WorldMeetsUS: President of the United States Barack Obama yesterday announced the adoption of a regularization plan to grant five to eleven million undocumented migrants living in the country legal status for the next two years. To take advantage of the change in requirements one must demonstrate having been in the United States for five years, the existence of children or dependent permanent residents in the U.S., with potential beneficiaries subject to a criminal background check. In the short term, the measure could halt the deportations of about 4 million people. Read more.
The MexicoBlog of the CIP Americas Program monitors and analyzes international press on Mexico with a focus on the US-backed War on Drugs in Mexico and the struggle in Mexico to strengthen the rule of law, justice and protection of human rights. Relevant political developments in both countries are also covered.
Showing posts with label immigration - deportation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration - deportation. Show all posts
Nov 22, 2014
Sep 4, 2014
Many Mexican child migrants caught multiple times at border
Pew Research Center: With the surge in unaccompanied children apprehended at the Southwest border, much has been written about the unusually high numbers of kids arriving from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The number of apprehensions of Mexican child migrants rivals those of the other three countries, but many of those caught are ones who tried to cross multiple times — meaning that the total number of child migrants from Mexico is lower compared with the Central American nations.
Out of the more than 11,000 apprehensions of unaccompanied Mexican minors during this fiscal year (October 1 through May 31), only 2,700 children (24% of all the apprehensions) reported being apprehended for the first time in their lives, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Mexican government data obtained from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The other three quarters of the apprehensions were of children who reported that they had been apprehended multiple times before — 15% were of children who had been apprehended at least six times. Read more.
Out of the more than 11,000 apprehensions of unaccompanied Mexican minors during this fiscal year (October 1 through May 31), only 2,700 children (24% of all the apprehensions) reported being apprehended for the first time in their lives, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Mexican government data obtained from the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The other three quarters of the apprehensions were of children who reported that they had been apprehended multiple times before — 15% were of children who had been apprehended at least six times. Read more.
Sep 1, 2014
A failed journey: Central American migrants turned back before US border
Christian Science Monitor: When 5-year-old Georgina first saw her older brother and cousin descend from the bus that brought them back from Mexico, she let out a joyful scream.
But her aunt sobbed and her mother couldn’t bear to look. For them, the return of Ismael and Abraham – after just eight days en route to the United States – marked a quick and painful defeat for their family. They had mortgaged their home to pay $8,000 for a coyote to smuggle the cousins to the US. Read more.
But her aunt sobbed and her mother couldn’t bear to look. For them, the return of Ismael and Abraham – after just eight days en route to the United States – marked a quick and painful defeat for their family. They had mortgaged their home to pay $8,000 for a coyote to smuggle the cousins to the US. Read more.
Jul 22, 2014
The process Congress wants to use for child migrants is a disaster
Vox: Congress and the Obama administration are scrambling to respond to the humanitarian crisis of 57,000 unaccompanied Central American children who've crossed the border into the US this year.
One policy change that Republicans are expected to demand (in order to give the Obama administration the $3.7 billion in emergency funding it's asked for) has actually gotten the support of members of Congress from both parties, and encouraging hints from the White House. That change: updating a 2008 law so that Central American children could be returned to their home countries as quickly as Mexican children are today. Read more.
One policy change that Republicans are expected to demand (in order to give the Obama administration the $3.7 billion in emergency funding it's asked for) has actually gotten the support of members of Congress from both parties, and encouraging hints from the White House. That change: updating a 2008 law so that Central American children could be returned to their home countries as quickly as Mexican children are today. Read more.
Apr 7, 2014
More Deportations Follow Minor Crimes, Records Show
NY Times
By Ginger Thompson and Sarah Cohen
April 6, 2014
With the Obama administration deporting illegal immigrants at a record pace, the president has said the government is going after “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.”
But a New York Times analysis of internal government records shows that since President Obama took office, two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases involve people who had committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all. Twenty percent — or about 394,000 — of the cases involved people convicted of serious crimes, including drug-related offenses, the records show. Read more.
By Ginger Thompson and Sarah Cohen
April 6, 2014
With the Obama administration deporting illegal immigrants at a record pace, the president has said the government is going after “criminals, gang bangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families.”
But a New York Times analysis of internal government records shows that since President Obama took office, two-thirds of the nearly two million deportation cases involve people who had committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all. Twenty percent — or about 394,000 — of the cases involved people convicted of serious crimes, including drug-related offenses, the records show. Read more.
