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The drug violence that continues to sweep across Mexico isn't only damaging citizen confidence in the country's government and public security. It also is taking a toll on Mexico's economy, according to Treasury Secretary Agustin Carstens.
The Mexican government estimates that the violence has slowed economic growth by more than 1%.
Increased safety concerns have meant that companies and businesses spend 5% to 10% more on security services. This has hurt domestic competition and sales, according to Carstens, as well as having a negative affect on national development generally.
Last week was another bloody one for Mexico -- on Thursday, 12 headless bodies turned up in the normally quiet southern state of the Yucatan. Five bodies -- four of them decapitated -- were found earlier in the week in Tijuana. All the deaths are thought to have been drug-war related.
The ongoing drug wars and rising levels of crime and kidnappings in Mexico prompted thousands across the country to march over the weekend, expressing their anger and demanding action.
Carstens also announced that the security budget for 2009 will increase substantially, speaking to the newspaper Reforma.
Click here for more on the drug trade across Latin America.
For our special report on Mexico's drug problems, go to our Mexico Under Siege page.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Remember the raid on illegal immigrants working in the Agriprocessors meatpacking plants in Postville, Iowa, in May?
Nearly 400 people were arrested that day by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The raid was apparently one of the biggest of its kind and came after months of planning, according to this release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Now, a discussion over the right of illegal immigrants to unionize -- an action that Agriprocessors has tried to block -- raises new worries for people on both sides of the immigration debate, according to this Los Angeles Times editorial. Three years ago, employees at the meat processing company's Brooklyn distribution center voted to unionize, but Agriprocessors would not honor the vote. The National Labor Relations Board ordered it to do so. Instead, it is petitioning the Supreme Court to hear a case arguing that illegal immigrants do not have the right to join labor unions. If it wins, the company's apparent business model -- using illegal immigrants until caught but denying them union protections -- could usher in a new era of worker serfdom.
This should alarm people on all sides of the immigration debate -- those who favor stepped-up deportations and sanctions against employers of illegal immigrants, as well as those who support increased labor and civil rights for immigrants. Should Agriprocessors prevail, illegal immigrants would be vulnerable to even greater human rights and labor abuses than they are now, and employers would have more incentive not to hire U.S. citizens, who have the right to organize.
Read the rest of the editorial on the rights of illegal immigrants to unionize here.
For more on immigration, click here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Read on »
Happy birthday, Los Angeles. El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula would have 227 candles on its birthday cake today, if anyone had thought to bake it a cake. Or even to remember today's anniversary, according to this Los Angeles Times editorial.
According to Wikipedia:
The town was founded on Sept. 4, 1781, by a group of 44 settlers, "los Pobladores." They were escorted by four Spanish colonial soldiers and their families. It was named the Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the Porciúncula River. These pueblo settlers came from the common Hispanic culture that had emerged in northern Mexico among a racially-mixed society. Two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto, and therefore, had Indian and African ancestry. More importantly, they were intermarrying. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street.
Read more of the editorial on Los Angeles birthday here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
A longtime elevator mechanic at Los Angeles International Airport has been charged with smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States by leading them out of the terminal before they were inspected by federal authorities, reports Anna Gorman this morning. Roberto Amaya Canchola, 53, was arrested at the airport Aug. 23 after a sting operation involving federal immigration agents. Authorities believe the North Hills resident smuggled in at least 15 illegal immigrants, including two with criminal records who had previously been deported. They all arrived on Mexicana flights from Guanajuato, Mexico, officials said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. attorney's office are still investigating the allegations. Agents believe that Canchola was only one player in a larger smuggling organization and that he probably was used for his airport access.
To read more about the alleged smuggling ring, click here.
For more on immigration, hit this link.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Mexican authorities have arrested eight men after discovering a sophisticated tunnel, believed to be designed to ferry drugs, that nearly reached into U.S. territory, writes the L.A. Times' Richard Marosi.
Baja California state preventive police said Tuesday that they were acting on a tip when they raided a Mexicali home Monday afternoon and found some of the suspects hard at work in the passage, which was longer than a football field.
The tunnel's destination appeared to be a residential neighborhood across the border in Calexico. The tunnel appeared to be well financed and expertly constructed.
It had a rail-and-cart system, ventilation, lighting and an electric lift to transport items up and down the shaft, authorities said.
"What they had constructed was very sophisticated," said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose agents inspected the tunnel.
Read more about the tunnel under the U.S border fence here.
For more on drugs across Latin America, click here, and for our special report on Mexico Under Siege, click here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: The border wall between Tijuana and San Diego
Credit: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times.
Kinoshita and Del Obispo elementary schools are just an athletic field apart, but for many in San Juan Capistrano, the gap is a potent symbol of an issue that has roiled this south Orange County town in recent years: school segregation, writes the L.A. Times' H.G. Reza.
The schools are on the edge of a middle-class, mostly white neighborhood. But while Del Obispo's students are about 55% white, Kinoshita's enrollment is about 95% Latino. It is a disparity that former district teacher Gia Lugo said highlights the wide gap in race relations in this historic community.
