Fighting the Juarez Cartel

The Mexican gun smuggling cartel business started around the year of 2003 (Grillo, par. 2). The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) began to research and investigate the Mexican drug cartels (Detty, pg.3). The ATF started to use a tactic called “gunwalking”. This tactic ran a series of sting operations in order to arrest Mexican drug cartel leaders (Detty, pg.4). The citizens of Mexico were given the

After reading Mexico’s Illicit Drug Networks and the State Reaction, I have concluded that this short read is highly informative and intriguing. I personally was drawn in by the horrific stories of violence, kidnapping, and mass murders of deadly encounters, and fascinated by learning how the state planned and responded. Author Nathan Jones, is able to illustrate why Mexican drug cartels have been able to prolong existence while under attack by Mexico and the United States. He is able to do so by examining and comparing two types of illicit drug networks and how they provoke different state reactions based on their business strategy. Jones relates his discoveries to the Arellano Felix Organization because “it was one of the first Mexican cartel to be targeted by the state and split along trafficking-oriented and territorial lines [where] one survived and one did not” (p. 12). This read is significant because it allows for the government to better distinguish between drug networks that will withstand the test of time, and those that will crumble under pressure. Jones utilizes his findings and applied it to the novel, and the current drug prohibition program.

Beast of the Southern Wild combines multiple intricacies of Southern art, including issues of race, social class, and the concept of evil, and with these intricacies comes a variety of issues regarding the making and evaluation of the film as art. The main character Hushpuppy is a young, impoverished African-American girl who is portrayed more like an adult than a child. She is often shown as resilient, and rarely shows any characteristic other than savage strength - a phenomenon also noticed by writer bell hooks. While this makes Hushpuppy seem like a heroic character in the moment, it naively, even brusquely, brushes aside the fact that she is a young child and still requires tender care and nourishment.

I recall spending winters in Ciudad Juarez with my entire family making traditional dishes such as tamales and buñuelos for Christmas. My cousins and I would go outside and have snowball fights and race bikes throughout our neighborhoods. Today it is still difficult to walk around the streets after 7:00pm. Not only does this affect Mexico, but it also affects the United States in an appalling way. A recent study conducted by CNN states that ‘El Chapo’ Guzman has poisoned the streets of Chicago, America’s third largest city. Approximately 80% of illegal narcotics found in Chicago traces back to the Sinaloa Cartel led Guzman. Jack Riley, a deputy administrator of the DEA in Washington, reinforced that Guzman has enabled, “the ability to enter in partnerships, businesses, with nearly 150,000 street gang members who make their living putting heroin and cocaine and meth on the street." El Chapo’s large drug scale operation in Chicago is also a supply point for major cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Ohio, New York City, among many others throughout the nation. "Guzman is the reason you've got kids fighting over just one corner, and shooting each other" stated by Art Bilek, a retired Chicago detective. As a result of the ongoing Mexican drug war, approximately 100,000 houses have been abandoned in the wake of this violent war as many have moved to the U.S to seek safety and improved living conditions. Thousands of innocent families are being caught up in the drug war’s carnage. To many cartel members, this war is seen as an exchange of bodies for

Here lies a stale lifeless body after a drug cartel raids a small town, just south of the Texas border. In December of 2006 and still ongoing, the Mexican Drug War has resulted in the death of tens of thousands of individuals. Mexico believes that in order to put an end to the Drug Wars, America needs to control its need for drugs. The first call to action involves new policies and restrictions on the exports and imports of drugs in between the United States and Mexico.

Every day the U.S. border patrol has to constantly keep an eye out for the smuggling of drugs by Mexican Cartels. There has been much violence due to this drug problem that has left many people near the border killed and is allowing more criminals to obtain these weapons. A lot of this attention goes to the U.S. because many of the weapons utilized in the “drug war” are U.S. made and is interfering with trading relations amongst both the U.S. and Mexico. With this current violent situation in Mexico this has transformed the flow of weapons to an even larger scale.

*Transition* Now that I told you about the Political and personal impact the drug cartels have in Mexico I’m going to wrap it up

The problem of drugs coming over into the United States from Mexico is not new, but it is serious and in spite of many efforts by American law enforcement and border authorities, it continues day after day. This paper reviews the problem from several perspectives and brings to light attempts the U.S. has made to stop drug trafficking on our border with Mexico. The biggest issue regarding border security is the power of the drug cartels, and the majority of emphasis in this paper is directed towards the cartels.

