CIUDAD JUAREZ – Mexican drug cartels are making millions of dollars in profits from the hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border and are now turning entire border towns into war zones.
Migrants trying to cross the border wall from Mexico into the U.S. are leaving millions of dollars in illegal funds with criminal organizations that lure them across the border, extort them, and kidnap them. is creating business. Today, various criminal organizations operating across borders are in a desperate struggle for a piece of the pie.
From small towns like Sonoita, across the border from Lukeville, Arizona, to entire cities like Ciudad Juárez, across the river from El Paso, Texas, cartels kill each other to gain control of smuggling routes. is challenging the Mexican authorities.
A Dec. 29 video shared online from Sonoita, in northern Mexico's Sonora state, shows a violent gunfight between alleged members of the Sinaloa Cartel and a local criminal organization with ties to Mexican cartels. , an SUV carrying several armed men is set on fire. According to local news outlets, the military.
Mexican cartel base used to dispatch enemy spies and hitmen
A group of migrants walk toward a van as hundreds of migrants gather along the border in Lukeville, Arizona, Dec. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
The gunfight lasted several hours, according to Sonora state authorities. The armed groups used AK-47s and AR-15s to fight authorities. After the gunfight, only five of the dozen or so henchmen were captured, authorities said.
A video of the same shootout was shared online by local residents, showing the sicarios barely holding their ground and firing at authorities. The main international bridge connecting Sonoita and Lukeville remained closed for several days after the incident, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials.
“This last incident (shooting) probably received the most publicity because the video made it into mainstream news, but it's not the first. This is all due to the high number of immigrants arriving in this town. ” said local Sonoita resident Joel Perez. residents told Fox News Digital.
Deadly cartel drone attack hits remote Mexican village
Mexican federal troops engage in a gunfight with a cartel in Sonoita, Sonora. Lukeville, Arizona is just across the border. (Screenshot: @Michelle Rivera from X)
A few weeks ago, on Dec. 4, the same bridge was closed for an entire day by U.S. authorities as large numbers of migrants arrived at the border and overwhelmed U.S. border officials' capacity to respond.
The Tucson area, where Lukeville is located, is one of the busiest areas on the southern border, with more than 300,000 migrants crossing in 2023 alone.
On January 2, 31 migrants were abducted by a convoy of cartel members in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas as they were riding a bus from Brownsville to Matamoros, across the border.
The group was stopped by armed men on the highway late at night and ordered to get off the bus and into several pickup trucks. The migrants had to pay more than $2,000 each to be released, according to Mexican media outlets that obtained evidence of the ransoms. The group was released after 24 hours.
Mexican cartels force locals to pay for bootleg Wi-Fi after receiving death threats
Migrants wait to be processed by the U.S. Border Patrol in Yuma, Arizona, on August 6, 2022. (Qian Weizhong/VCG, via Getty Images)
In Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas, a cartel member who oversees the local gang's human smuggling operations says that in the past two years, illegal immigration business has become “more lucrative than ever.” .
“No one wants to work on anything else right now. Everyone wants to work with immigrants because these days you can make a lot of money doing it and it's easy work,” the cartel member told Fox News Digital. told. Remain anonymous.
“Right now, it's more profitable to smuggle immigrants than it is to smuggle blocks of cocaine, and it's less risky if you get caught,” he said.
Migrants are seen lining up after being detained by U.S. immigration authorities at the border wall from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Dec. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)
Cesar Jauregui, attorney general of the state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juárez is located, also said that the city[experiencing] The spike in murders is a direct result of the number of immigrants arriving in the city and illegal business in its vicinity.
“Criminals find lucrative business in immigrants and abuse them in order to extract more money from them, and their numbers are increasing.” [of migrants] Continue to arrive in the city or go through the province,” Jauregui said.
Mexican soldiers discover factory manufacturing drone bombs, grenade launchers and fake military uniforms
Migrants camp near Lukeville, Arizona, on December 5, 2023. (Fox News)
The entire U.S.-Mexico border saw record numbers of migrant apprehensions in 2023, with more than 225,000 people apprehended in the first 27 days of December, according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics.
Alfonso Robles, a Venezuelan immigrant, said: “It's cruel that we have to go to the criminals to help us cross the border and then they don't kill us.'' We are fleeing very similar situations in both countries. But we're just seeing more of the same situation here in Mexico.” he told Fox News Digital in Ciudad Juarez.
Robles left Venezuela after a local gang began extorting his small business and threatening to kill him. He traveled from Venezuela to the US-Mexico border with his wife and 7-year-old daughter.
“As soon as we entered Mexico, they started blackmailing us and trying to kidnap us. Now we don't know what else to do, because (U.S. ) Because the government doesn't allow us to enter the United States and wait there. But here, it's only a matter of time before a criminal group finds us and takes us away,” Robles said.
The Lukeville, Arizona border crossing closed on December 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull/File)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
A fellow cartel member in Ciudad Juárez acknowledged that two gangs, the Juárez Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, are fighting over the human smuggling business, and that the turf war has extended to U.S. border cities.
“This business is not just on this side of the border (Mexico), it's putting millions of people in the United States in the hands of American smugglers. So they're fighting for this business over there as well.” the businessman said.
