Mexican Drug War

The director of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso, Louie Gilot, said cases of Mexicans fleeing drug prohibition violence have risen significantly over the past two years and that the asylum seekers include former police officers, rights activists, journalists, business leaders and even government officials. Carlos Spector, an attorney, said the U.S. government is reluctant to grant political asylum to Mexican applicants because doing so means recognizing that aid from Washington is financing military abuses against the Mexican civilian population.

The Obama administration has been sending drones deep into Mexican territory to gather intelligence. The American assistance has been kept secret because of legal restrictions in Mexico and the heated political sensitivities there about sovereignty.

A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms operation allowed guns to be trafficked south of the border with the hope that they would lead to high-level drug trafficking organization operatives. Special Agent John Dodson — the program’s whistle blower — said that he found it morally reprehensible, pointing out that it might have led to the death of over a thousand people.

Mexico's 4-year-plus drug prohibition war push doesn't appear to be making its cities any safer. The new police chief in the violent Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez received a threat on just his second day on the job. Two previous Ciudad Juárez police chiefs have quit since 2008 after drug trafficking organizations killed police officers and threatened to kill more unless they resigned.

We've heard for some time now that drug prohibition violence from Ciudad Juárez is spilling over into El Paso. An indictment just released against Barrio Azteca gang members confirms it. So why are some law enforcement agencies and local leaders so reluctant to admit it?

And the spillover continues: The bloody prohibition war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives has spread to the Lone Star state's agriculture, where drug traffickers are targeting farmers' livelihoods. Texas farmers and ranchers say confrontations with Mexican drug trafficking organizations are quietly adding up. Several growers and ranchers say their jobs started becoming more dangerous about two years ago.

Mexico has made an official request for more information about a secret U.S. government operation to allow smugglers to take nearly 1,800 guns into Mexico in an effort to track them to drug trafficking organizations. The operation, code-named "Fast and Furious," was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), in spite of objections from its own agents. Assault weapons and high-powered sniper rifles were among the guns smuggled in to Mexico over a period of 15 months. Some of the 1,765 weapons have since been linked to crime -- including the murder of a U.S. border patrol agent in December. Fewer than 800 of the guns have been recovered.

A shoot-out between rival drug trafficking organizations left 18 people dead in Mexico's Tamaulipas state, amid a surge in deadly drug prohibition violence. The state has been the scene of horrifying killings, including last August, when a mass grave containing the bodies of 72 people, believed to be Central American migrants, was found on a local ranch.