Texas Takes Over Cartel-Infested Island on the Rio Grande

Mexican cartels lost a tactical advantage along the Rio Grande this month as Texas military units cleared a brush-covered staging point that had been used for illegal trafficking of migrants and drugs.

The denuded Fronton Island is not a pretty sight now, but it shows how Texas is doing a job that the Biden administration refuses to do.

The 170-acre spit of land between Starr County and Tamaulipas, Mexico, is referred to by Texas law enforcement as the single most dangerous spot on the Rio Grande. “This is the most violent region on the Texas-Mexico border,” said Capt. Chris Olivarez of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).

In September, the Texas General Land Office declared the island, long known as no man’s land, state territory, allowing DPS troopers and national guardsmen to take over.

Olivarez said the jungle-like hideaway had been ideal for drug and human smuggling, making it coveted territory in an internecine war between Mexico’s Northeast and Gulf cartels.

As part of Texas’ effort to secure Fronton Island, DPS and National Guard placed concertina wire along the adjacent riverbank.

Such barriers are the subject of an ongoing legal contest between Texas and the Biden administration. A federal judge last week extended a temporary restraining order two weeks, blocking U.S. Border Patrol agents from destroying Texas’ defensive line.

U.S. District Judge Alia Moses, presiding 300 miles upriver in Del Rio, ordered the parties provide to the court “any and all documents, including but not limited to reports and emails, among United States Border Patrol.”

Gov. Greg Abbott called Moses’ order “another win for Texas and our historic border mission. [President Joe] Biden created this crisis and has tried to block us at every turn.”