Avoid Mexico...vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hawaii instead.

U.S. issues travel alert for Mexican border cities

Web Posted: 04/14/2008 11:16 PM CDT

Sean Mattson
Express-News

MONTERREY, Mexico — Continued gangster bloodshed along the United States-Mexico border prompted the State Department on Monday to renew a travel alert for Mexico.

The alert singled out the Mexican cities of Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, which are across the border from El Paso, Laredo and Brownsville, respectively.

The State Department urged U.S. citizens "to be especially alert to safety and security concerns when visiting the border region," but officials urged citizens not to interpret the alert as a recommendation to avoid travel to Mexico.

"The issue is that Mexico is the most important destination outside the United States for Americans," said Todd Huizinga, the public affairs officer for the U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey.

"The purpose of this travel alert is to give them information they should have about the situation so that they can make better decisions and take necessary precautions," he said.

The alert noted that most of the violence is directed at Mexican citizens and that thousands of U.S. citizens cross the border each day without incident.

Still, U.S. citizens have been victims of violence.

"Attacks are aimed primarily at members of drug trafficking organizations, Mexican police forces, criminal justice officials and journalists," the alert stated. "However, foreign visitors and residents, including Americans, have been among the victims of homicides and kidnappings in the border region."

Borderland drug violence has increased in recent years with the Mexican government's crackdown on narcotics gang leaders. Analysts said the leadership shake-ups destabilized gangs and led to bloody power struggles for smuggling routes in the multibillion-dollar trade.

Since taking office in late 2006, President Felipe Calderón has deployed thousands of troops in an effort to curb the violence. The military operations have resulted in hundreds of arrests, hours-long shootouts and monumental seizures of money, drugs and arsenals.

Yet Mexico is on pace for its third consecutive year of more than 2,000-drug related deaths.

The State Department said the military and police firefights with narcotics cartels "have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades."

The hardest-hit border city this year is Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua, where almost 250 narcotics-related deaths have happened this year, according to a tally by Reforma newspaper.

But there have been shootouts in many Mexican cities along the Texas border in recent months.

"The situation in northern Mexico remains very fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements there cannot be predicted," the alert noted.

Among other advice, the State Department recommends that visitors cooperate with the military and police checkpoints that have become a hallmark of Mexico's war on drugs.

mattson.sean@gmail.com