fronteriza   ß

Campo   At least 3 people were hit by gunfire Friday night on the Mexican side of the border near Campo, authorities said. San Diego County sheriff's deputies were called to a local recreational vehicle park shortly before 11 p.m. and found the victims, who had come across the border from Mexico, said sheriff's Lt. Larry Nesbit.
One had been shot in the upper leg, another was grazed in the head by a bullet and the third had a broken arm, Nesbit said. All of the victims were Mexican citizens.

Ambulances were sent to state Route 94, also known as Campo Road, near the Mexican border west of Campo, at 10:20 p.m. Mercy Air took one person to Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, a Heartland fire dispatcher said. The two others were taken to hospitals by ambulance, Nesbit said.
In an e-mail from the San Diego Minutemen founder Jeff Schwilk, an associate claimed Minutemen were in the area when shooting broke out among Mexicans on their side of the border, and at least 3 people were dead.
In Chula Vista, several residents called police after 11 p.m. to complain about cars speeding through town. Police stopped one driver, who turned out to be a Border Patrol agent in an unmarked car heading toward the Campo scene from the Border Patrol's Chula Vista office.

Deported parolee arraigned in murder of Jacumba woman bludgeoned with pipe wrench
4.30.03   Billie Jo Jannen Eastern Empire News Service

A parolee deported back to Mexico who apparently returned to the U.S. within days was arraigned Monday in the beating death of Jacumba resident Kimberly Charlene Hope.Hope, 48, was at an absent friend's home last Wed. 4.23.03, taking care of animals, when she was bludgeoned to death with a crescent wrench, according to Deputy Dist.Atty David Berry. Hope was killed in the home at 43115 Old Hwy 80, between 7 & 7:30 pm, according to deputies.Berry said the crescent wrench used to beat her to death was lying beside her when she was found. The home is located close to the U.S./Mexico border in Jacumba.

Daniel Gonzales Berumen, 23, was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents for immigration violations at about 8 p.m. the same day at the I-8 checkpoint near Pine Valley. The 1988 Volvo he was driving when arrested belonged to Hope and had not been reported stolen, agents said.
In the meantime, Hope's husband, Stanley Hope became concerned when she didn't return and apparently went out looking for her, according to homicide deputies and agents. At about 4:40 am Thu., he flagged down a border agent who was patrolling the neighborhood, described his wife's car, and asked if the agent had seen her, officials said. The agent hadn't, but promised to be on the lookout. A short time later, Stanley Hope again contacted agents, said he had located his wife, and asked for help, agents said. A nearby agent EMT went to the house and attempted to render aid to the unconscious woman but she was declared dead a short time later, Border Patrol officials reported.

Sheriff's homicide deputies arrived at the scene of what Sheriff's Sgt. Gary Haigh later described as a brutal assault and said Hope had suffered major injuries to the head. Learning of the car's description, agents realized they already had both a suspect and Hope's car in custody and both were turned over to deputies.
Deputies said that, when confronted with the physical evidence at the scene, Berumen confessed to the murder. After killing Hope, Berumen allegedly took her car and drove west on Old Hwy 80 until he could get onto I-8 where he was stopped at the checkpoint, Haigh said. He was arrested for both murder & car theft, but arraigned only for murder, Berry said. A special circumstance enhancement is also being sought based on the allegation that he committed the murder in the course of a burglary or robbery.

Arraigned Monday afternoon before Superior Court Judge Louis Hanoian in El Cajon, Berumen's bail was set at $2 million, Berry said. He pled 'not guilty.' He is currently represented by a public defender atty. Even if he makes bail, however, he is unlikely to go free any time soon, as there is both a parole & an immigration hold on him, Berry said. Beruman apparently has a lengthy record in the U.S.
Berry said he has information that Beruman spent time in a California prison after being convicted of a firearm- related crime. Upon being paroled in March 2002, he was formally deported by U.S. immigration officials, Berry said. He also has prior immigration violations, Haigh said.

Beruman's readiness conference is set for 5.9.03 and a preliminary hearing is scheduled 5.12.03, Berry said. DA Bonnie Dumanis will decide later what sentence to request, should Beruman be convicted of Hope's murder, Berry said, adding that he could well be a candidate for the death penalty.
Deputies are still seeking further evidence & witnesses in connection with Hope's murder, Haigh said. Anyone with information to offer may contact the sheriff's homicide detail at 858.974.3231 during business hour or call sheriff's dispatchers 24 hrs 858.565.5200.

An agent, who declined to be named, said it is common practice for Mexican nationals who have been subjects of formal deportation to be dropped off at local ports of entry after the proceedings and 'deep repatriation' is seldom used. A second agent confirmed the information, adding that, if the deportee is from a country that is not adjacent to the U.S. via land port, then he or she would be flown back to the county of citizenship. In general, however, a Mexican national deported locally would be returned to Mexico through the nearest port of entry.
Also not uncommon is for those same criminals to return to the U.S. and continue their activities. For instance, 2 parolees were Deputy Dave March was executed by a deported parolee from Mexico and, though the name of the suspect is known, he fled back into Mexico, where officials refuse to allow his extradition to the U.S. A brief collection of general border crime stories may be viewed at Ranch Rescue.

What is Operation Gatekeeper ?   ç

Grassroots opposition project Maclovio Rojas squatters camp issuing deeds to itinerant workers on govt land of unclear title directly between two Southeast Asian owned maquiladora factories on the middle of the California- Mexico border, thus establishing a working populist model at point of greatest contact for determination of how best to address immigrant labor without violating trans-national immigration laws.
Suppression has ranged from paramilitary invasion & assault by blackshirts in 4WD vehicles to surreal social manipulation by police entering dozens among thousands of homes to remove one each of all pairs of shoes to current unremitting intimidation and interrogation in addition to domicile search & seizure without judicial warrant by state police agents.

Presumed motivation: there is too much short term profit to be made from land speculation & industrial tax base negotiation to allow substantial tracts of land & communities of highly marketable low wage workers near ports & mass global markets like Los Angeles be self-determined by intentions of strategic stewardship, eliminating govt bribery revenue.

Bush signs law enhancing border security
5.14.02   Wendell Goler Fox News   ¹

Wash.D.C.   Hoping to beef up border security, Pres.GWBush signed legislation Tuesday that he said will prevent terrorists, drugs and illegal immigrants from entering the country but does not restrict the flow of commerce & tourism. "No nation can be totally secure or more secure unless we're well protected, and unless our borders are well screened. We must know who's coming into our country and why they're coming. We must know what our visitors are doing, and when they leave. That's important for us to know; the knowledge is necessary to make our homeland more secure," Bush said in a White House ceremony.
[ Secure for whom from what, H1-B visa braceros or NatSec profiteers? ]

The Enhanced Border Security & Visa Entry Reform Act calls for the development of machine readable, tamper proof passports and requires foreign visitors to carry documents that use biometric technology, like fingerprint & retina scans. Bush said the measure will not only help keep out people who don't belong in this country, it will help keep track of visitors while they are here. The bill provides the authority to hire 400 more Immigration & Naturalization investigators & inspectors processing the 500 million people that cross U.S. borders each year. The bill hikes the pay of border patrol agents and creates a database of suspected terrorists that would be accessible at every entry point, and against which every person entering the country would be checked.

The bill also bans the issuance of visas to people from countries considered to be sponsors of terrorism, unless a special finding is made that the individual is no threat to this country. The bill has some new rules for colleges & universities, requiring them to make sure foreign students are complying with the terms of their visas, and to report if the students stop showing up for class. Universities had been authorized to provide the information before, though enforcement was limited, but now with an online system, the information should be easier to input & access.

The student visa rule, which also makes sure students are enrolled in a university before the visas is granted, was proposed after 9.11.01 terrorist investigation revealed that several 9.11.01 hijackers were in U.S. on student visas but were not attending classes. Rep. Silvestre Reyes D-TX voted for the bill but said that the country must make sure that it does not lead to other problems. "This is a step in the right direction in doing the kind of thing that we're ultimately going to have to do to secure our borders and make sure we take national security of this country and put it first & foremost in perspective," Reyes, a former border patrol agent, said. "But we need to be careful not to militarize the border because it does 2 things that I think are negative. First it affects our troops & their readiness. Secondly, it gives the border communities the equivalent of marshal law to contend with."
[ Customary duplicity; Op. Gatekeeper has been implemented for years. Any border patrol agent knows this full well. ]

The bill did not include language the president wanted to allow some illegal immigrants sponsored by their employers or families to stay in U.S. while they seek legal residency. Bush said he intends to work with Congress to get that legislation passed.
  [ Which campaign financing weapons dealing piggies does Napoleon want to be the "some" more equal than the rest of the barnyard ? ¹
Are they all Frank Carlucci clientele ? ² ]

Mystery surrounds Tijuana drug shootings   Newspapers are full of unattributed accounts of who was involved and who was killed. Mexican officials remain tight-lipped.
4.28.08   Héctor Tobar, R. Johnson, R. Marosi L.A. Times

Mexico City   On Sunday, following one of the bloodiest days in Tijuana's history, authorities held no news conferences. The death toll in the gangland-style shootings early Saturday between rival drug traffickers increased to 15 from 13, after two men died of their injuries. But not even the names of the dead were released.
Instead, speculation, rumor and scattered news leaks filled the information vacuum after yet another battle in Mexico's drug wars. There were only tentative answers to the larger questions that worry many here: Is this violence between drug dealers a sign that the Mexican govt is winning the wars or is it just another symptom of a country slipping deeper into an abyss of lawlessness?

Official silence is common in Mexico, where thousands have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. Many analysts believe that Calderon's decision to send thousands of army troops to Baja California, Veracruz, Michoacan and other states to crack down on the drug trade is reaping a type of dividend.
Govt efforts have disrupted agreements between trafficking organizations and corrupt officials, setting off turf wars among weakened organizations, analysts and govt officials say.
"We wouldn't see so much bloodshed if the Mexican govt were more complicit with these [criminal] organizations and just letting them have their way," said University of San Diego Trans-Border Institute dir. David Shirk.

