Seeking to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship.
12/28/2021
Source: AP News
A referendum allowing Mexicans to vote midterm on whether the president should remain in office has become a strange political football involving all three branches of government.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced gleefully Monday that his supporters had collected 10 million signatures in favor of the referendum — several times more than is legally required — which could put his future at risk.
12/28/2021
Source: Mexico News Daily
The United States and Mexico have officially entered a new phase of their partnership to tackle transnational organized crime groups and the evolving regional drug trade, yet recent announcements suggest the two countries are relying on some of the same failed strategies.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard met with U.S. government officials December 14 to mark the official start of the Bicentennial Framework. First announced in early October during a “high-level security dialogue,” the plan proposes a “new shared vision of regional security and collaboration.”
12/01/2021
Source: Mexico News Daily
Police officers, at least one member of the National Guard and a prison guard have fled to Tijuana in recent months to escape the tentacles of organized crime.
The newspaper El Universal visited a migrants’ shelter in the northern border city where approximately 10 police officers, a guardsman and a female prison guard took refuge after fleeing notoriously violent states such as Guanajuato, Guerrero and Michoacán.
10/25/2021
Source: Mexico News Daily
A large migrant caravan is heading north after leaving Tapachula, Chiapas, where National Guard troops in riot gear were unable to stop it despite a blockade across the highway on Saturday.
As many as 2,000 migrants set off from Bicentenario Park in Tapachula at around 7:00 a.m. and marched north up the main highway. The National Guard attempted to block their path near the town of Viva México but the front of the caravan charged the police line and, amid chaotic scenes, crowds of people ran past the authorities, who were unable to deter the surge.
10/22/2021
Source: Mexico News Daily
Extortion costs for small retailers have surged across the country during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an organization that represents their interests.
Pre-pandemic, extortion costs hovered around 200 pesos (US $10) per business, but shot up to 500 pesos minimum during the pandemic, says the National Alliance of Small Businesses (ANPEC), which estimates that extortion generates US $11.3 billion for criminal groups throughout the country.
10/15/2021
Source: Mexico News Daily
President López Obrador’s plan to regularize illegally imported cars will only reward the criminal groups that bring them into the country, according to the Mexican Association of Automotive Distributors (AMDA).
López Obrador announced Wednesday that an amnesty agreement to regularize such cars – the vast majority of which come from the United States – would be signed this Saturday. He said that registration would be low in cost, given that many of the owners of illegal vehicles have low incomes.
10/06/2021
Source: The New York Times
They lie in clandestine graves strewn across the desert, mingled in communal pits, or hacked to pieces and scattered on desiccated hillsides.
Buried without a name, often all that’s left once their bodies are gone are the empty casings of a person: a bloodied sweatshirt, a frilly top, a tattered dress.
All over Mexico, mothers wander under the scorching sun, poking at the earth and sniffing for the tell-tale scent of decomposing flesh, hoping for a scrap that points toward their missing son or daughter.
09/27/2021
Source: ABC News
Several hundred students and political activists marched through downtown Mexico City on Sunday to demand authorities find out what happened to 43 teacher’s college students who disappeared in 2014.
Police in the southern city of Iguala handed the students over to drug gang members, who purportedly killed them and burned their bodies believing they were working for a rival crime group.
08/23/2021
Source: Mexico Daily News
A conservation area in the Bacalar region of southern Quintana Roo is under threat by a 950-home residential development, claim local citizens who have filed a complaint against the project.
Arrivée Lagon Bacalar will include condominiums, a commercial area and 400 lots for residential construction in Buenavista, a community on the shores of Lake Bacalar, also known as the lake of seven colors.
06/09/2021
Source: AP
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico announced Tuesday it has barred former Treasury and Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Videgaray from holding public office there for 10 years, after finding he failed to accurately report his holdings, income or properties between late 2012 and 2016.
The Department of Public Service said it was the maximum punishment allowed for the violation. Mexican government employees and elected officials above a certain level are required to file income disclosure forms.
Mexico Institute 