Dallas News - When Sheriff Rick Flores looks from Rio Grande into Nuevo Laredo, he doesn't see the friendly Mexican border town he knew growing up.

"It's a sad, scary sight," he said. "We are in the United States of America, and just across this border, the Colombianization of Mexico is slowly taking shape."

There is surging drug violence along the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. officials are drawing comparisons to Colombia, where the Medellín drug cartel and other criminal organizations waged war on the government and killed hundreds of people during the 1980s.