AWC urges students not to go to Mexico for spring break

Concerns about safety have prompted Arizona Western College to advise its students to refrain from traveling to Mexico or at least to take extra precautions when going south of the border.

  The advisory, posted Tuesday on the college Campus Life Web site, comes weeks before the college's spring break and the Easter weekend, when many area residents go south of the border to such beachside tourist attractions as El Golfo de Santa Clara, Son.

  "Due to heightened safety concerns, AWC is highly recommending that students do not travel into Mexico," the warning says on the site, www.azwestern.edu/student_services/campus_life/. "If you choose to travel to Mexico please educate yourself in appropriate personal safety measures through the links provided above."

  The post includes links to travel advisories previously issued by the U.S. State Department.

  The advisories come amid heightened violence as the Mexican government battles powerful drug cartels in that country.

  Mary Kay Harton, AWC's interim associate dean for campus life, said the college's advisory will remain in effect indefinitely but covers the period of the spring break, March 29-April 4.

  More than 100,000 American teenagers and young adults travel to resort areas throughout Mexico for spring break, according to the State Department. Harton said she did not have an estimate for the number of AWC students who spend their break south of the border.

  Every year before spring break, AWC provides students with information about safe travel abroad, Harton said, although this is the first year the college has recommended against going to Mexico.

  She said the recommendation was prompted by recent violence around the country.

  AWC recognizes that many of its students have family in Mexico they plan to visit over break, Harton said. The college is advising those students to take extra precautions south of the border, she added.

  Paolo Navarro Hernandez, tourism director for San Luis Rio Colorado, Son., said he planned to contact college officials to discuss his concerns about the travel advisory, coming in advance of spring break and Easter weekend.

  Easter weekend alone attracts 55,000 Yuma-area residents and other Americans to El Golfo de Santa Clara, a fishing village on the Sea of Cortez that in recent decades has relied on tourist dollars for a greater percentage of its income.

  "That information is false," Navarro said of warnings about going to Mexico.. "Ours is a safe border and those unsupported comments affect us. We have never had incidents involving tourists (at El Golfo)."

  Navarro Hernandez predicted the college advisory will have little effect on Yuma-area residents who routinely visit El Golfo or who have family in Mexico, "because they know that El Golfo and San Luis are safe, because they come every year and nothing bad has happened to them."

  He said both sides of the border should be promoting tourism in Mexico at a time when an exchange rate favorable to the dollar gives Americans more buying power south of the border.

  "Imagine if I were to promote (shopping in Mexico by Mexicans by) telling them not to go to the United States because the dollar is more expensive and because of other issues there," he said. "But that is not our intention."

  The AWC advisory is the latest in a series of warnings to Americans relating to travel south of the border.

  Earlier this week, the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives urged college student to avoid Tijuana and Rosarito Beach, saying the two cities south of San Diego had experienced lots of drug-fueled violence. ATF is responsible for preventing arms from being smuggled into Mexico.

  The State Department's advisories, issued last month, urged travelers to Mexico to avoid areas of prostitution and drug dealing, and to take other commonsense precautions.

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Geovana Ruano Fonseca of Bajo El Sol, John Vaughn of The Sun and The Associated Press contributed to this report.