On September 4th, 2025, the Inter-American Dialogue convened the high-level conference ‘Citizen Security in Context: Local Solutions and Cross-Border Collaboration’, bringing together policymakers, academics, civil society leaders, and journalists to examine Mexico’s internal security dynamics, highlight local initiatives that offer valuable lessons, and deepen understanding of the evolving bilateral agenda on security cooperation with the United States, as well as its challenges and opportunities. Organized by the Dialogue’s Citizen Security Initiative and the Mexico Program, the event followed the announcement of renewed collaboration during Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent visit to Mexico, where both governments pledged to address fentanyl trafficking, organized crime, arms smuggling, migration, and corruption, through strengthened bilateral mechanisms.
Opening the conference, the Dialogue´s president Rebecca Bill Chavez highlighted the organization’s longstanding commitment to democratic governance, security, and regional cooperation, stressing that violence reduction requires coordination across borders. She emphasized that citizen security must be addressed not only at the national but also at the subnational level, since cities and local governments are where both crime and innovative solutions are most visible, stressing that mayors and governors are on the front lines of prevention and enforcement, and therefore studying and supporting local approaches in Mexico can generate lessons for the wider region. Lastly, she underscored the importance of U.S.-Mexico cooperation, noting that arms flow south from the U.S. while fentanyl moves north, making collaboration essential for regional stability.
Lila Abed, director of the Mexico Program, noted that Sheinbaum’s first year in office has brought both ambitious reforms and complex challenges, making bilateral cooperation with the United States more crucial than ever. The audience was presented with stark figures illustrating the scale of the problem: over 29,000 arrests for high-impact crimes in the past year, the seizure of more than 19,000 firearms and 216 tons of drugs—including 3.5 million fentanyl pills—1,200 methamphetamine labs dismantled nationwide, and the launch of a national anti-extortion strategy. Yet, participants underscored that femicides, disappearances exceeding 120,000 cases, and the territorial expansion of criminal groups continue to undermine public security.
The first panel examined citizen security at the subnational level in Mexico, moderated by Daira Arana, founder and director of Global Thought Mexico, who posed key questions about subnational security efforts in Mexico, coordination between government levels, recent security reforms and the link between good practices at the local level and the Mexico-U.S. bilateral agenda on security cooperation.
Francisco J. Cruz of Guanajuato’s Security and Peace Secretariat joined in representation of Secretary Juan Mauro González Martínez and described the state’s CONFIA program, a coordinated intelligence-led policing model that seeks to build trust with communities while integrating technology and investigations. He underlined that federal instructions guide states, but that local authorities have some autonomy to adapt strategies to their realities. On security reforms, Cruz noted that reforms since 2008 have expanded police authority to participate in investigations under prosecutorial supervision and maintained that Guanajuato is attempting to rebuild coordination and professionalization in partnership with the federal government. Finally, he stressed that bilateral cooperation with the U.S. must be based on mutual trust, real-time information-sharing, and respect for sovereignty, and argued that collaboration should balance Mexico’s priority of halting arms trafficking with the U.S. priority of combating fentanyl.
Alejandro González Cussi, former citizen security commissioner of Morelia and Colima & founder of Cussi Estudio Jurídico, pointed to persistent coordination failures across the country’s 1,800 municipal police forces, 32 state agencies, and federal institutions, arguing that overlapping jurisdictions hinder accountability and efficiency. He stressed that the majority of crimes occur in municipalities, yet local governments remain excluded from most national and bilateral strategies. He also noted that real progress must come from building security from the local level upward, since top-down approaches have repeatedly failed. González Cusi identified the militarization of security, through the creation of the National Guard, as the most significant reform shaping current policy. He stressed, however, that sustainable security requires strong local institutions, including trained and professional police, capable prosecutors, and effective judges. Drawing on his experience in Michoacán, he noted that while military forces can stabilize crises temporarily, violence resurfaces when they withdraw if local institutions are not strengthened. He lastly asserted that the path forward must be local, civilian, and long-term. He recommended building legitimacy for institutions through honest metrics, professionalization of local police, and civic justice mechanisms such as municipal courts. Cooperation with the U.S. must go beyond temporary or “urgent” actions and become systemic, integrating macro-crime efforts with micro-level strategies, was his conclusion.
