illegal immigration
Will Mexico Face A Hot Shooting War With The Cartels?
From Todd Bensman for the Daily Wire
As Mexico prepares to position 10,000 troops between cartels and their drug money, odds are the lead will fly
The chosen political slogan of Mexico’s last and current president, “Abrazos, no balazos” (“Hugs, not Bullets”), is often embraced to describe official government policy toward the country’s ultra-violent drug-trafficking cartels. The beauty of this slogan is that it requires no explanation.
The reverse, however, “Bullets, not Hugs,” is probably up next whether Mexico likes it or not. President Donald Trump has just forced Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to capitulate to a threat of ruinous 25% trade tariffs on Mexican exports unless she uses military force to suppress the flow of fentanyl (and illegal immigrant smuggling) over the U.S. southern border. She’s deploying 10,000 troops to cartel country, right smack in the drug-trafficking lanes of Mexico’s far northern precincts along the U.S. border.
This deployment of Mexican troops, however, is quite different from previous ones, in which the main mission was to slow illegal immigration only, including during Trump’s first term and throughout the Biden term. For this one, the Trump mission demand is, as State Department Spokeswoman Tammy Bruce put it recently, that Mexico needs to “…dismantle transnational criminal organizations, halt illegal migration, and stem the flow of fentanyl and precursor chemicals from China.”
That American priority has just put Mexican forces in the crosshairs of the most sensitive cartel hotspot: the blood-soaked zone between heavily armed cartel forces and their money just across the U.S. border.
John Moore/Getty Images
As if this was not provocative enough on its own, a senior Trump official with direct knowledge told me bilateral plans call for at least some of the more trusted of Mexico’s forces to physically attack cartel-run narcotics depots that would include pre-smuggling fentanyl hubs inside Mexico.
Certain U.S. intelligence groups are working with the Mexican government “to give them an exact laydown. They say they’re going to target the narcotics. We’re literally still at the table.”
All of this should prove triggering, literally, to any of Mexico’s nine main cartels once the whole enterprise ramps up in earnest.
I have a good feel for what this set of circumstances portends. As a reporter for Hearst News in San Antonio, Texas, from 2006-2009, I regularly covered the exceptionally bloody civil drug war against the cartels that Felipe de Jesus Calderón Hinojosa (2006-2012) declared and which, after hundreds of thousands of Mexican casualties, spawned the popularly preferred “Hugs, not Bullets” policies of his successors. The U.S. partnered with Mexico throughout the war, providing targeting intelligence and billions of dollars to modernize its security forces. All of that was for a quest to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.
But after six years of ferocious combat and widespread torture and assassination, Mexico retreated in almost total defeat. The drug flow may have dipped from time to time but it never stopped.
In the years since, I’ve often pondered whether Calderón and his successors should have trebled down when defeat seemed inevitable, as did former President George W. Bush during the Iraq war. When the chips were down amid calls for a humiliating U.S. withdrawal during the Iraq war, Bush famously turned the tables by deploying 30,000 more troops. With Mexico, however, disrupting fentanyl production and trafficking with the military will not be easy, and may very well spark another government-cartel war similar to 2006-2012.
John Moore/Getty Images
The stars and planets all seem to be aligning for more violence, including from an unexpected quarter: President Sheinbaum herself may be aching for this fight.
Rodrigo Nieto-Gomez, a Mexico-born and educated national security research professor for the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California said Sheinbaum has installed anti-cartel Morena Party hardliners over much of Mexico’s state security apparatuses. This wing of her party, Nieto-Gomez explained, has been spoiling to shed the “Hugs, not bullets” policy for a good hard fight with the cartels.
Trump is now providing a “top-cover” excuse for them to finally exert the military pressure they’ve been wanting.
“Trump’s actions have temporarily tilted the playing field in favor of Morena,” Nieto-Gomez said. “With the right philosophy and the right level of American support, we may see a different type of violence in Mexico.”
Perhaps a worthy achievable goal for Mexican military fireworks is that it forces a sort of devil’s truce where the cartels, whose leaders are the most consummate and pragmatic of capitalists, ultimately agree to voluntarily quit fentanyl altogether as a good business decision — if the other drugs are allowed to roll in as usual. After all, when the operatives are shooting and dying, they’re spending rather than earning.
What seems certain, however, is that Trump’s inevitable following through on his campaign promises to suppress fentanyl ups the chances of a conflict between the Mexican military and the cartels. No doubt the cartels are now feeling uncharacteristically pinched these days on many other fronts thanks to Trump’s return.
