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Obama Administration is set to unilaterally designate a 600,000 acre national monument in New Mexico near the U.S.-Mexican border. The sanctuary, which will be called the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, has drawn sharp criticism from law enforcement who say it will impede border security. "By creating this monument, President Obama is ensuring a pathway to get drugs into the country" Zack Taylor, Chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, told Breitbart Texas. The Obama Administration will ultimately control how much access Border Patrol agents will have to the land, including whether or not they will be...

Mexico’s government plans on Saturday to begin demobilizing a vigilante movement of assault rifle-wielding ranchers and farmers that formed in the western state of Michoacan and succeeded in largely expelling the Knights Templar cartel when state and local authorities couldn’t. The ceremony in the town of Tepalcatepec, where the movement began in February 2013, will involve the registration of thousands of guns by the federal government and an agreement that the so-called “self-defense” groups will either join a new official rural police force or return to their normal lives and acts as voluntary reserves when called on. The government will...

One of the roughest Mexican drug cartels has allegedly been hiring a ruthless American gang to kidnap and torture those who cross the cartel inside the United States. The Sinaloa cartel reportedly hired MS-13 gang members to fly from Los Angeles, Calif., to St. Paul, Minn., to find the people who stole 30 pounds of meth and $200,000 from a stash house. Police say three MS-13 gang members kidnapped two teens who they believed stole the meth and cash. Then they tied them up and tortured them, even cutting one victim’s pinky with a scissor. The teens were eventually let...

Three enforcers hired by Mexico’s biggest drug cartel flew from Los Angeles to Minnesota last month, kidnapped two local teenagers, and then tortured them for hours at a house in St. Paul in an effort to recover stolen drugs, according to court documents reviewed by the Star Tribune. Acting under orders from the Sinaloa cartel, the three kidnappers were trying to determine who had stolen 30 pounds of methamphetamine and $200,000 from a stash house on Palace Avenue in St. Paul. Before the episode was over, they had issued death threats against the Minnesota pair and their families, demanding that...

Alleged enforcers for a Mexican cartel were reportedly involved in the kidnapping and torture of U.S. teenagers over methamphetamine in St. Paul, Minnesota, according to the local St. Paul Pioneer Press. The U.S. Attorney’s office omitted Mexican cartel involvement in their official press release on the case. The official press release was titled, "Four Indicted for Drug Trafficking Crimes Involving a Violent Kidnapping in St. Paul" and only identified the perpetrators as being from U.S. cities. There were no mentions of Mexico, cartels, or even a transnational criminal organization—the DOJ agency simply omitted the vital information amid national discussions of...

The disappearing act known as the congressional Fast and Furious investigation made a brief return to the stage recently when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder became unhinged during questioning by Representative Louis Gohmert (R). The trigger for his defiance was the mention by Rep. Gohmert of possible contempt charges over the Fast and Furious scandal. The AG’s admonition of “Don’t go there buddy,” started discussion as to why Holder reacted in such a strong manner. Sure, he’s hiding something, or someone, but are the White House, ATF, and the AG the only players? In June 2011, Rep. Darrell Issa’s initial...

Outmanned and outgunned, local law enforcement officers are alarmed by the drug and human trafficking, prostitution, kidnapping and money laundering that Mexican drug cartels are conducting in the U.S. far from the border. U.S. sheriffs say that securing the border is a growing concern to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, not just those near the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

'El Chapo' and El Banco: What You Haven’t Been Told CRIME POLITICS-US media are celebrating the arrest of alleged Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, whose Sinaloa Cartel is thought to be the most powerful trafficker in the world and "a main combatant in a spasm of violence that has left tens of thousands dead in Mexico" (New York Times, 2/22/14). US Attorney General Eric Holder called the arrest a "landmark achievement": "The criminal activity Guzman allegedly directed contributed to the death and destruction of millions of lives across the globe through drug addiction, violence and corruption." But...

—If all goes well, drillers responsible for a shale-oil bonanza in Texas will soon cross the southern US border and extend the hydraulic fracturing boom to Mexico. But first the Mexican government, foreign oil companies or some combination of the two will have to neutralize some of the most savage gangsters in the world. Oil and gas were a key subtext of yesterday’s North American summit between Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and US President Barack Obama. Hoping to join the US and Canadian energy boom and invigorate the laggard Mexican economy, Peña has pushed...

