President Donald Trump hailed new actions to target cartels, foreign gangs and transnational crime during a roundtable on Thursday.
An executive order signed the day President Trump took office directed the creation of Homeland Security task forces to counter drug cartel and gang activity. The task force entered operation in all 50 U.S. states in September.
On Thursday President Trump announced the effort has now seen "the largest number of arrests of cartel leaders, operatives and gang members in American history, more than 3,000 and counting."
Scripps News spoke with U.S. Marshals Service Director Gadyaces Serralta Thursday about the anti-crime effort.
Serralta says the new task forces plan to work closely with state law enforcement and share information across all of their branches.
"Each task force is going to spend up their own investigations. However, there is a very thorough sharing of information. So there won't be any silos between the agencies. And that's important, because in the end, when we share information, we attack the problem together, we do it quicker, more efficient, and it's better results."
The crimefighting push comes as federal law enforcement in Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee, focus on arrests for violent crime and seizures of weapons. Serralta expects the law enforcement presence will remain in D.C. through the end of the year, and perhaps longer in Memphis.
"Memphis is going great," Serralta said. "I think Memphis is on day 14, maybe something like that. And we have almost 1,900 arrests. We have about 270 firearms seized. It's actually going to, in my opinion, I think it'll overtake the stats that we have in in D.C."
But "Memphis is going to take a bit longer," he said. "I'll probably be assessing it at the 90-day mark. But … depending on what we find when we're there, the crime rate needs to be driven down substantially."
Watch the full interview with Serralta in the embedded video.
