Free Republic

EDINBURG — Hidalgo County commissioners approved a resolution Tuesday recognizing the contributions of immigrants to the Rio Grande Valley and offering their support to comprehensive immigration reform efforts. Citing the $400 million that immigrants contribute to the state's economy, the resolution calls for change to immigration policies that cause "great anguish to county residents who daily experience the tragedy of families divided by ineffective laws." The resolution was approved in advance of a state convention by the Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance where the group will ask Congress to pass legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship for undocumented residents,...

REYNOSA — At least six people were killed amid a barrage of grenade blasts and gunfire in a residential neighborhood on the city’s southwest fringe early Monday morning, officials said. The bloody confrontation between Mexican army soldiers and an unidentified criminal group broke out about midnight Sunday, local officials confirmed. Three army soldiers and three civilians involved in the attack died during the shootout. Four soldiers suffered injuries, as well. Authorities detained about 10 people after the attack. A van loaded with marijuana was also reportedly seized by authorities. Officials said the attack involved a well-armed group that sprayed gunfire...

TIJUANA, Mexico – Mexican federal police arrested two suspected gang leaders Monday, delivering another big blow to a brutal drug cartel that terrorized the border city of Tijuana for several years. The capture of Raydel Lopez Uriarte and Manuel Garcia Simental apparently wipes out the existing leadership of the cartel headed by Teodoro Garcia Simental, who was captured last month. Teodoro and Manuel Garcia are brothers. Lopez, known as "El Muletas," and Garcia, known as "El Chiquilin," were arrested Monday in La Paz, a city in the southern end of the Baja California peninsula, said Amy Roderick, a spokeswoman for...

Quake shakes southern Mexico, felt in capital The Associated Press Monday, Feb. 8, 2010 | 5:57 p.m. A magnitude 5.7-earthquake has shaken southern Mexico near the Oaxaca coast. The quake was centered 35 miles (55 kilometers) north of the fishing and resort town of Puerto Angel, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Information Center. It struck at 6:47 p.m. local time Monday and was felt 280 miles (455 kilometers) away in Mexico City, where buildings swayed gently. There are no immediate reports in damage or injuries.

Mexico's homicide rate has fallen steadily from a high in 1997 of 17 per 100,000 people to 14 per 100,000 in 2009, a year marked by an unprecedented spate of drug slayings concentrated in a few states and cities, Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said. The national rate hit a low of 10 per 100,000 people in 2007, according to government figures compiled by the independent Citizens' Institute for Crime Studies. By comparison, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have homicide rates of between 40 and 60 per 100,000 people, according to recent government statistics. Colombia was close behind...

SOUTH OF MISSION - Federal authorities are investigating an incident in which Border Patrol agents were forced to shoot into Mexico. Heavily-armed agents swarmed Chimney Park RV Resort south of Mission this morning. We're told individuals in Mexico were throwing objects at agents patrolling the Rio Grande by boat. The agents say they were forced to open fire to scare off the people. No injuries were reported.

MEXICO CITY – Some 250 members of the AnimaNaturalis animal rights group staged a protest half-naked and covered with fake blood against bullfighting and to demand the prohibition of the practice in Mexico on the esplanade of Mexico City’s Fine Arts Palace. “Youths from all the states of Mexico, half-naked, covered with blood and with ‘banderillas’ sticking in them showed (on Saturday) with this demonstration the suffering that the bulls are subjected to in the bullfights,” Leonora Esquivel, one of the leaders of the organization in Mexico, said on Saturday. The “banderillas” are the long barbed darts bullfighters stick into...

Extraordinary footage of a rarely seen giant deep sea fish has been captured by scientists. Using a remotely operated vehicle, they caught a rare glimpse of the huge oarfish, perhaps the first sighting of the fish in its natural setting. The oarfish, which can reach 17m long, has previously only been seen on a few occasions dying at the sea surface, or dead washed ashore. The scientists also filmed for the first time the behaviour of a manefish. Mark Benfield from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, US was undertaking a survey as part of the Serpent project, a collaboration between...

