On March 15, 2019, President Trump signed Executive Order 13863 declaring a national emergency with respect to significant transnational criminal organizations and establishing expansive executive authority to combat them. The order invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, granting the Treasury Department sweeping power to designate criminal organizations and their members, freeze their assets, block financial transactions, and coordinate federal law enforcement across agencies. Unlike typical criminal prosecution which requires evidence presented in court, this mechanism allowed the executive branch to unilaterally identify targets and impose severe financial penalties through administrative action alone.

The order's reach extends to any individual or entity determined to be associated with designated transnational criminal organizations. Once designated, their bank accounts face immediate freezing, international wire transfers are blocked, and they become subject to sanctions that effectively exclude them from the U.S. financial system. Family members and business associates of cartel members—not necessarily criminals themselves—face collateral consequences through the financial restrictions, creating broad secondary impacts on individuals only tangentially connected to criminal activity.

This action represents an acceleration of the administration's parallel tracks on transnational crime and emergency executive power. It foreshadowed subsequent visa restrictions on cartel members implemented in 2026 and sits alongside the administration's repeated invocation of national emergency authorities regarding Iran, which similarly rely on unilateral executive designation to freeze assets and restrict transactions. The emergency framework bypasses the traditional congressional appropriations and review processes that normally govern such consequential federal actions.

To date, no major court has blocked the order's implementation, though civil liberties groups have questioned whether the designation procedures provide adequate due process protections to those affected. Reversing the order would require either presidential action or legislation requiring the president to establish more rigorous procedural safeguards before freezing assets and blocking financial access for designated individuals and entities.