Free Republic

Wanna buy a baby for a-thousand bucks? Three doctors and a nurse have been arrested for allegedly selling newborns after telling mothers their babies had died, at a private hospital in Mexico City, authorities said Wednesday. Police uncovered the scheme after one of the women learned her baby was alive and had been sold to another woman for 15,000 pesos, $1,130 in US dollars, said Luis Genaro, the capital's deputy attorney general. The woman gave birth to a girl in a working-class district in October 2008, Genaro said at a news conference. He said she told authorities she heard her...

GARCIA, Mexico - A Mexican police chief has been murdered after being on the job for only five days. Brig. Gen. Juan Arturo Esparza is the latest officer suspected of being killed by a drug cartel. He was the police chief of Garcia, a town outside Monterrey. Esparza was on his way to confront drug cartel members who were threatening the city's mayor. Officials say the suspects opened fire on the police chief's car. The chief, two former soldiers, and two police officers were all killed. Five police officers and five other suspects were arrested and are behind bars at...

The illegal immigration issue is emerging as the biggest threat to passing healthcare reform in the House. Congressional Hispanics have threatened to vote against the bill because of a last-minute threat from within the Democratic Caucus to bolster the House bill’s immigration restrictions to match those included in the Senate Finance bill. And they’re also fighting President Barack Obama, the original sponsor of the language prohibiting illegal immigrants from accessing the public health insurance exchange. On Thursday afternoon, four leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) traveled to the White House to meet with Obama on behalf of the entire...

Amid Rising Violence, Mexicans Fight Back Government Efforts to Control Drug Turf Wars Aren't Enough, Some Say; Mayor Promises to 'Clean Up' Organized Crime By DAVID LUHNOW and JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's war on drugs took a grim twist this week, as a prominent mayor said he had created an undercover group of operatives to "clean up" criminal elements -- even if it had to act outside the law. Underscoring why the mayor may have felt compelled to take such steps, the new police chief in a neighboring town, a retired brigadier general, was shot and killed...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Gunmen with automatic weapons burst into a Mexican strip club on the U.S. border, opened fire on patrons and killed six people including an American soldier, the army said on Wednesday. The hooded gunmen stormed into the bar in Ciudad Juarez as strippers were dancing for customers, sought out the six men and shot them each several times. A 26-year-old off-duty U.S. soldier who had crossed over from El Paso, Texas, was among the dead, army spokesman Enrique Torres said. "It appears drugs were being sold at the place," Torres said of the strip joint....

MEXICO CITY — The leader of a Mexican farmworkers' organization and 14 other people were killed in a mass shooting in the northern Mexico state of Sonora... Sonora prosecutors' spokesman Jose Larrinaga said the victims include farm leader Margarito Montes, 10 other men, one woman and three minors. Most were believed to be Montes' relatives or employees. Larrinaga said the victims' bullet-ridden bodies were found on a roadside near a farm Friday. The killers apparently used assault rifles, the sort of weapon favored by Mexico's drug gangs.... Montes was the leader of the General Popular Union of Workers and Farmers,...

A group of illegal immigrants from two East African nations and and two Asian nations are expected to face a federal judge Monday morning. Border Patrol agents caught the eight immigrants near Brownsville over the Halloween weekend. Court records show Border Patrol agents caught three Eritrean immigrants after they allegedly crossed the Rio Grande on Friday. Another group of immigrants from Nepal, China and Ethiopia was caught early Sunday morning after they waded across the Rio Grande late Saturday night. Court records identified the immigrants as: Goitom Messazgi-Araya (Eritrea) Tedros Ghide-Ketema (Eritrea) Merhawi Zemichael-Gebremedhn (Eritrea) Salikram Bishwokarma (Nepal) Yu Gao...

MEXICO CITY -- Mauricio Fernandez couldn't have been happier. Here he was, being sworn in again as mayor of one of northern Mexico's most exclusive communities, and he had wonderful news to share: "Black Saldana, who apparently is the one who was asking for my head, was found dead today in Mexico City," he told his cheering supporters Saturday in San Pedro Garza Garcia, near Monterrey. The problem was that the barefoot, blindfolded corpse of "Black Saldana" -- whose real first name is Hector -- wasn't found for another 3½ hours, according to Mexico City prosecutors. And he wouldn't be...

