La Jornada – Original Article (Spanish)
Translated By Florizul Acosta Perez
WorldMeets.US
June 9, 2014
According to Princeton University Professor Douglas Massey, the millions of undocumented migrants living in the United States with no respect for their civil, social or political liberties, constitute the largest population living under such conditions since the formal end of slavery in the neighboring country, in 1863.
The comparison is a painful one, but an accurate one to characterize the abuse and mistreatment our brothers and sisters are subjected to every day in the neighboring country, and in general, foreign nationals who reside there without the corresponding immigration documents.
Indeed, migration is a phenomenon as old as our species and inherent to human societies, but in the 21st century, the phenomenon is driven by poverty, lack of employment, and an absence of social mobility or positive horizons in countries like ours, where one can throw in police brutality, which is not at all ameliorated by guarantees of individual or human rights, and is dedicated to criminalizing and persecuting people who are overwhelmingly innocents.
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.
Jun 10, 2014
Boomer Expatriates Demand Security
By fnsnews
Published June 3, 2014
Foreign-born residents joined Mexican nationals in a recent demonstration demanding security for a storied but troubled town. Dressed in white and carrying candles, about 400 people staged a silent march late last week through San Miguel de Allende in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.
Ruth Kear, a former U.S. resident who currently lives in San Miguel de Allende, articulated public safety fears held by a growing number of residents which, in her case, is based on personal experience. Kear told a Mexican reporter that she had been robbed three times in her home, including on two occasions by armed and masked thieves.
“They put a pistol to my head and said, ‘Miss, do you want to taste the bullet?’” Kear was quoted. “I am afraid. Now I have many bad dreams. When I am in my studio, sometimes I see those men.”
The mounting complaints of insecurity contrast sharply with San Miguel de Allende’s commercialized image as a laid-back cultural and historic destination.
The cradle of Mexican independence, San Miguel de Allende was selected as the best city in the world in Conde Nast Traveler magazine’s 2013 reader’s choice poll. Classified by the Mexican federal government as among the nation’s “magic towns,” San Miguel de Allende has also been designated as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations.
Over the decades, the small city of 160,383 inhabitants (2010 Census), has attracted a sizable expatriate community drawn from North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. An estimated 14,000 local residents are foreign-born, mainly from the United States, but also from Canada, England, Japan, Colombia, and other nations.
Aging retirees from the baby boom generation who retired to San Miguel Allende stand out in the expatriate population. Read more.
Published June 3, 2014
Foreign-born residents joined Mexican nationals in a recent demonstration demanding security for a storied but troubled town. Dressed in white and carrying candles, about 400 people staged a silent march late last week through San Miguel de Allende in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.
Ruth Kear, a former U.S. resident who currently lives in San Miguel de Allende, articulated public safety fears held by a growing number of residents which, in her case, is based on personal experience. Kear told a Mexican reporter that she had been robbed three times in her home, including on two occasions by armed and masked thieves.
“They put a pistol to my head and said, ‘Miss, do you want to taste the bullet?’” Kear was quoted. “I am afraid. Now I have many bad dreams. When I am in my studio, sometimes I see those men.”
The mounting complaints of insecurity contrast sharply with San Miguel de Allende’s commercialized image as a laid-back cultural and historic destination.
The cradle of Mexican independence, San Miguel de Allende was selected as the best city in the world in Conde Nast Traveler magazine’s 2013 reader’s choice poll. Classified by the Mexican federal government as among the nation’s “magic towns,” San Miguel de Allende has also been designated as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations.
Over the decades, the small city of 160,383 inhabitants (2010 Census), has attracted a sizable expatriate community drawn from North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. An estimated 14,000 local residents are foreign-born, mainly from the United States, but also from Canada, England, Japan, Colombia, and other nations.
Aging retirees from the baby boom generation who retired to San Miguel Allende stand out in the expatriate population. Read more.
Jun 9, 2014
US mainstream press notices child migrants, tells half the story
There has been a blitz of stories over the past couple of weeks on child migrants arriving on the U.S.'s southern border. For many of us in Mexico, this is nothing new. But US press attention to it is relatively new, as one major media outlet after another features stories on the plight of unaccompanied minors.
