Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera is Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government, and co-director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University. Her areas of expertise are border studies, U.S.-Mexico relations, international security, migration studies, and illicit networks. She is author of Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico (2017; Spanish version, 2018). Her newest co-authored book is entitled Frontera: A Journey across the U.S.-Mexico Border (2024). Her forthcoming book in Spanish (2025) is titled Cartels Inc: A “New Generation” of Criminal Networks (in contract with Siglo XXI Editores). Professor Correa-Cabrera is Past President of the Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS) and co-editor of the International Studies Perspectives journal. She currently conducts research on human smuggling and transnational crime networks, and is writing her upcoming book titled Coyotes LLC: The Industry of Human Smuggling and the American “Dream.” Professor Correa-Cabrera was a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Mexico and Visiting Scholar at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana in 2014-2015. She is now Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Davidson Institute for Global Security of The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding in Dartmouth College (Fall 2025). She is a frequent commentator on Mexican politics, U.S.-Mexico relations, (im)migration, and border security for several media outlets.

Recent Publications and Appearances:

• “Mexican Money Laundering in the United States: Analysis and Proposals for Reform” (coauthored with Charles Lewis and William Yaworsky). Journal of Illicit Economies and Development 6:1 (2024): pp. 64–78. DOI: 10.31389/jied.224.
• “Paradojas del Trumpismo, la Crisis del Fentanilo y la Guerra Contra los Cárteles.” Norteamérica CISAN-UNAM 19:1 (January-June 2024). DOI: 10.22201/cisan.24487228e.2024.1.668.
• “Drugs, Elites and Impunity: The Paradoxes of Money Laundering and the ‘Too-Big-To-Fail’ Concept” (co-authored with Charles Lewis and William Yaworsky). Small Wars Journal (January 2024): pp. 1-30.
• “CORE-KG: An LLM-Driven Knowledge Graph Construction Framework for Human Smuggling Networks” (co-authored with Dipak Meher and Carlotta Domeniconi). arXiv - Cornell University (June 20, 2025).
• “The Onion of Kensington” (coauthored with Sergio Chapa). The American Prospect 36:1 (February 25, 2025): pp. 50-55.
• “Cartels Are Not ‘Foreign Terrorist Organizations,’ but Terror in Mexico Is Real.” Texas Observer (January 29, 2025).
• “The Dangerous Narrative of the War on Cartels." Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (November 23, 2024).
• “An Unwinnable Drug War.” Texas Observer (March-April, 2024).
• NSLJ Spring Symposium (2025).
• Expo Seguridad Mexico Keynote (2025).
• TAMIU Lecture (2025).