General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Greenwald makes another Snowden dump. This time Brazil papers. US spied on millions of e-mails calls [View all]Rstrstx
(1,399 posts)Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon were close to being war zones a couple of years ago, it has improved quite a bit. I know people who drive the Matamoros-Victoria highway (I used to be one of them up until the fall of 2009) and it was indeed known as the Highway of Death back in 2011. Now I have heard of no trouble from numerous people traveling the road, after some incidents the government stepped in and started policing it much more strictly. If you want to read the gory (and I do mean very gory) details of what allegedly took place in San Fernando, there is a summary at wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_San_Fernando_massacre
Some of the rumors were even worse than those described in the article, they were covered in borderlandbeat among other places.
My last visit to San Fernando had been in January 2009 to spend the night, and it was obvious even back then what a ghost town the place had become at night. Last month was my first trip back into Mexico in three and a half years (to Monterrey). It does give the impression that life is more or less normal, and I only went because Mexican friends had told me things were much better, though the town is vastly quieter at night than it used to be. Same in Matamoros, I've driven over there several times and while it has been completely calm it is certainly more mellow now once the sun goes down. But much better than back in 2011 when Brownsville residents could regularly hear gunshots going off. My last trip driving over there had been in 2010 and there were military vehicles cordoning off several streets back then, I haven't seen any of that lately.
Still, people in MX don't feel out of the woods yet, especially the more prominent citizens. Many bought or rented houses on the US side of the border the past several years to escape being shaken down or threatened (if you have money the US easily lets you in). A lot of them still work in Mexico they just go back and forth. As far as I can tell most of them are still here, heck even the mayor of Reynosa lives on the US side. It's a strange little world we live in down here for sure.