It's a positive step that these kids do not remain invisible. What they go through should be cause for indignation on a global level. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees issued a report last March that found that half had experienced or been threatened with serious harm on the journey north.
But most of these mainstream press stories are telling half-truths about child victims while muddling or downright manipulating the question of who and what is responsible.
The New York Times, AP and others outlets have been running stories that follow a pattern of emphasizing two general conclusions. One, that parents in the United States are selfishly and irresponsibly encouraging this phenomenon and putting their own children at risk by sending them north and, two, that more children are migrating to the United States because they perceive Obama administration policies and practices as lenient on child migrants and think they have a good chance of staying--even if they get caught.
Although many of these stories mention conditions of poverty and violence in the places where the children come from, they almost never mention how these places have become so poor and violent, or much less the direct role that U.S. foreign policy has played in making them that way and forcing the children to leave.
To give a few examples: In April the NYT ran a story on child migration focused on a 12 year-old Ecuadorean girl who apparently committed suicide in a shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The article stressed the grandparents' reluctance to let her go and the insistence of the parents, who live in New York. It described the lone terror of the girl and her body found in the shower. it did not delve into the circumstances or the allegations that Mexican police captured her before her arrival at the shelter or why her parents could not provide for their family in Ecuador.
Readers were left with the impression that it was the parents that were to blame, not a system of injustice that stretched from the Andes to the US-Mexico border. This induced conclusion was reflected in the gist of many of the hundreds of comments on the page that expressed genuine compassion for the death of the dark-eyed child in indigenous dress, but also many variations on this comment: "The parents are at the root of this crime".
An AP story June 3 leads with a 14 year-old boy heading north with friends, saying that he had heard that minors were being allowed to stay in the U.S. Alhough the story later mentions the conditions of violence in his native Honduras, again there is no context and the boys seem to be going to the border to take advantage of the US government's largesse--a message sure to inflame anti-immigrant forces.
The AP follows up with this interpretation in a June 6 story stating the thesis explicitly: "Rumors of asylum raise hopes for migrant families". These stories present anecdotal evidence of the thesis that the spike in child migration is due to hopes of being allowed to stay, in the form of interviews that often appear to have been reporter-led into giving this as the cause. In fact, none of the unbiased surveys on reasons for leaving list lenient migration practices in the U.S. as a major cause.
The predictable result of the spate of articles on children migrants is to urge the creation of more detention facilities (potentially good news for the private prison industries) and call for an end to releases, as noted in the AP article:
Children in harm's way
No one would argue that it is a good idea to attempt to bring a child to the United States without a trusted companion. Note that these children are not usually "unaccompanied". Their parents have paid large sums of money to smugglers to bring them over the border safely. But they often do not know the smugglers and human smuggling has become a big business for organized crime over the past decade, thanks in large part to increased security making it necessary for anyone trying to cross to hire professional help. As the cost of crossing went up, organized crime recognized a new business opportunity and replaced independent coyotes or relatives in getting migrants over the border.
The press stories seek to pull heartstrings over the trials and traumas of the kids, while containing a strong hidden message of opprobrium against the parents. How could they let this happen? How selfish of them to expose their children to such perils!
Maybe the reporters and publishers don't have children. Or maybe they do, and they simply cannot imagine what it's like to know your son is growing up and you cannot be there for him, or to mark your daughter's birthday on a calendar and wonder what she looks like now. This heart-wrenching tragedy, repeated millions-fold, is the direct result of US immigration policies.
A New York Times editorial at least took a somewhat more compassionate view of the situation, recognizing the "false narrative" of the enforcers:
On June 3, President Obama referred to the "humanitarian crisis" and issued a memorandum calling for the formation of a "Unified Coordination Group" to attend to unaccompanied children migrants. He asked for $1.4 billion dollars to create infrastructure for the influx of minors.
An article in VOX notes that the US government seems to understand that the real solution lies in improving conditions in countries of origin but has failed to address them:
So why does the mainstream press seek to place the blame on the parents and a supposed softening of immigration policy?
Because the alternative to blaming migrant families themselves is unpalatable to them.
