Armed Border Militia Apprehends Bat-Counting Scientists

Note: Heavily armed militia in Arizona and Texas are threatening people. Here near Sonoita, Arizona scientific researchers were held at gunpoint. Local officials say they don't appreciate the presence of the armed groups. Then why don't they do something? Is this really legal or desirable behavior? You know that if these groups were Latino citizens they'd be behind bars. While it is legal to bear arms, it is not legal to hunt human beings and threaten them at gunpoint. - Laura Carlsen 

Huffington Post: An armed border militia group confronted three researchers in Arizona last month, mistaking them for undocumented immigrants or drug traffickers in an incident that drew criticism from local law enforcement officials.

Border militias, or "untrained, utterly anonymous gunmen with no accountability to anyone" who prowl the border on their own time and look for illegal activity, have become an increasing concern for law enforcement officials, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The recent incident with the researchers is the second time in the last few weeks the militias have caused an issue for U.S. border authorities.  Read more. 

Group Rooted in the Desert Looks Out for Migrants

NY Times
By FERNANDA SANTOS
August 2, 2013

ARIVACA, Ariz. — Monsoon rains tinge the desert with deceptive hints of green at this time of the year, but migrants crossing illegally from Mexico continue to risk death from thirst and exposure in the blazing heat. A fortunate few who become lost might stumble upon lifesaving gallon jugs of drinking water, scattered by a band of volunteers along makeshift footpaths that have been carved through the mountains and washes.

From a primitive base camp here, volunteers trained by a group called No More Deaths patrol the desert, offering water, food, clothing and medical care to lost, injured and exhausted migrants, no questions asked. The group’s mission is as simple, though not uncontroversial: to end migrant deaths along Arizona’s borderlands.  Read more. 

Border Patrol account of deadly Nogales shooting is disputed

I was in Nogales last November. We had a long, tearful talk with José Antonio's grandmother and aunt and saw the place where the boy was shot. There is a small altar there on the sidewalk where the Border Patrol fired some 13 bullets into his body. To do so, they pretty much had to poke the rifle through chinks in the fence and aim at the boy's body. Now a witness says he wasn't even throwing rocks toward the border (not as if that would justify the crime even if he were). The FBI says it's investigation is "on-going". I wrote about José Antonio's death in "A Killing Spree on the Border" and about a similar case earlier in "Lethal Force on the Border."

It's important to maintain attention on the issue so that the question of the use of excessive force by BP agents is finally dealt with and those responsible for these murders are brought to justice.

Arizona Daily Star

by Perla Trevizo

March 30, 2013

NOGALES, Sonora - A Nogales teenager was simply walking down the street and not throwing rocks at U.S. Border Patrol agents the night he was shot and killed, a new witness says, contradicting the agency's initial statement.

Isidro Alvarado, 36, said he was walking less than 20 feet behind José Antonio Elena Rodríguez when two other young men suddenly ran past him and into a side street. He then heard gunshots come from different directions and he saw José fall to the ground.

Alvarado ran south in the same direction as the two men to take cover and call the police, he said earlier this week as he retraced his steps near the DeConcini Port of Entry.

On Oct. 10, 2012, Nogales, Ariz., police and the Border Patrol responded to a 911 call about 11:30 p.m. Officers reported seeing two people with marijuana bundles wrapped around their body on International Street, according to police reports.

They were trying to climb back into Mexico, the report said, when a group started to throw rocks at the officers over the border fence.

When they refused to stop, a Border Patrol agent who was near it opened fire into Mexico, hitting one of them.

Another witness interviewed by Mexican law enforcement said he saw four people running with rocks but didn't specify if José was one of them. Alvarado said he didn't see anyone else running, besides the two young men who apparently had just jumped the border fence, nor did he see José throwing rocks. Read more. 

Why Walls Won't Work: Repairing the US-Mexico Divide (EXCERPT)

The Huffington Post
Michael Dear
March 19, 2013

There are no magic words to solve the problems of immigration in the US or drug-related violence in Mexico. Instead, I offer one incontrovertible conclusion regarding the borderlands: the Wall will not work.
Here's why.

Because the Border Has Long Been a Place of Connection

The borderline is a permeable membrane connecting two countries. The inhabitants of this "in-between" territory thrive on cross-border exchange and collaboration, both of which have flourished for many centuries. There are strong senses of mutuality and attachment to territory among border residents.

Throughout time, many great dramas have been played out along what is today the border zone, including cataclysmic invasion, war, and revolution. The current afflictions in this troubled geographical vortex pertain to immigration and drug wars. The region has survived past upheavals, and will undoubtedly outlast the present woes.

