The Cartels Already Control The Border - Now Comes The Battle For The United States

In 1916 the Mexican rebel leader, Pancho Villa, kidnapped 18 Americans from a Mexican train and slaughtered them. A few weeks later, Villa led an army of about 1,500 guerillas across the Mexican border and attacked Columbus, New Mexico. Villa and his men killed 19 people and left the town in flames. Woodrow Wilson had to dispatch the U.S. Army into Mexico and deploy the National Guard along the border in order to regain control of the situation.

We are fast approaching the day that we will have to take similar action against armed invasion from the south.

Biden is not just failing to enforce immigration laws or control the border. He has made it the formal policy of the United States to facilitate the movement of millions of illegal immigrants into this country. In the process, he has made common cause with the ultra-violent Mexican drug cartels, which now make more money from human trafficking than they do from drug smuggling.

Every day the cartels seize greater levels of control in Mexico. Every day they operate more openly on U.S. soil. The Mexican drug cartels are now in full control of our southern border.

Discussing the issue and the flood of illegals entering the United States from Mexico, Art Del Cueto of the National Border Patrol Council, had this to say recently, “A lot of these issues happen because the cartels, they’re the ones who control the border. They’re the ones who determine where people cross, who can cross, everything.”

The drug cartels are massive. A recent study published in Science magazine found that as of 2022 the cartels employed somewhere between 160,000 and 185,000 people. They recruit close to 400 people a week as new members.

That’s the equivalent of nine to ten Army divisions under the command of individuals who engage in mass murder as a business practice.

The cartels acquire weapons via huge arms smuggling networks. As a result, they have a vast array of highly sophisticated weapons, including sniper rifles and machine guns.  The U.S. Government used to have an operation called Project Thor focused on interdicting the flow of weapons to Mexican drug cartels. The Biden administration shut down Project Thor.

The information acquired before Project Thor was shut down suggested the cartels were moving a million weapons a year out of the United States into Mexico. The Biden administration recently announced that it successfully prevents the shipment of roughly 2000 weapons a year now. The United States is only one location from which cartels acquire weapons. They also buy arms in large quantities in Central America.

The cartels have also moved heavily into the use of drones. In some cases, they use them to move drugs across the border. In others, they use drones to surveil American law enforcement personnel along the border. They have also weaponized drones and routinely use them inside Mexico to attack law enforcement personnel, village defense forces, and opposing cartel members.

The cartels have demonstrated the ability to hack into the controls of U.S. drones operated by the Department of Homeland Security. The scope of cartel drone operations dwarfs those of the U.S. government along our southern border. In February 2023,  Congressional testimony by Border Patrol Chief Agent Gloria Chavez confirmed that the cartels have “17 times the number of drones, twice the amount of flight hours, and unlimited funding to grow their operations.” In the Rio Grande Valley sector of Texas, Chief Chavez testified, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) faced more than 10,000 drone incursions and 25,000 drone sightings in one year.

President of the National Border Patrol Council Brandon Judd stated that the cartels “use drones to scout our positions, where our border patrol agents are, [and] how can they facilitate the drug trade.” The Texas Department of Public Safety has repeatedly reported on their encounters with cartel “dark ship drones,” which are flown clandestinely amidst their own airmen.

The reach of these incredibly powerful criminal organizations extends deep into the United States. In Operation Last Mile the DEA mapped cartel distribution networks that extended throughout the United States. The DEA showed that the cartels are connected to violent local street gangs, criminal groups, and individuals across the United States. It also showed a sophisticated use of media applications—like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat—and encrypted platforms—like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Wire, and Wickr—to coordinate logistics and reach out to victims.

The DEA reports that the Mexican drug cartels have a presence in almost every major American city. Their reach extends everywhere. Estimates are that as of 2021 the cartels were making $14 million per day from fees collected from human trafficking and smuggling alone. Estimates from 2022 indicate the cartels netted a total of $13 billion that year. That is a dramatic increase from the estimated $500 million they made in 2018.

Increasingly, Mexico is a fiction. We border a narco-terrorist state now, run by men whose brutality knows no limits. The power of these monsters is increased dramatically every day by the policies of a government that seems determined to make them ever richer and more emboldened. These are not gangs. They are enemies every bit as dangerous to us as ISIS or Al Qaida.

Over a hundred years ago we faced a situation in Mexico that threatened the national security of the United States directly. We are fast approaching the day when we will be forced to face such a threat again. The cartels already control the border.  Now comes the battle for the United States.