Safety and Security

CONSULATE GENERAL OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Tijuana B.C., Mexico
December 3, 2010
Gilda Villaplana, President / Josefina Pataky, Executive Director
Fundacion Esperanza de Mexico
Dear Gilda and Josefina:
I would like to express once again my appreciation for the excellent humanitarian work that the
Fundacion Esperanza performs and the wonderful volunteer opportunities that it offers to American young people. Thank you for allowing my son Jeremy to participate in several of your programs last summer. I understand that we are arranging for a group of Consulate staff members to come work on one of your construction projects after the New Year. Again, muchas gracias! I am sorry to hear that the Travel Warning issued by the U.S. Department of State continues to discourage the families of some of your prospective American volunteers to allow their participation. There are clearly misconceptions about this Travel Warning that I hope this letter will help resolve.
The U.S. Government has an obligation to inform our citizens about travel safety in foreign countries, but we only issue only one document concerning travel conditions for any foreign country. That document must broadly reflect conditions throughout that country. In one as large as Mexico, this is obviously a difficult task considering that security and travel conditions can vary widely from one region to another. Much of the language in the current Travel Warning is not directed specifically towards Baja California, but instead reflects security concerns in other areas of Mexico bordering the United States. As we all know, violence among organized crime cartels -- and between those cartels and Mexican authorities – has intensified in areas in and around cities such as Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, and Reynoso in recent months. Victims have included American citizens, such as the employees of our Consulate General in Ciudad Juarez who were killed earlier this year. The Travel Warning has been modified in response to events in those areas. For this reason, it “urge[s] U.S. citizens to defer unnecessary travel to Michoacán and Tamaulipas, to parts of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Durango, and Coahuila;” however, it makes no such recommendation regarding travel to Tijuana or other parts of Baja California. The language concerning crime and insecurity in Baja California in the current Travel Warning is essentially unchanged from all of the previous travel notices over the past two years. We acknowledge that there are problems of crime and narco-violence here, but we also recognize that authorities in Baja at the federal, state, and municipal levels have made progress in combating crime and have scored some important successes in 2010.
I hope that you will find this clarification useful and that the Fundacion Esperanza will continue to benefit from the involvement of American volunteers.
Warm regards,
Steven Kashkett