"It's a fact of life in this town," she said. "Even in school you spend the day around your own kind."
The new school year begins today, with the ethnic makeup of the town's other two primary schools similarly skewed. Harold Ambuehl, east of Interstate 5, is 67% white, and San Juan, which is across the street from Mission San Juan Capistrano, is 89% Latino.
Click here to read more about schools in San Juan Capistrano.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 Anna Gorman of the Los Angeles Times reports on how work shortages and labor cuts in California are prompting some migrants from Latin America to head back home -- preferring to at least be with their families if money promises to be short.
"With the ongoing economic downturn and the collapse of the construction industry, day laborers in California are feeling the effects. Now, some immigrant workers are choosing to go home rather than wait for a rebound.
"California's unemployment rate hit 7.3% last month, compared with 5.4% the previous July. The number of construction jobs dropped by 84,000 over the previous year, according to the state Employment Development Department," writes Gorman.
As the Pew Hispanic Center's labor report showed in June, the unemployment rate for Latinos in the U.S. rose to 6.5% in the first quarter of 2008 mainly because of the slump in the construction industry.
Meanwhile, California lawmakers approved giving college financial assistance to illegal immigrants over the weekend.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Otoniel Lopez Cortez gets a hug from Jeronimo Salguero, director of the Carecen Day Labor Center in Los Angeles, during a send-off gathering. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times
 President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia is possibly the most popular elected leader in the world, says this Los Angeles Times editorial.
"The military's dazzling rescue of hostages held for years by leftist rebels, including Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three American military contractors, coupled with his successful attacks on the guerrillas' drug trafficking, have led to approval ratings of which most politicians only dream: On a bad day, support for the president dips below 90%. Kidnappings and murders, although still astronomically high by U.S. standards, are at their lowest levels in 30 years, and Colombians finally are optimistic about an end to their decades-long civil war."
But it goes on to warn readers that progress against the country's rebels should not be the only measure of Uribe's success.
Read the full editorial here.
For more on Colombia, click here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
The gruesome discoveries this week of five bodies in Tijuana, four of them decapitated, have shattered a period of relative calm and revived concerns that organized crime groups are escalating their battle for control of this border city.
Two bodies were found Monday morning on a hillside, one with its head placed on its upper back, reports Richard Marosi.
Three more bodies were discovered Tuesday morning in an illegal dump.
Their heads, charred from gasoline burns, were placed at their feet, according to the Baja California state attorney general's office.
Authorities have not identified the victims.
To read the full report on the bodies found in Tijuana, click here.
For more on the drug trade across Latin America, click here.
For our special report on Mexico Under Siege, see here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
"For several years, there has been a tide of sentiment that Santa Paula -- whose residents are three-quarters Latino -- has missed out."
"That it has become a dumping ground of sagging roofs and 99-cent stores while neighbors like Moorpark and Camarillo have prospered. And some critics -- many of them members of the white minority -- have decided that the poor are the problem," writes the L.A. Times' Scott Gold.
Read on »
It's been six weeks since Tomas Sanchez Orzuna -- who was allegedly in the United States illegally -- died in Border Patrol custody, but the questions of why and how remain unanswered, writes H.G Reza: Authorities say Sanchez fought with agents as they tried to arrest him July 8 in downtown San Clemente. He died within half an hour of being taken to the Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 5 in San Diego County.
His sister, Rosario Sanchez Orzuna, said she has been unable to get any information about the incident from U.S. government officials, who have not returned her telephone calls. She said that when she saw her brother's body, there were bruises on his face.
Read the rest of Reza's report on Tomas Sanchez Orzuna here.
For more on immigration, click here.
Find more on Mexico here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Part of the border fence between San Diego and Tijuana is punctuated with white crosses in memory of those who have died trying to enter the United States illegally.
Credit: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times
In response to an escalation of violence -- including three shootings in a 24-hour period last month and an increase in arrests of gang members with guns -- Santa Ana police have launched a three-day operation targeting gang members and encouraging residents to report crime in a 2-square-mile area southwest of the Civic Center, writes the L.A. Times' Tony Barboza.
Although crime in this city of 350,000 has fallen in recent years, the latest increase has centered in several neighborhoods of mobile home parks, apartments and single-family homes in the city's core, eliciting fears that those gains could be eroding.
Although aggravated assaults, which include shootings and stabbings, have gone down since last year, police said, homicides are up, with 18 so far this year compared with 11 by this time last year. More than half the killings were gang-related.
This is the latest of many crackdowns against gangs -- many of them black or Latino -- in California. Here's a report on a push against Latino gang violence in San Clemente -- another part of Orange County.
Click here to read the full dispatch about the gang crackdown in Santa Ana.
Click here for a recent Opinion column by Rocky Delgadillo, the Los Angeles city attorney, on how combating L.A.'s gang problems is a global, not local, challenge.