The alternative is to accept that the Central American and North American Free Trade Agreements have left thousands of youth with no economic opportunities.
It is to accept that US security aid for drug wars has armed and aggravated violence in Mexico and Central America.
It is to understand the high cost of supporting the Honduran coup and how the Honduran people and the US population continue to pay that price, as out migration has surged over 500% in the past two years and human rights violations, instability and violence are skyrocketing.
In my travels to migrant shelters and interviews with migrants coming through Mexico I have found that, astoundingly, they do realize the risks and yet decide to make the journey anyway.
The public-awareness campaign we really need is one addressed to U.S. citizens and Congress regarding the impact of economic and security polices on their southern neighbors, and especially on the children.
Then we need a public action campaign to do something about it.
UPDATE: Here's an interesting post on the legal aspects. Note the graph on where the child migrants come from.
NOTE June13: Still trying to get to the bottom of this. These figures indicate that there is no doubt about the surge in detentions of child migrants, in Texas ONLY. No other crossing point even shows an increase while the Texas figure is more than twice as high. Is this at least partly a result of a state of Texas policy decision to apprehend more child migrants? http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/10/number-of-latino-children-caught-trying-to-enter-u-s-nearly-doubles-in-less-than-a-year/
It's a positive step that these kids do not remain invisible. What they go through should be cause for indignation on a global level. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees issued a report last March that found that half had experienced or been threatened with serious harm on the journey north.
But most of these mainstream press stories are telling half-truths about child victims while muddling or downright manipulating the question of who and what is responsible.
The New York Times, AP and others outlets have been running stories that follow a pattern of emphasizing two general conclusions. One, that parents in the United States are selfishly and irresponsibly encouraging this phenomenon and putting their own children at risk by sending them north and, two, that more children are migrating to the United States because they perceive Obama administration policies and practices as lenient on child migrants and think they have a good chance of staying--even if they get caught.
Although many of these stories mention conditions of poverty and violence in the places where the children come from, they almost never mention how these places have become so poor and violent, or much less the direct role that U.S. foreign policy has played in making them that way and forcing the children to leave.
To give a few examples: In April the NYT ran a story on child migration focused on a 12 year-old Ecuadorean girl who apparently committed suicide in a shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The article stressed the grandparents' reluctance to let her go and the insistence of the parents, who live in New York. It described the lone terror of the girl and her body found in the shower. it did not delve into the circumstances or the allegations that Mexican police captured her before her arrival at the shelter or why her parents could not provide for their family in Ecuador.
Readers were left with the impression that it was the parents that were to blame, not a system of injustice that stretched from the Andes to the US-Mexico border. This induced conclusion was reflected in the gist of many of the hundreds of comments on the page that expressed genuine compassion for the death of the dark-eyed child in indigenous dress, but also many variations on this comment: "The parents are at the root of this crime".
An AP story June 3 leads with a 14 year-old boy heading north with friends, saying that he had heard that minors were being allowed to stay in the U.S. Alhough the story later mentions the conditions of violence in his native Honduras, again there is no context and the boys seem to be going to the border to take advantage of the US government's largesse--a message sure to inflame anti-immigrant forces.
The AP follows up with this interpretation in a June 6 story stating the thesis explicitly: "Rumors of asylum raise hopes for migrant families". These stories present anecdotal evidence of the thesis that the spike in child migration is due to hopes of being allowed to stay, in the form of interviews that often appear to have been reporter-led into giving this as the cause. In fact, none of the unbiased surveys on reasons for leaving list lenient migration practices in the U.S. as a major cause.
The predictable result of the spate of articles on children migrants is to urge the creation of more detention facilities (potentially good news for the private prison industries) and call for an end to releases, as noted in the AP article:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry last week asked that the Department of Homeland Security stop releasing immigrants with notices to appear. On Monday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer asked the same for the hundreds of immigrants, mostly women and children, who in recent weeks have been flown to Arizona from South Texas for processing.Following the thread, a New York Times article June 7 called "Child Migrants Strain Make-Shift Arizona Shelter" described a veritable junior brown tide pouring into the US and echoed the criticisms of Arizona's anti-immigrant governor Janet Brewer regarding administration efforts to house the migrants.