Aug 9, 2013
Threat of punishment doesn’t dissuade illegal immigration, new study shows
USC News
By Gilien Silsby
August 1, 2013
Neither the threat of arrest nor punishment may significantly deter Mexicans from trying to enter the United States illegally, according to a new USC Gould School of Law study that was published in the August issue of the American Sociological Review.
The study examined a variety of economic and noneconomic factors that may influence decisions to migrate illegally from Mexico to the United States. It found that people’s perceptions of the certainty of arrest and the severity of punishment are not significant determinants of their intentions to migrate illegally, once other relevant factors are taken into account. Read more.
By Gilien Silsby
August 1, 2013
Neither the threat of arrest nor punishment may significantly deter Mexicans from trying to enter the United States illegally, according to a new USC Gould School of Law study that was published in the August issue of the American Sociological Review.
The study examined a variety of economic and noneconomic factors that may influence decisions to migrate illegally from Mexico to the United States. It found that people’s perceptions of the certainty of arrest and the severity of punishment are not significant determinants of their intentions to migrate illegally, once other relevant factors are taken into account. Read more.
Aug 4, 2013
U.S. flying deportees deep into Mexico, over dangerous border
Washington Post
By Nick Miroff
July 31, 2013
Security conditions have grown so dire in Mexican border towns that U.S. immigration authorities have begun flying some deportees to Mexico City, rather than releasing them into areas where they could be targeted by kidnappers and smuggling gangs.
The twice-weekly flights operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carry only a fraction of the nearly 300,000 Mexican nationals returned by the Obama administration each year. But flying deportees deep into Mexico could save lives by discouraging them from attempting another desperate illegal crossing, ICE officials say.
“We’re trying to reduce attempted reentry into the United States and minimize the potential for exploitation of people who are removed to Mexico and their loss of life,” said Tim Robbins, an ICE official who coordinates the flight program, known as the Interior Repatriation Initiative. Read more.
By Nick Miroff
July 31, 2013
Security conditions have grown so dire in Mexican border towns that U.S. immigration authorities have begun flying some deportees to Mexico City, rather than releasing them into areas where they could be targeted by kidnappers and smuggling gangs.
The twice-weekly flights operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carry only a fraction of the nearly 300,000 Mexican nationals returned by the Obama administration each year. But flying deportees deep into Mexico could save lives by discouraging them from attempting another desperate illegal crossing, ICE officials say.
“We’re trying to reduce attempted reentry into the United States and minimize the potential for exploitation of people who are removed to Mexico and their loss of life,” said Tim Robbins, an ICE official who coordinates the flight program, known as the Interior Repatriation Initiative. Read more.
Anarchy along Mexico's southern border crossings
LA Times
By Richard Fausset
August 3, 2013
CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico — The Mexican government is pledging to bring order to its wild southern border. The stakes couldn't be higher, and the job couldn't be more difficult.
The proof lies in this dusty border town of 14,000 people. Here, unmonitored goods and travelers float across the wide Suchiate River — the boundary between Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas — on a flotilla of inner-tube rafts. They cross all day long, in plain sight of Mexican authorities stationed a few yards upriver at an official border crossing.
Some of the Central Americans are visiting just for the day. Others are hoping to find work on Mexican coffee plantations or banana farms. But many will continue north toward the United States. Read more.
By Richard Fausset
August 3, 2013
CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico — The Mexican government is pledging to bring order to its wild southern border. The stakes couldn't be higher, and the job couldn't be more difficult.
The proof lies in this dusty border town of 14,000 people. Here, unmonitored goods and travelers float across the wide Suchiate River — the boundary between Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas — on a flotilla of inner-tube rafts. They cross all day long, in plain sight of Mexican authorities stationed a few yards upriver at an official border crossing.
Some of the Central Americans are visiting just for the day. Others are hoping to find work on Mexican coffee plantations or banana farms. But many will continue north toward the United States. Read more.
Jun 13, 2013
Immigrants Reach Beyond a Legal Barrier for a Reunion
Washington Post
By REBEKAH ZEMANSKY and JULIA PRESTON
Published: June 11, 2013
NOGALES, Ariz. — Three young immigrants had a jubilant and painful reunion here on Tuesday with parents who had been deported from the United States, sharing hugs through the steel bars of the border fence that separates this American town from its Mexican twin.
The young adults are part of the movement of immigrants who grew up in this country without legal status who call themselves Dreamers. Their parents traveled to the Mexican side of the fence from Brazil, Colombia and Guadalajara, Mexico, seeing their children in person for the first time in many years.
