The Mexican cartels have authorized the use of weaponized drones and explosives against US border patrol and law-enforcement personnel.
Memos circulated to US Customs and Border Protection Agents reveal that the cartels are making preparations for violent attacks against them for impeding the flow of migrants and drugs across the US southern border.
Threats against border patrol agents have been made in multiple social-media posts. Posts call for the assassination of ICE agents.
Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, spoke to NewsNation and said that it’s no surprise the cartels are turning to weaponized drones, given their ubiquity in warfare.
Earlier in the week, Border Czar Tom Homan said that leaked information about targeted operations has forced authorities to take extra precautions to keep agents safe.
“We’ve got many target cities, but I’m not going to share them with you because we got to keep our officers safe,” Homan said.
“Matter of fact, Chicago, that operation was leaked, so we had to reschedule that one. But we need an element of surprise because of officer safety issues. We don’t want the bad guy to know we’re coming,” he added.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that military strikes against the cartels are “on the table.”
During an interview with Fox on Friday, Hegseth was grilled about strategies to combat the Mexican cartels. In a recent incident since Trump took office, cartel members exchanged fire with border patrol agents.
“If we find that they continue to fire at Border Control and they continue to put fentanyl into our country, as a secretary of defense, are you permitted now to go after them in Mexico or where they are?” asked host Brian Kilmeade.
Hegseth responded by saying he didn’t “want to get ahead of the president and I won’t. That’s ultimately going to be his decision.”
“But let me be clear,” he continued. “All options will be on the table if we’re dealing with what are designated to be foreign terrorist organizations who are specifically targeting Americans on our border.
“We’re finally securing our border. We’ve been securing other people’s border for a very long time. The military is orienting, shifting toward an understanding of homeland defense on our sovereign territorial border.”