Pete Flores (right), CBP’s San Diego director of field operations, talks with Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan (center) as they visit the U.S.-Mexico border fence. In the background is Tijuana, Mexico. / Photo by David Maung

Tijuana ended 2018 with more than 2,500 homicides, its most deadly year on record. In 2017, the city saw 1,744 homicides.

So far this year, the violence has shown no signs of slowing. There were three homicides in the city on Jan. 1 alone. Tijuana police said they will double down on efforts to make sure the homicide numbers in 2019 are lower than those in 2018, the news outlet Seminario Zeta reports, but several people also told the Union-Tribune that they are counting on the federal government for help.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has proposed creating a National Guard that would be headed by Mexico’s military. The proposal has drawn criticism from human rights advocates, who say doing so would lead to abuses, crimes and more violence committed by soldiers. There’s also some doubt as to whether the proposal is legal because the Mexican Supreme Court in November overturned a law that allowed the military to act in a domestic security role.

I spoke with Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, a scholar at the University of California, San Diego’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies and an expert in Mexico’s organized crime. Farfán-Méndez identified some of the causes of the violence that don’t get enough attention and gave me a sense of what she’ll be watching on the security front in 2019.

One of the misconceptions of the violence in Mexico, she said, is that it’s solely linked to the underground drug trade. Another is that this current wave of violence is different from the one Tijuana experienced in 2007. Indeed, the expressions of violence are different — in 2007, the violence was dramatic and showy, with bodies hanging for everyone to see. But the structural causes of the violence are the same.

“There seems to be an idea that they fixed the violence in 2007,” Farfán-Méndez said. “But I don’t think the violence today is disconnected from the violence then.”

In the past decade, she said, it has become clear that the state of Baja California is either incapable or unwilling to investigate homicides. Many people, including authorities, often assume that every violent act is related to the drug trade. The impunity has “created opportunities for other criminal activities,” she said.

Farfán-Méndez said that over the last decade, the number of crimes reported by citizens of Baja California has fallen.

“As the state is not willing to respond to violence, it creates more opportunity for other criminal groups,” she said. “You see extortions and kidnappings. Sometimes it is the same criminal groups, but it’s not always the same groups.”

To really get at the root causes of the violence, she said, homicides and other crimes need to be investigated. The prevention of crime needs to be a focus, which means that the marginalization of communities impacted by the crimes — the idea that they were probably involved in the drug trade and thus, had it coming — needs to end.

Farfán-Méndez said she’ll be watching three things on the security front in Tijuana in 2019.

The first is the expressions of violence, or the method by which killings are carried out. She said she’ll be watching whether the violence begins to resemble the “spectacular” violence of a decade ago, with more execution-style murders and bodies hanging from bridges.

Second, she’ll be looking at the victims. With the arrival of thousands of Central American migrants in Tijuana in 2018 — and possibly more to come in 2019 — she questioned whether more Central Americans will become crime victims, like two Honduran teens murdered a few weeks ago. What, she asked, will the narratives around their deaths be? Will they be blamed for their own deaths?

Finally, Farfán-Méndez said she’ll be watching the federal government. López Obrador’s top two campaign issues were ending corruption and addressing security. In November, before he took office, he put forth a plan that focused on crime prevention, including granting pardons to low-level offenders who say they will leave the illicit drug world. Now that he’s taken office, it’s become unclear how much of this will actually happen. His main move so far has been the National Guard proposal, which doesn’t seem so different from the way past administrations handled the country’s violence. It’s also clear that local officials in Tijuana and Baja California are depending on the federal government to solve the violence.

• There’s also been a stark increase in the number of women murdered — 238 in 2018, up from 150 in 2017, reports El Sol de Tijuana.
• The Union-Tribune’s Sandra Dibble looks at how drug trade rivalries have driven the violence to new levels. A domestic methamphetamine market in Tijuana and continually shifting alliances among drug organizations have resulted in Tijuana becoming one of the most violent cities in Mexico.

Central American Migrants in Tijuana Remain in Limbo

Around 160 Central American migrants remain near the border after the majority of caravan members who had been in staying in a Tijuana sports complex were relocated to the El Barretal shelter in eastern Tijuana. On Friday, police tried to evict those who remained in a warehouse near the original shelter at the Benito Juarez sports complex, citing health concerns. Those staying in the shelter said they wanted to remain close to the border and had been told they could stay until Jan. 24. Mexican attorneys filed a request to stay the eviction, but police continued to blockade the building through the weekend.

• A Honduran man drowned while trying to cross into the United States from Playas de Tijuana. (Frontera.info)
• Weeks after the Department of Homeland Security announced it would require asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico as their asylum proceedings are resolved, the strategy has yet to begin. Several components of the plan remain unclear, including whether Mexico will actually enforce such a rule. (The Guardian)
• A judge ordered Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastélum to stop badmouthing migrants. In a Facebook post, he said he’s going to appeal the decision. (Seminario Zeta)
• U.S. authorities fired tear gas into Mexico on New Years’ to repel roughly 150 migrants who had approached the border fence in Tijuana to try and cross. U.S. officials say that some migrants threw rocks at Border Patrol agents, which prompted them to fire the tear gas. Several photojournalists and American activists who were present told KPBS that account isn’t accurate. VOSD contributor Vito Di Stefano was there that night; here is his account of what happened and a series of the stunning photos he took of the encounter. Mexico has called for an investigation into the incident.

More Border News

• López Obrador launched a plan to stimulate economic activity on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border. The plan includes slashing income and corporate taxes by 10 percent in 43 municipalities along the border. Businesses and union representatives have also agreed to double the minimum wage in the region. The Mexican president visited Tijuana Sunday to champion the plan. (Associated Press, Union-Tribune)
• President Donald Trump claimed that most of the drugs coming into the country don’t go through ports of entry. That’s just not true. Roughly 80 percent of fentanyl being smuggled across the border comes through the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa ports of entry. Marijuana appears to be the only substance that is smuggled more between ports. (Union-Tribune)
• Yet another writer discovered that the most interesting thingabout San Diego is its connection with Tijuana. (Travel + Leisure)
• The government shutdown over funding for a border barrier is exacerbating problems with the U.S. immigration system. Government agents meant to guard the border are working without pay, judges and clerks in already backlogged immigration courts are being sent home and E-verify, the system that allows U.S. employers to vet the immigration status of potential hires, is not available. (Washington Post)
• Another story of a parent and child — a toddler — separated at the border due to the father’s non-violent criminal record. Cases like these weren’t covered by the court order to end family separations in June and therefore continue, but whether the criminal allegations levied against these parents always merit taking their child away remains an ongoing question. (Union-Tribune)
• There’s a migrant shelter crisis developing in San Diego, since border officials began releasing asylum-seeking families into the community in late October. Here’s Voice of San Diego’s latest on how nonprofits, activists and now the city and county governments are trying to address the issue.