Strong law enforcement presence and close cooperation in response to the recent immigration surge in the South Texas Border has been running cartel smugglers out of business, and forcing them to engage in common crime such as store robberies and theft.

Two years ago, U.S. Border Patrol in the area were severely understaffed and their cooperation with Texas DPS and sheriff’s deputies was not significant. However, the recent immigration surge has brought the agencies together allowing them to target drug and human smuggling routes, said Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra in an exclusive interview with Breitbart Texas.

The criminal organizations have smaller relatively independent cells that smuggle humans and drugs in the United States, those are the individuals that have been largely affected by the increase in law enforcement and have had to resort to other crimes, Guerra said mentioning a series of intelligence briefings that he has been to where the shift in trends had been a primary topic. 

“All of the operations and the law enforcement presence has slowed down their activities and hurt their pocketbook basically leaving them out of a job,” the sheriff said.

With more cops on the roads patrolling the brush areas the smugglers have to work harder and take longer to get to the northern cities making their journeys more expensive and thus draining their finances, he said. 

Earlier this week, authorities arrested a group of 21 illegal aliens hiding in makeshift huts “What is interesting is that from interviewing these individuals we learned that they had had already been moved up to the northern part of the county but they moved them back because there were too many law enforcement officials out there for them to risk it,” Guerra said.With fewer opportunities for smuggling, the criminal element has had to downgrade their means of making ends meet and has resorted to petty crime.

“They need money and these type of individuals are not the type go out and get a job,” Sheriff Guerra said. “So because of that we have seen an increase in robberies and theft in some of the northern areas of the county, which is something that we are addressing and we will to take them down.” 

Follow Ildefonso Ortiz on Twitter @ildefonsoortiz