Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) renewed his commitment to leave Mexican drug cartels trying to cross into the United States with fentanyl “stone-cold dead at the border.”

“I am going to treat the Mexican cartels as the foreign terrorist groups that they are,” DeSantis said Thursday evening. “They're killing tens of thousands of our fellow citizens by bringing fentanyl into this country.”

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Last week, Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting the Republican presidential candidate, launched an ad in Iowa and New Hampshire titled "Stone Cold Dead," which threatened the authorization of violence against border-crossers.

“The cartels are killing tens of thousands of our fellow citizens," the ad said. “We have to defend our people. We're going to use force, and we're going to leave them stone-cold dead, no excuses. We will get the job done.”

The Florida governor has pledged to declare immigrants crossing the southern border a national emergency on the first day of his possible presidency, promising to build a border wall.

DeSantis blamed the Biden administration for not doing enough to prevent the cartels from smuggling opioids into the country. Federal drug agents said they seized enough fentanyl in 2022 to kill every American.

The presidential candidate commented on President Joe Biden's absence from the 9/11 commemoration in New York City, at which DeSantis and his wife were present. Biden was in Hanoi, Vietnam, over the weekend and then traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, to lead a memorial at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

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DeSantis linked illegal immigration to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the 22nd anniversary of the event.

“9/11 was in part an immigration issue,” DeSantis told the Washington Examiner on Monday. “A lot of these guys should not have been in the country — had overstayed visas and whatnot.”