The Tijuana shootout was one of several seen in border communities in recent years. Unless officials decide to reveal more about who was involved and what happened, the true meaning of the bloodshed is likely to remain a mystery.
On Sunday morning Tijuana residents awoke to a rogue's gallery of criminal names in their newspapers.
"According to reliable sources," reported, the shootout was between rivals within the Arellano Felix gang. The national daily El Universal reported that the so-called Sinaloa cartel was to blame. Several newspapers reported "Crutches" among the dead, a.k.a. Luis Alfonso Velarde, reputed local drug lord with a handful of YouTubevideo tributes to his name.

Another, even bigger "cartel" operative nicknamed "Mr. Three Letters" might be dead too, along with "La Perra," reported El Sol de Tijuana. They may all have been ambushed by another cartel leader known as "El Cholo". But no one was willing to confirm any of that on the record.
Many argue official silence feeds culture of corruption. Drug traffickers operate in Baja California and elsewhere with the protection of some public officials. On Tuesday, Baja region troop commander Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito took the extraordinary step of writing an open letter to a local newspaper that identified several law enforcement officials he alleged were linked to organized crime.

The letter's implicit argument was that officials who protect organized crime are likely to escape prosecution thanks to the culture of secrecy that surrounds law enforcement here.
"Isn't this corruption?" the general asked. "What a disgrace for the society of Baja California!"
Calderon's govt has worked to clean up law enforcement. His top police official Genaro Garcia Luna purged the Federal Investigative Agency of corrupt cops. Soldiers have temporarily disarmed police in Tijuana and other cities, and several reputed drug bosses have been extradited to U.S.

Widespread violence shows few signs of abating. An estimated 2,500 people were killed in drug-related violence last year, officials say. So far this year, more than 850 people have been killed, according to tallies by news agencies. The objective measures by which U.S. officials determine the strength of the drug trafficking business also offer a mixed bag.
The supply of cocaine declined in several U.S. cities during the first half of 2007, according to the U.S. National Drug Threat Assessment, a multi-agency report on the problem. The drop in availability was probably combined result of several large seizures of cocaine shipments en route to U.S., Mexico's anti-drug efforts, and warfare among rival Mexican traffickers, the report says.

By late 2007, supply "appeared to be returning to normal" in some U.S. markets, the report says. At the same time, the amount of cash smuggled in bulk from U.S. to Mexico continued to increase, a sign that traffickers' revenues are still healthy.
"Mexican drug-trafficking organizations are the dominant distributors of wholesale quantities of cocaine in the U.S.; no other group is positioned to challenge them in the near term," the assessment says.
Privately, top Mexican officials say that a decisive victory over the so-called drug cartels is impossible as long as U.S. demand for cocaine, methamphetamines and other drugs remains high.

The more realistic goal, one senior official said recently, is to keep the drug traffickers from dominating civic life in the regions where they are most powerful, including border cities such as Nuevo Laredo and Tijuana. Although Calderon's efforts have reduced drug-related slayings in central Mexico, problems have "ballooned" along the border areas of Tijuana and Chihuahua state in part from narcotics traffickers moving their activities northward, Shirk said.
Shirk also said that the number of federal troops dispatched to Baja Norte and Chihuahua appeared to be lower, both per capita and in absolute terms, than those dispatched to Michoacan and other states where killings have diminished in recent months. He said he was surprised to encounter only one checkpoint during a trip he took Friday to Tijuana, Ensenada and back via Tecate.
"Having troop inspection points plays a really important function of making the city less navigable," he said. "You can't just kill somebody and escape back to their lair."

13 die in Mexico drug battles near U.S. border   ; Army in Tijuana on high alert after deadly shootouts leave 9 wounded   4.26.08   MSNBC

Tijuana, Mexico   Gunbattles broke out between suspected drug traffickers who fired at each other while speeding down heavily populated streets of this violent border city early Saturday, killing 13 people and wounding 9. Dead bodies scattered along a road marked one of the deadliest shootouts in Mexico's 3 year old drug warfare.
All of the dead were believed to be drug traffickers, possibly rival members of the same cartel who were trying to settle scores, said Baja California state attorney general Rommel Moreno where Tijuana is located.

Two of the dead were believed to be senior hit men for the Arellano Felix cartel and were identified by the large gold rings on their fingers. The rings carried the icon of Saint Death, a ghoulish figure that gangsters believe protects them, police said.
"Today shows we are facing a terrible war never seen before on the (U.S.-Mexico) border,"  Moreno said during a news conference.

Police cordoned off all the surrounding roads, forcing workers at a nearby maquiladora to walk through the crime scene to get to work.
"Another shootout," said a woman who gave her name only as Lisa. "There are just too many, we are so afraid."
8 suspects and one federal police officer were injured, said state public safety dept spokesman Agustin Perez Aguilar. The suspects are being held on suspicion of weapons possession among other possible charges.
Police recovered 21 vehicles, many with bullet holes or U.S. license plates; a total of 54 guns; and more than 1,500 spent shell casings at various points in the city where the battles broke out, Perez Aguilar said.
"Evidently this is a confrontation between gangs," Moreno told reporters.

At one point, the alleged traffickers fired at one another as their sport utility vehicles sped down a busy 6 lane boulevard lined with restaurants, car repair shops, medical offices and strip malls. Bullet holes could be seen in the walls of a factory building and on the perimeter wall of a housing complex along the road, but no bystander deaths were reported. It was not clear how long the gunbattles lasted.
A mall security guard who did not want to give his name for fear of reprisals said he heard hundreds of gunshots fired, some of which passed near him.
"I hit the ground," the guard said. When he got up again, he said he saw bullet holes in the wall behind him, a dead man lying in a pool of blood and 11 abandoned, bullet-ridden SUVs on the street.

The first shootout claimed 7 victims. Three subsequent gunbattles, one outside a hospital, claimed 5 more, police said. The body of a man police believe to be the 13th victim turned up at a city hospital.
Tijuana, sprawling metropolis just across the border from San Diego, California, is pervaded by frequent violence, much of it blamed on drug cartels battling for control of lucrative trafficking routes. The city is home to the Arellano-Felix drug cartel.
In January, eight people died in a gunbattle at a Tijuana safe-house apparently used by drug hit men to hold kidnapped rivals. In that confrontation, hit men holed up inside the house battled police and soldiers with automatic weapons for 3 hours.

Heavily armed federal police patrolled across Tijuana following the gunfight. Soldiers and police guarded the city's main hospital where the wounded were being treated to prevent any attempt by drug gangs to pull them out. Baja California state police chief Daniel de la Rosa said fresh troops from Mexico City were arriving in Tijuana.
President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of troops to Tijuana and Baja California state since taking office in December 2006. Some 25,000 soldiers and federal police are deployed to fight cartels in drug hot spots across Mexico.
The army in Tijuana said it was on high alert for reprisals against soldiers and federal police following the shootout and the ensuing arrests.
"The risk of attacks against our agents after an event like this is extremely high," said Lt. Col Julian Leyzaola, Tijuana's police chief.

The Arellano Felix gang was long the dominant drug-trafficking organization in Tijuana, smuggling drugs into California. Recently the group has been under attack from a rival gang from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, led by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

Crossing the line for a chance at legal status
8.4.04   Maria Elena Fernandez L.A. Times

Some people will do anything for a green card. Take Ariana De La Luz, who swallowed 38 grams of live tequila worms, or Diego Di Giovanni, who managed to trap a slippery pig drenched in butter, or Michael Couto, who jumped 6 times from one 18-wheeler traveling 60 mph to another in pursuit of 6 tiny green flags.
The contestants on "Gana la Verde " (Win the Green), an unscripted, Spanish-language show that airs nightly on KRCA-TV Channel 62 in Los Angeles, don't compete for a cash prize or even fame. Instead they jump through extraordinary hoops, eat disgusting "delicacies" and perform odd jobs, all in pursuit of the American dream. The winner of this competition walks away with a set of immigration lawyers, who for one year work to expedite the residency process. No guarantee of "la verde," though.

"People say that our show is like 'Fear Factor,' but it's different because the climax of the show involves working," said production manager Adrian Vallarino, Uruguayan native who moved to Los Angeles a year ago. "That's the ultimate test, because we want to expose people to some of the realities of being in the workforce here. Many of our viewers are in precarious situations, and the company wanted to try to help them with their papers, to give something back to them."
The thought of becoming a legal resident propelled De La Luz, who begins her sociology and Chicano studies at UCLA next month, to dive underwater to retrieve 24 coins hidden in a treasure chest in less than 2 minutes. With a green card, she would be eligible for student financial aid.

But U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement officials warn that contestants should not get their hopes up. "I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on the premise of a television show except to say that they are holding out false hope to people," said agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice. "You're getting people to submit to unpleasant things, holding out hope that you'll be able to change their legal status in this country, when some people are just not able to adjust their status because this is all dependent on laws. It sounds very much like exploitation."
KRCA, however, maintains that its show is not driven by the frivolous trappings of the unscripted genre, which offers plastic surgery, instant marriages or an opportunity to swap families. The station, owned by Houston-based independent Liberman Broadcasting, also offers Spanish-language local newscasts, talk shows and dating programs in its four markets: Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston and Dallas.

Since "Gana la Verde " premiered 7.1.04, it has consistently reached an average of 1 million Latino households. Last week, the show was No. 2 among 18- to 49-year-old Latino viewers, the station's target audience, in its 7 p.m. time slot. Thus far, the show has apparently gone unnoticed by immigration advocates or opponents, and the producers say they've received no complaints.
"Gana la Verde " recruits contestants like most reality shows do, through TV & radio ads and the Internet. There is already a waiting list, despite the fact that each week 30 contestants end up on the air. Producers adhere to a strict format: 6 contestants compete in the first round, which involves a difficult & daredevil physical task. 4 semifinalists break bread together over gourmet treats, such as live crabs, scorpions and worms. The remaining 2 go head-to-head performing a job, such as towing a car or washing the outside of a 10-story building. The winner is picked up by a limo at the end of the show, presumably to be taken to meet with an immigration lawyer.