Mexico's powerful drug cartels have been operating drug rehabilitation clinics, turning some into bloody killing fields and forcing recovering addicts into their ranks of hit men and smugglers. At least two of the country's six major drug cartels have used treatment facilities to further their trade, top Mexican law enforcement officials told The Associated Press in exclusive interviews. One group even opened its own centers where they brainwashed addicts during rehabilitation, offering them an ultimatum once they kicked their habits: work for us or we'll kill you. Here, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, 41 people have been...

Authorities are still searching for a Rio Grande City woman after busting a Starr County-based gun ring. A federal grand jury indicted Jeniffer Lopez and nine others on federal firearms charges last week. U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives (ATF) agents arrested two ringleaders and seven suspects but 28-year-old Lopez remains at large. The group is accused of “straw purchasing” about 60 high-powered handguns and assault rifles between December 2008 and April 2009. Straw purchasing is buying a gun for a criminal or someone else. The federal crime is punishable up to five years in prison. Court records...

An ambitious, $6.7 billion government project to secure nearly the entire Mexican border with a "virtual fence" of cameras, ground sensors and radar is in jeopardy after a string of technical glitches and delays.

WYOMING -- A man arrested late last week as police confiscated 330 pounds of marijuana, as well as cocaine, from a home in a Wyoming neighborhood, may have Mexican drug cartel connections, court records show. Francisco Javier Rivera-Hidalgo, 29, was arraigned Monday in Wyoming District Court on marijuana and cocaine delivery charges. Court notes used by Judge Pablo Cortes to set bond indicated "Mexican drug cartel connections" and "extreme flight risk (immigration hold)." Officers with the Metropolitan Enforcement Team, a local drug unit, and Wyoming Police searched two houses Thursday in Wyoming as part of an ongoing investigation. G0203 Hidalgo.jpgFrancisco...

During the 2000 census, a combination of challenges affected how accurately the colonias were counted. Language barriers and lack of physical infrastructure were just some of the problems. "In my congressional district we lost 55 million dollars mainly federal and state money because we didn't count everybody." The Census Director and Congressman Henry Cuellar met in Washington three weeks ago to discuss the importance of outreach efforts along the border. The Census Director has an important message for the people in this Colonia and is not to be afraid when they come knocking at your door. "This is a safe...

The media is barely covering the bloody situation in Mexico, but the war against the drug lords there should be of the utmost concern to Americans. As high levels of violence and corruption continue to plague Mexican society, the U.S. needs to brace for a flood of narcotics, arms, and people seeking refuge crossing the border. The drug war has resulted in about 17,000 deaths over the past three years, and Mexico has claimed the title of the country in the hemisphere with the highest number of journalists killed on its soil. To put that in perspective, about 1000 American...

Gunmen stormed a party packed with teenage revelers in Ciudad Juárez early Sunday, killing at least 13 people in the latest spasm of violence to slam the border city, authorities said. Officials in the northern state of Chihuahua said high school students and others were at a private home celebrating a school soccer victory when armed men rolled up in seven vehicles and opened fire. Eleven of the dead were under 20, officials said. At least 10 people were reported wounded. The motive was not immediately clear. But gatherings in Ciudad Juárez and other Mexican cities have been attacked before...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Suspected drug hitmen burst into a party and killed 13 high school students, on Sunday in Ciudad Juarez, the latest massacre in one of the world's deadliest cities, Mexican media and witnesses said. Gunmen jumped out of sport utility vehicles and fired at the students, who were celebrating victory in a local American Football championship, in a house in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, in the early hours of Sunday. "The men drove up in four SUVs, they were well-armed. They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could...

Mexico City, Jan 31 (IANS/EFE) About 271,000 Mexican immigrants have slipped into poverty in the US, Spanish banking giant BBVA said in a report. It said between the fourth quarter of 2008 and the same period last year, 'the number of workers of Mexican origin with jobs decreased by approximately 560,000'. For that reason, the number of workers of Mexican origin who are currently unemployed increased to about 1.8 million, 'of whom around 51 percent are immigrants', according to the report Saturday. The bank said 60 percent of the jobs lost in the US last year were from the construction...

