MEXICO CITY – The State Department advised Americans this week to defer “non-essential travel” to vast stretches of Mexico, warning that 14 of the country’s 31 states are so dangerous that visitors should avoid them if possible. For four other states, it counseled caution or extreme caution.
The warning became public as Mexican troops announced Thursday that they had seized 15 tons of pure methamphetamine outside Guadalajara – an amount equal to half of all meth seizures worldwide in 2009.
State Department travel warnings are based on internal guidance that embassies and consular offices use to decide where it is safe for diplomats and federal employees to travel, so they often err on the side of caution.
Still, this one, issued Wednesday evening, is sweeping. It warns against all but essential travel across most of the states along the U.S.-Mexican border: Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon (except the city of Monterrey, where caution is advised), Coahuila, Chihuahua and Sonora.
Moving south, also on the no-go list for all but essential travel: Sinaloa (except the Pacific Coast resort of Mazatlan), Durango, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosi, where two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were ambushed and one was killed a year ago.
Some of the State Department’s advice can be chilling. For example, it warns travelers to avoid much of the southern Pacific states of Nayarit and Guerrero, except for the popular beach resorts of Riviera Nayarit, Ixtapa, Zihuatanejo and Acapulco. But watch your step even there, the department said: “In Acapulco, defer non-essential travel to areas further than 2 blocks inland of the Costera Miguel Aleman Boulevard, which parallels the popular beach areas.”
The advisory does note that “millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year for study, tourism, and business, including more than 150,000 who cross the border every day.”
Mexico is a country of 110 million people, so the odds of running into trouble are low. The number of U.S. citizens reported to the State Department as murdered in Mexico increased from 35 in 2007 to 120 in 2011.
