Executive Order 13773: International Organizations

What the Executive Order Says

Executive Order 13773 is entitled "Enforcing Federal Law with respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking" and was issued on February 9th, 2017.
It has 4 sections.

Section 1

This section defines the purpose of the EO which is to restore the safety of the American people from the threat of transnational criminal organizations.

Section 2

This section defines the policy.  This calls for strengthening enforcement, giving a high priority and resources to enforcement, share information to effect enforcement, cooperate with foreign counterparts to achieve enforcement, develop strategies for enforcement and use ancillary criminal offenses such as immigration fraud and visa fraud in pursuit of additional enforcement.

Section 3

This section directs that the existing Threat Mitigation Working Group work at improving enforcement through coordination, information collection and sharing, assessment of resources and present a report within 120 days and annually thereafter.

Section 4

This section includes the legal fine print to ensure the constitutionality of the EO.

My commentary

This EO has a strong emphasis on drug cartels drawing a connection between the current opioid epidemic and Mexican drug cartels (note the reference to immigration and visa fraud).  But this is a false argument.  Part of what drove many to drug addiction was overprescription of legal narcotics.  This EO reads much more like a campaign promise than an implementation of a policy.
The report by section 3(g) is available here.