Mexico’s President Says Country Is ‘Safer Than the United States’ Amid Kidnappings

Mexico’s president deems the country safer than the U.S. amid various kidnappings of Americans south of the border. 

On Monday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador specifically argued that “Mexico is safer than the United States.”

“There is no issue with traveling safely through Mexico. That’s something the U.S. citizens also know, just like our fellow Mexicans that live in the U.S.,” López Obrador said during his morning press briefing.

Ahead of spring break travels, the Texas Department of Public Safety advised that residents should avoid going to Mexico due to the risk of high-scale violence by cartels, per NPR. 

This news comes from after multiple high-profile abductions of American citizens who were traveling in the neighboring country. In early March, a video surfaced of four South Carolina natives who were kidnapped while traveling in the Mexican border city of Matamoros for a cosmetic procedure. The group was caught in a cartel shootout, where they were held hostage at gunpoint and forced to enter the back of a truck. Two travelers died, while the others were found in a wooden shack near the Gulf of Mexico and returned to safety. 

In response, the cartel apologized and turned in the five men responsible for the crime. 

In a separate incident, U.S. and Mexican officials are still searching for three missing Texas women. In late February, two sisters and a friend traveled three hours from Peñitas, Texas, to Montemorelosa, in Nuevo Leon state, to attend a flea market and sell clothes. The women were last seen on Feb. 24 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. 

The Peñitas Police Department, the FBI, and Mexican authorities are investigating the mysterious disappearance but have had no luck finding the women yet.