Job Discussion Forums

[BadBeagleBad]

Yes, it is becoming increasingly clear that the entire northern third of the country is probably best avoided, especially travel by bus or car. Safety issues aside, you don�t really save any money, if that is what you had in mind, by the time you buy food, pay for gas, maybe sleep over a night or two along the way.

[Samantha]

As the DL says, it's not really to be pinpointed to the border or any particular geographical region. Realistically no particular area can be declared as safe or unsafe, since trouble cannot be predicted (contrary to the US State Department's recent and many advisories) and can surface anywhere, in a variety of forms.

What the expats here do is travel in and out of Mexico in little convoys. That seems to work well for them. The Green Angels supposedly have some sort of an "escort" program that you might look into, or try to find someone who might be driving across at the same time as you do. There is a website where people were entering their travel dates in order to match with another traveler, but I haven't looked at it in awhile to see if it's current. If you are interested, I will dig it out for you.

[laconic]

Looks like U.S. businesses are taking a closer look at the situation, too:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/15/businesses-reluctant-open-mexico-373481421/

[the peanut gallery]

Welcome back! I hope you enjoy your return to this lovely country.

Sound advice all round. I have also recently returned to the country and although it still has all the things i used to love, there is an undercurrent of fear that violence can happen to anyone at anytime. This wasn't the case even just a couple of years ago.

Mexico has never really been a place where the rule of law is enforced as it should be but now there is absolute impunity for criminals and a notable deterioration in territorial control of the north by the government. Best err on the safe side and fly in.

[the peanut gallery]

Interesting article! Why Texas is not Mexico:

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110518-corruption-why-texas-not-mexico?utm_source=SWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110519&utm_content=readmore&elq=dfaed4bc87074b57b8e488ff00076db9

The author says that the Mexican institutions cannot fix the problems (even if they are reformed correctly) because the culture of the people needs to be changed. Opining that the American authorities can control the problem but their Mexican counterparts cannot, and putting it down to differences in culture and mentality is quite interesting. I would love to hear what everyone thinks of the statements made by the author, without getting into any Mexico/USA bashing.

[Dragonlady]

[AGoodStory]

[Dragonlady]

[Samantha]

Okay, no fair! You have an annual Salsa Festival (AND Carnaval)??? Sheesh.

[Dragonlady]

[Guy Courchesne]

I think I'd give it an F too, though for less superficial reasons than Lady D...a good article that only barely hints at some deeper causes.

In a nutshell, much still boils down to money...and how much of it is at stake in the drug trade. We all know that Mexican officials (and Mexicans in general) earn a lot less than their northern counterparts, so no matter what level of training, equipment, or patriotic duty people are given here, the amount of cash incentive for being corrupt is always going to be a major draw to the dark side.

Stewart notes "In the United States there have been local cops, sheriffs, customs inspectors and even FBI agents arrested and convicted for corruption." I think this point is not to be overlooked since it undercuts the idea of 'culture' as culprit. There is so much money in the trade that people are bought off on both sides of the border, just that it takes less to do so over here.

A couple of other stories this past week that tie in well to this are the massacre in Peten, Guatemala and the discovery of several hundred illegal migrants crossing into Mexico from Guatemala. One, the actions taken by the Mexican government over the last 5 years are moving the violence south into Central America and two, the cartel and government focus on human smuggling is having a secondary effect on the same issue, which is the border.

[Samantha]

[Dragonlady]

[Guy Courchesne]

[Dragonlady]