Colleges warn students about Mexico travel

PHOENIX (AP) — The U.S. State Department and universities around the country are warning college students headed for Mexico for some spring-break partying of a surge in drug-related murder and mayhem south of the border. More than 100,000 high school- and college-age Americans travel to Mexican resort areas during spring break each year. Much of the drug violence is happening in border towns, and tourists have generally not been targeted, though there have been killings in the big spring-break resorts of Acapulco and Cancun, well away from the border. Campuses in Texas and around the country are urging caution. In the Texas A&M University System, the main campus in College Station is informing students and parents about the State Department’s travel advisory to Mexico. The main University of Texas campus in Austin isn’t issuing a specific Mexico advisory but refers students to the State Department Web site for all international travel. Three UT campuses are on the border, including UT-Pan American in Edinburg, where the school and police are both planning travel advisories. UT-El Paso, across the Rio Grande from crime-ravaged Ciudad Juarez, is discussing what kind of warning to issue. .At Texas A&M International in Laredo, the university regularly advises students starting at orientation not to travel into Mexico, and how they can stay safe when they do. They pass along official warnings in emails, but aren’t planning any advisories on recent events. The State Department stopped short of warning spring breakers not to go to Mexico, but advised them to avoid areas of prostitution and drug-dealing and take other commonsense precautions. “Sage advice,” said Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “We have had documented violence, attacks, killings, shootouts with the drug cartels involving not only the military but law enforcement personnel. It is indiscriminate violence, and certainly innocent people have been caught up in that collateral damage.” But Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said in an interview with The Associated Press: “There is no major risk for students coming into Mexico in general terms. It is always important to advise the youngsters to behave.”