Cartels Lose Tactical Advantage as Texas Clears Border Island

Mexican cartels lost a major tactical advantage along the Texas border as state military units completed the clearing of an island located along the Rio Grande. The cartels have used the formerly brush-covered island for years as a staging area for human and drug smuggling.

This week, crews with the Texas National Guard completed the leveling of Fronton Island, Texas, to remove a long-standing tool from the Mexican drug cartels operating in the area. Texas Military Department soldiers and officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety began clearing the brush-covered island along the Rio Grande border with Mexico in October.

“For decades, Fronton Island has been utilized by the Mexican Drug Cartels as a refuge when fleeing from rival cartels and the Mexican Military,” Texas DPS spokesman Lieutenant Chris Olivarez told Breitbart Texas. “Still, it has primarily been used to facilitate transnational criminal activity involving human and drug smuggling.”

“With the authorization through Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, the State of Texas has taken over the island by clearing and fortifying it, allowing DPS and the National Guard to gain operational control in preventing cross-border crime,” Olivarez stated.

Commissioner Buckingham told Breitbart on Thursday, “It has been my promise to Texans to do everything in my power to help stop illegal immigration and trafficking along the Texas-Mexico border.”

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“Our Texas law enforcement has worked day and night to clear off the thick vegetation on the 170-acre Fronton Island. I cannot thank the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Rangers, and Texas Military Department enough for their steadfast commitment to safeguarding this land and stifling cartel activity,” the land commissioner continued. “Operation Flat Top was a huge success, and I am grateful the Texas General Land Office was able to play such a vital role by providing surveying and map data to declare this island as state land.”

The operation was funded by Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star with funding authorized by the Texas Legislature.

Governor Abbott called the area “one of the most dangerous areas along the Texas-Mexico border,” in a Thursday morning post on X.

The island, located near Roma, Texas, has been a key location for drug and human smuggling for years. Shortly before the clearing operation began, Texas DPS camera operators discovered a cache of weapons and ammunition left on the island by cartel operatives, Breitbart Texas reported in August.

Texas Game Wardens and Department of Public Safety troopers arrested two suspected members of the Cartel Del Noreste and seized rifles and ammunition near Fronton. The ammunition included armor-piercing rifle rounds.

Just last month, a DPS drone operator captured a major gun battle just across the river from the now-cleared island. The video shows the intensity of the warring cartels battling for control of the lucrative drug and human smuggling corridor across the Rio Grande from Fronton.

Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.