DOUGLAS — Federal authorities say they have seized nearly 700 pounds of marijuana at the Douglas Port of Entry. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were screening travelers and vehicles Sunday night when they came in contact with a 20-year-old Douglas man driving a truck. The vehicle was inspected and authorities discovered that the bed of the F-150 had been completely altered to accommodate the concealment of nearly 700 pounds of marijuana with an estimated street value of $1.1 million, authorities said. Officers seized the vehicle and marijuana and the man was turned over to the custody of Immigration and...

MEXICO CITY – A news reporter who wrote about violent drug crimes has been strangled in the northern Mexican state of Durango, authorities said Tuesday. El Tiempo de Durango journalist Jose Bladimir Antuna was kidnapped Monday morning, said Ruben Lopez, spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office. Authorities found his body that night in a vacant lot in the state capital, about 400 miles southwest of Laredo, Texas. State authorities are investigating the murder. Lopez would not specify whether they suspected connections with organized crime. But Antuna had told his colleagues at the newspaper that he had received multiple telephone...

Note: The following text is a quote: Three Louisiana individuals sentenced for transporting illegal aliens Defendants Part of Large Scale Operation to Transport Illegal Aliens LAKE CHARLES, La. - Members of a large scale illegal alien transportation operation based in Sulphur, La., were sentenced in federal court yesterday following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. U. S. District Judge Patricia Minaldi sentenced Carolyn Joyce Metcalf, 62, to 30 months in prison, followed by three years supervised release; Terri Lynn Fields, 41, to 27 months in prison, followed by three years supervised release; and Jean Morgan Vincent,...

I'm writing this in West Africa where I have spent eleven of the last fourteen months working with compassionate, dedicated, and brave people on humanitarian programs designed to save lives and alleviate human suffering. During the past five years, I have traveled to the Eastern Congo where the deaths of millions of people have gone largely unnoticed by the rest of the world, been to Darfur, responded to famines in Ethiopia, helped end a measles epidemic in Burkina Faso, and been deployed to Guinea Bissau in response to a cholera epidemic. I am currently focused on helping people affected by...

A record 100 alleged murderers and sex and drug offenders have been extradited this year from Mexico to the United States, where they are to stand trial. AFP - Mexico has extradited a record 100 alleged murderers, sex and drug offenders to face trial in the United States this year, the US Department of Justice said Sunday. The arrival of 11 more fugitives north of the US-Mexican border this weekend to face a range of charges in six states brought the overall count to "the highest yearly number of extraditions from Mexico to date," a statement said. "The defendants are...

As immigrants’ rights groups are pressing President Barack Obama to step up efforts at comprehensive reform this year, one prominent member of Obama’s cabinet is acknowledging that the economic downturn has made legalization of illegal immigrants tougher to sell to the American public. “When unemployment is up, anything that looks like you’re taking jobs away from …people who are lawfully here—citizens of the United States—is going to meet a lot of resistance,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said during an exchange with reporters Tuesday morning. The homeland security chief and former Arizona governor said the economic slump may also have...

Por Esto (Merida, Yucatan) 10/28/09 “Mordida”, a favorite extortion and bribe in Mexico In Cancun, Mexico, police stopped a driver, a visiting tourist, for an alleged “administrative violation.” Then they asked the tourist for up to $300 dollars so she could proceed without having a penalty issued to her. It turned out that the victim of this extortion was Michelle Fischbach, a state senator from Minnesota, who later presented a written complaint to the local authorities regarding the episode. Five Cancun “Tourist Police” officers are now under investigation for their personal attempt at extortion. “Mordida” (a “bite”) is a common...

