Current and former federal senior law enforcement officials have warned of a possible “violent pushback” from Mexican cartels infuriated by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown for how it will curb their human smuggling incomes.
On Monday, a suspected Mexican cartel gunman opened fire at Border Patrol agents stationed in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Experts on border security who have decades of experience working in this area told the Washington Examiner that that incident serves as a warning shot and was no accident.
Victor Avila, a retired senior agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, said it would only be a matter of time until the cartels took greater “violent” action in response to the rapid arrests and deportations that have occurred in the United States since last Monday, as well as the suspension of asylum at the southern border.
“The United States is doing all of this activity right. There has to be a reaction. There will be a reaction,” said Avila in a phone call Monday evening. “I’m talking about a violent pushback from the cartels. They’re not going to go down. They’re like, ‘What the heck is going on? We still want to get our fentanyl across and our meth.'”
VIDEO: Earlier today, @TxDPS responded to assist the US Border Patrol after agents received gunfire from cartel members in Mexico while patrolling in Fronton, Starr County. DPS Drone Operators captured the gunmen fleeing Mexico due to military presence, & seeking refuge on an… pic.twitter.com/oPf5l7wltO
— Chris Olivarez (@LtChrisOlivarez) January 28, 2025
A second former senior homeland security official familiar with the administration’s present border plans said the cartel reaction was absolutely a concern to the government right now.
“We’re talking about an administration that’s going to shut things down for the next four-plus years. The cartels can’t survive. They can survive shutting down one to two months, maybe even three, but there’s no way that they can survive shutting down for four years,” the official said.
Two law enforcement officials told the Washington Examiner that the Mexican cartels had put a “green light” on Jan. 21 out to its members that permitted them to open fire specifically aimed at U.S. federal law enforcement in retaliation for the border crackdown in Washington that Trump has waged.
“They will shoot. They will shoot across the border. They’ll shoot across the wall. You know why? Because they told us they would,” said Avila. “They said this. They said they were going to. They want to kill Border Patrol agents, and they’re not going to go down just like that.”
The Mexican cartels, transnational crime rings south of the border, made $12 billion in 2021 from smuggling people to and across the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a House Homeland Security Committee report.
The cartels stand to lose billions of dollars quickly as illegal immigration crossings have dropped from peaking at more than 14,500 a day in December 2023 to fewer than 900 on some days last week.
“Narcotics and human trafficking, that’s their major source of revenue. And if the borders are secure … they have nothing else to fall back on. They’re not going to be able to say, ‘Oh well, we’ll just sell this to Mexicans,'” said the second official.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) said the Trump administration had put the cartels “on notice.”
“As our frontline law enforcement personnel face serious threats from these increasingly desperate criminals, this Committee is fighting to ensure our brave men and women in green have the tools and resources they need to remain safe while maintaining situational awareness in the field and defending our sovereign borders,” said Green in a statement.
A third official, currently serving at the Department of Homeland Security, said there has always been a “stasis” between the cartels and Border Patrol but that causing problems, such as shooting an agent, would have serious ramifications for that particular cartel and doing business quietly is the best course of action. That said, they are in an unprecedented situation that could prompt a never-before-seen response from them, some fear.
“Their business model has changed in a dramatic way if you think of it as a commodity and a business. They’re upside down because there’s more surveillance, there’s more control,” said the administration official who asked to speak on condition of anonymity. “There’s more risk than they’ve seen in years.”
Over the past week, Border Patrol has seen at last four days where the number of immigrants apprehended was below 1,000. That, the third official said, has freed up agents to get in the field, becoming more of a nuisance to the cartels.
Hours before the shooting Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) announced that he had directed the state’s military department to deploy 400 members of its Texas Tactical Border Force to the Rio Grande Valley to work with federal Border Patrol agents in securing the border.
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On Tuesday morning, Abbott said he had asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to send tactical strike teams to the border to assist federal law enforcement in deterring illegal immigration as cartels become more determined to get people into the U.S.
The DHS did not respond to a request for comment.