HIDALGO, Texas – A Mexican border state governor is fighting back against several federal officials who he claims are using the fight against cartels for political gain.

“The country is in flames and instead of addressing that, they are launching political attacks, this is not good,” Tamaulipas Governor Francisco Cabeza de Vaca said during an exclusive interview with Breitbart Texas. Recently, members of Mexico’s Senate aligned with the ruling party MORENA called for an impeachment inquiry against Cabeza De Vaca, claiming cartel violence in his region is out of control.

According to Cabeza de Vaca, federal agencies like the National Executive Secretariat for Public Safety are recording a dramatic drop in crime in Tamaulipas– violence in particular–placing the state as the twentieth-most dangerous out of 32.

“We are not talking about the first, second, or third most dangerous–we are talking about the twentieth,” he said. “If they wanted to look at the more dangerous ones, they would need to look at other states first.”

The decrease in crime comes at a time when Mexico City is moving away from fighting head-on with cartels. Federal Police and military forces were missing from many of the recent shootouts as a result. The lack of effort led Gov. Cabeza de Vaca to publicly claim that state cops were the only ones fighting.

One of the allegations made by the MORENA senators is that a group of Tamaulipas State Police kidnapped and murdered innocent men before staging a shootout with fake cartel gunmen in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. A local cartel-connected “human rights” group first leveled that accusation in favor of the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas.

“That is fake news … legitimate human rights organizations should be denouncing this because these types of cases will affect the credibility of real organizations,” said Nelson Balido, the Chairman of the Border and Security Council (BSC), a non-profit that focuses on international commerce during an interview with Breitbart Texas. In his role with the BSC, Balido works with Tamaulipas and U.S. officials to improve international cooperation.

“What they are doing is called a ‘psyop.’ They are manipulating information to influence emotions and change opinions,” Balido argued.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.