"If it's true what they say, that they are helping people get their papers in order, I think that's great," said 25-year- old Luis Sanchez of Los Angeles, who watches the show every night. "I don't think the show can hurt anyone. There are thousands of illegal immigrants, and everybody knows it. I don't think the immigration service is going to go after anyone because they are on the show. There are things we do out of necessity, not because we want to. Eating worms for your papers is one of those things."
If someone is aware of the show's growing popularity, it's host George X, who has been recognized at restaurants and on location by fans of the show. A native of Mexico who began his career covering extreme sports for Televisa, George X also has covered the Olympics, the Super Bowl and will host the X Games for ESPN Deportes this weekend in Los Angeles.
"I love the outdoors, and I'm pretty fearless when it comes to trying new things," George X said. "I've tried everything from bungee jumping to sky diving, but I have to say the one thing that really got me was the episode where the contestants ate the live scorpions. Wow! I'm not sure I could do that one."

When it came to the tequila worms, De La Luz was not sure she could pull it off either. The worst part, the 21-year-old Puebla, Mexico, native said, was the intense smell. It also didn't help that the worms slithered inside tacos, one of the show's Mexican touches. Contestants must choose from tacos, nachos, burritos and tostadas to go with their slimy creatures.
"They stink!" she said. "It was this horrible smell, and they were still alive. I put a handful of worms in my mouth and one of them was hanging from my lips. Oh, my God, I felt like throwing up."My mom thought I was crazy for doing this. She had seen some of the shows, and there were some that people ate things that were worse than worms. My mom told me to trust in God and he will help me." Whether it proved to be her prayers or perseverance, De La Luz stunned her mother by beating 5 other participants, including 3 men.

A fan of NBC's "Fear Factor," De La Luz heard a radio commercial for "Gana la Verde " and figured it was her destiny to apply. Because De La Luz & her family cannot afford to hire a lawyer, they have not attempted to become legal residents, which prevents her from qualifying for financial aid, loans or grants at UCLA. Although most undocumented immigrants try not to call attention to themselves out of fear of being deported, De La Luz, who has a job and pays taxes, said she had to take the chance.
"Getting my green card will open a lot of opportunities for me that I wish I had," said De La Luz, who crossed the Mexican border with her mother & brother illegally when she was 8 years old. "There are times when you risk whatever you need to risk. You have to risk something to get something."

Richard Sherman, the Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer whose firm represents Liberman Broadcasting and was hired to retain immigration lawyers for the show's winners, said the risks are outlined for all contestants. "If you're illegal, it probably would be better not to be on anybody's radar screen," Sherman said. "It's possible that there is some risk of that. But I don't think it's going to catch the attention of Homeland Security. They have other things to do now."
Many of the show's participants have student or work visas or are already in the process of becoming residents. Others compete for an opportunity to hire lawyers to help loved ones.
"So far, I'm very happy with the lawyers," said Italian-born Di Giovanni, a 29-year-old actor here on a student visa and the show's first winner. "I'm not sure yet what exactly I'll get from them. I want to have a work visa. This is a big help to me. If I had to pay for this myself, I'd have to manage my limited finances very differently."

Immigration lawyer & advocate Judy London agrees that targeting undocumented individuals is not a high priority for the federal govt these days and, so far, none of the contestants of "Gana la Verde " has suffered negative consequences. But so far no one has gotten a green card, either. Even though pursuing individual immigrants is not a priority for the federal government, "we remind people they are potentially subject to arrest. In some instances, we are obliged to act," the immigration department's Kice said.
If Liberman Broadcasting wants to help its viewers, London suggests, it could begin by offering access to legal services to more of them. "Legal help should not just go out to the winners of reality shows," said London, directing attorney of the immigrants rights project at Los Angeles-based Public Counsel. "Why not expand it and find some pro bono representation for everyone involved? There are agencies who provide free legal advice. We encourage people who are out of status to tell their stories because the leaders of this country need to know how many talented people are here and, through no fault of their own, are not able to achieve status, like the plight of high school students who we are in the process of trying to legalize so they can pursue higher education."

Former INS prosecutor Carl Shusterman, now an immigration lawyer in Los Angeles, said it's "unconscionable" for the show to use the real names of undocumented contestants because the information can be used against them, even if immigration officials are not inclined to watch the show. "It's a bad idea, bad, bad idea to go on a show like this and tell the world about it," Shusterman said. "There's no way Channel 62 could guarantee that the immigration service isn't going to go after some of these people. What control do they have? And to put it mildly, eating live scorpions might not be a good idea in my view either, but who am I to judge?"

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Hi, my name is Adrian Vallarino and I'm the producer & director of "Gana la Verde".
This is the first forum I read were people are having an intelligent debate on our little show so if you guys want to ask me any questions I will be more than happy to answer them. …


I really don't feel that our show exploits people. At the end of the day we are just another TV show that gives a price, our price is high quality legal counseling. There are shows out there that strand people in remote islands, or offer them boob jobs or jail them for months in a house under constant psychological and physical pressure and nobody seams to care, on the contrary, they draw huge audiences.
I will also give you a few facts so you may better understand what really goes on our shows. For starters, an interesting fact is that around 60% of our contestants are either US citizens or permanent legal residents, they come to our show because they think is fun to participate and they are usually coming to give the price to a relative or friend. This by the way is allowed in the rules of our show.


Also, if you watch the show you will see that although they are all competing against each other, they are usually cheering and encouraging each other, you can really see they are having fun.
As a side note I must say that if I had a choice Id rather not have this happen since the show would have more drama if there was always a strong rivalry among them, but since it is after all reality TV, we don't intervene.


Regarding the legal status of the participants and what happens afterwards to them I must say that to the best of our knowledge they are all legally in the country so they shouldn't fear anything. In any case I think (and hope) that the Dept of Homeland Security has better & more important things to do than watch a TV show were honest hard working people compete to try and adjust their status to be more hardworking & productive to the society.


To finish I will give you an update on a couple of the legal cases being taken care of by our lawyers.
5 of our winners are probably less than 4 months from obtaining their Green Cards. One of them is a clear example of how we can do our little part in helping these people; he has been eligible for permanent residence for the past 2 years, but since he didn't have the time or money to go thru the legal process he wasn't aware of it.


BTW, sorry that it took me a few days to answer but we were shooting in the desert.

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Wash. D.C.   Mexico thought it was promoting tourism and business when it agreed 5 years ago to allow Brazilians into the country without visas. Instead, the move provoked a wave of illegal immigration into U.S. by Brazilians who used Mexico as a springboard. Now, Brazilians have become one of the largest and fastest-growing categories of illegal U.S. immigrants. They typically cross surreptitiously into U.S. after easy, legal entry at Mexican airports.
The number of Brazilians detained at the U.S.-Mexico border in the 12 months ending 9.30.05 is more than 3 times higher than the total detained a year earlier. From virtually zero a decade ago, the number of undocumented Brazilian migrants held in U.S. will exceed 30,000 this year. Brazil ranks behind only Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador as a source of undocumented migrants.

But the agreement that led to the Brazilian flood is about to end. Top officials in the two Latin American nations confirmed this week that Mexico had informed Brazil that it was suspending the no-visa policy for Brazilian tourists and businesspeople effective 10.26.05. Also affected are Ecuador and South Africa, whose citizens also are allowed into Mexico without visas.
Brazilians need visas to legally enter U.S. U.S. immigration officials were concerned about Mexico's no-visa policy because of its effect on the flow of illegal migrants and because of fears that it could provide an avenue for terrorists. Homeland Security Dept officials in Washington, however, declined to comment Tuesday on Mexico's policy change.

Brazil said the change was within Mexico's rights as a sovereign nation. In a statement, Mexican immigration officials said Brazilians accounted for nearly two-thirds of all foreigners denied entry to the country. In the first half of the year, 6,450 Brazilians were denied entry into Mexico.
"Thousands of Brazilians were arriving at the Mexico City airport with one-way air tickets, no hotel reservations or luggage. So they were not your typical tourists or businessmen," said a govt official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Brazilians account for a tiny fraction of the more than 1 million undocumented immigrants detained in the U.S.-Mexico border area each year. More than 95% are Mexicans who are routinely deported immediately. But Brazilians and other non-Mexican migrants have exploited a loophole in U.S. policy that enables them in many cases to avoid deportation even after being detained in U.S.

Undocumented foreigners from countries other than Mexico with no criminal records can gain release from custody by simply requesting a hearing, which many later skip. That loophole has led to a proliferation of travel agencies offering packages to Mexican cities along the U.S. border. A popular Brazilian soap opera recently dealt with the perils and romance of the northward passage.
The Mexican official said the change on the visa requirement was made on Mexico's initiative. He said he believed extremist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah had cells in southern Brazil, and his govt was concerned that their members could try to enter Mexico. The nation had similar concerns about South Africa, the official said.

In addition, the cost of housing Brazilian detainees in Mexico has become increasingly onerous. The Mexican govt maintains a detention camp for illegal migrants at an abandoned military base in Mexico City, and Mexico has had to shoulder the cost of sending many Brazilians home. But some Brazilians suspected U.S. pressure was at work. Itnl relations prof. Williams Goncalves in Rio de Janeiro state was quoted in O Globo newspaper criticizing Mexico's policy change as an "extension of U.S. interests."
"If there is any failure on Brazil's part, it's our inability to keep Brazilians here. It's a sad spectacle to see Brazilians trying desperately to enter the U.S.," he said.

US halts issue of visas to Hondurans   ^ß
6.17.06   Reuters

U.S. stopped issuing travel visas to Hondurans indefinitely, saying lax rules in the Central American nation let third-country nationals obtain local passports used for travel to America. U.S. Embassy in Honduras said Saturday it ordered issue of all new visas to Hondurans suspended. This week, local authorities arrested 2 Cameroon citizens trying to obtain Honduran passports using fake identity documents.
"The controls are not sufficient for us, and it is our responsibility to protect the United States," the embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission James Willard told local radio.

Central America is seen as a relatively easy route to U.S. by some African & Asian immigrants. Last week, Honduras warned it had become a new route for Cuban immigrants bound for U.S, with an increasing number washing up on the Caribbean coast on their way to the U.S. border.
The embassy said in a statement it was concerned about the ease with which people were able to obtain Honduran birth and marriage certificates, identity cards and passports.
"Since these documents have been used to enter the U.S., this problem continues to be a matter of national security for the USA," it said.

