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Mexico's World Cup security operation has coincided with the country's lowest daily homicide counts in decades. However, the fall in official figures has not translated into a clear sense of safety for many residents.
As Mexico co-hosts the 2026 World Cup with Canada and the United States, authorities have pointed to tighter coordination between federal and state agencies, heavier policing around host cities and more localized intelligence work as signs that the security strategy is paying off. Yet residents in Monterrey and nearby areas say the visible police presence around tourist zones and fan events has not changed daily life in many neighborhoods.
For Lucy Rivera, a 29-year-old resident of Juarez in Nuevo Leon, security feels much the same as before. Sitting in central Monterrey before one of Mexico's World Cup matches, she said the officers deployed around public viewing areas were not present in the same way where she lives.
"In my area, you don't see a presence like this," Rivera said. "You don't notice any difference at all."
Mexico recorded 30 homicides on June 11, the day of the tournament's opening match between Mexico and South Africa, according to the Security and Citizen Protection Ministry, known as the SSPC. Five days later, the daily count dropped to 27, described by authorities as a record low.
Security Cabinet spokesman Omar Garcia Harfuch said on June 16 that the national daily average of intentional homicides, meaning deliberate killings recorded by authorities, had fallen by 46% compared with 2024. He said the average had dropped from 86.9 homicides per day in September 2024 to 47.3 in May.
The trend has also appeared in host regions. In Jalisco, where Guadalajara is located, state security coordinator Roberto Alarcon Estrada told Anadolu that by the end of May, the homicide rate had fallen by 60.2% from its all-time high in July 2024. He said this meant 115 fewer homicides per month.
Nuevo Leon authorities have reported a 45% decrease in homicides this year compared with the same period in 2025.
Still, Monterrey resident Mario Elizondo said the security buildup appears focused mainly on tourist areas and World Cup-related spaces. "The city should be a priority without needing an event like this," he said.
The gap between official data and public perception remains clear in communities around Monterrey. Rivera said violence today does not compare with the organized crime peak that affected the state between 2010 and 2012, but she described current insecurity as part of a "new norm" in the outskirts of the city.
Fanny Mendoza, who lives in San Nicolas, about 10 kilometers from Monterrey, said homicides are not seen as common in her area, while robberies have become normalized. She said people occasionally hear that someone has been killed, but such cases are not part of everyday conversation in the same way as other forms of crime.
Rivera added that many incidents do not reach the news and instead spread through neighborhood chat groups or informal conversations. She said her mother, who works in a beauty salon, often hears local reports from customers discussing killings or other incidents nearby.
Official data for Juarez municipality showed a 50% year-on-year drop in homicides in the January-March period, with 12 reported cases.
Jose Andres Sumano Rodriguez, a researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera, said Mexico's official homicide reports do point to a downward trend, but he warned that the daily figures presented during presidential morning briefings are preliminary.
He said those figures depend on the ability of state prosecutors' offices to record and report cases quickly enough for the next morning's presentation. According to Sumano Rodriguez, the daily registry has a 20% margin of error because of the way it is compiled.
The debate has also been shaped by concerns over reporting categories. Human rights organizations have alleged that forced disappearances—cases in which people go missing and are not immediately counted as homicide victims—may contribute to underreporting. Sumano Rodriguez said changes in classification can make homicide numbers appear lower.
"It is not necessarily that there are fewer homicides, but rather that they are no longer being classified as such; instead, they are being assigned to different categories," he said.
Even as the national average has fallen, high-profile violence has continued during the tournament period.
On the eve of the June 11 opener, five police officers were killed and five others wounded in an ambush in the southern state of Michoacan. A day after the first match, a body was found inside a bag in the trunk of a car outside a stadium in Tijuana, where Iran's national team had been training because of United States travel restrictions.
On June 23, Patricia Negrete, a prominent activist who had been searching for her sister since 2021, was murdered in Guanajuato.
Sumano Rodriguez said the record-low homicide figures reported since the World Cup began may reflect more than government security measures. He said criminal groups may sometimes choose to keep a lower profile, and the World Cup could be one such moment because of international attention, pressure from the United States and concern over possible actions by the Trump administration.
For residents like Rivera, the numbers may be improving, but the feeling on the ground remains more complicated.
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