Week´s Top Articles: July 15 -22, 2011

Statement of Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne, Nominee for Ambassador to Mexico, to U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee

More evidence that the U.S. is committed to continuing bad polices regarding Mexico. 

Statement of Ambassador Earl Anthony Wayne « Mexico Institute: On July 20, 2011 the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a Nominations Hearing for Ambassador Anthony Wayne to confirm him as the new Ambassador to Mexico. His testimony reveals his plan to continue support for the Mérida Initiative, the drug war, border security and NAFTA economic integration. The full testimony is available through the above link.

Mexican border security makes it harder to seek medical care at Shriners clinic

For 30 years, doctors from the Salt Lake Shriners hospital held a daylong orthopedic clinic in Ciudad Juarez four or five times a year, seeing as many as 300 children. Shriners, which provides free pediatric care, would fly those needing surgery to Utah. Those numbers have dwindled greatly since the clinic moved to El Paso because of the danger in Juarez. Santora said doctors saw only 30 or 40 patients on their last visit. He estimates the number of surgeries has dropped from about 100 a year to 20. ...

At the Border, Teacher Becomes Unwitting Drug Smuggler

NPR: "Ana Isela Martinez Amaya is a teacher at a bilingual charter school in El Paso. She had just been named the Teacher of the Year at her school. On May 26, the 35-year-old mother of two was under arrest, accused of attempting to smuggle more than 100 pounds of marijuana into the United States. Because Martinez crossed daily into the U.S., she had applied for a SENTRI pass from the Department of Homeland Security. ...Because of her SENTRI pass and because of her regular commute, Martinez unwittingly had fallen victim to a new scheme by a local drug smuggling gang."

New Alabama immigration law has some immigrants already preparing to move

alabama.com: Some unauthorized immigrants have moved from Alabama. Many are trying to sell sofas, refrigerators and other items to raise money in case the law does survive a federal court challenge and they need to move home or to states without such a law. Many immigrant parents also are arranging for trusted people to have power of attorney, so that if they are detained under the law, someone will have authority to take care of their kids."

On the Border, Peaceful U.S. side is torn by Mexican strife

USATODAY.com: Unrelenting violence, though confined largely to Mexico, is unmistakably altering a unique culture that has bound generations on both sides of the vast southwestern border. From Matamoros, near the Gulf of Mexico, to Tijuana, on the Pacific Ocean, Mexican (businesses) thrived before the cartel violence erupted. Every day, the lure of cheap goods, services and entertainment drew thousands of U.S. customers who regarded Mexico as little more than a colorful extension of their own border towns. But even in sleepy places such as Del Rio and Eagle Pass, Texas, and Nogales, Ariz., visiting Mexico is no longer an option.

Art imitating life, death in Mexico's drug war - Corrido Music

The McAllen Texas Monitor.com: A style of music that has long roots in Mexican culture has recently come under fire by critics who accuse it of spreading lawlessness. The genre is called corrido, and its songs depict stories of an individual who faces a struggle — either ultimately triumphing, or meeting a glorious end. Performers and fans maintain it’s simply another form of expression that has begun to reflect the recent realities of the drug war, which are felt throughout Mexico and have brought border cities like Reynosa and Matamoros, in the Rio Grande Valley, to the forefront.

Road to immigration can be long, with many roadblocks

NewsOK.com: Americans who wonder why illegal immigrants sneak across the border rather than filing the paperwork necessary to immigrate legally don't understand how difficult and lengthy the process can be... U.S. immigration laws are a patchwork of preference categories and numerical caps that can ease the way for scientists, star athletes, and wealthy entrepreneurs to immigrate to the United States, while leaving unskilled laborers waiting in line for years.

U.S. border cities prove havens from Mexico's drug violence

USATODAY.com: A USA TODAY analysis of more than a decade of detailed crime data ....found that rates of violent crime along the U.S.-Mexico border have been falling for years — even before the U.S. security buildup that has included thousands of law enforcement officers and expansion of a massive fence along the border. U.S. border cities were statistically safer on average than other cities in their states. Those border cities, big and small, have maintained lower crime rates than the national average, which itself has been falling.