The drug problem on the southern border doesn’t appear to be improving, despite efforts to make an impact. According to a recent Macleans report, the Berlin-style fence separating El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico is not enough to keep the violence away from the United States. This is a serious issue given that Juarez is now considered to be the deadliest city in the world.

In response to the situation, the Obama administration announced last week that it will send 1,200 National Guard troops to provide patrol along the southwest border. While this effort is notable, will it be able to stem the tide of drugs flowing into the country and the cash flowing back out?

The violence in Juarez is not relegated simply between those on either side of the law. There is significant infighting among the drug cartels and killings are starting to target more civilians and Americans. Consulate workers are being shot in broad daylight, grooms mutilated on their wedding day and students are under fire.

Despite the escalating violence, more than 50,000 pedestrians cross between El Paso and Juarez each day. El Paso has remarkably remained immune to the bloodshed. In fact, so far this year the city has seen only one murder. Some note that this fact is simply due to the ease in which people access the U.S. interstate system within El Paso and quickly leave town.

Such highways are being put to good use as cartels are on the move. Traffickers tend to take I-20 east to Atlanta, which has become a hub for drug transfers. The other option is I-10 west to Phoenix, a city that has become known as the “Kidnapping Capital of the U.S.”
“What we’re seeing is a rise in Mexican drug traf?cking organizations [DTOs],” Rusty Payne of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency told Maclean’s, “in more and more places where you wouldn’t expect it.” In 2009, the Department of Justice declared Mexican cartels to be the “greatest organized crime threat to the United States.”