As President Donald Trump has worked against Democrat resistance, antagonistic court rulings, and a mainstream media hell bent on deriding and lamenting his every move, he has slowly and steadily made progress in his fight to limit illegal immigration and secure America’s southern border. And one of his administration’s more successful tools has been the “safe third country” asylum rule that has helped to decrease the number of Central American migrants arriving at the U.S. southern border.

However, there’s a growing immigration problem upon which Trump’s asylum rule would have no impact — indeed, it could even exacerbate the problem. That problem is Mexico, a country that is increasingly run by violent criminal drug cartels. Just last month, the Mexican military was outgunned and defeated in a battle against the Sinaloa cartel. Following an eight-hour battle with the cartel thugs, the Mexican military force was ordered by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrado to retreat. Of course, Obrado is a socialist squish when it comes to the cartels, so this isn’t surprising. But it’s hugely problematic.

Two weeks ago, nine Americans — three women and six children — were violently shot to death by a criminal drug cartel in the Mexican border state of Sonora. In fact, homicides in Mexico are at an all-time high, and there’s no sign they’re slowing down.

The reality is that Mexico’s weakening government is backing down to increasingly powerful drug lords who are gaining control over larger areas of the country. It’s a recipe for Mexico to become a lawless state. To put it mildly, this is bad for the U.S.

As The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson explains, “The upshot is that as Mexico descends into warlordism marked by widespread criminality and gang warfare, we should expect ordinary Mexicans to respond the way ordinary Central Americans have. Eventually, they’ll leave. Many of them, perhaps hundreds of thousands, will at some point head north and claim asylum. When they do, the border crisis that we’ve been dealing with for the past year will seem insignificant — a prelude to a much larger and intractable crisis, for which there will be no easy fix.”