Executive Order 14157: Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists

What does Executive Order 14157 do?

Created an interagency process to recommend certain cartels and transnational organizations for terrorism designations and declared an IEEPA national emergency concerning their activities.

Later primary evidence reviewed September 24, 2026: A Homeland Security notice recorded the State Department's later designation of eight cartels and transnational groups under this order. Official source. The cited steps do not establish every downstream effect.

Reading the operative provisions of Executive Order 14157

The order sets a short recommendation timetable, but the recommendations and the legal designations are not the same step. The Secretary of State consults with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury and recommends designations under two different authorities: foreign-terrorist-organization status under the Immigration and Nationality Act, and specially designated global terrorist status under the sanctions framework. A later designation must identify the organization and follow the applicable statutory process. Treasury’s blocking measures follow a qualifying SDGT designation; they do not attach automatically to every cartel or transnational group mentioned in the order.

The emergency declaration under IEEPA is also distinct from the designation process. It supplies a separate asserted basis for responding to the described threat, while the order directs agencies to prepare for consequences involving immigration and border operations. Subsequent State Department designation notices and continuation notices therefore matter to current status. The administration’s threat findings are policy statements; criminal liability and immigration consequences still depend on the governing statutes and individual proceedings. Read Executive Order 14157 in the Federal Register.

The order’s recommendation stage is meant to precede the formal consequences. Under INA section 219, the Secretary of State makes an FTO designation after the statutory consultation and notification steps; those consequences include immigration-related restrictions and material-support prohibitions. A Treasury SDGT designation follows a different sanctions authority and can block property subject to U.S. jurisdiction. The order asks officials to consider specified groups and prepare agencies, but a reader should use each signed designation and its publication date to determine which group was actually listed, which authority was used, and what exceptions or licensing rules apply.

The distinction between the two designation systems affects who administers a measure and what legal consequences follow. State makes FTO decisions under the INA; Treasury administers sanctions designations under its authorities. A single group may appear in one or both lists, but the legal basis should be confirmed in the designation notice. The order’s 14-day deadline concerned recommendations, while later publication notices identify the groups actually designated. Those notices—not the order’s broad description of cartels—supply the operative list.