PEW Study: U.S. Image Rebounds in Mexico

Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, 4/29/13

On the eve of President Barack Obama’s visit to Mexico, the United States is enjoying a resurgence of good will among the Mexican public, with a clear majority favorably inclined toward their northern neighbor and more now expressing confidence in Obama.

A national opinion survey of Mexico by the Pew Research Center, conducted March 4-17 among 1,000 adults, finds that roughly two-thirds (66%) of Mexicans have a favorable opinion of the U.S. – up from 56% a year ago and dramatically higher than it was following the passage of Arizona’s restrictive immigration law in 2010, when favorable Mexican attitudes toward the United States slipped to 44%.

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Mexico-Japan: building pipelines

Financial Times, 4/9/13

Tuesday’s announcement that Mexico has signed an agreement with Japan’s Mitsui Corporation to construct a gas pipeline for $460m was accompanied by the idea that the deal would provide cheaper and more abundant energy for Latin America’s second-largest economy.

And so it probably will. The pipeline, which will connect Mexico to Arizona, will be able to carry about 770m cubic feet of gas every day – and cheaply – from the US to its southern neighbor. Considering that Mexico last year imported about 1.7bn cubic feet, the new infrastructure stands to add significant capacity to Mexico’s ability to import.

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Immigration in Spotlight as Senators Tour Arizona

The New York Times, 3/27/13

Four United States senators came to this bustling city on the Mexican border on Wednesday searching for answers to the question that has ensnarled the debate over immigration reform:How secure is that border? They met Border Patrol agents, hovered over the region by helicopter to appreciate its challenges and magnitude, and visited one of the ports of entry here, where people and cargo cross back and forth all day and night.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, whose office organized the tour, said that while there has been progress, the border “is still not as secure as we want it to be or expect it to be.” Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who was visiting the border for the first time, said the tour helped deepen an understanding of the region, but that there were “many other things we have to do as well,” like controlling the flow of people coming into the country and providing a path to citizenship for “these 11 million immigrants who are in the shadows.”

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In Arizona, border security in spotlight amid immigration-reform efforts, sequester cuts

The Washington Post, March 17, 2013

With the winter sun’s glare bouncing off his old red pickup, John Ladd drives slowly along the 10-foot wall of iron stakes and steel mesh that crosses his 14,000-acre cattle ranch, dividing his great-grandfather’s land from the Mexican desert but not always keeping intruders out.

“Here’s where the drug smugglers cut through the wall in January,” Ladd says, pointing to a large jagged square in the metal that has since been rewelded. “They use blowtorches and hydraulic grinders. They can get a truck through in minutes, and as soon as they reach the highway they’re gone.”

Ladd’s ranch in the southeastern corner of Arizona is dotted with cameras on stilts, and U.S. Border Patrol trucks cruise the range daily, scattering his Herefords and Angus. Beyond the wall, Mexican soldiers patrol in Humvees. Before it was erected in 2007, illegal migrants constantly camped in his bushes on their way north. These days, fewer make the attempt, but a more sophisticated and dangerous threat has replaced them.

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Once a Battlefront, Arizona Border Quiets

The New York Times, 3/15/2013

As Congress debates a broad overhaul of the immigration laws, including a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, skeptical lawmakers are asking if the Southwest border is secure enough to withstand any new wave of illegal crossings that might be spurred by a legalization program, or by new growth in the American economy.

Officers who guard the line say the border is more secure in most places than they have ever known it. They say they are in a strong position to hold off an illegal surge, and to show why they point to Arizona, once the busiest and most contentious border battlefront. To the east, in Texas, agents are still struggling to stop persistent migrants in hundreds of miles of varying and penetrable terrain. But in Arizona, every available measure shows steep declines in the number of people making it across, figures that border agents say demonstrate what they can accomplish.

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Is US-Mexico border secure enough? Immigration reform could hinge on answer

The Christian Science Monitor, 3/6/2013

Twenty-five miles north of the line, a giant white canopy stretches over the northbound lanes, with green-shirted border patrol agents and drug-sniffing dogs buzzing around the checkpoint. Farther south in Nogales, Ariz., green-and-white border patrol vehicles are as conspicuous as yellow cabs in New York, and stadium lights trained on the border fence dwarf the rustic Sonoran homes below.

Ten years ago, the permanent checkpoint, the stadium lights, and the ubiquity of those green-and-white cars would have seemed jarring. But since 9/11, America’s southern border has changed. President George W. Bush’s most famous surge might have been in Iraq, but along the US-Mexican border, he also presided over a doubling of manpower and a shift in the border patrol’s mission to make it a tool in the war on terror.

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Event: “Trilateral Border Issue Symposium,” March 18-19, ASU

With border security front and center in national debate, a symposium co-hosted by ASU intends to link that issue to mutual economic security among the United States, Canada and Mexico – the largest trading bloc in the world – and how both issues impact Arizona’s business community. The March 18-19 event is being organized by ASU’s North American Center for Transborder Studies (NACTS) at the university’s Downtown Phoenix campus and the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel.

“Trilateral Border Issue Symposium” will provide a forum for scholars, practitioners, business organizations and government officials from all three countries to examine and evaluate cross-border trade challenges facing Arizona business owners. By comparing and contrasting a wide range of activities on the U.S. northern and southern borders, participants from places including Mexico City, Ottawa and Washington, D.C., should come away with greater insight into solving border problems both north and south, said Rick Van Schoik, NACTS director.

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Mexico to ask Senate for registry of US guns

The Washington Times, 2/20/2013

In the wake of a tense national clash over the issue of gun control, Mexico has taken an action sure to fan the flames of controversy. In January, the Mexico Permanent Commission reportedly voted to formally ask the United States Senate for a registry of all commercialized firearms in the border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. According to Informador, the proposition was introduced by Senator Marcela Guerra, who stated he introduced the resolution in hopes that it would make it easier to trace guns used in violent crimes. InsightCrime explains,

“Close to 60,000 people were killed during the six-year presidency of Felipe Calderon, who left office in December. The US Southwest is a significant source of weaponry for Mexico’s criminal organizations, who typically purchase firearms from US gun stores via a middleman or ‘straw buyer.’”

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Mexico Asks US to Halt Parts of Arizona’s SB1070 Immigration Law

Fox News Latino, 12/27/2012

Opponents of Arizona’s controversial SB1070 law have a new ally: Mexico. The Mexican government is urging a U.S. court to block a part of the law that prohibits the harboring of undocumented immigrants. Lawyers representing Mexico asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a filing Wednesday to uphold a lower-court ruling that blocked police from enforcing the ban. Mexico argued the ban harms diplomatic relations between the United States, undermines the U.S.’s ability to speak to a foreign country with one voice and encourages the marginalization of Mexicans and people who appear to be from Latin America.

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Effort to Secure Border Crimps Commerce Along It

The New York Times, 12/01/2012

The Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau has been running a media campaign in the Mexican border state of Sonora and its neighbor to the south, Sinaloa, to dispel any notions that Arizona is unwelcoming.

(After Arizona passed its strict immigration law in 2010, the Mexican government issued a warning to its citizens, telling them to assume that they could be “harassed and questioned” in Arizona “at any time.”)

On average, it took 66 minutes to cross the border from Nogales, Mexico, to Nogales, Ariz., in 2008, costing the regional economy about $200 million, according to estimates compiled by Mr. Lee and Christopher E. Wilson of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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