The meeting, under a searing borderlands sun, was a new piece of the highly personal political theater that young immigrants have used to dramatize their support for a bill in the Senate to overhaul the immigration system. Hours before the encounter here, President Obama spoke at the White House to urge Congress to move quickly to pass the bill. Suggesting the growing influence of the youth movement in the debate, the president framed his remarks — both literally and politically — with Dreamers. Read more.
By REBEKAH ZEMANSKY and JULIA PRESTON
Published: June 11, 2013
NOGALES, Ariz. — Three young immigrants had a jubilant and painful reunion here on Tuesday with parents who had been deported from the United States, sharing hugs through the steel bars of the border fence that separates this American town from its Mexican twin.
The young adults are part of the movement of immigrants who grew up in this country without legal status who call themselves Dreamers. Their parents traveled to the Mexican side of the fence from Brazil, Colombia and Guadalajara, Mexico, seeing their children in person for the first time in many years.
The meeting, under a searing borderlands sun, was a new piece of the highly personal political theater that young immigrants have used to dramatize their support for a bill in the Senate to overhaul the immigration system. Hours before the encounter here, President Obama spoke at the White House to urge Congress to move quickly to pass the bill. Suggesting the growing influence of the youth movement in the debate, the president framed his remarks — both literally and politically — with Dreamers. Read more.
Apr 29, 2013
Immigration Reform Deal Neglects Thousands
The Huffington Post
Elliot Spagat
April 28, 2013
SAN DIEGO -- Carlos Gonzalez has lived nearly all his 29 years in a country he considers home but now finds himself on the wrong side of the border – and the wrong side of a proposed overhaul of the U.S. immigration system that would grant legal status to millions of people.
Gonzalez was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, from Santa Barbara in December, one of nearly 2 million removals from the United States since Barack Obama was first elected president.
"I have nobody here," said Gonzalez, who serves breakfasts in a Tijuana migrant shelter while nursing a foot that fractured in 10 places when he jumped the border fence in a failed attempt to rejoin his mother, two brothers and extended family in California. "The United States is all I know."
While a Senate bill introduced earlier this month would bring many of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally out of the shadows, not everyone would benefit. They include anyone who arrived after Dec. 31, 2011, those with gay partners legally in the U.S., siblings of U.S. citizens and many deportees such as Gonzalez. Read more.
Elliot Spagat
April 28, 2013
SAN DIEGO -- Carlos Gonzalez has lived nearly all his 29 years in a country he considers home but now finds himself on the wrong side of the border – and the wrong side of a proposed overhaul of the U.S. immigration system that would grant legal status to millions of people.
Gonzalez was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, from Santa Barbara in December, one of nearly 2 million removals from the United States since Barack Obama was first elected president.
"I have nobody here," said Gonzalez, who serves breakfasts in a Tijuana migrant shelter while nursing a foot that fractured in 10 places when he jumped the border fence in a failed attempt to rejoin his mother, two brothers and extended family in California. "The United States is all I know."
While a Senate bill introduced earlier this month would bring many of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally out of the shadows, not everyone would benefit. They include anyone who arrived after Dec. 31, 2011, those with gay partners legally in the U.S., siblings of U.S. citizens and many deportees such as Gonzalez. Read more.
Apr 24, 2013
U.S. Hospitals Quietly Deport Hundreds Of Undocumented Immigrants
The Huffington Post
By David Pitt
April 23, 2013
Des Moines, Iowa - Days after they were badly hurt in a car accident, Jacinto Cruz and Jose Rodriguez-Saldana lay unconscious in an Iowa hospital while the American health care system weighed what to do with the two immigrants from Mexico.
The men had health insurance from jobs at one of the nation's largest pork producers. But neither had legal permission to live in the U.S., nor was it clear whether their insurance would pay for the long-term rehabilitation they needed.
So Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines took matters into its own hands: After consulting with the patients' families, it quietly loaded the two comatose men onto a private jet that flew them back to Mexico, effectively deporting them without consulting any court or federal agency.
When the men awoke, they were more than 1,800 miles away in a hospital in Veracruz, on the Mexican Gulf Coast.
Hundreds of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally have taken similar journeys through a little-known removal system run not by the federal government trying to enforce laws but by hospitals seeking to curb high costs. A recent report compiled by immigrant advocacy groups made a rare attempt to determine how many people are sent home, concluding that at least 600 immigrants were removed over a five-year period, though there were likely many more. Read more.