In recent history, there has been much rhetoric surrounding the eradication of cross-border drug trafficking. The “war on drugs” was introduced in the 1970s by Nixon, who wanted to eliminate the drugs coming into the United States, since they were seen by him as a threat to our nation. Many laws have been enacted with the purpose keeping illicit drugs out of the United States, yet they do so through the use of nativist ideology, which upholds white supremacy by perpetuating the belief that those associated with Mexico are inherently criminals and must be kept out of the United States. Latin America is looked at as a corrupt place, teeming with drugs and criminals, that is tainting the wonderful and

In February 2011 the United States began sending unarmed drones to collect information on drug traffickers. Later in August, the United States started in cross border raids, sending CIA operatives and older military personnel to aid the Mexican military. In addition to assisting Mexico, the United States increased security on our side and spends approximately $3 billion on securing the border. Decriminalization is a highly disputed policy option, in November of 2012 two states in the United States passed laws for the legalization of recreational use of marijuana. However, it is still a United States federal law that marijuana is illegal. Although decriminalization would lead to less incarcerations, it would put more drugs in the hands of users and increase drug exporting from Mexico. A prime strategy that both the United States and Mexico have been using is to take out the “high value” individuals or “foot soldiers”. This takes out the mass exporters but still leaves the middle and lower class drug traffickers. Which then the middle class moves up and takes over for whatever “high value” cartel that was just taken out. Almost immediately after, Mexico’s new president, Enrique Peña Nieto took office in December of 2012. Of those who reported missing or those who just “disappeared” the Peña Nieto government claims they will seek to verify all the missing ones. After coming into office, the administration of Peña Nieto changes the security policies. In

Over the past years, Mexico has experienced extreme changes due to the violent drug wars. Violence has presented itself in every neighborhood, every street corner, and even in the schools. Chalk outlines are seen drawn on various streets of homicide scenes. Thousands of people have lost their lives in the hands of drug traffickers. Life itself in Mexico, has taken a change for the worse. One may ask what the reasons are for this wave of violence. The most logical answer, of course, is to blame the criminals. It is the drug lords who are smuggling, transporting, and selling these drugs. They should be the ones held responsible, right? The answer to this question is deeply rooted in the history of corruption in the Mexican Government. The

The drug problem in the U.S. and around the world is an important issue and seems to be a difficult problem to tackle across the board. The inflow of drugs has become one of the largest growths in transnational crime operations; illicit drug use in the United States makes it very difficult for nation states police and customs forces to get a handle on the issues. War on drugs, drug trafficking has long been an issue for the United States. There has been a proclamation of “war on drugs” for the past 44 years.

Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas are separated only by a small river, and yet in 2015, there were over three thousand murders in Juarez. There were only five murders in El Paso, in the same time period (Matthew Heineman). Kidnapping, extortion, prostitution, along with a myriad of other crimes, have increased dramatically, all fueled by a lawless society where the government is fighting a war that it has neither the resources nor the resolve needed in order to win. The problem is not convincing the authorities that they have caused the violence. The problem is convincing them to change their policy. Thomas Jefferson once said, speaking of slavery, “We have the wolf by the ears and we can neither safely hold it, nor let it go” (Anna Berkes). The Mexican government is in the same situation that our government was once in, concerning slavery. When the U.S. government attempted to abruptly put an end to slavery, it resulted in the civil war. The definition of a Civil War is, “A war between groups of people in the same country”, this is exactly what is happening in Mexico. It may be the Police fighting one Cartel or it may be two different Cartels fighting each other, however the result is the same: a senseless loss of life. The Mexican Government, in trying to abruptly end drug trade, has done the same thing on a smaller scale. Had the government attempted to slow the flow of drugs

The former head of the DEA, Michele Leonhart, asserted that “it may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence (in Mexico) is a sign of success in the fight against drugs.” The capture of a major drug kingpin is always officially labeled as a “victory in the war on drugs,” but these drug kingpins are still able to manage their business openly behind bars in Mexico. Plus, like clockwork, violence ensues after a major arrest as a result of a new struggle for power. The bureaucrats don’t want to acknowledge that Mexico’s drug war related violence will never subside no matter how many “victories” are declared with the capture of a major trafficker. Those “victories” don’t affect the demand for illegal drugs.

Throughout this timeline, the government had kept an approach of arresting the high profile cartel leaders, but this ‘kingpin’ strategy has not been sufficient. It brought security at streets of Mexico. The strategy of taking down top level drug cartels contributed to the cartels’ fragmentation with divided leaders and same business. Which emerged to the rise of more violent, militaristic groups. These groups straightway targeted the Mexican military. Hence, cartel members and the Mexican military have continuously battled each other numerous times and resulted in mass homicides.