As the United States beefs up security at its southern border as part of the Trump administration’s illegal immigration crackdown, the State Department has issued the highest-level travel advisory for a specific region of northeastern Mexico near McAllen and Brownsville, Texas.
Amid gun battles, kidnappings and other crime, the State Department is also warning of IEDs on dirt roads in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
‘[T]he state of Tamaulipas has issued a warning to avoid moving or touching improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been found in and around the area of Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Valle Hermoso, and San Fernando along dirt and secondary roads,’ a State Department travel advisory for Tamaulipas reads. ‘IEDs are being increasingly manufactured and used by criminal organizations in this region.’
The U.S. Consulate in Mexico notes in the advisory that an IED destroyed an official Mexican government vehicle in Rio Bravo on Jan. 23, injuring its occupant.
A Spanish flier published by the Tamaulipas government on Facebook urges the public not to touch or move suspicious-looking devices along the roadside.
U.S. government employees are prohibited from traveling ‘in and around Reynosa and Rio Bravo outside of daylight hours and to avoid dirt roads throughout Tamaulipas,’ the advisory states.
Government employees also cannot travel between cities in Tamaulipas using interior Mexican highways.
‘Travel advisory Level 4 is the highest level there is,’ said former DEA Senior Special Agent Michael Brown, currently the global director of counter-narcotics technology at Rigaku Analytical Devices. ‘That’s a warning: Do not go there. I have experienced that, but it was in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia. … The area we’re talking about is the state of Tamaulipas, within which you have Reynosa and Matamoros, which have a history of extreme violence in Mexico.’
‘[W]ith the sudden end of the Biden-Harris open-border policies, the cartels are no longer making billions of dollars in human trafficking.’
Brown said that what he suspects is happening is ‘with the sudden end of the Biden-Harris open-border policies, the cartels are no longer making billions of dollars in human trafficking.’
‘Now that area has been reduced significantly, meaning cartels, which may have been working together up to a week ago, are now competing for access to Reynosa and Matamoros because human smuggling is not going to stop, it’s just going to be more expensive, more dangerous, and they’re going to have to use traffickers, are going to have to use more selective routes in order to get around Border Patrol and … perhaps U.S. military.’
The 32-year former DEA agent added that cartels using IEDs ‘are simply mimicking what they’ve seen other hostile elements do across the world … to counter other cartel movements, truck convoys, human traffickers that may be trying to sneak on to their territory.’
‘The cartels were given carte blanche access to the United States through the open-border system.’
‘[U]nder the last four years of the Biden-Harris administration, nothing was done. The cartels were given carte blanche access to the United States through the open-border system. Now that’s been cut off, and they’ve been designated as terrorist organizations,’ Brown said.
The State Department has issued a Level 4 advisory for the area due to crime and kidnapping threats. Travelers are encouraged to avoid dirt roads, unknown objects near roads and travel after dark.
‘Common’ organized criminal activity in the area includes gun battles, murder, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, forced disappearances, extortion and sexual assault.
The recent immigration policy changes affecting cartel networks’ financial success also pose a significant threat to Americans, U.S. law enforcement and military members living or stationed near the border, Brown said.
‘As cartel members … come across the border with narcotics for human trafficking. Now they’re armed and they’re ready for conflict. They run into Border Patrol, they run into the Texas Rangers or DEA. There could be a gunfight,’ Brown said. ‘So if you’re a citizen living on that border, you know that that Level 4 just doesn’t stop [the violence], and we know it’s going to cross the border with those trafficking individuals.’
Of the millions of illegal immigrants who crossed into the United States over the last four years, ‘[E]ach one of those migrants had to pay a toll to a cartel or to smaller groups,’ Brown said. ‘So we’re talking about billions of dollars for the last four years with absolutely no effort whatsoever on the part of the cartels.’
The State Department noted in its advisory that heavily armed criminal groups often target certain areas and target ‘public and private passenger buses, as well as private automobiles traveling through Tamaulipas, often taking passengers and demanding ransom payments.’
The Level 4 warning comes as the Trump administration begins its crackdown on illegal immigration and crime at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Brown compared the level of violence in Tamaulipas to the Middle East.
‘We think of the Middle East as extremely violent, wouldn’t want to go there, but all we have to do is look towards Mexico.’
‘[It] wasn’t that long ago before [the] Sinaloa Cartel was executing police officers and hanging them from bridges,’ Brown said. ‘Now, we didn’t even see that level of violence in Afghanistan when I was there. So, the cartels have taken violence to a whole other level. They are acting just like any terrorist organization. The only difference is their end goal is to make money. That’s their ideology.’
Officials deported around 2,000 illegal immigrants to Mexico last Thursday, both on the ground and in the air. Mexican officials detained roughly 5,000 migrants within its borders, Fox News reported.
Trump also ordered 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border to boost the military presence there.
Fox News’ Micharl Dorgan and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.