Mexico’s drug cartels have been battling each other in a furious, violent, and bloody war that has been going on for the past decade. After a lull in the fighting during the late 1990s, the violence has steadily worsened since 2000.
The violence is at its worst right along Mexico’s northern border with the United States where drug cartels are at war in efforts to try to secure control to safe routes to the U.S. The increased level of violence and lawlessness even pressed our own State Department in recently declaring that parts of Mexico are not a safe travel destination for Americans.
While the many news stories of increased violence have been main topics of discussions among the media, the one story that came out of Mexico over the weekend should be most unsettling and disturbing to anyone valuing security of our nation. Forty-nine decapitated and mutilated bodies were found Sunday dumped on a highway connecting the northern Mexican metropolis of Monterrey (Mexico’s ninth largest city with over 1.1 million inhabitants) to the U.S. border in what appeared to be the latest blow in an escalating war of intimidation among drug gangs. (see AP story)
The Mexican government’s instability in its war against the drug cartels, especially so close to our southern border, is nothing short of a clear and present danger to the security of our nation.
President Obama and open borders advocates can poke fun at legislators and citizens’ groups who demand border security and enforcement of immigration laws, and DHS secretary Janet Napolitano can go on TV and claim that the border has never been so secure, but we know otherwise. The fact is that according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) less than half of the 2,000 miles separating the U.S. and Mexico is “operationally controlled” by the Border Patrol, and only 129 miles are under “full control.”
It’s time to get serious about securing our borders before it’s too late.