OP-ED: Mexico’s Lucky to Have Just One Man Blocking Internet Equality. We’ve Got a Bunch

Wired, 5/13/2013

Loud laughter greeted Slim’s early remarks, and within a few minutes a major nonviolent protest erupted: kazoo-playing audience members trooped around the giant hall and left the building after flinging multicolored pieces of monopoly money into the air.

What was printed on that money? It bore the legend “$73 Billion Net Worth By Price Gouging & Overcharging.” And that’s when I realized that this moment represented a turning point: Monopoly communications industry behavior may finally become socially interesting in America. There are just a few steps between what’s happened in Mexico and what’s going on here in the United States.

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Debate over amnesty looms over efforts to reform immigration laws

Los Angeles Times, 5/12/2013

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas.

A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents — helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn “amnesty” into a pejorative.

Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation’s immigration laws.

With four times as many people potentially eligible, today’s mass legalization would occur on a much larger scale. The specifics of the current proposal are different, the global economy is different, and the immigrants themselves are different, hailing from South Korea as well as Mexico and fanning out from traditional enclaves like Los Angeles to populate small towns across America.

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Irving mother from Mexico gets a deportation break for one year

Dallas Morning News, 5/12/2013

Anatolia García, a 48-year-old Irving mother of three U.S.-born citizens, has received a one-year deportation suspension from federal authorities.

She was viewed in late 2011 as a potential beneficiary of prosecutorial discretion — a move by the Obama administration to review cases of immigrants who are in the U.S. unlawfully but have no serious criminal violations.

Critics deemed the measure as “backdoor amnesty.” Others viewed it as a break from a deportation crackdown unseen in the U.S. for five decades. Now, García is one of the few to have benefited.

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Dolphin protection, tuna catch in conflict for U.S., Mexico

The Washington Post, 5/12/2013

When President Obama dined with Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto this month at the Mexican leader’s official residence, the meal started with “laminas de atun,” thin slices of tuna.

The appetizer was not a surprising choice. Mexico has tried to get its yellowfin tuna on American plates for decades. Its fishermen are essentially frozen out of the lucrative U.S. market because they catch tuna with a method that has led to the demise of millions of dolphins, and falls below a standard U.S. officials set as “dolphin safe.”

But in recent months, Mexico has made progress in convincing the world that it is being treated unfairly because the U.S. tuna fishing regulation is not applied uniformly.

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Obama says US-Mexico stereotypes must be broken, portrays Mexico as a rising nation

Washington Post, 5/3/2013

Calling for an end to “old stereotypes,” President Barack Obama on Friday portrayed Mexico as an emerging nation that is remaking itself and said the U.S.-Mexico relationship should be defined by shared prosperity, not by threats that both countries face. “It’s time to recognize new realities,” he declared.

In a speech to a predominantly student audience, Obama conceded that the root of much violence in Mexico is the demand for drugs in the United States, and acknowledged that most guns used to commit crime in this country come from the U.S. But he said an improving economy is changing Mexico and improving its middle class.

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Educational cooperation and exchanges: An emerging issue

Mexico Institute, 5/2/2013

At a time when the Mexican and United States governments are looking for an opportunity to diversify the bilateral agenda and strengthen the economic relationship, there is an urgent need to focus on the long term challenges of competitiveness and human capital in the region. Questions of infrastructure, standards, border procedures and energy are all crucial to this equation, but an emerging issue that has been little discussed in the public sphere is that of educational cooperation. Several experts and government officials have long recognized this as a potential growth area in the bilateral relationship, but there are now greater opportunities than ever to further develop educational collaboration.

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US President Obama returns to Latin America

Aljazeera, 5/2/2013

United States President Barack Obama travels to Latin America today for a three-day visit with stops in Mexico where he will meet with the newly-inaugurated President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and in San Jose, Costa Rica, where he will meet with the presidents of Central America and the Dominican Republic. While Mexican, Central American and US leaders look to broaden the discussion points beyond a narrow focus on security, noticeably absent in their public pronouncements have been questions about democracy and human rights.

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Poll Reveals Obama’s Popularity among Mexicans (SPANISH)

Reforma, 5/2/2013

Reforma‘s most recent poll reveals that President Obama is viewed favorably amongst most Mexicans–especially those who live in the northern part of the country. Other findings indicate that  people under 30 years and Mexicans with a university degree have a positive view of the President of the United States. 

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Showing Grass-Roots Support for Immigration Overhaul

New York Times, 5/1/2013

Tens of thousands of immigrants, Latinos and other supporters of an overhaul of the immigration system turned out on Wednesday for marches, rallies and prayer vigils, hoping to show Congress that momentum is building for a path to citizenship for 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.

Instead of concentrating on large May Day demonstrations, organizers said they had chosen to hold smaller actions in more than 100 cities nationwide to draw more local supporters.

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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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