U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat and member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has been appointed to serve as the ranking member of the new Cartel Task Force, the committee’s bipartisan leaders announced Wednesday.

Led by Texas Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, the task force was created to identify potential legislation to combat the fentanyl trade, human trafficking and other threats posed by drug cartels, said Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, an Arkansas Republican, and Ranking Member Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat.

“Our national security is not a partisan issue and protecting America’s homeland must be a top priority,” Crow said in a statement. “Cartels make us less safe by smuggling dangerous drugs like fentanyl and opioids into our communities and trafficking vulnerable women and children. I look forward to working as a part of the Cartel Task Force to identify bipartisan solutions that help address threats from criminal organizations.”

Other task force members are Republican U.S. Reps. Darin LaHood of Illinois and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Democratic U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania.

Crow, a decorated Army Ranger veteran serving his fourth term in Congress, was named last year as the lead Democrat on a House task force charged with investigating the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump.

The new Cartel Task Force was formed in response to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, which called cross-border fentanyl smuggling and drug cartels a top threat to national security, Crawford said.

“The United States cannot allow Mexico, our neighbor and largest trading partner, to devolve into a failed narco-state run by violent cartels,” Crenshaw said in a statement reported by USA Today. “The situation in Mexico has escalated from a drug war to a full-scale terrorist insurgency.”

Legislative recommendations produced by the task force will fall within the intelligence committee’s jurisdiction, Crow’s office said, and task force members plan to work on reaching consensus among the panel’s pertinent subcommittees.