Cops vs "Cartel Kids" along US Border
Texas' Teen Smugglers
US authorities battling Mexican Cartel smuggling operations along the Texas Border are increasingly arresting "Cartel Kids" - Mexican teens guiding illegal aliens or smuggling drugs across the Rio Grande. The 15 and 16-year-old in the photo above were arrested by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers and US Border Patrol Agents in June 2025, after helping five migrants illegally cross into the state.
All of the illegal aliens they were smuggling were wearing wristbands signifying payment to the Mexican Cartel the teens were working for.
Two days earlier, Border Patrol Agents assigned to the Rio Grande Valley Sector had arrested four more teen cartel smugglers after they caught them carrying five bundles of marijuana weighing in at more than 118 pounds - a drug load worth almost $95,000.
This is, unfortunately, a fairly common occurrence in the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector. In March, RGV Sector agents arrested four more Mexican teens smuggling marijuana for one of the cartels. This smuggling crew crossed the Rio Grande by boat and brought a ladder, likely intended to help them toss the drugs over the "Border Wall." The drug load they were smuggling was worth more than $100,000.
The fifteen-year-old Mexican boy in the photo below was arrested by Texas DPS Officers while he was guiding a group of illegal aliens through Hidalgo County on May 21, 2025. He told officers that he had brought the group across the Rio Grande the night before and was being paid $150 a head to guide them further north for a Mexican Cartel. His meager payment is a small fraction of the many thousands of dollars cartels typically charge each person being smuggled into the U.S.
The teen told officers that the Mexican Cartel he was working for communicated with him through encrypted apps and directed him to the location they wanted him to take the men to via GPS coordinates and maps, which guided each smuggling run. The screenshot below of his phone shows where he and the migrants he was smuggling crossed the border into the U.S. the night before.
The Mexican Cartels also recruit US citizens for these smuggling runs. The screenshot below is from a video posted to TikTok, which is extremely popular among U.S. teens. It seeks drivers to smuggle ten migrants through a Texas Border Patrol checkpoint near Sullivan City, Texas.
The screengrab of another Mexican Cartel TikTok recruiting video seeks drivers to smuggle six illegal aliens through the Border Patrol Checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas.
The lure of that "EZ cash" often ropes in American teens to work for the Mexican Cartels. The drug load pictured below was seized on March 26, 2025, from a car driven from Juarez, Mexico, into El Paso, Texas, by an 18-year-old US citizen.
Fifteen bundles containing 16.2 pounds of methamphetamine and 2.2 pounds of fentanyl were removed from within the door panels of the American teenager's car.
Are you surprised that Mexican cartels are recruiting teens for their smuggling operations?
Share your opinion in the comments on this article!
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
Why would anyone be surprised? Use of legal children for criminal activity is ancient practice. Be surprised that someone like Crockett or AOC isn't already complaining about ICE and Texas law enforcement prosecuting kids -- it will happen soon enough.
I read an article about 1-year ago -- during the Biden Administration (in a mainstream, left of center publication (it could have been Politco)) that went something like this:
The Mexican cartels use under-18-year-old Mexicans as the human and/or drug smugglers... because if they're caught by US Boarder Patrol on US soil,... the US Boarder Patrol releases them back over to the Mexican side -- because they're under 18 -- something about our US laws -- regarding foreign national minors committing crimes...
Whereas an adult (18+) foreign national doing such smuggling would be held and charged.
This was the "policy" (?) during the Biden Administration.
How is the Trump Administration handling this situation? Is what I'm describing "federal statutory law" or "Executive branch policy"?