United States bids its citizens not to travel to Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Sinaloa or Tamaulipas

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Proceso article

Subject Matter: US travel warnings
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Reporter: Mathieu Tourliere
The Government of the United States today called for its citizens not to travel to Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, or if there to leave soon, due to the high levels of criminality in these regions and added Mexico to its list of countries that must be visited ” with major precaution”.

In its platform for updated travel alerts, the State Department recommended that tourists reconsider their travel plans to 11 states in Mexico: Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, State of Mexico, Jalisco, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, Sonora and Zacatecas, due to the “serious risks to security and integrity” that are there.

The US Foreign Ministry warned that violent crimes such as murder, kidnapping and robbery are widespread in Mexico and recommended its citizens take precautions in bars, clubs and casinos.

While US diplomacy highlighted that Baja California and Baja California Sur suffered a brutal increase in violence in the last two years -  the murder rate in the tourist port of Los Cabos grew by 2000% between 2014 and 2017, it did not impose travel restrictions on that area, since it considered that “most of the homicides” result from struggles between criminal groups and do not affect tourists.

The government used the same argument to remove the travel alerts that it had issued last August on Cancun, although the number of murders has grown steadily in recent years in the Mayan Riviera.
US officials are not allowed to travel to most of the Mexican municipalities that make up the metropolitan area of ​​Mexico City – from Ecatepec to Chalco – nor to the Lampoas de Zempoala, in Morelos.

 In Nuevo León, they only have the right to travel outside Monterrey during the day and at night they can not be found outside the municipalities of San Pedro Garza and Santa Catarina

In Tamaulipas, officials are subject to a “curfew” between midnight and six in the morning.The US government also banned travel of public servants throughout the state of Guerrero, including Acapulco.

In Jalisco, it limited the areas allowed to Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, Chapala and Ajijic, and stressed that for “no reason” they can stop in the municipalities of La Barca or Ocotlán.Meanwhile, in Nayarit he only let them visit the regions of the Riviera, Santa María del Oro and Xalisco.

 Regarding Tamaulipas, the State Department pointed out that “the activity of gangs, including shootings, is widespread”He added: “Armed criminal groups assault the buses of public and private passengers that cross the state and often take the passengers as hostages and ask for ransom.

Officials can not visit the Isthmus in Oaxaca either, while in Veracruz they are advised to stay in tourist areas.The US government formally prohibited US officials from “sponsoring” the table-dance and betting businesses in Coahuila, Colima, Durango, Jalisco, Nayarit, San Luis Potosi, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas.