Mexican Ambassador to Russia Eduardo Villegas Mejias reported an increase in the number of refusals of entry to Russian citizens. In an interview with RBC, the diplomat noted that in 2025 the number of such cases increased by about 5%.
According to the ambassador, the tightening of migration controls is due to the concerns of the American authorities. The United States has expressed concern to Mexico about the growing number of illegal immigrants using its territory as a transit route to the north. As a result, Mexican migration services began to more carefully check citizens from third countries, including Russians.
«This is not only about Russia. Similar trends are observed for other countries — in some countries of Latin America the failure rate reaches 8-9%, and for a number of countries in the Caucasus — up to 20%», — Villegas Mejias clarified.
The diplomat added that the decrease in tourist flow from Russia occurs in parallel with the increase in the number of refusals. If two years ago about 91 thousand Russians visited Mexico annually, then in 2024 — only 34 thousand people. Among the reasons — the high cost of routes with transfers and tightening controls on transit routes, primarily at Istanbul airport, where Turkish Airlines is increasingly delaying or preventing Russians from boarding flights to Mexico.
Despite this, the Mexican side is counting on the restoration of the state flow of guests. «We hope that after peaceful negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, direct flights will appear, and flights will become faster and cheaper», — stated the ambassador.
Since the end of 2024, Russian tour operators began to record massive cases of denial of entry to Russians — they estimate that up to 10% of travelers have encountered similar problems.
To enter Mexico, Russian citizens must prepare an electronic permit or obtain a consular visa. At the same time, in recent years, cases have become more frequent when Russians used Mexico as a waypoint to illegally cross the US border. According to the American Border Service, in 2022, about 21.7 thousand Russians crossed the southern border of the United States, while in 2020 — 467 in total.
At the beginning of 2025, US President Donald Trump, entering his second term, signed an executive order to suspend the passage of illegal migrants across the southern border. The document instructs US agencies to tighten measures to reject and expel foreigners arriving illegally.
To summarize, increased pressure from Washington was one of the key reasons why Mexico tightened controls at its ports of entry, which directly affected Russian travelers.