Donald Trump said Tuesday his administration will seize “the assets of criminal gangs and drug cartels” and give the proceeds to families affected by “migrant crime” if he is elected the 47th president next week.
The funds, the 78-year-old told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, would create a compensation fund for victims of crimes committed by those in the US illegally.
“The government will help in the restoration,” Trump added.
The tactic has long been used by the federal government against drug trafficking organizations and former Drug Enforcement Administration officials called asset seizure an effective tool in the pursuit of justice.
“Expanding its use to compensate victims of violent crime adds a powerful layer of support by redirecting money and assets seized from criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, gang violence, and other harmful activities,” former New York DEA chief Ray Donovan told The Post. “This approach not only disrupts criminal enterprises but also provides direct aid to those impacted by such violence.”
The federal government’s existing asset forfeiture program has been a “huge success” that has helped sustain law enforcement at every level, said Derek Maltz, the former chief of DEA’s Special Operations division.
“It would be a great way to pay back victims that have been hurt by these savages that have come illegally into the country and operate with impunity,” Maltz added. “It would be a great way to unite American citizens.”
Maltz noted that the value of wealth seized from the cartels could be in the millions. In his experience, Maltz said “about $40 million” of the annual funds DEA used for translation services in a year were coming from an “asset forfeiture fund.”
The 45th president spoke for approximately an hour exactly one week before Election Day and focused heavily on combating illegal immigration, one of the pillars of his platform.
“I know we talk about inflation and the economy, but there’s, to me, there’s nothing, nothing more important than the fabric of our country being destroyed by people placed there, violently placed there,” Trump said.
The Republican nominee then aired a video showing Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter Jocelyn was allegedly abused and strangled by of two illegal migrants who had been caught and released back into Texas before the attack.
The grieving mother blamed Vice President Kamala Harris’ border policies for her daughter’s death.
“My daughter is six feet in the ground based off of policies that she allowed to keep,” Alexis Nungaray said. “Kamala Harris did have one job, and she not only failed me, she failed my daughter. She failed Jocelyn. She was only 12.”
“President Trump reached out, gave me his sincerest condolences, as not a former president, but as a father, someone who cares,” the grieving mom went on. “I believe Donald Trump needs to be back in office. I can at least know that my next child will be safe in this country.”
Alexis Nungaray previously said Harris had not reached out to her after her daughter’s death and has not provided a “sincere apology.”
“What Kamala did to Jocelyn and her family is the most heartless and cold-blooded betrayal imaginable,” Trump said. “Thousands of cases just like that, thousands, in throwing open the border.”
Trump has previously said he would go after criminal gangs and would order the largest deportation of illegal migrants in American history through the invocation of The Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
Another mother, Tammy Nobles, also spoke Tuesday about her daughter Kayla Hamilton, who was strangled with a telephone cord by an MS-13 gang member in the US illegally.
“I just wanted to say that Homeland Security did not do their job. Health and Human Services did not do their job. The Biden-Harris administration did not do their job,” Nobles said. “If they would have done their job, made that one phone call to El Salvador, my daughter would still be alive today.”