Honduran authorities said they would take action to purge possibly corrupt elements from the govt bodies that issue identity documents. Foreign Minister Milton Jimenez said local & international organized crime groups were involved in the trade of Honduran passports and identity documents.
"These are mafias with huge amounts of money, with connections in powerful sectors of the country. They have made people trafficking into a very profitable business," he told reporters.
In 2005, former Director of Migration Roman Romero was fired for allegedly issuing visas illegally to Chinese citizens.

Light of day
4.1.04   Matt Potter SD Reader

Local astronomers are up in arms over plans by the federal authorities to throw a little more light on the border. "With no concern for local residents and institutions, the Border Patrol is preparing to install 24 diesel-powered, 4000 watt, portable light towers over a half-mile stretch of the Mexico/U.S. border just one mile from one of San Diego's few astronomical educational outreach facilities, the San Diego Astronomy Association (SDAA) Observatory at Tierra Del Sol," writes association president Scott Baker .
"Observing the sky in the presence of that kind of light pollution will be something like using a telescope under the lights at Petco Park, in other words, practically useless."
A border patrol spokesman says the portable generators powering the lights will be equipped with oil drip pans and mufflers, and ways are being examined to keep the disruption from the lights to a minimum. Before they are deployed, he says, a public meeting will be held.

Border fence plan riles environmentalists   £   ¶28
12.3.03   Fox News   '07

Los Angeles   Environmentalists in California are trying to block a federal plan to build a new security fence to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing into U.S. from Mexico. The 14-mile fence would accompany an existing 40-mile fence that has been credited with causing a massive drop in illegal border crossings since its construction in 1993.
Supporters of the fence say that the increasing number of terrorists who are at large means U.S. must be even more vigilant at its borders. But environmentalists argue that the construction of a fence would disrupt the local ecosystem, cause erosion problems and damage the area where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tijuana River, now inhabited by rare birds & insects.
The dispute could pit the California Coastal Commission against the will of the White House, which has the authority to overrule the state body, but could find itself in a legal fight.

Mexico condemns U.S border fence plan
5.19.06   Jason Lange, Mark Stevenson, Ioan Grillo AP

Mexico and 4 Central American nations condemned the U.S plan to build hundreds of miles of triple-layered fencing on its southern border, saying it would not stop illegal immigration. In a joint news conference in Mexico City late Thursday, the foreign ministers of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico said that building barriers was not the way to solve problems between neighboring nations.
"The position of Mexico and the other countries is that walls will not make a difference in terms of the solution to the migration problem," said Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate approved a proposal to build 370 miles of triple-layer fencing along parts of the 2,000-mile border separating the U.S. and Mexico. The Senate also agreed to give many illegal immigrants a shot at U.S. citizenship.
Guatemalan Foreign Minister Jorge Briz said major U.S. immigration reform was the only way to stop the wave of people heading northward.
"All of us are looking for a comprehensive migratory regulation so that millions of Latin Americans can continue working in and supporting the U.S. economy," Briz said.

Earlier Thursday, Mexico's Foreign Relations Department sent a note to the U.S. State Department outlining the nation's concerns about the proposed barrier. Honduran Foreign Minister Milton Jimenez said he expected several South American and Caribbean countries to join Mexico and the Central Americans in issuing a joint declaration on the matter soon.
In December, the U.S. House approved a bill to build a fence about twice as long as the one approved by the Senate. The House plan sparked a wave of criticism from Latin American leaders, with Mexican President Vicente Fox comparing such a barrier to the Berlin Wall.

Fox reiterated his criticisms on Thursday.
"Building walls, constructing barriers on the border does not offer an efficient solution in a relationship of friends, neighbors and partners," Fox said in the border city of Tijuana. "We will go on defending the rights of our countrymen without rest or respite. With passion we will demand the full respect of their human rights."

On the border with Arizona, bedraggled migrants who had been turned back by the border patrol said that more fences would not keep them from crossing but only make smugglers charge more money for the trip.
"I had to leave my 3 children, walk for 3 days in the desert, and now I'm here with more debts than ever," said Edith Martinez, a 40-year-old from Oaxaca who walked back over the border bridge to the Mexican town of Nogales. "Now I have to work in the U.S. to pay my debts from the trip."

U.S. says "virtual fence" on border ready for use
2.22.08   Randall Mikkelsen Reuters

Wash.D.C.   A high-tech "virtual fence" on part of the U.S. border with Mexico is finally ready for service and the technology can fight illegal crossings all along the frontier, the Homeland Security chief said on Friday. Chertoff made the announcement during a review of border-control efforts, at which officials also unveiled higher fines for employers who hire illegal immigrants.

Immigration, a highly charged political issue, has been at the forefront in this presidential election year. Republican front-runner Sen. John McCain of Arizona is fighting conservative criticism he has been too soft on illegal immigration, and Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama accuse the Bush administration of heavy-handed tactics.
The so-called Project 28 "virtual fence" was built near Nogales, Arizona, by Boeing Co, covering a 28-mile (45-km) stretch of the border. The $20 million project of sensor towers and advanced mobile communications was supposed to be completed in mid-2007 but was delayed by software problems, drawing congressional criticism that continued on Friday.

"I have personally witnessed the value of this system, and I have spoken directly to the Border Patrol agents ... who have seen it produce actual results, in terms of identifying and allowing the apprehension of people who were illegally smuggling across the border," Chertoff said.
Clinton and Obama suggested in a debate on Thursday that high-tech surveillance could lessen the need for a planned 700-mile (1,130-km) border fence that has drawn opposition along its route. Chertoff indicated the physical fence plans would not change, but said advanced technology would be deployed along much of the border.

Homeland Security Dept is acquiring a fourth unmanned aerial vehicle for patrols and plans to get two more, he said. It also plans to increase the number of ground-based mobile radar surveillance systems to 40 this year, from six.
"In some form or fashion, technology is going to be virtually every place on the border, but it's not necessarily going to be in the configuration of P28," Chertoff said.
President George W. Bush asked Congress this month for $775 million to build more fencing along the southern border and install high-tech surveillance equipment and other infrastructure.

Rep. Bennie Thompson D-MI, House of Representatives Homeland Security committee head, said the virtual fence project relied too much on contractors and that Border Patrol agents were blocked from pointing out "obvious flaws," impairing performance.
"I would hope that they (Homeland Security officials) have learned from these mistakes," he said.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced the increase in employer fines at the news conference with Chertoff. "We are increasing civil fines imposed on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants by (an average of) 25 percent, the maximum allowed by law and the first such increase since 1999," he said.
The new maximum fine for multiple violations will rise to $16,000 per illegal hire, from $11,000 currently. Mukasey said the Justice Dept also aimed to step up criminal prosecutions against the most egregious employers. It plans to add this year 50 new attorneys and 100 deputy U.S. marshals dedicated to border enforcement.

Tunnel for smuggling found in Calexico   ¹   ²
Border Patrol stumbles onto it when vehicle sinks
11.13.03   Anna Cearley & Marisa Taylor SD UT

Calexico   U.S. Border Patrol agents discovered a cross-border smuggling tunnel yesterday morning after one of their vehicles sank into the ground near a residential area, about a mile east of the Calexico border crossing. The 4 ft wide tunnel, about 12 ft below the surface on the U.S. side, is believed to have been built by drug traffickers. It was unclear yesterday whether the tunnel, which had been equipped with electrical & ventilation systems, had been used recently or whether it was even complete.

The wood-framed tunnel was filled with water, most of which Calexico city workers pumped out. So much mud was left behind that investigators couldn't immediately go inside. San Diego DEA special agent in charge Michael Vigil said the tunnel may have been connected to a drainage system and flooded by the recent rain. Drug traffickers also have been known to intentionally flood their tunnels to prevent them from being detected by seismic devices that are sometimes brought in to find hollow spaces.

The tunnel is the second found in Imperial County and the latest of about a half-dozen passageways discovered along the California part of the U.S.-Mexico border since January 2002. The last tunnel was found Sept. 2003 by Calexico city workers who were digging trenches. The tunnel discovered yesterday is about 2 blocks from that site.
"Certainly proximity & distance to last tunnel found, and the closeness in time, it's possible that they are related," said U.S. Bureau of Immigration & Customs Enforcement associate special agent in charge Serge Duarte in El Centro. "That's why we want to do a thorough investigation."

On the U.S. side, the tunnel is at least 55 yards long and apparently leads into a Calexico neighborhood of modest homes. New homes are being built a block or so away. Ana Villalobas, who lives near the site in Calexico, said that her 67-year-old mother started waking up at 2 or 3 a.m. about a month ago because of loud noises that sounded like construction work.
"She thought it was the new houses being constructed, but they don't work at night," Villalobas said.
The tunnel apparently began in Mexico in a commercial area near the border fence. A sign there said, "Mexican Finest Wall & Floor Tiles." Mexican authorities looked over the fence surrounding the compound and saw what appeared to be the tunnel's opening and earth-moving equipt, Vigil said.

Mexican authorities also told Vigil that a worker at a clinic near the tunnel might have been storing money & drugs for traffickers. Duarte said it was too soon to say who built the tunnel. But Vigil said a strong possibility is that it was a rival of the Arellano Félix cartel.
The Arellano cartel, which has long controlled the region's smuggling routes, is increasingly being challenged by other drug traffickers. Authorities on both sides of the border believe traffickers are using tunnels to avoid tightened security at U.S. ports of entry since 9.11.01.

Many of the traffickers are framing the tunnels with wood and equipping them with cart & rail systems, lights and ventilation. Several of the tunnels have been connected to drainage systems, which makes them less expensive and easier to build.
"There's really no reliable equipt to detect these tunnels," Vigil said. "It either has to be very specific information or we run into them by accident."

