Californians with deep ties to Jalisco rattled by cartel violence and fears of bloody power struggle

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Two days after Mexican forces killed the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel last month, Gladdys Uribe was in her California home, anxiously tracking her parents’ movements in Mexico.The capture and death of the world’s most wanted drug trafficker — Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes — triggered a violent retaliation that spread from Jalisco to other states, leaving highways blocked, businesses and vehicles burned, and 25 members of the Mexican national guard dead.The eruption of violence lasted little more than a day, but it rattled much of Los Angeles, where ties run deep to Jalisco, and many Jalisciences and their descendants are bracing for more chaos in their homeland as rivals in the fractured cartel vie for power.Tens of thousands of Angelenos worry about family in Jalisco, while those in the U.S.

without documentation fear getting swept up in Trump’s immigration crackdown and sent back to a place where deportees are often targets of the cartels.Uribe frantically monitored the uprising on Feb.22 through texts, video calls and social media.Her parents, aunt and uncle, who were in Jalisco, have since returned to the U.S., but she and other families dread a bloody power struggle in the cartel like the one that claimed many civilian lives when the Sinaloa cartel fractured in 2024.“In the short term, I do think that things will grow more violent,” Uribe said.

“In the past, when one cartel seemed weak, other cartels tried to encroach upon their territory.”Alex Martinez, who has family in Jalisco, said some of his aunts, uncles and cousins in Zapopan, next to Guadalajara, are afraid to go outside while the cartel is in a state of crisis.“It’s like that saying — If you cut the head of a serpent, then more heads will grow,” he said.“The main hope is that there’s a smooth transition of power.”The violence has put additional s...