MEXICO CITY — Money sent home by Mexicans abroad plunged a record 15.7 percent in 2009 as migrants worldwide struggled to find work during the global economic slowdown, the central bank reported Wednesday. Remittances — Mexico's No. 2 source of foreign income after oil exports — totaled $21.2 billion in 2009, compared with $25.1 billion in 2008, the bank said. Since the bank began tracking remittances in 1996, it has recorded just one other annual decline — a 3.6 percent decrease in 2008, as the world financial crisis exploded. Central bank president Agustin Carstens attributed the latest drop to the...

MERCEDES - One Valley family says they were robbed while visiting Reynosa. They tell CHANNEL 5 NEWS they went to Mexico to buy a pair of boots. They say when they were about to pay for them, a man snatched the money from their hand. "He took $200 from his wallet. This man just came and just grabbed the $200. And he didn't even run away or anything he just stood there," says the woman. She tells CHANNEL 5 NEWS when her husband tried to get the money back, they were surrounded and threatened. She says when they tried to...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday offered yet another way California can save on incarcerating illegal immigrants: pay to build prisons in Mexico. Schwarzenegger said in a Sacramento Press Club speech that rather than raise taxes, the state could find money by cutting pension costs, allowing offshore oil drilling and lowering prison expenditures. His budget calls for an $880 million infusion from the federal government to pay for housing illegal immigrant prisoners who have committed crimes in California. The governor also wants to rely more on private prison companies. But he also gave an off-the-cuff suggestion that California send undocumented inmates...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday offered yet another way California can save on incarcerating illegal immigrants: send them to Mexico. The Republican governor said he will not raise taxes for a second year in a row during a speech at the Sacramento Press Club. Instead, he suggested that the state can find plenty of money in other ways such as cutting pension costs, allowing offshore oil drilling and lowering prison expenditures. Schwarzenegger's budget plan calls for an $880 million infusion from the federal government to pay for housing illegal immigrant prisoners who have committed crimes in California. The governor also...

MEXICO CITY - A new proposal from Mexico's ruling party could send musicians to prison for performing songs that glorify drug trafficking. The law would bring prison sentences of up to three years for people who perform or produce songs or movies glamorizing criminals. "Society sees drug ballads as nice, pleasant, inconsequential and harmless, but they are the opposite," National Action Party lawmaker Oscar Martin Arce told The Associated Press on Thursday. The ballads, known as "narcocorridos," often describe drug trafficking and violence, and are popular among some norteno bands. After some killings, gangs pipe narcocorridos into police radio scanners,...

<p>LAREDO — In Mexico, they call him “El Tigrillo,” a kind of wildcat, and sing his praises, ranking him among those of the country's top drug lords.</p> <p>In Texas, he played high school football, and a coach nicknamed him “Barbie” because of his light hair and eyes.</p>

The date for operating the first major section “virtual fence� (Secure Border Initiative Network, or SBInet) the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been touting appears to have slipped farther into the future. The section around Sasabe, Arizona (“Sasabe grid� or Tuscon-1 test section of the SBInet) was to have been operating by December 2009. It is not complete, however, and DHS reports further delays are expected. The entire fence was supposed to be in place by Fall 2009 but now the US government says 2016-- maybe. The virtual fence consists of radars, towers, digital sensors (acoustic, seismic, etc),...

Mexico's new consul general in Dallas, Juan Carlos Cué-Vega, has an admirable and ambitious agenda for the estimated 400,000 to 500,000 Mexicans living in Dallas and other cities covered by his consular region. Cué-Vega says his compatriots here have a bad reputation, and it's time for an image makeover. With refreshing candor, he is blunt about the problem: "Frankly, we have spoken about the issues that make us not look very good, like celebrations using guns, littering, [being] noisy in the neighborhoods, leaving the kids at home while going to work. These are social and cultural things that we need...