Sandag OKs funds; East-west freight trains will be running soon   11.21.03   San Diego Transcript

Crews have been working for months to refurbish a rusting desert railway and Sandag officials said Friday they made an important move of their own. They accessed a lot of cash: $1.6 million, money available for many years. from a $10 million account created by the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. Rep. Bob Filner, D-Chula Vista, secured the money to help develop the railroad and someday help build an intermodal transportation center that could mean far greater shipping opportunities for San Diego businesses and the port.

San Diego Assn of Govts (Sandag) has now become the first entity to draw upon those funds. Sandag's sr project manager Michael Hix celebrated the board's decision Friday and said the money will help the railroad get on track. "It's going to get really exciting in the next couple of months as the trains actually start running," Hix said.
On Dec. 6, local transportation leaders and others will take a ride on the revitalized line and some say revenue shipments of sand and other bulk goods will begin shortly thereafter. Ferrocarrilles Peninsulares del Noreste manager R. Mitchel Beauchamp, the private Mexican partner in the revitalization process, said he and others working on the line are "unleashing the furies."

But Beauchamp also scoffed at Sandag's effort to help the partnerships develop a business plan. "We don't need no ... plan, and you can quote me on that," he said. "We just need the bureaucrats to stay out of the way. They've been nothing but a problem since the beginning."
But Sandag also owns the line. When Sandag absorbed the Metropolitan Transit Development Board earlier this year, it also inherited the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railway. Freight service on the line is available late at night but only between San Diego & Tecate.

The historic railway extends much farther to the east to Plaster City, Calif., where it could potentially connect with a Union Pacific line and give San Diego an east-west shipping connection. The line dips south into Mexico for 44 miles.
Beauchamp, a former National City councilman, said a functioning east-west rail would reduce shipping rates, and relieve San Diego's dependence on a north-south line to Los Angeles. The company Carrizo Gorge Railway owns the rights to operate the Mexican portion of the line and in May 2002, the Metropolitan Transit Development Board gave the company a contract to operate & maintain the railway on the U.S. side as well.

Sandag chief deputy executive dir. Tom Larwin said it's in the public interest not only to support the refurbishment of the line, but to explore what kind of economic stimulus it might have on the region. "There's no doubt that it will be a viable enterprise," Larwin said. "We are going to be the facilitator from the business point of view to help them establish what markets may be available and to what extent they are available."

Critics, including Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, have repeatedly expressed worry about the intl quality of the line and the potential risk for terrorist infiltration or illegal immigration on the line.
That's not a concern, said Hix & Larwin. Trains currently cross the border on a daily basis. The federal funds already available will soon be tapped for an additional Gamma Ray inspection device at the border crossing in Tecate, they said. If anything, future trains crossing the border may just be longer.

Victoria TX   Sheriff's deputies found 18 bodies early Wed. in & around a trailer at a south Texas truck stop, and they were trying to find other people, possibly illegal immigrants, who fled the scene, officials said. Victoria County Sheriff's deputies found the bodies about 2 a.m. when they answered a reported disturbance inside a trailer at the truck stop near Victoria, said Stuart Posey, a sheriff's investigator.
"Right now we have 18 bodies," said Justice of the Peace Jack Milam. The majority of the victims were inside the trailer, he said. Some of the survivors fled into the surrounding fields. Carol Bludau, chief of staff for the Victoria Cty sheriff's office, said investigators suspected the victims were illegal immigrants.

It wasn't immediately clear how many people had been in the trailer or how long they had been there, Posey said. Victoria radio station KTXN reported that about 50 people had been inside and that 12 were taken to hospitals Wed., incl 2 in intensive care. The truck driver had unhitched the cab and left the trailer behind.
There have been several cases of illegal immigrants dying in sealed containers as they are being brought secretly into the country. Oct. 2002, workers at a grain elevator in Denison, IA discovered badly decomposed bodies of 11 migrants in a grain car that was being prepared for loading. Authorities estimated 4 women & 7 men had been trapped inside the grain car for at least 4 months and had died of dehydration & hyperthermia, or overheating.

Authorities who pulled over a truck near Dallas July 2002 found 2 dead undocumented immigrants among at least 28 others who had been crammed into the back of a sweltering, unventilated tractor-trailer truck during 600 mile trip from El Paso to Dallas. In 1987, Border Patrol agents found 18 Mexican immigrants dead and one barely alive in a boxcar left on a rail siding in Sierra Blanca TX. The survivor told authorities the man who smuggled them across the border put them aboard a boxcar in El Paso and locked the door.
Federal immigration agents were headed to the trailer found Wed. near Victoria, Posey said. The truck stop is along Hwy 77, about 230 miles from the Mexican border.

Mexico trucks to roll on U.S. highways
9.1.07   John Crawley Reuters

Wash.D.C.   The Bush administration can proceed with a plan to open the U.S. border to long haul Mexican trucks as early as next week after an appeals court rejected a bid by labor, consumer and environmental interests to block the initiative. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco late on Friday denied an emergency petition sought by the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and consumer group Public Citizen to halt the start of a one-year pilot program that was approved by Congress after years of legal and political wrangling.
The Transportation Department welcomed the decision and said in a statement that allowing more direct shipments from Mexico will benefit U.S. consumers.

The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement approved broader access for ground shipments from both countries but the Clinton administration never complied with the trucking provision. A special tribunal ordered the Bush administration to do so in 2001.
"This is the wrong decision for working men and women", Teamsters president Jim Hoffa said in a statement after the court ruling. "We believe this program clearly breaks the law." The Teamsters represents truckers that would be affected by the change.
The emergency stay was sought on grounds the administration's pilot program had not satisfied the U.S. Congress' requirements on safety and other issues. But the appeals court ruled otherwise.

The administration plans to start the program on 9.6.07. Transportation Dept officials hope to receive final clearance early next week from the department's inspector general's office, which is reviewing its safety aspects, and finalize details with Mexican authorities. The Mexican govt must grant reciprocal access to U.S. trucks under NAFTA. That provision is not expected to be a problem, regulators said.
Mexican trucks operating in the United States have for years been restricted to U.S. points near certain large border crossings where their goods are transferred to trucks owned by U.S. firms. Under the pilot program, Mexican long haul trucking companies that have met safety, licensing, and other U.S. requirements will be allowed to operate their rigs throughout the country. Proponents say this will reduce costs and speed up shipments.

Trucking regulators said in a court filing the goal is to gradually accommodate 100 Mexican trucking companies by the end of the pilot program, or roughly 540 large trucks. But opponents said those figures do not reflect the number of companies that could seek access to U.S. roads if the pilot is successful, which they said raises safety concerns.
"This (pilot) program is basically a show trial. They haven't provided notice up front about who will participate. You just don't know what the program will look like," said Bonnie Robin-Vergeer, attorney for Public Citizen. Public Citizen and the Teamsters still plan to proceed with a lawsuit they filed in federal court, challenging the Mexican truck program on broader grounds. That case will not likely be decided until next year.
Trucks from Canada have no operating restrictions in the United States.

Mexico warns retaliation contra U.S. on truck ban   6.27.01   Reuters ¹ ² ³

Mexico City   Mexico warned on Wednesday it would retaliate with trade measures against the U.S. if the U.S. Senate approves a measure prohibiting Mexican trucks from greater access to American roads. In a vote late on Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the measure, which would force Mexican trucks to first meet U.S. safety standards before they are allowed more access to U.S. highways. President Bush said on Wednesday he would try to reverse the vote, and Mexico made clear it considered the move "unacceptable." "In the event that the Senate approves this and it becomes law, it would leave us with no other recourse than to take measures (against U.S.)," Economy minister Luis Ernesto Derbez told reporters. He said one option would be to block imports of high fructose corn syrup from U.S., long a source of trade friction between the 2 countries. Mexico has already placed prohibitive tariffs on the sweetener.

The Bush administration wants to allow Mexican trucks full access to highways in compliance with the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. The Mexican trucking provision in that accord was blocked by the Clinton administration over safety concerns and opposition from labor groups. House lawmakers were pushed to pass the new measure by the labor groups that argued against allowing the trucks greater access to U.S. roads on economic & safety grounds. The issue is a sensitive one because thousands of Mexican transportation firms are affected by restrictions on their access to the U.S..Derbez said the Mexican govt was in talks with U.S. Trade Rep Robt Zoellick "to tell him this (measure) would be unacceptable" but added he was confident Bush would be able to reverse the House decision.
The measure was approved as an amendment to a $59 billion transportation spending bill for fiscal 2002. Under the amendment, the Dept of Transportation is barred from granting permits to Mexican trucking companies that fail to meet U.S. safety regulations.

Fox pledges flexibility in talks on China's WTO bid
6.7.01   L.A.Times pA4

Beijing   The president of Mexico, which has yet to formally endorse China's bid to join the WTO, said Wednesday that his country does not object to Beijing joining the trade body and will be flexible in talks on the issue. President Vicente Fox made his comments during a whirlwind trip to Asia that has been dominated by trade & economic discussions. A day earlier, Fox & Japanese PM Koizumi agreed to consider a free-trade pact between their nations. On Wednesday, Fox met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin to discuss ways to strengthen trade, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation, one of Fox's aides said. The official New China News Agency said Fox told Jiang that Mexico "will take a more flexible stance" in upcoming talks about Beijing's WTO bid so that a deal can be reached "as soon as possible." Fox's aide confirmed the report, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After 15 years of negotiations, China hopes to this year join the organization that makes rules for world trade. But it needs approval from all 141 WTO members; Mexico and the U.S. are the only ones that have yet to complete negotiations. Talks with Mexico were interrupted in November because Chinese negotiators were waiting for Fox's administration to take office. In Tokyo, Fox and Koizumi agreed to set up a joint panel of academics, business leaders and govt officials to study a possible bilateral free-trade agreement. They also discussed cooperating in energy ventures. Fox said he would consider Koizumi's appeal that Mexico lower taxes imposed on Japanese companies, a Japanese govt spokesman said. The Japanese are among the largest investors in Mexico yet face disadvantages because their nation is not part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trade between the nations has increased in recent years: Japanese exports to Mexico, mostly machinery & auto parts, grew 12% to $4.7 billion in 2000 over the previous year, while Mexico's oil & agricultural exports to Japan jumped 37% to $2.1 billion in the same period. Japanese companies have invested $7 billion in Mexico, including about $1.2 billion in the fiscal year ended in March.
Fox's visit included a meeting with Hiroshi Okuda, chairman of Toyota Motor Corp., which recently established a sales venture in Mexico City but has been cautious about building an assembly plant in the country because of its economic fluctuations. Rival Nissan Motor Co. launched an assembly plant in Mexico in 1992 and sold about 180,000 vehicles there last year. Foreign investment in Mexico has surged in the last 5 years, thanks to free-trade agreements & domestic deregulation. The U.S. is by far the largest investor in Mexico, followed by Britain, Japan and Canada.

