A young man lies dead in a public park after being shot to death by unidentified assailants in the municipality of Apodaca on the outskirts of Monterrey, Mexico, Wednesday Dec. 1, 2010. The numbered tags mark bullets casings. (AP Photo/Carlos Jasso)

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Steven McGraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told a House panel Wednesday that "the barbarism of al Qaeda has nothing on these Mexican cartels."

“International terrorists engage in organized crime to support their terrorist activities,” said McGraw, “whereas the Mexican cartels are now engaging in terrorist activities to support their criminal enterprises and organized crime activities--and the barbarism of al Qaeda has nothing on these Mexican cartels.”

"They're involved in kidnappings, extortions, murders," he said. "They've butchered 36,000 Mexican nationals and some American citizens."

McGraw testified at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Oversight, Investigation, and Management Subcommittee.

As CNSNews.com previously reported, the 36,000-plus drug-cartel related killings in Mexico since 2006 include 1,200 children and teenagers. Also, more civilians were killed in the border town of Juarez (near El Paso, Texas) than in all of Afghanistan in 2010.

“We see four of our gangs that are operating directly with the cartels in supporting their hit squads and, by the way, there are hit squad members of the cartels living in Texas," said McGraw. "When we see that, we’re obviously concerned."

Since January of last year, McGraw’s department has identified 22 murders, 24 assaults, 15 shootings, and five kidnappings directly related to the cartels.

McGraw further testified, "The cartels are throwing up spikes, using chase vehicles and blocking vehicles to thwart law enforcement operations. ... We got retrieval teams of cartels on our side of the river to take the dope and the subject back over and confront us. That's unacceptable in Texas standards and I think that's unacceptable by American standards as well."

McGraw mentioned that two Border Patrol agents were fired upon on Tuesday, May 10, although it is unclear whether drug traffickers were involved.

“People living along the southwest border, as well as other areas of our nation, have experienced and/or are presently experiencing some form of ‘domestic terrorism,’” because of cartel violence,” said Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr., the sheriff of Zapata County in Texas, who testified along with McGraw.

In his prepared remarks, McGraw mentioned that “over the last 18 months, six of the seven Mexican cartels have established command and control networks in Texas cities,” marking a “three-fold increase.”

Furthermore, McGraw’s testimony said that “Mexican cartels are recruiting Texas school-age children to support cartel operations. The border region constitutes 9.4 percent of the state’s population and now has over 18.9 percent of the juvenile felony drug and gang referrals.”

According to McGraw, spillover violence into the United States from the drug war in Mexico is underreported.  He told the House subcommittee that federal spillover violence statistics fail to show "what's going on to the ground."

McGraw and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who chairs the subcommittee, pointed out that federal spillover violence data do not take into consideration crimes such as extortion and kidnappings.

Amy Pope, a U.S. Department of Justice official who testified during the hearing, admitted that there is no executive branch definition of spillover violence and that their most commonly used crime statistics do not take into account extortion and kidnappings.

Yet Grayling Williams, an official with the Department of Homeland Security who also testified, said that the United States has not seen the same level of drug cartel-related violence that Mexico is currently experiencing.