Four Americans from South Carolina visited Mexico for a medical procedure. They were kidnapped by a drug cartel that likely mistook them for Haitian drug smugglers. The gang murdered two of them. Two survivors are back in the US.
This event raises the question, is Mexico a country where American visitors are likely to be murdered? Or is it a place where people can safely have fun in the sun and drink umbrella drinks on the beach? The answer depends on whether you read the media or if you look at the facts.
Let us start by acknowledging the obvious. Mexico has a high murder rate. At 28.4 per 100,000 people, it is the 9th highest in the world — more than four times the US rate (the highest among developed countries). Without context, that statistic alone should convince Americans that visiting Mexico is a suicidal idea. So let us give it context.
The first question is, who gets murdered in Mexico? The answer is overwhelmingly Mexicans. If Americans were a significant percentage of the victim pool, the US media would run non-stop pieces about the slaughter. Yet most days, there are no stories of Americans gunned down south of the border.
The second question is, where do murders occur in Mexico? The American media — and most Americans — see Mexico as a monolithic country. It is not. It has the same range of regional differences as America itself. And like the US, it comprises states, The country's official name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos — the United Mexican States. There are 31 of them, along with Ciudad de México (CDMX) or Mexico City, the Mexican equivalent of Washington DC. Although with a population of 9 million, it is significantly larger. And besides being the country's capital, it is also responsible for a significant piece of Mexico’s economy.
As in America, states in Mexico are not equal. There are relatively wealthy and poor states. Some are rural, others urban. There are coastal, plain, and mountain states. And most relevant to the crime rate, there are states with narco-traffickers and others without. To know where violent crime is worst in Mexico, look to where the drug cartels are.
The murder rate is highest in border states and along the Pacific coast, where ‘traditional’ drugs flow up from Central America, and cartels use precursor drugs from China to manufacture fentanyl.
On the other hand, from the center of the country to the southeast, the murder rate is significantly lower. The Yucatan peninsula is relatively safe —spring breakers traveling to Cancun, Tulum, Playa del Carmen, and Cozumel face a similar level of risk as they would in Florida.
The state of Yucatan, which occupies the north of the peninsula, has a lower murder rate than 46 American states. And the state capital, Merida, has been named North America’s second safest city — after Quebec. But that unexciting fact will not get much air time in the US.
What does play in the American media is the decision by the State Department to hand out its highest travel alert warning (level 4 — do not go) to six Mexican states — and lesser alerts to another 24. A typical headline is, “State Department warns against travel to much of Mexico” That sounds grim.
However, the potential traveler should consider that in 17 states, the warning is level 2, “exercise increased caution” — not “do not go.” It is the same alert level assigned to Israel, Belgium, Denmark, France, and Germany — in fact, most of Western Europe and much of the Caribbean.
Essentially the State Department is telling Americans to keep their eyes open and pay attention to their surroundings — advice I would give an American traveling in America.
The key is to avoid bad neighborhoods. I am a New Yorker who can remember New York City in the 1990s. No sane person would go to East New York, Hunts Point, Bed-Stuy, etc. But I lived in East Midtown — the 17th precinct — where the crime rate was low and murder non-existent (and still is). In Mexico, if you look around and see a bunch of foreigners, the odds are good you are in a safe place.
If you travel to Mexico, you will probably visit a tourist destination. The vast majority of these see little violent crime against foreigners. Mind you, keep your purse closed and count your change. Mexico has petty criminals, but no more than many other countries. The most prevalent "crime" is the shlock sold to visitors.
I also lived in London during the troubles in Northern Ireland. If you read the American newspapers at the time, you would have thought that the UK was a country under siege with a citizenry lucky to survive the day without being blown up in a pub bombing.
Now I live part-time in Merida. I see the same misunderstanding of a foreign country. Sensationalism sells ‘papers’ — and the killing of Americans in Mexico is sensational. However, it does not reflect the far more mundane reality — that a murdered American is exceedingly rare. Call it ‘shark attack’ journalism. What they report is the one swimmer dead by fish bite — not the millions who swim without harm.
Mexico is home to 1.6 million Americans — a population that will likely increase as virtual work become more commonplace. Forty million more visited in 2019 — the vast majority with few worries — no more than they might experience in much of the US. If Mexico were as dangerous everywhere as the media makes it appear, you would hardly expect that number of visitors.
Do not get me wrong. There are places in Mexico an American should not go. Everywhere else the visitor will find a warm and generous population — with a far different sense of urgency than the average estadounidense. Visit the history. Then find a spot. Order cervezas y botanas. And wonder why the media so often gets things so wrong. Salud!
Crabster Restaurant, Progreso, Yucatan