Cuba


Fox asked to abstain from U.N. vote
4.10.03   AP

"It worries us that the human rights commission passes over important issues and instead, thanks to pre- established interests, promotes repeated attacks on a country that has demonstrated its willingness to comply with UN resolutions," said the letter, singed by the house leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the Democratic Revolution Party, the Green Party and the Workers' Party.
Uruguay, Peru and Costa Rica drafted a resolution they claim does not seek to punish Cuba, but would allow human rights representatives to visit the island. The U.N. commission is expected to vote on the measure 4.16.03 in Geneva.

The letter said that resolution was heavily influenced by U.S.' opposition to Cuba's govt. In response, Mexico's Fox-appointed Cuban ambassador Jorge Bolanos said he didn't believe this country will support any anti-Cuba resolution this year. "I want Mexico to vote against what is clearly manipulation," Bolanos said of the resolution.
But speaking in Madrid this week, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said Cuban human rights violations "worried" him. Mexico is the only Latin American country that didn't break diplomatic ties with Cuba after Castro came to power in 1959. It has maintained warm relations with the island by traditionally abstaining from the human rights commission's annual vote.

Castro responded to Mexico's 2002 vote against his govt by playing a tape recording of Fox encouraging him not to attend a U.N. conference in northern Mexico last March. The Cuban president left the conference early, but the recording contradicted Mexican officials' accounts of Castro's sudden departure and proved embarrassing for Fox.
Mexican-Cuban relations got even rockier after Fox's govt dismissed Bolanos' predecessor as ambassador to Cuba, Ricardo Pascoe. Pascoe drew the ire of Mexico City after he made statements defending Castro's govt and distancing himself from Fox's pro-U.S. position.
The letter asked Fox to maintain a strict policy of "nonintervention" in Cuban matters. "The violent uprising in Iraq has marginalized intl law and ability of unilateral decisions to overcome multilateral organisms has squashed the sovereignty of the world's nations and their human rights," it said, adding that the U.N. commission has no plans to vote on a resolution to punish U.S.

This week, Cuba sentenced 75 political dissidents to prison terms ranging from 6 to 28 years in trials that never last more than a day. The crackdown on opposition leaders has been condemned by govts & human rights groups around the world.

Bush, Fox Push to mend strained relations
1.12.04   AP

Monterrey, Mexico   President GW Bush & Mexican President V.Fox, their relationship strained by tensions over immigration & Iraq, met privately for talks on a range of issues Monday as a prelude to an intl summit of 34 Western Hemisphere nations. The Bush White House saw the face-to-face meeting not only as a chance to mend ties between the countries, but also to earn some political capital for a president who wants a second term.
Bush arrived in this industrial city at midday at an airport where gun-toting troops in green fatigues & security officers roamed the grounds. He & his wife, Laura, walked down into a phalanx of Mexican officials, all men wearing dark suits. The couple was followed in the procession of greeting by Sec.State Colin Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice & White House chief of staff Andy Card. Once in his motorcade, Bush passed large expanses of brush & cactus- covered land. Men digging ditches alongside the road stopped & leaned on their tools to watch him pass by.

On a 90 minute flight here from Texas, Bush got a briefing from Rice & Powell on the summit, said his press secretary, Scott McClellan. In his meeting with Fox, the spokesman said, the president was expected to discuss his new, more open immigration policy, strengthening border security & free trade. McCellan dismissed talk of the meeting as an opportunity to air grievances.
"We have a good relationship with Mexico and President Fox is a good friend of the president's", McClellan said. "Whatever differences we had in the past, we have a lot of common challenges that we are working closely together on."

Bush annoyed Fox when he put immigration reform on the back burner after 9.11.01. Their relationship further soured when Mexico failed to back the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But the two were expected to be smiling, at least for the cameras, at the summit of democratically elected leaders. Cuba was not invited.
"Fox has an opportunity to hail the Bush immigration proposal as a political victory, given that he has been asking for an immigration agreement since day one," said Wash.D.C. Ctr for Strategic & Intl Studies Mexico project dir. Armand Peschard-Sverdrup. "I think to some extent, Bush will use it as a photo-op for reaching out to the Hispanic voters."

Amid the congenial handshakes will be disagreements. Latin American nations butted heads with the U.S. until nearly dawn Sunday in failing to agree on several points of a draft document to be debated at the 2 day summit. U.S. wants the draft to call for re-emphasizing a 2005 deadline for finishing negotiations on a Free Trade Area of the Americas, a hemisphere-wide trade zone that is one of Bush's top policy goals for Latin America. Brazil & Venezuela say the summit is not the place to discuss it.
U.S. also wants to kick corrupt govts out of the Organization of American States, a move opposed by several Latin American nations. Other discussion topics at the summit, held in Mexico's third largest city, 150 miles south of the Texas border city of Laredo, include strengthening democracy, ending poverty, security and helping small businesses with low-interest loans.

Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner is upset about recent U.S. criticism over its warming relations with Cuba. U.S. officials privately worry that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who warned U.S. officials on Saturday not to "stick their noses" in his nation's affairs, is working with Cuba to oppose pro-American democracies in the region. Some Latin American leaders accuse America of being heavy-handed. They argue that the U.S. has neglected social issues, such as raising the standard of living for some 200 million people, nearly one-half the region's population, who live in poverty.
Between bilateral meetings Monday with President Ricardo Lagos of Chile and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Bush's schedule called for his speech at the summit's opening ceremonies. He planned to promote free trade, open markets, clean elections and anti-corruption steps to help strengthen democracy in the hemisphere. An admin official said the U.S. also planned to announce it will return to Peru $20 million allegedly stolen by former Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos and stashed in American bank accounts.

Bush heads to Mexico for Americas summit
1.12.04   Reuters

Monterrey, Mexico   President Bush goes south of the Rio Grande for an Americas-wide summit on Monday trying to win friends in an increasingly troublesome region. … As he seeks support from Hispanic voters for his re-election bid this year, Bush is wooing Latin America after largely ignoring the region for more than two years as he focused on Iraq, Afghanistan and national security following 9.11.01.
Political analysts see the region as a place where Bush, who speaks some Spanish, can prove he is capable of winning allies after upsetting some U.S. friends abroad during the Iraq war.
"The Summit of the Americas is seen as an opportunity to reestablish our multilateralist credentials," said Miguel Diaz of the CSIS think tank in Washington. Bush is scheduled to meet one of his main critics in the region, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on Monday night. Brazil retaliated last week for U.S. anti-terror measures at airports, requiring that American citizens entering the country be fingerprinted and photographed.

Differences between the two countries have cast doubts on the chances of a Western Hemisphere free trade pact being agreed on by January, 2005 as first planned. Canada's new prime minister, Paul Martin, said on Sunday it was unlikely the deadline could now be met."That's a bit optimistic. I think it's a shame," he said.
Hundreds of anti-U.S. protesters took to the streets of Monterrey, Mexico's industrial hub, on Sunday for the first of several planned marches. "We reject the interests of Yankee imperialism. The summit is the first step toward building a new empire in the Americas with Bush's policies," teacher Carlos Campos, 48, said at the demonstration. Venezuela's Chavez, the most virulent U.S. rival in Latin America behind Cuba's Fidel Castro, said on Sunday that Washington was preparing his ouster either through a coup or an assassin's bullet.
Chavez, who survived a coup bid in 2002 that U.S. was slow to condemn, on Saturday called U.S. national security advisor Condoleezza Rice "a real illiterate."

San Diego, CA   Pres.GWBush meets with Mexican Pres. Vicente Fox today in Monterrey Mexico, expecting to sign 22 point agreement to tighten border security while preventing traffic jams & delays to border commerce. Thousands of people in San Diego-Tijuana region find their lives take place on both sides of border. 38 year old Benny Villasenor is proud of his Mexican heritage. But he lives a bi-national existence. A Tijuana resident, he commutes every day to work as a document deliveryman in San Diego. "I feel Tijuanan 100%; even though I was born here I feel some part of American in me all the time. I went to school over there. I have friends over there." Villasenor is one of tens of thousands of Tijuana residents who cross the border legally every day for better paying jobs in San Diego. On the second floor of his comfortable 3 bedroom home just a few blocks south of the San Ysidro border crossing, he shows me his version of the American dream.
"That's the U.S. right there?" I asked.
"Yup, that's the fence right there. I never like the idea of living in San Diego, it's too expensive and I would be too far from every one I know. San Diego is a beautiful place to go you don't get bored you can go there every day and there's always something to see," he sighs. "But this is home."

Since the traffic tie-ups that got worse after 9.11.01, Villasenor found a quicker way across. He puts his 8 year old daughter Karla on the back of his mountain bike and the 2 ride past traffic. During his 15-minute pedal, he passes hundreds of cars backed up through Tijuana's narrow streets. "It ends right here, that's about a 2 hour wait; I done that a couple of times," he said. Villasenor drops off Karla at a catholic school in San Ysidro. He exchanges his bike for his parked car and begins his deliveries. Villasenor is proud that his U.S. salary is nearly three times what he could earn in Tijuana. "I make about $30,000 a year, but that's great. It's like making $80,000 over there. That's how I can afford to pay the $300 tuition at the school," Villasenor said of his daughter's school.

Villasenor takes advantage of the economic disparities of this still-booming border region: Higher wages in the U.S., and a lower cost of living in Mexico. Steven Gross has turned the equation around. As president of a warehousing firm that services maquiladora factories, he takes advantage of lower labor costs in Mexico, and the needs of U.S. manufacturers. Gross commutes from his home in San Diego to facilities in Tijuana & Mexicali. "Most of the people who work for me see the border just as the border, but our lives are dependent on both sides," Gross said. He added that presidents Bush & Fox need to do something to keep business flowing for the 12-million U.S. & Mexican residents who live along the border.
"We need safety and security of our borders first," he sympathized. "But security & safety can also mean better facilitation, more prescreening applications for people & cargo. The border should be the last line of defense not the first line of defense."