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox arrived in Laredo earlier this evening after being invited by local groups to discuss trade between the US and Mexico. But that’s not all that Fox decided to discuss when he got off the plane. Fox was taking on questions about what seems to be escalating violence in Mexico, and not surprisingly, he says the United States shares the blame for what’s happening across the border. Invited by local groups to discuss US-Mexico trade, former president of Mexico Vicente Fox, instead taking time to discuss other matters: “We’re working for the United States. The truth...

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE All of the dead in the Durango prison uprising are inmates. The fighting is said to have been between members of rival drug-trafficking cartels. Reporting from Mexico City - A prison riot Wednesday killed at least 23 inmates in the northern Mexican state of Durango, which has been the scene of increasingly violent feuding between drug-trafficking groups during the last year. Authorities said fighting broke out early in the morning between inmates affiliated with rival drug-trafficking groups who were held in the penitentiary in the state capital, also named Durango. The clashes left an undetermined number of...

Kidnapper testifies victim was 'cooked' in Mexico Associated Press McALLEN — A man who pleaded guilty to committing a series of kidnappings on behalf of the Mexican Gulf cartel's enforcers has testified at the trial of a co-defendant that the body of a Texas victim was "cooked" on a ranch in Mexico. Gerardo Zamora Espinoza testified Wednesday that Daniel Ramirez Jr. was kidnapped from the convenience store where he worked in 2008 because a high-ranking member of the cartel's enforcement arm was trying to expand his power in the area. Espinoza said he was told by his nephew who allegedly...

A kidnapping ring is accused of taking its Rio Grande Valley victims to Mexico where they were tortured, held for ransom and in one case -- killed. The trial for alleged kidnapping ring member Luis Alberto Avila-Hernandez started before U.S. District Court Judge Randy Crane in McAllen on Tuesday. Several witnesses have testified against Avila-Hernandez, including the relatives of victims and his co-defendant Gerardo Zamora-Espinoza. The Associated Press reported that Zamora-Espinoza testified that the kidnappings where committed on the behalf of the Mexican Gulf cartel's enforcers. Zamora-Espinoza told jurors that the body of kidnapping victim Daniel Ramirez, Jr. was "cooked"...

The Department of Homeland Security's latest version of a border "virtual fence" has suffered another setback. TUCSON, Ariz. — The Department of Homeland Security's latest version of a border "virtual fence" has suffered another setback — prompting Secretary Janet Napolitano to order a departmentwide reassessment of the program. Officials expected to have a 17-tower system up and working along 23 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border flanking Sasabe, Ariz., by the end of 2009. But the handover to the Border Patrol has been delayed at least three more months. The Sasabe grid is the first in a series of virtual fences...

UMATILLA - A 76-year-old grandmother is in stable condition after she was allegedly raped by a man that had been tasked with her supervision. A Marion County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman said the woman is in the hospital awaiting surgery. Juan Cahuich-Santiago, 29, was charged Tuesday with sexual battery on a special condition victim. The illegal immigrant was being held at the Marion County Jail on Wednesday on no bail. The alleged attack occurred Saturday, late afternoon or early evening, in a Umatilla area home in east Marion County where Cahuich-Santiago lived with the victim and her family. The victim is...

WASHINGTON — Born into South Texas poverty as the son of migrant workers, a man who rose from shoeshine boy to sheriff to congressman is the face of the immigration reform bill set to slog its way through the House of Representatives this year. That's by design. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, a 27-year veteran of legislative battles, isn't the only Democrat who concedes the road for immigration reform is steeply uphill in a midterm election year. But the bill's backers are counting on the Robstown native to draw on his life experience to argue that immigration reform is needed...

If you go to Google Maps and see either the USA map or the map of Texas (type in Texas, USA in search) most of the border cities of Texas NO LONGER exist. Instead they are now only shown by their MEXICAN counterpart names. For example, El Paso is NO MORE. It has been replaced by Juarez. Here ias a partial list of Texas cities that no longer exist on Google Maps. Just their Mexican counterparts do: El Paso Del Rio Laredo Eagle Pass Presidio Brownsville

Nearly 200 people have been killed in the city just south of San Diego, California, since Dec. 1.

