Is Mexico Actually Getting Safer?

On February 22, Mexico's military killed Nemesio "El Mencho" Oseguera Cervantes, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Within hours, coordinated roadblocks appeared across 20 states, seventy people dead by the weekend. It was a display of both state power and cartel power. But stepping back from the chaos: homicides dropped 30 percent in 2025, the lowest rate since 2016. The economy grew 0.8 percent. The Sheinbaum administration has ramped up arrests and drug seizures.

1. The Violence Is Declining, Full Stop (Sheinbaum Administration + Cautious Optimists)

The numbers prove the strategy is delivering results.

The homicide decline is real and substantial. Violence dropped 40 percent from September 2024 to December 2025. This is not a statistical blip, but a genuine reversal of years of escalation. The El Mencho operation itself demonstrates state surgical capacity: identifying and executing a high-value target at a criminal organization's apex. Economic forecasters see momentum. Vanguard projects 1.5 percent growth in 2026; the IMF agrees. Nearshoring is working. Companies spooked by China tensions and looking for supply-chain redundancy see Mexico and Central America as the answer. With USMCA's competitive advantages and a trained workforce, Mexico becomes a destination for manufacturing that would've stayed in Asia.

Arrests and seizures show sustained enforcement. The Sheinbaum administration has scaled up operations across its first year, building operational capacity through the transition.

The security strategy is evolving. The National Guard consolidation under Defense Ministry control centralizes decision-making. Duplication ends. Resources align.

The economic rebound is tied to security gains. Investors won't commit to nearshoring if cartel violence controls highways and ports. The homicide drop signals that the state is reclaiming space.

2. The Decline Masks Consolidation, Not Defeat (Security Analysts + Human Rights Groups)

Violence is falling because criminal groups have finished fighting for territory, not because they've weakened.

David Saucedo, a security analyst tracking cartel dynamics, makes the uncomfortable argument: falling homicides may signal that the cartels have won the war and are now simply consolidating control. Fewer bodies doesn't mean weaker cartels. It means they've eliminated rivals and sorted territorial hierarchy. Since 2018, Mexico has averaged 30,000+ homicides per year — a 30 percent decline from peak is real, but we're still in historic devastation territory. The Mexico Peace Index 2025 notes that violence continues to evolve: organized crime franchises, protection rackets, and supply-chain infiltration replace public bloodshed with systemic extortion. Sheinbaum herself admitted in her first year that extortion had not decreased.

The El Mencho aftermath exposed state limits. Seventy deaths and 250 coordinated roadblocks across twenty states showed that the military can strike leadership but can't prevent massive retaliation.

Criminal consolidation looks like declining violence. When CJNG, Gulf Cartel, and smaller operators have carved up territory and agreed on boundaries, killings drop but cartel influence deepens.

The extortion crisis is invisible in headline statistics. Human Rights Watch's 2026 World Report flags Mexico's escalating extortion economy — cartels taxing businesses, commuters, transport. You won't find that in homicide counts.

3. The Military Fix Is Permanent Militarization (Democratization Advocates)

Sheinbaum is solving security by dismantling civilian governance, and that trade-off is irreversible.

Mexico's National Guard shifted to Defense Ministry control in July 2025 via Article 129 constitutional amendment. That wasn't a technical reorganization. It was a fundamental handover of civilian security authority to the military. Mexico now has zero functionale civilian national police force and four military institutions. Critics point out that much of the National Guard's personnel are regular army soldiers in National Guard uniforms, effectively converting a conscript army into an internal security force. Human rights researchers and political scientists have called the reform a regression that threatens both security outcomes and civil liberties. Look at Colombia in the 1990s. Emergency military measures to fight cartels became permanent. Handover of internal security to armed forces meant decades of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and militarized statecraft that democratic governments couldn't unwind once normalized.

Military expanded without civilian oversight. The Defense Ministry now controls internal security with minimal legislative review or transparency mechanisms.

Soldiers replaced police. Regular army troops in National Guard uniforms means Mexico is policing itself with a conscript army, not trained law enforcement.

The institutional trade-off is one-way. Once military structures absorb civilian functions, civilian governments can't easily reclaim authority. Reversing militarization requires political will that doesn't exist when voters want quick security wins.

Where This Lands

The homicide decline is real, and it's meaningful. But the question isn't whether Mexico is getting safer — it's what price safety comes at. The Sheinbaum administration has bought short-term violence reduction through military consolidation, cartel consolidation, and a gamble that extortion and cartel control can be managed as a long-term cost. Whether that calculation holds through USMCA renegotiation and the next presidential cycle remains open. El Mencho's death showed the state can strike when it chooses. The roadblocks that followed showed that choice comes with limits.