Rights activists in the northern Mexican border city of Tijuana have hung 5,100 small white crosses on the fence straddling the U.S. frontier to commemorate migrants who have died trying to cross. The protest coincides with preparations for Mexico's Nov. 1 Day of the Dead holiday. The crosses represent the number of migrants estimated to have died in the 15 years since the United States toughened border security. The Coalition for the Defense of Migrants also erected a traditional floral offering for the dead. The Mexican government estimates about 350,000 of its citizens migrate to the U.S. annually.

SAN JUAN — Federal authorities arrested a 38-year-old man on felony weapons charges at a house where investigators said he manufactured scores of grenades and performed occult ceremonies with human bones. Ruben Ambrosio Fonseca Jr. had his initial appearance in U.S. District Court on Thursday after undercover agents posing as drug cartel members purchased 183 grenades from him that he allegedly manufactured at a San Juan house, law enforcement officials said. Federal agents and the San Juan police SWAT team raided the property Wednesday morning, finding weapons, firearms and a blood-stained altar alongside human and animal bones in the backyard....

Police have captured a suspected member of a notorious drug cartel. The Jalisco state attorney general's office says Abel Valadez Oribe is accused of trafficking drugs, kidnapping and extortion. Valadez Oribe is also known by the nickname of "El Clinton"and is a suspected leader of the La Familia Michoacana cartel. He was arrested on a highway in Guadalajara late Tuesday. The La Familia cartel mixes violence and pseudo-religion to inspire its traffickers and says its purpose is to protect the local population from rival drug gangs.

(Note: This is posted here for archival purposes.) # Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Ciudad Juarez (Mexico) Drug Cartel Violence Threat CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS Americas - Mexico 28 Oct 2009 U.S. Consulate General Ciudad Juarez issued the following Warden Message on October 28: This Warden Message is being issued to inform American citizens traveling to or residing in the Mexican state of Chihuahua that the US Consulate General in Ciudad Juarez received information on October 28, 2009 that drug cartels operating in the city...

Thursday, October 29, 2009 More Census: While Dems Block Citizenship Question, the Mexican Government Urges Mexicans To Participate   [Andy McCarthy] I recounted earlier this morning that Democrats are trying to block a requirement that the census inquire whether respondents are American citizens.  At the same time, the Mexican government is interfering in our census by urging Mexican nationals to get themselves counted so they can grab bigger slices of hundreds of billions in social welfare spending — i.e., the redistribution of wealth from taxpaying American citizens to Mexican immigrants — legal and illegal.Check out this story in the Spanish...

Lingo is grim as new terms spring up to describe violence MEXICO CITY — Words can hardly convey how vicious, how over the top, Mexico's drug war has become. So those involved invented some. The Mexican media now have a special expression for being lined up and shot, and another for being dumped in the trunk of a car. There are also terms for mafia kidnappings, for drug-gang spies and for the hand-scrawled notes hit men leave with their victims' bodies. The lingo is grim, but how else to portray such savagery as beheadings and bodies cut up and cooked...

Laredo Community College got a visit from a Mexican congressman today who talked about Mexico’s stance on the United States immigration reform. Congressman Jose Medina says the immigration crisis is a human problem that begs a human solution and that the U.S., Mexico and other nations should work together to become one America on one continent. Medina also stated his own views on immigration reform. "I think legalization is the solution for people asking for permission to work legally in this country." Medina was elected as a member in Mexico’s lower house of congress in 2000.

NUEVO LEON, MEXICO - The number two leader of the Zetas Drug Cartel was arrested during a raid. Hernandez and the eight members were arrested and are behind bars. Two police officers, who were standing watch outside the home, were also put arrested for allegedly providing security for the cartels. Mexican authorities got a tip the Zetas leader Carlos Martinez Hernandez and eight other cartel members were hiding out ina house in Nuevo Leon. When police raided the home, they found two people who had been kidnapped being held hostage. During the investigation, authorities found an arsenal of weapons. They...

CBS News is reporting that McAllen is the most multilingual city in the United States, according to the latest census data. The Census Bureau Tuesday released its American Community Survey results, which charts a range of social, economic and housing data in U.S. metropolitan areas. CBS reported that the running survey, which is different from the traditional once-a-decade census, tracks three years worth of data. The latest figures cover 2006 to 2008. Among the findings: • McAllen, Texas has the highest percentage of people age 5 and older who speak a language other than English at home - 84.2 percent...