For all posts on gangs, click here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
The United States and Mexico made hard going of it against Central American opposition Wednesday night but came away with World Cup qualifying victories over Guatemala and Honduras, respectively, writes Grahame L. Jones.
A 69th-minute headed goal by Carlos Bocanegra off a DaMarcus Beasley corner kick earned the U.S. a 1-0 win, its first in Guatemala in more than 20 years and only its second ever. It was Bocanegra's 10th goal for the national team.
Mexico, meanwhile, gave former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson a 2-1 victory in his first game in charge, but it was anything but easy and only because of the skill and finishing ability of veteran Pavel Pardo.
In front of a packed Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, with the crowd including the presidents of both countries, Honduras took the lead in the 35th minute, very much against the run of play, when Julio Cesar Leon struck a free kick off the underside of the crossbar and into the net.
Read about both matches in full here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
The number of civilians killed by Colombian armed forces has soared, activist groups allege, with many of the abuses committed by army units that had been vetted by the State Department. There were 329 so-called extra-judicial killings by the Colombian military and police last year, a coalition of Colombian rights groups asserts in a report, a 48% increase from the 223 reported in 2006, reports the L.A. Times' Chris Kraul.
According to this report, the continuing allegations against the Colombian military have led Congress to criticize U.S. military aid under Plan Colombia and have been an obstacle to approval of a binational free trade agreement.
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on State Department and foreign operations and author of the 1996 law that makes foreign military aid conditional on human rights compliance, expressed dismay.
"While the secretary of State certifies sufficient progress on human rights in Colombia, multiple sources report that unlawful killings by the Colombian army are continuing despite efforts by the minister of defense to stop it," he said in an e-mailed statement. "After providing billions of dollars in training and equipment to the Colombian army, we should expect better, including vigorous investigations and prosecutions of these crimes."
The United States Congress just approved a similar injection of funding into Mexico under a bill called the Merida Initiative, under which $400 million will go toward helping President Felipe Calderon fight powerful drug cartels and organized crime networks. You can read Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont defending that bill here.
Read the whole dispatch on unlawful killings by the Colombian military here.
For more on Colombia, click here.
And click here for more on the Merida Initiative.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Forensic anthropologist Maira Martinez works in a shallow grave near Santa Marta, Colombia. Martinez is a member of a dozen exhumation teams that have fanned out across Colombia to dig up remains of thousands of victims of a decades-long conflict. Credit: Chris Kraul / Los Angeles Times
Rocky Delgadillo, the Los Angeles city attorney, oversees the enforcement of 57 gang injunctions, including ones against the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs. In Opinion today, he talks about how combating Los Angeles gangs is not a local challenge, but an international one. "The two fastest-growing and most powerful gangs in the world are homegrown products of Los Angeles. The Mara Salvatrucha gang, or MS-13, and the 18th Street gang, known in Central America as Mara 18, sprang up in Pico-Union and the densely populated neighborhoods around MacArthur Park. But unlike many local street gangs, these two were entrepreneurial: They recruited Central American immigrants across the city and then expanded farther -- throughout Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Conservative estimates put MS-13's ranks at 20,000 and 18th Street's at 30,000 worldwide.
"Stopping street gangs is no longer a local matter -- a point driven home to me during a symposium in El Salvador. During the conference, two points of consensus emerged. First, MS-13 and 18th Street have become an international concern -- indeed, even Interpol is now involved in the fight. Second, past strategies to handle these gangs have failed."
Read the full Opinion piece here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Gunshot victims of drug violence in Mexico are being treated in the United States at tax payers' expense, according to this report from the L.A. Times' Miguel Bustillo.
Using the wounding of deputy police chief Lorenzo de la Torre Torres as an example, Bustillo writes: "The only hospital within a 280-mile radius to offer state-of-the-art trauma care, Thomason has become an unwilling treatment center of choice for law enforcement officials and others in the vicinity wounded in Mexico's drug turf battles. The violence has killed more than 2,000 people this year, and more than double that number in the 20 months since President Felipe Calderon began deploying 40,000 troops across the country to crack down on narcotics trafficking."
Meanwhile, in Mexico City, Ken Ellingwood reports that anti-crime activists in Mexico say they have audio proof that the former attorney general of coastal Tabasco state was in league with drug traffickers while in office.
For more on our Mexico Under Siege series, click here.
Click here for more on the drug trade and here for Mexico.
— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
All around Mario Romero's strip-mall travel agency, this immigrant neighborhood was alive with commercial traffic, all of it moving to a clave rhythm clunking from an outdoor speaker. In and out they went on a sunny Monday morning to the IGA food store, or the Gala hair salon, or La Epoca restaurant for a cafecito, writes Richard Fausset.
But few stopped in to see Romero. His business, Cojimar Express Services, is one of dozens of Miami-area agencies that hold federal licenses to sell plane tickets to Cuba. These days, he said, people are too scared to buy.
"There is no business," he said. "You don't see anybody in here."
Romero, who left the island in 1991, sat at his desk in a crisp linen shirt and stared at a row of empty chairs beneath his black-and-white photos of the Cuban countryside: The banks of the Rio Miel. The fishing boats at Pinar del Rio.