By David Pitt
April 23, 2013
Des Moines, Iowa - Days after they were badly hurt in a car accident, Jacinto Cruz and Jose Rodriguez-Saldana lay unconscious in an Iowa hospital while the American health care system weighed what to do with the two immigrants from Mexico.
The men had health insurance from jobs at one of the nation's largest pork producers. But neither had legal permission to live in the U.S., nor was it clear whether their insurance would pay for the long-term rehabilitation they needed.
So Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines took matters into its own hands: After consulting with the patients' families, it quietly loaded the two comatose men onto a private jet that flew them back to Mexico, effectively deporting them without consulting any court or federal agency.
When the men awoke, they were more than 1,800 miles away in a hospital in Veracruz, on the Mexican Gulf Coast.
Hundreds of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally have taken similar journeys through a little-known removal system run not by the federal government trying to enforce laws but by hospitals seeking to curb high costs. A recent report compiled by immigrant advocacy groups made a rare attempt to determine how many people are sent home, concluding that at least 600 immigrants were removed over a five-year period, though there were likely many more. Read more.
Apr 4, 2013
Illegal Immigration: Cruelty, Xenophobia and U.S. Business (La Jornada, Mexico)
"The criminalization of undocumented migration in the United States and the violations of human rights that accompany it, is a strategy that results in enormous political, economic and corporate profit, the very existence of which contradicts the founding principles of that country."
Editorial
La Jornada
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
WorldsMeet.us
April 4, 2013
According to official reports divulged by The New York Times, some 300 undocumented migrants a day are subject to solitary confinement in U.S. prisons on orders of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE for short). This happens in spite of the fact that such people have not been jailed for criminal offences, but for civil ones, which under the laws of our neighboring country, don't even merit punishment. Their detentions are a means of ensuring that they appear at administrative hearings. Out of this figure, half, or some 150, are kept in solitary confinement for 75 days or more, which according to psychiatric experts cited by the newspaper, multiplies the risk of severe mental damage for the detainees.
Beyond the intrinsic cruelty of laws currently in force in our neighboring country under which migrants are persecuted - laws that criminalize foreigners for coming to the U.S. in search of work or a better life than what their countries of origin offer - inhumane practices like this one have various contextual elements that must be examined. Read more.
Editorial
La Jornada
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
WorldsMeet.us
April 4, 2013
According to official reports divulged by The New York Times, some 300 undocumented migrants a day are subject to solitary confinement in U.S. prisons on orders of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE for short). This happens in spite of the fact that such people have not been jailed for criminal offences, but for civil ones, which under the laws of our neighboring country, don't even merit punishment. Their detentions are a means of ensuring that they appear at administrative hearings. Out of this figure, half, or some 150, are kept in solitary confinement for 75 days or more, which according to psychiatric experts cited by the newspaper, multiplies the risk of severe mental damage for the detainees.
Beyond the intrinsic cruelty of laws currently in force in our neighboring country under which migrants are persecuted - laws that criminalize foreigners for coming to the U.S. in search of work or a better life than what their countries of origin offer - inhumane practices like this one have various contextual elements that must be examined. Read more.
Mar 21, 2013
Deportation, Drugs and Delinquency in Tijuana
FNS NEWS. Are U.S. and Mexican deportation and reintegration policies fomenting
delinquency in Tijuana? According to a prominent academic researcher and
immigrant rights activist, the answer is yes. Victor Clark Alfaro,
director of Tijuana’s Binational Center for Human Rights, told the local
press that the deportation of gang-affiliated individuals who are left
on their own in the Mexican border city with no resources or legitimate
employment options is exacerbating a serious problem of drug abuse and
delinquency.
Of an average of 200 deportees who arrive daily to Tijuana, Clark Alfaro estimated that at least 30 percent of them have ties with southern California gangs including Mara Salvatrucha, M-18, M-13, Florence, and the Mexican Mafia. After their arrival in Tijuana, the deportees don’t find job opportunities and confront discrimination from the local society because of their dress, style and tattoos, Clark Alfaro contended.
The border anthropologist said the lack of papers on the U.S. side of the border is likewise a problem on the Mexican side, where it is difficult to obtain the birth certificates and federal voter cards which are routinely used for identification in Mexico. Undocumented individuals are then harassed and detained by Tijuana municipal police officers, Clark Alfaro asserted.
