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Irish tourist jailed by ICE for months after overstaying US visit by three days: ‘Nobody is safe’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
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I hear the cartels are doing a great job on running things.
Respectfully, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I live on the border, am in Mexico several times per week, and have traveled the country pretty extensively. Most areas of Mexico are as safe as any city in the rest of the western world as long as you’re not intentionally fucking around and finding out.
And I’ll say this—you’re way less likely to get a mass shooting at a Walmart in Mexico than you are to get one in America.
Hell pretty sure we have more masked armed men shoving people into vans in the us now as well
Seconding this, I’ve had the great fortune to spend almost 18 months of my life in Mexico, visiting over 20 states. I’ve yet to feel unsafe in all that time. It’s an incredibly beautiful country with an extremely welcoming culture, stunning architecture and natural beauty, and unmatched cuisine. Mexico is a bucket list destination for sure.
You're literally 4 times more likely to be murdered in Mexico as in the US, according to both countries' own statistics.
Edit: lol, imagine downvoting a plain fact.
Those statistics can be misleading. I spend a huge amount of time in Ciudad Juarez, a city known for violence. What the base murder rate doesn’t tell you is that over 90% of the murders are by cartel members to other cartel members, which means that only 10% or less of the murders are happing to a random bystander.
Furthermore, Mexico has extremely strict weapons laws which means it is very unlikely for bystanders to get caught in the crossfire of a “good guy with a gun”.
That’s what I mean by you’re relatively safe if you aren’t fucking around and finding out—just like how New York City was a lot safer back in the day if you weren’t interacting with the mob.
I’ve been all over Juarez at literally every time of the day and night walking alone, and I’ve never been threatened by anyone. Just last night, I walked several miles totally alone at 2 AM. I’m not saying that nobody ever gets in hot water there, but it is far from a guaranteed danger. By contrast, I experienced many more threatening situations both day and night in NYC while spending about an equal amount of time there. I know these experiences are anecdotal, but they are also first hand accounts from someone who has actually been there rather than just reading the news.
And if you’re a tourist visiting a popular place like Roma Norte in Mexico City, you will not only be very safe, but you’d be hard pressed to not have an amazing time.
Fun fact: Mexico only has two legal stores in the whole country.
Wanna take a random guess at where the cartels get all their guns?
spoiler
About 70% of guns recovered by Mexican law enforcement officials from 2011 to 2016 were originally purchased from legal gun dealers in the United States, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.Article
And what makes you think the type of murder breakdown isn't similar in the US? Most of the murders there are gang violence etc. as well.
The fact that Mexico's raw number of annual murders is higher than the US's, despite being a much, much less populated country, is not something that can just be handwaved away.
There is a reason Mexico's net migration rate is negative.
Fine, I’ll concede and move passed the murder rate.
We are talking about the risk to travelers. America currently has a government sponsored effort to detain people who are visiting here, sometimes even when they are here legally. Mexico is not doing that. The risk to travelers is pretty damn clear right now.
Edit: Just to be clear, I don’t think that the gang violence rate breaks down differently for the US—before this latest ICE takeover, I would have said it is safe for travelers here too.
Where the travelers are traveling to, and away from, generally tells you all you need to know about where the overall quality of life is better.
Again, Mexico's net migration is literally negative. If two bordering nations have one nation that has a net loss of population to emigration, and the other has a large net positive from immigration from the bordering nation, saying that the former is "bread" and the other is "shit", sounds pretty ridiculous on its face.
Not to mention that it comes with it the heavy implication that you know better than the majority of those who actually undertook the endeavor of leaving their home country behind in search of better surroundings.
I see now, you’re offended about my opinion of America being the shit in the shit sandwich.
Ok, I’m willing to flex a little on that. It is currently shitty for some travelers, specifically ones who are not white or wealthy, in ways that it has not been previously. Overall, it has some opportunities for residents that may be better than other countries.
Likewise, Mexico has some problems for poor residents that sometimes make them choose to seek a better life elsewhere. As a travel destination though, I stand by my opinion that it is a good place to visit.
Happy?
Not offended, just pointing out the objective absurdity of the comparison, on the axis of overall average danger.
Don't project your emotional response onto me.
On that point we will simply have to disagree. It is much more dangerous legally for someone to visit America on a visa than it is to visit Mexico on one right now.
I don’t mean to project anything, I’m just trying to understand the undercurrent of hostility that I have felt from your replies, amigo.
The "undercurrent of hostility" exists only in your imagination. I just stated some facts that contradict the assertion, which I think is fair to say is much more hostile in nature than anything I wrote, ironically.
I certainly never compared Mexico or anything in it to feces, anyway.
One of the nice things about being American is that we still have the right to call our own country feces, just like you have the right to disagree with me.
That said, I feel like we’ve both expressed ourselves here, so I’m just going to move on. Hope you have a good week, dude.
Right, the US isn't going to murder you, they'll just deport you to some other country you've never been to and that country will torture and murder you!
How many people has that happened to? Surely you can show that it's happened a statistically-significant number of times, to talk about that as if it's a normal/typical course of action.
Or has alarmist media made you assume it's a common event, when it isn't?
Fascist countries are well known for their spotless record keeping easily accessible to the public.
You admit, within your sarcasm, that you're guessing at the rate of incidence.
That was the entirety of my point, really.
Does this include school children?
I see what you're implying. However:
Quote:
But in Figure 1 here, it shows the rate among US children to be about 1.5 per 100,000, in the same year, 2022.
Children are, likewise re the general population, four times more likely to be murdered in Mexico as in the US.
Also worth pointing out that in 2022, the rate for only Mexican children (6.5) is greater than the rate for all ages in the US (6.3). That fact should speak volumes all on its own.
Edit: Never stops being funny to see a simple, plainly-laid-out debunking of an assertion, with cited evidence, downvoted by ideologues who apparently just can't handle having their narratives challenged.
How many tourists to Mexico are having problems with cartels vs how many tourists to America are having problems with ICE?
Maybe they wouldn't have so much power if the yanks weren't busy buying them coke