos also pointed to the economic strain of supporting mass illegal immigration, referencing how uncompensated healthcare for illegal aliens has cost the state of Florida over $500 million, according to the Foreign Desk and Daily Signal.
"That is one of the reasons why we are seeing so much, not only inflation in general, but at medical facilities, because eventually someone has to pay for that, and that means if you have private insurance, you are going to be paying more and more because you have to cover what the government has failed," Haridopolos concluded.