Op-Ed: Felipe Calderón and his achievements (in Spanish)

Milenio, 12/2/2008
Yesterday began the third year of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s presidency, the second Mexican President coming out of the PAN and first to spearhead (in his first 50 days, no less) a full-out war against organized crime. That decision has put the country in a state of alert; all the police bodies in the country, [...]

Opinion: Wages of Fear

The New York Times, 12/2/2008
Fear, abuse, exploitation and crime are real-life concerns for the immigrant poor and working class, even in comfortable suburbs like Long Island’s. The death last month of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean killed in Patchogue by what the police say was a hate-inspired teenage mob, was one terrible example, but not the [...]

Mexico replaces city police chief

BBC, 12/2/2008
The police chief in the Mexican border city of Tijuana has been removed from his post following a weekend in which 37 people were killed. State authorities say Jesus Capella, who had received numerous threats, will be replaced by an army officer.
Mexico’s border with the US is facing spiralling drug violence, and several police [...]

Tougher patrol of Mexican border cuts crossing attempts

Miami Herald, 12/2/2008
It was about 10 p.m. on a frigid Sunday in the Arizona desert when Avelina, a 24-year-old Mexican textile factory worker, heard footsteps and shouting: U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents had found her. ”The agents told us they almost missed us, but then they saw us on the cameras,” Avelina recounted recently [...]

Mexico Has Made Big Strides on Economic Policy

By Mary Anastasia O’Grady, The Wall Street Journal, 12/1/2008
Much has been written about the “cultural” divide between Norte Americanos and Latinos. But with the burst of the asset bubble, we’ve learned that politicians, north and south, react similarly in the face of economic crisis.
This commonality occurred to me over breakfast in New York last week [...]

PAN-PRD agreement on security reform moves forward

El Universal, 12/2/2008
Federal Deputies from the PAN (National Action Party) and PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) came to agreement on the Law on the National Security System, with the goal of presenting the bill before Congress before December 15th, when sessions come to a close.

CRS Report – Immigration-Related Worksite Enforcement: Performance Measures

Congressional Research Service, 12/2/2008
Over the past few years, the media have been filled with reports about worksite enforcement operations, commonly referred to as immigration raids. These operations represent the public face of efforts by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to curtail the employment of unauthorized immigrants (illegal aliens). According to 2006 estimates, there are [...]

Attorney General: System causes police corruption

Reforma, 12/2/2008
Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora admitted on Tuesday that the police and court system, despite efforts to increase transparency, still allows for corruption.
Read more…

Poor Mexico

Financial Times, 12/2/2008
Overindulgence in credit accompanied by financial sector liberalization, weak regulators, thinly capitalized banks and poor screening of borrowers. Doesn’t that sound familiar? The description applies as much to Mexico in the early 1990s as it does to the US from 2005 to 2007. Those features, along with substantial levels of short-term debt and [...]