SAN DIEGO – A previously deported Mexican national, who operated an outdoor brothel in a remote local canyon, could receive life in prison following his conviction on federal human trafficking charges, including two counts of sex trafficking by force. Adrian Zitlalpopoca-Hernandez, 32, of Tlaxcala, Mexico, was found guilty by a jury last week on charges stemming from a year-long joint investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the San Diego Sheriff’s Office (SDSO). Zitlalpopoca is scheduled to be sentenced April 12 before District Court Judge Rodger T. Benitez. Zitlalpopoca-Hernandez was arrested in November 2008 during a vehicle stop...

TIJUANA, Mexico – Mexico has captured a kingpin accused of terrorizing his way to the top of a gang fighting for control of key U.S. drug routes — even ordering rivals dissolved in acid. Tuesday's arrest, announced by U.S. and Mexican officials, capped a series of victories in Mexico's U.S.-backed war on narcotics. Teodoro Garcia Simental, known as "El Teo," was arrested at 5 a.m. (8 a.m. EST; 1300 GMT), said Amy Roderick, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego, California. She said she had no other details. A U.S. official and a Mexican law enforcement...

A Brownsville woman and a truck driver from Alabama are behind bars after allegedly trying to smuggle 12 illegal immigrants from China. Border Patrol agents arrested Stefanie Gonzalez and Jose Hernandez, Jr. on immigrant smuggling charges last week. Hernandez was driving an 18-wheeler through a Border Patrol checkpoint near Hebbronville on Wednesday. A criminal complaint shows that an K-9 officer helped agents find 12 illegal immigrants from China hidden in the sleeper area of the big rig. Hernandez allegedly told Border Patrol agents that a man named Victor Salazar from Brownsville was paying him to transport the immigrants. The Alabama...

Pizzeria owner Jorge Natividad Norman Harrison, 38, originally from California, was among three victims beheaded in an organized-crime hit in Playas de Tijuana in March. Austin priest Jesse Uresti, 69, was brutally knifed by a trusted employee who later dumped his corpse along a lonely highway in Nuevo Laredo in April. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. David Booher, 26, a medic stationed in New Mexico, received a bullet to the head after he tried to help another man shot by hitmen in a Juarez bar in November. Preliminary statistics and other sources show 2009 was by far the deadliest year...

January 10, 2010 Mexican drug gangs worship Saint Death As bloody feuds grip the traffickers, many are turning to a grim icon. Tony Allen-Mills reports from Ciudad Juarez Tony Allen-Mills in Ciudad Juarez /snip First, her head had been crudely hacked off — a trademark cartel warning to rivals. Second, her torso bore a distinctive tattoo of a cackling skeleton dressed in suggestive female clothing. Police recognised it at once as Santa Muerte — best translated as Saint Death, a macabre feminine icon who has replaced the Virgin Mary as an improbable source of unholy comfort to Mexico’s legions of...

Mexican Cartel Skins Rival's Face, Stitches It on Soccer Ball Friday , January 08, 2010 AP MEXICO CITY — The body of 36-year-old Hugo Hernandez was left on the streets of Los Mochis in seven pieces as a chilling threat to members of the Juarez drug cartel. A note read: "Happy New Year, because this will be your last." To drive home the point, the assailants skinned Hernandez's face and stitched it onto a soccer ball. The gruesome find, confirmed Friday by Sinaloa state prosecutors, represents a new level of brutality in Mexico's drug war, in which torture and beheadings...

AJO — U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the Ajo station horse patrol unit seized 567 pounds of marijuana early Friday valued at more than $450,000. Agents using a thermal imaging camera spotted a group of individuals walking near State Route 85, and carrying large backpacks. Agents from Ajo’s horse patrol unit responded to the area and discovered 12 burlap sacks abandoned in an apparent attempt to avoid apprehension. Agents took the marijuana to the Ajo station for processing. The increased use of technology, such as thermal imaging cameras, has greatly improved the Border Patrol’s situational awareness, the patrol said,...