He said the desperate situation of the deportees coupled with the cross-border criminal backgrounds of many make them ideal recruits for organized crime. Employed as look-outs, meth cooks, street dealers and hit men, deportees wind up constituting the lower base of the pyramid of organized crime in Tijuana, Clark Alfaro added.
While the high-profile violence between warring drug gangs that shattered Tijuana a few years back has largely receded into the background, local drug consumption and the violence associated with it have not gone away. Regularly, the press reports on the detentions of street dealers, small-scale drug confiscations and killings said to be connected to the lower rung of the underworld.
This week, for example, the Baja California attorney general’s office told the media it was investigating four homicides committed in recent days. In one case, two men were found beaten and strangled in a home. In another case, Roberto Alejandro Cortes Chorta, 25, was arrested and accused of killing his friend, 26-year-old Veronica Palacios Espinoza, and then stuffing her body in a suitcase with the aid of his mother, after the young couple consumed drugs and argued.
In a third instance, 21-year-old Jessica Michele Munoz was found strangled inside a Ford Explorer with a dose of crystal meth on a breast. Reportedly, Munoz was earlier linked to small-time drug dealing. On Wednesday, March 20, 22-year-old Margarita Martinez Michel became the third woman murdered in Tijuana in a week when she was shot to death in front of her home, in a crime also linked to street dealing.
On March 19, Tijuana municipal Baja California state police authorities reported detaining 18 street dealers and confiscating small amounts of meth, heroin, cocaine and marijuana. Separately, two other men were arrested for allegedly preparing a car with California license plates with a marijuana shipment.
In an analysis published last year, Clark Alfaro, who teaches at San Diego State University, wrote that the presumed end of the Tijuana drug war and the decline in murder statistics, which registered more than 2,300 homicides during the peak years of violence between 2008 and 2010 according to the scholar-activist, has not ended insecurity but largely confined it to the working-class neighborhoods of the city and among the lower classes. A similar pattern is currently playing out in Ciudad Juarez, Acapulco and other places.
Clark Alfaro described two Tijuanas: “the modern city. ” a place where the financial and political elite reside, and the rest of the city where poor zones punctuated with islands of walled-off subdivisions proliferate.
As order has been restored for the upper echelons of society, social disintegration has taken hold on the lower end, characterized by rising drug addiction, especially to meth, and the briskness of an illicit market that easily withstands police and military seizures, according to Clark Alfaro. In this schema, the business of murder is systematic but tucked away from the larger society and done in a non-scandalous way.
Wrote the border analyst:
“The murdered, on average one a day, now are not people murdered in abhorrent ways: decapitated, dismembered or incinerated. Rather, they are shot to death…the daily murder victims are now irrelevant persons in the structure of delinquency, since according to the authorities, 80 percent of them were people linked to the sale of drugs on the streets of the other Tijuana, not the modern part of the city,”.
In his more recent comments to the Tijuana press, Clark Alfaro said not enough attention was being paid to the issue of local drug dealing/consumption. He urged giving alternatives to deportees but feared public policy was headed in the wrong direction. “All indications are that a police solution is desired for a problem that requires a humanitarian one,” Clark Alfaro contended.
Sources: Frontera.info March 19, 20 and 21, 2013. Articles by Luis Gerardo Andrade and editorial staff. El Sol de Tijuana, March 18, 20 and 21, 2013. Articles by Juan Guizar and Manuel Cordero. Proceso, August 22, 2012. Article by Victor Clark Alfaro.
Of an average of 200 deportees who arrive daily to Tijuana, Clark Alfaro estimated that at least 30 percent of them have ties with southern California gangs including Mara Salvatrucha, M-18, M-13, Florence, and the Mexican Mafia. After their arrival in Tijuana, the deportees don’t find job opportunities and confront discrimination from the local society because of their dress, style and tattoos, Clark Alfaro contended.
The border anthropologist said the lack of papers on the U.S. side of the border is likewise a problem on the Mexican side, where it is difficult to obtain the birth certificates and federal voter cards which are routinely used for identification in Mexico. Undocumented individuals are then harassed and detained by Tijuana municipal police officers, Clark Alfaro asserted.
He said the desperate situation of the deportees coupled with the cross-border criminal backgrounds of many make them ideal recruits for organized crime. Employed as look-outs, meth cooks, street dealers and hit men, deportees wind up constituting the lower base of the pyramid of organized crime in Tijuana, Clark Alfaro added.