The Monterrey summit is the culmination of weeks of discussion between administration officials in Washington and Mexico City. Already there are hints of some kind of immigration agreement and promises of new technology at border crossings, such as more x-ray machines for cargo trucks, and perhaps a commuter lane for pedestrians. UCSD political science prof. Richard Feinberg, former Clinton administration official, says there may finally be recognition that the border's infrastructure is outdated. "The US Mexico border is primitive & a terrible eyesore. We haven't brought to bear modern technology, modern resources and modern bureaucratic methods to make the border work. What you're going to see out of the Monterrey meeting is a real commitment to put real resources into the border areas."
Change maybe be coming, but for now, Benny Villasenor has adapted to border problems to take advantage of opportunity on either side. "Sometimes I stop and think, this is great. My house is right over there and I'm already in the US."

Fox hopes to reschedule Texas visit
8.22.02   AP

Mexico City   President Vicente Fox hopes to reschedule a trip to Texas that he canceled in protest of the execution of a Mexican-American prisoner last week, a spokeswoman said Thursday. Fox was scheduled to travel Aug. 26-28 to 4 Texas cities and Pres.GWBush's ranch, but canceled the trip to protest the execution of Javier Suarez Medina, who Fox said was Mexican. The trip could be rescheduled for Q1 next year, spokeswoman Alicia Buenrostro said.
Fox argued the execution was illegal because Suarez was never informed of his right to legal help from the Mexican consulate. U.S. officials said it was never clear whether Suarez was born in the U.S. or Mexico. Because of Texas' importance to Mexico, Fox wants to reschedule his trip to meet with state politicians & business officials, Buenrostro said.

Fox's planned meeting with Bush was canceled, but the 2 leaders are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum meeting in late Oct. in Los Cabos, Mexico. Buenrostro said Fox believes Mexico has a better chance of reaching a migration accord with the U.S. after U.S. November elections. Fox has been pushing the U.S. to allow more legal migration from Mexico since taking office in December 2000, ending 71 years of single-party rule.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, widely criticized in Mexico for refusing to halt Suarez's execution, will travel this weekend to Mexico City to lobby for the Panamerican Games to be held in San Antonio. It was unclear if he would meet with Fox.

Illegal immigrants told to take flight
Mexican envoy fears future 'bleak' for those arrested at city airports
4.26.02   Edward Hegstrom Houston Chronicle

Houston's Mexican consul general plans to warn local illegal immigrant airport workers to surrender or go home before federal agents conduct a sweep that could lead to their arrest. Federal authorities have already conducted crackdowns at airports across the nation to arrest workers who have falsified documents or lied about their criminal past to obtain jobs. Mexican Consul General Enrique Buj Flores figures it is only a matter of time before the authorities reach Houston, and he wants fellow Mexicans to be forewarned. "Unfortunately, many of these people have violated the law and their immediate future is now very bleak," Buj Flores said.
He has scheduled a news conference in Spanish today to broadcast his warning to Mexicans living locally. "I want to alert my nationals working in Houston airports that there are very serious consequences that may occur to them," the consul general said in an interview Thursday. He said Mexicans working illegally at Bush Intercontinental & Hobby airports should take "appropriate actions." Buj Flores said he is not encouraging Mexicans to break the law, and he said those workers who already have committed violations like fraud might want to consider surrendering. But he also mentioned other options. "There are other measures they can take," he said. "I don't have to be explicit. It could be that they could decide to leave the country voluntarily and go back to Mexico."

The consul general said those arrested at other airports around the nation are facing stiff sentences. But he said Mexicans who surrendered before a crackdown in Arizona appeared to receive more lenient treatment. Crackdown at 3 airports in Wash.D.C. area earlier this week led to indictments against more than 140 people, including immigrant airport workers who had falsified documents to get security clearances to work on the airport tarmac or inside jets. Buj Flores said that because of Houston's location closer to the border, a crackdown here would probably result in many more arrests. "I would venture to guess it would be a very large number," he said. And if all of those Mexicans are jailed, Buj Flores' office would have to provide diplomatic services for them. "It could be beyond the means of the consulate to handle the cases," he said.

Buj Flores says he does not know exactly when the crackdown will occur in Houston, though he added: "I have knowledge that checks into people at Intercontinental Airport have begun." U.S. atty anti-terrorism task force coordinator Abe Martinez in Houston office would not comment when informed of Buj Flores' statements. In Washington, Justice Dept spokesman also said the agency would have no comment until today. National sweep of airports, known as "Operation Tarmac," began in Salt Lake City in November. Federal agents have since conducted operations in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Charlotte, N.C., Boston, Washington and other cities. Officials said they'll eventually conduct operations at every major airport in the country to make airports safer after 9.11.01 by ensuring that people who work behind the scenes, baggage handlers, maintenance workers, janitors, have proper security clearance.
"Americans deserve the confidence of knowing that the individuals working at our airports are worthy of their trust," Atty Gen. Ashcroft said in announcing the arrests in the nation's capital earlier this week. Ashcroft said there would be a "zero-tolerance policy" for security breaches at airports.

Authorities in Washington said none of 140 people arrested there were suspected of links to terrorism. Buj Flores said he believes none of the operations in other cities have led to the arrest of suspected terrorists, either. Buj Flores said the "economic reality" requires many Mexicans to falsify documents to get illegal employment in this country. He said it would be a mistake to equate illegal immigrants with terrorists. "We in no way are acting as a shield for terrorism," he said of the Mexican Consulate.

Buj Flores is not the first to raise concerns about immigrants caught during airport sweeps in search of terrorists. Salt Lake City operation led to firing of more than 200 airport workers and indictments against 69. It later emerged that many fired were illegal immigrants with no suspected links to terrorism and no criminal history. After the bust, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson sent a letter to several other mayors around the nation, urging them to warn illegal immigrant airport workers to leave their jobs. Just this month, Anderson announced a program encouraging people in Utah to help the families of illegal immigrant workers who were fired in the "unnecessary & inhumane" operation at the airport.

Some demand govt distinguish between illegal immigrants & terrorists; others say that would be hard to do. "We're trying to make a distinction between the truly dangerous people and those who have just lied on an application to secure gainful employment," said Association of Flight Attendants spokeswoman Dawn Deeks in Washington. "But that's a theoretical distinction that's hard to make in practice. It's hard to know what someone's motives are for lying."

State license policy impact goes federal   Homeland Security will review border-crossing rules since California provides illegal residents driver's permits   9.10.03   Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar L.A. Times

Wash.D.C.   California's decision to grant driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants could lead to new federal policies that deny citizens the convenience of reentering the country merely by showing a license, a sr Homeland Security official said Tuesday. Federal officials said they are reviewing the current policy because California is the most populous state and one that has been a magnet for illegal immigration.
"Certainly, we need to review the policy of our inspectors at the border and their reliance upon driver's licenses," said undersecretary for border and transportation security Asa Hutchinson. "I think that would be the biggest repercussion."

The closest thing to nationally accepted identity cards, driver's licenses have long been a focus in the debate over illegal immigration. 9.11.01 also called attention to the security weaknesses of licenses. Several hijackers obtained Virginia licenses by giving a false address. A cong. report released 9.8.03 concluded that it remains relatively easy to acquire licenses with a phony ID.
One possible alternative to relying on driver's licenses would be to require all returning travelers to show passports. But Hutchinson, who oversees immigration, said border inspectors would not single out travelers from California. "We are not going to say [that] we are going to have closer scrutiny on Californians," Hutchinson told reporters. "We would simply look at our overall policy and what our inspectors need to be checking. If driver's licenses are given to people who are illegally in the country, then that puts an extra burden and difficulty on our inspectors at the border".

Americans returning from countries in the Western Hemisphere do not need a passport to reenter U.S., although one is recommended, said immigration spokeswoman Danielle Sheahan. In practice, many citizens do not carry passports when traveling to Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean. Some take their birth certificates.
Gov. Gray Davis last week signed legislation that permits illegal immigrants to obtain California driver's licenses. 13 states (ID, IN, MI, NE, NC, NM, OR, SD, TN, TX, UT) accept Mexican consular identification cards for issuing driver's licenses, usually with other documentation. California Dept of Motor Vehicles is still deciding what documentation will be required for the licenses. Consular ID cards, which carry the bearer's name, U.S. address and photo, are not valid immigration documents, but are accepted by many agencies around the country as valid ID.

California's giant population puts it in a class by itself, officials said. "With 2 million undocumented immigrants in California, that raises it to a national concern," said Homeland Security spokesman Bill Strassberger. "Changes in states that have much smaller populations might not be noticed."
Former Immigration & Naturalization Service commissioner Doris Meissner said Bush admin should take California's action as a signal to put immigration reform back on track. Before 9.11.01, President Bush was pursuing an immigration deal with Mexico that would have created a new guest-worker program and legalized millions already here.

"It's a clarion call that there needs to be a fundamental review of our immigration policies," said Meissner, now at the Migration Policy Institute think tank in Washington. "Because of a vacuum at the national level, states are being forced to take action to deal with daily consequences of large numbers of undocumented people." Meissner warned of backlash from citizens & legal residents if the administration suspends the acceptance of driver's licenses at the border.
"Even people who have passports, who go back & forth every day, would find it an inconvenience to be carrying their passports," she said. "It would create a very sudden burden of passport applications and a lot of inconvenience for a lot of Americans."
  [ Nonsense. Obtaining & using a passport is not a undue burden. ]

Another sort of backlash was brewing in Congress, where a prominent advocate of immigration restrictions launched a campaign that could strip California of tens of millions of dollars in federal highway funding. Rep. Thomas G. Tancredo R-CO introduced legislation to withhold up to 25% of federal highway funds from any state that has passed laws allowing illegal immigrants to get licenses. California is getting a total of $2.5 billion this year, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
Tancredo's bill calls for initially withholding 5% of a state's allotment, increasing in equal increments to reach 25% after 5 years. "Giving driver's licenses to literally millions of illegal aliens has serious implications for our national security," Tancredo said. "Normally, we allow states to set their own standards for driver's licenses. But when the actions of one state put the safety of people living in the other 49 at risk, we are compelled to act."