This slowdown, Romero said, was the result of yet another shift in regulations on this side of the Straits of Florida. A state law passed this summer requiring agencies like his to post bonds of as much as $250,000. The state would use the money to open investigations of companies suspected of skirting the rules governing travel to Cuba.
Read more about the slowdown in travel to Cuba here, and for more on Cuba in general, click here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Mario Romero says a new Florida law has frightened off customers of his travel agency, which specializes in trips to visit relatives in Cuba. Credit: David Adame / For The Times
This Los Angeles Times editorial revisits the case of Jose Medellin, the Mexican who was executed in Texas a couple of weeks ago for the murder and rape of two teenagers.
The case attracted international attention and the International Court of Justice in The Hague sided in 2004 with the Mexican government's argument that the United States had violated the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to inform the arrested Mexican nationals of their right to seek help from the Mexican Consulate. "It's tempting, especially when the focus is on a killer like Medellin, to assume that no harm is done by the court's misreading of this country's treaty obligations. But, as former U.S. diplomat Jeffrey Davidow argued in a recent opinion article in The Times, thousands of U.S. citizens are jailed abroad every year and depend on U.S. consular officials to inform them of their rights and act as intermediaries. If U.S. officials don't feel obliged to honor the treaty, why should foreign jailers?"
Read the whole editorial here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Los Angeles is a city where the large Mexican and Korean communities co-exist in ways that bring them together and separate them. They share the immigrant experience and communication barriers that come with it. But the different languages -- Spanish and Korean -- can also be an obstacle, writes Hector Becerra, who spent some time with Korean Mexicans paying a visit to the United States. "The teens and twentysomethings bear strong Korean features but consider themselves true Mexicans. Even their older chaperons, Fermin Kim and David Kim, 70 (not related), no longer spoke Korean -- though they are third- and fourth-generation Korean Mexicans who have no Mexican blood.
"The group of 20 were to perform that night for Korean and Mexican dignitaries in one of the banquet halls. They practiced the Korean folk song over and over, as Korean Americans and Latino waiters looked on. They only really felt comfortable when they started to consider which Mexican song to perform."
Read on about the Mexican Koreans in California.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Plaza Mexico, a Lynwood shopping center designed to look like Mexico, was the vision of Donald Chae, a Korean American who grew up among Latinos and has traveled throughout Mexico. “I am a Korean American Mexican,” he says. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times
In a rare show of unity between the 10 states on the Mexico-United States border, all of them yesterday signed the Tire Initiative Letter of Understanding, which includes
"tire pile prevention measures" and tries to eliminate the public
health risks, according to Greenspace, the Los Angeles Times environmental news blog. "Often disease-carrying pests such as rodents inhabit these tire
piles. After a rainfall, mosquitoes may breed in the stagnant water
collected inside tires and carry deadly diseases such as encephalitis,
West Nile virus, dengue fever and malaria.
"Scrap-tire fires are difficult to extinguish and can burn for weeks
or months releasing thick, black smoke that can contaminate the soil
with oily residue, generate significant liquid waste and contaminate
ground and surface water.
"So far 4 million scrap tires have been removed from the U.S.-Mexico
border to decrease the risk of fires and disease that they pose to
border residents, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."
Click here to read the full post on Greenspace.
The growing Latino population in the United States and attempts by both John McCain and Barack Obama to reach them promises big-bucks for Spanish-language media, according to Bloomberg News this morning. Spanish-language broadcasters in the U.S. project their political advertising sales will soar this year as the presidential candidates woo Latinos in states that have a chance to tip the election.
"We are significant players in the battleground states," said Philip Wilkinson, chief operating officer of Entravision Communications Corp., owner of 51 Spanish-language television stations. "Presidential campaign advertising should come at the end of August, and then I think it's going to come fast and furious."
Latinos make up 12% to 37% of the electorate in Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada, four of the six states that President Bush carried by five points or less in 2004, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington research group.
A poll last month showed that 66% of registered Latinos support Obama, and both he and John McCain have created Spanish-language TV spots to woo voters.
Photo: L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gives a "fist bump" to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama during the national convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) at the Washington, D.C., Hilton on July 8. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles (pictured) should stand trial for an alleged immigration violation in the United States, writes Carol J. Williams.
The decision is likely to inflame Cuba and Venezuela, which want to prosecute him for terrorism in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans was expected to take the pressure off the Bush administration to respond to Venezuela's demands that Posada, who lives in Miami, be extradited to face trial for the bombing. The plane, en route from Venezuela to Havana, exploded in flight shortly after making a stop in Barbados. All 73 people aboard were killed.
At the time, Posada lived in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, and held joint Cuban and Venezuelan citizenship. Venezuela was a U.S. ally.
Click here to read more about Luis Posada Carriles.
For more on Cuba, click here.
Ernesto Pichardo, co-founder of the first incorporated Santeria church in the United States, has filed a lawsuit stemming from a police raid during a worship ritual in 2007.