While the high-profile violence between warring drug gangs that shattered Tijuana a few years back has largely receded into the background, local drug consumption and the violence associated with it have not gone away. Regularly, the press reports on the detentions of street dealers, small-scale drug confiscations and killings said to be connected to the lower rung of the underworld.
This week, for example, the Baja California attorney general’s office told the media it was investigating four homicides committed in recent days. In one case, two men were found beaten and strangled in a home. In another case, Roberto Alejandro Cortes Chorta, 25, was arrested and accused of killing his friend, 26-year-old Veronica Palacios Espinoza, and then stuffing her body in a suitcase with the aid of his mother, after the young couple consumed drugs and argued.
In a third instance, 21-year-old Jessica Michele Munoz was found strangled inside a Ford Explorer with a dose of crystal meth on a breast. Reportedly, Munoz was earlier linked to small-time drug dealing. On Wednesday, March 20, 22-year-old Margarita Martinez Michel became the third woman murdered in Tijuana in a week when she was shot to death in front of her home, in a crime also linked to street dealing.
On March 19, Tijuana municipal Baja California state police authorities reported detaining 18 street dealers and confiscating small amounts of meth, heroin, cocaine and marijuana. Separately, two other men were arrested for allegedly preparing a car with California license plates with a marijuana shipment.
In an analysis published last year, Clark Alfaro, who teaches at San Diego State University, wrote that the presumed end of the Tijuana drug war and the decline in murder statistics, which registered more than 2,300 homicides during the peak years of violence between 2008 and 2010 according to the scholar-activist, has not ended insecurity but largely confined it to the working-class neighborhoods of the city and among the lower classes. A similar pattern is currently playing out in Ciudad Juarez, Acapulco and other places.
Clark Alfaro described two Tijuanas: “the modern city. ” a place where the financial and political elite reside, and the rest of the city where poor zones punctuated with islands of walled-off subdivisions proliferate.
As order has been restored for the upper echelons of society, social disintegration has taken hold on the lower end, characterized by rising drug addiction, especially to meth, and the briskness of an illicit market that easily withstands police and military seizures, according to Clark Alfaro. In this schema, the business of murder is systematic but tucked away from the larger society and done in a non-scandalous way.
Wrote the border analyst:
“The murdered, on average one a day, now are not people murdered in abhorrent ways: decapitated, dismembered or incinerated. Rather, they are shot to death…the daily murder victims are now irrelevant persons in the structure of delinquency, since according to the authorities, 80 percent of them were people linked to the sale of drugs on the streets of the other Tijuana, not the modern part of the city,”.
In his more recent comments to the Tijuana press, Clark Alfaro said not enough attention was being paid to the issue of local drug dealing/consumption. He urged giving alternatives to deportees but feared public policy was headed in the wrong direction. “All indications are that a police solution is desired for a problem that requires a humanitarian one,” Clark Alfaro contended.
Sources: Frontera.info March 19, 20 and 21, 2013. Articles by Luis Gerardo Andrade and editorial staff. El Sol de Tijuana, March 18, 20 and 21, 2013. Articles by Juan Guizar and Manuel Cordero. Proceso, August 22, 2012. Article by Victor Clark Alfaro.
Feb 18, 2013
New urgency to cross along tougher U.S. border
The Washington Post
That’s when many of these men crossed over for the first time, in their late teens or early 20s.
Today the area is perhaps the toughest part of one of the most heavily guarded and closely watched international boundaries in the world. The Department of Homeland Security has doubled border security and immigration enforcement spending since 2006 to $18 billion a year, deploying sensors, cameras, fencing, surveillance drones and federal agents.
The immigration overhaul proposals from Congress and the White House promise to harden the border even more.
The Department of Homeland Security does not estimate how many illegal migrants make it across, but researchers and the migrants themselves say the odds of getting caught are greater than ever.
Since 2005, the United States has doubled the number of Border Patrol agents deployed along the Mexico boundary to 18,516, an all-time high. Read more.
That’s when many of these men crossed over for the first time, in their late teens or early 20s.
Today the area is perhaps the toughest part of one of the most heavily guarded and closely watched international boundaries in the world. The Department of Homeland Security has doubled border security and immigration enforcement spending since 2006 to $18 billion a year, deploying sensors, cameras, fencing, surveillance drones and federal agents.
The immigration overhaul proposals from Congress and the White House promise to harden the border even more.
The Department of Homeland Security does not estimate how many illegal migrants make it across, but researchers and the migrants themselves say the odds of getting caught are greater than ever.