U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested two suspects in separate incidents with warrants related to murder. On Thursday, Nogales agents arrested a male who first claimed to be an illegal alien, but then admitted to being a U.S. citizen. A fingerprint check showed an active felony warrant out of Pima County for his arrest on a charge of first-degree murder. Daniel N. Taddey, 32, was charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the Nov. 13, 2008, death of Frank T. Gonzales. He was turned over to Tucson police. In a second incident Friday morning, agents assigned to the Ajo station arrested...

Don't tell the produces of The Hills or any of the other youth-oriented television shows that seem to portray people of color as background noise in California, but for the Golden State's under-18 population whites are now a minority. This according to U.S. Census data from 2000 to 2009... The emergence of a nonwhite majority among children should be no surprise to Angelenos, who live in a city that is nearly 50 percent Latino. And, as LAist reported this week, Latinos have now edged out whites as the largest ethnic group in the once Leave It To Beaver-like San Fernando...

DONNA - A suspect who was able to elude Donna police is behind bars tonight. Alejandro Corona Chavez is now facing a host of charges. The 20-year-old Mexican national will be arraigned Friday. While Donna police couldn't find him Wednesday, they didn't have to do much to apprehend him Thursday afternoon. Chavez led police on a lengthy manhunt Wednesday evening. Police say he fled the scene of an accident and then crashed into a home. Despite all their resources, including a DPS chopper, police were able to arrest one suspect, but they were not able to find Chavez. At about...

LA JOYA — Two men dropped caltrops along Highway 83 as they evaded police during a pursuit early Thursday morning. La Joya police attempted to pull over a Ford F-150 along Farm-to-Market Road 2221 about 7:40 a.m. Thursday. The truck's driver turned around and went south before heading west along Highway 83, said Officer Joe Cantu, a department spokesman. The truck veered south along Sam Fordyce Road, where the driver and passenger eventually bailed and swam across the Rio Grande to Mexico. Along the highway, police said several dozen caltrops — spiked devices with several metal points designed to always...

DOUGLAS, AZ - A Border Patrol agent fatally shot a man just outside Douglas Monday morning. The suspected illegal immigrant died in a helicopter while in route to a Tucson hospital. It happened when-- according to a Border Patrol release-- agents lost track of three suspected immigrants in an area known as Bay Acres. Agents eventually tracked one illegal immigrant hiding under a tree after receiving a tip and using a trained K9. Officials say the suspect refused to come out from under the tree and began throwing rocks. The rocks struck both the agent and his K9, officials said....

MINNEAPOLIS -- Airports are often the scene of emotional moments, but few could top the reunion that took place Sunday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. "I'm happy they're here," Ashley Thill said while holding back tears. "But I could have lost my parents." Her parents, Al and Susan Thill, were making their annual drive from western Wisconsin to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico last week. But they didn't get past northern Mexico. While driving through the north-central Mexican state of Durango on New Years Eve, the Thills said they were chased, first by one car that eventually disappeared, then by another car....

Video report.

I can't help but wonder how drug-war proponents explain the violence in Mexico that has killed some 6,000 people in the last year and 16,000 after Mexican President Calderon, with the full encouragement of U.S. officials, deployed 50,000 Mexican troops and federal police three years ago to wage war against the drug dealers. Taking a cue from the war on terrorism, I think some drug-war proponents might argue the following: "The violence in Mexico, including the killing of scores of federal police officers, has nothing to do with the illegality of drugs. It's all because the drug trade attracts a...

MEXICO CITY – Mexican police have captured alleged drug lord Carlos Beltran Leyva, just two week after his even more powerful brother was killed in a shootout with troops — back-to-back victories in President Felipe Calderon's drug war. The Public Safety office said in a statement Saturday night that Carlos Beltran Leyva was arrested in Culiacan, the capital of the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, where he and several of his brothers were born and allegedly started their gang. Two weeks ago, his brother Arturo, reputed chief of the Beltran Leyva Cartel, was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines...