South of the Border
Tuesday, 3/16/10
Prensa Libre (Guatemala City, Guatemala), El Nuevo Diario (Managua, Nicaragua) 3/15/10
Catholic hierarchy of Central America pushes U.S. immigration reform
The Human Mobility Pastoral of the Guatemala Episcopal Conference [of the Catholic Church] yesterday called upon the United States Government to take into account the letter sent by the Catholic Bishops of Central America to President Barack Obama in September of 2009 in favor of millions of immigrants from the area. The document points out the need to "open a serious and profound dialog concerning a just and integral immigration reform, one with a human character, to benefit more than 12 million persons without documents who live and work in the United States." The letter says that these persons have placed their hopes in the change that you have promised. They expect a new proposal from you to the Senate and to the Congress (sic) from you about their status.
In a paragraph of the letter, the hierarchs of the Catholic Church of the region ask openly for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform to mitigate the condition of anguish and fear that the migrants experience.
The document was signed by Monsignor Leopoldo Jose Brenes, Archbishop of Managua, Nicaragua, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez, Bishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Monsignor Jose Luis Escobar Alas, Bishop of San Salvador, El Salvador, Monsignor Jorge Solorzano Perez, Bishop of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, Monsignor Pablo Vizcaino Prado, Bishop of Suchitepequez-Retalhuleu, Guatemala, and Jose Luis Laconza, Bishop of David, Panama.
The Pastoral cited the document as a means of support for the more than 1.5 million Guatemalans who live in the United States and who will participate in a day of protests and lobbying which will begin on March 21st.
http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/politica/campana-rabia-vacunacion_0_224977572.html
http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/nacionales/70266
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El Sol de Mexico (Mexico City) 3/15/10
Migration to the United States is down
"The recent world economic crisis has affected the flow of undocumented Mexicans who go to the United States to work, given that this phenomenon has been reduced by half; whereas, before, 400 thousand went each year, now that number has been reduced to 200 thousand due to the lack of jobs in that country." All the preceding was asserted by Ana Maria Aragones, a researcher with the Economics Investigation Institute of the National University of Mexico.
She also remarked about Border Patrol reports which state that the migration has decreased 50% due to the reinforcement of the border, but said that this is more than anything else due to the lack of jobs, because for the migrant, the U.S. labor market is attractive due to the salary difference compared to Mexico. She added that the fact that they might build "fences" is something that will not stop the migrants, because they will search the way, as dangerous as it might be, of crossing over into the United States, be it by the Rio Grande River or by the Arizona desert.
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El Universal (Mexico City) 3/15/10
One hundred fifty-one caught
One hundred fifty-one "undocumented Central Americans" were detained by Mex. federal police in Huimanquillo, state of Tabasco. The migrants, mostly Hondurans, were caught traveling on a train.
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La Cronica de Hoy (Mexico City) 3/15/10
Thirty-nine more
Thirty-nine undocumented Central Americans were detained by Mex. federal police while being transported in a vehicle in the state of Chiapas.
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La Jornada (Mexico City) 3/15/10
One hundred policemen detained
Some 100 policemen of the city of Tierra Blanca, state of Veracruz, Mexico, were detained by Mex. military personnel on Monday morning and taken to an army fort. They are charged with links to organized crime, especially with traffic and extortion of Central American migrants.
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La Prensa Grafica (San Salvador, El Salvador) 3/15/10
Violence in El Salvador
El Salvador's National Civil Police reported that, from Friday night to Sunday afternoon, 22 Salvadorans were murdered in various parts of the country.
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El Carabobeno (Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela) 3/15/10
But Caracas is even more violent
There were 55 homicides in Caracas, Venezuela, in the last 48 hours. The tally of murders for this month has now reached 204.
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Critica (Hermosillo, Sonora) 3/15/10
Thirty-two executed in Acapulco
"Violence is unending in the port. At dawn on Sunday, new executions and shootouts in different points of the city left a balance of 14 dead persons, one of them dismembered and whose remains were left outside the Church of the Garita." Seventeen other persons were assassinated around this tourist mecca. (A related item appeared in "El Universal" (Mexico City) today. It was headlined: "Second day of terror in Acapulco; 15 deaths. Guerrero has recorded 43 deaths related to organized crime in the last two days.")
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Diario (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) 3/15/10
Last place listing, in Juarez
And in the very last place (13th) out of a secondary listing of "more news" in the local section, this inconspicuous heading: "The assassinated yesterday total 8."
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El Porvenir (Monterrey, Nuevo Leon) 3/15/10
Northern Mexico firefight
At a ranch near Bustamante, state of Nuevo Leon, Mex. naval personnel engaged in a firefight with a group of thugs. The balance sheet: eight criminals dead. An unspecified number and type of firearms and ammo was also seized. (The location is some 55 mi. south of the border city of Nuevo Laredo.)
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[Note : The assassination of three persons linked to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, has been widely reported by the press media on both sides of the border. According to some of these accounts, the killings have been linked to "La Linea," an organized crime group, and to the "Los Aztecas" gang.
Now, various reports also state that the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City has authorized the departure of dependents of U.S. consular personnel stationed in Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo & Matamoros. The U.S. State Dep't. has also warned U.S. citizens to avoid or delay travel to the Mexican states of Michoacan, Durango, Coahuila and Chihuahua if at all possible, and, if such travel cannot be avoided, to take extreme precautions.
These circumstances have produced a number of commentaries which, of necessity, mention the impact upon the relations between the United States and Mexico. A short representative sample follows. It is a joint effort by editorialists from "El Universal" (Mexico City) and is titled "The violent image of Mexico"]
Barack Obama was said to be "indignant" yesterday due to the assassination of three persons linked to the U.S. Consulate in Juarez. And some hours afterward, Los Pinos [Mexico's equivalent to the White House] committed itself to ascertain the facts. But both declarations do not resolve much. They will not stop the violence on that border, where there are almost 6 thousand dead due to the armed war against drugs, which, certainly, is based on a strategy supported by Washington. Felipe Calderon will be there tomorrow to revise the plan (called) "All of us are Juarez. Let us Re-build the City." The amount for this project is around 3 billion for the next two and a half years (or something like that, which is not very clear) [sic], the equivalent of 7.9% of the total expense on Metro Line 12, as we've said before. With a wrecked economy and a crushed society, the Juarez conflict, far from being resolved, seems to be turned into a malignant model for other cities. Reynosa and Culiacan burn while their economies stagger. And now, Acapulco is the scenario of combats and executions with tens of dead. We said it yesterday: cleaning up the violent country image seems almost impossible. The options are to put facial make-up on reality, or to stop the crime. Unfortunately, the second option, the one Mexicans want, is every day more remote.
Gloria Guevara Manzo, new head of the Department of Tourism, will have a complicated task. For the good of the country, things ought to go well for her. Thousands of families will depend on her efforts. But violence has torn tourism away from the north of the country, and now it is hitting Guerrero, Michoacan, Veracruz or Quintana Roo, which at one time completed their entry into that group. The most recent case is Acapulco; and Mazatlan has been very affected by the killings. Will Guevara Manzo's strategy be able to resist?
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[The cartoon below is from "La Cronica de Hoy" (Mexico City) 3/15/10. Uncle Sam looks over the border and comments: "The violence in Ciudad Juarez is reprehensible." The crosses at his feet read: "The undocumented."]
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