Joint U.S.-Mexican police patrols among proposed fixes for the border

Mexican and U.S. police patrolling the border together?  

That radical idea is one of the recommendations made by a blue-ribbon panel of scholars, diplomats and other experts that spent most of the year searching for “a new vision” in dealing with cross-border issues as diverse as migration, security and water.  

“It’s time to do something different, even if it is provocative and controversial,” said Andres Rozental, a former deputy foreign minister of Mexico and co-chair of the so-called Binational Task Force on the United States-Mexico Border.

The task force was put together by the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council for International Policy and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations. It presented its findings at a conference in a Mexico City hotel Tuesday night.  

Recommendations included an urgent, comprehensive reform of immigration laws in the U.S.; creation of a binational border-development administration; establishment by Mexico of a federal police force for the border; and the easing of monopolies in Mexico to spur competition and private investment.    

But the point that really got the room buzzing was a recommendation to “cross-deputize” Mexican and U.S. border police for joint operations.  

Rozental and fellow co-chair Robert C. Bonner, former Drug Enforcement Administration chief, were quick to explain that did not mean Mexican police would be enforcing U.S. laws, or vice versa. They would patrol together and share information, Bonner said -- seemingly simple tasks that both sides have traditionally resisted.  

The task force suggested that changes in both nations’ capitals may have opened an opportunity. The Mexican government, it said, has “moved beyond a reflexive preoccupation with sovereignty” that thwarted cooperation on law enforcement, while a new administration in Washington has bluntly acknowledged its shared responsibility for the trafficking of drugs and weapons.  

“Both governments seem ready to replace nationalist finger-pointing with a 21st century approach to border management that benefits both sides,” the group’s report concluded.  

You can read more about the task force and its report here, or in Spanish here.

-- Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City

Majority of Mexicans think life would be better in the U.S., survey finds

Most Mexicans think their lives would be better in the United States, and one in three said they'd move to the U.S. if they could, according to the latest findings on Mexican attitudes from the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

Half of those who said they'd migrate north of the border said they would do so without permission, although recent data on immigration suggests that the flow of Mexicans north is slowing.

President Felipe Calderon's military-led campaign against the country's drug lords and organized-crime networks is "overwhelmingly endorsed" by the majority of Mexicans, although large majorities describe crime (81%) and illegal drugs (73%) as very big problems, according to the study.

Calderon's offensive against organized crime is now in its third year amid rising drug-related violence, but the Pew project reports that most Mexicans believe those anti-crime efforts are effective.

A hefty majority, 66%, say the army is making progress against the traffickers, while only 15% think it is losing ground. Calderon also is well regarded.

The popularity of the tough stance against drug gangs seems to be bolstering support for Calderon. Roughly two-thirds (68%) have a favorable opinion of the president, while only 29% express an unfavorable view.

You can read the report in its entirety on the project's website or download it.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 1,000 adults in Mexico between May 26 and June 2, 2009, for the Pew report.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Mexico City's central plaza, or Zocalo. Credit: Deborah Bonello / For The Times

Is Mexico's drug offensive working?

Ken Ellingwood and Tracy Wilkinson report on the progress made so far by President Felipe Calderon's 2 1/2-year offensive against Mexico's drug traffickers.

Calderon launched the military offensive 10 days after assuming office in December 2006, saying it was necessary to restore government authority in parts of the country. Today, 2 1/2 years later, Calderon and Mexico face a stark reality: The longer and harder the war is prosecuted, the more complex and daunting it becomes.

The offensive has exposed corruption so widespread that key institutions, from police forces to city halls, appear rotten to the core. And a battered society has grown increasingly worried about the effects of the massive military deployment on its democracy.

Read the rest of the report here, and watch the video below for a tour of Mexico's Museum of Drugs.

For more stories on Mexico's drug war, go to our Mexico Under Siege page.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Journalists covering Mexico get survival training

Journalists in Mexico can have a pretty hard time doing their jobs, especially those who cover Mexico's narco-trafficking and organized-crime problems. 

A couple of nonprofit groups that work on press freedom and protection here in Mexico, the Rory Peck Trust and Article 19, got together and ran a course just outside Mexico City this month for 18 journalists living and working here.

During the five-day course, the participants, who came from all over Mexico -- from Michoacan to Baja California -- went through a simulated kidnapping dodged tear gas, learned first aid, and received psychological training on dealing with emergencies.

See the video for more.

-- Deborah Bonello in Toluca, Mexico

Video: Mexican journalists put through their survival paces, by Deborah Bonello.