Pichardo, 53, is a small man with a weather-worn face and a comb-over, a chain smoker and a trash-talker, argumentative, opinionated and occasionally profane, writes Richard Fausset.
He is a proud member of the Cuban American bourgeoisie and a Republican. Yet his streetwise English carries a hint of Abbie Hoffman, with sentences that often end with a sardonic "man." "Jesus Suarez, a Santeria priest, had slit the throat of one goat that June afternoon. He had three more goats, two sheep and 44 chickens to go."
"But before he could finish the ritual sacrifice, Coral Gables police swarmed the house where he and some 20 other followers of the Afro-Cuban religion had gathered to worship."
"...Soon thereafter, word of the raid made its way to the great defender of Santeria in the United States. That would be Ernesto Pichardo -- high priest, physical extension of the fire spirit Shango and co-founder of the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, the first incorporated Santeria church in the nation."
Read more on Pichardo and Santeria here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: “It’s almost offensive, the mentality of the Coral Gables mayor,” Ernesto Pichardo says. “To him, it seems that it’s OK to practice these backwards African things in some other city, just not [his].” Credit: David Adame / For The Times
In Mexico's drug war, Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito racked up crime-fighting credentials worthy of the Dark Knight, making record seizures of drugs and weapons and forcing out top Baja California law enforcement officials he accused of corruption and of having links to organized crime, writes the L.A. Times' Richard Marosi. "But in a surprise move Thursday, the general was relieved of his command, abruptly ending his controversial 20-month stint as the leader of President Felipe Calderon's army-led battle against organized crime in the northern states of Baja California and Sonora."
"Aponte won broad public support for aggressive tactics against drug gangs whose turf wars have left hundreds dead here, but he generated controversy by denouncing scores of police officers, prosecutors and officials by name in blistering letters published in newspapers across the state."
Meanwhile, Richard A. Serrano reports on how high-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from U.S. border states into Mexico, fueling a war among drug traffickers, the army and police that has left thousands dead. "The munitions are hidden under trucks and stashed in the trunks of cars, or concealed under the clothing of people who brazenly walk across the international bridges. They are showing up in seizures and in the aftermath of shootouts between the cartels and police in Mexico."
"More than 90% of guns seized at the border or after raids and shootings in Mexico have been traced to the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Last year, 2,455 weapons traces requested by Mexico showed that guns had been purchased in the United States, according to the ATF. Texas, Arizona and California accounted for 1,805 of those traced weapons."
Click here to read more on Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito and here for more U.S arms heading south of the border into Mexico.
For more on the drug trade in general, click here.
Photo: General Sergio Aponte Polito, (center) commander of the military forces of Baja California and Baja California Governor José Guadalupe Osuna Millán (in suit left to Aponte) pass in reviue of the assembled federal troops, police and military in Tijuana, Mexico's City Hall April 29, 2008. Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times
— Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Three narrowly targeted reforms could ease the green card problem while helping the economy, says this Los Angeles Times Opinion piece. The public outcry that derailed last year's push for comprehensive immigration reform hasn't stopped lawmakers from trying to change immigration law. It has merely scaled back their ambitions. Prodded by advocacy groups on both sides of the issue, members of Congress are considering various narrowly targeted proposals -- "rifle shots," in Washington parlance -- to ease or tighten the limits on legal entry. These include bills to allow more guest workers to be hired by farmers and other seasonal employers, relieve the backlog in visa requests by foreign workers with high-tech skills, and reauthorize the program that verifies applicants' eligibility for employment.
Click to read more about changing immigration legislation.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
For decades, bodegas -- the crowded corner stores started by Puerto Rican and Dominican entrepreneurs in the 1960s and 1970s -- have textured the backdrop of New York. The Spanish word comes from bodeguita, a general store in Latin America, and has come to refer to such New York shops owned by people of all ethnic backgrounds, reports Erika Hayasaki.
But sales have been down for the last nine months, according to Jose Fernandez, president of the Bodega Assn. of the United States, which claims 7,800 of New York's 11,400 bodegas as members. A weakening economy and rising rents and food prices have forced many to close, he said; the number of bodegas in New York has decreased by nearly 1,000 from two years ago, according to his organization's most recent tally.
Read more about New York's bodegas here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Julio Pimentel, who owns a bodega in East Harlem, works behind a clear plastic window, serving customers through an opening. When New York cigarette taxes recently jumped, he stopped selling them, knowing few of his customers would pay $9 for a pack -- and refusing to break the law by selling single cigarettes, as many do. Also behind the counter are a few spare sets of keys belonging to neighborhood residents, in case they get locked out or a family member needs to get in. Credit: Jennifer S. Altman / For The Times
The execution of Jose Medellin on Tuesday evening in Texas drew little immediate public protest, despite the Mexican government's attempt to intervene and postpone the execution of the convicted rapist and murderer.
"Mexicans struggling with increasingly gruesome crimes at home gave the most muted reactions in recent memory to the execution of one of their own citizens in Texas."
