Students advised to stay clear of Mexico for spring break
Vacationers were steered away from Mexico due to drug-related violence.
Published March 17, 2009
Increasing levels of drug-related violence in Mexico has prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a warning advising Americans to take precautions if they are considering Mexico as a travel destination.
As spring break season begins for college students around the country, border violence has caused a state of alarm among officials and parents.
The University of California-Los Angeles has sent a letter cautioning students about considering Mexico a destination for vacations.
"The UCLA administration strongly recommends that UCLA students avoid travel to any Mexican cities near the U.S. border or their neighboring areas during spring break or at any time in the near future," UCLA Vice Chancellor Robert Naples said in the letter.
Many colleges and universities across the country, including Syracuse University, have issued warnings to their students. The State Department issues updated lists of countries placed on "travel warnings" and "travel alerts," where the former indicates a long-term state of instability and political or social unrest and the latter indicates a short-term risk.
Mexico is one of five destinations on the State Department's list of travel alerts, along with Bangladesh, the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, Mali and the French West Indies.
The Mexican government has deployed troops to the northern cities of Tijuana, Chihuahua City, Ciudad Juarez, Nogales and Nuevo Laredo, as well as northern Baja California to deal with the violence.
The proximity of the violence to the U.S. has raised concerns by American officials.
"Stopping the flow of illegal weapons from the United States to Mexico is critical to our fight against violent drug cartels," said Janet Napolitano, U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary, in a release after a series of weapons seizures in southwestern Arizona; Pharr, Texas; and Laredo, Texas. "We are continuing to find new ways to fight recent increases in illegal weapons trafficking to Mexico."
Ciudad Juarez is about seven miles across the border from El Paso, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo is about five miles from Laredo, Texas.
The State Department's alert states that Ciudad Juarez is of "special concern," as 1,800 people have been killed in the city since January 2008.
The Mexican states of Durango and parts of Coahuila, which are about 500 miles from the U.S. border, are almost entirely off limits for travel as well.
Cancun, a popular destination for spring break travelers, has also seen its share of violence.
According to a Feb. 9 report from Reuters, Cancun police chief Francisco Velasco was arrested for working with Cancun's drug cartels to store cocaine from South America before shipping it to the U.S., which has made the coastal vacation city a volatile narcotics hotspot.
The report states that, out of the city's 2,100 officers, more than 800 active duty officers are under criminal investigation.
