EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Police in the Mexican border state of Chihuahua are assigning 500 officers to protect the thousands of U.S. residents who will be visiting family members during the holidays.
The officers will be cruising the main highways leading from the U.S. border at El Paso and Presidio, Texas, to the interior of Mexico through Jan. 8, Chihuahua state police Chief of Staff Luis Aguirre said.
They will be supported by Mexican National Guard troops, the army and municipal officers in Juarez, Chihuahua City, Parral and other urban hubs. Police also will be monitoring thousands of surveillance cameras in those cities and along highways to respond to emergencies, he said.
“Chihuahua, as a border state, receives countless visitors and we will be guaranteeing their safety as they travel,” Aguirre said during Monday’s start of operation Bienvenido a Casa Paisano (Welcome home, countryman). “We want individuals and families to know that our technology and the force of the state are working together for their safety.”
More than 130,000 U.S. residents drove through Chihuahua last year on their way to visit relatives elsewhere in Mexico. Last year, an estimated 1.8 million U.S. residents of Mexican origin or descent (whom Mexico calls paisanos) visited Mexico from the end of November through the second week of January, according to the federal government.
Chihuahua police officials said the state remains safe for visitors. This, despite recent violence in the southern part of the state that officials said is linked to fights between rival drug traffickers.
According to the Pew Research Center, 37 million people of Mexican descent live in the United States, with approximately 11 million of those having been born in Mexico.
Most Mexicans who settled in the U.S. left the states of San Luis Potosi, Jalisco, Michoacan, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Aguascalientes, Durango and Chihuahua, according to the Mexican Population Council.