How September 11 Posed Setbacks to Trans-border Mexican Criminal Networks

 After the horrendous September 11 terrorist attacks on America's world trade centers, stringent border laws and reforms were initiated. This was further backed by enormous spending by the US government on its borders. In particular, there was the setting up of a long perimeter wall with Mexico. This wall further incorporated a virtual wall backed by technological implements of monitoring the US-Mexican border. These events had a huge effect on the criminal activities that were perpetrated between the two countries. This essay attempts to explicate the setbacks that the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September had on the trans-border Mexican criminal networks.

The US government embarked on an enormous strategy to protect its borders from terrorists after 11th September 2001. This started by inhibiting the flow of goods and immigrants across its borders. It was incorporated with a massive task of freezing bank accounts that were linked to any cross-border criminal syndicate. These activities slowed down the activities of Mexican criminal networks that in turn resorted to selling their contraband to the already available market in Mexico as movement to the US took a long time. Ciudad Juarez is one example of a Mexican city hit by drug cartels following US border policies after September 11. Furthermore, the increased funding by the federal government saw increased border patrols and crackdowns of criminal tunnels that were used by these criminal syndicates to transport contraband goods and people into America.

Mexican criminal networks like the Arellano-Felix Organization (AFO) and the Carillo-Fuente Organization (CFO) were often engaged in drug smuggling and human trafficking across the US-Mexican border. However, after the terrorist attacks, the US strategized border control into border security under the department of homeland security. This affected terrorists who could cross to the US through a porous US-Mexican border. This saw enormous funding into technology that could easily detect drugs and humans concealed in vehicles. The technology included X-ray machines that had the potential to discover drugs and immigrants hiding in vehicles and camera towers with sensors that offered surveillance over large parts of the Mexican border. These technologies further facilitated the efficiency and effectiveness in vehicle inspection and border patrolling thus inhibiting the activities of these criminal cartels.

The activities and endeavors of leading criminal organizations in Mexico to establish and maintain networks into the US have been stalled by new deportation regulations. These regulations, stemming from the September 11 attacks, have increased the number or deportations for criminal elements or immigrants charged with any felony. Today, any Mexican immigrant engages in criminal activity or with a prior criminal record is arrested and deported. Furthermore, Mexican criminals previously arrested or charged with a crime are denied visas into the US. Thus, this has decreased the chances of success for criminal networks to be established into the US, since most of their manpower is deported back to Mexico or restricted from entering the US.

The war on terrorism was destined to be conflated with the Mexican war on drugs immediately after the terrorist attack. Through various agencies like the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the US backed the Fox Administration in its efforts to dismantle powerful Mexican cartels. These security drills that went as far as inter-border cooperation further weakened Mexican criminal networks into the USA. The killing of important cartel leaders led to inter-syndicate wars as they struggled to fill the power vacuum created. This had the role of weakening their power of building networks into the USA.

In conclusion, the terrorist September 11 attacks on the US twin towers and pentagon necessitated the US government to focus on securing its borders. This was initiated by restructuring border control into border security. It simply meant that the US-Mexican border, which is notorious for human trafficking and drug smuggling, was to receive massive paradigm shifts in its regulation. These regulations saw the building of an inter-border wall, an increment of the US border patrol agents, freezing of bank accounts linked to Mexican criminal cartels, and the US-Mexican cooperation using agencies like the DEA to combat criminal activities and networks between both countries.

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