`Tex Mex Beatles' song inspired by Times story

The Krayolas, who when they first emerged on the U.S. music scene in San Antonio were known as the "Tex Mex Beatles", recently got in touch with our Mexico City office to let correspondent Ken Ellingwood know that one of his stories inspired a song on their latest album.

"Corrido Twelve Heads in a Bag" on the "Long Leaf Pine (No Smack Gum)" album was written by Hector Saldana because, according to Saldana's note, he was "so affected" by Ellingwood's Dec. 22 report, which chronicled the latest macabre discovery in the ongoing drug war in Mexico.

Mexico's Museum of Drugs

Army Capt. Claudio Montane wants one thing clear from the start: This place is not not a narco-museum, writes Ken Ellingwood in Foreign Exchange. 

"The point is not to glorify drug traffickers. 'Its purpose is to show Mexico and the world the efforts and the good results that we have achieved,' Montane said, opening a tour of a military collection officially called the Museum of Drugs."

"But spend a couple of hours examining the exhibits with Montane, in his crisp dress uniform and spit-shined shoes, and you wonder if a better name would be the Museum of Mexico's Long and Unwon War Against Drug Traffickers Who Keep Finding Clever New Ways to Feed the U.S. Habit."

Click here to read the whole article.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Video: Take a tour around Mexico's Museum of Drugs. Credit: Deborah Bonello

Mexico's illegal-reefer madness

Isaac Campos, an assistant professor of history at the University of Cincinnati and a visiting fellow at UC San Diego's Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, writes today in The Times' Opinion section about how Mexico's policy on marijuana could be contributing to its problem of drug-related violence. 

Ironically, decades of being "tough" on drugs has produced a new link between marijuana and violence, but of a different kind. Indeed, the nation's "drug-related" violence today might more accurately be termed "drug-policy-related" violence.

Read the rest of the article here. 

— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Mexico on high alert for Obama; Americas summit awaits

Mexico City is on high alert this morning as it awaits the arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama, expected here today in his first official visit to Mexico.

Santa Muerte statues removed from Nuevo Laredo

More than 35 statues dedicated to Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, have been removed from around the border city of Nuevo Laredo by officials, reports the Associated Press.

The statues, most depicting a robe-covered skeleton resembling the Grim Reaper, lined highways and roads in and around the Mexican city on the border with Texas. One of the statues was located at the base of an international bridge linking Mexico and the U.S. But soldiers stood guard Wednesday as city workers were seen taking down statues. The effort started before dawn Tuesday.

We reported back in 2004 that:

"Though La Santa Muerte is disdained and barely recognized by the Catholic Church, she's one of a number of unofficial folk 'saints' who've been taken to heart by the Mexican people in the centuries since the Spanish conquest. Death cults and death worship have deep roots in Mexico's pre-Columbian past,  and in Mexican culture death doesn't carry the morbid taint that it does in other societies. And while La Santa Muerte embodies a certain fatalism about life's inevitable end, her all-too-human form makes ordinary Mexicans feel that, in some mysterious way, she is like one of them, that she feels their sufferings right down to her bones."

Read that full report, by Reed Johnson, here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Mexico City residents at a shrine to La Santa Muerte in 2004. In some places, the Death Saint's popularity rivals that of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Credit: Chris Vail / For The Times

Narcocorridos inspire Mexico City mural

The music of Mexico's drug trade has taken a beating lately. As we reported from Tijuana last year, some radio stations south of the border have stopped playing the songs and promoters have banned the music from many public events. Nightclub owners ask bands to turn down narcocorrido requests.

Richard Marosi wrote: Narcocorridos still draw legions of fans, despite government efforts to squelch the music. Calor Norteña played the song about Villarreal only because of repeated requests from hard-drinking bar-goers. But it was a momentary exception to a backlash that has succeeded like none before in changing people's attitudes toward the music, say members of several bands, nightclub owners, concert promoters and government officials.

They describe a growing dislike, even revulsion, for music that critics say celebrates the people terrorizing a community that has suffered at least 207 violent deaths this year. Attendance at narcocorrido concerts has dipped; bands say audiences request the music less and less, preferring dance and romantic tunes that take their minds off the city's troubles.

But Mexican artist Cristina Rubalcava wasn't put off by the controversy. After writing a song for Los Tigres Del Norte about the controversial 670-mile fence project along the U.S.-Mexico border, she got to listening to some of the band's narcocorridos and created a mural that illustrates phrases from more than 40 of their canciones. Watch the video for more.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City