Thread: MEXICO TRAVEL ALERT PROMPTS COLLEGES TO WARN STUDENTS

REGION: Travel alert prompts local colleges to warn students

Advisory paints Mexican border cities with overly broad brush, mayor says

By EDWARD SIFUENTES - esifuentes@nctimes.com
Posted: March 15, 2010 6:01 pm

After brazen weekend attacks on U.S. officials in northern Mexico that killed three people, authorities are warning against unnecessary travel south of the border, a call that some Mexican officials say is hurting their economy.

Local colleges, including Cal State San Marcos and San Diego State, said they plan to post the warning on their Web sites.

The travel warning issued by the U.S. State Department on Sunday includes several northern Mexican states and raises the ante on a similar alert issued last month.

Most local colleges are expected to go on spring break in the next few weeks.

Baja California cities, such as Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada and San Felipe, are traditional vacation meccas for college students and families, but much of that tourism has been drastically reduced in recent years because of the ongoing, bloody drug war.

"We plan to put the (State Department's) advisory on our Web site, so that students can take a look at it," said Margaret Lutz, a spokeswoman for Cal State San Marcos. "If anyone is planning on traveling or visiting family down there, they can take the appropriate precautions."

San Diego State officials said the school plans to e-mail students about the State Department's advisory.

A spokeswoman said the e-mail is still being drafted and will be sent later this week.

On Saturday, suspected drug gangsters chased down and opened fire on two SUVs carrying families of U.S. consular employees from a children's party in Ciudad Juarez, a border city south of El Paso, Texas.

Three adults with connections to the U.S. consulate were killed, and two children were wounded, officials said Monday.

David Shirk, director of the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute that studies border issues, said travel within Mexico is still relatively safe.

"Your odds of being killed in Mexico, even in Juarez, by drug traffickers is still very low if you are not connected to drug trafficking organizations," he said.

But the level of violence is escalating, Shirk said.

"There has been a steady progression over the last 20 years in the nature of the violence," he said. "Shooting U.S. government personnel in broad daylight, that's a new level of bold and brazen violence that we have not seen."

Much of the violence in recent years has been attributed to the Mexican government's crackdown on drug cartels.

Since he was elected in 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has sent troops all over that country to go after organized crime.

But Mexican soldiers and police are outgunned and outnumbered.

The cartels have responded with unprecedented brutality.

State Department officials have in turn issued several alerts about travel to Mexico.

In its most recent warning, the agency urged against travel to parts of the northern Mexican states of Durango Coahuila and Chihuahua, which are south of the Texas border.

The State Department also said it would compensate U.S. government employees at Ciudad Juarez and five other U.S. consulates in northern Mexico who send family members out of the area because of concerns about rising drug violence.

The cities are Tijuana, Nogales, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Matamoros.

A travel alert issued in February said that while "millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year ... a number of areas along the border continue to experience rapid growth in crime."

Hugo Torres, the mayor or Rosarito Beach, said he fears that his city, which has experienced a drop in crime over the last several years, is being painted with the same brush as Ciudad Juarez, one of the deadliest cities in the world, with more than 2,500 people killed there last year alone.

"Our crime rate reached a five-year low," Torres said. "We believe that Rosarito is safe and welcoming for hundreds of thousands of people who visit us each year and the estimated 14,000 expatriates who have chosen to live here."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Call staff writer Edward Sifuentes at 760-740-3511

NORTH COUNTY TIMES

NORTH SAN DIEGO AND SOUTHWEST RIVERSIDE COUNTIES, CALIFORNIA

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