Many Mexican-Americans have families living in areas hit by organized crime and riots after the drug lord’s murder.
See the scene in Mexico the day after ‘El Mencho’ murder
Video captured an empty street in Mexico the day after Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” was arrested and killed.
Days after cartel-related violence roiled the Mexican state of Jalisco, Eva Zarate’s group chat with her family in Mexico and the United States has gone quiet.
Cars and Oxo convenience stores were set ablaze throughout the region, including where her relatives live in Guadalajara. The violence was in apparent retaliation for a Feb. 22 Mexican military operation in Jalisco state that led to the arrest and killing of drug cartel boss Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, authorities said.
Many Mexican-Americans like Zarate, a 33-year-old therapist in Oakland, California, sent WhatsApp messages and called to check on their family members.
They continue to seek ways to keep their families safe in their cities, towns and villages amid a bloody decades-long war with organized crime, including the recent arrest of another wanted drug trafficker.
Families in the United States are waiting to see how things will return to normal for their relatives in Mexico and what the two countries’ policies mean for families on both sides of the border.
“I’ve been feeling anxious and nervous for the past few days,” Zarate said.
Zarate and her husband were visiting family in Guadalajara the day before the Mexican military operation. It was my husband’s first visit. Zarate took him to his grandparents’ gravestones. Her aunt cooked them her grandmother’s recipes, including carne en su jugo, a classic Guadalajara dish of beef, bacon cuts, and beans in tomatillo sauce.
Back in Auckland, they woke up on Sunday, February 22nd., News outlets report on burning cars, burning buildings, gun battles, and more. In a newly established WhatsApp group chat, Zarate scrambled to explain what relatives had been sheltering in place.
The impact of anxiety on WhatsApp groups and calls
As Zarate called and texted his family, he realized they were much closer to a violent confrontation than he had previously believed. “I think it felt like I was hearing gunshots,” she said.
Zarate said families have been sending videos showing safety, such as people walking past cars still on fire on the side of the road and others watching TV inside. Some people joked about the situation. Relatives sent messages saying they were glad that Zarate and her husband left before the riots started. After that, the chatter fell silent as people huddled together.
The operation and subsequent retaliation left 25 members of the Mexican National Guard and 34 suspected gang members dead, but only one known civilian casualty, according to Reuters. The state of Jalisco has issued a code red that closes businesses and schools for several days.
“We’re seeing this impact on the daily lives of Mexicans back home,” said Hortensia Jimenez, a sociology professor at Hartnell College in Salinas, California. Jimenez, a native of Nayarit, which borders Jalisco, first heard the news while grading school work at home. She immediately began sending messages to her family, who now live in Tlaquepaque, a city adjacent to Guadalajara.
In Guadalajara, a vast metropolis of more than 5 million people in the state of Jalisco, which will host matches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the familiar sight of papers affixed to statues and shops asking for traces of the desaparecidos, people who went missing in the drug war, has become a familiar sight.
News outlets reported on tourists stranded in destinations such as the coastal city of Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco state, while chaos continued in Guadalajara, Jalisco state’s largest city and Mexico’s commercial center. The city was suspended after suspected cartel supporters blocked roads and set fire to pharmacies in several parts of the city.
Yet, despite the violence that occurs, the presence of organized crime is often less visible in urban areas with a large presence of law enforcement compared to some rural areas of Mexico where drug cartels can be a daily presence.
Families worry about necessities as tourists worry
Although the February 22 unrest caused a limited number of civilian deaths, it exposed the reach of cartels in several regions of Mexico amid a drug war fueled by American firearms and demand for drugs, including fentanyl. Lockdowns and looting occurred in several Mexican states, and people were afraid to leave their homes.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo promised a return to normalcy in the aftermath. Business groups in Puerto Vallarta and other beautiful tourist destinations are working to ensure the return of tourists during the peak tourist season.
Jimenez said families can experience “transnational family stress” as they try to contact loved ones from abroad while seeing graphic images in the media or, in worst cases, AI images that can cause panic and a sense of loss of control. As reported by Reuters, images circulating on social media of a plane on fire at Guadalajara’s airport turned out to be fake, appearing to be coordinated propaganda by organized crime.
At the same time, Mexican-origin families in the United States are experiencing increased immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. Mexicans make up the largest immigrant group in the United States, with about one in 10 Americans having Mexican ancestry, according to census data.
Meanwhile, Jiménez added that there remain doubts whether President Donald Trump, who has threatened to launch a military operation against Mexican drug cartels, will escalate U.S. intervention in the country.
“The anxiety comes from both sides,” said Claude Castañeda, 28, a freelance illustrator and library worker in San Diego. “Both, there’s something going on in Mexico right now. There’s something going on in the United States.”
Castañeda’s family frequently visits relatives in Tijuana, a large Mexican city on the U.S. border that has experienced waves of violence for decades. Their family frequently delivers groceries to their disabled aunt in Tijuana. When cars started catching fire in her neighborhood, about 1,400 miles from Guadalajara, on Feb. 22, she asked Castañeda’s relatives not to bring in groceries for the next few days.
Castañeda is concerned about how violence could be used to restrict borders.
“People were saying their vacation plans and things like that were going to change,” Castañeda said. “What’s important to us is: Can I go see my family for what I need?”
False and misrepresented images cause panic
Oswaldo Zabala, a professor at the City University of New York who specializes in Latin American literature and culture and a journalist from the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, said it is difficult to process the subsequent information, especially when it comes to viral fake videos and footage without context. Mexicans are also seeing an increasingly militarized response to drug trafficking due to U.S. policies.
“Most people don’t necessarily have a clear opinion on how to respond to this,” Zabala said. “Rather, what we have inevitably become accustomed to is seeing these expressions of violence as moments of disruption that stem from domestic military action.”
Some people on both sides of the border are trying to defuse tensions over the unrest with dark humor. Social media users have been posting memes about Mexican bread sellers equipped with rocket launchers to sell food. Some make fun of American tourists who fear cartel violence.
Zarate, a therapist, said her family’s WhatsApp group has become more active. But Zarate said, “Not only do I feel helpless over what happened to their safety on Sunday, I feel helpless now to support them.”
Still, she and her husband promised to return in late 2026 to see their family.
Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Contact us via email (emcuevas1@usatoday.com) or Signal (emcuevas.01).