"With Mexican news dominated by the kidnap-killing of 14-year-old Fernando Marti, the execution of Mexican Jose Medellin for the 1993 rape-murder of two girls in Texas appears to have sparked far less outrage than people here have shown in previous death penalty cases," reports the Dallas Morning News today. Although Medellin's case had provoked demonstrations in recent days in the border cities of Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa, the protests that the American Embassy predicted would arise outside their offices on Mexico City's Reforma avenue never materialized. Last week, the Embassy had issued a warning to U.S. citizens to avoid the anticipated demonstrations, saying that Mexican activists could use the occasion "to incite anti-U.S. sentiment in general."
A small group of Medellin's family in Nuevo Laredo did protest his execution Tuesday night. "A large black bow and a banner that read "No to the death penalty ... may God forgive you," hung from an iron fence in the front of the house where Medellin lived until moving to the United States at the age of 3." Dallas Morning News.
Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said it sent a note of protest to the U.S. State Department about the case.
-- Deborah Bonello and Reed Johnson in Mexico City
Photo: An empty bench outside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City on Tuesday night at 6 p.m. -- the scheduled time of Jose Medellin's execution in Texas. The protests predicted by the Embassy over Medellin's execution never materialized. The execution was postponed a few hours and Medellin was pronounced dead at 9:57 p.m. local time. Credit: Deborah Bonello / Los Angeles Times
Illegal immigration continues to cause political waves in California.
Long Beach businessman Randal Hernandez has become the fourth member of the state community colleges board to step down in the year since the panel angered Republican lawmakers by endorsing legislation giving illegal immigrants access to student financial aid, reports Patrick McGreevy.
Just two days before Hernandez's reappointment was to be heard by the Senate Rules Committee, and having been warned by Republicans that his appointment was in trouble, Hernandez notified Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday that he was withdrawing his application to serve another term.
The 17-member California Community Colleges Board of Governors angered Republican lawmakers when it voted to support state legislation by Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) that would have allowed illegal immigrants, under certain conditions, to qualify for student financial aid and community college fee waivers.
Read more about the stepping-down of Randal Hernandez here.
For more on immigration, click here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
 Jose Ernesto Medellin (pictured), a Mexican national convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of two Texas girls, was executed Tuesday night in Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a reprieve, writes Reed Johnson.
"I'm sorry my actions caused you pain. I hope this brings you the closure that you seek," Medellin, 33, told those gathered to watch him die. He was pronounced dead at 9:57 p.m. local time.
Medellin had been scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m., but the sentence was delayed for a few hours while the Supreme Court considered his appeal.
The buildup to Tuesday's execution drew worldwide attention and involved a host of players and institutions beyond the United States and Mexico.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague sided in 2004 with the Mexican government's argument that the United States had violated the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to inform arrested Mexican nationals of their right to seek help from the Mexican Consulate.
Some foreign policy analysts, including former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow, contend that executing foreign citizens could put U.S. citizens abroad at risk of being convicted and even executed for crimes without having access to U.S. consulates or embassies.
Following Medellin's execution, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said it sent a note of protest to the State Department about his case, reports the Associated Press.
For more on Medellin's case and execution, click here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo credit: Texas Department of Criminal Justice via Associated Press
Corrupt police are nothing new in Mexico. However, the latest development in the country -- in which two police officers have been arrested in suspicion of the kidnapping and slaying of the 14-year-old son of a rich businessman -- is a shocking reminder of the levels to which the nation's police work in collusion with the criminal underworld. A third man -- allegedly a civilian -- was also taken into custody in connection with the crime.
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 A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy gunned down Saturday outside his boyhood home in Cypress Park had been assigned to guard the most dangerous inmates in the county, including members of the notorious Mexican Mafia gang, authorities said Sunday.
Los Angeles police and sheriff's officials said the prospect that Deputy Juan Abel Escalante was killed because of his work at the jail remained one of three possible motives. Investigators were also considering the possibility that neighborhood gang violence or a personal grudge were behind the killing, report Stuart Pfeifer and Tami Abdollah.
Detectives from LAPD's robbery-homicide division were investigating the killing with the assistance of detectives from the sheriff's homicide division and the jail's gang unit. Sheriff Lee Baca said Escalante's assignment put him in touch with members of the Mexican Mafia, a gang known to direct street crime and violence from behind prison walls.
Read on about the case of Juan Abel Escalante here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Photo: Juan Abel Escalante, 27, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, was a father of three with more than two years' service in the department. He was a military veteran who a neighbor said served in Iraq.
Tuesday at 6 p.m., Texas is scheduled to execute Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican citizen, going against an order from the International Court of Justice in the Hague. The ICJ is currently pondering a case brought by the Mexican government challenging death sentences in the United States of 51 Mexican nationals who were denied the right to contact Mexican consular officials after their arrest.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow weighs in on the issue of the executions and argues that if the United States doesn't honor the court's judgment, it may be putting the lives of U.S. citizens at risk in the future. "Because thousands of U.S. citizens are jailed abroad every year (sometimes for no good reason), anything that diminishes the power of American consuls to assist them in their time of need is cause for concern. Yet current developments in our own nation are threatening the power of American consuls."