“I am disturbed and outraged that President Obama’s administration continues to implement this dangerous and inhumane policy, meanwhile neglecting to answer crucial questions our citizens demand and deserve,” the governor, a Republican, said in a statement late Friday.Not once did the article bother to cite an immigrant or an immigrants' rights advocate, of which there are, fortunately, many in Arizona. Much less did it or any of the other articles on the issue mention a need for policies that would facilitate family reunification.
Children in harm's way
No one would argue that it is a good idea to attempt to bring a child to the United States without a trusted companion. Note that these children are not usually "unaccompanied". Their parents have paid large sums of money to smugglers to bring them over the border safely. But they often do not know the smugglers and human smuggling has become a big business for organized crime over the past decade, thanks in large part to increased security making it necessary for anyone trying to cross to hire professional help. As the cost of crossing went up, organized crime recognized a new business opportunity and replaced independent coyotes or relatives in getting migrants over the border.
The press stories seek to pull heartstrings over the trials and traumas of the kids, while containing a strong hidden message of opprobrium against the parents. How could they let this happen? How selfish of them to expose their children to such perils!
Maybe the reporters and publishers don't have children. Or maybe they do, and they simply cannot imagine what it's like to know your son is growing up and you cannot be there for him, or to mark your daughter's birthday on a calendar and wonder what she looks like now. This heart-wrenching tragedy, repeated millions-fold, is the direct result of US immigration policies.
A New York Times editorial at least took a somewhat more compassionate view of the situation, recognizing the "false narrative" of the enforcers:
The crisis comes at a bad moment in America’s stalemated immigration debate, with Republicans gleefully seizing on a situation seemingly tailored to fit their false narrative, that any reform short of an aggressively militarized border will create yet another magnet to pull more of the wretched poor over our border, and that all the chaos in the system is Mr. Obama’s fault.As an example, it quoted Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee:
“Word has gotten out around the world about President Obama’s lax immigration enforcement policies, and it has encouraged more individuals to come to the United States illegally... Enforcement at the border and in the interior of the U.S. is crucial to end these kinds of situations, not another bureaucratic task force.”The editorial emphasized the "push" factors and that children "are fleeing for their lives". It called for the government to humanely attend to the flows but did not mention longer-term solutions regarding disastrous U.S. policies in their home countries.
On June 3, President Obama referred to the "humanitarian crisis" and issued a memorandum calling for the formation of a "Unified Coordination Group" to attend to unaccompanied children migrants. He asked for $1.4 billion dollars to create infrastructure for the influx of minors.
An article in VOX notes that the US government seems to understand that the real solution lies in improving conditions in countries of origin but has failed to address them:
Ultimately, any long-term solution has to address not only the "pull factors" that bring children here, but the "push factors" that drive them out of their own countries. The federal government appears to understand this, but there aren't many good ideas for how to deal with it. Last week, Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, suggested to Congress that the US government could launch a public-awareness campaign in Central American countries to advertise the dangers of migrating to the United States.Again the "solution" suggested blames the victims for risking the journey.
So why does the mainstream press seek to place the blame on the parents and a supposed softening of immigration policy?
Because the alternative to blaming migrant families themselves is unpalatable to them.
The alternative is to accept that the Central American and North American Free Trade Agreements have left thousands of youth with no economic opportunities.
It is to accept that US security aid for drug wars has armed and aggravated violence in Mexico and Central America.
It is to understand the high cost of supporting the Honduran coup and how the Honduran people and the US population continue to pay that price, as out migration has surged over 500% in the past two years and human rights violations, instability and violence are skyrocketing.
In my travels to migrant shelters and interviews with migrants coming through Mexico I have found that, astoundingly, they do realize the risks and yet decide to make the journey anyway.
The public-awareness campaign we really need is one addressed to U.S. citizens and Congress regarding the impact of economic and security polices on their southern neighbors, and especially on the children.
Then we need a public action campaign to do something about it.
UPDATE: Here's an interesting post on the legal aspects. Note the graph on where the child migrants come from.
