June 15, 2025: Currently the 1,950 mile-long US-Mexico border has 23,000 border patrol agents. That’s not enough because the Mexican cartels have been using several hundred thousand drones to get drugs into the country. This is not the first time drones have been used. In the past less capable drones were used. These older drones were costly and difficult to use. The current drones are cheap consumer models designed for easy use and operation. To help deal with this onslaught, the U.S. Army deployed a Sentinel radar system to detect drones carrying drugs and sometimes explosives to discourage the border patrol. The radar is being moved and deployed on various portions of the border that serve as convenient smuggling corridors. When these corridors are shut down, the cartels have to expend time, money and effort to set up a new corridor.

The Sentinel radar also pinpoints the locations from which drones are being launched. Passing this information onto the Mexican military allows smugglers to be arrested by Mexican police before they can launch any more drones.

In the past Texas formed a naval unit of six gunboats to deal with the growing drug gang violence on both sides of the Rio Grande River. For some 2,000 kilometers this river forms the border between Mexico and Texas. A few sections of the river are heavily used to smuggle drugs, and the smugglers often use violence if they are interfered with. The Texas gunboat force assisted police and border patrol forces on land to prevent the drug gangs from escaping across the river. This made the river safe for civilian use.

The six 11 meter gunboats were equipped with 7.62mm machine-guns, armor, and night vision equipment. Each boat cost about $600,000. The federal government contributed some money for this and approved of the new riverine force. Each of the six boats had a boat trailer that enabled them to be quickly moved to parts of the river where they were needed. The boats are manned by members of the Texas Highway Patrol.

Initially, the patrol boats were to be used to patrol Lake Falcon, which is a 33,854 hectare body of water formed behind one of the dams on the Rio Grande. One of the major Mexican drug gangs was increasingly active on the lake, killing Mexicans and Americans and generally misbehaving. The Texan gunboats put an end to that.