Still another reason not to open the border to Mexican trucks

The Mexican army fights drug cartels.

Americans are warned not to go to Mexico over the holidays, according to a "Highway Vigilance Update" from the Transportation Security Operations Center (TSOC).

According to an unclassified notice from the TSOC, the Texas Department of Public Safety tells people to avoid traveling to Mexico.

The warning comes as kidnappings, violence between drug cartels, as well as between law enforcement and the cartels increases. Violence continues in northern Mexican border cities as well as other locations such as Monterrey and Acapulco. The DPS also said that drug related violence has even been documented in popular tourist destinations such as Cancun and Mazatlan. Officials say that rape and sexual assaults continue to be a serious problem in Cancun and other resort areas. Other documented violence includes criminal assaults on highways throughout the country, if you do choose to travel south of the border, officials say it's best not to travel at night.

The Borderland Beat blog covers the violence in Mexico that the mainstream media largely ignores (even as their editorial pages support opening the border to Mexican trucks). Borderland Beat reports,

A total of 151 inmates escaped from a prison in the northeastern Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, just across the border from Laredo, Texas, officials said Saturday.

Just across the river from El Paso, the number of murders in Ciudad Juarez exceeded 3,100 for 2010. We're having a hard time understanding why on earth anyone would think that opening the border to Mexican trucks is a good idea.