If you listen to the mainstream media, the swine flu pandemic, at least in the United States, is being spread by tourists and college students returning from spring break. Little or no mention is made of the thousands of illegal aliens streaming across our border from Mexico, some undoubtedly bringing with them more than a desire for a better life. Nearly two years ago we warned that one of the consequences of illegal immigration was the reemergence of diseases long thought to be vanquished. Among the infections being spread were a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis and an outbreak of dengue...

Beheadings and amputations. Iraqi-style brutality, bribery, extortion, kidnapping, and murder. More than 7,200 dead—almost double last year’s tally—in shoot-outs between federales and often better-armed drug cartels. This is modern Mexico ... law enforcement officials on the take from drug lords—is becoming an American problem as well.

Federal law enforcement in Nuevo Laredo is finally releasing information about the shoot out Wednesday afternoon . According to the release only two people are dead but there is no confirmed number of injured people. The release also says that some Nuevo Laredo police officers were involved in the shootout. According to federal authorities in Nuevo Laredo six officers allegedly assaulted soldiers from the Mexican military with their handguns. The assault happened when the officers were patrolling Avenida Monterrey. That’s when the shots started two people are dead and have not been identified. Federal authorities also confiscated four handguns, 13...

MCALLEN - The U.S. Coast Guard patrols the coasts, and a limited stretch of the Rio Grande, but a bill in the works would change that. Congressman Henry Cuellar wants the coast guard to work out a plan that would help secure the 1200 miles of the river. It's aimed at addressing drug and human smuggling along the river. Right now, the river is only patrolled by local law enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. The bill is called the Coast Guard Authorization Act.

A new study examines the costs of education, health care and incarceration of illegal aliens, and concludes the costs to Californians is $10.5 BILLION per year. The state's already struggling K-12 education system spends approximately $7.7 billion a year to school the children of illegal aliens. Another $1.4 billion of taxpayer's money goes toward providing health care to illegal aliens. The same amount is spent incarcerating illegal alien criminals. Back in 1994 California voters rebelled and overwhelmingly passed Proposition 187, which sought to limit liability for mass illegal immigration. Since then state and local governments have blatantly IGNORED the wishes...

A senior Mexican senator and former foreign affairs minister yesterday called Canada's visa controls on Mexico a humiliation and questioned whether Canadian-Mexican relations will improve as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister. In a blunt speech to a Toronto business and academic gathering, Senator Rosario Green Macias detailed the information she was required to provide to the Canadian government to enter Canada – proof of property ownership, her last six bank statements, a letter from the Mexican senate stating she is a senator and personal information about other members of her family. “That has to stop,” said Ms. Green,...

MATAMOROS, Mexico — This border city near the mouth of the Rio Grande is eerily quiet on most days — eerie because its streets are largely the lair of the Zetas gunmen, the most feared and savage gangsters in Mexico. On other days, gunbattles ensue in broad daylight between heavily armed Zeta enforcers and those who get in their way — as happened last month when soldiers stopped a suspicious carload of men on a street that runs along the Rio Grande levee through a wealthy Matamoros neighborhood. The gunmen opened fire, tossed grenades. Bullets tore into houses and businesses...

A trio of illegal male immigrants from Mexico were found to have arrest records in California when they were processed by Border Patrol agents from the Douglas Station. Tucson Sector spokeswoman Colleen Agle said the three were found to have significant criminal arrests when their fingerprints were checked against records Thursday. One individual had been accused of intercourse with a minor and rape by force/fear, another of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and the third of threatening crime with intent to terrorize, child cruelty, and possible injury/death and battery of a spouse,...

MEXICO CITY -- When the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez penned his most recent novel, "Memories of My Melancholy Whores," he was being provocative. The book begins with this line: "The year I turned 90, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." But there is art and there is life. And so just as an international cast and crew were about to begin filming a movie adaptation of the 2004 novella, the plug was pulled as the filmmakers and García Márquez were denounced as aiding and abetting perverts....

