RT NEWS
US Border Patrol agents have reportedly come under fire from suspected Mexican cartel members in southern Texas during an attempted illegal border crossing.
US President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the border with Mexico last week and deployed the military to several crossings, while seeking to deport potentially millions of people who are in the country illegally.
“Border Patrol agents near Fronton, [Texas] were fired upon from [Mexico] by suspected cartel gunmen as a group of illegal aliens were being brought across the river,” Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin reported on Monday afternoon, citing law enforcement sources.
“I’m told [Border Patrol] returned fire, nobody hit on either side, and that the illegal aliens did not make it across,” Melugin added.
Texas DPS @LtChrisOlivarez tells me DPS is now patrolling the area and has a drone in the air and can see Mexican military assets now staging on the other side of the river. pic.twitter.com/z61RkrVvEq
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 27, 2025
According to Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) spokesman Lieutenant Chris Olivarez, the Mexican military has deployed armored vehicles on the other side of the Rio Grande, providing surveillance drone photos.
Such responses are routine, according to Melugin, who said the Mexican military sometimes “comes in guns blazing if the gunmen are still there” and that he has seen “some crazy drone videos” from the DPS over the years taken from the US side.
Fronton is a community of fewer than 200 residents near the river that divides the US from Mexico. On the other side lies the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, home to several cartels notorious for drug and human trafficking. The Matamoros-based Gulf Cartel (CDG) and its offshoots like Los Zetas have been the most infamous, though the Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) and Sinaloa cartels have encroached into their territory in recent years.
On his first day in office, Trump ordered the US State Department, Treasury, Justice, Homeland Security, and the intelligence community to prepare for designating the cartels as ‘foreign terrorist organizations’. These designations are expected by mid-February at the earliest.
Texas has attempted to fortify the border around Fronton in recent years, citing the federal government’s unwillingness or inability to stop illegal crossings. The previous administration argued that border enforcement is an exclusively federal matter and blocked state efforts in this regard.
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