Since 2005, the United States has doubled the number of Border Patrol agents deployed along the Mexico boundary to 18,516, an all-time high. Read more.
Oct 29, 2012
US Veterans in Limbo After Being Deported to Mexico
Fox News Latino: Two U.S. military veterans born in Mexico, but deported after committing crimes, say they feel deceived because they thought serving would lead to automatic citizenship.
Hector Barajas, 35, was a U.S. Army paratrooper from 1995-2001, but a run-in with the law in 2004 led to jail time and deportation.
He found himself back in Mexico with no friends or family and no way to claim his veterans benefits.
In pursuit of solutions for himself and others in the same situation, Barajas established the Deported Veterans Support Home in Rosarito, a beachfront suburb of Tijuana.
The house offers food, shelter and Internet/telephone access for the dozen or so deported veterans now living here. Read more.
Hector Barajas, 35, was a U.S. Army paratrooper from 1995-2001, but a run-in with the law in 2004 led to jail time and deportation.
He found himself back in Mexico with no friends or family and no way to claim his veterans benefits.
In pursuit of solutions for himself and others in the same situation, Barajas established the Deported Veterans Support Home in Rosarito, a beachfront suburb of Tijuana.
The house offers food, shelter and Internet/telephone access for the dozen or so deported veterans now living here. Read more.
Oct 2, 2012
Deportees flown to Mexico City in new program to bypass border towns
Reuters: Immigration officials on Tuesday flew 131 deportees to Mexico City in the maiden flight of a new program to send illegal immigrants to the interior of Mexico, rather than border towns where they are more likely to be exposed to criminals.
The two-month project is a collaborative effort between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Mexican Ministry of the Interior, and is geared toward immigrants who come from the interior regions of Mexico.
In the past, many Mexican nationals deported from the United States have ended up in northern border towns, despite having no ties to the region. Deportees placed there have often sought to re-enter the United States illegally, or have fallen prey to criminal organizations, federal officials say. Read more.
The two-month project is a collaborative effort between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Mexican Ministry of the Interior, and is geared toward immigrants who come from the interior regions of Mexico.
In the past, many Mexican nationals deported from the United States have ended up in northern border towns, despite having no ties to the region. Deportees placed there have often sought to re-enter the United States illegally, or have fallen prey to criminal organizations, federal officials say. Read more.
Sep 12, 2012
Quick Start to Program Offering Immigrants a Reprieve
NY Times: By JULIA PRESTON
Published: September 11, 2012
One month after the Obama administration started a program to suspend deportations of young illegal immigrants, more than 72,000 of them have applied for the temporary reprieve, senior immigration officials said on Tuesday, and this week the first approvals have been granted.
The figures for applications received so far — the first results the administration has released since a federal agency began receiving the documents on Aug. 15 — show that large numbers of young immigrants are ready to take the risk of coming forward, administration officials and immigrant advocates said, and that the agency in charge has been able to manage the rush of paperwork.
The immigrants requesting two-year deportation deferrals do not reach the high estimates of 250,000 that officials had said they were prepared to handle in the first month of the program, which is President Obama’s most significant immigration initiative.
But at the current rate, at least 200,000 young immigrants could have applications in the pipeline by the time of the presidential election on Nov. 6, and many thousands will probably have received deferrals and the work permits that go along with them. Officials originally predicted that it could take several months for the immigration agency, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, to issue the first deferrals. Read more.
Published: September 11, 2012
One month after the Obama administration started a program to suspend deportations of young illegal immigrants, more than 72,000 of them have applied for the temporary reprieve, senior immigration officials said on Tuesday, and this week the first approvals have been granted.
The figures for applications received so far — the first results the administration has released since a federal agency began receiving the documents on Aug. 15 — show that large numbers of young immigrants are ready to take the risk of coming forward, administration officials and immigrant advocates said, and that the agency in charge has been able to manage the rush of paperwork.
The immigrants requesting two-year deportation deferrals do not reach the high estimates of 250,000 that officials had said they were prepared to handle in the first month of the program, which is President Obama’s most significant immigration initiative.
But at the current rate, at least 200,000 young immigrants could have applications in the pipeline by the time of the presidential election on Nov. 6, and many thousands will probably have received deferrals and the work permits that go along with them. Officials originally predicted that it could take several months for the immigration agency, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, to issue the first deferrals. Read more.