U.S. Border Patrol agents discovered a smuggling tunnel under the border in Nogales, Ariz., on Wednesday. It was the first passageway agents have found in the Tucson Sector in nearly four months. The 30-foot tunnel, 150 yards east of the DeConcini Port of Entry, was fortified on the Mexican side with shoring, but on the American side it appeared unfinished, U.S. Border Patrol spokes-man Mario Escalante said. The tunnel was not connected to the drainage system. Escalante said there was no evidence as to who was using the tunnel. "They already had an opening on the north side at the...

They decapitate, torture, and extort. Then they pray, and donate to charity.The "Familia" cartel is perhaps the most extreme example of the paradoxical enemy which Mexico faces as it tries to defeat organised crime. It is a fight which would be much easier if the cartels were simply maverick gangs on the fringe of society. But they are, in many areas, part of society. "La Familia was originally a social structure. And in many ways it still is," says a former Mexico deputy attorney general and organised crime expert, Prof Samuel Gonzalez Ruiz.

PHOENIX — The leading sponsor of legislation to combat illegal immigration said Wednesday that he is preparing three new measures, with the promise to take the issues directly to voters if colleagues or the governor balk. The package being put together by Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, would: • Allow local police to arrest those in this country illegally under state trespass laws. • Bar local governments from having "sanctuary" policies that prohibit police officers from inquiring about the legal status of those they encounter. • Let prosecutors subpoena business records and testimony to investigate whether companies are hiring undocumented workers,...

Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city gripped by a drug cartel war, has laid new claim to the title "murder capital of the world" as the number of killings so far this year passed 2,000.The city of 1.5 million people just across the border from El Paso, Texas, had 1,600 murders last year but in 2009 that total was exceeded by late summer. Latest figures from the Chihuahua state attorney general's office showed there were 195 this month alone. Mexican drug wars force police to claim asylum in US How to make a billion out of blood and cocaine US marshall...

REYNOSA — A clash between the Mexican army and about 60 assailants turned some this city’s streets into a battle zone for about an hour early Tuesday morning. The group fired shots at soldiers patrolling the Reynosa-Matamoros highway near Motel Dalí about 1:20 a.m., the Mexican Defense Ministry said in a news release issued Wednesday evening. The attackers rode inside about 20 newer-model trucks as they fired guns and hurled grenades at the military convoy. No injuries were reported by neighbors and passersby, though one soldier suffered a gunshot wound to his leg. It remains unknown whether any of the...

Local, state and federal police respond to bridge number one and two in force following a shootout in Nuevo Laredo. The officers were armed with high-powered weapons in an attempt to keep any of the gunmen from coming across the border. They checked people and vehicles coming into the US for several hours. It was a quick response following the shootout between Mexican soldiers and drug traffickers near the US Consulate. An American Consulate in Nuevo Laredo was put on lock down after the shots were fired. Mexican police will not release very much information. We do know that the...

WASHINGTON — More than 300 suspects have been arrested in a series of drug raids across the country that law enforcement officials say is the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel operating in the United States. The arrests are aimed at the U.S. operations of the La Familia cartel, two officials said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the results of the operation. In the latest legal assault on La Familia, a New York grand jury has indicted an alleged cartel leader, Servando Gomez-Martinez. He is linked to one of the...

MEXICO CITY -- Gustavo de la Rosa looks over his shoulder, notes suspicious license plates, changes his routine. As one of the most prominent human rights officials in Ciudad Juarez, he would be a fool not to. On Wednesday, his Juarez reached a milestone: more than 2,000 people slain this year. His phone rings with pleas for help -- and with threats. When de la Rosa crossed the international bridge from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso on Oct. 15, as he has done hundreds of times, he did not think it unusual that inspectors with the U.S. Customs and Border...

DALLAS — Drug Enforcement Administration agents — helped by an army of local and state police — raided homes and businesses across North Texas on Wednesday, targeting what they called one of the largest methamphetamine rings in the nation. DEA says a notorious and violent drug cartel called "La Familia" was distributing the meth and cocaine out of Dallas. SWAT teams arrested dozens of people, confisicated numerous weapons and drugs. Sources said the La Familia gang is extremely violent, and known to torture their victims. Law enforcement agents hit 38 locations in the Dallas area, including DeSoto, Duncanville and Grand...