John Moore/Getty Images
Trump has asked his Secretary of State to designate them as foreign terrorist organizations, which would open authorities for America and its allies to seize assets and prosecute banks and people who work with the cartels on serious “material support” crimes. To isolate and weaken them where it counts, in the pocketbook, and disrupt their global operations.
And, of course, Trump has all but killed the biggest cash cow those cartels have seen in years by shuttering the southern border almost hermetically in a matter of days. Their smugglers are moving probably fewer than 500 illegal immigrants a day now, most of them caught and deported right away, compared to 14,000 a day last December. Those numbers are a catastrophe and should drive the cartels to invest everything they have in drug trafficking again.
Because they are now free from babysitting and processing illegal migrants all day long, Border Patrol is back on the drug traffickers full force and they have help, the U.S. military is down there glassing the landscape and using surveillance assets to spot the traffickers.
Some of the cartels were already so frustrated their leaders approved the use of drones to attack U.S. agents standing in the way of drug loads. Cases of firearms attacks on Border Patrol are rising.
Now Mexico’s going to put 10,000 troops in between them and their money?
If she is not already, Sheinbaum should be preparing for the worst right about now. President Trump absolutely expects some kind of real action — with demonstrable results — or else he’ll push that tariff button. She’s under pressure right now to produce something, anything, whether for show or not. And the cartels are ever ready to go to war.
Thanks to former President Joe Biden’s mass migration program, it could very well happen, because now the impulsive, brazen, money-hungry cartels are are extremely well-armed from the billions they all earned over the past four years.
John Moore/Getty Images
Sheinbaum undoubtedly discerns the dangers here and will have to tread carefully between appeasing Trump and sparking another all-out civil war, which many in the United States believe is long overdue. And maybe it is. She and all the cartel leaders would probably feel lucky to cap things down to merely a “splendid little war” like the 1898 Spanish-American war.
But President Trump knows the art of the deal often pivots on what’s good business for everyone involved.
Mexico’s 2006-2012 war shows the cartels will more than likely survive whatever fireworks are coming, if any. Trump may make them realize sooner rather than later that they just have to give up the fentanyl.
* * *
Todd Bensman is a Senior National Security Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a two-time National Press Club award winner. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and a 23-year veteran newspaper reporter. He is the author of “America’s Covert Border War,” and “Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.”
Quick Hit:
American truckers say they’re finally earning more per mile as President Donald Trump’s enforcement push clears illegal drivers off U.S. highways. Truckers have reported 50% pay increases on some routes following a surge of ICE activity and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s crackdown on safety and work permit violations.
Key Details:
- A trucker on X said his usual Chicago-to-Fargo run jumped from $1,200 to $1,800, crediting the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement for thinning out illegal competitors.
- ICE and federal transportation officials have detained or removed illegal drivers in multiple states, with reports of Serbian and Indian drivers losing their commercial licenses after failing to prove legal entry into the U.S.
- FreightWaves founder Craig Fuller noted spot rates have risen about 2% despite weak demand, as “bottom feeders” who undercut prices are being “squeezed out of the market.”
Diving Deeper:
As President Trump’s immigration enforcement intensifies, American truckers are seeing something rare in a sluggish cargo economy: rising wages. Across online freight boards and social media, truckers are crediting the administration’s “Compliance Crunch” — a combination of ICE raids and new safety regulations — for clearing out illegal drivers who had been depressing pay rates for years.
One trucker wrote on X that his typical Chicago-to-Fargo route, which paid $1,200 before the election, now brings in $1,800. “Needless to say, I took him up on the offer,” he posted. “Lord do I hope this hangs around a little bit.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been enforcing long-ignored safety and documentation rules, targeting companies that hired drivers without valid immigration status or complete customs paperwork. “We have Americans who’ve been in trucking for 50 years through family businesses,” Duffy told Fox News on October 8. “They can’t do business anymore because you have these illegals coming in, living out of their trucks… they can’t speak the language, and they come in under price — way under price.”
According to reports from The Serbian Times, at least fifteen Serbian drivers have been detained in recent days, and agents have begun seizing commercial driver’s licenses from migrants lacking proof of legal entry. Many of these drivers, primarily from Eastern Europe and South Asia, were able to operate under the Biden administration with minimal oversight — often undercutting legitimate American drivers by accepting lower pay.
Craig Fuller of FreightWaves observed that even though freight volumes remain “anemic,” per-mile spot rates rose roughly 2% as noncompliant firms exit the market. “We are seeing the bottom feeders get squeezed out,” he wrote, adding that most contract carriers haven’t yet felt the wage impact but likely will as enforcement spreads.
Industry experts say nearly one-third of the nation’s freight has been hauled by non-citizen drivers, which trucking analyst Bill Skinner called “not just a safety issue — it’s a national security risk.”
