U.S. officials said<\/a> the \u201csituation has returned to normal\u201d in several Mexican cities. However, some road blockages remain in Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta and Ciudad Guzman.<\/p>\nWith the World Cup beginning in June, Mexico is slated to host thirteen matches and fan fests in three cities, including Guadalajara.<\/p>\n
Sergio de la Pe\u00f1a, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense,\u00a0said the \u201csituation is not going to go away,\u201d adding that the takedown of Cervantes will need to be met with continued effort from the Mexican government and FIFA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat also forces the government to taking the necessary actions to reduce the level of violence because we know that this event is coming, we know that the possibility exists,\u201d de la Pe\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe airports are operating normally, and there are no more road blocks, the Mexican consulate general in LA said. This video was broadcast during the NBC4 News at 3 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 23, 2026.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
So far, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa are scheduled for group play at the Mexico sites, with one more team yet to be determined. Fans of these countries expect to have a safe visit when going to support their teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time you had a situation like this was in the 1968 Olympics when the Tlatelolco riots broke out,\u201d de la Pe\u00f1a said. \u201cPeople were killed so, this is, has the potential for being that type of event. So knowing that, we need to preempt it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pe\u00f1a said ongoing collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico will be critical for security.<\/p>\n
FIFA has not commented on the violence that broke out in impacted cities in Mexico. It also did not return NBC Los Angeles\u2019 request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With cartel members\u2019 violent reaction to the killing of a Jalisco, Mexico, cartel leader prompting sporting events in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[15392,11190,48,52,51,47,50,49,2457],"class_list":{"0":"post-191214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-2026-world-cup","9":"tag-fifa-world-cup","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-headlines","12":"tag-la-news","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","15":"tag-los-angeles-news","16":"tag-mexico"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}