Texas – With the increased level of incidents cropping up that involve factions within the Gulf Cartel, Border Patrol agents working in the Rio Grande Valley Sector are starting to get more worried about their overall safety.

Since August of this year, there’s been a substantial increase in cartel-related activity and violence encroaching upon the area, which gives just cause to the concerns expressed by agents.

Agents in the Rio Grande Valley were again alarmed during the final week of November when gunmen from the Gulf Cartel were involved in shootouts with Los Zetas’ Cartel del Noreste branch in Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas.

From the view of Roma, Texas, the city lies right across the border. Consecutive drug seizures had also concluded in a desperate attempt to avoid apprehension.

In a recent incident, the members of the cartel initiated what is generally called a “splashdown,” where drug smugglers drive their vehicles into shallow border river sections to approach U.S. territory.

A confrontation with the Mobile Response Team’s Border Patrol agents took place immediately afterwards. The agents on the ground had to request backup, as the cartel members refused to leave the United States.

The cartel members then began to make threats to harm the agents who were taking possession of the drug load, all the while doing so on U.S. soil. While the stalemate was in effect, cartel members who were on the Mexico portion of the border managed to gather a hefty portion of their drugs back from some of the vehicles in the river.

Local residents within the Roma, Texas area have been taking notice of the increased audacity from traffickers and cartel members.

On December 3 in the early morning, a local had stated they could hear explosions and gunfire coming from Miguel Aleman, Mexico, which directly borders Roma. When speaking to reporters at Breitbart, they specifically noted that the audible firefight that morning was louder than any they’d heard before.

Such creeping sporadic clashes began in early July, as a matter of fact. That was around the time that CDN took over from the Gulf Cartel from Los Guerra, Tamaulipas.

Currently, the pair still are struggling for the ownership of Miguel Aleman. Three events in August continue to help to shed light on the Border Patrol’s new risks and dangers.

On August 9, over 50 shots from several attack locations on the riverbank’s Mexican side were shot toward a Border Patrol marine patrol. Despite the marine unit of the Border Patrol being struck a myriad of time, no agents were injured during the fray.

Only days later, on August 12, agents reported about 20 gunmen landing on a Rio Grande international river island called Fronton Island. The cartel members held their ground for quite a few hours before vanishing, leading to a specialized unit response.

Merely one day after the gunmen were spotted at Fronton Island, in a military-style convoy to Miguel Aleman, dozens of CDN armored and non-armored vehicles traveled openly.

Cartel members used social media apps to declare that they were in town only to target the Gulf Cartel, so local residents could feel inclined to do their normal activities. The ensuing firefight between the two groups culminated with thousands of rounds being exchanged and resulted in multiple deaths.

The rivalry here between the two drug cartels will likely not come to an end soon.

A Roma native who travels to Miguel Aleman on a fairly regular basis clarified when speaking with Breitbart Texas that most of the shootings are currently taking place in the southern area of town.

Attacks usually take place on the back roads heading to Miguel Aleman, which would be relatively consistent with the recent coverage documenting rural dirt roads in the area from various publications.

Agents on the ground detailed that there’s an urgent need to address the general public’s lack of understanding with how dangerous things have gotten for agents working near on the border. While speaking with Breitbart Texas, they also stated that access to more advanced gear to aid in real-time situational awareness and surveillance would be a tremendous help combating the cartel spill-over of violence.

But if all goes according to plan in the United States, CBP officials could soon see some relief.

A few weeks back, Trump announced that he wanted to consider Mexican drug cartels Foreign Terror Organizations.

In a drafted statement issued by Mexico’s Foreign Relations Ministry, officials reached out to their U.S. counterparts to explore the consequences that terrorist designations would entail.

Mexico’s Foreign Relations Ministry recent statement said the following:

“In lieu of the good relations that exist between both countries, the Government of Mexico will seek to have a high-level meeting as soon as possible to present Mexico’s position and to learn the viewpoints of the authorities from the U.S.”

The call for a meeting didn’t take long after an interview that happened between Bill O’Reilly and the President where Trump had dug into how he plans on labeling certain organizations within Mexico that have had a demonstrated history of terror, mentioning that he had been working for the last 90 days on designations.

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Mexico’s Foreign Relations Ministry said they seek to discuss about methods to reduce the southern flow of weapons and money, while cutting the northbound traffic of drugs and chemicals that have been affecting the United States.

The latest statement stands at ends with the recent remarks given by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, where he preempted the matter Monday by saying Mexico would reject terrorist designations given by foreign nations.

“We will never accept that, we are not ‘vendepatrias’ (nation sellers),” Lopez Obrador said.

The question that could be reasonably posed toward President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is why he would feel like someone selling out a nation or his people by acknowledging the truth, that the cartels are in fact terrorists within the country of Mexico.

Believe it or not, it’s more that just certain Mexico political figures that are offended that their worst of the worst are possibly going to be called terrorists: we literally have people here in the United States that are offended by the notion as well.

Take for instance article titles like “A terrible idea”: Experts blast Trump’s plan to label Mexican drug cartels “terrorists”.

People are actually upset about it because that label would make it illegal for anyone in the US to knowingly provide support to the drug cartels. It would also allow the U.S. government to prosecute anyone who funds them, deport their members from America, and not any affiliate from entering the US. Call me crazy, but those all sound like some really good things.

Some others are offended about the idea of the cartels being called terrorists because it could prompt military intervention from the United States. However, Mexico has already shown that they can’t get the problem under control themselves and the cartel violence inevitably spills over into U.S. soil along with their community-wrecking narcotics.

Perhaps military intervention would make for a rather quick resolution and could possibly restore Mexico to a highly sought-after vacation destination throughout the country, rather than one state here and there.

Whatever one may feel about the possible designation of cartels being called terrorists is honestly irrelevant, because they manner in which they operate today is synonymous with most any other terrorist organization.

The cartels display corpses of enemies in public, they’ve made execution videos of police officers and their families, and they seek to gain more power through fear. They are simply terrorists.

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