US-Mexico land border crossings are finally scheduled to reopen this week. It remains unclear if they will.

07/20/2021

Source: KENS 5 San Antonio

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — While people can still fly back and forth, the land and ferry crossings between the U.S. and Mexico have been closed for non-essential travel since the start of the pandemic. According to the Department of Homeland Security announcement last month, the crossings are supposed to reopen Thursday—unless DHS extends the deadline again, which Congressman Henry Cuellar, (D-TX) from Laredo says he believes will happen.

“Something tells me the deadline is going to move again,” Cuellar told KENS 5. “Why is it that? For example, a Mexican can fly into San Antonio, but he cannot drive or she cannot drive through the port of entry land port in Laredo.”

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Number of missing on Mexico’s highway of death rises to 71

07/07/2021

Source: Yahoo! News

MEXICO CITY (AP) — At least 71 people have gone missing this year on a highway between Mexico’s industrial hub of Monterrey and the border city of Nuevo Laredo, authorities said Wednesday.

Earlier estimates by relatives of the victims — at least half a dozen of whom are U.S. residents — had placed the number of disappeared so far this year at around 50.

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Disappearances rise on Mexico’s ‘highway of death’ to border

06/26/2021

Source: ABC News

As many as 50 people are missing after setting out on three-hour car trips this year between Mexico’s industrial hub of Monterrey and the border city of Nuevo Laredo on a well-traveled stretch of road local media have dubbed “the highway of death.”

Relatives say family members simply vanished. The disappearances, and last week’s shooting of 15 apparently innocent bystanders in Reynosa, suggest Mexico is returning to the dark days of the 2006-2012 drug war when cartel gunmen often targeted the general public as well as one another.

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At least 50 missing after traveling on Mexico’s “highway of death”

06/26/2021

Source: Yahoo! News

At least 50 people are missing in Mexico after embarking on three-hour car trips between the industrial hub of Monterrey and the border city of Nuevo Laredo, a stretch of road local media have called “the highway of death,” AP reports.

The big picture: About a half-dozen men have reappeared alive, beaten, saying only that armed men forced them to stop on the highway and took their vehicles, per AP.

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Mexico hails Harris after visit, flags more border talks

06/09/2021

Source: Reuters

Mexico’s government on Wednesday praised U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris following talks aimed at curbing undocumented immigration, and said another top Biden administration official would visit next week for more discussions.

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U.S. Sending 1 Million Coronavirus Vaccines To Mexico Border Cities, Resort Spots

06/04/2021

Source: NPR

One million Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines are heading to Mexico from the U.S., with most of the shots set to service resort areas and spots along the border.

The batch of vaccines are part of the 25 million excess doses the White House announced on Thursday would be shipped to other countries around the world. Much of the vaccine distribution will be through COVAX, an international system aimed at helping vaccinate people in the world’s poorest countries.

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Why Roma migrants from Europe are taking rafts from Mexico to enter the U.S.

05/26/2021

Source: Reuters

Among the hundreds of Central American migrants crossing the Rio Grande river daily on rafts from Mexico to Texas, dozens stood out on a recent day. They were generally taller and some wore skirts, stylish shoes and tracksuits, while many of the other migrants wore T-shirts, pants and jeans.

U.S. border patrol officers who apprehended them near the river tried to speak to them in Spanish. There was a pause as some of the border crossers explained in broken English that they were Romanians, a Reuters photographer said.

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US begins reuniting some families separated at Mexico border

05/03/2021

Source: The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration said Monday that four families that were separated at the Mexico border during Donald Trump’s presidency will be reunited in the United States this week in what Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas calls “just the beginning” of a broader effort.

Two of the four families include mothers who were separated from their children in late 2017, one Honduran and another Mexican, Mayorkas said, declining to detail their identities. He described them as children who were 3 years old at the time and “teenagers who have had to live without their parent during their most formative years.”

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Mexico keeps some border crossing curbs for another month

04/20/2021

Source: Reuters

Mexico will maintain restrictions on non-essential land crossings from the United States until May 21 for the Mexican border states in the two top tiers of coronavirus risk levels, the foreign ministry said late on Monday.

The state of Chihuahua, opposite New Mexico and Texas, is currently the only northern border state to fall into that category, with its classification of “orange,” one step below the highest risk level of “red.”

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Harris to visit Mexico, Guatemala ‘soon’ amid GOP criticism

04/14/2021

Source: Politico

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Biden administration’s point person on stemming the flow of Central American migrants coming to the U.S., said Wednesday she will travel to Mexico and Guatemala “soon” amid mounting GOP criticism.

“Our focus is to deal with the root causes, and I’m looking forward to traveling, hopefully, as my first trip, to the Northern Triangle — stopping in Mexico and then going to Guatemala sometime soon,” Harris said Wednesday at a virtual roundtable of experts on the Northern Triangle nations of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The vice president said she would go to Guatemala “as soon as possible.”

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