Border Patrol, Mexican authorities conduct joint Rio Grande mirror patrol

U.S. Border Patrol’s Del Rio Sector and Mexican authorities carried out a joint mirror patrol along the Rio Grande, a visible push aimed at disrupting smuggling routes and unlawful crossings in the Del Rio area. The operation put U.S. and Mexican law enforcement on the same river corridor that separates Del Rio from Ciudad Acuña, a border city of about 120,000 people just across the water.

The Del Rio Sector is one of the largest stretches in Border Patrol’s Southwest footprint. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it is responsible for detecting and preventing the smuggling and unlawful entry of undocumented immigrants along 245 miles of the Rio Grande River and Lake Amistad, across 55,063 square miles of Texas and roughly 300 miles inland from the border. The Del Rio Station alone covers about 30 miles of river border and portions of several counties in Val Verde County and beyond.

The latest patrol fits a longer pattern of binational enforcement on this stretch of river. CBP launched the Se Busca Información initiative in 2016 as a joint effort with the Government of Mexico to identify people linked to transnational criminal organizations, including human and drug smugglers. In December 2025, Del Rio Sector officials and law enforcement partners in Coahuila announced new criminal targets for that campaign at Amistad Dam, underscoring how closely the agencies continue to work the shared border zone.

Local residents have already seen how serious those smuggling networks can be. Del Rio Sector has reported major enforcement actions in past years, including one incident involving 37 undocumented migrants and another involving 48 people across 12 smuggling attempts. Those cases, along with the recent joint patrol, point to the same concern: traffickers still use the river, roads and rural terrain around Del Rio to move people and contraband.

The patrol also comes against the backdrop of other border operations in the region, including Texas National Guard support under Operation Lone Star and broader interagency coordination in Del Rio. CBP has previously convened a multi-agency unified command meeting here to plan joint operations and future enforcement efforts. With crossings lower in parts of the Del Rio and Eagle Pass corridor than during the surge seen in fiscal year 2022, the emphasis now appears to be on pressure, coordination and keeping the river corridor from becoming attractive again to smuggling groups.