Mexico asks China for help on fentanyl, slams US critics

Reuters, 04/05/2023

Mexico’s president said on Tuesday he had written to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, urging him to help control shipments of fentanyl as he fended off criticism in the U.S. that Mexico is not doing enough to stop trafficking of the synthetic opioid.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador read out the letter to Xi dated March 22 in which he defended efforts to curb supply of the deadly drug, while rounding on U.S. critics, some of whom want Washington to intervene militarily in Mexico.

“We come to you, President Xi Jinping, not to ask for your support in the face of these rude threats, but to request that for humanitarian reasons, you help us control shipments of fentanyl that can be sent from China to our country,” he said.

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Pistol used in deadly kidnapping of Americans in Mexican border city was purchased in the US, criminal complaint says

CNN, 03/22/2023

One of the weapons used in the deadly abduction of four Americans in the Mexican border city of Matamoros earlier this month was purchased in the United States and provided to a Mexican cartel, according to a federal court document.

Roberto Lugardo Moreno was arrested and charged with knowingly conspiring to export or send from the United States a “multi-caliber AR style pistol” for use by the Gulf Cartel, according to the criminal complaint filed Saturday in US District Court in Brownsville, Texas.

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4 Americans missing after they were kidnapped in Mexican border city, FBI says

CBS News, 03/06/2023

Four U.S. citizens were kidnapped after gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in the northern Mexico border city of Matamoros, the FBI said Sunday.

The four had entered Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday, in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates, the agency said. The FBI San Antonio Division office said the vehicle came under fire shortly after it entered Mexico.

“All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the office said.

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Struggling with U.S. asylum app, migrant families split at border

Reuters, 02/27/2023

MEXICO CITY, Feb 27 – Dozens of migrant families are splitting up at Mexico’s northern border as they struggle to secure U.S. asylum appointments on a government app beset by high demand and persistent glitches, migrants and advocates say.

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These Russians are fleeing to the U.S. — by walking from Mexico

CBC News, 02/16/2023

A man wipes away a joyful tear as he takes his first steps into an unfamiliar place, an émigré from the land of Dostoyevsky entering cactus-dotted cowboy country.

He’s part of a striking new phenomenon: Russians are increasingly fleeing their homeland through Mexico and walking into the United States.

Rushan Burkhanov trembles with relief as he treads on American soil just after daybreak, under a purple-pink palette dissolving in the endless desert dawn.

CBC News saw about a dozen Russians in one morning when visiting a patch of land where Arizona, California and Mexico converge.

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Biden weighs border deal that would deport non-Mexicans to Mexico

The Washington Post, 02/08/2023

The Biden administration is negotiating an agreement with Mexico that could allow U.S. authorities to carry out large-scale deportations of non-Mexicans back across the border for the first time, according to four current and former U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.

With pandemic-related emergency border restrictions scheduled to expire this spring and immigration legislation stalled in Congress, Biden officials are moving to implement a new enforcement model ahead of the presidential election. Their plan would permit hundreds of thousands of migrants to enter the United States lawfully, while threatening severe consequences for those who don’t follow the rules.

The capacity to quickly send non-Mexican deportees back across the border could be a breakthrough for Biden officials who say record numbers of illegal crossings have been fueled by their inability to return migrants to their home nations. Doris Meissner, the top U.S. immigration official during the Clinton administration, said she was not aware of any precedent for mass deportations of non-Mexicans to Mexico. She said the measures could be a “game changer.”

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México celebra el desplome de detenciones de migrantes de Venezuela, Haití, Cuba y Nicaragua en la frontera con EE UU

El País, 03/02/2023

Un informe de la Secretaría de Exteriores mexicana revela que las detenciones —denominadas con el eufemismo de “encuentros”— de migrantes procedentes de Venezuela, Haití, Cuba y Nicaragua en la frontera con Estados Unidos se han desplomado en enero. El texto apunta a “la reducción en 97,5% de nacionales de Cuba” y de “un flujo cercano a cero de personas haitianas”. Estos datos, que van a ser enviados al Senado y a los que ha tenido acceso EL PAÍS, son presentados por la cancillería como un éxito de la última política pactada con Joe Biden para permitir el acceso mensual a EE UU de 30.000 migrantes de estos cuatro países.

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The Newest Contraband at the Mexican Border: Eggs

01/27/2023

Source: The New York Times

From California to Texas, border agents are increasingly seizing a surprising type of contraband from Mexico: eggs.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents had more than 2,000 encounters with people trying to bring eggs into the United States from Mexico between Nov. 1 and Jan. 17, an agency spokesman said. In the same 11-week period a year earlier, there were about 460 such encounters.

The rise comes as the price of eggs in the United States has surged, driven in part by an outbreak of avian influenza, or bird flu, that was detected last February.

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Biden intends to make his first visit to US-Mexico border

1/5/2023

Source: AP

President Joe Biden intends to visit the U.S.-Mexico border — his first trip there since taking office — in connection with his meeting next week in Mexico City with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

“That’s my intention, we’re working out the details now,” Biden told reporters Wednesday during a trip to Kentucky.

Biden said upon his return to the White House that he hoped to see “what’s going on” at the border and also planned to make remarks about border security on Thursday.

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ONG dice que migrantes adolescentes son presa de criminales en México

16/12/2022

Fuente: The San Diego Union-Tribune

Los migrantes adolescentes que viajan solos huyendo de la violencia y grupos delincuenciales de sus países y que llegan a la frontera sur de México son susceptibles de caer en manos del crimen organizado, dijo este martes la representante de una organización que se ubica en el estado mexicano de Chiapas, sureste del país.

La presidenta de la Fundación Chiapaneca de Mujeres Migrantes, Fabiola Díaz, se mostró preocupada porque los jóvenes de entre 14 y 18 años “estén solos porque están los vicios, las drogas y regularmente se les observa como en trabajos informales limpiaparabrisas y en los mercados, pero en las noches salen a delinquir, es verdad, son casos aleatorios, pero si se registran”.

Explicó, sin ofrecer más detalles ni estadísticas, que alrededor del 40 % de los jóvenes migrantes que llegan a Chiapas, frontera con Guatemala “están tomando el camino de unirse a las pandillas”.

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