Sep 11, 2012
APNewsBreak: US halts Mexico flights for migrants
AP: ELLIOT SPAGAT | September 11, 2012 02:30 AM EST |
TUCSON, Ariz. — The U.S. government has halted flights home for Mexicans caught entering the country illegally in the deadly summer heat of Arizona's deserts, a money-saving move that follows a seven-year experiment that cost taxpayers nearly $100 million.
More than 125,000 passengers were flown deep into Mexico for free since 2004 in an effort that initially met with skepticism from Mexican government officials and migrants, but was gradually embraced as a way to help people back on their feet and save lives.
The Border Patrol hailed it as a way to discourage people from trying their luck again, and it appears to have kept many away – at least for a short time.
But with Border Patrol arrests at 40-year lows and fresh evidence suggesting more people may be heading south of the border than north, officials struggled to fill the planes and found costs more difficult to justify. Flights carrying up to 146 people were cut to once from twice daily last year.
And this summer, there haven't been any.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Border Patrol, said Monday that it anticipates flights will resume next month in a redesigned program.
A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because an agreement has not been reached said flights in the redesigned program would be for Mexicans arrested throughout the United States and run year-round. It would be designed for a mix of Mexicans who committed crimes in the United States and non-criminals. Read more.
Sep 8, 2012
Deportees to Mexico's Tamaulipas preyed upon by gangs
Not even a church-run shelter is safe for migrants sent back to a dangerous region of Mexico by the United States. Viewed as rich targets, the deportees are vulnerable to kidnapping — and worse.
By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times
September 9, 2012
MATAMOROS, MEXICO — They stuck together, walking slowly on busted sidewalks, approaching corners warily. They hurried past smoky taco stands and fleabag hotels. Nobody strayed.
Deported from Southern California the night before, the 20 men had gotten a few hours of fitful sleep at the bus station of this lawless border city. Now they just wanted to get out of town.
"We were moving as one, like a ball," said Rodrigo Barragon, 35, a former construction worker from Los Angeles. "But when I looked back, the ball had a tail."
Five men were following them. Up ahead, three vehicles screeched to a stop, blocking their way down Avenida Washington. The migrants scattered, tearing through streets and alleyways, clutching small bags that held their belongings.
Hours later, they straggled through the door of the Diocese of Matamoros migrant shelter, beneath an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. A plaque beside the entryway bore a dedication: "To the 72 murdered migrants and to those we know nothing about," men and women who were massacred or who simply disappeared. Read more.
By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times
September 9, 2012
MATAMOROS, MEXICO — They stuck together, walking slowly on busted sidewalks, approaching corners warily. They hurried past smoky taco stands and fleabag hotels. Nobody strayed.
Deported from Southern California the night before, the 20 men had gotten a few hours of fitful sleep at the bus station of this lawless border city. Now they just wanted to get out of town.
"We were moving as one, like a ball," said Rodrigo Barragon, 35, a former construction worker from Los Angeles. "But when I looked back, the ball had a tail."
Five men were following them. Up ahead, three vehicles screeched to a stop, blocking their way down Avenida Washington. The migrants scattered, tearing through streets and alleyways, clutching small bags that held their belongings.
Hours later, they straggled through the door of the Diocese of Matamoros migrant shelter, beneath an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. A plaque beside the entryway bore a dedication: "To the 72 murdered migrants and to those we know nothing about," men and women who were massacred or who simply disappeared. Read more.
Aug 14, 2012
Young Immigrants, in America Illegally, Line Up for Reprieve
NY Times: Julia Preston. LOS ANGELES — With their expectations soaring, young illegal immigrants across the country are preparing to apply for a temporary reprieve from deportation that the Obama administration is offering. For the first time, as many as 1.7 million of them could be allowed to work legally and live openly in this country without fear of being expelled.
The program is President Obama’s most ambitious immigration initiative by far, a sweeping exercise of executive authority after Congress failed to pass the Dream Act, legislation he supported that would have given legal status to the young immigrants. It is a major bid by Mr. Obama to win back Latino voters who were souring on him after his administration deported nearly 1.2 million immigrants, most of them Latinos, in the last three years. Read more.
The program is President Obama’s most ambitious immigration initiative by far, a sweeping exercise of executive authority after Congress failed to pass the Dream Act, legislation he supported that would have given legal status to the young immigrants. It is a major bid by Mr. Obama to win back Latino voters who were souring on him after his administration deported nearly 1.2 million immigrants, most of them Latinos, in the last three years. Read more.
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