The vicious kidnapping of four American tourists by Mexican cartel henchmen during a shootout in the border city of Matamoros demonstrates that yes, the State Department knew what it was talking about when it warned Americans to stay the hell out of Mexico.

According to the Washington Post:

Four U.S. citizens were kidnapped by armed men in Mexico on Friday, officials in both countries said.

The Americans crossed into Matamoros, a city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, from Brownsville, Tex., in a white minivan with North Carolina plates, the FBI said.

The passengers came under fire soon after entering the city. They were then placed into another vehicle and taken away. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the four had “crossed the border to buy medicine in Mexico” when they were caught in a crossfire “between groups.”

The Post has a hard-to-watch video of the Americans being dragged out of their car and shoved into the cartel vehicle.

Somehow that State Department warning didn't make it to the Americans, or they didn't let it sink in. I know several Americans, including family members, who are still going there. As spring break approaches, this incident may drive the point home that maybe the border has become a warzone. Who wants to become the next example of what the State Department was warning about? It's natural for Americans to view the warnings with a grain of salt. Thousands of Americans make regular trips to Mexico -- for medical care, dental care, plastic surgery, bar hops, fishing trips, vacations. They "know" the place, they come and go all the time. They know what to watch out for. They can "handle" it. And what the hey, so many people do manage to come and go without incident, what are the odds of getting unlucky?

It's sad, because the State Departments warning was a warning without a hook, which stood out to me as to its seriousness. State Department warnings can easily be affected by politics or an agenda, or a desire to keep things nice or not nice with a particular country, which normally creates a discount factor for those reading them. There were no such hooks on this warning -- relations weren't in any sort of freefall with Mexico and State knew that there would have been flak from the Mexicans for this warning as spring break approached, but it didn't stop the warning, which was quite stark and undiplomatic. Normally, you see these types of warnings only for the world's hellholes -- Somalia, Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, and the like. This warning demonstrated that Mexico's borderlands are now as dangerous for Americans as the world's most dangerous disintegrated states.

That didn't come out of nowhere. That's Joe Biden's open border in action. When the U.S. doesn't want to enforce its own border, Mexico's criminal cartels will enforce its border for it, deciding who comes and who doesn't come. With transnational human smuggling organizations working hand in hand with the cartels to create the current border surge, aided by NGOs and Democrats looking for votes, a lot of money is now rolling through in the Mexican north as five million people make their way across with more on the way -- and cartels are fighting viciously for it.

And with any boomtown dynamic, there's an urge to expand the operation. Kidnappings for ransom are gruesome affairs in Mexico -- I know a Mexican family it happened to -- where a huge bankrupting ransom was paid, the victim was tortured and killed anyway, and the cops stole the ransom money that was found. This has been happening for years in the Mexican north, Mexicans know all about it, and with Biden's open border, it's getting worse. The criminal gangs are getting more vicious. Their activities are now expanding to random Americans in Mexico, non-Mexican-Americans entirely unconnected to cartel activity even through relatives, just as the State Department warned. The current victims are likely in for the nightmare of their lives, particularly with Joe Biden in the White House, anxious to sweep any open border news under the rug.  After that, the cartel activity may branch out into U.S. border states hitting random Americans the same way, and like Latin America's elites, we can live behind walled compounds, and drive around in armored cars with no jewelry showing. 

This situation is on Joe Biden, the product of his own doing. The White House has remained circumspect and silent about finding a way to get these Americans home, with some officials effectively telling them they are on their own with this one. The House is making noise, though, demanding that as much effort be expended on the missing Americans as was expended on Vladimir Putin to release basketball star Brittney Griner. Good luck with that with non-state actors who are among the world's most vile and evil criminals, entirely comparable to al Qaida or ISIS. Oh sure, Joe may authorize a ransom to be paid and try to hide that, but it will only make the situation worse.

The sooner he shuts down the open border and reestablishes U.S. sovereignty, the sooner this activity will contract. For now, we can only hope that the kidnapped Americans are somehow freed unharmed and the White House, even more than the unsuspecting Americans, learns the lesson.

Image: CBS Mornings video screen shot, via YouTube