Experts in the News

"Criminal organizations control the border,” so they control who and what crosses it, said fellow Gary Hale of the cartels' role in the surge of migrants heading to the U.S. "That becomes a lucrative moneymaker, a revenue generator for these cartels.”

Though Gov. Greg Abbott urged the Biden administration to classify Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a better approach is for the U.S. to help root out corruption in Mexico, said nonresident fellow Gary Hale. Greater cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico's law enforcement — not military force against drug traffickers — is the best long-term solution for weakening cartels, he said. 

Presumed cartel gunmen kidnapped 15 people from a bus near the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

Gary Hale, nonresident fellow in drug policy and Mexico studies, said the region has seen an uptick in violence as cartels ward off infiltration from rival organizations into their territory.

“Anybody who’s transiting, if they don’t look like normal passengers on the bus … they take them off, they interrogate them and they kill them, and you never see them again,” Hale said.

Read the full story (subscription): http://bit.ly/2cCh8K0.