[7] Worsening poverty, water shortages and drug-related violence across northern Mexico have provoked significant numbers of Mennonites living in Durango and Chihuahua to relocate abroad in recent years, especially to Canada, and to other regions of the Americas.

[8] The ancestors of the vast majority of Mexican Mennonites settled in the Russian Empire in the late 18th and 19th centuries, coming from the Vistula delta in West Prussia.

They finally settled in a tract of land in Northern Mexico after negotiating certain privileges with Mexican President Álvaro Obregón.

Between 1922 and 1925, some 3,200 members of the Reinlaender Gemeinde in Manitoba and 1,200 from the Swift Current area left Canada to settle in Northern Mexico on approximately 230,000 acres (930 km2) of land in the Bustillos Valley near present-day Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua.

However, as of 2022 the population was found to have decreased to 74,122 due to migration to Colombia, Argentina, the United States, Canada, Paraguay and Bolivia.

Mennonites benefit from this transit point since many travelers and truck drivers stop in Nuevo Ideal in search of Menonita Cheese.

The economic achievements have attracted the attention of organized criminal gangs, putting Mennonites at risk of armed robbery, kidnap and extortion.

[19][20] In 2014, Abraham Friesen-Remple was one of six members of the Northern Mexico's Mennonite community who were indicted and accused of smuggling marijuana in the gas tanks of cars and inside farm equipment.

[21] During 2007, the colony of Salamanca (a Mennonite settlement with a population of 800 spread over 4,900 acres (2,000 ha) in the state of Quintana Roo) was completely destroyed due to the landfall of Hurricane Dean.

In addition to escalating drug-related violence and worsening poverty in Mexico, Mennonites living in Chihuahua and Durango have had to contend with extended periods of droughts as well as tensions with non-Mennonite farmers over access to water.

The combination of these factors has provoked significant numbers of Mennonites in the region to emigrate abroad, especially to Canada and South America, in recent years.