This week, newly elected Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says he plans to send federal troops to Tijuana in an attempt to control the city's rapid violence, according to the Los Angeles Times .
“A special plan is being implemented because the killings in Tijuana have grown a lot,” the President of Mexico said in a news conference in Mexico City.
The state and local police have struggled to contain the violence in Tijuana for far to long. Killings have risen by 400% since 2010. Many believe this has been in part to local dealers battling over a flourishing drug market. With 140 killings per 100,000 people, the city is considered on of the deadliest cities in the world. In 2018, a record 2,518 people were killed in a nationwide surge in killings.
President Trump has also chimed in on the rising violence in Mexico and uses it as one of his many justifications for the construction of a border wall.
The Mexican President plans on sending members of the army, navy, and federal police to the city so they can work with local forces to try to control the violence. Eventually Lopez Obrador hopes that the members of these forces will eventually be a part of a new National Guard that he is currently working to form. While this has not yet been approved by Mexico's Congress, the establishment of this guard would consist of about 70,000 troops,
But it doesn't stop there, during another and different news conference this week, the Mexican President has declared an end to Mexico's war on drugs, saying his administration will stop these dangerous cartels by arresting their top leaders.
Good luck with that.
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