Grupo Mexico Spill Sparks Public Scrutiny of $150 Million Mop-Up

09/17/14 Bloomberg

Mexico is sending federal officials to Sonora state to oversee Grupo Mexico SAB (GMEXICOB)’s $150 million cleanup of a copper mine spill that the government says contaminated the water supplies of at least 24,000 people. The special commission of environmental and agriculture ministry officials will monitor the company’s pledge to clean Mexico’s worst mining spill, which occurred Aug. 6 in the northern state that borders Arizona.

Read More…

 

Arizona lawmakers advance $30M ‘virtual fence’ proposal for US-Mexico border

Fox News, 2/18/14

An Arizona House panel on Monday gave initial approval to a plan to spend $30 million to install 350 miles of “virtual fence” along the state’s southern border with Mexico. The plan approved by the House Government and Environment Committee would place high-technology radar and video sensors on 300 towers along 350 miles of the border to monitor human and drug-smuggling activity. The sensors would send signals to a publically accessible site and could also be monitored by law enforcement agencies.

The proposal from Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, would use radar sensors about the size of a cereal box that could monitor 250 acres each. Mounting the sensors on towers paired with solar power units and a camera would allow Arizona to implement a “trust but verify” policy as to the federal effort to secure the border, Worsley said.

Read more…

Arizona lawmaker seeks $30M ‘virtual fence’ near US-Mexico border

Fox News, 1/29/14

An Arizona legislator wants the state to spend $30 million for a high-tech surveillance network near the U.S. border with Mexico. Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, said the “virtual fence” consisting of 200 radar-camera units would monitor cross-border movement by people and vehicles to see if the federal government keeps its promises to secure the border.

Under Worsley’s bill, the new surveillance system would be erected within 20 miles of the border. Funding for the project also could include the approximately $260,000 in donations that the state has already collected under previously enacted legislation for an as-yet-unbuilt border fence, the Arizona Capitol Times reported.

Read more…

Homeland Security chief says border security is a priority

Arizona Daily Star, 01/22/2013

The new secretary of homeland security stressed alertness along the U.S.-Mexico border, but during his first official visit to Southern Arizona he did not address recent cartel-related violence in Sonora.

“We have to remain vigilant in the face of evolving challenges to border security,” Jeh Johnson, homeland security secretary, said during an afternoon stop at the Customs and Border Protection building on South Swan Road.

He said border security is a priority along with making sure the agencies he oversees remain open to using new methods.

Read more…

Broad immigration reform long overdue for U.S. – Op ed

AZcentral, 01/12/2014

As a state and as a nation, as Republicans and as Democrats, we are ready for immigration reform.

Today, at the beginning of a new year, we are closer to real immigration reform than we have been in a generation. As a former Arizona attorney general, I continue to urge Congress to move forward on reform.

Law enforcement is always about prioritizing, and, for obvious reasons, protecting victims and aggressively pursuing those who commit violent crimes must be our top priority.

But our broken immigration system undermines our ability to do both of those things.

Read more…

Will Arizona soon see a lot more shoppers from Mexico?

The Christian Science Monitor, 12/5/2013

On any given day, city residents here wait in long lines to cross the border and shop for bargains in Arizona. Gaby Medina is one of them. She visits the stores in Nogales, Ariz., at least twice a month to look for deals on clothes, which she says are often less expensive than in the border state of Sonora, Mexico.

Earlier this week, she filled several plastic bags with tops she bought for herself and relatives who lack a visa to visit the United States. Come January, Ms. Medina may head to the United States more frequently, she says. That’s when Mexico’s new sales tax will take effect, increasing to 16 percent from 11 percent in Mexico’s border cities and towns.

Read more…

Legislative border security committee yet to make recommendation on fence

AZ Central, 11/06/2013

After three years of meetings and public testimony, a state legislative border security committee has yet to make a single recommendation.

Tuesday, they were scheduled to decide how to spend $264,000 in donations that has been idling in a state trust fund, but lacked a quorum to actually cast what could have been the committee’s first vote. The money was intended to help the state start building its own fence along the Arizona-Mexico Border, but such a fence has cost the federal government $3 million a mile.

Read more…