"At issue are the cases of 51 Mexican nationals who were arrested, tried and sentenced to death in the United States but were denied consular notification and access. Mexico sought a remedy for these U.S. breaches of the Vienna Convention at the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial arm of the United Nations and the international body that the U.S. and other Vienna Convention signatories had agreed would resolve such disputes. The United States was the strongest proponent of the court at the time of the formation of the United Nations and was the first nation to invoke its jurisdiction related to the Vienna Convention, in a case filed against Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis."
Read on here.
-- Deborah Bonello and Reed Johnson in Mexico City
The New York Times reports from Guatemala on Luis Alberto Jiménez, who was deported from the United States by a hospital in which he was receiving treatment after a car crash with a drunk driver in Florida. Since his arrival in his home country, Jiménez, who sustained a severe traumatic brain injury, has received no medical care or medication. Over the last year, his condition has deteriorated. "Eight years ago, Mr. Jiménez, 35, an illegal immigrant working as a gardener in Stuart, Fla., suffered devastating injuries in a car crash with a drunken Floridian. A community hospital saved his life, twice, and, after failing to find a rehabilitation center willing to accept an uninsured patient, kept him as a ward for years at a cost of $1.5 million," writes Deborah Sontag.
"What happened next set the stage for a continuing legal battle with nationwide repercussions: Mr. Jiménez was deported — not by the federal government but by the hospital, Martin Memorial. After winning a state court order that would later be declared invalid, Martin Memorial leased an air ambulance for $30,000 and 'forcibly returned him to his home country,' as one hospital administrator described it."
Continue reading here...
Alleged drug kingpin Ever Villafane Martinez, a Colombian believed to be the main cocaine supplier to an offshoot of Mexico's notorious Sinaloa cartel, was arrested in Mexico City, federal police said Friday.
One of the hemisphere's most wanted fugitives, Villafane Martinez has been on the lam since 2001, when he escaped from a maximum-security lockup in Colombia while awaiting extradition to the United States on narcotics charges, writes Marla Dickerson.
His arrest was a rare piece of good news for President Felipe Calderon in his U.S.-backed war against Mexico's violent drug cartels. Authorities nabbed Villafane Martinez on Wednesday at a home in the Mexican capital's upscale Jardines del Pedregal neighborhood, where he apparently had lived for some time alongside millionaires and captains of industry.
Meanwhile, north of the border two Mexican federal agents were charged Friday with possession of alleged drug money after they were arrested at a West Covina home with more than $500,000, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, reports Richard Marosi.
Carlos Cedano Filippini, 35, the lead agent from the Mexicali office of the Agencia Federal de Investigacion, and Victor Manuel Juarez, 36, were arrested Wednesday as part of an ongoing narcotics investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Los Angeles Police Department.
Read the rest of this story about the arrest of Ever Villafane Martinez here.
To read on about the arrest of the two Mexican federal agents in Los Angeles, click here.
For more posts about the Mexican drug trade, click here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
Justice Department officials who prosecuted hundreds of illegal
immigrants arrested at an Iowa meatpacking plant in May used a
government-created manual to speed through guilty pleas, a potential
violation of the rights of those detained in the raid, the American
Civil Liberties Union said Thursday, reports Nicole Gaouette.
The manual
was assembled before the workers were arrested or their lawyers were
appointed. It lays out suggested guilty pleas for the arrested workers
and specifies how they should waive their legal rights.
It includes detailed scripts for judges and lawyers to recite. One
suggests the judge say, "I want each of you to state your name, so I'll
know who you are." The manual ends with forms for sentencing and
deportation.
ACLU lawyers said the scripts and the rapid-fire
sentencing procedure had raised concerns that the Bush administration
subverted fundamentals of legal justice in its push for an enforcement
victory.
Read more on the Government manual here.
For more posts on immigration, click here.
La Plaza tries to follow discussion as it develops on the Merida Initiative, a bill that was approved by the United States Congress under which the Mexican government receive $400 million of help from the U.S in its fight against the country's powerful drug cartels and organized crime networks.
Reactions to the bill have been mixed. Some feel it's a good way to fight drug-related crime and violence in Mexico. Others are worried that the legislation puts more money into the hands of an already corrupt law enforcement branch in Mexico, which has a terrible human rights record. Click here for a la Plaza report on videos that surfaced in the country and show the Mexican police allegedly receiving lessons in torture.
The following links show the bill discussed on Democracy Now and Al Jazeera -- thanks to Americas MexicoBlog for the heads up:
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Inflationary pressures are rising. Remittances are falling. Mexico's economy is slowing. So is job growth, writes Marla Dickerson from Mexico City.
Mexico's central bank released a string of bad news Wednesday confirming that the nation is feeling the effects of a U.S. slowdown and exploding global prices for food and fuel.
