Is Mexico Safe?
Research on safety in Mexico is fraught with pitfalls
Updated April 2020
Conducting online research on moving to Mexico can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to the argument that you shouldn’t move to Mexico because it’s too dangerous. In spite of what people who actually live in Mexico say, as politics in the last 10 years has shown us, for too many it's easier to passively digest whatever article happens along our path than get the facts.
Our grandfathers tales about Mexico
Statistics and and other research shows that like in the U.S,, Mexico is safe with the exemption of certain cities or neighborhoods. A few of the most dangerous cities in Mexico have always been dangerous, border towns like Cuidad Juarez and Tijuana for example. Stories about Tijuana are the stuff of legend, dating back to when our grandfathers were young and coming down here to raise hell. Even in those cities, seasoned travelers know that the chances of an incident statistically are small.
US Also Has “Most Dangerous” Lists
Honors for “Most Dangerous” shift from year to year somewhat in both countries. If a Mexican was investigating moving to the US in 2019 he would probably want to avoid the cities of St. Louis (highest murder and aggravated assault rate), Little Rock, Springfield and Memphis if he were to approach traveling in the US the way Americans approach traveling to Mexico. That is to avoid an entire state if it contains a dangerous neighborhood.
Latin America does have the distinction of being a dangerous continent, and news agencies like to paint all countries in Latin America with the same brush, as when Fox News’ headline brayed in 2016, “Mexico Home to 5 of World’s Deadliest Cities” and went on to say the deadliest of the five was in Honduras, which of course is a different country, but what the heck, it was accurate enough for Fox News.
Online Forums and Their Experts on Mexico
Reading forums can be another source of misinformation, because some expats like to speak for all of Mexico. How often do you find yourself advising people whether on not they should live cities in the U.S. that you have never lived in or visited? Expats do it all the time.
Things can change from year to year too. I hadn’t checked my own city of Mazatlán in several years. One day I thought I might review what expats online said about it.
Almost immediately I ran into this one, posted by one Cozumel Deb (so we have to assume she lives in Cozumel, right?) in response to query “Should I move to Puerto Vallarta or Mazatlán?” She wrote
“Drug cartels killed Mazatlan, housing cheap because ex-pats lost their asses on real estate..there was a time when cruise ships would not even dock there..Safety first...Expat community's Lake Chapala & Ajijic are rated #1 expat location, near perfect climate...if you are more interested in ocean, Yucatan/QROO is the best.”
Since I live in Mazatlán and have for several years, the fact that drug cartels had "killed" Mazatlán came as big news to me reading the post. The city recently received massive renovation of the malecón, with new lighting, new trees and street lighting throughout El Centro. Prices are going up, up as wealthy Mexican nationals move into the renovated coastal town.
It certainly didn’t seem the battle zone Cozumel Deb reported. I was so alarmed by the post that I called my associate, The Intrepid Elise, a property manager who has lived here for 15 years for clarification. If people were heading out, she'd know.
“No…I really never noticed any thing really different...” she said (along with the tone that implied “You of all people should know better….”). Elise is accustomed to silly inquiries about safety from skittish and uninformed new expats. She was probably more than a little surprised to get one from her business associate who lives four doors down the block from her.
Still paranoid that all this violence was going on right under my nose, I called my Mexican friends and asked them if there was a conspiracy to keep murders and violent crime out of the news and keep expats in the dark. They too, seemed surprised by the question. Drug violence is not part of their day to day lives any more than violence would be part of your life just because your city had a housing project. Like every major city in America, Mazatlán will always have neighborhoods I wouldn't take a bus to.
CozumelDeb’s post illustrates a number cognitive biases that arise when you do research on where to live in Mexico. One of the hardest is resisting what is known as the “availability heuristic” or “availability bias.” The availability bias is “a human cognitive bias that causes us to overestimate the probability of events associated with a memorial or dramatic occurrence." It bases judgement on the most readily accessible or recent information rather than in a context of comprehensive research.
People don’t have a sense of how big Mexico is. If you were trying to research moving to Tampa, Florida, you wouldn’t trust information provided by someone who lived in Baltimore. You would want to talk to someone who currently lived in Tampa. The fact that a person lives in the country of Mexico somehow gives him or her credibility to many who would read the post in spite of the fact we wouldn't look to a New Yorker to tell us about Dallas.
It's nearly irresistible to become the resident expert on Mexico to the folks back home by virtue of just living in the country. I’ve fought the urge myself. My blogs about places I’ve never been always center on an interview with a person who lives or at least spent recent time there.
State Departments Warning Read Out of Context
Another problem is that the State Department warnings are for entire states of Mexico, a country with 31 states and one federal district, and don't break the advisories down by region or city.
Travel warnings don’t even mark the distinction between Mazatlán, Sinaloa and Culiacan, Sinaloa. Culiacan is the capital of the state of Sinaloa and does have more violence. Culiacan is about the same distance from Mazatlán as Washington D.C is from Richmond, Virginia. Washington D.C. and Richmond have little more in common with one another other than both being inhabited by human beings. The warnings paint cities and entire states with the same ridiculously broad brush.
Even within the same city, we are unlikely to worry much about crime 5 miles away from our homes. No one in Richmond’s Fan, the city’s wonderful historic district where I lived for 20 years, gave any thought to living less than two miles away from the public housing community where a family was slaughtered in 1994. Yet I have a friend who won’t visit me in Mazatlán because the city has bad neighborhoods.
The Real Statistics
An estimated 1.5 million Americans live in Mexico, along with about 500,000 Canadians. Many expats live in Mexico illegally and millions live in Mexico part-time, like me. You will meet many Europeans who like the sunshine too. Over 10 million people visited Mexico in 2018 on vacations, business or study.
Where you are and your behavior are the main factors that will determine how safe you will be in Mexico. The only way to know how safe you will feel is to talk to people who actually live there and visit for awhile. As any season traveler knows, even if you are in Obregon Mexico or New Orleans, the chances of trouble of statistically slim if you use common sense.
When you get there, make some friends, keep your eyes open, check how old the information is and above all, consider your sources.
Related links:
Comedy Central perfectly explains Mexican violence against American violence.
The author of the site Two Expats in Mexico is a former cop and he focuses quite a bit of safety and related issues in Mexico. He introduces a useful tool to check out the crime rate of places you are considering in Mexico.
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The retirement crisis and you, together at last.
About the Author
I'm Kerry Baker and a partner with Ventanas Mexico which provides insight and resources to those considering expat life in Mexico, including a guide on renting, "If Only I Had a Place." Renting long-term in Mexico is different, no matter what realtors tell you. It has advantages and disadvantages to renting in the U.S.
“The Mexican Solution: Saving your money, sanity, and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico” is an entertaining way to put your actual plan in place. Includes practical steps as well as what to expect. “The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico” is a cookbook for travelers, expats and snowbirds trying to maintain a healthy diet in Mexico.