Francisco Rivas, director of the National Citizens Observatory added that chronic underfunding and the militarization of public security continue to erode public trust in government institutions. Rivas highlighted that in Mexico´s case it is very clear that security is built from the bottom up, because there are no existing incentives for a bottom down approach. He also emphasized that security cannot be separated from justice; weak coordination among police, prosecutors, forensic experts, and judges produces widespread impunity. Lastly, Rivas questioned the reliability of official crime statistics, arguing that homicide figures are likely underreported. On reforms, Rivas underscored that reforms without adequate budgets are meaningless. He warned that today’s violence is compounded by new actors, including unions and public officials, engaging in extortion alongside organized crime. He insisted that Mexico must prioritize internal state-building and rule of law rather than deferring to U.S. priorities, while acknowledging that U.S. cooperation has been valuable, particularly in building up the Federal Police. However, he noted that current flows of arms, money, and synthetic drug precursors show how much remains unaddressed. Rivas concluded that solutions must start locally, be based on rigorous evidence, and then be scaled up through national and bilateral cooperation.
Panelists agreed that strengthening local capacity, improving intelligence-sharing, and clarifying institutional responsibilities are essential for sustainable security improvements.
The second panel shifted the focus to bilateral cooperation, with María Teresa Martínez Trujillo, research professor of the Tecnologico de Monterrey, moderating a discussion where she guided a comprehensive discussion on challenges for collaboration among both countries, lessons to be drawn from past cooperation experiences, innovative approaches that ought to be strengthened, and main opportunities to reaffirm a successful binational cooperation.
Samantha Pérez Dávila, editor of Revista Nexos, identified fragile trust as the foremost challenge for bilateral security cooperation, since trust is easily strained by divergent national interests such as migration policy. She also pointed to coordination problems within each country and across both, noting that Mexico’s security system has overlapping institutions at municipal, state, and federal levels, creating confusion and weakening joint action. She highlighted the scarcity of resources, mentioning the disappearance of funding mechanisms for local research and programs, along with declining international support, such as that previously provided by USAID, which limits the capacity to rigorously evaluate security programs. On learned lessons, she noted that past cooperation has often been undermined by short-term political cycles and lack of evaluation, saying that programs that worked locally were not systematically studied, so lessons were lost. She also reiterated that investing in local police, prosecutors, and community organizations would be more effective than continuing militarized strategies. Finally, Pérez Davila argued that traditional conceptual frameworks, such as dismantling hierarchical cartels through kingpin strategies, are outdated given the diversification and global reach of criminal organizations. Moreover, she observed that a shared, updated understanding of organized crime is necessary, since without new frameworks that reflect its evolving nature, cooperation risks remaining superficial rather than systemic.
Deputy Chief of Mission, Mark Johnson, described the U.S.-Mexico relationship as one of the most important in the world and stressed the need to “get it right” in security cooperation. He expressed optimism that President Sheinbaum and her security team are committed to tackling violence. Johnson explained that from the U.S. perspective, cooperation must target priority issues such as fentanyl trafficking, organized crime, and arms smuggling, while also strengthening bilateral intelligence sharing. He warned, however, that achieving sustainable cooperation requires addressing the deep mistrust that has historically hindered intelligence collaboration. Johnson argued that one lesson is that frameworks need continuity beyond presidential terms, noting that the new high-level implementation group is promising because it institutionalizes regular communication and avoids reliance on personal relationships between presidents. He also underlined that the U.S. is committed to improving intelligence and information sharing, which has been challenging in the past. He lastly stressed that both governments now have an opportunity to move beyond mistrust and create lasting frameworks rather than short-lived agreements.
Cecilia Farfán Méndez, head of the North America Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, observed that security is the most difficult area of the bilateral relationship, underlining that success depends on a shared understanding of problems which affect both sides differently but require joint solutions. She argued that the fentanyl crisis precisely illustrates this argument: in the U.S., the emphasis is on overdose deaths, while in Mexico, the focus is on cartel violence and territorial control. She emphasized the importance of institutionalized mechanisms of cooperation, such as high-level dialogues and frameworks, to prevent reactive policymaking. Farfán Méndez also pointed out that cooperation cannot only rely on military or law enforcement tools; it must also address public health, social services, and prevention strategies. She concluded that the opportunity lies in framing cooperation around saving lives, making the relationship less about abstract priorities and more about tangible results for citizens on both sides of the border.
Across both panels, participants converged on several themes: the importance of shared responsibility between the two countries, the urgency of investing in local institutional capacity, the need to institutionalize bilateral cooperation mechanisms, and the value of transparency and measurable outcomes in strengthening trust.
