I live 60 miles north of Mexico. I hunt border lands just this side of Mexico. In all the Arizona hunting units on the border, it is legal and recommended to carry a personal protection firearm while bow hunting. These border units are the only areas of the state where it is legal to be in possession of a firearm while bow hunting. We regularly encounter "mules" carrying bales of drugs on their shoulders. These are usually Central American teenagers trying to come to US for work who are forced by cartel coyotes to carry drugs across the border, so cartel members have less risk of arrest. The "mules" are USUALLY unarmed (but you never really know) and terrified to see us, because they do not know who we are or why we are there armed, and if they do not deliver the drugs to the specified place, they and/or their families will be hunted down and killed. Under all previous administrations in the last 20 years, Dem or Rep, Border Patrol was very active in these areas (helicopters, off-road vehicles. etc.) interdicting illegals and repatriating them to their countries of origin (many from Central America) and intercepting drugs and incarcerating the offenders (often poor migrant workers forced to be "mules".) I have watched as one bus fills up with illegals just brought in by 4WD paddy wagons, and the next bus is waiting to pull into its place as the first bus pulls away, day after day, month after month, year after year. These were security buses with steel in the windows dropping people off at detention centers, not Greyhounds taking them to sanctuary cities. The only exception was the Biden administration who did not even staff the main highway checkpoints at all, (no one there, no "guides" needed here), much less was Border Patrol enabled to beat the brush to enforce the law as they had been under previous administrations. Last year I did not see one Border Patrol uniformed officer, vehicle, helicopter, or manned checkpoint in the area. Most Arizonans have stopped even hunting the US side near the border, or even driving or hiking there, because it is getting so dangerous. I would say in the areas we hunt, there is about a 80-90 percent reduction in the number of hunters compared to 10 or 15 years ago. Many of those are out of state hunters hunting with local outfitters. I am sure the out of state clients have no idea how dangerous the area is. Outfitters aren't making money by telling them that. I am considering stopping myself. There are some old families there, but according to news reports, other reports, and court records, many living in that area now are paid by the cartels to turn a blind eye to what happens on their own property and/or they are actually actively assisting the cartels. They have been sending them to prison, but with the new terrorist designation for cartels, those folks in the US are going to have their land seized by the government if they help the cartels. Across the border in Mexico it is several orders of magnitude worse, EXPONENTIALLY MORE DANGEROUS. From what my friends and clients tell me, who are from Mexico and travel from one end to the other, north and south, east and west, to see their families there, or used to, it is dangerous all over, just more so along the border. Anyone who tells you different is just not telling the truth, PERIOD. It is common knowledge here, not even debatable.
I used to visit Mexico often, just to shop or take family or friends who may be visiting from out of state on a day trip. Several churches in the US and Mexico formed a coalition across all denominational lines to provide funds and volunteers from the US and materials and vetting from Mexico and go down once per year and built single family homes for the impoverished families living in makeshift hovels on their own land. They were not big or fancy, just a 20'x20' house with 2 rooms, 2 windows and 2 doors, but they had a concrete floor, stucco walls, and an asphalt roof. We in the US would call it a basic tool shed, but for some of them it was the only real building they had ever lived in. Many were living with dirt floors and no roof before. To see the tears of gratitude when they were handed the keys to their own home, a safe home, and pray a prayer of thanksgiving and blessing, us for them, and they for us, was amazing. Hundreds of churches on both sides of the border built hundreds of homes for decades. Now, sadly, it is so dangerous it is simply not possible anymore. That is a much sadder outcome than just not being able to hunt and fish there anymore. Many US seniors used to cross the border for medications and dental care they could not afford in the US and to support many fine businesses and healthcare providers in Mexico, and boost local Mexican economies. People used to load utility trailers full of clothes, shoes, etc. and drive across clandestine roads into Mexico to distrbute their goods to the orphans living in the garbage dumps. It is not safe to go do any of that anymore. You always had to be careful, as in any third world, impoverished country, with many desperate people. Things are different now, in the last 10 years or so especially. There is just no reasonable expectation of safety anywhere in Mexico now as far as what I hear both officially and unofficially. The cartels have turned it into a war zone funded by US organized crime and the drug addicts here in the US. People should know every time they buy illegal weed, fentanyl, cocaine, whatever, they are funding the destruction of an entire country of people. Any safe day in Mexico now just means the "malos" were engaged elsewhere that day, or it is in their own interest not to bother you that day. Wait long enough, it won't be long, things will change. After a while, I started only going to Mexico with people from there who knew the place, especially if I was traveling deeply into Mexico. I would never go to Mexico anywhere under any circumstance now. I don't have to burn my hand on the stove to know it is hot. I can feel the heat.
There are dangerous places in all countries, as many have said, but there are also vastly larger safe areas where the rule of law predominates in most first world countries. In Mexico, people who know, say there is not a highway anywhere in the country that is safe to travel after dark, ANYWHERE. I do hear the same can be said of many African countries, but I have not seen THAT with my own eyes.
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