US Border: "Terrorist" Cartels vs US Border Patrol & Mexican Cops
Will designating Mexican Cartels as Terrorist Organizations make a difference?
Now that the Trump Administration has designated six Mexican Cartels and two Migrant Gangs as "Foreign Terrorist Organizations" (FTOs), let's look at the current situation with the cartels along the US Southern Border:
Trump's order singles out eight criminal groups, including six cartels:
Cártel de Sinaloa (CDS)
Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG)
Cártel del Noreste (CDN)
La Nueva Familia Michoacana (LNFM)
Cártel de Golfo aka the Gulf Cartel (CDG)
Cárteles Unidos (La Resistencia)
and two migrant gangs:
Tren de Aragua (TdA)
Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)
However, one respected Mexico-based journalist notes that an especially violent cartel was conspicuously left off the list:
"It is curious that they don't name the Juarez Cartel / La Linea. The Juarez Cartel was blamed for the massacre of nine Mormon women and children in 2019 and ... (before that) the murder of U.S. consular officials. I am not sure of the reasoning here." -Ioan Grillo (Feb 19, 20225)
Despite that omission. Mexico has (coincidentally?) ramped up enforcement operations targeting cartels along its Northern Border with the US as well as the interior in recent days.
Some joint US-Mexican operations are resulting in arrests on both sides of the border:
The "Investigation Agency" (AEI) of the Mexican State of Chihuahua worked with the Border Patrol's El Paso Sector to capture three migrant cartel smugglers in Mexico on Tuesday, February 18, 2025.
While three days earlier, Tucson Border Patrol Agents and their Mexican counterparts conducted joint patrols around gaps in the "Border Wall" there. The Border Patrol says these US-Mexican cooperative patrols have resulted in the seizure of cartel weapons as well as the arrests of cartel members in both Mexico and the US.
Ten days before that, Mexican Federal Agents raided a huge lab near Monterrey in the state of Nuevo Leon that was capable of producing large amounts of synthetic drugs such as Fentanyl & Meth.
On February 18, 2025, the Mexican Army seized four cartel "uparmored" trucks along with a large amount of guns and ammo just five miles south of the Texas border in the community of Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas, Mexico.
On the same day - in the same Mexican border state - Mexican authorities seized eight more cartel vehicles (two of them so-called "monstruosos" homemade armored trucks) along with more cartel weapons and ammo further away from the Texas border.
Back on the Texas side of the Rio Grande, Border Patrol Agents are on edge after one of them responding to a smuggling incident near the Space-X complex in Boca Chica found it necessary to shoot a cartel suspect on February 12, 2025:
This officer-involved shooting followed another incident late last month in which cartel gunmen fired across the Rio Grande on agents from the same South Texas Border Patrol Sector who interrupted cartel smugglers moving migrants across the river into the US:
Despite these recent shooting incidents, Border Patrol Agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector of South Texas are continuing to target the Mexican Cartels and Migrant Gangs the Trump Administration has designated as terrorist organizations:
Will the designation of cartels & migrant gangs as terrorist organizations impact Border Security between the US & Mexico?
Share your opinion in the comments on this article!
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
It appears to me that the role of media is huge in affecting the perceptions of people as to whether they think chancing a southern border crossing into the US is a good bet or not. Democrats like Obama and Biden never got that, but it's one thing that the Trump administration appears to realize.