NOTE June13: Still trying to get to the bottom of this. These figures indicate that there is no doubt about the surge in detentions of child migrants, in Texas ONLY. No other crossing point even shows an increase while the Texas figure is more than twice as high. Is this at least partly a result of a state of Texas policy decision to apprehend more child migrants? http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/10/number-of-latino-children-caught-trying-to-enter-u-s-nearly-doubles-in-less-than-a-year/
Jun 6, 2014
Tamaulipas: Mexico's black hole gets even more dangerous
The English-language press has given an unusual amount of attention to Tamaulipas lately, soon after the federa government declared it the crisis state in turn and launched a federal offensive against organized crime there.
Tamaulipas is, indeed, on fire again, as is Ciudad Juarez. The specific reasons are different, but one thing is clear: that calling in the Army will not solve the problem. We have only to look back at Operation Chihuahua to see that.
A recent piece in InSight Crime titled "How Federal Security Deployments in Mexico Are Set Up to Fail" also argues that the federal efforts will not succeed. InSight Crime analyses are often not very deep and this one isn't an exception. However, they often gather interesting facts in one place and address current issues.
The main argument is that local corruption will always undermine federal law enforcement efforts. The criticism I have is first, the data offered on the corruption of local and state officials is important and undoubtedly affects the effectiveness of federal intervention, but the implication is that federal troops and forces are not corrupt. This is not true. Yet there is no mention of the collusion with crime and corruption that occur among federal forces.
Secondly, he report starts with teh premise that Tamaulipas was a success story last year with a significantly lower homicide rate. I was suspicious of the low 2013 homicide figure and in any case would not accept these government figures at face value. The government practice last year was to under-report violence, including through suppression of the press.
But actually the problem with the report is even worse. When I checked the citation, the number of homicides reported for Tamaulipas in 2013 is actually 1,043--twice what the author states. I requested an explanation from InSight Crime but have not heard back. Another lesson in being wary of reported data. Not only are government sources vastly under-reported (these are only homicides reported to the Public Ministry in a nation and state where few people choose to report crimes), but reporters and researchers make mistakes or manipulate data.
This year, the SNSP--a system of the Ministry of the Interior (Gobernación)--reports 553 murders in Tamaulipas through April, putting it on track to become a record year for violence there under the Peña Nieto administration that promised that public safety rather than the drug war would be its major priority.
In other reports, Washington Post reporter Joshua Partlow has been in Tamaulipas and offers some rare glimpses into daily life there. Most of what he describes has been common for years, although the shoot-outs have stepped up. He interviews residents accustomed to extortion and people who have to go to extraordinary measures to carry out their ordinary activities.
This June 2 piece by the Guardian also tells an interesting story of the death of Tampico over the years. An earlier article signaled the renewed violence. This article quotes a Mexican government agent reaffirming what was already clear--that in fact the Peña nieto government is bent on fighting Calderon and the U.S. government's drug war no matter what the results are for the population:
Tamaulipas has always been the black hole of Mexico--a place where people are unwilling to go into for fear of not coming out, a place where rule of law is practically non-existent and information is scarce.
- Laura Carlsen
Tamaulipas is, indeed, on fire again, as is Ciudad Juarez. The specific reasons are different, but one thing is clear: that calling in the Army will not solve the problem. We have only to look back at Operation Chihuahua to see that.
A recent piece in InSight Crime titled "How Federal Security Deployments in Mexico Are Set Up to Fail" also argues that the federal efforts will not succeed. InSight Crime analyses are often not very deep and this one isn't an exception. However, they often gather interesting facts in one place and address current issues.
The main argument is that local corruption will always undermine federal law enforcement efforts. The criticism I have is first, the data offered on the corruption of local and state officials is important and undoubtedly affects the effectiveness of federal intervention, but the implication is that federal troops and forces are not corrupt. This is not true. Yet there is no mention of the collusion with crime and corruption that occur among federal forces.
Secondly, he report starts with teh premise that Tamaulipas was a success story last year with a significantly lower homicide rate. I was suspicious of the low 2013 homicide figure and in any case would not accept these government figures at face value. The government practice last year was to under-report violence, including through suppression of the press.