The Bank of Mexico revised its inflation expectations sharply upward to a high of 6% for the fourth quarter. That's well above the 5.26% annualized rate recorded in June and double the central bank's long-term target.
Mexicans have long fled to the United States when things got tough at
home. But tight employment conditions north of the border may dissuade
some from making the trip.
Money wired home by Mexicans living outside the country, most of them
working in the U.S., totaled $11.6 billion through the first six months
of the year, according to figures released Wednesday. That's down 2.2%
from the same period last year -- the longest sustained drop since the
Bank of Mexico began tracking the flows in the mid-1990s.
Read on about Mexico's financial woes here.
The Justice Department said Wednesday it had opened an investigation into the fatal beating of a Mexican immigrant in a small northeastern Pennsylvania town, reports the Associated Press.
The federal involvement comes less than a week after local officials in Schuylkill County charged three white teens in this month's attack in Shenandoah on Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old father of two.
Ramirez was attacked July 12 when he crossed paths with a group of
teens who had been out drinking in Shenandoah, about 80 miles northwest
of Philadelphia. He died two days later.
The killing of Ramirez exposed long-simmering tensions in Shenandoah, a
blue-collar town of 5,000 with a growing number of Latino residents
drawn by factory and farm jobs.
Read on about Luis Ramirez ("Federal officials open inquiry of slain immigrant").
On Cinco de Mayo in 1945, thousands of people gathered to dedicate the Casa del Mexicano, a community center that served as a sentinel of Mexican culture in Los Angeles, writes Esmeralda Bermudez.
In the 1950s, after the center moved west to Boyle Heights, stars from as far away as Spain flew to Los Angeles to perform. Wealthy Mexican bureaucrats, adorned with pearls and bow ties, mingled with celebrities who included Ricardo Montalban and Maria Felix. The events filled the center's coffers with donations.
In the 1960s, a former President of Mexico, Miguel Aleman, put Casa del Mexicano at the top of his list of places to visit in Los Angeles. The building seemed a majestic anachronism tucked away in an unexpected cul-de-sac of a Mexican American barrio, its massive proportions and stately dome prompting double takes.
Then, about seven or eight years ago, Casa del Mexicano fell into disrepair. The roof leaked, windows were jammed shut and the structure reeked of vermin. Advisory committee members waged a nasty court fight to determine who would seize control of the Boyle Heights building and the organization that runs it.
Today, the historic center is slowly coming back to life.
Read on about Casa del Mexicano here.
Photo: Contestants in the Miss Jalisco Pageant rehearse at the historic, 77-year-old Casa del Mexicano, a longtime civic and cultural center for the Los Angeles Latino community. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times
The issue of illegal immigration is continuing to rock the nation. Yesterday, a study reported that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States is falling, protests took place in San Francisco over the city's alleged sanctuary policy, and the Government announced a new scheme which invites illegal immigrants to turn themselves in for deportation.
Read on »
Venezuelan motorists are crossing the frontier with Colombia to sell gas to their neighbors, making the most of the varying price of oil across Latin America.
These gas-sellers -- or "pimpineros" as they're known -- are taking advantage of the fact that in the border city of San Antonio de Táchira, Venezuela, gas is a whole lot cheaper than on the Colombian side of the border in Cúcuta, where it sells for around US $3.44 a gallon. A story in Reforma states that gas prices in Venezuela are around 7.6 cents a gallon, but other sources say it's more around 12 cents a gallon.
Cheap gas prices in Venezuela mean that those enterprising individuals who cross over to sell the contents of their car tanks can make a good profit. Some are even living off the earnings, according to this report in today's Reforma (in Spanish).
The same kind of thing is happening in Mexico, where gas is much cheaper than in the U.S. This has led to United States citizens crossing over the border into Mexico to fill their tanks. The Dallas Morning News reported in June that Texans were heading across the border to escape gas prices at home, which at the time were around US $4 a gallon.
Today, the cost of oil per gallon in Mexico is about US $2.72 a gallon. In the United States, it's US $3.95 a gallon.
The cost of oil in Latin America varies. But surging fuel prices across the region have ignited inflation throughout Latin America, driving up the cost of food, the price of which was already on the upswing thanks in part to ravenous global demand for its farm products, as we reported in June.
Read more on the Venezuelan cross-border gas sale here.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
The Dominican Republic's drug czar has criticized the United States for failing to support Caribbean nations in their fight against drug wars, while at the same time handing millions of dollars to Mexico and Central America to help them fight their powerful drug cartels and organized crime.
Quoted in Dominican Today this morning, Marino Vinicio Castillo, who is the drug advisor to the country's executive branch, said that the United States government's neglect of the Dominican Republic is obvious. "As an example he said Plan Merida, in which the U.S. gives US $500 million to Mexico and Central America to fight drug cartels, organized crime and human trafficking, but donates only US $2.5 million to Dominican Republic and Haiti for the same effort."
The Merida Initiative has been criticized as being too much money, coming too late, by some, and not enough money by others. Read here to see a discussion by two experts, and here to read more about Plan Merida in general.
-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City
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