(NewsNation) — Tijuana has the most active homicide investigations in all of Mexico, fueled in part by the illegal drug trade claiming lives on both sides of the border.
The Baja California Attorney General’s Office was investigating 415 homicides in Tijuana through the end of March, Víctor Clark Alfaro, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana and professor at San Diego State University, told NewsNation’s partner Border Report.
Battles between the Sinaloa and Jalisco organized crime groups fighting for smuggling routes between Tijuana and the U.S. could be responsible for the uptick in homicide investigations, according to a recent Forbes report.
The Mexican border city was home to more than 2,000 murders per year on average between 2019 and 2023, Forbes reported.
Is it usual to have so many homicides?
Violence fueled by organized crime isn’t new to Tijuana. The city was also among the world’s most violent cities this time last year, and in December, The Washington Post regarded Tijuana as “Mexico’s new fentanyl capital.”
Increasingly, however, homicides in the Mexican city bordering California have been achieving levels that are hard for officials to manage.
After 25 years of violence in Tijuana, Clark Alfaro said the city has reached “the point of no return.”
“It’s endemic in our region — something that began in the ’90s and has been evolving ever since,” he told Border Report.
How is it impacting Tijuana?
In Tijuana, struggles born of violence and those rooted in the drug trade are inextricable.
Tijuana is an important hub for getting illegal goods into the U.S. As the scene shifts away from goods like alcohol, marijuana and cocaine, however, the illegal fentanyl trade has hit Tijuana hardest, The Washington Post reported.
Tijuana has been home to fentanyl labs disguised as piñata shops and townhomes doubling as drug warehouses, according to the newspaper.
Although cartel drug trafficking that’s spilled into the U.S. often makes headlines, Tijuana locals aren’t immune to the opioid crisis and the violence it’s sparked, either.
Migrants waiting out asylum cases in Tijuana have found themselves in the crosshairs, citing fears of violence in the Mexican city.
How is it impacting the United States?
Violence from Tijuana has at times spilled into the U.S. Three shootings in recent months claimed the lives of two people and wounded three more in San Diego County, according to a report from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The shootings were linked to Mexican drug cartels and involved a drug cell battling rivals in Baja California, the newspaper reported, citing sources with knowledge of cartel activity and the ongoing investigations.
People living with addiction in the U.S. have also been known to cross the border into Mexico for cheaper drugs and stronger highs, according to Border Report.
Some never return, occasionally living unhoused in Tijuana, the outlet reported.
How are officials responding?
The investigations have been hard to keep up with, Miguel Ángel Gaxiola Rodríguez, head of the homicides division for the Baja California Attorney General’s Office, told Border Report last month.
“We’re working hard to reduce the number of homicides. Some days you have seven, some only one, there’s no consistent number,” he said. “We continue to make arrests, investigate crimes, we are going after all sorts of groups involved in these homicides.”
He went on, however, to tell Border Report that the homicides division isn’t “overrun.”
“We wish there were fewer homicides. We’ll look into every single case as well as possible and follow up by arresting those involved, and hopefully, this will lead to more convictions,” he told Border Report.