Let the Americans come, so this hell that so many families in Mexico are experiencing can finally end.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Ricardo Marcial P\u00e9rez, Mexico City resident<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very embarrassing to say that Mexico can\u2019t do it alone,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Santill\u00e1n, a 38-year-old graphic designer in Mexico City. \u201cBut the situation with the drug cartels has clearly spiraled out of control. A powerful army is needed to confront them. And the United States has one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. has already unleashed its military<\/a> on suspected drug traffickers in the Pacific and Caribbean, killing at least 83 people. For months Trump and his team have been floating the prospect of U.S. strikes on suspected criminals and drug laboratories in Mexico. <\/p>\n \u201cWe know the addresses of every drug lord,\u201d Trump said in November. He wouldn\u2019t say whether he would conduct strikes unilaterally, without Sheinbaum\u2019s permission. <\/p>\n Protestors calling for stonger security policies clash with police in the Zocalo.<\/p>\n (Gerardo Vieyra \/ NurPhoto \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Those threats incense many in Mexico, where resentment lingers over past American invasions<\/a>, including during the 1846 war, which ended with Mexico ceding more than half of its territory, including California, to the United States. <\/p>\n Yet others here are so desperate for peace that they are willing to consider any proposals. <\/p>\n Nearly two decades since Mexican soldiers were first deployed to confront cartels, drug trafficking today continues at record levels, violence has spread to previously peaceful parts of the country, and crimes such as extortion have exploded.<\/p>\n \u201cOrganized crime has extended its reach and is affecting a larger percentage of the population,\u201d said Jorge Buend\u00eda, a political scientist.<\/p>\n Many Mexicans view their own officials as too corrupt or too weak to combat organized crime. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople want security \u2014 the means are secondary,\u201d Buend\u00eda said. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople live in constant fear,\u201d said Ricardo Marcial P\u00e9rez, 42, who said that people in his hometown in Guerrero state must pay protection fees to criminal groups or risk being killed. \u201cLet the Americans come so this hell that so many families in Mexico are experiencing can finally end,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Polls throughout the Americas show that many are warming to hard-line security strategies and support more punitive measures for suspected criminals. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele<\/a> has gained fans regionally for his unforgiving approach to lowering crime: locking up tens of thousands of people he says are gang members without due process.<\/p>\n Carlos Manzo, a mayor in Mexico\u2019s violence-plagued Michoac\u00e1n state, gained a national following and drew comparisons to Bukele when he called for local law enforcement to use lethal force against suspected criminals who resisted arrest.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n