Laredo leaders Saenz, Cuellar discuss border violence with Mexican officials

12/03/19 – Laredo Morning Times

By Julia Wallace

During their visit to Mexico City this week, Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz and Rep. Henry Cuellar bent the ears of several Mexican senators about this recent period of violence in Nuevo Laredo and offered assistance from the U.S.

However, it does not look like Mexico is willing to take it, even as Nuevo Laredo has suffered close to 40 deaths since August, and the Mexican military appeared ineffective after capturing then promptly freeing the son of cartel leader “El Chapo” Guzman, fearing deadly retributions.

Read more…

Arizona-Mexico trade relationship continues to boost border economies

12/02/19 – Chamber Business News

By Graham Bosch

Mexico is Arizona’s top trading partner, accounting for about 30 percent of the state’s exports to foreign markets, according to an extensive ongoing study by the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that business leaders, trade experts and economists agree the cross-border relationship is of the utmost importance to Arizona when it comes to trade, manufacturing, education, safety, tourism and more.

Read more…

Tents, stench, smoke: Health risks are gripping migrant camp

11/14/19 – AP News

By Nomaan Merchant

A smoke-filled stench fills a refugee camp just a short walk from the U.S.-Mexico border, rising from ever-burning fires and piles of human waste. Parents and children live in a sea of tents and tarps, some patched together with garbage bags. Others sleep outside in temperatures that recently dropped to freezing.

Justina, an asylum seeker who fled political persecution in Nicaragua, is struggling to keep her 8-month-old daughter healthy inside the damaged tent they share. The baby, Samantha, was diagnosed with pneumonia and recently released from a hospital with a dwindling supply of antibiotics.

Read more

Mexican ex-border state governor extradited to US

AP News – 10/29/19

Mexico says it has extradited a former governor of the border state of Coahuila to face money-laundering and fraud charges in South Texas.

Jorge Juan Torres López had been indicted in 2013 in Corpus Christi on charges of money laundering, conspiracy, wire fraud and bank fraud.

Read more…

Exclusive: U.S. migrant policy sends thousands of children including hundreds of babies back to Mexico

10/11/19 – Reuters

By Kristina Cooke, Mica Rosenberg, Reade Levinson

Since January, the U.S. government has ordered 13,000 migrants under 18, including more than 400 infants, to wait with their families in Mexico for U.S. immigration court hearings, a Reuters analysis of government data found.

Along the U.S.-Mexico border, babies and toddlers are living in high-crime cities – often in crowded shelters and tents or on the streets – for the weeks or months it takes to get a U.S. asylum hearing.

Read more…

Migrant protesters occupy U.S.-Mexico border bridge, close crossing

10/10/19 – Reuters

By Veronica G. Cardenas

U .S. asylum seekers camped out in a dangerous Mexican border town occupied a bridge to Brownsville, Texas on Thursday, leading to the closure of the crossing, witnesses and authorities said.

Hundreds of the migrants have been camped for weeks on the end of the bridge in Matamoros, Mexico, a city known for cartel control of people trafficking and gang violence.

Read more…

Arizona moves to expand trade with Mexico

09/25/19 – The Border Report

By Julian Resendiz

When Americans order a product online, they take it for granted it’ll get to them on time. But when Mexican residents order merchandise from a U.S. company, they traditionally face weeklong waits for Mexican customs to clear the package.

That is about to change as an Arizona airport becomes the first in the United States to pre-clear items shipped to anywhere in Mexico. Under the SkyBridge Arizona project, Mexican customs inspectors will be based at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport and approve items for immediate delivery to any Mexican city, Arizona officials say.

See more…

Pentagon to notify lawmakers of delayed military projects to pay for border barrier

09/03/19 – The Washington Post

By Seung Min Kim

Pentagon officials on Wednesday will begin notifying lawmakers who represent districts where key military construction projects will be delayed due to construction of President Trump’s border barrier, according to two congressional officials.

Trump issued an emergency declaration in February in an attempt to free up new federal funding for his controversial U.S.-Mexico border wall that had been denied by Congress and triggered a record-long partial government shutdown earlier this year. But since the border emergency was issued earlier this year, the Trump administration had not detailed publicly which projects would be affected.

Read more…

In Mexico, thousands more names added to border wait lists

8/9/19 – Associated Press

By Elliot Spagat

The Cameroonian men who share 10 mattresses on the floor of a third-floor apartment above a barber shop walk every morning to the busiest U.S. border crossing with Mexico, hoping against all odds that it will be their lucky day to claim asylum in the United States. Their unlikely bet is that a sympathetic Mexican official will somehow find a spot for them.

“I go because if they open up, I’m in,” said Rashidou Hdzekasaah, 35, who has been idled in Tijuana for two months and still has more than 6,000 names ahead of him on a waiting list to claim asylum at the San Diego crossing.

Read more…

In Migrant Crisis, Border Towns Become Final Destination

8/8/19 – The New York Times

By Elisabeth Malkin

There is a new hint of life in the dilapidated downtown of Ciudad Juárez, which residents abandoned as a recession and drug gang murders ravaged the city a decade ago.

Thousands of Cubans, waiting in limbo for a decision on their requests for asylum in the United States, have made the crumbling few blocks their home, finding work and renting cheap hotel rooms.

Read more…