Mexican Americans worry about families after cartel violence

Eduardo Cuevas, USA TODAYMon, March 2, 2026 at 8:01 AM UTC

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Days after chaotic displays of cartel-related violence in the Mexican state of Jalisco, Eva Zarate’s group chats, with family in Mexico and the United States, went quiet.

Cars and Oxxo convenience stores burned across the region, including where her relatives live in Guadalajara. The unrest was in apparent retaliation for the Feb. 22 Mexican military operation in Jalisco, which officials said led to the capture and death of drug cartel boss Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes.

Many Mexican Americans like Zarate, a 33-year-old therapist who lives in Oakland, California, sent flurries of WhatsApp messages and calls checking on family.

1 / 0Photos show Mexico unrest after cartel leader 'El Mencho' killed

After Mexican officials announced a powerful Mexican cartel leader was killed during a military operation on Sunday, several regions of the country are grappling with ongoing security risks and unrest.Police officers secure the area where vehicles were set on fire by organized crime members to block a road following a military operation in which a government source said Mexican drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, commonly known as "El Mencho," was killed, in Zapopan, Mexico, Feb. 22, 2026.

They continuously try to work out how their families can remain safe in their cities, towns and villages amid the country’s decades-long, bloody war against organized crime, including the most recent takedown of another wanted drug trafficker.

Families in the United States are waiting to see how normalcy returns for relatives in Mexico, and what policies in both countries mean for families on either side of the border.

“I feel like this simmering anxiety and tension these past few days,” Zarate said.

Zarate and her husband had visited her family in Guadalajara the day before the Mexican military operation. It was her husband’s first visit. Zarate had taken him to her grandparents’ tombstones. Her aunt made them Zarate’s grandmother’s recipes, including the Guadalajara staple of carne en su jugo, a stew of beef, bacon cuts and beans in tomatillo sauce.

Back in Oakland, they awoke on Sunday, Feb. 22, to news outlets reporting cars aflame, burned buildings and shootouts. In newly formed WhatsApp group chats, Zarate scrambled to account for relatives who had sheltered indoors.

Effects of unrest visible in WhatsApp groups, calls

A burned vehicle used as barricade by organized crime members, following a series of arrests by federal forces, lies in Guadalajara, Mexico, on February 22, 2026. REUTERS/Michelle Freyria REFILE - UPDATING SLUG

As she called and messaged families, Zarate realized relatives were much closer to violent clashes than she previously thought. "I think it was like just hearing the gunshots," she said.

Zarate said family members sent videos showing they were safe, including them driving past cars still on fire on the side of the road or inside watching television. Some made jokes about the situation. Relatives messaged that they were glad Zarate and her husband left before the unrest. Then, the chats became quiet as people hunkered down.

The operation and ensuing retaliation, while resulting in the deaths of 25 Mexican National Guard members and 34 suspected gang members, resulted in only one known civilian death, according to Reuters. Jalisco issued a code red that shuttered businesses and schools for days.

“We’re seeing the impact it's having on the daily lives of Mexicans back home,” said Hortencia Jiménez, a professor of sociology at Hartnell College, in Salinas, California. Jiménez, originally from Nayarit, a state bordering Jalisco, first learned of the news while at home grading schoolwork. She soon began messaging her family, who now live in Tlaquepaque, a city abutting Guadalajara.

People walk near Guadalajara's cathedral in Jalisco, Mexico, on Feb. 26, 2026, days after a wave of blockades and attacks by organized crime following a Mexican military operation that killed drug cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera, known as El Mencho.

Guadalajara, a sprawling metropolitan area of over 5 million people in Jalisco set to host games for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, has come to see familiar scenes of papers plastered on statues and kiosks for signs of “desaparecidos,” people who have disappeared in the drug war.

While news outlets reported on tourists stranded in destinations such as Puerto Vallarta, a coastal city in Jalisco, chaos ensued in Guadalajara, Jalisco's largest city and a commercial hub for Mexico. The city halted as suspected cartel loyalists blocked roadways and burned pharmacies in several parts of the city.

Still, while violence occurs, the presence of organized crime is often not as visible in urban hubs where there is a larger mass of law enforcement compared to some rural parts of Mexico, where drug cartels can be present in daily life.

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Amid tourism worries, families worry about essentials

The Feb. 22 unrest, while limited in civilian deaths, exposed how widespread the cartels' reach is in several parts of Mexico during the drug war, which has been fueled by American firearms and demand for narcotics, including fentanyl. Several states in Mexico saw blockades or looting, and people were hesitant to leave their homes.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo has promised a return to normalcy in the aftermath. Business groups in Puerto Vallarta and other picturesque destinations have tried to ensure tourism returns at the height of tourist season.

Jiménez said families can experience "transnational family stress," trying to get ahold of family from abroad while also seeing graphic images in media or, worse, AI images that invoke a sense of panic or loss of control. As Reuters reported, images such as a plane on fire at Guadalajara's airport went viral on social media, but turned out to be fake, in what appeared to be coordinated propaganda by organized crime.

At the same time, families from Mexico in the United States are experiencing heightened immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. Mexicans make up the largest immigrant group in the United States, and about 1 in 10 Americans have Mexican ancestry, according to census data.

Signs with photographs of missing persons are pasted near Guadalajara's cathedral, in Jalisco, Mexico, on Feb. 25, 2026.

On the other hand, Jiménez added, the question remains whether President Donald Trump, who has threatened to launch military operations against Mexican drug cartels, will escalate American interventions in the country.

“The anxiety is coming from both sides,” Claude Castañeda, a 28-year-old freelance illustrator and library worker in San Diego, said. “Both, there’s now stuff happening in Mexico. There’s stuff happening in the U.S.”

Castañeda’s family frequently visits relatives in Tijuana, a massive Mexican city on the U.S. border that’s experienced waves of violence over the decades. Their family frequently delivers groceries to an aunt, who struggles with mobility, in Tijuana. When cars began burning in her neighborhood on Feb. 22 − nearly 1,400 miles from Guadalajara − she urged Castañeda's relatives not to bring groceries for the next couple of days.

Castañeda worries about how the violence will be used to restrict the border.

“People were saying it’s going to change their plans and stuff, like for their vacations,” Castañeda said. “For us, it’s more: Can we go see our family for essential stuff?”

A drone view shows vehicles in line at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, heading north into San Diego, California, from Tijuana, Mexico, on June 10, 2025.Fake, misrepresented images feed panic

Oswaldo Zavala, a City University of New York professor of Latin American literature and culture and a journalist from the border city of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, said information on the aftermath has been difficult to process, particularly with viral fake videos or footage without context. Mexicans have also seen increasingly militarized responses to drug trafficking, with policies pushed by the United States.

“Most people don't necessarily have a formed opinion on how to react to this,” Zavala said. "Rather, what we have grown necessarily accustomed to is to see these expressions of violence as confusing moments derived from military actions in the country."

Some people on both sides of the border have tried to defuse tension about the unrest with dark humor. Social media users have posted memes about Mexican bread vendors now armed with rocket launchers to sell food. Others poke fun at American tourists fearful of cartel violence.

Zarate, the therapist, said her family’s WhatsApp groups have become more active. However, Zarate said, "I feel not just helpless with what was happening on Sunday with their safety. Now, I'm feeling helpless with supporting them."

Still, she and her husband have promised to return later in 2026 to see family.

Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email at emcuevas1@usatoday.com or on Signal at emcuevas.01.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mexican Americans worry about families after Mexico's cartel violence

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