What exactly is going on at the Mexican border? Dangerous drug wars lead to shoot-outs, smuggling, and a constant flood of illegal Mexican emigrants moving across the desert. As American authorities move to protect the border, the administrative system at large denies political and environmental consequences. Ultimately, the border problem remains unsolved.

For example, the Tijuana Arellano-Félix drug cartel has left smaller cells to operate along the Mexican Border. Of those smaller drug smuggling sects, some have expanded to kidnapping and extortion. Thousands of soldiers and police have been sent to various criminal points around Mexico, attempting to step up protection from and defense against drug crime overall. Acting on Washington’s order, Mexican President Felipe Calderón sent a total of 24,000 military and security forces to fight gangs in 2007. The Christian Science Monitor reported that the Mexican drug trade resulted in more than 2,500 deaths that year.

However, American forces have been an undeniable presence at the border. As of Monday, June 23rd, the remaining 340 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border fence can be completed, when the Supreme Court refused to hear an opposing case. With a waiver approved by Congress in April, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declared the fence a national security priority, legally disregarding three dozen environmental and cultural protection laws. The completed fence will be 670 miles along California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas by January.

Environmentalists at Defenders of Wildlife sued to stop construction in Arizona's San Pedro River, calling the waiver an unconstitutional abuse of power. Ecologists claimed the barriers threaten the existence of endangered species. On the other hand, fence advocates say border barriers are an overdue necessity to close down smuggling routes. Unarmed guards cannot control illegal traffic as it flows into the void of unclosed fence, though the migrants are usually caught by the U.S. Border Patrol soon upon entrance.

In 2006, the Bush Administration started Operation Jump Start, with 6,000 Guardsmen sent to the border to join the 11,583 initial patrol agents. Now, an additional 5,000 have been hired, with more continually recruited and trained. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told governors that the military has brought a 20 percent drop in migrant apprehensions the past year, indicating a decrease that overall illegal traffic.

Border expert and University of Texas at El Paso professor Josiah Heyman told The Chicago Tribune several scenarios that could potentially explain the drop in overall border arrests: Smugglers have gotten better at avoiding detection, migrants are avoiding return trips, and construction jobs, which one fourth of illegal immigrants work, are fewer.

Smugglers have raised their fees to $2,100 for a desert crossing, and as much as $3,500 for the official entry point journey complete with less physically risky for concealed travel or falsified documents. 43 percent of polled potential migrants from the Mexican state of Oaxaca told University of California-San Diego’s Immigrations Studies researchers that their biggest fear is dying in the desert, which kills more than 500 crossers a year. In comparison, The National Guard was feared by only 5.3 percent.

As the migrants struggle against the dangerous border and the exorbitant costs of travel, Americans fight the same issues. With escalating gas prices, Californians especially are driving through drug rings and violence to cut costs. On June 24th, The Wall Street Journal featured James Blue’s auto shop of San Diego, Express Performance Center, where he installs oversized fuel tanks in vehicles used for runs to fill up with cheap gas in Mexico. Blue's shop has installed 12 tanks since June, more than he sold all last year, and he expects demand to grow through summer. He charges $1,300 for a 75-gallon or $1,700 for a 98-gallon tank, snugly fitting tanks across the back of a pickup truck bed. A 75-gallon tank paired with an original 28-gallon tank can save at least $200. Many customers drive to Mexico multiple times a week, bringing back enough fuel to sell cheaply to neighbors and coworkers.

In Tijuana, gasoline is selling for six pesos per liter (about $2.50 a gallon), compared to nearly $5 a gallon prices in San Diego County. Diesel fuel is $2.19 a gallon. To avoid traffic and long lines at busier spots like Tijuana, Americans go at dawn or early evening to quiet towns where the wait to cross back into the U.S. is shorter, often less than 20 minutes.

In addition to inflation benefits, U.S. citizens freely travel both ways across the border, while Mexicans need visas for U.S entry. Mexico has kept border gas prices from rising to keep fuel affordable for the poor. President Calderón subsidized $20 billion this year as an emergency measure to check inflation rates. Americans are taking advantage of the disadvantaged Mexican poor.