While some corporate logistics networks such as Amazon and Walmart may eventually argue that higher trucking wages could drive up costs, analysts note that the increases are modest and likely offset by fewer accidents, delays, and fraud cases tied to unlicensed or illegal operators.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rides an ATV along the U.S.-Mexico border wall in El Paso, Texas, on April 28, 2025. Photo: Tia Dufour / U.S. Department of Homeland Security
From The Center Square
By
New contracts to add 230 miles of barriers, nearly 400 miles of technology
Roughly $4.5 billion in contracts have been awarded to expand border wall construction, including adding advanced technological surveillance along the southwest border.
Ten new construction contracts have been awarded through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to add hundreds of miles of Smart Wall in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
“For years, Washington talked about border security but failed to deliver. This President changed that,” CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said. “The Smart Wall means more miles of barriers, more technology, and more capability for our agents on the ground. This is how you take control of the border.”
Scott has championed advancing a Smart Wall border security system for years. A border security system is far more than a wall, he has told The Center Square, it’s an ecosystem.
The system encompasses steel and waterborne barriers, patrol roads, lights, cameras, advanced detection technology, including towers and aerostats, to provide Border Patrol agents with a range of tools to detect and interdict illegal activity.
CBP has published an interactive map to educate the public about the Smart Wall system. The map highlights areas of the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico border where wall construction has been completed, where border wall panels or waterborne barriers are under construction, where contracts have been awarded for proposed projects in the design phase or early construction, and planned construction areas that haven’t yet been awarded contracts.
Prior to Jan. 20, 2025, 702 miles of existing barriers had been constructed of primary wall and 76 miles of secondary wall, according to CBP data.
The new plan includes implementing barrier technology along 532 miles of the border where no barrier exists because of unfavorable terrain or remote location. It also includes deploying 550 miles of technology throughout previously constructed barriers, CBP says. Specific areas are also being built out in regions where contracts were previously canceled by the Biden administration.
In California, $483.5 million in taxpayer funding was awarded to BCCG Joint Venture for the Diego 1 Project to construct nine miles of new Smart Wall and 52 miles of system attributes in the San Diego Sector.
An additional $574 million was awarded to Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. for the El Centro 1 Project to construct eight miles of Smart Wall and install 63 miles of system attributes in the San Diego and El Centro sectors.
In California and Arizona, $199.5 million was awarded to Barnard Spencer Joint Venture for the Yuma 1 Project to construct 60 miles of system attributes in the Yuma Sector.
In Arizona, nearly $607 million was awarded to BCCG for the Tucson 1 Project to construct 23 miles of new secondary border wall and 66 miles of system attributes in the Tucson and Yuma sectors.
In New Mexico, $155.1 million was awarded to BCCG for the El Paso 1 Project to replace seven miles of old dilapidated barrier fencing in the Santa Teresa Area of Responsibility with a new Smart Wall. BCCG will also complete 22 miles of system attributes in the El Paso Sector in New Mexico.
Also in the El Paso Sector in New Mexico, Barnard Spencer Joint Venture was awarded nearly $579 million for the El Paso 2 Project to construct 23 miles of new Smart Wall and 81 miles of system attributes.
In the El Paso Sector in far west Texas, BCCG Joint Venture was awarded $850.4 million for the El Paso 3 Project to construct 42 miles of new primary Smart Wall, six miles of new secondary border wall and 46 miles of system attributes.
In Texas, BCCG Joint Venture was awarded $565 million for the Del Rio 1 Project to construct 22 miles of new primary Smart Wall, replace two miles of old barrier wall, and deploy 40 miles of waterborne barrier system in the Eagle Pass Area of Responsibility in the Del Rio Sector.
BCCG was also awarded $364.3 million for the Del Rio 2 Project to construct 10 miles of new primary Smart Wall, 23 miles of waterborne barrier system, and install 10 miles of system attributes in Eagle Pass.
BCCG was also awarded $96.1 million for the Rio Grande Valley Waterborne Barrier Project to deploy 17 miles of waterborne barrier in the Rio Grande River, south of Brownsville in Cameron County in the Rio Grande Valley Sector.
Another $550 million worth of contracts was also awarded to support Smart Wall construction. Additional construction and contracts are expected.
Funding for the projects comes from the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which President Donald Trump signed into law. It also includes some fiscal year 2021 border wall appropriations that were frozen during the Biden administration.
Waivers were also issued by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to expedite construction of nine miles in the San Diego Sector and 30 miles in the El Paso Sector in New Mexico. Both sectors were inundated with record high illegal traffic during the Biden administration.
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