Prospects for the bill were unclear. As yet, it has no California co-sponsors. Hutchinson said border inspectors must now be familiar with more than 200 types of state licenses, a situation that is close to unworkable. "If you do not have confidence in the integrity of the licenses then it really undermines the whole premise of allowing U.S. citizens to travel abroad and come back without a passport," he said.
However, Hutchinson said federal govt has no intention of taking over licensing from the states. "That's been a traditional state function, and I don't think I want to chew on that one," he said. Instead, Washington is encouraging the states to improve the security of driver's licenses by making them harder to forge and by taking precautions to establish the identity of the driver.

In the long run, driver's licenses may lose some of their clout as identity documents. "If it's simply viewed as it means they have passed a driver's test and have some type of insurance, and it has no further meaning beyond that, then that might be what we need," Hutchinson said.

INS reverses post-9/11 schools rule
8.26.02   Suzanne Gamboa AP

Wash.DC   Immigration officials on Monday reversed a post-9.11.01 security directive that would have barred Canadian & Mexican students from enrolling part-time in U.S. colleges. Colleges just within the U.S. border can continue to accept part-time foreign students, but the students will be required to have more paperwork to make their daily commutes across the border, the Immigration and Naturalization Service said.
For Mexican students, in particular, this could mean months of waiting for foreign student visas.

Citing security concerns after 9.11.01, the INS announced in the spring that U.S. colleges could not accept new part-time students from Canada & Mexico. The proposal drew heavy outcry from students & universities. "This new rule will prevent the significant disruption of part-time studies, which have become an accepted fact of life along our borders with Mexico & Canada," INS Commissioner James Ziglar said in a statement Monday announcing the revised policy.
Under federal law, foreigners going to school in U.S. cannot be classified as visitors, but they can't be called students unless they carry a course load of at least 12 credits. For years, border points like El Paso, TX and Buffalo, NY made exceptions for part-time Canadian & Mexican students, who entered on daily visitor passes & travel visas.

Under the revised policy, Mexican students must have foreign student visas and Canadians must show border inspectors copies of I-20 immigration forms, which indicate they are enrolled in a school. Students must attend INS-approved schools no farther than 75 miles from the border. Part-time students who were already studying in the U.S. must obtain the same documents required of new students by the beginning of 2003.
NAFSA Assn of Intl Educators exec. dir. Marlene Johnson said the new policy recognizes the links between border communities. INS spokesman Dan Kane said processing times for I-20s depend on how quickly the school does the paperwork. Consular affairs spokesman Ed Dickens said foreign student visa applicants can expect to wait 6 to 8 weeks and possibly longer. Men between 16 & 45 have to fill out extra forms, he said. "Students in particular who are in certain areas of study that have security implications, such as biochemistry or nuclear physics, would also have to expect long processing times for their visas," Dickens said.

Under North American Free Trade Agreement, Canadians do not need visas to enter the U.S., Kane said. College officials on both borders were happy to hear of the new policy. D'Youville College student affairs vp Robert Murphy in Buffalo, NY said the school spent the summer trying to find ways to make it possible for the students to legally attend classes.
17 miles from the U.S.-Mexican border, 15 of 425 intl students at the Univ. of Texas Pan American in Edinburg are part-time students, mostly studying intl business. Many more would come if they could cross easily, said intl student adviser Phil Clay. "It will give us a big boost for our foreign student population," Clay said.
Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-AZ, who was sponsoring legislation that would allow the border students to attend classes, said he is happy with the policy change but wants to improve it.

Border? What border? abridged
3.26.03   Billie Jo Jannen Eastern Empire Guardian

Later materials released by Homeland Security listed some specific actions, among those a plan, currently being implemented, to send 125 additional agents to the Canadian border. In the spot where plans for the U.S.-Mexico border should have been was a hole big enough to drive a nuke through. A couple of days ago, I learned most of those 125 agents were taken from the southern border, 45 from the San Diego sector.

As an avid border-watcher, I was intrigued even more when I learned San Diego sector apprehensions from 10.1.02 to present are 22% higher than same period last year, and that OTM (patrolspeak for 'other than Mexican') apprehensions are up 54.5%.
Border Patrol has long used apprehensions to gauge number of people actually crossing. More apprehensions equals more border crossers. % of crossers actually caught has been hotly debated over the years; estimates range from 10% to 50%.

What happened, I wondered, to all reports last week about would-be crossers that allegedly staying home because of the war?
Border Patrol officials said the reasons for the increase are not yet clear: "I cannot speculate as to the specific cause of the increase in apprehensions in San Diego," said U.S. Border Patrol Agent Ben Bauman. "I can say San Diego sector is in a heightened state of alert and keenly aware of the threats & dangers currently facing U.S.."

Alert status currently is orange, high risk of terrorist attack.
Initiatives outlined by Homeland Security when a threat advisory is orange include:

As the Mexican economy drifts into recession, border communities in the U.S. are beginning to suffer the effects. Most U.S. border towns already have higher poverty & unemployment rates than the national averages, but the situation has been getting worse as Mexico's economy falters.
Between March & May, for instance, El Paso TX lost 2% of its jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis. In the same period, unemployment in Imperial County grew from 17% to 19.6%, the highest jobless rate in California.
"Much of the employment decline in Imperial County comes from seasonal fluctuations in agriculture," said , state Employment Development Dept official Cheryl Mason. "But if the economy in Mexico worsens, there's likely to be a drop in shoppers coming across the border from Mexicali to El Centro and Calexico."

Federal Reserve Bank economist Pia Orrenius in Dallas said the Texas border region is starting to see the effects of the Mexican recession. "Job-growth figures along the border have really come down over the past several months," she said.
San Diego County has been largely immune to such problems, thanks to its diversified economy of high-tech, tourism and defense-related jobs. For the past year, the county's unemployment rate has been below 3%. But elsewhere along the border, economic weakness mirrors Mexico's woes. After 2 consecutive quarters of decline, Mexican officials have slashed growth estimates for this year from 4.5% to 2.5%, sharp decrease from last year's 7% growth.

Mex. Pres. Fox blames the recession on the slowdown in U.S., which buys 80% of Mexico's exports. In an interview in Mexico City yesterday with Associated Press executives, Fox jokingly appealed for help from Mexico's patron saint. "We need to go to the Basilica and pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe so the U.S. comes back," Fox said. "Because we have everything to move, except that markets are extremely slow."
So far, business along the California border has not suffered much, largely because of the strength of the peso, bolstered by foreign investments. Despite the recession, the peso has jumped nearly 6% against the dollar this year, making it the fastest-growing currency in the world. A growing number of economists say the peso is now overheated. While a devaluation would make it easier for Mexico to sell its exports, it would also cut into the ability of Mexican day-trippers to cross the border and buy goods at shopping malls such as the Chula Vista Center & Fashion Valley.

Solie Nahoray, who runs a jewelry store & pawnshop a few blocks north of the border in San Ysidro, has seen a drop in customer spending on big-ticket items. Nahoray said jewelry purchases are running about 25% lower than last year. But his pawnshop business is up, thanks to customers selling their cameras, bikes and guitars to get cash. Other store owners said they haven't noticed a change, but they worry about the future.
"So far this year, business has been better than normal, thanks to the strength of the peso," said Mercado Internacional 88 manager José Avila, a San Ysidro grocery store. "But if the peso goes lower, things will be too expensive for some of our customers."

U.S. border communities have long been tied to the ups & downs of the Mexican economy. But data recently compiled by economists from San Diego State University suggest that growth in income along the border, except for San Diego, has slowed in recent years. "There is a widening income gap between border communities and the U.S. as a whole," said retired SDSU economist Norris Clement who co-wrote a soon-to-be-released study on border employment trends.
During a conference last weekend at Tijuana's El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Clement said that in the 4 years before NAFTA was signed in 1994, border-area salaries grew about 3% per year. That is slightly ahead of the 2.7% average for the nation. But in the first 4 years after NAFTA, border income growth slowed to 2.7%, well below the U.S. figure of 3.7%.

McAllen, on the border between Texas & Mexico, is the nation's poorest city, with an average income of $13,339. "In some areas along the border, one out of 3 people live in poverty, while billions of dollars in goods are being traded along the highways nearby," said Texas Dept of Economic Development trade adviser Armando Garza.
Federal Reserve economist Orrenius said one reason for the gap is that border residents typically have less education & work experience than the nation as a whole. "The high school dropout rate along the border is twice the national average, at a time when employers are putting a greater emphasis on education for jobs," she said. Clement suggested that another reason for the income gap is that employment along the border has not kept pace with the national average. Except for San Diego County, counties along the border typically have among the highest unemployment rates in the nation, ranging from 6% to 20%.

Although unemployment along the border fell 25% in the 4 years after NAFTA, that drop lagged behind the nation as a whole, which saw jobless rolls reduced by 35%.Orrenius said the situation has improved in the past 3 years. "Unemployment in McAllen has been cut from 24% to 12%," she said. "That 12% figure is still too high, but it's a huge improvement from the past."
Mexico has done a bit better since NAFTA. Tijuana college economist Noé Arón Fuentes said the percentage of people living in poverty along the Mexican side of the border is one-third of the Mexican national average. More than 6% of Mexicans along the border have a secondary education, compared with 4.5% nationwide.

But recession could change those figures. Already, electronics & automotive companies have begun laying off workers from Tijuana to Matamoros. Half a dozen newly built industrial parks lie vacant in Nuevo Laredo, south of Laredo, Texas.
Fox said the U.S. govt could help Mexico bridge the economic gap that divides the 2 countries, much as wealthier European countries helped improve the economies of Spain, Portugal and Greece before they joined the European Union. "We're thinking in the long term we can open our borders," Fox told the AP executives. "All we have to do is narrow that gap."