U.S. Border Security

Border Protection VS Drug Cartels

How are we ever going to be able to win the war on drugs? Drug cartels are an ever growing problem in Mexico and they are now spilling over to the United States. I am going to discuss how the drug cartels are able to break through our first line of defense and how the U.S. Customs and Border Protection make an effort to stop these narcotics from coming over. My information was obtained from the T.V. show Border Wars, and from the Customs and Border Protection website.

Drug Cartels have been transporting narcotics into the United States for a very long time. President Nixon was the first to declare War on Drugs some thirty years ago. In 1973 the D.E.A. (Drug Enforcement Administration) is established to counter attack the drug traffickers coming in the U.S. Cocaine coming in from Columbia was one of the first hazards brought to the U.S. In the Mid 1980’s, the drug routes began to move to Mexico and are now on our frontlines of this country, and made Laredo, TX ground zero for the drug wars. The Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection was founded in the aftermath of the attacks on September 2001. Several departments combined forces to protect the borders of the United States from Terrorists, Narcotics, and Illegal aliens from entering the country.

Overlooking the efforts made by the United States to secure our borders, the Cartels stop at nothing to get these Narcotics across the Southwest region and into the hands of U.S. citizens. There are many different Cartel families that run the border between Mexico and the United States. The Tijuana family is considered to be the most powerful drug cartel along with the Juarez, Gulf Cartel, Knights Templar, and Sinaloa Cartels. The most dangerous and aggressive Cartel would be the Los Zetas. These drug traffickers are exhausting all attempts to move the narcotics north to the U.S. The most common method for the Cartels to move their drugs is by...