• TROOPS: The López Obrador Administration has a plan to deploy between 4,500 and 5,000 of National Guard troops in the northern state of Tamaulipas in the coming years which would mean a boost to the 1,700 currently present, a federal official said.
• GOAL: “The idea is to have 4,500 to 5,000 [troops]. Gradually, the number of troops is going to be increasing”, said José Ramón Gómez Leal, the federal government representative in Tamaulipas, without committing to a specific timetable of when they could arrive.
• RATES: According to the most recent Mexican Government data, the murder rate in Tamaulipas was 21.8 per 100,000 in 2019. Despite improvement with respect to previous years, drug trafficking associated violence is still prevalent in border cities like Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa.
• WARNING: The US Department of State has an active do not travel warning for the whole state of Tamaulipas. Early in January, a US citizen child was killed after his family car was attacked during a robbery attempt while riding a high risk road parallel to the Rio Grande in Tamaulipas.
