I've spent plenty of time in the border areas, I lived in San Diego for years, spent quite a bit of time in El Paso and Yuma, and have now lived in San Antonio (which isn't exactly a border city, but it's close enough to the border that we see plenty of the problems just south of us) for quite some time.

I honestly think that this type of law is going to do nothing to stem the problem. Basically all it will do is give the police a ticket to harass Latinos in the area. If they really wanted to crack down on illegal immigrants they'd start really going after the businesses that employ them. When you start shutting down enough businesses, eventually people are going to stop risking losing their business and start hiring legal workers. Additionally if this happens, people are going to have to get used to paying the increased costs that are associated with an entirely legal workforce.

As far as the drug cartel...this is going to do absolutely nothing to stem that problem. I have no idea how to address that problem, but you are right, it is absolutely insane. It seems like it has gotten progressively worse over the last 10 years. I lay much of the blame for this at our own feet. Our own war on illegal drugs has created the massively profitable market, and has also broken up many of the largest cartels. While breaking up the large cartels sounds like a good idea on paper, it seems to have left a power vacuum, which resulted in many smaller cartels struggling for power, with the end result being the increased violence that we are seeing now.