MEXICO CITY—The head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel was captured overnight by U.S. and Mexican authorities at a hotel in Mazatlan, Mexico, The Associated Press has learned. A senior U.S. law enforcement official said Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was taken alive overnight in the beach resort town. The official was not authorized to discuss the arrest and spoke on condition of anonymity.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The head of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel who was the world's most powerful drug lord was captured overnight by U.S. and Mexican authorities at a condominium in Mazatlan, Mexico, The Associated Press learned Saturday, ending a bloody decades-long career that terrorized swaths of the country.A senior U.S. law enforcement official said Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was taken alive overnight by Mexican marines in the beach resort town. The official was not authorized to discuss the arrest and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The world’s most notorious and powerful drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, has reportedly been captured in Mexico. The head of the Sinoloa Cartel - nicknamed Chapo or "shorty" - was caught last night, according to the AP, at a hotel resort in Mazatlan in a joint US-Mexico operation. Forbes ranked Guzman 67 out of 72 on their list of the World’s Most Powerful People. With revenues believed to exceed $3bn, his Sinaloa cartel is easily the most powerful in Mexico, responsible for an estimated 25% of all illegal drugs that enter the U.S. via Mexico. While this may...

Snippet: "Iran and its terrorist proxy groups’ influence in Latin America remains a troubling security threat to the region and world, experts said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday."

Leftist lawmakers in Mexico City’s legislature introduced a bill Thursday that would legalize the sale of marijuana within the capital, expanding on a national law that already decriminalizes the possession by users of small amounts of pot throughout the country. It wasn’t immediately clear how wide support was for the idea within the local assembly, which is controlled by the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, but Mayor Manuel Mancera backed the idea and the legislature is one of the most liberal in Mexico. It has previously legalized abortion and gay marriage.The ambitious plan is sure to create controversy in a country...

As a result of continued drug violence in their communities, Mexican citizens have been arming themselves to fight back against ruthless cartels and breaking the law to do so. In Mexico, regular citizens are not allowed to own firearms. When citizen, vigilante groups first started arming themselves against the will of the government, police and officials expressed concern and asked the groups to disarm. But now, after armed communities have proven to be an effective force to keep drug cartel activity at bay, the government is changing its tune in some areas of the country. More from CNN:

The Mexican Congress has just passed a resolution calling upon the United States to facilitate the granting of asylum to Mexican citizens who claim they are escaping from violence. Due to widespread killings and attacks in the country, primarily due to drug trafficking, the Mexican Congress is admitting officially that they cannot protect their own citizens from other Mexicans. It figures, therefore, that the responsibility must now fall to the United States.

Moises Verduzco says he learned how to handle himself in a fight from his teen years running with a street gang near Los Angeles. Now back home in western Mexico’s violent Michoacan state, Verduzco and other United States-bred youths are putting those lessons from the barrio to war against the Knights Templar criminal cartel. Verduzco, 22, spent most of his life in the working-class city of Hawthorne, Calif., until the US deported him to Mexico a few years ago following a criminal conviction. “This is way better,” he says, comparing his preferred vigilante post with California gangster life. “Here you...

[Members of a self-defense group guard a road near Nueva Italia, Mexico, Jan. 15. The government wants the groups to give up their guns, but locals, including many priests, say the government has been unable to keep them safe. Members of a self-defense group guard a road near Nueva Italia, Mexico, Jan. 15. The government wants the groups to give up their guns, but locals, including many priests, say the government has been unable to keep them safe.] NUEVA ITALIA, Mexico - A Mexican bishop has rebuked the federal government for sending soldiers to grab the guns of the...

Associated PressJanuary 14, 2014 Updated 9 hours ago APATZINGAN, Mexico — Federal forces and heavily armed vigilantes are warily watching each other in a violence-wracked farming area of western Mexico after one deadly clash and a failure by leaders from both sides to work out a deal on disarming.

Early in the morning on January 13, Mexican soldiers clashed with members of an armed citizen’s militia group. Multiple casualties were reported. Mexico’s government recently amped up its presence in the surrounding state of Michoacan after ongoing conflicts between armed civilians and drug cartel members have escalated. A recent push by the vigilante group to drive members of the Caballeros Templarios drug cartel out of the city of Apatzingan has led to an even more complicated situation. While heavily armed soldiers congregated in the center of Apatzingan, other units operating outside of the city tried to disarm some of the...