But actually the problem with the report is even worse. When I checked the citation, the number of homicides reported for Tamaulipas in 2013 is actually 1,043--twice what the author states. I requested an explanation from InSight Crime but have not heard back. Another lesson in being wary of reported data. Not only are government sources vastly under-reported (these are only homicides reported to the Public Ministry in a nation and state where few people choose to report crimes), but reporters and researchers make mistakes or manipulate data.
This year, the SNSP--a system of the Ministry of the Interior (Gobernación)--reports 553 murders in Tamaulipas through April, putting it on track to become a record year for violence there under the Peña Nieto administration that promised that public safety rather than the drug war would be its major priority.
In other reports, Washington Post reporter Joshua Partlow has been in Tamaulipas and offers some rare glimpses into daily life there. Most of what he describes has been common for years, although the shoot-outs have stepped up. He interviews residents accustomed to extortion and people who have to go to extraordinary measures to carry out their ordinary activities.
This June 2 piece by the Guardian also tells an interesting story of the death of Tampico over the years. An earlier article signaled the renewed violence. This article quotes a Mexican government agent reaffirming what was already clear--that in fact the Peña nieto government is bent on fighting Calderon and the U.S. government's drug war no matter what the results are for the population:
The state government spokesman Guillermo Martínez said this week that the resurgence of violence in Tamaulipas was the result of government successes in "squeezing" the criminal groups. "The important thing is that we are facing the problem head on," he said.I'll be writing more extensively on Tamaulipas within the next couple of months. It is probably among the most difficult places to envision solutions to the fatal combination of governmental corruption and organized crime because the situation is exacerbated by the breakdown and fear among civil society. As the articles note, many have fled across the border an the rest have mostly learned to adapt the an extreme situation.
Tamaulipas has always been the black hole of Mexico--a place where people are unwilling to go into for fear of not coming out, a place where rule of law is practically non-existent and information is scarce.
- Laura Carlsen
Leaked Images Reveal Children Warehoused In Crowded U.S. Cells, Border Patrol Overwhelmed
Breitbart Texas
By Brandon Darby
June 5, 2014
Houston, Texas - Breitbart Texas obtained internal federal government photos depicting the conditions of foreign children warehoused by authorities on U.S. soil on Wednesday night. Thousands of illegal immigrants have overrun U.S. border security and their processing centers in Texas along the U.S./Mexico border. Unaccompanied minors, including young girls under the age of 12, are making the dangerous journey from Central America and Mexico, through cartel-controlled territories, and across the porous border onto U.S. soil.
The photos illuminate the conditions of the U.S. Border Patrol’s processing centers, as well as the overwhelming task Border Patrol is facing.
Breitbart Texas Border Expert and Contributing Editor Sylvia Longmire reviewed the photos.
“Given the deteriorating security and economic conditions in the Central American countries where most of these children and adult immigrants came from, it's hard to understand how DHS didn't see this coming,” Longmire said. “The trend towards increased cross-border movement towards south Texas and away from Arizona has been apparent; the trend of Central Americans starting to outnumber Mexican crossers has been apparent. Even worse is believing that DHS knew this was coming, but didn't have the resources or ability to cut through bureaucratic red tape to prepare more quickly. Read more.
By Brandon Darby
June 5, 2014
The photos illuminate the conditions of the U.S. Border Patrol’s processing centers, as well as the overwhelming task Border Patrol is facing.
Breitbart Texas Border Expert and Contributing Editor Sylvia Longmire reviewed the photos.
“Given the deteriorating security and economic conditions in the Central American countries where most of these children and adult immigrants came from, it's hard to understand how DHS didn't see this coming,” Longmire said. “The trend towards increased cross-border movement towards south Texas and away from Arizona has been apparent; the trend of Central Americans starting to outnumber Mexican crossers has been apparent. Even worse is believing that DHS knew this was coming, but didn't have the resources or ability to cut through bureaucratic red tape to prepare more quickly. Read more.
Tamaulipas: A Death Trap for Mexico's Military
Vanguardia - Source: 24 Horas
Translated by un vato for Borderland Beat
June 2, 2014
Sixty soldiers have died in operations against drug trafficking in the past 18 months; the Gulf and the Nueva Generacion (Jalisco's New Generation cartel) are the main aggressors.