A principal reason why border tensions are today so intense is that neither the migration nor drug problem has its origin in the borderlands. Instead, they originated from outside, and borderland communities have limited capacity for self-determination in these matters. At the national level, the US and Mexico each stand to gain from the sacrifices of that small subset of their populations that resides in the border zones. These are the people who must endure the exogenously-induced threats, with little assistance from their national and local governments beyond military and police actions. In the meantime, they have made what adjustments they can: some people have left , tired of the stresses and dangers; others simply await the future.  Read more. 

Mexico detains 16 guards in border prison break

AP: PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (AP) — A judge ordered the detention Wednesday of 16 officials and guards at a prison near the U.S. border where the brutal Zetas drug cartel orchestrated a mass escape of 131 inmates.

The judge ruled that the prison director, two top aides and 13 other prison employees be held for 40 days under a form of house arrest pending possible charges. The judge said there was credible evidence prison employees aided the escape.

Jorge Luis Moran, public safety secretary for the northern border state of Coahuila, told the Milenio television news channel that authorities had determined that not all the escapees got away through the tunnel. Some left through the main door, he said.

Authorities on Wednesday captured one of the inmates who fled, identified as Pablo Sanchez Campos, who was in prison on an auto-theft charge. Investigators were questioning him about how one-fifth of the prison population was able to escape.

Two escapees were detained Tuesday following a shootout with police.
The federal police, army and navy were mounting a wide search in the northern Mexico region for the missing inmates.

The Associated Press

More than 130 escape from Mexican prison on U.S. border

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - More than 130 inmates escaped through a tunnel from a Mexican prison on the border with the United States in one of the worst jailbreaks the country's beleaguered penal system has suffered in recent years.

Homero Ramos, attorney general of the northern state of Coahuila, said 132 inmates of the prison in the city of Piedras Negras had got out through the tunnel in an old carpentry workshop, then cut the wire surrounding the complex.

Corrupt prison officials may have helped the inmates escape, said Jorge Luis Moran, chief of public security in Coahuila, adding that U.S. authorities had been alerted to help capture the fugitives if they try to cross the border.

The jailbreak is a reminder of the challenges that await Enrique Pena Nieto, the incoming president, who has pledged to reduce crime in the country after six years of increased gang-related violence under President Felipe Calderon.

Many of Mexico's prisons are overcrowded and struggle to counter the influence of criminal gangs that can use their financial muscle to corrupt those in charge.

Ramos said that the state government of Coahuila was offering a reward of 200,000 pesos ($15,700) for information leading to the capture of each fugitive.

The Piedras Negras complex housed a total of 734 inmates, and the tunnel through which the prisoners escaped was about 1.2 meters (four feet) wide, 2.9 meters (9-1/2 feet) deep and seven meters (23 feet) long, Ramos said. Read more. 

¡Viva Mexico!: Nogales, Mexico - A Few Steps, and a Whole World Away

NYTimes.com: "A SIMPLE painted sign on a wooden board — “To Mexico” — was propped near the door in the fence, but it was the fence itself that fascinated me. Some masterpieces are unintentional, the result of a freakish accident or an explosive act of sheer weirdness, and the fence that divides Nogales, Ariz., from Nogales, Mexico, is one of them." read more

U.S.-Mexico Border: Camera gives glimpse of life in border state for New Mexico State University researcher

An introduction to the work of photojournalist Bruce Berman and his Border Blog. We invite you to take a look at the blog and listen to his words. He provides a very up-close and personal look at the realities of the border. In our own way, MexicoBlog and the Americas Program share his mission, "to go out and try to learn as much as (we) can and then give that information to an audience who might need to know what (we)'ve learned."

Las Cruces Sun-News: "Bruce Berman is an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication and a researcher at New Mexico State University. He doesn't own any lab coats, just jeans with big enough pockets to hold his "Plan B" batteries, memory cards and lens filters. The closest thing he has to a laboratory is the iMac in his office. His high-tech instrument: the Nikon camera he always keeps around his neck or on the passenger seat right next to him while out and around the desert Southwest and the U.S./Mexico border region.

"If you are doing good journalism, you are finding information for other people to use," Berman said of his style of research. "My job is to go out and try to learn as much as I can and then give that information to an audience who might need to know what I've learned."" read more

Border Life: Second-hand goods head down I-19 to Mexico

A delightfully told story of homespun cross-border trade that moves between an Arizona Salvation Army store and swap meets in Sonora, Mexico

Green Valley (AZ) News: "Like ants on an ice cream cone that has fallen on the sidewalk, a fleet of small trucks move up and down Interstate 19 carrying furniture, appliances, and other household items cast aside by Arizonans. Many of them, often with loads stacked precariously higher than the roof of the truck, are driven by Mexicans and Americans living in Sonora." read more