EL PASO, Texas — An alleged Mexican gang leader named to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list may have surgically altered his face and changed his finger prints to hide his identity, federal investigators said Wednesday. Eduardo "Tablas" Ravelo was added earlier this week to the wanted list that includes the likes of Osama Bin Laden and Boston crime lord James "Whitey" Bulger. "From what I've heard, it's my understanding he may have had ... plastic surgery and manipulated his finger prints," said Samantha Mikeska, the FBI's lead investigator in a 5-year-old probe of Ravelo's Barrio Azteca gang. If Ravelo...

The report issued by Reporters Without Borders (RWB) is positive for the U.S., however, the issue of national security, seems to be one of the biggest problems for United States reporters seeking information from the government. But that pales when you compare the problems Mexican reporters have in covering the news, especially in the border areas with the United States. Reporter Angela Kocherga gave this first hand report: "Mexico is one of the most dangerous places to work as a reporter these days, we see that by the ranking and see that played out in the field. Now the Majority...

DALLAS — Canada’s trade minister said Monday that some progress is being made on a nagging trade issue with the United States, while U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said a tangled dispute with Mexico over cross-border trucking and California Christmas trees might resolve itself next year. Welcoming Cabinet-level Mexican and Canadian trade officials to the city where he served as mayor, Kirk said language that removed funding for the Mexican truck program has been restored in next year’s budget bill. "We won’t be handcuffed by prohibitory language," he said. When the border was closed to 500 U.S.-certified trucks in a...

Eight days ago, just after midnight on a Sunday morning, Mexican President Felipe Calderón instructed federal police to take over the operations of the state-owned electricity monopoly, Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC), which serves Mexico City and parts of surrounding states. The company's assets will stay in the hands of the government but will now be run by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), a national state-owned utility and the major supplier of LyFC's energy. The net effect of the move is to dethrone 42,000 members of the Mexican Union of Electricians, which had won benefits over the decades to...

Calm has returned to a Reynosa neighborhood following an hour-long battle between soldiers and criminals using high-powered weapons and explosives. Mexican media outlets reported that the hour-long battle happened in the Colonia El Maestro on the city’s eastside around 1:15 a.m. Tuesday. The El Milenio newspaper reported that at least 20 explosions rocked the normally peaceful neighborhood along the highway to Rio Bravo. Mexican officials told El Milenio that the shootout started during a chase that began on the opposite side of the city on the highway to Monterrey. The newspaper reported that hundreds of spent bullet casings were left...

A group of illegal immigrants from China is expected to face a judge after being caught near Brownsville. U.S. Border Patrol agents caught three Chinese immigrants near Brownsville on Monday. Criminal complaints filed in federal court records show that the immigrants illegally crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico on Sunday. The immigrants were identified as Jian Qiao Zhen, Chen Yan Hui and Li Xing. The three are expected to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Felix Recio in Brownsville at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.

MEXICO CITY – A general is among the nearly 4,000 officers and men who have deserted from the Mexican army during the past 6½ years, Milenio newspaper reported Monday, citing government documents. The defense department opened legal proceedings for desertion against 3,972 soldiers between 2003 and July 2009. Among the soldiers being investigated are a general and more than 1,000 other officers. The report does not specify the number of those cases that have arisen since December 2006, when newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon began deploying tens of thousands of soldiers to battle Mexico’s powerful drug cartels. Since then, there...

MEXICO CITY - Each pink taxi comes with a beauty kit, a GPS system and an alarm button. The new fleet of 35 cabs in Mexico's colonial city of Puebla are driven exclusively by women and don't stop for men. The cabs cater especially to those tired of leering male drivers. "Some of the woman who have been on board tell us how male taxi drivers cross the line and try to flirt with them and make inappropriate propositions," said taxi driver Aida Santos, who drives one of the compact, four-door taxis with a tracking device and an alarm button...