US adds 3 Mexican states to travel-warning list

Houston Chronicle/AP ^ | May 6, 2010 | MARK STEVENSON

[SwinneySwitch]

MEXICO CITY — The U.S. State Department updated its travel warning for Mexico on Thursday by including three additional states on its list of places it recommends Americans avoid when south of the border.

The new warning adds the northern state of Tamaulipas, parts of the northern Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, and the western state of Michoacan, noting that all three are troubled by organized crime and drug violence.

The State Department previously had warned against traveling to the northern states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila, also crime and drug hot spots.

Some of the highlighted states are home to popular tourist areas, including forest-covered mountains in Michoacan where Monarch butterflies winter. The department said U.S. citizens "should exercise extreme caution when traveling in Michoacan, especially outside major tourist areas."

The statement also cited "recent incidents of serious narcotics-related violence in the vicinity of the Copper Canyon in Chihuahua," another popular tourist spot, and warned that areas of southern Guerrero state — where the resort of Acapulco is located — could also be dangerous.

At the same time, the warning noted that "millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year," and that the Mexican government "makes a considerable effort to protect U.S. citizens and other visitors to major tourist destinations."

"Resort areas and tourist destinations in Mexico do not see the levels of drug-related violence and crime reported in the border region and in areas along major drug trafficking routes," the document said.

In the areas that have been cited as dangerous, the warning noted that drug gangs have adopted new tactics, including "using stolen trucks to block major highways and thus prevent the military from responding to criminal activity," notably in the area around the northern city of Monterrey.

[SwinneySwitch]

...on highways leading to the border through Coahuila, Durango and Sinaloa and the northern state of Nuevo Leon, "criminals appear to especially target SUVs and full-size pickup trucks for theft and car-jacking."

[max americana]

How about the entire Mexico instead?

[blackbart.223]

"The U.S. State Department updated its travel warning for Mexico on Thursday by including three additional states on its list of places it recommends Americans avoid when south of the border."

I have nothing to worry about in this regard as I will never set foot in Mexico for any reason.

[lewislynn]

I’m pretty sure Michelle just told us it was safe to travel in Mexico....

[garyhope]

Only 3?

As far as I’m concerned the whole POS country should be off limits.

Build a very thick high wall from the Pacific to the Gulf.

[moovova]

But it's OK with our government if people from those states COME HERE...illegally, under cover of darkness, led by a "coyote", with another 50-100 illegal immigrants, to take jobs away from Americans, to overload our infrastructure, to send money back home to be spent in Mexico (not America), to have anchor babies, to...

What's wrong with this picture?

[Steely Tom]

Let me know when Mexico adds all 50 of the United States to it’s travel-warning-if-you-enter-illegally list.

[SwinneySwitch]

Ping!

If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.

[Parley Baer]

I agree. Just boycott Mexico.

[Paleo Conservative]

What a joke. All of Mexico should be considered hazardous for US citizens.