REYNOSA.- A total of 60 Mexican Army soldiers have died in the first 18 months of this presidential term while taking part in operations implemented against organized crime and drug trafficking. One in three has lost his life in Tamaulipas.
Jalisco and Michoacan are states that have also seen soldiers fall, six in each case from December, 2012, until now. Next are Durango and Chihuahua with five (deaths) each, Sinaloa with four, and the rest in seven other states.
Two attacks have resulted in the greatest number of deaths for the military. In both cases, the criminals had an advantage because they were ambushes, not direct confrontations.
One of them took place just this past May 13, at kilometer marker 70 on the Ameca-Mascota highway, right at the arches at the entrance to the municipality of Guachinango. A convoy of six soldiers with the 32nd Infantry Battalion were sent to obtain a sample from an illegal fuel tap. When the military transport was traveling through the area, a pickup truck blocked the road and triggered the ambush. More than 20 gunmen with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion) fired several volleys with their AK-47 assault rifles from the east side of the road, from about 40 meters away. The criminals also used fragmentation grenades.
Translated by un vato for Borderland Beat
June 2, 2014
REYNOSA.- A total of 60 Mexican Army soldiers have died in the first 18 months of this presidential term while taking part in operations implemented against organized crime and drug trafficking. One in three has lost his life in Tamaulipas.
Jalisco and Michoacan are states that have also seen soldiers fall, six in each case from December, 2012, until now. Next are Durango and Chihuahua with five (deaths) each, Sinaloa with four, and the rest in seven other states.
Two attacks have resulted in the greatest number of deaths for the military. In both cases, the criminals had an advantage because they were ambushes, not direct confrontations.
One of them took place just this past May 13, at kilometer marker 70 on the Ameca-Mascota highway, right at the arches at the entrance to the municipality of Guachinango. A convoy of six soldiers with the 32nd Infantry Battalion were sent to obtain a sample from an illegal fuel tap. When the military transport was traveling through the area, a pickup truck blocked the road and triggered the ambush. More than 20 gunmen with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion) fired several volleys with their AK-47 assault rifles from the east side of the road, from about 40 meters away. The criminals also used fragmentation grenades.
May 31, 2014
Migrants dropped off at bus stations in Arizona
Chron
By Astrid Galvan
By the time the women arrived disheveled and hungry at the Greyhound station in Phoenix, they had already spent weeks traveling thousands of miles with young children in tow.
Ranging from months old to adolescents, some of the children were sick and lethargic. Others played gleefully at arcade games in the crowded waiting room of the bus station.
The families were apprehended in Texas, flown to Arizona and dropped off by the busload at the station in Phoenix by federal immigration authorities overwhelmed by a surge of families caught crossing the Mexican border into the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
It was signal of a shift in immigration that has seen the Rio Grande Valley surpass Tucson as the leader in border apprehensions, overwhelming border agents in Texas. The trend is being driven by a huge increase in the number of immigrants from Central America.
Yet while the number of apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley vastly surpasses those in the Tucson sector in Arizona, the area has fewer agents. From October 2013 to May 17, agents in the Rio Grande Valley made more than 148,000 arrests, compared with 63,000 arrests in the Tucson sector. But the Rio Grande Valley has about 1,000 fewer agents than Tucson. Read more.
By Astrid Galvan
Ranging from months old to adolescents, some of the children were sick and lethargic. Others played gleefully at arcade games in the crowded waiting room of the bus station.
The families were apprehended in Texas, flown to Arizona and dropped off by the busload at the station in Phoenix by federal immigration authorities overwhelmed by a surge of families caught crossing the Mexican border into the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
It was signal of a shift in immigration that has seen the Rio Grande Valley surpass Tucson as the leader in border apprehensions, overwhelming border agents in Texas. The trend is being driven by a huge increase in the number of immigrants from Central America.
Yet while the number of apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley vastly surpasses those in the Tucson sector in Arizona, the area has fewer agents. From October 2013 to May 17, agents in the Rio Grande Valley made more than 148,000 arrests, compared with 63,000 arrests in the Tucson sector. But the Rio Grande Valley has about 1,000 fewer agents than Tucson. Read more.
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