Residents of Laredo on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande are experiencing terror, and it is not coming from Arab revolutionary groups but from Mexican criminals and drug cartels, one of them comprised of former members of Mexico’s special forces.
In Laredo, a city of 250,000, which has seen massive growth through cross-border trade over the past decade, there is a real fear that there are insufficient federal and local law enforcement personnel to protect Americans living there.
In recent years, aside from violent home invasions by illegal aliens and the spread of narco-trafficking by Mexican drug lords, the Laredo area has seen a spate of kidnappings followed by ransom demands and the disappearance of several dozen of its citizens.
Time and again, the Border Patrol there has warned Washington that neighboring Nuevo Laredo, which is just across the Mexican border, has been the source of violence and illicit drug running that has spread to Laredo and as far as Dallas.
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