What the killing of ‘El Mencho’ in Mexico means for the California border

from Wendy FryCalMatters

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The killing of one from Mexico the most wanted leaders of the cartel has sparked a violent crackdown across the country, and experts warn it could lead to prolonged destabilization that pushes more people to flee to the US-Mexico border.

On Sunday, Mexican security forces backed by US intelligence busted the notorious leader of one of the country’s most violent cartels, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG). The Mexican federal government said Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho,” was injured during a confrontation in Tapalpa, Jalisco, and died while being transferred to Mexico City.

Panic and chaos quickly ensued. Heavily armed men blocked roads in at least a dozen Mexican states, setting fire to vehicles and damaging local Oxxo stores. Several flights from Jalisco were cancelled. The United States Embassy in Mexico told US citizens in nine Mexican states to shelter in place, including Baja California on the California border. Local authorities in Tekate told residents not to leave their homes.

The National Statistics Agency of Mexico, INEGIhas repeatedly shown that regions affected by cartel conflicts suffer from some of the highest homicide rates in the country. It’s a pattern, experts say, that has historically led to internal displacement and migration north when violence rises.

A 2022 study by the UN’s International Organization for Migration found that a large majority of Mexican migrants cited violence, extortion or organized crime as reasons for leaving their communities, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

In January 2022, the Associated Press reported that cartel violence in western Mexico 35,000 people displacedhighlighting the battle between the CJNG and local rivals in Michoacán. In May 2021, news described plans for a shelter in Tijuana targeting people displaced by violence of Aguililla, Michoacán, a clear example of how violence-driven flight affects the border region.

They say that when high-value cartel leaders fall, violence historically increases in the short term Cecilia Farfan-Mendezan expert on Mexican organized crime and U.S.-Mexico security cooperation, adding that the impacts can often be long-lasting and felt even years later.

“Now with the events of yesterday in Mexico, we certainly have to be cautious about what may come next, and we cannot rule out the possibility of violence escalating,” she said.

Farfán-Méndez, head of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime’s North American Observatory, was in Tijuana on Monday, where he described tensions in the border city braced for new possible fallout.

“Something that’s very palpable here, and I think it’s similar to other times, along the border towns, is the uncertainty of what might happen,” she said.

Another expert said the situation could lead to displacement of people, but he doesn’t think it will result in people actually reaching the United States because of how secure the border is now after policies implemented during President Trump’s first and second terms.

The Border Patrol documented 237,538 encounters with migrants at the US-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025, which began in October 2024 and ended in September 2025. according to government data. That’s down nearly 95% from more than 1.5 million encounters in fiscal 2024, more than 2 million in fiscal 2023 and a record 2.2 million in fiscal 2022. That’s the lowest level in more than five decades.

Tony Payandirector of the Claudio X. Gonzalez Center on the US and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute, said past crackdowns on cartel leaders often failed to curb violence. “We’ve been doing this for a very long time, thinking that if you cut off the head, the body will dry out. It doesn’t happen that way,” Payan said, comparing it to shaking a beehive, angering the bees.

“One thing that hasn’t happened is that crime has gone away,” he said

Payan said violence could easily spill over into border states as rival factions battle for control. “There could be a spike in violence in the border states, and that’s dangerous because even though the violence has never spread to the United States,” it’s happening right at the border, he said. “It makes everybody nervous.”

“We will see effects at the border, but I suspect that will happen well before you have a wave of potentially displaced people moving toward the border,” Payan added.

Both Farfan-Mendez and Payan said focusing solely on breaking up cartels ignores the root causes of crime and can fuel more violence. Both said the firepower behind the cartel’s violence was linked to weapons flowing south into Mexico from the United States. Weapons from the United States are what cartels use to control and terrorize residents in Mexico, Farfán-Mendez said.

“If the U.S. is serious about a joint effort, it has to include not only forcing Mexico to stand up to the cartels … but they also have to understand that something has to be done about the weapons, the illegal export of weapons to Mexico,” Payan said.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said the agency is monitoring the violence in Mexico but does not expect an impact on migration.

“We have the most secure border in American history and it will remain closed to illegal entry – just as it has been for the past year under President Trump. US Customs and Border Protection is aware of and monitoring the violence in Mexico,” a CBP spokesperson emailed CalMatters. “All CBP ports of entry along the southwest border are open and fully operational and there are no planned closures. Travelers can check official border wait times at www.bwt.cbp.gov. For more information on travel to Mexico, CBP contacts the Government of Mexico.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.