U.S. Mexico Border | VivirLatino

Posts Tagged ‘U.S. Mexico border’

At the Border Security is Privilege

8:27 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · crime|Drugs|Immigration|mexico|Politics · 5 Comments

25 Mar 2009

All eyes are on Mexico with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arriving there. Yesterday, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano revealed a border security plan that was allegedly less about undocumented immigrants and more about protecting the “us” from the violence coming from “them”. And next month U.S. President Obama will meet with Mexican President Calderon to discuss “their” problem.

I think that it’s important to note that the Obama administration is sending a clear signal that it is going to follow the safety first rhetoric that the Bush administration nearly perfected, that is the rhetoric that before we talk human rights, especially those of immigrants, we need to make sure we are protected from them.

Who are they?

They are the drug cartels and human traffickers. Now don’t get me wrong the violence is horrible but violence in Mexico isn’t anything new. Look specifically at the massive killing of women in Juarez. Pero the U.S. gets down to business when college students worry about their spring break vacation plans being ruined.
350 additional security personnel will be sent to the border including agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Border Enforcement Security Task Forces (BEST) teams will be doubled and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is to create a special south-west intelligence group to co-ordinate all its efforts to tackle Mexican drug-related crime.

ATF is to send 100 agents to the border within 45 days to crack down on illegal gun transfers from the US into Mexico.

They are the undocumented coming into the U.S. protected by plants that conspire to hide them. So part of the plan includes spraying potentially harmful chemicals to kill the plants that help to hide “them”.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so cynical and hold out hope for the new administration. Napolitano did mention how U.S. drug consumption is helping to fuel the cartel violence. Hmm but no mention of how the current drug policy is the U.S. including mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines have increased the prison population. Napolitano did mention how walls aren’t an especially helpful security plan but that parts of the border wall under construction will be finished and other parts reinforced with technology.

Feel safer yet? I know in my neighborhood, on this side of the border and in neighborhoods across the country, families are growing restless with their growing insecurity. ICE is still conducting raids. Families are still be separated. When will the security of many many U.S. citizen children with undocumented parents matter? How long will they have to wait while the rest of us sit back feeling safe and sound?

Via / Feet in Two Worlds, Para Justicia y Libertad. , BBC, Latina Lista

U.S. Border Patrol Reacts to a Rock With a Bullet Into Mexico

1:30 pm By Maegan La Mala · Controversia|crime|Immigration|mexico · 1 Comment

15 Aug 2008

Last time we checked, shooting into another country’s territory was against international law. But the United States Border Patrol isn’t one to get all bogged down international law, especially in the face of rocks.

The incident began unfolding about 10 p.m. Tuesday, when an officer with the federal agency on patrol near the 300 block of Virginia Avenue spotted three or four people attempting to scale the south side of the border fence, according to San Diego police.
The agent fired a pepper-ball gun “in the direction” of the would-be illegal immigrants in an attempt to get them off the barrier, said Lt. Terry McManus of the SDPD Homicide Unit, which investigates all officer-involved shootings in the city.

Moments later, stones “larger than softball-size” and other debris began landing near the agent as he sat in his patrol vehicle, McManus told reporters during an afternoon briefing.

“He believed he was being attacked — he, in fact, was being attacked by individuals on the other side of the border,” the lieutenant said. “They were throwing large rocks, boulders, and in a couple of instances, pieces of concrete block towards him.”

Mother’s Day at the Border

9:57 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · children|honduras|Immigration|mexico|Women · Comments Off

12 May 2008

Flowers, chocolates, cards, perfume. These are the most common mother’s day gifts. Along the U.S. Mexico border, all some mothers and daughters wanted was to hug each other.

You can walk to the U.S. border, Francelia Menchaca’s immigration lawyer advised her, but don’t put your fingers through its fence. It may hinder her immigration paperwork, the lawyer said…..

The Menchacas, who drove from Phoenix, are among those who gather here annually on Mexico’s Mother’s Day along the kinder portion of an otherwise unforgiving border that separates the United States and Mexico….

“We’re hoping that by next year, they have their immigration papers,” she said, clutching a family photo album, as her grandchildren gathered daisies for her and pushed them through the fence.

This is the human aspect of the boder debate that the pundits want to gloss over. Too many want people to look at this as strictly an issue of laws and numbers, not people, faces, women, children, and their families and how they are separated by borders and laws.

Terrorist Caught at the Border and No He’s Not Mexican!

11:50 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Immigration|mexico · Comments Off

4 Feb 2008

Paul Brennan was arrested by officers at a border checkpoint in southern Texas on Monday night.

The US Border Patrol said Brennan was now in custody and was awaiting deportation.

It said he had been serving a 23-year prison sentence in Northern Ireland on charges of possessing a bomb and a firearm.

So I guess score for all those strong border activists. I think it’s interesting to note that despite the brown scare, the accused is a white man.

Via / BBC and the Mex Files

Immigrants not the Only Thing Crossing U.S. – Mexico Border

10:54 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · mexico · Comments Off

5 Dec 2006

The latest war brewing at the U.S. – Mexico border isn’t about undocumented immigrants, it’s about water.

Bush administration lawyers are urging a federal appeals court to allow a section of a canal separating California and Mexico to be lined with cement to stop millions of gallons of water from seeping south of the border each year.

The water in question is seeping through the All-American Canal that delivers Colorado River water to crop land on both sides of the border. Under a 1944 U.S. treaty, Mexico is entitled to 489 billion gallons of Colorado River water, but not a drop more.

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