PAN and PANAL: Coalition will make us stronger (in Spanish)

Milenio, 1/13/2009
The National Action Party’s (PAN) executive committee yesterday agreed to explore the possibility of an electoral alliance in Nuevo León with Elba Esther Gordillo’s New Alliance Party (PANAL) in the upcoming state elections.
A casual meeting was what may have led to the agreement between PAN leader Juan Carlos Ruiz García and the [...]

Felipe Calderón and Barack Obama meet

Economist, 1/13/2009
A week before his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama sat down with Mexico’s head of state, Felipe Calderón, on January 12th to discuss a host of economic and security issues. Both Mr Obama and Mr Calderón recognise the importance of bilateral relations to both countries’ economic wellbeing and national security. Using their first meeting as [...]

Immigration prosecutions surge under Bush’s watch

Dallas Morning News, 1/13/2009
Immigration prosecutions in the federal courts more than quadrupled during the eight years of the Bush administration and Texas’ two border districts led the nation in the surge, according to a new report by a Syracuse University research center.
Read more…

Obama, Calderon meet in Washington (with video)

Los Angeles Times, 1/13/2009
President-elect Barack Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Washington on Monday to begin work on one of the most vital yet challenging of U.S. relationships. As a symbol of the ties between the two nations, incoming U.S. presidents traditionally meet with Mexico’s leader before meeting with other heads of [...]

Editorial: Obama’s positive first step with Mexico

Dallas Morning News, 1/13/2009
You don’t have to like everything Barack Obama discussed with Felipe Calderón Monday in Washington. What was important was the symbolism of their meeting: The president-elect of the United States held his first head-of-state event with the leader of Mexico, a country where narco-violence risks destabilizing the entire nation and undermining our [...]

An L.A. worker, activist has high hopes for Solis

Los Angeles Times, 1/13/2009
Victoria Vergara possesses a third-grade education and the confident voice of a natural leader. She makes beds and cleans bathrooms for a living but tells her daughters that the U.S.A. is a country “where you can fly if you want to.” After listening to her tell her story in her humble home in [...]

Mexico shifts course, aggressively extradites suspects to U.S.

Chicago Tribune, 1/13/2009
Once Jesus Rodriguez had fled Illinois for his native Mexico as a suspect in a 1981 slaying, DuPage County prosecutors doubted he’d ever face justice. Nearly three decades later, a chance arrest in a small Mexican town triggered Rodriguez’s return to Illinois last month, a sign of renewed cooperation between U.S. and Mexican [...]

Mexico’s leader says he’d consider NAFTA changes

Houston Chronicle, 1/13/2009
Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Tuesday in Washington that his government was open to reviewing the environmental and labor provisions of the 15-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. “We have always been willing to revise aspects” of the treaty, Calderon told President George W. Bush during a White House meeting.
President-elect Barack Obama said [...]

AS/COA: Building the Hemispheric Growth Agenda

Americas Society/Council of the Americas, 1/13/2009
The Trade Advisory Group of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas on January 13 released a major report, Building the Hemispheric Growth Agenda: A New Framework for Policy (PDF) , detailing specific ways to reignite trade and integration with Latin America even during troubled economic times. As the impact of [...]

Obama talks of ‘upgrade’ to NAFTA with Mexico’s Calderón

Dallas Morning News, 1/13/2009
Barack Obama told Mexican President Felipe Calderón on Monday that he wants to “upgrade” NAFTA, serving notice that he hasn’t abandoned a campaign pledge that irritated Mexico while appeasing union voters.
It was Obama’s first meeting with a foreign leader since his election, and he used it to pledge more help in Mexico’s [...]